Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Radiation and the Risk of Chronic Lymphocytic and Other Leukemias among Chornobyl Cleanup Workers

Background: Risks of most types of leukemia from exposure to acute high doses of ionizing radiation are well known, but risks associated with protracted exposures, as well as associations between radiation and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), are not clear. Objectives: We estimated relative risks of CLL and non-CLL from protracted exposures to low-dose ionizing radiation. Methods: A nested case–control study was conducted in a cohort of 110,645 Ukrainian cleanup workers of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear power plant accident. Cases of incident leukemia diagnosed in 1986–2006 were confirmed by a panel of expert hematologists/hematopathologists. Controls were matched to cases on place of residence and year of birth. We estimated individual bone marrow radiation doses by the Realistic Analytical Dose Reconstruction with Uncertainty Estimation (RADRUE) method. We then used a conditional logistic regression model to estimate excess relative risk of leukemia per gray (ERR/Gy) of radiation dose. Results: We found a significant linear dose response for all leukemia [137 cases, ERR/Gy = 1.26 (95% CI: 0.03, 3.58]. There were nonsignificant positive dose responses for both CLL and non-CLL (ERR/Gy = 0.76 and 1.87, respectively). In our primary analysis excluding 20 cases with direct in-person interviews < 2 years from start of chemotherapy with an anomalous finding of ERR/Gy = –0.47 (95% CI: < –0.47, 1.02), the ERR/Gy for the remaining 117 cases was 2.38 (95% CI: 0.49, 5.87). For CLL, the ERR/Gy was 2.58 (95% CI: 0.02, 8.43), and for non-CLL, ERR/Gy was 2.21 (95% CI: 0.05, 7.61). Altogether, 16% of leukemia cases (18% of CLL, 15% of non-CLL) were attributed to radiation exposure. Conclusions: Exposure to low doses and to low dose-rates of radiation from post-Chornobyl cleanup work was associated with a significant increase in risk of leukemia, which was statistically consistent with estimates for the Japanese atomic bomb survivors. Based on the primary analysis, we conclude that CLL and non-CLL are both radiosensitive.
Affective Primacy in Intraorganizational Task Networks

To better understand the role of affect in organizational task-related networks, we developed a theory of affective primacy that identifies cognitive and motivational mechanisms through which the affective value of a social relationship a feeling of positive affect from interactions with a colleague operates as an antecedent of perceived instrumental value a subjective evaluation of a relationship's contribution to accomplishing assigned tasks. We tested this theory with full-network data collected over three years from employees in a small functional-form organization, which we analyzed with a methodology drawing from the social relations model of interpersonal perception and Bayesian models for social network analysis. We found that, over time, the affective value of social relationships influences both perceptions of instrumental value and the formation of task-related ties through multiple paths not accounted for by either perceived instrumental value or formal-structural requirements. We also show that the emergence of task-related networks rests primarily on high-activation positive emotions, such as excitement a subjective state of feeling energized rather than positive emotions with lower levels of activation, such as pleasantness a subjective state of feeling gratified. We discuss implications of these findings for organizational theory and managerial practice.
Sociological examination of ethnic conflicts in Obi local government area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

This paper looked at sociological examination of ethnic conflicts in Obi Local Government Area of Nasarawa state to find out the causes of ethnic conflicts and assess effectiveness of government intervention in curbing conflicts in the study area. One hundred and two (102) respondents were drawn from three (3) purposively selected wards in study area. The study reveals that majority of respondents sampled were between the ages of 20-30 years (84.3%), male (81.5%) and single (51%). Majority (56.6%) of them also had tertiary education and worked as artisans (38.2%). The findings further reveals that 52 % of respondents were of the opinion that poverty contributed to the crisis in their area and 41.18% of them believed that land dispute was the major cause of conflict in the study area. Again, 52.9% of the respondents indicated that government intervention in resolving crisis was not effective while 71.6% of respondents indicated that traditional and religious leaders interventions in resolving conflict was effective. The study concludes that poverty, unemployment and illiteracy were sociological conditions that caused conflict in the study area. It is recommended that government must learn to intervene early enough in conflicts at the rumor stage and involved traditional heads and religious leader in any negotiations between conflicting groups as means of resolving disputes and differences.
Pervasive ocular tremor in patients with Parkinson disease.

