Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TREE: the Heuristic Driven Join Strategy of a RETE-Like Matcher

TREE is an optimized RETE-like pattern-matching algorithm. It has been designed for a production system whose restricted data formalism leads to a highly combinatorial join step like in SOAR. TREE aims at reducing the join search spaces without using hashing techniques. Its join strategy uses constraint propagation to define the solution space of a join, then a constraint relaxation to determine the index to be used in the join computation. Constraint relaxation is heuristic driven and based on the relational paradigm. Unlike RETE, the indexing scheme TREE requires is not based on the membership of condition elements but on the sharing of references to symbols. On the basis of experimental evidence, TREE'S strategy showed better results than the standard RETE one. The number of comparisons during join steps has been reduced by a factor ranging from 1 to nearly two orders of magnitude.
Long-Term Exposure to American and European Movies and Television Series Facilitates Caucasian Face Perception in Young Chinese Watchers

Most young Chinese people now learn about Caucasian individuals via media, especially American and European movies and television series (AEMT). The current study aimed to explore whether long-term exposure to AEMT facilitates Caucasian face perception in young Chinese watchers. Before the experiment, we created Chinese, Caucasian, and generic average faces (generic average face was created from both Chinese and Caucasian faces) and tested participants’ ability to identify them. In the experiment, we asked AEMT watchers and Chinese movie and television series (CMT) watchers to complete a facial norm detection task. This task was developed recently to detect norms used in facial perception. The results indicated that AEMT watchers coded Caucasian faces relative to a Caucasian face norm better than they did to a generic face norm, whereas no such difference was found among CMT watchers. All watchers coded Chinese faces by referencing a Chinese norm better than they did relative to a generic norm. The results suggested that long-term exposure to AEMT has the same effect as daily other-race face contact in shaping facial perception.
Prognostic Value of Bilateral Positive Nodes in Squamous Cell Cancer of the Vulva

Objectives: The aim of the current study was, first, to determine whether laterality of lymph node metastases has prognostic significance, independent of the number of lymph node metastases. Second was to determine the prognostic significance of extracapsular spread irrespective of the number of lymph node metastases. Methods: Data on 134 patients with stage III/IVA vulva cancer from 1982 till 2004 and treated with curative intent in either the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam or the Mercy Hospital for Women in Melbourne were reviewed. The impact of the number of lymph node metastases, extracapsular spread, and bilateral existence of lymph node metastases on survival was determined. Results: The bilateral presence of lymph node metastases is not a significant predictor for survival if a correction is made for the number of lymph node metastases (hazards ratio, 1.31; 95% confidence interval, 0.68-2.51; P = 0.420). If extracapsular spread is put into the model as well, this is the only parameter of prognostic significance in multivariate analysis (hazards ratio, 5.27; 95% confidence interval, 2.60-10.67; P < 0.001). The five-year survival of patients with extracapsular spread is only 31%, which is considerably lower than the 80% survival of patients with only intracapsular metastases. Conclusions: In conclusion, there is growing evidence that bilateral existence of lymph node metastases is not a sufficient variable to qualify stage. Extracapsular spread, however, seems to be the most valuable lymph node-associated prognostic factor for survival.
Test-Retest Reliability and Minimal Detectable Change on Balance and Ambulation Tests, the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey, and the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale in People With Parkinsonism

Background and Purpose: Distinguishing between a clinically significant change and change due to measurement error can be difficult. The purpose of this study was to determine test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change for the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), forward and backward functional reach, the Romberg Test and the Sharpened Romberg Test (SRT) with eyes open and closed, the Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) Scale, the Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT), comfortable and fast gait speed, the Timed “Up & Go” Test (TUG), the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), and the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) in people with parkinsonism. Subjects: Thirty-seven community-dwelling adults with parkinsonism (mean age=71 years) participated. The Hoehn and Yahr Scale median score of 2 was on the lower end of the scale; however, the scores ranged from 1 to 4. Methods: Subjects were tested twice by the same raters, with 1 week between tests. Test-retest reliability was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Minimal detectable change was calculated using a 95% confidence interval (MDC95). Results: The ICCs for test-retest reliability were above . 90 for the BBS, ABC Scale, SRT with eyes closed, 6MWT, and comfortable and fast gait speeds. The MDC95 values for those functional tests were: BBS=5/56, ABC Scale=13%, SRT with eyes closed=19 seconds, 6MWT=82 m, comfortable gait speed=0.18 m/s, and fast gait speed=0.25 m/s. The ICCs for test-retest reliability of SF-36 scores were above . 80, with the exception of the social functioning subscale. The MDC95 values for the SF-36 ranged between 19% and 45%. The MDC95 values for the UPDRS Activities of Daily Living section, Motor Examination section, and total scores were 4/52, 11/108, and 13/176, respectively. Discussion and Conclusion: Minimal detectable change values are useful to therapists in rehabilitation and wellness programs in determining whether change during or after intervention is clinically significant. High test-retest reliability of scores for the BBS, ABC Scale, SRT with eyes closed, 6MWT, and gait speed make them trustworthy functional assessments in people with parkinsonism. The SF-36 and UPDRS provide quality-of-life and disease severity rating values in the ongoing assessment of people with parkinsonism.
A Risk Score as Part of an Evidence-Based Approach to the Selection of Corneal Replacement Surgery

