Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Testing the accuracy of methods for reconstructing ancestral states of continuous characters

Many methods are available for estimating ancestral values of continuous characteristics, but little is known about how well these methods perform. Here we compare six methods: linear parsimony, squared–change parsimony, one–parameter maximum likelihood (Brownian motion), two–parameter maximum likelihood (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process), and independent comparisons with and without branch–length information. We apply these methods to data from 20 morphospecies of Pleistocene planktic Foraminifera in order to estimate ancestral size and shape variables, and compare these estimates with measurements on fossils close to the phylogenetic position of 13 ancestors. No method produced accurate estimates for any variable: estimates were consistently less good as predictors of the observed values than were the averages of the observed values. The two–parameter maximum–likelihood model consistently produces the most accurate size estimates overall. Estimation of ancestral sizes is confounded by an evolutionary trend towards increasing size. Shape showed no trend but was still estimated very poorly: we consider possible reasons. We discuss the implications of our results for the use of estimates of ancestral characteristics.
Managing Cultural Variation in Software Process Improvement: A Comparison of Methods for Subculture Assessment

The scale and complexity of change in software process improvement (SPI) are considerable and managerial attention to organizational culture during SPI can therefore potentially contribute to successful outcomes. However, we know little about the impact of variations in organizational subculture on SPI initiatives. On this backdrop, we present an exploratory study of a large-scale SPI project in a Danish high-technology company, Terma. Two of its business units-integrated systems (ISY) and airborne systems (ASY)-followed similar approaches over a three-year period, but with quite different outcomes. While ISY reached capability maturity model integration (CMMI) level 2 as planned, ASY struggled to implement even modest improvements. To help explain these differences, we analyzed the underlying organizational culture within ISY and ASY using two different methods for subculture assessment. The study demonstrates how variations in culture across software organizations can have important implications for SPI outcomes. Furthermore, it provides insights into how software managers can practically assess subcultures to inform decisions about and help prepare plans for SPI initiatives.
Discrete propagation model for mobile communications in urban environment

The need for wireless communication data has increased considerably in past decades. In this paper we have introduced new propagation model for the streets and avenues in urban areas that can be thought as a waveguide for EM-waves. Using our developed model it is possible to calculate the contributions of each direct and scattered wave separately. We don't assume the sidewalls as perfect conducting materials in our developed model unlike the previous studies. Our simulations revealed that developed model is applicable for broadband of frequencies. If the shape of the wave-guide is entered to simulation program in great detail, the output can be very close to results that are obtained by measurements. Even the shape is not entered very accurately; an approximate result can be obtained if the fast result is needed.
Radiating pain to the lower extremities caused by lumbar disk rupture without spinal nerve root involvement.

PURPOSE To locate the origin of the pain during lumbar diskography by means of a limited intradiskal injection of a local anesthetic. METHODS Lumbar diskography by the direct central posterior approach was performed in 235 consecutive patients. In 17 patients, severe and persistent low back pain, with unilateral or bilateral radiation to the lower extremities, was provoked by contrast injection into only one disk. One milliliter of 1% lidocaine was then slowly injected in the center of these disks. RESULTS A 75% to 100% reduction of the low back pain was experienced by 13 patients, and a 75% to 100% reduction of the radiating pain was experienced by 16 patients within 60 seconds after the intradiskal injection of lidocaine. Radiographs demonstrated radial tears through the entire annulus thickness in 16 of 17 disks. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that, in some patients with low back pain and unilateral or bilateral radiation to the lower extremities, the pain arises from within the disk. In these cases, pain radiating to the lower limb seems to be a referred type and seems unrelated to direct nerve root compression or irritation by a disk fragment in the epidural space.
Beneficial effect of amantadine on postoperative pain reduction and consumption of morphine in patients subjected to elective spine surgery.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the effect of coadministration of morphine and amantadine on postoperative pain reduction and morphine consumption in patients after elective spine surgery. METHODS In double-blinded study, 60 patients (ASA physical status I-II) were randomized into two groups. Group A was given oral amantadine 50 or 100 mg 1 hour before surgery and 8, 20, 32 hours after operation. Group P received placebo at identical times. Pain was assessed using numerical rating scale before first administration of morphine and in 2, 3, 4, 6, 24, and 48 hours after operation. The amounts of morphine consumed were recorded up to 48 hours after surgery. Blood samples were taken twice in 2 hours after surgery and plasma levels of morphine and its main metabolites were measured. RESULTS As compared with placebo, amantadine significantly reduced intra-operative Fentanyl use and sensation of postoperative pain. Up to 48 hours after operation, the cumulative consumption of morphine was 25% lower in the amantadine group. Moreover, intensity of nausea and vomiting tended to be lower in A group. Starting from 12th hour after surgery, the level of postoperative sedation was lower in patients who received amantadine, as compared with placebo group. No significant differences in plasma levels of morphine ant its metabolites were observed between A and P groups. CONCLUSIONS Pre- and postoperative administration of amantadine significantly reduced fentanyl use during operation, as well as reduced the postoperative pain and decreased morphine consumption in young patients undergoing orthopedic surgery.
On the Efficient Simulation of the Distribution of the Sum of Gamma–Gamma Variates With Application to the Outage Probability Evaluation Over Fading Channels

