Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
American Muslim Women and Domestic Violence Service Seeking

This article reports findings from a literature review of facilitators and barriers to domestic violence service seeking among American Muslim women. Racial, cultural, and ethnic differences were also examined. Facilitators and barriers to domestic violence service seeking were (1) cultural perceptions of abuse; (2) religious perceptions of abuse; (3) children; (4) feelings of embarrassment, fear, and shame; (5) immigration status and language barriers; (6) education level; (7) knowledge and perception of services; and (8) informal supports and support systems. However, the extant literature does not fully capture the diversity of American Muslims. Implications for future research are discussed.
A Powerful Feature Selection approach based on Mutual Information

Summary Feature selection aims to reduce the dimensionality of patterns for classificatory analysis by selecting the most informative instead of irrelevant and/or redundant features. In this paper we propose a novel feature selection measure based on mutual information and takes into consideration the interaction between features. The proposed measure is used to determine relevant features from the original feature set for a pattern recognition problem. We use a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier to compare the performance of our measure with recently proposed information theoretic criteria. Very good performances are obtained when applying this method on handwritten digital recognition data.
Neural sirtuin 6 (Sirt6) ablation attenuates somatic growth and causes obesity

In yeast, Sir2 family proteins (sirtuins) regulate gene silencing, recombination, DNA repair, and aging via histone deacetylation. Most of the seven mammalian sirtuins (Sirt1–Sirt7) have been implicated as NAD+-dependent protein deacetylases with targets ranging from transcriptional regulators to metabolic enzymes. We report that neural-specific deletion of sirtuin 6 (Sirt6) in mice leads to postnatal growth retardation due to somatotropic attenuation through low growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) levels. However, unlike Sirt6 null mice, neural Sirt6-deleted mice do not die from hypoglycemia. Instead, over time, neural Sirt6-deleted mice reach normal size and ultimately become obese. Molecularly, Sirt6 deletion results in striking hyperacetylation of histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9) and lysine 56 (H3K56), two chromatin marks implicated in the regulation of gene activity and chromatin structure, in various brain regions including those involved in neuroendocrine regulation. On the basis of these findings, we propose that Sirt6 functions as a central regulator of somatic growth and plays an important role in preventing obesity by modulating neural chromatin structure and gene activity.
MARKETING STRATEGY AND COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT AS DETERMINANTS OF BUSINESS PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURERS

This study tests the impact of five marketing strategy variables and two environmental variables on profitability. Hypotheses specify positive relationships between these variables and profitability. A LISREL framework tests the hypothesized relationships with data from large American manufacturing companies. Competitive position, defensiveness, and market attractiveness are found to have the greatest positive impact on profitability.
PMSC for Performance Evaluation

Traditionally in the early phases of a system design only fun ctio al aspects are specified and refined stepwisely. Very often performance issues, although crucial for the end system, do not influence the design process since performanc e measures are not available. The key to these performance measures is the development of p erf rmance models. To derive performance models from a functional specification t hat is very early created in the design process we have proposed Performance Message Sequen c Chart (PMSC). In this paper we give a detailed semantical meaning of PMSC on an intu itive level and we achieve some simplifications and unifications on concepts. Scenario s re specified in usual Message Sequence Chart (MSC). They are enriched by resources, l ike processors and channels, and resource usage operations. Moreover the frequency of th e execution of a MSC can be configured. To allow time durations that are derived from the performance model to be automatically checked, time constraints on the execution c an be formulated.
Neural dynamics of reward probability coding: a Magnetoencephalographic study in humans

Prediction of future rewards and discrepancy between actual and expected outcomes (prediction error) are crucial signals for adaptive behavior. In humans, a number of fMRI studies demonstrated that reward probability modulates these two signals in a large brain network. Yet, the spatio-temporal dynamics underlying the neural coding of reward probability remains unknown. Here, using magnetoencephalography, we investigated the neural dynamics of prediction and reward prediction error computations while subjects learned to associate cues of slot machines with monetary rewards with different probabilities. We showed that event-related magnetic fields (ERFs) arising from the visual cortex coded the expected reward value 155 ms after the cue, demonstrating that reward value signals emerge early in the visual stream. Moreover, a prediction error was reflected in ERF peaking 300 ms after the rewarded outcome and showing decreasing amplitude with higher reward probability. This prediction error signal was generated in a network including the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex. These findings pinpoint the spatio-temporal characteristics underlying reward probability coding. Together, our results provide insights into the neural dynamics underlying the ability to learn probabilistic stimuli-reward contingencies.
Hyperbolic Equations in the Twentieth Century