Purpose: There is currently no standardized methodology that permits preoperative prediction of the surgical technique or drug regimen for corneal grafting most likely to succeed for an individual patient. A score factor related to the chance of successful penetrating keratoplasty (PK) may assist in standardization of graft outcome reporting and evidence-based management. Methods: The Risk Score (RS) is based on factors shown to reduce the probability of 1-year survival of conventional PK in increments, using published Australian Corneal Graft Registry data. To asses its validity, Kaplan-Meier survival curves from 156 corneal replacement surgeries, stratified by preoperative RS, were used to derive the probability of survival at 1 year for donor PK, with or without systemic immunosuppression, and for synthetic PK with the AlphaCor™ artificial cornea. The probability of survival was then plotted against RS for each regimen, producing a family of curves. Results: The mean RS for immunosuppressed cases was higher than for nonimmunosuppressed cases. The AlphaCor group had the highest scores. AlphaCor survival is little affected by the factors that affect the risk of graft survival, whereas the probability of donor graft survival, immunosuppressed or not, is inversely related to RS. Conclusions: This study was designed to test a method that allows objective comparison of outcomes of different methods of corneal replacement for different risk categories. Analysis of this small dataset supports the validity of the concept and suggests that the Risk Score is a useful descriptive statistic. With a sufficient sample size, statistically significant evidence of the optimum management method for an individual patient with a particular risk profile could be determined such that a prospective patient's preoperative RS could be used to assist management decisions. In particular, data allowing separation of different immunosuppression regimes would be useful. Functional outcomes such as visual acuity would be more significant clinically than the survival end point used in this study and the system also could be adapted to different follow-up periods.
Hedonic and Instrumental Motives in Anger Regulation

What motivates individuals to regulate their emotions? One answer, which has been highlighted in emotion-regulation research, is that individuals are motivated by short-term hedonic goals (e.g., the motivation to feel pleasure). Another answer, however, is that individuals are motivated by instrumental goals (e.g., the motivation to perform certain behaviors). We suggest that both answers have merit. To demonstrate the role instrumental goals may play in emotion regulation, we pitted short-term hedonic motives and instrumental motives against each other, by testing whether individuals were motivated to experience a potentially useful, albeit unpleasant, emotion. We found that (a) individuals preferred activities that would increase their level of anger (but not their level of excitement) when they were anticipating confrontational, but not nonconfrontational, tasks and that (b) anger improved performance in a confrontational, but not a non-confrontational, task. These findings support a functional view of emotion regulation, and demonstrate that in certain contexts, individuals may choose to experience emotions that are instrumental, despite short-term hedonic costs.
Orthopedic experience in a MASH unit in postwar Iraq.

The orthopedic experience of a U.S. Army MASH unit deployed in southern Iraq is discussed. Seventy major casualties were surgically treated in a short time span. A high percentage of extremity trauma was observed (69%). Many patients had multiple extremity involvement. The emergency wartime surgical treatment of four specific types of trauma is explored. A new algorithm is presented for the rapid evaluation of penetrating joint injuries. We summarize the current concepts of war surgery as they apply to orthopedic injuries, and add specific observations from this experience.
Faces as Objects of Non-Expertise: Processing of Thatcherised Faces in Congenital Prosopagnosia

Congenital prosopagnosia (cPA) is a severe disorder in recognising familiar faces, a human characteristic that is presumably innate, without any macro-spatial brain anomalies. Following the idea that cPA is based on deficits of configural face processing, we used a speeded grotesqueness decision task with thatcherised faces, since the Thatcher illusion can serve as a test of configural disruption (Lewis and Johnston, 1997 Perception 26 225–227). The time needed to report the grotesqueness of a face in relation to orientation showed dissociate patterns between a group of fourteen people with cPA and a group of matched controls: whereas the RTs of controls followed a strong sigmoid function depending on rotation from the upright orientation, the RTs of people with cPA showed a much weaker sigmoid trend approaching a linear function. The latter result is interpreted as a diagnostic sign of impaired configural processing, being the primary cause of the absence of ‘face expertise’ in prosopagnosia.
Face to face with the white rabbit - sharing ideas in Second Life

