Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Nonlinear System Identification in the Short-Time Fourier Transform Domain

In this paper, we introduce an adaptive algorithm for nonlinear system identification in the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) domain. The adaptive scheme consists of a parallel combination of a linear component, represented by crossband filters between subbands, and a quadratic component, which is modeled by multiplicative cross-terms. We adaptively update the model parameters using the least-mean-square (LMS) algorithm, and derive explicit expressions for the transient and steady-state mean-square error (MSE) in frequency bins for white Gaussian inputs. We show that estimation of the nonlinear component improves the MSE performance only when the power ratio of nonlinear to linear components is relatively high. Furthermore, as the number of crossband filters increases, a lower steady-state MSE may be obtained at the expense of slower convergence. Experimental results support the theoretical derivations.
MOTIVATION OF UNDERGRADUATE CIVIL ENGINEERING STUDENTS FOR HIGHER LEVELS OF ACADEMIC SUCCESS

It is surmised that more than half of the civil engineering students at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus, fail to complete their degree in the three years prescribed for the completion of the program, suggesting there is need for an intervention strategy. Motivation though often overlooked as a measure of influencing academic success, is being revisited as the strategy to enable success, as it is the thrust behind the desire which drives an individual to achieve a goal. Before the strategy is determined a distinction between the source of motivation and the degree of its contribution must be understood. Determining the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and how they are linked to the academic success of engineering students can provide the basis for the choice of an intervention strategy. Intrinsic motivation was determined as the most important motivational construct towards learning. Principal component analysis determined that the main motivational factors, towards learning present in students currently pursuing an engineering undergraduate degree for all years of study were Personal, Perfectionist, Parental/Family, Job/Career and Social Acceptance. Determining what drives students to their peak performance would assist with the facilitation and design of teaching methods to capture students’ interests, promoting learning and understanding as best as possible and consequently, optimizing academic performance.
The Comparative Method in Anthropology [and Comments and Reply]

Cross-cultural comparison is a common method of testing hypotheses regarding the co-evolution of elements of cultures or of the adaptiveness of a cultural practice to some aspect of the environment. It has long been recognized, however, that cultures are not independent but rather may share many cultural elements by virtue of common ancestry and proximity. Attempts to address this issue, known as Galton's problem, range from statistically removing confounding variables to using a standard sample of "independent cultures. " We show here that when testing any hypothesis of co-evolution one should not attempt to identify independent cultures or to create them statistically. Rather, cross-cultural comparative studies must be based upon the identification of independent events of cultural change. Once this principle is applied, it becomes apparent that it is in fact groups of closely related cultures that are potentially the most informative for testing cross-cultural hypotheses. Constructing phylogenies of cultures and placing upon them independent instances of cultural elements' arising or changing is an essential part of this task.
Intuition and Strategic Decision Making – a study of health care sector in Uttarakhand, India

Purpose- Intuition is a way of knowing without conscious reasoning. Rational thinking allows the person to take decision on the basis of certain data and calculations. There are occasions where rational thinking does not suffice for decision making. Top level executives rely on their intuition to solve complex problems where rationality cannot help. Design/ Methodology/ Approach- This research paper employ ex post facto research design. Questionnaire has been used to collect data from the doctors. Findings- Results revealed that, there was a significant association between intuition and intuitive strategic decision making. Originality Value- Two traditional theories in decision making includes analytical and intuitive decision making. Though intuition is used in decision making and could be of importance for the whole decision making process, there is not much field research performed on this subject. This present paper strives to empirically test the impact of intuition in strategic decision making.
Human and Mouse Macrophages Collaborate with Neutrophils To Kill Larval Strongyloides stercoralis

ABSTRACT Macrophages are multifunctional cells that are active in TH1- and TH2-mediated responses. In this study, we demonstrate that human and mouse macrophages collaborate with neutrophils and complement to kill the parasite Strongyloides stercoralis in vitro. Infection of mice with worms resulted in the induction of alternatively activated macrophages (AAMϕ) within the peritoneal cavity. These cells killed the worms in vivo and collaborated with neutrophils and complement during the in vitro killing process. AAMϕ generated in vitro killed larvae more rapidly than naive macrophages, which killed larvae after a longer time period. In contrast, classically activated macrophages were unable to kill larvae either in vitro or in vivo. This study adds macrophages to the armamentarium of immune components that function in elimination of parasitic helminths and demonstrate a novel function by which AAMϕ control large extracellular parasites.
Hardness and Non-Approximability of Bregman Clustering Problems