OBJECTIVE To further assess oculomotor control of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) during fixation and with movement. DESIGN Case-control study. SETTING A Parkinson disease research, education, and clinical center. PATIENTS One hundred twelve patients with PD, including 18 de novo untreated patients, and 60 age-matched controls. INTERVENTION Modern, precise eye tracking technology was used to assess oculomotor parameters. Oculomotor function was compared between groups during fixation and while tracking a randomly displaced target on a PC monitor. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Fixation stability and saccadic parameters. RESULTS All patients with PD and 2 of 60 control subjects showed oscillatory fixation instability (ocular tremor), with an average fundamental frequency of 5.7 Hz and average magnitude of 0.27°. Saccadic parameters and occurrences of square wave jerks did not differ between subjects with PD and controls. The amplitude and frequency of fixation instability did not correlate with disease duration, clinical Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scores, or dopa-equivalent dosing. No differences in oculomotor parameters were found between medicated and unmedicated patients with PD. CONCLUSIONS All patients with PD exhibited persistent ocular tremor that prevented stability during fixation. The pervasiveness and specificity of this feature suggest that modern, precise oculomotor testing could provide a valuable early physiological biomarker for diagnosing PD.
Comment Mining, Popularity Prediction, and Social Network Analysis

7 Chapter 1: Introduction 8 1.1. Motivation 9 1.2. Problem Hypothesis 11 1.3. Contributions 11 1.4. Thesis Outline 11 Chapter 2 : Background 13 2.1. Social Networks 13 2.2. Implicit versus Explicit Social Network Formations 14 2.3. Social Network Analysis versus Dynamic Network Analysis 15 2.4. Related Research 16 2.5. Social Bookmarking and Digg Network 18 Chapter 3: User Characterization 21 3.1. Network Description and Statistics 21 3.2. Degree Distribution 22 3.3. Egonet Analysis 23 3.4. User Membership Analysis 27 Chapter 4: Comparative Analysis of Network Formations 31 4.
ENDURANCE EXERCISE TRAINING AND DIFERULOYL METHANE SUPPLEMENT: CHANGES IN NEUROTROPHIC FACTOR AND OXIDATIVE STRESS INDUCED BY LEAD IN RAT BRAIN

Lead is a highly neurotoxic agent that particularly affects the developing central nervous system. In the current study we investigated the neuroprotective effects of exercise training and/or diferuloyl methane (DM) supplement, which is known as curcumin, on lead acetate-induced neurotoxicity in the rat hippocampus. Sixty rats were randomly divided into six groups: 1) lead acetate, 2) DM supplement, 3) endurance training, 4) training+ DM supplement, 5) sham and 6) base. The rats in the training groups performed treadmill running consisting of 15 to 22 m · min-1 for 25 to 64 min, 5 times a week for 8 weeks. All groups except sham received lead acetate (20 mg · kg-1), whereas the sham group received DM solvent. In addition, the DM and training + DM groups received DM solution (30 mg · kg-1) intraperitoneally. Chronic administration of lead acetate resulted in a significant increase in the malondialdehyde (MDA) in plasma, but not in the hippocampus. In addition, it led to significantly decreased brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the hippocampus and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) levels, as compared to the sham group. Treadmill running, DM supplementation, or both resulted in a significant decrease in MDA levels and significantly increased BDNF and TAC levels, as compared to the lead acetate group. These results provide a rationale for an inhibitory role of DM supplement and regular exercise in the attenuation of lead-induced neurotoxicity.
Revisiting the Antecedents of Social Entrepreneurial Intentions in Hong Kong

