Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
¿La hora del populismo? Elementos para comprender el «éxito» electoral de Plataforma per Catalunya

Spain is one of the few European countries which, until now, have not experienced the emergence of a populist radical right party to the forefront of its political arena. That is, a party that basis its political discourse on the rejection of migrants and traditional political parties. However, in recent years there have been some signs that point to the possible end of this Spanish «exceptionality». Along with changes in the populations’ attitudes towards immigration and traditional political parties, there has been a political breakthrough at the local political arena by the Catalan party Platform for Catalonia (PxC). Based on the achievement of social and electoral strongholds in certain municipalities, this party is trying to make a leap to the front line of the political system that could have profound political implications for both Spain and Catalonia. This article examines the development of Platform for Catalonia and presents an explanation of the successes it has achieved so far.
A Comparison of Instrumental Music Methods Course Content at NASM-Accredited InstitutionsA Comparison of Instrumental Music Methods Course Content at NASM-Accredited Institutions

This study examined the curricular content of undergraduate instrumental methods courses at institutions accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). The study sought to determine the priority given by instructors to the curricular components of instrumental music classes and whether differences exist among institutional and instructor factors on the priority given to instrumental methods class topics and the National Standards for Music Education. A questionnaire was distributed to instrumental music methods class instructors at NASMaccredited schools that offer an instrumental methods class as part of the undergraduate music education curriculum (N=521). Completed, usable responses were received from 282 (54.12%) of participants who taught at least one instrumental methods class during the 2011-2012 school year. Results are reported concerning the textbooks most commonly used in classes, class assignments, and the priority given to 33 topics and the National Standards for Music Education in instrumental methods courses. The results suggest that the content of instrumental methods classes appears to focus on those topics most directly related to the process of teaching including curriculum and lesson planning, assessment, classroom management, and teaching fundamentals. Additionally, the content area of an instructor's highest degree may impact the priority given to the topics discussed in class as well as to the national standards. There appears to be little change from findings of earlier studies of instrumental music methods classes, with the exception that more field experience is currently required.
Spectrum efficient cooperative relaying based on outage-multiplexing tradeoff analysis

Spectrum efficient multiple relay selection strategy for two-hop cooperative decode-and-forward relay networks is proposed for the case when the sum power among all relay nodes is limited. Based on the outage-multiplexing tradeoff (OMT), the number of active relay nodes is maximized so that the resulting sum-relay capacity is maximized while each relay outage capacity remains greater than or equal to a certain target level. Using asymptotic analysis, it is shown that for the proposed OMT relaying strategy the associated multiplexing and cooperative system diversity gains improve proportionally with the number of active relay nodes. It is also shown analytically that the proposed OMT relaying outperforms the conventional opportunistic single relaying in terms of the sum-relay capacity.
Revisiting the Cost Escalation Curse of Nuclear Power: New Lessons from the French Experience

Since the first wave of nuclear reactors in 1970 to the construction of Generation III+ reactors in Finland and France in 2005 and 2007 respectively, nuclear power seems to be doomed to a cost escalation curse. In this paper we reexamine this issue for the French nuclear power fleet. Using the construction costs from the Cour des Comptes report, that was publicly available in 2012, we found that previous studies overestimated the cost escalation. Although, it is undeniable that the scale-up ended up in more costly reactors, we found evidence of a learning curve within the same size and type of reactors. This result confirms that standardization is a good direction to look, in order to overcome the cost escalation curse.
Ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy for assessment of magnetic anisotropy and magnetostatic interactions: A case study of mutant magnetotactic bacteria

Ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy (FMR) can be used to measure the effective magnetic field within a sample, including the contributions of both magnetic anisotropy and magnetostatic interactions. One particular use is in the detection of magnetite produced by magnetotactic bacteria. These bacteria produce single-domain particles with narrow size and shape distributions that are often elongated and generally arranged in chains. All of these features are detectable through FMR. Here, we examine their effects on the FMR spectra of magnetotactic bacteria strains MV-1 (which produces chains of elongate magnetite crystals), AMB-1 (which produces chains of nearly equidimensional magnetite crystals), and two novel mutants of AMB-1: mnm13 (which produces isolated, elongate crystals), and mnm18 (which produces nearly equidimensional crystals that are usually isolated). Comparison of their FMR spectra indicates that the positive magnetic anisotropy indicated by the spectra of almost all magnetotactic bacteria is a product of chain alignment and particle elongation. We also find correlations between FMR properties and magnetic measurements of coercivity and magnetostatic interactions. FMR thus provides a rapid method for assessing the magnetic properties of assemblages of particles, with applications including screening for samples likely to contain bacterial magnetofossils.
Metabolic syndrome in ischemic stroke: A case control study

Introduction: The metabolic syndrome has known as an independent risk factor of stroke. The occurrence of this syndrome is due to genetic factors and lifestyle. This study was performed on the frequency of metabolic syndrome prevalence in ischemic stroke patients compare to control. Materials and Methods: one hundred ischemic stroke patients and 100 controls (with the same age and sex) were evaluated for this study. Result: 62% of patient and 34% of controls had metabolic syndrome criteria according to National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) {OR: 3.2; 95% CI (1.9–9.7), P=0.001} Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in women was more than men (52% vs. 44%) {OR: 0.72; 95% CI (0.4, 1.3)}. Beside of metabolic syndrome, prevalence of metabolic syndrome components was significantly higher in stroke patients compare to controls. Conclusion: metabolic syndrome prevalence are more common in stroke patients compare to controls, but it should be noticed that the controls are in a risk of future stroke so they need special treatment to prevent it.
Clinical and Radiographic Success of Pulpotomy with MTA in Primary Molars: 30 Months Follow up

INTRODUCTION Pulpotomy of carious primary teeth with an exposed pulp is a common treatment option. Pulpotomy has been conducted with various medicaments over the years. The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical and radiographic success of primary vital pulpotomy with ProRoot and Root MTA. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this randomized clinical trial, children aged between 3-7 years who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled. A total of 70 teeth were deemed suitable under the inclusion criteria and teeth were randomly divided into the 2 groups; ProRoot and Root MTA. Pulpotomy was performed and immediately followed by coronal amalgam restoration. The clinical and radiographic follow ups were conducted 6, 12, 18, 30 months post-operatively. The data were analyzed using Exact Fisher test. RESULTS At the final follow up, 28 teeth in ProRoot MTA and 26 teeth in Root MTA were evaluated. In the Root MTA group, 1 tooth had exfoliated and one had an abscess and furcal radiolucency radiographically. In ProRoot MTA group, external resorption was observed in 1 tooth. Statistical analysis did not show significant difference in success rate between 2 groups after 30 months. CONCLUSION The success rates of Root and ProRoot MTA are similar, indicating that pulpotomy can be carried out successfully in both primary molars.
3‐Nitropropionic Acid Toxicity in the Striatum

Abstract: We examined the effects of chronic systemic administration of the mitochondrial toxin 3‐nitropropionic acid (3‐NP) in doses ranging from 12 to 16 mg/kg/day for 30 days on striatal cytoarchitecture in rats. Administration of 3‐NP at a dose of 16 mg/kg/day resulted in large lesions with a central necrotic core that was depleted of both neurons and glia. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) gene expression was decreased in the lesion core, whereas the tissue surrounding this area showed a massive increase in signal intensity. Enkephalin and substance P mRNA expression in the striatum showed dose‐dependent decreases following administration of 3‐NP. A substantial decrease occurred even in animals treated with 3‐NP at a dose of 12 mg/kg/day, in which there was little discernible neuronal loss and no increase in GFAP gene expression. In contrast to the decrease in enkephalin and substance P mRNA expression, somatostatin mRNA‐expressing neurons were largely preserved. There was no preferential loss of [3H]naloxone patches in the rat striatum following chronic administration of 3‐NP. In animals treated with 12–15 mg/kg/day neither the area nor binding density of the patches was changed. To study the effect of 3‐NP on N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA)‐gated Ca2+ channels we used in vivo administration of [3H]MK‐801. Three hours after a single injection of 3‐NP at a dose of 30 mg/kg there was a three‐ to fivefold increase in [3H]MK‐801 binding in cortex and striatum as compared with saline‐treated animals, consistent with an activation of NMDA receptors.
Numerical Investigation to Predict the Performance of A GM Pulse Tube Refrigerator using of Pressure Wave Profile