We prove the computational hardness of three k-clustering problems using an (almost) arbitrary Bregman divergence as dissimilarity measure: (a) The Bregman k-center problem, where the objective is to find a set of centers that minimizes the maximum dissimilarity of any input point towards its closest center, and (b) the Bregman k-diameter problem, where the objective is to minimize the maximum dissimilarity between pairs of points from the same cluster, and (c) the Bregman k-median problem, where the objective is to find a set of centers that minimizes the average dissimilarity of any input point towards its closest center. We show that solving these problems is NP-hard, and that it is even NP-hard to approximate a solution of (a) and (b) within a factor of (a) 3.32 and (b) 3.87, respectively. To obtain our results, we give a gap-preserving reduction from the Euclidean k-center (k-diameter, kmeans) problem to the Bregman k-center (k-diameter, k-median) problem. This reduction combines the technique of Mahalanobis-similarity from Ackermann et al. (SODA ’08) with a reduction already used by Chaudhuri and McGregor (COLT ’08) to show the non-approximability of the Kullback-Leibler k-center problem, and a recent reduction given by Vattani to prove the NP-hardness of the Euclidean k-means problem.
Co-culture of primary CLL cells with bone marrow mesenchymal cells, CD40 ligand and CpG ODN promotes proliferation of chemoresistant CLL cells phenotypically comparable to those proliferating in vivo

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells residing in the bone marrow (BM) and in secondary lymphoid tissues receive survival and proliferative signals from the microenvironment, resulting in persistence of residual disease after treatment. In this study, we characterized primary CLL cells cultured with BM stromal cells, CD40 ligand and CpG ODN to partially mimic the microenvironment in the proliferative centers. This co-culture system induced proliferation and chemoresistance in primary CLL cells. Importantly, co-cultured primary CLL cells shared many phenotypical features with circulating proliferative CLL cells, such as upregulation of ZAP-70 and CD38 and higher CD49d and CD62L expression. This indicates aggressiveness and capability to interact with surrounding cells, respectively. In addition, levels of CXCR4 were decreased due to CXCR4 internalization after CXCL12 stimulation by BM stromal cells. We suggest that this co-culture system can be used to test drugs and their combinations that target the proliferative and drug resistant CLL cells.
Perineural Spread of Distant Squamous Cell Carcinoma to the Orbit: A Case Report and Review

An 80 year-old man presented subacutely with a well-circumscribed superior orbital mass and associated ipsilateral numbness in the frontal nerve distribution. Histopathology after open biopsy revealed well-differentiated invasive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Though no previous history of cancer was elicited from the patient, his dermatologist reported removing three squamous cell carcinomas from the right forehead in the past ten years. Herein, we report a case of perineural orbital spread of distant primary cutaneous SCC.
Beyond Politics: Opposition to Marriage Equality Predicts Negative Reactions Toward LGBT Individuals

Past research has examined various factors that predict heterosexual individuals’ attitudes toward marriage equality, including gender, age, religion/religiosity, political ideology, and sexual prejudice (Herek, 2011). To our knowledge, no studies have examined the possibility that such attitudes predict consequential behaviors directed at LGBT individuals. Thus, the current work examined the role of opposition to marriage equality in predicting negative behavioral intentions and reactions to antigay hate crimes. Given the importance of gender in sexual prejudice and opposition to marriage equality (Herek, 2000a), these relationships were examined after including gender in the model. Fifty-nine heterosexual students participated in this study. Separate hierarchical regressions revealed that opposition to marriage equality significantly predicted greater negative behavioral intentions (β = .46, p < .001), reduced recognition of a hate crime (β = -.30, p < .05), and marginally increased perpetrator justification (β = -.23, p = .09) above and beyond the influence of gender. Moreover, a two-way interaction indicated that opposition to marriage equality predicted negative behavioral intentions to a greater degree for men than women (β = -.55, p < .05). These results suggested that marriage equality attitudes are not merely political, but rather, predict influential behavioral intentions and reactions toward LGBT individuals.
Some Aspects of Professional Empowerment to Improve Job Satisfaction of Primary School Teachers