The Gamma–Gamma distribution has recently emerged in a number of applications ranging from modeling scattering and reverberation in sonar and radar systems to modeling atmospheric turbulence in wireless optical channels. In this respect, assessing the outage probability achieved by some diversity techniques over this kind of channels is of major practical importance. In many circumstances, this is related to the difficult question of analyzing the statistics of a sum of Gamma–Gamma random variables. Answering this question is not a simple matter. This is essentially because outage probabilities encountered in practice are often very small, and hence, the use of classical Monte Carlo methods is not a reasonable choice. This lies behind the main motivation of this paper. In particular, this paper proposes a new approach to estimate the left tail of the sum of Gamma–Gamma variates. More specifically, we propose robust importance sampling schemes that efficiently evaluates the outage probability of diversity receivers over Gamma–Gamma fading channels. The proposed estimators satisfy the well-known bounded relative error criterion for both maximum ratio combining and equal gain combining cases. We show the accuracy and the efficiency of our approach compared with naive Monte Carlo via some selected numerical simulations.
Ergodic capacity of frequency selective block fading MIMO channels

We derive ergodic capacity of frequency selective block fading multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channels using limiting eigenvalue distribution function (LEDF) of channel matrices of increasing size. We derive capacity for arbitrary number of transmit and receive antennas and for two cases: side information to receiver only (RSI), and side information to transmitter and receiver (TRSI). When MIMO channel coefficients on different lags are correlated, the statistics of MIMO transfer functions computed at different frequency bins differ, and, as a result, capacity differs from the capacity of frequency non-selective Rayleigh fading MIMO channel. In the RSI case we prove that there is performance loss for any SNR, and in the TRSI case we prove that there is performance loss in the high SNR region and performance gain in the low SNR region, compared to the non-correlated case. We estimate the asymptotic gain and loss and show that they are equal as in the single input single output (SISO) case.
Influence of vascular smooth muscle on contractile mechanics and elasticity of arteries.

DOBRIN, PHILIP B. , AND ALLEN A, &NICK. hj%ence of mmlmsmooth muscle on contractile meclzanics and elasticity of arteries, Am, J. Physiol. 2 17(6) : 1644-1651. 1969. ---Segments of canine carotid artery were held at in situ length and studied in vitro after treatment with norepinephrine (NEpi) and after treatment with potassium cyanide (KCN). Activation of the vascular muscle caused contraction and greatly increased pressure-radius hysteresis, The blood vessel muscle exhibited an active stress-strain curve u:ith a maximum stress of . 88 it: . 10 x lo6 dynes/cm2 for the whole wall, or 2.73 X 10” dynes/cm2 for the estimated smooth muscle component of the wall. Activation of smooth muscle increased the elastic modulus when this was plotted as a function of strain. The active muscle exhibited a maximum elastic modulus of 3.99 A . 08 x lo6 dynes/cm2 for the whole wall, or 12.66 x 106 dynes/cm2 for the estimated smooth muscle component of the tvall. Activation of smooth muscle decreased the elastic modulus when this was plotted as a function of pressure. This decrease leas attributed to the reduction in radius brought about by the active muscle.
Four challenges for cognitive research on the recognition heuristic and a call for a research strategy shift