This study examined how empathy, moral obligation, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived social support, and prior experience with social problems are associated with social entrepreneurial intentions. Through a survey, a sample of 252 Hong Kong students was used for analyses. Factor analyses supported that the antecedents of social entrepreneurial intentions could be divided into dimensions of empathy, moral obligation, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived social support, and prior experience with social problems. Multiple regression analysis results indicated that perceived social support was the most prominent antecedent of social entrepreneurial intentions, followed by moral obligation, empathy, and prior experience with social problems. Notably, moral obligation was revealed to be negatively associated with social entrepreneurial intentions.
Spine Calcium Transients Induced by Synaptically-Evoked Action Potentials Can Predict Synapse Location and Establish Synaptic Democracy

CA1 pyramidal neurons receive hundreds of synaptic inputs at different distances from the soma. Distance-dependent synaptic scaling enables distal and proximal synapses to influence the somatic membrane equally, a phenomenon called “synaptic democracy”. How this is established is unclear. The backpropagating action potential (BAP) is hypothesised to provide distance-dependent information to synapses, allowing synaptic strengths to scale accordingly. Experimental measurements show that a BAP evoked by current injection at the soma causes calcium currents in the apical shaft whose amplitudes decay with distance from the soma. However, in vivo action potentials are not induced by somatic current injection but by synaptic inputs along the dendrites, which creates a different excitable state of the dendrites. Due to technical limitations, it is not possible to study experimentally whether distance information can also be provided by synaptically-evoked BAPs. Therefore we adapted a realistic morphological and electrophysiological model to measure BAP-induced voltage and calcium signals in spines after Schaffer collateral synapse stimulation. We show that peak calcium concentration is highly correlated with soma-synapse distance under a number of physiologically-realistic suprathreshold stimulation regimes and for a range of dendritic morphologies. Peak calcium levels also predicted the attenuation of the EPSP across the dendritic tree. Furthermore, we show that peak calcium can be used to set up a synaptic democracy in a homeostatic manner, whereby synapses regulate their synaptic strength on the basis of the difference between peak calcium and a uniform target value. We conclude that information derived from synaptically-generated BAPs can indicate synapse location and can subsequently be utilised to implement a synaptic democracy.
A clustering scheme for hierarchical control in multi-hop wireless networks

In this paper we present a clustering scheme to create a hierarchical control structure for multi-hop wireless networks. A cluster is defined as a subset of vertices, whose induced graph is connected. In addition, a cluster is required to obey certain constraints that are useful for management and scalability of the hierarchy. All these constraints cannot be met simultaneously for general graphs, but we show how such a clustering can be obtained for wireless network topologies. Finally, we present an efficient distributed implementation of our clustering algorithm for a set of wireless nodes to create the set of desired clusters.
Intimate Partner Violence and Disasters

Disasters, both natural and human-caused, can generate significant stressors for individuals, families, and communities, and research has documented an increase in the prevalence and severity of violence against women following these events. This article reviews research documenting the prevalence and severity of violence against women in disaster settings and provides a framework for intimate partner violence professionals to cultivate resources and capacities that promote women’s safety and well-being before, during, and after a disaster. Framework objectives include increasing awareness and capacity to respond, promoting safety planning, ensuring basic needs are met, providing comfort and support, connecting to long-term services, and promoting psychosocial recovery.
Cytomegalovirus infection of rats increases the neointimal response to vascular injury without consistent evidence of direct infection of the vascular wall.

