Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elevated white blood cell count in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance.

OBJECTIVE Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) differ in their risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, but previous cross-sectional studies have suggested little difference in their levels of lipids or blood pressure. We compared the white blood cell (WBC) count between subjects with IFG and IGT. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The subjects were 4,720 nondiabetic Japanese men aged 24-84 years. Based on the 75-g oral glucose tolerance test, the subjects were classified into the following four groups: normal fasting glucose/normal glucose tolerance (n = 3,753), isolated IFG (n = 290), isolated IGT (n = 476), and IFG/IGT (n = 201). We compared the WBC count among the four groups and investigated variables that showed a significant association with the WBC count. RESULTS The isolated IGT group had a significantly higher WBC count than the isolated IFG group (6,530 vs. 6,210/mm(3), P < 0.05). By stepwise analyses, age, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, fasting insulin, and 2-h postchallenge plasma glucose (PG) showed an independent association with the WBC count (adjusted R(2) = 0.057). In the analysis stratified by smoking status, the WBC count was independently associated with 2-h PG and triglycerides, irrespective of smoking status. CONCLUSIONS Individuals with isolated IGT had a significantly higher WBC count than those with isolated IFG. The WBC count was associated with 2-h PG and various components of the metabolic syndrome.
Enhancing Online Performance through Website Content and Personalization

A number of frameworks have been prescribed for online retailers, but still there exists little consensus regarding the amount of information and the level of customization needed to optimize customers' satisfaction and their purchase intention, and thereby increase sales performance. Against this backdrop, this study aims to contribute to the current practical and theoretical discussions regarding the most effective ways to design and implement online retailers' website features by empirically examining the interplay between information content and website personalization, and their individual and interactive impact on performance. By applying Structural Equation Modeling analysis to a sample of the top US retailers' websites, we find that simply providing a large number of information content features to online customers is not enough for companies looking to motivate customers to purchase. However, information that is targeted to an individual customer influences customer satisfaction and purchase intention; customer satisfaction, in turn, serves as a driver to the retailer's online sales performance.
Prognosis Predicting Score for Endovascular Treatment of Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

AbstractThe elderly patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) have a greater risk of poor clinical outcome after endovascular treatment (EVT) than younger patients do. Hence, it is necessary to explore which factors are associated with poor outcome and develop a predictive score specifically for elderly patients with aSAH receiving EVT.The aim of this study was to develop and validate a predictive score for 1-year outcomes in individual elderly patients with aSAH underwent EVT.In this 10-year prospective study, 520 consecutive aSAH elderly (age ≥ 60 years) patients underwent EVT in a single center were included. The risk factors, periprocedural, and 1-year follow-up data of all patients were entered in a specific prospective database.The modified Rankin scale was used for evaluating clinical outcome. To optimize the model's predictive capacity, the original matrix was randomly divided in 2 submatrices (learning and testing). The predictive score was developed using Arabic numerals for all variables based on the variable coefficients (&bgr;) of multivariable logistic regression analysis in the learning set and the predictive performance evaluation was assessed in the testing set. The risk classes were constructed using classification criteria based on sensitivity and specificity.The poor outcome rate at 1 year was 26.15%. Six risk factors, including age, hypertension, Hunt–Hess scale, Fisher scale, aneurysm location, and periprocedural complications, were independently associated with poor outcome and assembled the Changhai score. The discriminative power analysis with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the Changhai score was statistically significant (0.864, 0.824–0.904, P < 0.001). The sensitivity and specificity of the Changhai score were 82.07% and 78.06%, respectively.Our study indicated that age, hypertension, Hunt–Hess scale, Fisher scale, aneurysm location, and periprocedural complications were independent risk factors of poor outcome for elderly aSAH patients underwent EVT. In combination with these risk factors, the Changhai score can be a useful tool in the prediction of clinical outcome but needs to be validated in various centers before it can be recommended for application.
Dynamic Data-Cache Locking for Minimizing the WCET of a Single Task

