Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Translation with optimization from relational calculus to relational algebra having aggregate functions

Most of the previous translations of relational calculus to relational algebra aimed at proving that the two languages have the equivalent expressive power, thereby generating very complicated relational algebra expressions, especially when aggregate functions are introduced. This paper presents a rule-based translation method from relational calculus expressions having both aggregate functions and null values to optimized relational algebra expressions. Thus, logical optimization is carried out through translation. The translation method comprises two parts: the translational of the relational calculus kernel and the translation of aggregate functions. The former uses the familiar step-wise rewriting strategy, while the latter adopts a two-phase rewriting strategy via standard aggregate expressions. Each translation proceeds by applying a heuristic rewriting rule in preference to a basic rewriting rule. After introducing SQL-type null values, their impact on the translation is thoroughly investigated, resulting in several extensions of the translation. A translation experiment with many queries shows that the proposed translation method generates optimized relational algebra expressions. It is shown that heuristic rewriting rules play an essential role in the optimization. The correctness of the present translation is also shown. Each translation proceeds by applying a heuristic rewriting rule in preference to a basic rewriting rule. After introducing SQL-type null values, their impact on the translation is thoroughly investigated, resulting in several extensions of the translation. A translation experiment with many queries shows that the proposed translation method generates optimized relational
Wavelet transform and artificial neural networks applied to voice disorders identification

The amount of non-invasive methods of diagnosis has increased due to the need for simple, quick and painless tests. Due to the growth of technology that provides the means for extraction and signal processing, new analytical methods have been developed to understand the complexity of the voice signals. This paper presents a new idea to characterize signals of healthy and pathological voice based on two mathematical tools widely known in the literature, Wavelet Transform (WT) and Artificial Neural Networks. Four classes of samples were used: one from healthy individuals and three from people with vocal fold nodules, Reinke's edema and neurological dysphonia. All the samples were recorded using the vowel /a/ in Brazilian Portuguese. The work shows that the proposed approach using WT is a suitable technique to discriminate between healthy and pathological voices.
Clinical Effect of Antioxidant Glasses Containing Extracts of Medicinal Plants in Patients with Dry Eye Disease: A Multi-Center, Prospective, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial

Purpose To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of wearable antioxidant glasses containing extracts of medicinal plants in patients with mild dry eye disease (DED). Methods Fifty patients with mild DED were randomly assigned to wear either extracts of antioxidant medicinal plants containing (N = 25) or placebo glasses (N = 25). Patients wore the glasses for 15 min three times daily. The ocular surface disease index (OSDI) score, tear film break up time (BUT), and Schirmer’s test were evaluated and compared within the group and between the groups at baseline, 4 weeks, and 8 weeks after treatment. Results OSDI score and tear film BUT were significantly improved in the treatment group at 4 and 8 weeks after wearing glasses (all P < 0.001). Compared to the placebo group, the OSDI scores were significantly lower in the treatment group at 8 weeks (P = 0.007). The results of the Schirmer’s test showed significant improvement in the treatment group at 4 weeks (P = 0.035), however there were no significant differences between the other groups or within the groups. No adverse events were reported during the study. Conclusions Antioxidant glasses containing extracts of medicinal plants were effective in improving in DED both subjectively and objectively. Wearing antioxidants glasses might be a safe and adjunctive therapeutic option for DED. Trial Registration ISRCTN registry 71217488
Tuberculosis as a marker of inequities in the context of socio-spatial transformation

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE This study aims to analyze the association between the incidence of tuberculosis and different socioeconomic indicators in a territory of intense transformation of the urban space. METHODS This is an ecological study, whose analysis units were the neighborhoods of the city of Itaboraí, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The data have been analyzed by generalized linear models. The response variable was incidence of tuberculosis from 2006 to 2011. The independent variables were the socio-demographic indicators. The spatial distribution of tuberculosis was analyzed with the elaboration of thematic maps. RESULTS The results have shown a significant association between the incidence of tuberculosis and variables that reflect different dimensions of living conditions, such as consumer goods, housing conditions and its surroundings, agglomeration of population, and income distribution. CONCLUSIONS The disproportionate incidence of tuberculosis in populations with worse living conditions highlights the persistence of socioeconomic determinants in the reproduction of the disease. Different municipal public sectors need to better articulate with local tuberculosis control programs to reduce the social burden of the disease.
Instance Sampling for Multilingual Coreference Resolution

In this paper we investigate the effect of downsampling negative training instances on a multilingual memory-based coreference resolution approach. We report results on the SemEval-2010 task 1 data sets for six different languages (Catalan, Dutch, English, German, Italian and Spanish) and for four evaluation metrics (MUC, B 3 , CEAF, BLANC). Our experiments show that downsampling negative training examples does not improve the overall system performance for most targeted languages and that the various evaluation metrics do not show a significantly distinct behavior across the different samples.
Evaluation of different RNA extraction methods for small quantities of plant tissue: Combined effects of reagent type and homogenization procedure on RNA quality-integrity and yield

