Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Short but Deep Dive into the Economics of Arts: Art Entrepreneurs in a Peripheral Market

Abstract:This article analyzes the organization, functioning, and peculiarities of the local visual arts market of the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, which has the third largest metropolitan area of the country. Furthermore, we also explore the perspectives for the young artists entering this market. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were applied directly to the owners or managers of the city’s art galleries. Between August 2014 and January 2015, 26 galleries were visited, out of the 30 identified. Based on observations made in the fieldwork, on the plethora of themes that appeared throughout the interviews, and on the patterns identified in the tables, it was possible to organize the art galleries in four distinct types: (1) retail art galleries, (2) contemporary art galleries, (3) institutional galleries, and (4) alternative galleries. Organizing the main arguments of the interviewees and applying the Thematic Networks methodology, we found that the weakness of the entrepreneurial efforts in the local art market seems to be an outstanding feature jeopardizing innovation. We also found that there are two kinds of art galleries providing solutions to this.
On Stochastic Generators of Positive Definite Exponents

A characterisation of quantum stochastic positive definite (PD) exponent is given in terms of the conditional positive definiteness (CPD) of their form-generator. The pseudo-Hilbert dilation of the stochastic form-generator and the pre-Hilbert dilation of the corresponding dissipator is found. The structure of quasi-Poisson stochastic generators giving rise to a quantum stochastic birth processes is studied.
Adipokine Imbalance in the Pericardial Cavity of Cardiac and Vascular Disease Patients

Aim Obesity and especially hypertrophy of epicardial adipose tissue accelerate coronary atherogenesis. We aimed at comparing levels of inflammatory and atherogenic hormones from adipose tissue in the pericardial fluid and circulation of cardiovascular disease patients. Methods and Results Venous plasma (P) and pericardial fluid (PF) were obtained from elective cardiothoracic surgery patients (n = 37). Concentrations of leptin, adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein (A-FABP) and adiponectin (APN) were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). The median concentration of leptin in PF (4.3 (interquartile range: 2.8–9.1) μg/L) was comparable to that in P (5.9 (2.2–11) μg/L) and these were significantly correlated to most of the same patient characteristics. The concentration of A-FABP was markedly higher (73 (28–124) versus 8.4 (5.2–14) μg/L) and that of APN was markedly lower (2.8 (1.7–4.2) versus 13 (7.2–19) mg/L) in PF compared to P. APN in PF was unlike in P not significantly related to age, body mass index, plasma triglycerides or coronary artery disease. PF levels of APN, but not A-FABP, were related to the size of paracardial adipocytes. PF levels of APN and A-FABP were not related to the immunoreactivity of paracardial adipocytes for these proteins. Conclusion In cardiac and vascular disease patients, PF is enriched in A-FABP and poor in APN. This adipokine microenvironment is more likely determined by the heart than by the circulation or paracardial adipose tissue.
Mental Health Before and After Retirement—Assessing the Relevance of Psychosocial Working Conditions: The Whitehall II Prospective Study of British Civil Servants

Abstract Objectives Retirement could be a stressor or a relief. We stratify according to previous psychosocial working conditions to identify short-term and long-term changes in mental health. Method Using data from the Whitehall II study on British civil servants who retired during follow-up (n = 4,751), we observe mental health (General Health Questionnaire [GHQ] score) on average 8.2 times per participant, spanning up 37 years. We differentiate short-term (0–3 years) and long-term (4+ years) changes in mental health according to retirement and investigate whether trajectories differ by psychosocial job demands, work social support, decision authority, and skill discretion. Results Each year, mental health slightly improved before retirement (−0.070; 95% CI [−0.080, −0.059]; higher values on the GHQ score are indicative of worse mental health), and retirees experienced a steep short-term improvement in mental health after retirement (−0.253; 95% CI [−0.302, −0.205]), but no further significant long-term changes (0.017; 95% CI [−0.001, 0.035]). Changes in mental health were more explicit when retiring from poorer working conditions; this is higher psychosocial job demands, lower decision authority, or lower work social support. Discussion Retirement was generally beneficial for health. The association between retirement and mental health was dependent on the context individuals retire from.
Personalized Socially Assistive Robotics

The start of the 21st century, with its confluence of scientific and technological sophistication, presents a unique opportunity for robotics to positively impact human quality of life. Significant and growing societal needs include the lack of personalized one-on-one care for the growing populations of elderly individuals, children with developmental disorders, and those with special life-long cognitive and social needs. Developing systems capable of contributing to such application domains in human everyday life require great strides in the domains of assistive robotics and human-robot interaction (HRI). Our research work in the Interaction Lab at USC focuses on socially assistive robot systems with rich HRI models that can be validated, tested and evaluated in real-world settings, involving human subject users from relevant beneficiary special-needs populations, including children and the elderly, and spanning a broad range of application domains, including elder care, aging in place, post-stroke rehabilitation, special education, and social and developmental disorder therapy.
A Global Perspective on the Sustainable Performance of Urbanization