The popular virtual world, second life, presents a number of opportunities and limitations for the sharing of ideas in the information economy. In this paper we ask the question, dasiato what extent can second life simulate an actual face-to-face meeting? psila Many authors have written that tacit knowledge transfer requires face-to-face meetings, however, virtual reality technology can provide tools that enable people to show facial expressions, body language and concepts in graphical form. In this way it is possible to use computer mediated communication to convey nonverbal information that would normally be very difficult to share remotely. In this paper we explore how closely second life can simulate actual face-to-face communication. We give examples of lessons learned from students learning in second life, and make recommendations on how to support natural communication in online environments.
Changes in the circadian rhythm of blood pressure in primary aldosteronism in response to dietary sodium restriction and adrenalectomy

Objective Recently, we found that sodium restriction restored the circadian rhythm of blood pressure from non-dippers to dippers in patients with a sodium-sensitive type of essential hypertension. In the present study, we investigated the effects of sodium restriction on the circadian blood pressure rhythm in patients with primary aldosteronism, a typical sodium-sensitive form of secondary hypertension. Design and methods We performed 24 h blood pressure monitoring in eight patients with primary aldosteronism due to unilateral adenoma (Conn's syndrome) during normal-sodium (7–12 g/day of NaCl) and low-sodium (1–3 g/day) diets, and after adrenalectomy. Results Sodium restriction lowered the 24 h mean arterial pressure from 116 ± 14 to 109 ± 12 mmHg (P < 0.01). During a normal-sodium diet, there was no change in systolic, diastolic and mean arterial pressures during the night-time compared with the daytime. In contrast, during a low-sodium diet, all night-time pressure values were significantly lower than those in the daytime. After adrenalectomy, the night-time pressures in patients on a normal-sodium diet were lower than those of the daytime. The nocturnal mean arterial pressure fall was increased by sodium restriction and adrenalectomy. Conclusions These results indicate that the circadian rhythm of blood pressure was disturbed in patients with primary aldosteronism who maintained a relatively high sodium intake. Both adrenalectomy and sodium restriction restored a nocturnal dip in blood pressure in primary aldosteronism. Therefore, sodium restriction affects the circadian blood pressure rhythm in sodium-sensitive types of hypertension, not only in primary hypertension, but also in secondary hypertension.
Study of the biological effectiveness of a nanosilver-epidermal growth factor sustained-release carrier

The aim of the present study was to elucidate the biological effectiveness and character of a nanosilver-epidermal growth factor (EGF) sustained-release carrier. This was synthesized using the self-assembly method and then characterized by transmission electron microscopy and UV spectrophotometry. The biological activity of the sustained release carrier was determined through cytological, bacteriological and wound-healing experiments. The results showed that the nanosilver-EGF sustained-release carrier was well dispersed with uniform particle size and that it had good antibacterial properties similar to those of nanosilver. The nanosilver-EGF sustained-release carrier is superior to EGFs in effectively promoting cell division and proliferation. The results of the wound-healing experiments provide evidence of its curative effects.
An Evaluation of American Board Teacher Certification: Progress and Plans. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research

Alternative routes to teaching have been promoted during the past decade because of concerns about teacher shortages and teacher quality. Mathematica's new five-year study of the Passport to Teaching program, developed by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, is analyzing the impacts of the credential on teacher performance, measured in terms of student achievement. This paper decribes results from the first six months and plans for the remainder of the evaluation.
A Person-Centered Approach to Moral Judgment

Both normative theories of ethics in philosophy and contemporary models of moral judgment in psychology have focused almost exclusively on the permissibility of acts, in particular whether acts should be judged on the basis of their material outcomes (consequentialist ethics) or on the basis of rules, duties, and obligations (deontological ethics). However, a longstanding third perspective on morality, virtue ethics, may offer a richer descriptive account of a wide range of lay moral judgments. Building on this ethical tradition, we offer a person-centered account of moral judgment, which focuses on individuals as the unit of analysis for moral evaluations rather than on acts. Because social perceivers are fundamentally motivated to acquire information about the moral character of others, features of an act that seem most informative of character often hold more weight than either the consequences of the act or whether a moral rule has been broken. This approach, we argue, can account for numerous empirical findings that are either not predicted by current theories of moral psychology or are simply categorized as biases or irrational quirks in the way individuals make moral judgments.
Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States

We assess the impact of bank deregulation on the distribution of income in the United States. From the 1970s through the 1990s, most states removed restrictions on intrastate branching, which intensified bank competition and improved bank performance. Exploiting the cross-state, cross-time variation in the timing of branch deregulation, we find that deregulation materially tightened the distribution of income by boosting incomes in the lower part of the income distribution while having little impact on incomes above the median. Bank deregulation tightened the distribution of income by increasing the relative wage rates and working hours of unskilled workers.
Gene x Environment Interactions in Developmental Dyslexia