The development of GM pulse tube over Inertance pulse tube is to come across the requirement of high heat capacity. The performance of the GM pulse tube refrigerator was greatly improved by introducing different types of pressure wave profiles. Here, 3D model of DIPTR is created using ANSYS Design Modeler and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solution approach is chosen for numerical simulation purpose. The detailed study on cool down behavior at CHX of DIPTR, pressure variation at inlet and also heat transfer has been performed using CFD package Fluent®17 software. Four numbers of cases have been chosen in which the pressure User Defined Functions (UDFs) are different and all other parameters remain unchanged. Pressure UDFs are applied at inlet as a boundary condition to define the oscillating motion of piston inside the piston-cylinder arrangement. The four pressure UDFs are of different wave forms such as Sinusoidal, Rectangular and Trapezoidal. The operating frequency for all cases is 2 Hz. After simulation using four pressure UDFs, it has been found that pressure UDF generating trapezoidal pressure wave is more efficient than other pressure UDFs and a temperature of 110 K is obtained using Trapezoidal pressure wave profile. Keywords— Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); Cryogenic Temperature; Double Inlet Pulse Tube Refrigerator (DIPTR); Pressure wave profile; Numerical simulation.
Seasonal variability of middle‐latitude ozone in the lowermost stratosphere derived from probability distribution functions

We present a study of the distribution of ozone in the lowermost stratosphere with the goal of characterizing the observed variability. The air in the lowermost stratosphere is divided into two population groups based on Ertel's potential vorticity at 300 hPa. High (low) potential vorticity at 300 hPa indicates that the tropopause is low (high), and the identification of these two groups is made to account for the dynamic variability. Conditional probability distribution functions are used to define the statistics of the ozone distribution from both observations and a three-dimensional model simulation using winds from the Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System for transport. Ozone data sets include ozonesonde observations from northern midlatitude stations (1991-1996) and midlatitude observations made by the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) (1994-1998). The conditional probability distribution functions are calculated at a series of potential temperature surfaces spanning the domain from the midlatitude tropopause to surfaces higher than the mean tropical tropopause (-380 K). The probability distribution functions are similar for the two data sources, despite differences in horizontal and vertical resolution and spatial and temporal sampling. Comparisons with the model demonstrate that the model maintains a mix of air in the lowermost stratosphere similar to the observations. The model also simulates a realistic annual cycle. Results show that during summer, much of the observed variability is explained by the height of the tropopause. During the winter and spring, when the tropopause fluctuations are larger, less of the variability is explained by tropopause height. This suggests that more mixing occurs during these seasons. During all seasons, there is a transition zone near the tropopause that contains air characteristic of both the troposphere and the stratosphere. The relevance of the results to the assessment of the environmental impact of aircraft effluence is also discussed. The focus of this study is to better characterize the distribu- tion of ozone in the lowermost stratosphere of northern middle latitudes. This layer is the transition region between the strato- sphere and troposphere, and conceptual models of transport in either regime break down. The motivation to better under- stand tracer distributions in the neighborhood of the tropo- pause is provided by the potential importance of changes in trace composition to issues of both atmospheric chemistry and climate. In particular, since airplanes emit their effluents in the upper troposphere and the lowermost stratosphere, confidence in our ability to assess current or future impact of air traffic on the environment depends on how well we can characterize this region.
Comparison of Long-Term Fertility and Bleeding Outcomes after Robotic-Assisted, Laparoscopic, and Abdominal Myomectomy