Teachers’ job satisfaction and their professional empowerment are two main factors which contribute to education improvement. Purpose of the present study is to investigate and record teachers’ perceptions of their professional empowerment and their beliefs about their job satisfaction. Also the impact of teachers’ demographic and professional characteristics on their perceptions of job satisfaction and the possible correlations between job satisfaction and professional empowerment are examined. The research method is the descriptive and correlative survey, with the use of a self-report questionnaire. Teachers’ perceptions of their professional empowerment are measured by the School Participant Empowerment Scale (SPES), while their job satisfaction by the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS). The results indicate that teachers who do not have a permanent position in a school and they are obliged to change school environment every year, or they have to work in more than one school each year, they feel less empowered and satisfied. Findings of this study also show that while there is no differentiation as far as it concerns the sex, the marital status, the age, the studies or the previous experience, there are differentiations according to labor relations and the number of schools a teacher works in a year. Regarding job satisfaction, the majority of respondents are of the view that there is an average overall job satisfaction. In addition the research shows that there is a positive correlation between job satisfaction and empowerment. This paper provides useful data about the issue of teachers’ job satisfaction as well as their empowerment and the factors that influence their feelings about their overall job satisfaction and empowerment. The improvement of labor relations and the decrease in the number of schools teachers work in a year, would essentially contribute to their job satisfaction and empowerment.
Monocyte Differentiation to Macrophage Requires Interferon Regulatory Factor 7*

Interferon regulatory factors are a growing family of transcription factor that have been implicated in cellular events such as cell-growth regulation, antiviral defense, and development of the immune system. Interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF-7) is expressed predominantly in lymphoid tissues and has been studied extensively in the context of viral infection and the induction of interferon and cytokine gene expression. In this paper, the involvement of IRF-7 in monocyte differentiation was examined in U937, HL60, and human primary macrophages. We report the induction of IRF-7 expression by 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate in U937 and HL60 cells and demonstrate that this induction is essential for the monocyte differentiation to macrophages. We show that the monocyte differentiation is inhibited in cells expressing a dominant negative IRF-7 mutant, as evidenced by decreased expression of two macrophage-differentiation markers, CD11b and CD11c, and impaired phagocytic activity. In addition, we demonstrate that overexpression of IRF-7 is sufficient to trigger monocyte differentiation and to induce cell cycle arrest. The identification of IRF-7 as a key regulator in monocyte differentiation suggests a novel function of IRF-7 in innate immunity.
Camelimonas lactis gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from the milk of camels.

Three strains of Gram-negative, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacteria (M 2040(T), M 1973 and M 1878-SK2), isolated from milk of camels at a camel-milk production farm in the United Arab Emirates, were investigated for their taxonomic allocation. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities, all three strains were shown to belong to the Alphaproteobacteria and were most closely related to Chelatococcus asaccharovorans and Chelatococcus daeguensis (95.1 and 95.2 % sequence similarity to the respective type strains). meso-Diaminopimelic acid was detected as the characteristic peptidoglycan diamino acid. The predominant compound in the polyamine pattern was spermidine, and sym-homospermidine was not detectable. The quinone system was ubiquinone Q-10. The polar lipid profile included the major compounds phosphatidylcholine and diphosphatidylglycerol and moderate amounts of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified glycolipid and two unidentified aminolipids. Minor lipids were also detected. The major fatty acid profile, consisting of C₁₉ :₀ cyclo ω8c and C₁₈:₁ ω7c, with C₁₈ :₀3-OH as the major hydroxylated fatty acid, was similar to those of the genus Chelatococcus. The results of DNA-DNA hybridization experiments and physiological and biochemical tests allowed both genotypic and phenotypic differentiation of the isolates from described Chelatococcus species. Isolates M 2040(T), M 1973 and M 1878-SK2 were closely related on the basis of DNA-DNA reassociation and therefore represent a single novel species. In summary, low 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 95 % with Chelatococcus asaccharovorans and marked differences in polar lipid profiles as well as in polyamine patterns support the description of a novel genus and species to accommodate these strains, for which the name Camelimonas lactis gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Camelimonas lactis is M 2040(T) (=CCUG 58638(T) =CCM 7696(T)).
Agreement About Violence in U.S. Couples

