Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Semi-Supervised Affective Meaning Lexicon Expansion Using Semantic and Distributed Word Representations

In this paper, we propose an extension to graph-based sentiment lexicon induction methods by incorporating distributed and semantic word representations in building the similarity graph to expand a three-dimensional sentiment lexicon. We also implemented and evaluated the label propagation using four different word representations and similarity metrics. Our comprehensive evaluation of the four approaches was performed on a single data set, demonstrating that all four methods can generate a significant number of new sentiment assignments with high accuracy. The highest correlations (tau=0.51) and the lowest error (mean absolute error < 1.1%), obtained by combining both the semantic and the distributional features, outperformed the distributional-based and semantic-based label-propagation models and approached a supervised algorithm.
Management of Stock Price and It Effect on Economic Growth: Case Study of West African Financial Markets

This paper investigates the statistical properties of stock returns in the West African regional stock market andthe link between the West African regional stock market and economic growth. To examine the nature of thedistribution of West African regional stock returns, the daily closing prices of the two stock index of WestAfrican regional stock market, and eighteen of it sub-indices were utilized. Nine years data from 1998 to 2007interval were employed. The analysis of our study shows that the distribution of the West African regional stockmarket returns is non-normal and non-i.i. d (independent, identically and normally distributed). The linear andnon-linear dependencies in the returns appeared to be the main reasons for the data being non-i.i. d. The studyalso demonstrates the presence of the day-of-the-week effect in West African regional stock market.
Efflux transport of a new quinolone antibacterial agent, HSR-903, across the blood-brain barrier.

The distribution of HSR-903, a new quinolone antibacterial agent, to the brain after i.v. administration to rats was low compared with that to other tissues. The blood-brain barrier permeability to HSR-903 determined by the brain perfusion method was low, and increased nonlinearly with increasing concentration of HSR-903 in the perfusate. When the brain-to-plasma concentration ratio (Kp, brain) was measured in mdr1a gene-knockout mice, the value was 8 times higher than that in normal mice. The uptake of [14C]HSR-903 by multidrug-resistant K562/ADM cells, which express P-glycoprotein (P-gp), was significantly lower than that by the drug-sensitive parent K562 cells. In addition, the uptake of [14C]HSR-903 by K562/ADM cells was significantly increased in the presence of cyclosporin A and ATP-depleting agents. These observations support the idea that P-gp participates in HSR-903 efflux from the brain. The steady-state uptake of HSR-903 by a monolayer of primary cultured bovine brain capillary endothelial cells was increased in the presence of several quinolone antibacterial agents or anionic compounds, such as 4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'-disulfonic acid, and in bicarbonate ion-free medium, as well as by P-gp inhibitors (cyclosporin A and quinidine). These results suggested that the efflux of HSR-903 proceeds at least partly via an anion-sensitive efflux transport mechanism as well as via P-gp. In conclusion, the low brain distribution of the new quinolone antibacterial agent HSR-903 can be ascribed to multiple efflux mechanisms including P-gp and an unidentified anion-sensitive transporter operating in the brain capillary endothelial cells that constitute the blood-brain barrier.
Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Focus on Different Aspects of Management

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer and the third cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Its incidence is clearly arising comprised by the prevalence of major risk factors mainly hepatitis B and hepatitis C. The population at risk is composed of chronic liver patients at the stage of extensive fibrosis or cirrhosis. The monitoring programs of this population have allowed early detection of disease management to promote a radical therapy. Understanding the carcinogenic process and the mastery of the staging systems remain essential keys in diagnosis and treatment of HCC. Recent advances in diagnosis and new treatments have made important impacts on the disease by increasing survival rates and improving quality of life for HCC patients. This paper outlines the different management aspects of HCC which include epidemiology, prevention, carcinogenesis, staging systems, diagnosis, surveillance, and the treatment.
A spatial econometric analysis of land-use change with land cover trends data: an application to the Pacific Northwest

This paper develops a plot-level spatial econometric land-use model and estimates it with U.S. Geological Survey Land Cover Trends (LCT) geographic information system panel data for the western halves of the states of Oregon and Washington. The discrete-choice framework we use models plot-scale choices of the three dominant land uses in this region: forest, agriculture, and urban development. The results provide a technical foundation for developing larger scale models from the LCT database. In particular, we develop a random-effects estimation method for dealing with the spatially clustered sample design underlying the LCT. We also exploit the increased spatial information content available in the LCT by exploring the estimation of a fully spatial multinomial discrete-choice land-use model by including measures of land-use agglomeration economies as independent variables in estimation. Estimation of the spatial econometric model includes a novel combination of panel-data random parameters logit estimation with instrumental variables implemented within the recently developed control function approach. The estimated econometric model is used to project landscape change in the presence of alternative assumptions regarding future urban returns. Our results indicate that variation in urban returns on the order of what was experienced in the housing boom and bust of the 2000s generates a wide range of predicted future land-use shares in developed uses. The Puget Lowland ecoregion has by far the most sensitive landscape projections in response to wide swings in urban returns.
A Quantitative Evaluation of the Contribution of Native Code to Java Workloads