Caches have been widely used in modern embedded processors to bridge the increasing speed gap between processors and off-chip memory. In real-time embedded systems, computing the Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) of a task is essential for the task scheduler to construct a valid schedule for a task set. Unfortunately, caches make it much harder to compute the WCET of a task. Cache locking has been proposed to alleviate the timing unpredictability problem caused by caches. In this article, we investigate the following WCET-aware data-cache locking problem for a single task. Given a task, select a set of variables as locked cache contents such that the WCET of the task is minimized. We propose two dynamic full cache-locking approaches. The first formulates the problem as a global Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem that simultaneously selects a minimum set of memory blocks of variables as locked cache contents and allocates them to the data cache. The second iteratively constructs a subgraph of the Control Flow Graph (CFG) of the task in which the lengths of all the paths are close to the longest path length, uses an ILP formulation to select a minimum set of memory blocks of variables in the subgraph as locked cache contents, and allocates the selected memory blocks to the data cache. We also propose two novel, efficient data-cache allocation algorithms for the global ILP approach and the iterative ILP approach, respectively. We have implemented both approaches and compared them with two state-of-the-art approaches, the longest path-based dynamic cache-locking approach and the static WCET analysis approach without cache locking by using a set of benchmarks from the Mälardalen WCET benchmark suite, SNU real-time benchmarks, and Powerstone benchmarks. Compared to the static WCET analysis approach, the average WCET improvements of the first approach range between 11.4% and 26.4%. Compared to the longest path--based, dynamic cache-locking approach, the average WCET improvements of the first approach range between 5.0% and 15.4%. The second approach performs slightly better than the first approach.
Increasing the Self-Efficacy of Newcomers to Open Source Software Projects

Community-based Open Source Software (OSS) projects are usually self-organized and dynamic, receiving contributions from distributed volunteers. These communities' survival, long-term success, and continuity demand a constant influx of newcomers. However, newcomers face many barriers when making their first contribution to an OSS project, leading in many cases to dropouts. Therefore, a major challenge for OSS projects is to provide ways to support newcomers during their first contribution. In this paper, our goal was to evaluate how the newcomers' perceived efficacy is influenced by the use of an environment that organizes the project information for developers who want to place their first contribution to an OSS project. To accomplish this goal, we created FLOSS coach, a portal aiming to support newcomers to OSS projects, which was implemented based on a model of barriers proposed in previous research. Then, we conducted a study, in which 46 students, split in case and control group, were asked to contribute to an OSS project. We assessed the newcomers' self-efficacy by conducting a questionnaire before and after the assignment. We found that presenting the information according to the model of barriers had a positive influence on newcomers' self-efficacy, empowered the newcomers, making them more confident and comfortable during the contribution process. However, there is also some indication that FLOSS coach did not lower the technical barriers.
Temporal Load Balancing with Service Delay Guarantees for Data Center Energy Cost Optimization

Cloud computing services are becoming integral part of people's daily life. These services are supported by infrastructure known as Internet data center (IDC). As demand for cloud computing services soars, energy consumed by IDCs is skyrocketing. Both academia and industry have paid great attention to energy management of IDCs. This paper studies an important energy management problem-how to minimize energy cost for IDCs in deregulated electricity markets. We propose a novel two-stage design and the eco-IDC (Energy Cost Optimization-IDC) algorithm to exploit the temporal diversity of electricity price and dynamically schedule workload to execute on IDC servers through an input queue. Extensive evaluation experiments are performed using real-life electricity price and workload traces at an enterprise production data center. The evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed approach significantly reduces energy cost for IDCs, guarantees a service delay bound, and alleviates workload drop if the service delay bound is sufficiently large.
Unlocking behaviors of long-term service consumers : the role of action inertia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of word-of-mouth (WOM) in long-term service settings. Specifically, the authors examine the moderating role of action inertia in the relationships between satisfaction and repatronage intention, satisfaction and WOM, and repatronage intention and WOM. Design/methodology/approach The proposed model was empirically tested using survey data from 1,385 telecommunications service subscribers. The data were analyzed using partial least squares path modeling. Findings Results suggest that a positive link between repatronage intention and WOM, hereto a neglected relationship in the marketing literature, in contrast to previous literature, the behaviors of long-term customers are not predictable, and action inertia strengthens satisfaction – WOM and repatronage intention – WOM links and weakens satisfaction – repatronage intention link. Research limitations/implications This study examines customers of a utilitarian service. To further determine the potential of the model, it is desirable to explore the validity of the model in other service settings, particularly those with high hedonic values. Practical implications The study provides valuable insights into repatronage intention – WOM link, with particular emphasis on the measurement and analysis of action inertia. This is important in understanding and evaluating inertia influences and identification of the drivers of WOM. These insights can be used by managers to better allocate their resources when investing in customer loyalty-building exercises and in generating WOM. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature in three main ways. First, it examines the nuances of customer loyalty in continuous service contexts. Second, the study empirically tests the role of repatronage intention as an antecedent of WOM. Third, the study introduces and tests the moderating role of action inertia on positive WOM.
HEVC selective encryption using transform skip signal and sign bin