BACKGROUND Previous studies suggest that infection may play a role in restenosis and atherogenesis; cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the implicated pathogens. To determine a potential causal role of CMV in these disease processes, we assessed whether CMV infection increases the neointimal response to injury of the rat carotid artery. METHODS AND RESULTS Carotid injury was performed on 60 rats; immediately thereafter, 30 rats were infected with rat CMV, and the other 30 were mock-infected. Six weeks later, rats were euthanized, and the salivary glands, spleen, and carotid arteries were harvested. CMV infection was associated with significant exacerbation of the neointimal response to injury (neointimal to medial ratio 0.81+/-0. 59 versus 0.31+/-0.38 in CMV-infected versus control rats; P<0.0001). This occurred despite absence of infectious virus from vascular tissues and detection of CMV DNA by polymerase chain reaction in the injured artery only at day 3 after infection. Persistent distant infection, associated with systemic cytokine response, was evidenced by isolation of infectious virus from homogenates of both salivary glands and spleen and by higher serum levels of interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-4 (but not interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha) in infected versus noninfected rats. CONCLUSIONS CMV infection of immunocompetent adult rats increases the neointimal response to vascular injury, suggesting that CMV may play a causal role in atherosclerosis/restenosis. Importantly, this CMV-induced response occurs even without the presence of virus in the vascular wall, suggesting that inflammatory and immune responses to infection of nonvascular tissues may contribute to the vascular response to injury.
Qualifications, skills and more! : Characteristics employers look for when hiring newly graduated applicants for a higher occupational level

This thesis is on characteristics employers considered when selecting employees’. By studying the characteristics used in the staﬃng process, this thesis contributes to the sociological and economic debate on inequality and stratiﬁcation as results of job allocation and employer selection. Research shows that employers consider multiple characteristics during the staﬃng process. Examining individual characteristics (e.g., qualiﬁcations, which are the primary focus of the inequality and stratiﬁcation literature) is insuﬃcient for explaining the diﬀerences related to who obtains prestigious jobs (e.g., managerial jobs) and thus is insuﬃcient to explain diﬀerences in job allocation, inequality and stratiﬁcation. The characteristics frequently debated in the economic and sociological literature, such as educational qualiﬁcations, ﬁeld of study, social, cognitive and technical skills, personality, and eﬀort, constitute the main characteristics studied in this thesis. The thesis contributes seven points of progress to the debate on job allocation and stratiﬁcation in the context of the theoretical mechanism outlined in this monograph. The argument that the mechanisms explain a macro-level phenomenon brings into question the existence of the phenomena that purportedly underlie the macro explanations. The results in this thesis indicate a model with mixed mechanisms. The points of progress are organised around the use of characteristics and tools (the use of qualiﬁcations, cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics, and multiple characteristics and selection tools during the selection) and ﬁve mechanisms (a self-selecting, self-promoting, subjective, and organisational ﬁt in addition to the trainability mechanism) that complement and contradict the existing mechanisms.
NO EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION IN THE FAR-INFRARED–RADIO CORRELATION OUT TO z ∼ 2 IN THE EXTENDED CHANDRA DEEP FIELD SOUTH

We investigate the 70 μm far-infrared–radio correlation (FRC) of star-forming galaxies in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS) out to z > 2. We use 70 μm data from the Far-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (FIDEL), which comprises the most sensitive (∼0.8 mJy rms) and extensive far-infrared deep field observations using MIPS on the Spitzer Space Telescope, and 1.4 GHz radio data (∼8 μJy beam−1 rms) from the Very Large Array. In order to quantify the evolution of the FRC, we use both survival analysis and stacking techniques, which we find give similar results. We also calculate the FRC using total infrared luminosity and rest-frame radio luminosity, qTIR, and find that qTIR is constant (within 0.22) over the redshift range 0–2. We see no evidence for evolution in the FRC at 70 μm, which is surprising given the many factors that are expected to change this ratio at high redshifts.
User Verification Leveraging Gait Recognition for Smartphone Enabled Mobile Healthcare Systems