Highly sensitive techniques for transcriptome analysis, such as microarrays, complementary DNA-amplified fragment length polymorphisms (cDNA-AFLPs), and others currently used in functional genomics require a high RNA quality and integrity, as well as reproducibility among extractions of replicates from the same tissue. There are, however, few technical papers comparing different homogenization techniques and reagents to extract RNA from small quantities of plant tissue. We extracted RNA from tomato seedlings with the three different commercial reagents TRIZOL LS®, TRIZOL®, and TRI Reagent® in combination with pulverization, homogenization-maceration in a mortar, and homogenization with mild vibration plus glass beads, and evaluated total RNA integrity-quality and yield. Pulverization under liquid nitrogen combined with TRIZOL LS® as extraction reagent and homogenization-maceration in mortar with TRI Reagent®, are the procedures that rendered higher RNA yield, integrity and quality, as well as reproducibility among independent RNA extractions. In contrast, short mild vibration pulses (4500 r.p.m. for 5 s) mixed with glass beads, rendered low extraction efficiency and caused, in most cases, partial RNA degradation.
Mitochondrial Ca2+ Cycling Facilitates Activation of the Transcription Factor NFAT in Sensory Neurons

Ca2+-dependent gene regulation controls many aspects of neuronal plasticity. Significant progress has been made toward understanding the roles of voltage- and ligand-gated Ca2+ channels in triggering specific transcriptional responses. In contrast, the functional importance of Ca2+ buffers and Ca2+ transporters in neuronal gene regulation is less clear despite their critical contribution to the spatiotemporal control of Ca2+ signals. Here we examined the role of mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake and release in regulating the Ca2+-dependent transcription factor NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T-cells), which has been implicated in synaptic plasticity, axonal growth, and neuronal survival. Intense stimulation of sensory neurons by action potentials or TRPV1 agonists induced rapid activation and nuclear import of NFAT. Nuclear translocation of NFAT was associated with a characteristic prolonged [Ca2+]i elevation (plateau) that resulted from Ca2+ uptake by, and its subsequent release from, mitochondria. Measurements using a mitochondrial Ca2+ indicator, mtPericam, showed that this process recruited mitochondria throughout the cell body, including the perinuclear region. [Ca2+]i levels attained during the plateau phase were similar to or higher than those required for NFAT activation (200–300 nm). The elimination of the [Ca2+]i plateau by blocking either mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake via the uniporter or Ca2+ release via the mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchanger strongly reduced nuclear import of NFAT. Furthermore, preventing Ca2+ mobilization via the mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchanger diminished NFAT-mediated transcription. Collectively, these data implicate activity-induced Ca2+ uptake and prolonged release from mitochondria as a novel regulatory mechanism in neuronal excitation–transcription coupling.
‘Everyone knew everyone’s business’: Being a parent with housing issues in rural areas

This research explored the intersection between participants’ parenting role and housing difficulties, in rural communities. Thirteen parents were recruited from drug and alcohol and mental health agencies in rural Australia. Transcripts were analysed using content analysis, along with inter-rater reliability. The quandary of gaining access to their children while living in inadequate housing was indicated. Participants also described the ‘spiral’ nature of problems, highlighting the interrelated nature of mental illness, substance use, housing difficulties and losing access to children. The impacts of housing problems on parenting roles and children were described as well as those supports considered to be useful in obtaining appropriate housing. Living in rural areas where ‘everyone knew everyone’ made it difficult for some to obtain housing. The need to address housing, parenting, mental illness and substance abuse as interrelated, rather than as singular issues is highlighted.
Perceived organizational support and its outcomes

Purpose - – Riggle Design/methodology/approach - – Hundred and twelve studies were included in meta-analysis containing at least one of the outcomes. Riggle Findings - – Findings of the study revealed that perceived organizational support had a strong positive impact on employee engagement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, while its impact on organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions is moderate. Originality/value - – This study adds value by offering meta-analysis of the perceived organizational support and its outcomes for latest available literature (i.e. 2007-2014).
Variances of additive and dominance genetic effects for ovulation and twinning rates in a population selected for twinning.