Urbanization, particularly in developing countries, is a major strategy for development. However, major concerns accompany it, such as air pollution, habitat destruction, and loss of arable land. In responding to these challenges, governments throughout the world have been implementing various policy mechanisms to guide the practice of urbanization towards sustainable development. It appears that there is little research investigating the outcomes of those efforts in implementing sustainable urbanization strategies. This paper provides a profile of sustainable urbanization from a global perspective. Data used for this research cover 111 countries and are collected from the World Bank database and the United Nation database. A ranking list of sustainable performance of urbanization between these countries is produced and discussed. The study suggests that countries at different stages of urbanization have achieved different levels of sustainable performance. The research results provide significant references for future study in the field of urbanization from a global perspective.
The Effects of Aging on the Neural Basis of Implicit Associative Learning in a Probabilistic Triplets Learning Task

Few studies have investigated how aging influences the neural basis of implicit associative learning, and available evidence is inconclusive. One emerging behavioral pattern is that age differences increase with practice, perhaps reflecting the involvement of different brain regions with training. Many studies report hippocampal involvement early on with learning becoming increasingly dependent on the caudate with practice. We tested the hypothesis that the contribution of these regions to learning changes with age because of differential age-related declines in the striatum and hippocampi. We assessed age-related differences in brain activation during implicit associative learning using the Triplets Learning Task. Over three event-related fMRI runs, 11 younger and 12 healthy older adults responded to only the third (target) stimulus in sequences of three stimuli (“triplets”) by corresponding key press. Unbeknown to participants, the first stimulus' location predicted one target location for 80% of trials and another target location for 20% of trials. Both age groups learned associative regularities but differences in favor of the younger adults emerged with practice. The neural basis of learning (response to predictability) was examined by identifying regions that showed a greater response to triplets that occurred more frequently. Both age groups recruited the hippocampus early, but with training, the younger adults recruited their caudate whereas the older adults continued to rely on their hippocampus. This pattern enables older adults to maintain near-young levels of performance early in training, but not later, and adds to evidence that implicit associative learning is supported by different brain networks in younger and older adults.
A simple downlink transmission power control method for worst user throughput maximization in heterogeneous networks

This paper proposes a simple downlink transmission power control method in heterogeneous networks aiming at maximization of the worst user throughput. The proposed method requires inter-base station (BS) cooperation. However, the proposed method can be implemented by sharing only a single metric among BSs, which is different from the conventional BS cooperative transmission power control methods that require exchanging a large amount of channel state information (CSI) of all users among BSs. In the proposed method, cooperating BSs share the tentative worst user throughput within the cooperating cells, so the proposed method does not require additional CSI feedback from the user terminals. Using this shared metric information, each BS updates its transmission power so that the target throughput is achieved for all users served by that BS. Although the proposed method is computationally efficient and the amount of the shared information via the backhaul is very limited, the worst user throughput achieved using the proposed method is very close to the upper bound performance. Multi-cell simulation evaluation shows that the proposed method yields advantageous throughput performance and a transmission power reduction effect compared to conventional approaches.
Using a Probabilistic Neural Network for a Large Multi-label Problem

The automation of the categorization of economic activities from business descriptions in free text format is a huge challenge for the Brazilian governmental administration in the present day. When this problem is tackled by humans, the subjectivity on their classification brings another problem: different human classifiers can give different results when working on a set of the same business descriptions. This can cause a serious distortion on the information for the planning and taxation of the governmental administrations on the three levels: County, State and Federal. Furthermore, the number of possible categories considered is very large, more than 1000 in the Brazilian scenario. The large number of categories makes the problem even harder to be solved, as this is also a multi-labeled problem. In this work we compared the multi-label lazy learning technique, ML-kNN, to our probabilistic neural network approach. Our implementation overcome the ML-kNN algorithm in four metrics typically used in the literature for multi-label categorization problems.
The Open University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Nonlinear double-diffusive intrusions at the equator Journal Article