Many performance analysis tools for Java focus on tracking executed bytecodes, but provide little support in determining the specific contribution of native code libraries. This paper introduces and assesses a portable approach for characterizing the amount of native code executed by Java applications. A profiling agent based on the JVM Tool Interface (JVMTI) accurately keeps track of all runtime transitions between bytecode and native code. It relies on a combination of JVMTI events, Java Native Interface (JNI) function interception, bytecode instrumentation, and hardware performance counters
Modulation of cyclin D1 and its signaling components by the phorbol ester TPA and the tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor vanadate

The mechanism by which 12‐O‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate (TPA) triggers cell‐cycle progression at G1 phase in mouse embryonic fibroblast C3H 10T1/2 cells was examined. TPA treatment resulted in a temporary induction of cyclin D1 peaking at 9 h post stimulation. PD98059 (10 μM), the specific inhibitor of MAPK kinase, completely blocked TPA‐stimulated cyclin D1 induction and DNA synthesis, confirming that MAPK activation plays an essential role in TPA‐stimulated cell‐cycle progression. Although both PKCα and PKCϵ are expressed in C3H 10T1/2 cells, inhibitor studies suggest that PKCϵ activation is required for the activation of MEK/MAPK signal transduction cascade. p70s6K, an important kinase involved in the regulation of protein synthesis and cell‐cycle progression, has been reported to be activated through a PKC‐dependent pathway (TPA‐activatable) in addition to a PI3K‐dependent pathway. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that TPA‐stimulated MAPK activation is essential for the phosphorylation of several key residues involved in the activation of p70s6K, namely, thr389, thr421, and ser424. Vanadate, the tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor, triggered a sustained elevation of the level of active MAPK. However, corresponding to a rapid loss of cyclin D1 protein, vanadate treatment resulted in a significant shut out of 3H‐thymidine incorporation into DNA regardless of TPA cotreatment. Vanadate treatment also led to the increase of active MEK, increased phosphorylation of p70s6K at thr389, thr421, and ser424 yet without activation of PKB. These data suggest that vanadate can selectively perturb the activation of signaling components which raises the interesting issue as to how vanadate downregulates the cyclin D1 level. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
CASIMIR EFFECT FOR A SPHERICAL SHELL IN DE SITTER SPACE–TIME WITH SIGNATURE CHANGE

We calculate the Casimir stress on a spherical shell in a de Sitter background corresponding to different metric signatures and cosmological constants, for massless scalar fields that satisfy Dirichlet boundary conditions on the shell. We show that a contribution appears due to signature change, which leads to late-time expansion of the bubbles in this background.
Expression of heterologous proteins in cultured rat hippocampal neurons using the semliki forest virus vector

The Semliki Forest virus expression vector (Liljeström and Garoff: Bio/Technology 9:1356‐1361, 1991) was tested in cultured rat hippocampal neurons using two Madin‐Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cell membrane‐associated proteins as reporters: rab8, a small GTP ase involved in post‐Golgi vesicle transport, and VIP21, an integral membrane protein of caveolae, trans‐Golgi network, and post‐Golgi vesicles. Expression of the c‐myc epitope‐tagged proteins was visualized by immunofluorescence microscopy. The proteins were first detected in neurons after 3–4 hr infection by the recombinant viruses. The infection efficiency on neurons was high: after 6 hr infection at a multiplicity of one, 50–60% of the cells expressed the reporter proteins. The neurons tolerated the in fection well up to 8 hr. Their polarized organization was not disturbed, as judged from morphology and from distribution of the dendritic MAP2 and axonal synaptophysin marker proteins. The Semliki Forest virus vector thus seems suitable for short‐term expression of proteins in cultured neurons. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
From Principals' Actions to Students' Outcomes: An Explanatory Narrative Approach to Successful Israeli Schools

This article attempts to identify the causal relationships between principals' behaviors and students' achievement by using an explanatory narrative that traces the chain of events from principal actions to student outcomes. This is applied to the study of five successful Israeli schools and reveals the series of stages from principals' actions to student outcomes. The narrative explanation about principals' impact on students' outcomes was found to hold two parallel chains of events of two central subjects: the principal and the teachers. The research showed how principal behavior can have a positive impact on student outcomes. The data show that despite different emphases and personal styles, the same narrative explanation clarified the process in all schools. The narrative explanation suggests to principals what to do to improve their students' achievements, where to start, and what stages are foreseen along the way.
The effect of deliberative discussion teaching strategy on nursing students’ learning motivation