A selective video encryption method based on the manipulation of transform skip signal and sign bin is proposed for the HEVC standard. The basic performance of the proposed selective video encryption method is evaluated in terms of perceptual inspection, outline detection and sketch attack using various classes of test video sequences. Preliminary results show that the proposed method provides quality degradation up to -0.22 in SSIM score when compared to the conventional method [5]. In addition, the edge difference ratio is greater than 0.73, which is closed to the perfect dissimilarity with respect to the original video. Functional comparison between the proposed method and the conventional selective encryption methods is then presented.
Anaemia, Haemoglobin Level and Cause-Specific Mortality in People with and without Diabetes

Background Both anaemia and cardiovascular disease (CVD) are common in people with diabetes. While individually both characteristics are known to raise mortality risk, their combined influence has yet to be quantified. In this pooling project, we examined the combined impact of baseline haemoglobin levels and existing CVD on all-cause and CVD mortality in people with diabetes. We draw comparison of these effects with those apparent in diabetes-free individuals. Methods/Principal Findings A combined analyses of 7 UK population-based cohorts resulted in 26,480 study members. There were 946 participants with physician-diagnosed diabetes, 2227 with anaemia [haemoglobin<13 g/dl (men) or <12 (women)], 2592 with existing CVD (stroke, ischaemic heart disease), and 21,396 with none of the conditions. Across diabetes and anaemia subgroups, and using diabetes-free, non-anaemic participants as the referent group, the adjusted hazard ratios (HR) were 1.46 (95% CI: 1.30–1.63) for anaemia, 1.67 (1.45–1.92) for diabetes, and 2.10 (1.55–2.85) for diabetes and anaemia combined. Across combined diabetes, anaemia and CVD subgroups, and compared with non-anaemic, diabetes-free and CVD-free participants, HR (95% CI) for all-cause mortality were 1.49 (1.32–1.69) anaemia, 1.60 (1.46–1.76) for existing CVD, and 1.66 (1.39–1.97) for diabetes alone. Equivalents were 2.13 (1.48–3.07) for anaemia and diabetes, 2.68 (2.14–3.36) for diabetes and existing CVD, and 3.25 (1.88–5.62) for the three combined. Patterns were similar for CVD mortality. Conclusions/Significance Individually, anaemia and CVD confer similar mortality risks in people with diabetes, and are excessively fatal in combination. Screening for anaemia would identify vulnerable diabetic patients whose outcomes can potentially be improved.
Letters to the editor: go to statement considered harmful

For a number of years I have been familiar with the observation that the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the density of go to statements in the programs they produce. More recently I discovered why the use of the go to statement has such disastrous effects, and I became convinced that the go to statement should be abolished from all "higher level" programming languages (i.e. everything except, perhaps, plain machine Code). At'that time I did not attach too much importance to this discovery ; I now submit my considerations for publication because in very recent discussions in which the subject turned up, I have been urged to do so. My first remark is that, although the programmer's activity ends when he has constructed a correct program, the process taking place under control of his program is the true subject matter of his activity, for it is this process that has to accomplish the desired effect; it is this process that in its dynamic behavior has to satisfy the desired specifications. Yet, once the program has been made, the "making" of the corresponding process is delegated to the machine. My second remark is that our intellectual powers are rather geared to master static relations and that our powers to visualize processes evolving in time are relatively poorly developed. For that reason we should do (as wise programmers aware of our limitations) our utmost to shorten the conceptual gap between the static program and the dynamic process, to make the correspondence between the program (spread out in text space) and the process (spread out in time) as trivial as possible. Let us now consider how we can characterize the progress of a process. (You may think about this question in a very concrete manner: suppose that a process, considered as a time succession of actions, is stopped after an arbitrary action, what data do we have to fix in order that we can redo the process until the very same point? ) If the program text is a pure concatenation of, say, assignment statements (for the purpose of this discussion regarded as the descriptions of single actions) it is sufficient to point in the program text to a point between two successive action descriptions. (In the absence of go to statements I can permit myself the syntactic ambiguity in the last three words of the previous sentence: if we parse …
Metabolomics-Based Discovery of Diagnostic Biomarkers for Onchocerciasis