Previous, linear analysis has suggested that observations of interleaving, quasihorizontal layers in the equatorial oceans may be explained by double-diffusive or inertial instability. Here we describe an idealized, two-dimensional, numerical investigation of the nonlinear development of these instabilities, focusing almost exclusively on the double-diffusive case. We consider the mechanisms for equilibration and maintenance of the interleaving intrusions and perform a thorough sensitivity analysis. Nonlinearity arising from changes in diffusive regime is found to be more important than advective nonlinearity in promoting global equilibration. When variations in effective flux ratio are weak, local constraints prevent equilibration until large amplitudes are reached. When variations in flux ratio with density ratio are allowed, small-scale staircase and mesoscale intrusive instabilities coexist, leading to staircase-like intrusions with sharp, steppy interfaces. Solutions are found to equilibrate at between 3 and 13 times the amplitude where mean salinity gradients overturn. Cross-equatorial diffusivities between 20 and 400 m s are found in realistic cases with intrusion lengths of up to 40 km. A modified estimate of the effective cross-equatorial diffusivity based on a balance of lateral advection and vertical diffusion tends to overestimate the sensitivity to the mean horizontal and vertical gradients of salinity and underestimates the sensitivity to the vertical diffusivity but does give values within an order of magnitude of those derived from numerical experiments. For comparison, we give a single example of inertially driven interleaving layers which reach 190 km in length giving cross-equatorial heat fluxes 4 times larger than realistic double-diffusively driven cases. Although the inertial case is not considered in detail, we speculate that observed interleaving is more likely to be created by inertial than double-diffusive instability.
Modelling and analysis of competitive electricity market in Bhutan

The power sector deregulation process has taken place over the past three decades world-wide with the objectives being more choices available to the customers and increased social welfare. Bhutan is also considering deregulating its own power sector in the near future with the pressure to reduce electricity costs to the customers. This thesis therefore aims at developing a preliminary proposal for a competitive electricity market for the Bhutan’s existing power system and also presenting various technical requirements for the market to function properly. In this proposal, complete market models for competitive generators are developed and tested using PowerWorld Simulator. The models simulate the day-ahead electricity markets for two basic market pricing structures: uniform market pricing (mostly used in Europe) and locational marginal cost based pricing (LMP) (mostly used in North America). The market models are able to facilitate competitions among generators, calculate total generation costs, market clearing prices, costs of system securities, etc. The study of the market analysis tried to compare the outcomes from the proposed competitive markets to those of the existing system. The results have shown that the price of electricity reduces comparatively in the proposed competitive market. The average market price came down by 21% (including the existing wheeling charge) for uniform market pricing market and 13% in LMP based market as compared to the existing system 0.182 SEK/kWh. The network loss calculated taking supply-demand balance in the existing system is 14.7% and the loss reduces to 4.54 % with the new market models. The total generation cost was found reduced in the competitive market as compared to the existing systems. The day-ahead spot market for both winter and summer loads showed very small or almost no changes in price for hourly variation of load in both uniform and LMP based market. It can be concluded the uniform market pricing structure could be appropriate for the current power systems in Bhutan since it’s power network had no problem of transmission congestion and it would remain so even for certain load growths in the future. However, the LMP-based market has other advantages over network treatments incorporated in the market settlement itself and can be more beneficial in the long-run. The study has also pointed out the various technical requirements for a market to functions, namely ancillary services for network management, power balancing, etc. The issues of privatization of power generating companies and separation from network companies have also been discussed. A complete long-range study taking into account all sorts of generations and ancillary services costs would therefore be needed to make a final choice.
Reduced Vglut2/Slc17a6 Gene Expression Levels throughout the Mouse Subthalamic Nucleus Cause Cell Loss and Structural Disorganization Followed by Increased Motor Activity and Decreased Sugar Consumption

Visual Abstract The subthalamic nucleus (STN) plays a central role in motor, cognitive, and affective behavior. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the STN is the most common surgical intervention for advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD), and STN has lately gained attention as target for DBS in neuropsychiatric disorders, including obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, and addiction. Animal studies using STN-DBS, lesioning, or inactivation of STN neurons have been used extensively alongside clinical studies to unravel the structural organization, circuitry, and function of the STN. Recent studies in rodent STN models have exposed different roles for STN neurons in reward-related functions. We have previously shown that the majority of STN neurons express the vesicular glutamate transporter 2 gene (Vglut2/Slc17a6) and that reduction of Vglut2 mRNA levels within the STN of mice [conditional knockout (cKO)] causes reduced postsynaptic activity and behavioral hyperlocomotion. The cKO mice showed less interest in fatty rewards, which motivated analysis of reward-response. The current results demonstrate decreased sugar consumption and strong rearing behavior, whereas biochemical analyses show altered dopaminergic and peptidergic activity in the striatum. The behavioral alterations were in fact correlated with opposite effects in the dorsal versus the ventral striatum. Significant cell loss and disorganization of the STN structure was identified, which likely accounts for the observed alterations. Rare genetic variants of the human VGLUT2 gene exist, and this study shows that reduced Vglut2/Slc17a6 gene expression levels exclusively within the STN of mice is sufficient to cause strong modifications in both the STN and the mesostriatal dopamine system.
A Method to Query Document Database by Content and Structure