The subject began with Huygens’s theory of wave fronts as envelopes of smoother waves, and subsequent work by Euler, d’Alembert and Riemann.Singularities at the wave fronts were not understood before Hadamard’s theory of “partie finie” at the beginning of this century.Contributions by Herglotz and Petrovsky and the theory of distributions created in the forties by Laurent Schwartz greatly illuminated the study of singularities of solutions of hyperbolic PDE’s.Solutions of Cauchy’s problem given by Hadamard, Schauder, Petrovsky, and the author are discussed.More recently, microlocal analysis, initiated by M.Sato
A Novel PCR-Based Approach to Discover miRNA Target Genes

MiRNAs are potent regulators of gene expression, and most miRNAs have from several to several thousands of gene targets. Validating the numerous gene targets of a given miRNA remains challenging despite the existence of various tools and databases that predict candidate gene-miRNA pairs. In the present study, we present a high-throughput but flexible method that applies a PCR-based application to simulate the binding of miRNAs to their gene targets. Using hsa-miR-377 as an illustrative example, our method was able to identify 13 potential targets of hsa-miR-377. Moreover, our results include 2 genes (SOD2 and PPM1A) that have already been verified as targets of hsa-miR-377. Our method may provide an alternative way of identifying the gene targets of miRNAs for future research.
Offline and online evaluation of news recommender systems at swissinfo.ch

We report on the live evaluation of various news recommender systems conducted on the website swissinfo.ch. We demonstrate that there is a major difference between offline and online accuracy evaluations. In an offline setting, recommending most popular stories is the best strategy, while in a live environment this strategy is the poorest. For online setting, context-tree recommender systems which profile the users in real-time improve the click-through rate by up to 35%. The visit length also increases by a factor of 2.5. Our experience holds important lessons for the evaluation of recommender systems with offline data as well as for the use of the click-through rate as a performance indicator.
Comparison of pathological characteristics between self-detected and screen-detected invasive breast cancers in Chinese women: a retrospective study

Background In China, there is insufficient evidence to support that screening programs can detect breast cancer earlier and improve outcomes compared with patient self-reporting. Therefore, we compared the pathological characteristics at diagnosis between self-detected and screen-detected cases of invasive breast cancer at our institution and determined whether these characteristics were different after the program’s introduction (vs. prior to). Methods Three databases were selected (breast cancer diagnosed in 1995–2000, 2010, and 2015), which provided a total of 3,014 female patients with invasive breast cancer. The cases were divided into self-detected and screen-detected groups. The pathological characteristics were compared between the two groups and multiple imputation and complete randomized imputation were used to deal with missing data. Results Compared with patient self-reporting, screening was associated with the following factors: a higher percentage of stage T1 tumors (75.0% vs 17.1%, P = 0.109 in 1995–2000; 66.7% vs 40.4%, P < 0.001 in 2010; 67.8% vs 35.7%, P < 0.001 in 2015); a higher percentage of tumors with stage N0 lymph node status (67.3% vs. 48.4%, P = 0.007 in 2010); and a higher percentage of histologic grade I tumors (22.9% vs 13.9%, P = 0.017 in 2010). Conclusion Screen-detected breast cancer was associated with a greater number of favorable pathological characteristics. However, although screening had a beneficial role in early detection in China, we found fewer patients were detected by screening in this study compared with those in Western and Asian developed countries.
Synthesis of Collagen Is Dysregulated in Cultured Fibroblasts Derived From Skin of Subjects With Varicose Veins as It Is in Venous Smooth Muscle Cells

Background—The dilatation and tortuosity observed in varicose veins provide evidence for progressive venous wall remodeling associated with abnormalities of smooth muscle cells and extracellular matrix. The present study was designed to examine if the phenotypic modulations observed in the venous smooth muscle cells of patients with varicose veins were also present in their dermal fibroblasts. Methods and Results—Collagen type I (collagen I), type III (collagen III), and type V (collagen V) were compared in dermal fibroblasts derived from the skin of control subjects and patients with varicose veins. The synthesis of collagen I, the release of its metabolites, and the expression of its mRNA were increased in fibroblasts from patients with varicose veins, whereas the synthesis of collagen III was decreased but not correlated with a decrease in mRNA expression and in metabolite release. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP1, 2, 7, 8, 9, and 13) and their inhibitors (TIMP1 and 2) were quantified in both cell types; only the production of proMMP2 was increased in cells derived from patients with varicose veins. Conclusions—These findings suggest that the synthesis of collagen I and III is dysregulated in dermal fibroblasts derived from patients with varicose veins. These results are comparable with those observed in smooth muscle cells derived from varicose veins, thus suggesting a systemic alteration of tissue remodeling in subjects with varicose veins.
Mobile health messaging service and helpdesk for South African mothers (MomConnect): history, successes and challenges