Background Development of robust, sensitive, and reproducible diagnostic tests for understanding the epidemiology of neglected tropical diseases is an integral aspect of the success of worldwide control and elimination programs. In the treatment of onchocerciasis, clinical diagnostics that can function in an elimination scenario are non-existent and desperately needed. Due to its sensitivity and quantitative reproducibility, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based metabolomics is a powerful approach to this problem. Methodology/Principal Findings Analysis of an African sample set comprised of 73 serum and plasma samples revealed a set of 14 biomarkers that showed excellent discrimination between Onchocerca volvulus–positive and negative individuals by multivariate statistical analysis. Application of this biomarker set to an additional sample set from onchocerciasis endemic areas where long-term ivermectin treatment has been successful revealed that the biomarker set may also distinguish individuals with worms of compromised viability from those with active infection. Machine learning extended the utility of the biomarker set from a complex multivariate analysis to a binary format applicable for adaptation to a field-based diagnostic, validating the use of complex data mining tools applied to infectious disease biomarker discovery and diagnostic development. Conclusions/Significance An LC-MS metabolomics-based diagnostic has the potential to monitor the progression of onchocerciasis in both endemic and non-endemic geographic areas, as well as provide an essential tool to multinational programs in the ongoing fight against this neglected tropical disease. Ultimately this technology can be expanded for the diagnosis of other filarial and/or neglected tropical diseases.
Board Interlocks and Earnings Quality

We show that board interlocked firms' accounting practices as reflected in earnings quality are significantly correlated, and more so for audit committee interlocks. We also show that these associations arise after interlock formation and cease after interlock dissolution, consistent with the notion that information about accounting practices transfers between interlocked firms. It has been said " the bad drives out the good " and notorious accounting regulations' violations suggest this may be a legitimate concern for accounting practice diffusion. While we find some evidence consistent with good accounting practices being transferred, improving some interlocked firm's accounting quality, we find more consistent and more significant evidence that bad accounting, like disease versus good health, is more contagious. Overall, we document preliminary evidence about the importance of the social context for financial accounting practices and recommend that future researchers consider both monitoring and social context factors simultaneously to better understand firms' financial accounting practices.
Riding on the back of a giant: adding Malta to the 5 Cultures study by Robin Alexander

Abstract This paper focuses on the methodology adopted for Malta+5, which builds on Robin Alexander’s work by comparing the five pedagogical cultures he studied to the one in Malta. It reflects critically on the research process adopted in this study, and shows how, despite the very limited experience and resources, applying the methodology, frameworks and learning from Culture and Pedagogy to the Maltese context, enriched this study, by giving it a comparative and international dimension that it would otherwise be lacking. It also analyses the compromises that had to be made, the challenges encountered and, the pitfalls the author attempted to avoid while conducting the study. An exposition of the data gathered shows that the methodology adopted enabled the researcher, an insider, to better understand the pedagogical culture in which he is immersed. It is predominantly teacher-based, solidly underpinned by segmented-collectivism and encourages uniformity.
Diminutives Provide Multiple Benefi Ts for Language Acquisition

Th is chapter explores the hypothesis that diminutive usage in child-directed speech may provide multiple benefi ts for language acquisition. We summarize a series of experiments that exposed naïve English-speaking adults to Dutch or Russian diminutives, and tested their ability to isolate words in fl uent speech or acquire gender categories. Across studies, adults benefi ted from exposure to diminutives over their simplex counterparts, supporting the hypothesis that diminutives simplify word segmentation and morphology acquisition, by increasing word-ending invariance, regularizing stress patterns, and decreasing irregularity in morpho-syntactic categories. A similar diminutive advantage is observed in experimental studies of fi rst language acquisition: Preschool children produce fewer gender agreement and case marking errors with diminutives than with simplex nouns across several languages (Russian, Serbian, Polish, Lithuanian).
Metabolic Interdependence of Obligate Intracellular Bacteria and Their Insect Hosts

SUMMARY Mutualistic associations of obligate intracellular bacteria and insects have attracted much interest in the past few years due to the evolutionary consequences for their genome structure. However, much less attention has been paid to the metabolic ramifications for these endosymbiotic microorganisms, which have to compete with but also to adapt to another metabolism—that of the host cell. This review attempts to provide insights into the complex physiological interactions and the evolution of metabolic pathways of several mutualistic bacteria of aphids, ants, and tsetse flies and their insect hosts.