Background/Aims. To compare long-term fertility and bleeding outcomes of women who underwent robotic-assisted, laparoscopic, and abdominal myomectomy at our institution over a 15-year period. Methods. This was a retrospective cohort study of myomectomy patients 18–39 years old that had surgery between January 1995 and December 2009 at our institution. Long-term follow-up on fertility and bleeding outcomes was collected from the patient directly. The uterine fibroid symptom and quality of life survey was also administered to assess current bleeding patterns. Baseline characteristics were compared across groups. Univariable comparisons of fertility and bleeding outcomes based on surgical approach were made using analysis of variance, Kruskal-Wallis analysis of ranks, and Chi-square tests as appropriate. Results. 134/374 (36%) subjects agreed to participate in the study. 81 subjects underwent an open procedure versus 28 and 25 subjects in the laparoscopic and robotic groups, respectively. Median follow-up after surgery was 8 years. 50% of patients desired pregnancy following surgery and, of those, 60% achieved spontaneous pregnancy; the spontaneous pregnancy rate did not differ between groups. Additionally, UFS-QOL scores and/or subscores did not differ between groups. Conclusion. There is no significant difference in long-term bleeding or fertility outcomes in robotic-assisted, laparoscopic, or abdominal myomectomy.
Immune Responses in Healthy and Allergic Individuals Are Characterized by a Fine Balance between Allergen-specific T Regulatory 1 and T Helper 2 Cells

The mechanisms by which immune responses to nonpathogenic environmental antigens lead to either allergy or nonharmful immunity are unknown. Single allergen-specific T cells constitute a very small fraction of the whole CD4+ T cell repertoire and can be isolated from the peripheral blood of humans according to their cytokine profile. Freshly purified interferon-γ–, interleukin (IL)-4–, and IL-10–producing allergen-specific CD4+ T cells display characteristics of T helper cell (Th)1-, Th2-, and T regulatory (Tr)1–like cells, respectively. Tr1 cells consistently represent the dominant subset specific for common environmental allergens in healthy individuals; in contrast, there is a high frequency of allergen-specific IL-4–secreting T cells in allergic individuals. Tr1 cells use multiple suppressive mechanisms, IL-10 and TGF-β as secreted cytokines, and cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4 and programmed death 1 as surface molecules. Healthy and allergic individuals exhibit all three allergen-specific subsets in different proportions, indicating that a change in the dominant subset may lead to allergy development or recovery. Accordingly, blocking the suppressor activity of Tr1 cells or increasing Th2 cell frequency enhances allergen-specific Th2 cell activation ex vivo. These results indicate that the balance between allergen-specific Tr1 cells and Th2 cells may be decisive in the development of allergy.
Surgical outcomes of trigeminal neuralgia in patients with multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is relatively frequent in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and can be extremely disabling. Surgical interventions are less effective for the treatment of MS-related TN compared with classic TN, and higher recurrence rates are observed. OBJECTIVE To evaluate initial pain-free response (IPFR), duration of pain-free intervals (PFIs), and factors predictive of outcome in different surgical modalities used to treat MS-related TN. METHODS A total of 96 MS patients underwent 277 procedures (range, 1-11 procedures per patient) to treat TN at our institution from 1995 to 2011. Of these, 89 percutaneous retrogasserian glycerol rhizotomies, 82 balloon compressions, 52 stereotactic radiosurgeries, 28 peripheral neurectomies, 15 percutaneous radiofrequency rhizotomies, and 10 microvascular decompressions were performed as upfront or repeat treatments. RESULTS Bilateral pain was observed in 10% of patients during the course of disease. During the follow-up period (median, 5.7 years), recurrence of symptoms was seen in 66% of patients, and 181 procedures were performed for symptom recurrence. As an initial procedure, balloon compression had the highest IPFR (95%; P = .006) and median PFI (28 months; P = .05), followed by percutaneous retrogasserian glycerol rhizotomy (IPFR, 74%, P = .04; median PFI, 9 months; P = .05). In general, repeat procedures had lower effectiveness compared with initial procedures, with no statistically significant difference seen across the various treatment modalities. CONCLUSION Treatment failure occurs in most of the MS-related TN patients independently of the type of treatment. However, balloon compression had the highest rate of IPFR and PFI compared with other modalities in the initial treatment of MS-related TN.
Efficient query integrity for outsourced dynamic databases