Estimates of variances due to additive and dominance genetic effects and permanent and temporary environmental effects were obtained for ovulation and twinning rates from a composite population selected for twinning rate. Measures of ovulation rate after 11 mo of age on 2,317 heifers with a total of 19,209 measures were used. Twinning measures were on 1,522 first-parity cows, 1,311 later-parity cows with a total of 3,571 measures, and 1,704 all-parity cows with 5,100 measures. Models included fixed effects of year-season-age at calving for twinning, and year-season of birth, age in months, and calendar month of measurement for ovulation rate. Four analyses were performed for each sample: combinations of models with and without dominance effects and with and without covariates for fractions of inheritance from the seven foundation groups. Variance components as fractions of phenotypic variance for analysis of all ovulation rate measures were . 076, . 000, and . 045 for additive, dominance, and permanent environmental effects with no foundation groups in the model and . 069, . 000, and . 050 with foundation groups in the model. For sums of eight measures, the estimates were . 287 and . 000 for relative variances of additive and dominance effects with groups in the model and . 316 and . 000 with groups ignored. For twinning rate for first parity, estimates were . 126 and . 209 for relative variances of additive and dominance effects; for later parities, estimates were . 045 and . 035 for models including foundation group effects. The results suggest lack of dominance effects in expression of ovulation rate and the possibility of dominance effects for embryo and(or) fetal survival or conception rate because twinning rate is a function of ovulation, conception, and embryo and(or) fetal survival rates.
Using phase retrieval to measure the intensity and phase of ultrashort pulses: frequency-resolved optical gating

We recently introduced a new technique, frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG), for directly determining the full intensity I(t) and phase φ(t) of a single femtosecond pulse. By using almost any instantaneous nonlinear-optical interaction of two replicas of the ultrashort pulse to be measured, FROG involves measuring the spectrum of the signal pulse as a function of the delay between the replicas. The resulting trace of intensity versus frequency and delay yields an intuitive display of the pulse that is similar to the pulse spectrogram, except that the gate is a function of the pulse to be measured. The problem of inverting the FROG trace to obtain the pulse intensity and phase can also be considered a complex two-dimensional phase-retrieval problem. As a result, the FROG trace yields, in principle, an essentially unique pulse intensity and phase. We show that this is also the case in practice. We present an iterative-Fourier-transform algorithm for inverting the FROG trace. The algorithm is unusual in its use of a novel constraint: the mathematical form of the signal field. Without the use of a support constraint, the algorithm performs quite well in practice, even for pulses with serious phase distortions and for experimental data with noise, although it occasionally stagnates when pulses with large intensity fluctuations are used.
Adult triclabendazole-resistant Fasciola hepatica: surface and subsurface tegumental responses to in vitro treatment with the sulphoxide metabolite of the experimental fasciolicide compound alpha

Mature Fasciola hepatica of the triclabendazole-resistant Sligo isolate were incubated in vitro with 10 μg/ml of the sulphoxide metabolite of compound alpha [5-chloro-2-methylthio-6-(1-naphthyloxy)-H-benzimidazole]; the metabolite will be referred to as alpha.SO. Changes resulting from drug treatment were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and tubulin immunocytochemistry (ICC). SEM revealed that disruption to the tegumental surface mainly took the form of swelling and blebbing. Extensive spine loss occurred on the ventral surface of the oral cone, and sloughing of the tegument was observed along the lateral margins of the fluke. Examination of sections from the anterior mid-body region at the TEM level revealed that treatment with alpha.SO led to swelling of the basal infolds and mitochondria within the tegumental syncytium; also, accumulations of secretory bodies beneath the apical plasma membrane. The tegumental cell bodies contained swollen mitochondria and cisternae of granular endoplasmic reticulum, but few Golgi complexes were observed. An increase in T2 secretory bodies was observed, whilst in the T1 tegumental cells, the T1 secretory bodies had decreased in number. Immunocytochemical (ICC) studies showed that incubation with alpha.SO, ABZ.SO and TCBZ.SO did not cause significant changes to the distribution of tubulin within the tegumental syncytium of the Sligo isolate. In contrast, alpha.SO, ABZ.SO and TCBZ.SO caused severe disruption to tubulin organization within the syncytial layer of the TCBZ-susceptible Cullompton isolate. The EM results confirm that compound alpha is a fasciolicide capable of disrupting the tegument of mature TCBZ-resistant F. hepatica; however, this was not accompanied by any change in tubulin immunoreactivity.
Counting triangles in data streams