Deliberative discussion is an important active approach and cooperative teaching strategy that encourages and motivates learners to participate and share in their learning decisions. This is an experimental study aimed at determining the effect of deliberative discussion as a teaching strategy on nursing students’ learning motivation. The study was conducted at the Faculty of Nursing in the Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt. The sample included all master degree nursing students (60) who enrolled in the first semester of the master program of a health education elective course. They were divided randomly into study and control groups. The study group was assigned to attend three deliberative discussion sessions about ethical principles and code of ethics in health education within a period of three weeks while control group left to attend the same topic, in the same period, but by a traditional teaching method. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), used for data collection. The researcher found that there was a statistically significance difference in MSLQ scores in between the study and control groups in favor of deliberative one. The results revealed an essential value for nursing educators to develop awareness of the usefulness of deliberative discussions as an effective teaching strategy to enhance learning' motivation among master nursing students.
Interannual variability of air‐sea O2 fluxes and the determination of CO2 sinks using atmospheric O2/N2

Motivated by the use of atmospheric O2/N2 to determine CO2 sinks under the assumption of negligible interannual variability in air‐sea O2 fluxes, we examine interannual fluctuations of the global air‐sea flux of O2 during the period 1980–1998 using a global ocean circulation and biogeochemistry model along with an atmospheric transport model. It is found that both the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle and wintertime convection in the North Atlantic are primary drivers of global air‐sea oxygen flux interannual variability. Model estimated extremes of O2 flux variability are −70/+100 × 1012 mol/yr (Tmol/yr), where positive fluxes are to the atmosphere. O2/N2 variability could cause an up to ±1.0 PgC/yr error in estimates of interannual variability in land and ocean CO2 sinks derived from atmospheric O2/N2 observations.
Prediction Validation of Two Glycaemic Control Models in Critical Care

Metabolic models can substantially improve control of hyperglycaemia in critically ill patients. Control efficacy depends on how accurately a model-based system is able to predict future blood glucose (BG) concentrations after a glycaemic control intervention. This research compares two metabolic models in terms of their predictive power. Predictions 30 minutes to 10 hour forward are made using the Glucosafe model (GS) and a clinically validated model (CC) from Christchurch in a retrospective study of 11 hyperglycemic patients, 6 from New Zealand and 5 from Denmark. Median and ranges of prediction errors are similar for predictions up to 360 minutes. Both models make better predictions on the Danish patients. At long prediction times of more than 5 hours, GS predictions tend to be more accurate in the cohort from New Zealand whereas the CC model tends to predict better in the cohort from Denmark. However, relative differences in root mean square (RMS) of prediction errors are not greater than 4–5% in both cohorts. For both models, outlying prediction errors are dominated by single patients, particularly type 1 diabetic patients. GS predicted BG values are generally higher compared to CC predicted values. As expected, the RMS prediction error increases with prediction interval for both models and cohorts. Results show the potential of both models for use in prospective clinical trials with 120–180 min sampling intervals. Predictive power is attributed to the type of cohort in terms of degree of illness and glycaemic stability as well as sensor type used.
Cross-Comparative Perspectives on Global Homicide Trends

Data are available on homicide trends and patterns for 235 countries from six continents from 1950 to 2010. Recent rates range from fewer than 0.5 victim per 100,000 population to 80 and regionally from around one in Scandinavia to around 30 in Central America. Countries that share cultural, political, and social traditions usually have similar crime trends. In Western countries, lethal violence increased in the 1960s through the early 1990s, followed by declines. Elsewhere, trends may have been different as a result of local political configurations and social developments. In eastern Europe, the development of crime was affected by political turmoil after the fall of the Soviet Union and in several Latin American and Caribbean countries by unstable political conditions and the drug industry. Homicide is not decreasing in parts of the Americas and the Caribbean. Cross-sectional analyses confirm the interdependency of lethal violence with socioeconomic and political factors. The level of lethal violence is heavily dependent on the rule of law, the quality and integrity of governance, the level of democracy, and social and economic equality. No signs were detected of the effects of sanctions practices. Use of capital punishment, high rates of imprisonment, and long sentences coincide with high and increasing homicide rates—and not the other way around.
Evaluation of Fluorescent Analogs of Deoxycytidine for Monitoring DNA Transitions from Duplex to Functional Structures