MomConnect is a flagship programme of the South African National Department of Health that has reached over 1.5 million pregnant women. Using mobile technology, MomConnect provides pregnant and postpartum women with twice-weekly health information text messages as well as access to a helpdesk for patient queries and feedback. In just 3 years, MomConnect has been taken to scale to reach over 95% of public health facilities and has reached 63% of all pregnant women attending their first antenatal appointment. The helpdesk has received over 300 000 queries at an average of 250 per day from 6% of MomConnect users. The service is entirely free to its users. The rapid deployment of MomConnect has been facilitated by strong government leadership, and an ecosystem of mobile health implementers who had experience of much of the content and technology required. An early decision to design MomConnect for universal coverage has required the use of text-based technologies (short messaging service and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) that are accessible via even the most basic mobile phones, but cumbersome to use and costly at scale. Unlike previous mobile messaging services in South Africa, MomConnect collects the user’s identification number and facility code during registration, enabling future linkages with other health and population databases and geolocated feedback. MomConnect has catalysed additional efforts to strengthen South Africa’s digital health architecture. The rapid growth in smartphone penetration presents new opportunities to reduce costs, increase real-time data collection and expand the reach and scope of MomConnect to serve health workers and other patient groups.
Collective Named Entity Disambiguation using Graph Ranking and Clique Partitioning Approaches

Disambiguating named entities (NE) in running text to their correct interpretations in a specific knowledge base (KB) is an important problem in NLP. This paper presents two collective disambiguation approaches using a graph representation where possible KB candidates for NE textual mentions are represented as nodes and the coherence relations between different NE candidates are represented by edges. Each node has a local confidence score and each edge has a weight. The first approach uses Page-Rank (PR) to rank all nodes and selects a candidate based on PR score combined with local confidence score. The second approach uses an adapted Clique Partitioning technique to find the most weighted clique and expands this clique until all NE textual mentions are disambiguated. Experiments on 27,819 NE textual mentions show the effectiveness of both approaches, outperforming both baseline and state-of-the-art approaches.
QTL analysis on rice grain appearance quality, as exemplifying the typical events of transgenic or backcrossing breeding

Rice grain shape and yield are usually controlled by multiple quantitative trait loci (QTL). This study used a set of F9–10 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross of Huahui 3 (Bt/Xa21) and Zhongguoxiangdao, and detected 27 QTLs on ten rice chromosomes. Among them, twelve QTLs responsive for grain shape/ or yield were mostly reproducibly detected and had not yet been reported before. Interestingly, the two known genes involved in the materials, with one insect-resistant Bt gene, and the other disease-resistant Xa21 gene, were found to closely link the QTLs responsive for grain shape and weight. The Bt fragment insertion was firstly mapped on the chromosome 10 in Huahui 3 and may disrupt grain-related QTLs resulting in weaker yield performance in transgenic plants. The introgression of Xa21 gene by backcrossing from donor material into receptor Minghui 63 may also contain a donor linkage drag which included minor-effect QTL alleles positively affecting grain shape and yield. The QTL analysis on rice grain appearance quality exemplified the typical events of transgenic or backcrossing breeding. The QTL findings in this study will in the future facilitate the gene isolation and breeding application for improvement of rice grain shape and yield.
Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices in Technology-based Classrooms

Abstract This paper reports on an exploratory, longitudinal study that analyzes and interprets the evolution of teachers’ beliefs regarding learning teaching and technology, and their instructional practices, in the context of integrating technology-based information-rich tasks in six 4th-6th grade classrooms. The study used multiple research tools, interviews, questionnaires and observations, focusing on both teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. The findings reveal that following multi-year experiences in technology-based classrooms, teachers’ educational beliefs had changed quite substantively, demonstrating multiple views rather than pure beliefs. The study argues that teachers’ beliefs form a mosaic of complementary visions, even conflicting ones. It also shows that it is easier to change classroom practices than educational beliefs.
Cardiac Arrhythmias and Stroke: Increased Risk in Men With High Frequency of Atrial Ectopic Beats

Background and Purpose With the exception of atrial fibrillation (AF), little scientific attention has been given the associations between cardiac arrhythmias and incidence of stroke. We sought to study whether atrial and ventricular arrhythmias assessed during a 24-hour ambulatory ECG registration are associated with incidence of stroke. Methods The population-based cohort “Men Born in 1914” was examined with 24-hour ambulatory ECG registrations at 68 years of age. Four hundred two men without previous myocardial infarction or stroke were included, and 236 of them had hypertension (≥160/95 mm Hg or treatment). Fourteen-year rates of stroke (fatal and nonfatal) and all-cause mortality were updated from national and regional registers. Frequent or complex ventricular arrhythmias was defined as Lown class 2 to 5. A high frequency of atrial ectopic beats (AEB) was defined as the fifth quintile (ie, ≥218 AEB per 24 hours). Results Fifty-eight men suffered a first stroke during the follow-up. Stroke rates (per 1000 person-years) among men with AF (n=14), with frequent AEB (n=77), and without AF or frequent AEB (n=311) were 34.5, 19.5, and 11.6, respectively. The corresponding values among men with hypertension were 40.7, 32.3, and 14.7, respectively. Frequent AEB (compared with absence of AF and frequent AEB) was significantly associated with stroke among all men (relative risk=1.9; 95% CI, 1.02 to 3.4; P=0.04) and among hypertensive men (relative risk=2.5; 95% CI, 1.3 to 4.8; P=0.009) after adjustments for potential confounders. The increased stroke rates among men with Lown class 2 to 5 did not reach statistical significance. Conclusions A high frequency of AEB is associated with an increased incidence of stroke.
Assessing Use Acceptance and Satisfaction Toward Online Travel Agencies