We present two space bounded random sampling algorithms that compute an approximation of the number of triangles in an undirected graph given as a stream of edges. Our first algorithm does not make any assumptions on the order of edges in the stream. It uses space that is inversely related to the ratio between the number of triangles and the number of triples with at least one edge in the induced subgraph, and constant expected update time per edge. Our second algorithm is designed for incidence streams (all edges incident to the same vertex appear consecutively). It uses space that is inversely related to the ratio between the number of triangles and length 2 paths in the graph and expected update time O(log|V|⋅(1+s⋅|V|/|E|)), where s is the space requirement of the algorithm. These results significantly improve over previous work [20, 8]. Since the space complexity depends only on the structure of the input graph and not on the number of nodes, our algorithms scale very well with increasing graph size and so they provide a basic tool to analyze the structure of large graphs. They have many applications, for example, in the discovery of Web communities, the computation of clustering and transitivity coefficient, and discovery of frequent patterns in large graphs.We have implemented both algorithms and evaluated their performance on networks from different application domains. The sizes of the considered graphs varied from about 8,000 nodes and 40,000 edges to 135 million nodes and more than 1 billion edges. For both algorithms we run experiments with parameter s=1,000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 to evaluate running time and approximation guarantee. Both algorithms appear to be time efficient for these sample sizes. The approximation quality of the first algorithm was varying significantly and even for s=1,000,000 we had more than 10% deviation for more than half of the instances. The second algorithm performed much better and even for s=10,000 we had an average deviation of less than 6% (taken over all but the largest instance for which we could not compute the number of triangles exactly).
Repression-sensitization and yielding to threatening health communications

Abstract Adult male subjects (N = 79) completed Byrne's revised Repression-Senshization scale to determine their defensive style. A median split was used to classify these subjects as Repressers or Sensitizers. Two years later they viewed a film that contained a warning about lung cancer and information on a new diagnostic test. Subjects were randomly assigned to three treatment conditons and accordingly saw either the high, medium, or low threat film. Subsequently, unobtrusive measures of yielding indicated whether subjects applied for the test (acceptance) and which of these took the further step of sending specimens for diagnosis (adoption). Results showed that, in a ratio of two to one, Sensitizers were more likely than Repressers to adopt the recommended diagnostic test, p < . 05. With increasing level of threat there was a nonsignificant trend on both measures towards more yielding among Sensitizers and less yielding among Repressors.
Virtual Genomes in Flux: An Interplay of Neutrality and Adaptability Explains Genome Expansion and Streamlining

The picture that emerges from phylogenetic gene content reconstructions is that genomes evolve in a dynamic pattern of rapid expansion and gradual streamlining. Ancestral organisms have been estimated to possess remarkably rich gene complements, although gene loss is a driving force in subsequent lineage adaptation and diversification. Here, we study genome dynamics in a model of virtual cells evolving to maintain homeostasis. We observe a pattern of an initial rapid expansion of the genome and a prolonged phase of mutational load reduction. Generally, load reduction is achieved by the deletion of redundant genes, generating a streamlining pattern. Load reduction can also occur as a result of the generation of highly neutral genomic regions. These regions can expand and contract in a neutral fashion. Our study suggests that genome expansion and streamlining are generic patterns of evolving systems. We propose that the complex genotype to phenotype mapping in virtual cells as well as in their biological counterparts drives genome size dynamics, due to an emerging interplay between adaptation, neutrality, and evolvability.
AN ANALYSIS OF CONTINENT-WIDE PATTERNS OF SEXUAL SELECTION IN A PASSERINE BIRD

Abstract Patterns of selection are widely believed to differ geographically, causing adaptation to local environmental conditions. However, few studies have investigated patterns of phenotypic selection across large spatial scales. We quantified the intensity of selection on morphology in a monogamous passerine bird, the barn swallow Hirundo rustica, using 6495 adults from 22 populations distributed across Europe and North Africa. According to the classical Darwin-Fisher mechanism of sexual selection in monogamous species, two important components of fitness due to sexual selection are the advantages that the most attractive males acquire by starting to breed early and their high annual fecundity. We estimated directional selection differentials on tail length (a secondary sexual character) and directional selection gradients after controlling for correlated selection on wing length and tarsus length with respect to these two fitness components. Phenotype and fitness components differed significantly among populations for which estimates were available for more than a single year. Likewise, selection differentials and selection gradients differed significantly among populations for tail length, but not for the other two characters. Sexual selection differentials differed significantly from zero across populations for tail length, particularly in males. Controlling statistically for the effects of age reduced the intensity of selection by 60 to 81%, although corrected and uncorrected estimates were strongly positively correlated. Selection differentials and gradients for tail length were positively correlated between the sexes among populations for selection acting on breeding date, but not for fecundity selection. The intensity of selection with respect to breeding date and fecundity were significantly correlated for tail length across populations. Sexual size dimorphism in tail length was significantly correlated with selection differentials with respect to breeding date for tail length in male barn swallows across populations. These findings suggest that patterns of sexual selection are consistent across large geographical scales, but also that they vary among populations. In addition, geographical patterns of phenotypic selection predict current patterns of phenotypic variation among populations, suggesting that consistent patterns of selection have been present for considerable amounts of time.