Topological variants of single-strand DNA (ssDNA) structures, referred to as “functional DNA,” have been detected in regulatory regions of many genes and are thought to affect gene expression. Two fluorescent analogs of deoxycytidine, Pyrrolo-dC (PdC) and 1,3-diaza-2-oxophenoxazine (tC°), can be incorporated into DNA. Here, we describe spectroscopic studies of both analogs to determine fluorescent properties that report on structural transitions from double-strand DNA (dsDNA) to ssDNA, a common pathway in the transition to functional DNA structures. We obtained fluorescence-detected circular dichroism (FDCD) spectra, steady-state fluorescence spectra, and fluorescence lifetimes of the fluorophores in DNA. Our results show that PdC is advantageous in fluorescence lifetime studies because of a distinct ~2 ns change between paired and unpaired bases. However, tC° is a better probe for FDCD experiments that report on the helical structure of DNA surrounding the fluorophore. Both fluorophores provide complementary data to measure DNA structural transitions.
Cognitive Rehabilitation in Parkinson’s Disease: Evidence from Neuroimaging

Cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD) has received little attention to date and as such, there are currently very few treatment options available. The aim of the present study was to determine whether cognitive training might alleviate these cognitive symptoms and if so, whether such changes might be correlated with altered brain patterns. The performance of 10 PD patients and 10 paired healthy controls was assessed in a modified version of the Stroop task performed in association with functional magnetic resonance imaging, and half of the PD patients were given 6 months of cognitive daily training based on Sudoku exercises. Results showed that the training program improved the cognitive performance in the Stroop test of the trained Parkinson’s patients during MRI, specifically in terms of reaction time, and of correct and missing answers. Moreover, training provoked reduced cortical activation patterns with respect to untrained patients that were comparable to the patterns of activation observed in controls. Based on these findings, we propose that cognitive training can contribute significantly to save brain resources in PD patients, maybe by readdressing the imbalance caused by the alterations to inhibitory circuitry. Furthermore, these data strongly support the development and use of standardized cognitive training programs in PD patients.
Three treatments for bilingual children with primary language impairment: examining cross-linguistic and cross-domain effects.

PURPOSE This study examines the absolute and relative effects of 3 different treatment programs for school-age bilingual children with primary or specific language impairment (PLI). It serves to expand the evidence base on which service providers can base treatment decisions. It also explores hypothesized relations between languages and cognition in bilinguals with PLI. METHOD Fifty-nine school-age Spanish–English bilingual children with PLI were assigned to receive nonlinguistic cognitive processing, English, bilingual (Spanish–English), or deferred treatment. Participants in each of the 3 active treatments received treatment administered by nationally certified speech-language pathologists. Pre- and posttreatment assessments measured change in nonlinguistic cognitive processing, English, and Spanish skills, and analyses examined change within and across both treatment groups and skill domains. RESULTS All active treatment groups made significant pre- to post-treatment improvement on multiple outcome measures. There were fewer significant changes in Spanish than in English across groups. Between-group comparisons indicate that the active treatment groups generally outperformed the deferred treatment control, reaching statistical significance for 2 tasks. CONCLUSION Results provide insight into cross-language transfer in bilingual children and advance understanding of the general PLI profile with respect to relationships between basic cognitive processing and higher level language skills.
Factor Analyses of Three Tests of Critical Thinking

FOR SEVERAL decades measurement of crit ical thinking skills and abilities has presented a major difficulty because educators have not agreed on the kind of measurement which should be used. There has even been a lack of agreement regard ing a definition for critical thinking. The problem of measurement is the focus of this study. Ina search for common elements in the operational definitions of critical thinking used by dif f erent researchers, three tests of critical thinking were analyzed. This research arose from the f i n d i ngs of the Illinois Curriculum Program Committee relative to its Critical Thinking Project (9). When the Project Committee and the cooperating teachers wanted to evaluate their attempt to teach the prin ciples of critical thinking, the following three tests were selected for the purpose: the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Form Bm; A Test of Critical Thinking, Form G, prepared by the A merican Council on Education; and A Test on Principles of Critical Thinking, Form FI. 5, pre pared by the Project staff (hereafter called the Watson-Glaser, ACE, and Principles tests re spectively). Low intercorrelations were obtained between total scores on any two of these tests. These low intercorrelations led to the inference that there is little relationship between the knowledge of the principles of critical thinking and the ability to use these principles. The Project Commit tee consequently felt the need for more inform a t i o n regarding the internal structure of the three crit ical thinking tests. The technique of factor analysis was used for the purpose of determining whether the tests ac tually do measure what they are supposed to mea sure according to the a priori reasoning of the test makers. The research hypothesis tested was that factor analyses of these three tests of criti cal thinking will yield some common factors a mong the items in these three tests.
The Origin and Growth of Urbanization in the World

Although there were a few cities as early as 4000 B.C., the cities of the ancient world were generally small and had to be supported by much larger rural populations. "Urbanized societies," in which a high proportion of the population lives in cities, developed only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The process of urbanization has moved rapidly in the entire world since 1800, and the peack is not yet in sight. A diminution of the rate of urbanization in the older industrial countries is being compensated for by an increase in the rate in the underdeveloped areas.