This article first considers what factors affect ease of use and usefulness and then how ease of use and usefulness affect attitudes toward online travel agencies and customer satisfaction. This study applied classification of different user groups based on their degree of involvement to measure different levels of perceived ease of use and usefulness. The results of this study found that customers’ attitudes towards online travel agencies significantly impact the level of e-satisfaction. The findings of the study contribute to the development of the uses and gratification theory by applying it to users’ attitudes toward online travel agencies. Further, this study provides implications and offers suggestions to e-businesses dealing with travel agencies.
Mise à l’épreuve de deux dispositifs pour développer l’écriture en milieu scolaire : chantier vs atelier

Comment faire acquerir aux eleves la capacite de rediger des textes ? Comment leur permettre de developper des habiletes scripturales ? Il s’agit d’un objectif majeur de l’enseignement de la langue, qui « devrait etre l’affaire de tous les enseignants dans une ecole etant donne le role crucial [que la competence scripturale] joue pour l’apprentissage et pour s’epanouir socialement » (Lord, 2009, p. 3). Notre article a l’ambition de montrer l’effet de deux dispositifs qui visent l’acquisition de la competence scripturale chez des eleves frequentant le troisieme cycle de l’ecole primaire (10-12 ans): le chantier d’ecriture (Jolibert, 1988) et l’atelier d’ecriture (Bing, 1983; Boniface, 1992; Lafont-Terranova, 2009; Niwese, 2010). Pour ce faire, nous developpons dans un premier temps ce que nous entendons par competence scripturale a l’interieur du processus de production de textes a l’ecole fondamentale. Dans un second temps, nous delimitons les deux dispositifs de maniere isolee, puis nous les mettons en lien autour de leurs ressemblances et differences. Dans un troisieme temps, nous definissons nos questions et hypotheses de recherche, les aspects methodologiques et presentons les outils de recueils de donnees pour, dans un quatrieme temps, effectuer l’analyse des resultats visant a mettre en avant lignes de forces et faiblesses des deux dispositifs. Enfin, en guise de conclusion, nous reprenons nos hypotheses de recherche et exprimons comment nous y avons repondu pour ouvrir sur d’autres questions.
Homeotic functions of the Teashirt transcription factor during adult Drosophila development

Summary During Drosophila development region-specific regulation of target genes by Hox proteins is modulated by genetic interactions with various cofactors and genetic collaborators. During embryogenesis one such modulator of Hox target specificity is the zinc-finger transcription factor Teashirt (Tsh) that is expressed in the developing trunk and cooperatively functions with trunk-specific Hox proteins to promote appropriate segment fate. This embryonic function of Tsh is characterized as homeotic since loss of embryonic Tsh activity leads to transformation of trunk segments toward head identity. In addition to this embryonic homeotic role, Tsh also performs vital Hox-independent functions through patterning numerous embryonic, larval and adult structures. Here we address whether the homeotic function of Tsh is maintained throughout development by investigating its contribution to patterning the adult abdomen. We show that Tsh is expressed throughout the developing abdomen and that this expression is dependent on the three Bithorax Hox proteins Ultrabithorax, Abdominal-A and Abdominal-B. Conditional reduction of Tsh activity during pupation reveals broad homeotic roles for this transcription factor throughout the adult abdomen. Additionally we show that, as during embryogenesis, the tsh paralog tiptop (tio) plays a partially redundant role in this homeotic activity.
Dead or Alive: finding zombie features in the Linux kernel

Variability management in operating systems is an error-prone and tedious task. This is especially true for the Linux operating system, which provides a specialized tool called Kconfig for users to customize kernels from an impressive amount of selectable features. However, the lack of a dedicated tool for kernel developers leads to inconsistencies between the implementation and the variant model described by Kconfig. This results in real bugs like features that cannot be either enabled or disabled at all; the so called zombie features. For both in the implementation and the variant model, these inconsistencies can be categorized in referential and semantic problems. We therefore propose a tool approach to check the variability described by conditional compilation in the implementation with the variant model for both kinds of consistency. Our analysis of the variation points show that our approach is feasible for the amount of variability found in the Linux kernel.