Structured documents are made up of a few logical components,such as title,sections,subsections and paragraphs.The components in each structured document can be represented by an ordered tree model,which can also be viewed as a hierarchical concept relationship.To meet the user抯 requirements for more precise and concentrated search results,the retrieval techniques should allow the user to retrieve document components with varying granularity.This paper presents a method to query document database by content and structure.The key idea is to construct a more comprehensive similarity function by taking advantage of the inherent hierarchical structure in documents.This work combines Information Retrieval techniques,semi-structured data query and proximate search for document documents.The proposed method is evaluated on the Encarta encyclopedia document set and the experimental results show that is can provice more accurate and focused answers than traditional document retrieval methods.
The European Roots of Canadian Identity

Preface * The Canadian Enigma * Particularistic vs. Universalistic Identities * As Canadian as Possible under the Circumstances * Multinational Realities and Ambiguous Identities * The Canadian Social Contract * Is Multiculturalism Enough? * Canada and the Pax Americana * Americanness vs. Europeanness * The Cultural Imperative * The Metaphysics of Canadian Identity Notes Bibliography Index
Further Insights into Brevetoxin Metabolism by de Novo Radiolabeling

The toxic dinoflagellate Karenia brevis, responsible for early harmful algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, produces many secondary metabolites, including potent neurotoxins called brevetoxins (PbTx). These compounds have been identified as toxic agents for humans, and they are also responsible for the deaths of several marine organisms. The overall biosynthesis of these highly complex metabolites has not been fully ascertained, even if there is little doubt on a polyketide origin. In addition to gaining some insights into the metabolic events involved in the biosynthesis of these compounds, feeding studies with labeled precursors helps to discriminate between the de novo biosynthesis of toxins and conversion of stored intermediates into final toxic products in the response to environmental stresses. In this context, the use of radiolabeled precursors is well suited as it allows working with the highest sensitive techniques and consequently with a minor amount of cultured dinoflagellates. We were then able to incorporate [U-14C]-acetate, the renowned precursor of the polyketide pathway, in several PbTx produced by K. brevis. The specific activities of PbTx-1, -2, -3, and -7, identified by High-Resolution Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometer (HRESIMS), were assessed by HPLC-UV and highly sensitive Radio-TLC counting. We demonstrated that working at close to natural concentrations of acetate is a requirement for biosynthetic studies, highlighting the importance of highly sensitive radiolabeling feeding experiments. Quantification of the specific activity of the four, targeted toxins led us to propose that PbTx-1 and PbTx-2 aldehydes originate from oxidation of the primary alcohols of PbTx-7 and PbTx-3, respectively. This approach will open the way for a better comprehension of the metabolic pathways leading to PbTx but also to a better understanding of their regulation by environmental factors.
Viral Co-Infections in Pediatric Patients Hospitalized with Lower Tract Acute Respiratory Infections

Background Molecular techniques can often reveal a broader range of pathogens in respiratory infections. We aim to investigate the prevalence and age pattern of viral co-infection in children hospitalized with lower tract acute respiratory infection (LT-ARI), using molecular techniques. Methods A nested polymerase chain reaction approach was used to detect Influenza (A, B), metapneumovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), parainfluenza (1–4), rhinovirus, adenovirus (A—F), bocavirus and coronaviruses (NL63, 229E, OC43) in respiratory samples of children with acute respiratory infection prospectively admitted to any of the GENDRES network hospitals between 2011–2013. The results were corroborated in an independent cohort collected in the UK. Results A total of 204 and 97 nasopharyngeal samples were collected in the GENDRES and UK cohorts, respectively. In both cohorts, RSV was the most frequent pathogen (52.9% and 36.1% of the cohorts, respectively). Co-infection with multiple viruses was found in 92 samples (45.1%) and 29 samples (29.9%), respectively; this was most frequent in the 12–24 months age group. The most frequently observed co-infection patterns were RSV—Rhinovirus (23 patients, 11.3%, GENDRES cohort) and RSV—bocavirus / bocavirus—influenza (5 patients, 5.2%, UK cohort). Conclusion The presence of more than one virus in pediatric patients admitted to hospital with LT-ARI is very frequent and seems to peak at 12–24 months of age. The clinical significance of these findings is unclear but should warrant further analysis.