Numerous studies have demonstrated that cohabiting and married partners often do not agree about the occurrence of intimate partner violence. This study assessed agreement about intimate partner violence in a large, representative sample of U.S. couples. Using a multistage probability sampling design, separate face-to-face interviews were conducted with both members of 1,635 respondent couples in their homes in the 48 contiguous states. Using statistics appropriate for the evaluation of agreement, the results suggest that concordance about intimate partner violence in the U.S. general population is low. Classification of one partner's report as violent on the basis of the other partner's report of violence yielded unacceptably high misclassification errors. Use of the proxy method for investigations of intimate partner violence is not recommended
Effect of textual enhancement on idioms: An exploratory study with Spanish students

The present study aimed at investigating the impact of textual enhancement on the comprehension of transparent and opaque English idioms among Spanish lower-intermediate students studying English as a foreign language. Two short texts including visually enhanced idioms (i.e., they were underlined) were designed for the Experimental Group, and the Control Group received an unenhanced version of the texts. The results reveal that textual enhancement made transparent idioms salient enough for them to have an impact on comprehension; however, underlining had a poorer effect on comprehension as far as opaque idioms are concerned. In addition, we aimed at examining the effect of textual enhancement on the noticing of idioms. Findings show that it did not have a positive effect on recognition of idioms, since the Control Group outperformed the Experimental Group in the multiple-choice task.
Initial Combination Therapy Reduces the Risk of Cardiovascular Events in Hypertensive Patients: A Matched Cohort Study

This study evaluated the effects of initial versus delayed treatment with a drug combination on blood pressure (BP) control and the risk of cardiovascular (CV) events in hypertensive patients. Clinical trials suggest that the time to BP control is an important determinant of long-term outcomes, but real-world evidence is scarce. Using electronic medical charts (2005–2009), we retrospectively analyzed 1762 adult patients with BP elevation initiating combination therapy matched 1:1 with similar patients initiating monotherapy and later switched to combination therapy. Incidence rate ratios of CV events (myocardial infarction, stroke/transient ischemic attack, or hospitalization for heart failure) or all-cause death and Kaplan-Meier analyses of time to BP control were compared between cohorts. Hazard ratios indicating the effects of initial treatment on CV events and BP control were estimated using time-varying Cox proportional hazard models. Initial combination therapy was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of CV events or death (incidence rate ratio, 0.66 [95% confidence interval, 0.52–0.84]; P=0.0008). After 6 months of therapy, 40.3% and 32.6% of patients with initial versus delayed combination treatment reached BP control, respectively. Achieving target BP was associated with a statistically significant risk reduction of 23% for CV events or death (hazard ratio, 0.77 [95% confidence interval, 0.61–0.96]; P=0.0223); the residual effect of initial combination therapy did not reach statistical significance (hazard ratio, 0.84 [95% confidence interval, 0.68–1.03]; P=0.0935). Initial combination therapy was associated with a significant risk reduction of cardiovascular events. More rapid achievement of target BP was found to be the main contributor to the estimated risk reduction.
Masculine responsibility across generations: living arrangements in a Norwegian parish around 1900

This article researches living arrangements longitudinally on the basis of census materials and church records from around 1900 in a Norwegian parish. We are interested in patterns of obligations and expectations between generations, and to what extent these were related to rules of inheritance practices. We hypothesize that the parity of children co-residing with elderly fathers in the census reflects expectations and attitudes towards filial responsibility. Based on linking the census records of elderly fathers to their fertility history in the church records, the article indicates that traditions in the circumpolar north differed from the usual practice of primogeniture among countries in the Germanic cultural area, including most of Norway. Irrespective of the father’s marital status, the majority of children living with their elderly fathers were sons. One important reason for this is the masculine character of the fisheries, where the transfer of knowledge from father to son was crucial for successful economic results, thus promoting masculine obligations across generations, strong enough to have a significant effect upon living arrangements.
Spatial Processes for Recommender Systems

Spatial processes are typically used to analyse and predict geographic data. This paper adapts such models to predicting a user's interests (i. e., implicit item ratings) within a recommender system in the museum domain. We present the theoretical framework for a model based on Gaussian spatial processes, and discuss efficient algorithms for parameter estimation. Our model was evaluated with a real-world dataset collected by tracking visitors in a museum, attaining a higher predictive accuracy than state-of-the-art collaborative filters.