The goal of this project was to advance understanding of the complex multifactorial etiology of developmental dyslexia, or reading disability (RD), by investigating gene x environment (G x E) interactions. This project tested for G x E interactions using molecular genetic methods and measures of psychosocial and bioenvironmental risk factors. There are two competing predictions that can be derive d from existing G x E models about the expected direction of interactions in RD. There could be “diathesis-stress” interactions in which the effects of genotype ar e stronger in risk environments, or there could be “bioecological” interactions in which the effec ts of genotype are stronger in optimal environments. This study was a sib-pair linkage design including dizygotic twins and their nontwin siblings (age 8-19 years) from 212 families. Analyses initially f ocused on identifying genetic and environmental risk factors showing main effects on re ading phenotypes. Sib-pair linkage analyses with two regression-based linkage models (DeFries-Fulker and Haseman-Elston) showed converging evidence for linka ge in 4 regions previously associated with RD, 1p36-p34, 3p12-q13, 6p22.2, and 15q21. Across chromosomal locations, the phenotype with the strongest evidence for linkage was ra pid naming. In the environmental analyses, three home variables (parental educa tion, books in the home, and child print exposure) and two bioenvironmental variables (prenatal
Development and Application of Microsatellites in Carcinus maenas: Genetic Differentiation between Northern and Central Portuguese Populations

Carcinus maenas, the common shore crab of European coastal waters, has recently gained notoriety due to its globally invasive nature associated with drastic ecological and economic effects. The native ubiquity and worldwide importance of C. maenas has resulted in it becoming one of the best-studied estuarine crustacean species globally. Accordingly, there is significant interest in investigating the population genetic structure of this broadly distributed crab along European and invaded coastlines. Here, we developed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers for one dinucleotide and two trinucleotide microsatellite loci, resulting from an enrichment process based on Portuguese populations. Combining these three new markers with six existing markers, we examined levels of genetic diversity and population structure of C. maenas in two coastal regions from Northern and Central Portugal. Genotypes showed that locus polymorphism ranged from 10 to 42 alleles (N = 135) and observed heterozygosity per locus ranged from 0.745 to 0.987 with expected heterozygosity ranging from 0.711 to 0.960; values typical of marine decapods. The markers revealed weak, but significant structuring among populations (global FST = 0.004) across a 450 km (over-water distance) spatial scale. Combinations of these and existing markers will be useful for studying population genetic parameters at a range of spatial scales of C. maenas throughout its expanding species range.
Achieving air-ground communications in 802.11 networks with three-dimensional aerial mobility

Increasing availability of autonomous small-size aerial vehicles leads to a variety of applications for aerial exploration and surveillance, transport, and other domains. Many of these applications rely on networks between aerial nodes, that will have high mobility dynamics with vehicles moving in all directions in 3D space and positioning in different orientations, leading to restrictions on network connectivity. In this paper, we propose a simple antenna extension to 802.11 devices to be used on aerial nodes. Path loss and small-scale fading characteristics of air-to-ground links are analyzed using signal strength samples obtained via real-world measurements at 5 GHz. Finally, network performance in terms of throughput and number of retransmissions are presented. Results show that a throughput of 12Mbps can be achieved at distances in the order of 300m.
Tenured and non-tenured school principals in Greece: a historical approach

ABSTRACT This study deals with the question of tenure/non-tenure of the Greek school principals and its possible impact on their role in the light of the international influences. In developing our theoretical perspective, we draw on the tenure/non-tenure discourse and the centralised bureaucratic and new public management model. After examining the relevant legislation issued from 1836 up to 2015 by following the qualitative content analysis, we find out that in the 1836–1981 period, tenure had become an integral part of the centralised educational system. Since 1981, the introduction of decentralised policies along with the abolition of tenure has resulted in the renewal of the same politics. By linking in a direct way the tenure/non-tenure topic with the international policies, we support the view that in the Greek centralised educational system, school principals have limited power to bring about effective changes at schools regardless of their tenure/non-tenure status.
Ingroup identification, identity fusion and the formation of Viking war bands

Abstract The lið, a retinue of warriors sworn to a leader, has long been considered one of the basic armed groups of the Viking Age. However, in recent years the study of lið has been eclipsed by the discussion of larger Viking armies. In this paper, we focus on the key question of how loyalty to the lið was achieved. We argue that two processes that have been intensively studied by psychologists and anthropologists – ingroup identification and identity fusion – would have been important in the formation and operation of lið. In support of this hypothesis, we outline archaeological, historical and literary evidence pertaining to material and psychological identities. The construction of such identities, we contend, would have facilitated the formation of cohesive fighting groups and contributed to their success while operating in the field.