As databases are increasingly outsourced to the cloud, data owners require various security assurances. This paper investigates one particular assurance, query integrity, by which a database querier (either the data owner or a third party) can verify that its queries were faithfully executed by the cloud server with respect to the outsourced database. Query integrity is investigated in the setting of dynamic databases, where the outsourced databases can be updated by the data owners as needed. We present a formal security definition of query integrity and a provably-secure efficient construction. Our solution improves upon the state-of-the-art solutions by additionally allowing aggregate queries and more flexible join queries. In addition, we provide better performance by eliminating a linear factor in the extra storage complexity for security purpose. Our solution also achieves a trade-off between computational and communication complexities.
A differential diagnostic model of diabetic nephropathy and non-diabetic renal diseases.

BACKGROUND Renal diseases in diabetes include diabetic nephropathies (DN) and non-diabetic renal diseases (NDRD). The clinical differentiation between these two categories is usually not so clear and effective. This study aims to develop a quantified differential diagnostic model. METHODS We consecutively screened the diabetic patients with overt proteinuria but no severe renal failure for kidney biopsy from 1993 to 2003. The finally enrolled 110 patients were divided into two groups according to pathological features (60 in DN group and 50 in NDRD group). Clinical and laboratory data were compared between two groups. Then a diagnostic model was developed based on the logistic regression analysis. RESULTS Forty-six percent of patients were NDRD including a variety of pathological types. Many differences between DN and NDRD were found by comparison of the clinical indices. In the final logistic regression analysis, only diabetes duration (Dm), systolic blood pressure (Bp), HbA1c (Gh), haematuria (Hu) and diabetic retinopathy (Dr) showed statistical significance. Based on the logistic regression model: pi = e(z)/(1 + e(z)), a diagnostic model was constructed as follows: P(DN) = exp(-13.5922 + 0.0371Dm + 0.0395Bp + 0.3224Gh - 4.4552Hu + 2.9613Dr)/ [1 + exp(-13.5922 + 0.0371Dm + 0.0395Bp + 0.3224Gh - 4.4552Hu + 2.9613Dr)]. P(DN) was the probability of DN diagnosis (P(DN) >or= 0.5 as DN, P(DN) < 0.5 as NDRD). Validation tests showed that this model had good sensitivity (90%) and specificity (92%). CONCLUSIONS This diagnostic model may be helpful to clinical differentiation of DN and NDRD in type 2 diabetic patients with overt proteinuria.
DR-BW: Identifying Bandwidth Contention in NUMA Architectures with Supervised Learning

Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architectures are widely used in mainstream multi-socket computer systems to scale memory bandwidth. Without a NUMA-aware design, programs can suffer from significant performance degradation due to inter-socket bandwidth contention. However, identifying bandwidth contention is challenging. Existing methods measure bandwidth consumption. However, consumption alone is insufficient to quantify bandwidth contention. Furthermore, existing methods diagnose bandwidth for the entire program execution, but lack the ability to associate bandwidth performance to the source code and data structures involved. To address these challenges, we propose DR-BW, a new tool based on machine learning to identify bandwidth contention in NUMA architectures and provide optimization guidance. DR-BW first trains a set of micro benchmarks and extracts useful features to identify bandwidth contention via a supervised machine learning model. Our experiments show that DR-BW achieves more than 96% accuracy. Second, DR-BW associates memory accesses that incur bandwidth contention with data objects, which provides intuitive guidance for optimization. Third, we apply DR-BW to a number of real benchmarks. Our optimization based on the insights obtained from DR-BW yields up to a 6.5× speedup in modern NUMA architectures.