The rapid deployment of sensing technology in smartphones and the explosion of their usage in people's daily lives provide users with the ability to collectively sense the world. This leads to a growing trend of mobile healthcare systems utilizing sensing data collected from smartphones with/without additional external sensors to analyze and understand people's physical and mental states. However, such healthcare systems are vulnerable to user spoofing, in which an adversary distributes his registered device to other users such that data collected from these users can be claimed as his own to obtain more healthcare benefits and undermine the successful operation of mobile healthcare systems. Existing mitigation approaches either only rely on a secret PIN number (which can not deal with colluded attacks) or require an explicit user action for verification. In this paper, we propose a user verification system leveraging unique gait patterns derived from acceleration readings to detect possible user spoofing in mobile healthcare systems. Our framework exploits the readily available accelerometers embedded within smartphones for user verification. Specifically, our user spoofing mitigation framework (which consists of three components, namely Step Cycle Identification, Step Cycle Interpolation, and Similarity Comparison) is used to extract gait patterns from run-time accelerometer measurements to perform robust user verification under various walking speeds. We show that our framework can be implemented in two ways: user-centric and server-centric, and it is robust to not only random but also mimic attacks. Our extensive experiments using over 3,000 smartphone-based traces with mobile phones placed on different body positions confirm the effectiveness of the proposed framework with users walking at various speeds. This strongly indicates the feasibility of using smartphone based low grade accelerometer to conduct gait recognition and facilitate effective user verification without active user cooperation.
Validation of a Non-Linear Finite Element Vehicle Model Using Multiple Impact Data

A detailed multi-purpose finite element model of a 1994 Chevrolet C-1500 pick-up truck was developed at the FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center. The model is the first of its kind developed specifically to address vehicle safety issues, including front and side performance, as well as road side hardware design. The former application typically involves large regional deformation with impact durations of no more than 150 msec. The latter encompasses damage along a larger portion of the vehicle, and due to longer interaction time between the vehicle and impacted device coupled with the need to observe post impact dynamics, requires simulations that could last as long as 1 second. This paper describes the results of a non-linear finite element computer simulation using this model for frontal full barrier and median highway barrier impacts. These simulations are conducted in support of research studies undergoing at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to investigate vehicle compatibility, new offset barrier tests, and highway/vehicle safety issues. Full scale vehicle crash tests conducted by NHTSA and FHWA are used for evaluation of the performance of the model. Two tests are compared, a frontal impact with a full rigid wall and a corner impact to a 42-inch Vertical Concrete Median. The comparisons between tests and simulations in terms of overall impact deformation, component failure modes, velocity and acceleration at various locations in the vehicle are presented. Modeling issues including element size, connectivity, and slide line interface of different parts are discussed. In addition, some simulation related hardware and software issues are addressed. The results clearly indicate the model to be consistent with the full scale tests. Additional simulations need to be performed to fully evaluate and validate the model.
Involvement of the G-Protein-Coupled Dopamine/Ecdysteroid Receptor DopEcR in the Behavioral Response to Sex Pheromone in an Insect

Most animals including insects rely on olfaction to find their mating partners. In moths, males are attracted by female-produced sex pheromones inducing stereotyped sexual behavior. The behaviorally relevant olfactory information is processed in the primary olfactory centre, the antennal lobe (AL). Evidence is now accumulating that modulation of sex-linked behavioral output occurs through neuronal plasticity via the action of hormones and/or catecholamines. A G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) binding to 20-hydroxyecdysone, the main insect steroid hormone, and dopamine, has been identified in Drosophila (DmDopEcR), and was suggested to modulate neuronal signaling. In the male moth Agrotis ipsilon, the behavioral and central nervous responses to pheromone are age-dependent. To further unveil the mechanisms of this olfactory plasticity, we searched for DopEcR and tested its potential role in the behavioral response to sex pheromone in A. ipsilon males. Our results show that A. ipsilon DopEcR (named AipsDopEcR) is predominantly expressed in the nervous system. The corresponding protein was detected immunohistochemically in the ALs and higher brain centers including the mushroom bodies. Moreover, AipsDopEcR expression increased with age. Using a strategy of RNA interference, we also show that silencing of AipsDopEcR inhibited the behavioral response to sex pheromone in wind tunnel experiments. Altogether our results indicate that this GPCR is involved in the expression of sexual behavior in the male moth, probably by modulating the central nervous processing of sex pheromone through the action of one or both of its ligands.