The recognition heuristic assumes that people make inferences based on the output of recognition memory. While much work has been devoted to establishing the recognition heuristic as a viable description of how people make inferences, more work is needed to fully integrate research on the recognition heuristic with research from the broader cognitive psychology literature. In this article, we outline four challenges that should be met for this integration to take place, and close with a call to address these four challenges collectively, rather than piecemeal.
DYNAMIC S0 GALAXIES: A CASE STUDY OF NGC 5866

S0 galaxies are often thought to be passively evolved from spirals after star formation is quenched. To explore what is actually occurring in such galaxies, we present a multi-wavelength case study of NGC 5866—a nearby edge-on S0 galaxy in a relatively isolated environment. This study shows strong evidence for dynamic activities in the interstellar medium, which are most likely driven by supernova explosions in the galactic disk and bulge. Understanding these activities can have strong implications for studying the evolution of such galaxies. We utilize Chandra, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer data as well as ground-based observations to characterize the content, structure, and physical state of the medium and its interplay with the stellar component in NGC 5866. A cold gas disk is detected with an exponential scale height of ∼102 pc. Numerous distinct off-disk dusty spurs are also clearly present: prominent ones can extend as far as ∼3 × 102 pc from the galactic plane and are probably produced by individual SNe, whereas faint filaments can have ∼kpc scale and are likely produced by SNe collectively in the disk/bulge. We also detect substantial amounts of diffuse Hα- and Pα-emitting gas with a comparable scale height as the cold gas. We find that the heating of the dust and warm ionized gas cannot be explained by the radiation from evolved stars alone, strongly indicating the presence of young stars in the galactic disk, though at a slow formation rate of ∼0.05 M☉ yr-1. We further reveal the presence of diffuse X-ray-emitting hot gas, which extends as far as 3.5 kpc away from the galactic plane and can be heated easily by Type Ia SNe in the bulge. However, the mean temperature of this gas is ∼0.2 keV, substantially lower than what might be expected from the mass loss of evolved stars and Type Ia SNe heating alone in the galaxy, indicating that the mass loading from the cool gas is important. The total masses of the cold, warm ionized, and hot gases are ∼5 × 108 M☉, 4 × 104 M☉, and 3 × 107 M☉, respectively. The relative richness of the gases, apparently undergoing circulations between the disk and halo of the galaxy, is perhaps a result of its relative isolation.
Automatically Generating Natural Language Reports in an Office Environment

In this paper, we describe a system which models a set of concurrent processes that are encountered in a typical office environment, using a body of explicitly sequenced production rules. The system employs an interval-based temporal network for storing historical information. A text planning module traverses this network to search for events which need to be mentioned in a coherent report describing the current status of the system. In addition, the planner also combines similar information for succinct presentation whenever applicable. Finally, we elaborate on how we adapt an available generation module to produce well-structured textual report for our chosen domain.
Numerical simulations of the Ross Sea tides

Tidal currents below the floating Ross Ice shelf are reconstructed by using a numerical tidal model. They are predominantly diurnal, achieve maximum strength in regions near where the ice shelf runs aground, and are significantly enhanced by topographic Rossby wave propagation along the ice front. A comparison with observations of the vertical motion of the ice shelf surface indicates that the model reproduces the diurnal tidal characteristics within 20%. Similar agreement for the relatively weak semi-diurnal tides was not obtained, and this calls attention to possible errors of the open boundary forcing obtained from global-ocean tidal simulations and to possible errors in mapping zones of ice shelf grounding. Air-sea contact below the ice shelf is eliminated by the thick ice cover. The dominant sub-ice-shelf circulation may thus be tidally induced. A preliminary assessment of sub-ice-shelf conditions based on the numerical tidal simulations suggests that (1) strong barotropic circulation is driven along the ice front and (2) tidal fronts may form in the sub-ice-shelf cavity where the water column is thin and where the buoyancy input is weak.
The Undergraduate Student Teaching Experience: Perspectives of Student Teachers, Cooperating Teachers, and Student Teacher Supervisors.

MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. Attitude Measures; Classroom Techniques; *Cooperating Teachers; Elementary Secondary Education; Evaluation Research; Higher Education; Preservice Teacher Education; Program Administration; *Program Attitudes; Program Evaluation; Program Improvement; *Student Teachers; *Student Teacher Supervisors; *Student Teaching; Teacher Education Programs; *Undergraduate Students The purposes of this study were threefold: (1) to obtain information on perceptions of student teachers, cooperating teachers, and student teacher supervisors regarding the substance, appropriateness, and value of the undergraduate teacher education program at Temple University (Pennsylvania); (2) to identify areas for teacher education program improvement; and (3) to guide in the development of further program evaluation measures. Subjects, undergraduate elementary and secondary education stuchalt teachers (N=110), cooperating teaL;hers (N-110), and student teacher supervisors (N=15), completed surveys containing objectively oriented Likert scale and open ended questions. Results identify concerns worthy of consideration including classroom management and discipline, field experiences, practical classroom skills, school bureaucracy, and orientation to and administration of the student teaching experience. Since the findings of this research closely parallel those found in prior studies, it is concluded that while it is valid to evaluate other components of the teacher education process, unless steps are taken to refine the process in its present form, further surveys using similar populations with a similar focus are unnecessary and redundant. (Contains 25 references.) (IAH) A********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE: PERSPECTIVES OF STUDENT TEACHERS, COOPERATING TEACHERS, AND STUDENT TEACHER SUPERVISORS Daniel D. DelGesso & Marion P. Smith © June 1993 College of Education
Comparative Evaluation of The Efficacy of Diode Laser as an Adjunct to Stannous Fluoride In The Management of Dentinal Hypersensitivity : A Clinical Study

Background: The objective of the study was to clinically evaluate and compare the efficacy of the 0.4% Stannous fluoride gel (SNF) alone and with diode laser in the management of dentinal hypersensitivity (DH). Materials and Method: 30 patients with DH were selected from the department of periodontology and Oral implantology, ITS-CDSR, Murdanagar Ghaziabad were randomly and equally divided into two groups Group A: 0.4% Stannous fluoride alone, Group B: 0.4% Stannous fluoride plus application of diode laser (wavelength of 980 nm in continuous non contact mode with a power of 0.5 W) for 1 min for three times. Standardized clinical parameters included Plaque index, Gingival index and visual rating scale (VRS) scores of each tooth was tested in response to tactile stimuli, cold water test and Air blast test to determine the reduction of DH in both the groups. Readings were recorded at the baseline (after SRP), 1 week and 2 weeks. Results: Both Groups have shown significant reduction in DH but 0.4% Stannous fluoride plus diode laser showed better results in the reduction of DH in comparison SNF alone. Conclusion: It was concluded that diode laser plus SNF was more effective than SNF alone after 2 weeks and there were no adverse effects seen in any group.
Putting the methodological brakes on claims to measure national happiness through Twitter: Methodological limitations in social media analytics

With the rapid global proliferation of social media, there has been growing interest in using this existing source of easily accessible ‘big data’ to develop social science knowledge. However, amidst the big data gold rush, it is important that long-established principles of good social research are not ignored. This article critically evaluates Mitchell et al.’s (2013) study, ‘The Geography of Happiness: Connecting Twitter Sentiment and Expression, Demographics, and Objective Characteristics of Place’, demonstrating the importance of attending to key methodological issues associated with secondary data analysis.
A Well-Controlled Experimental System to Study Interactions of Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes with Tumor Cells

While T cell-based immunotherapies are steadily improving, there are still many patients who progress, despite T cell-infiltrated tumors. Emerging evidence suggests that T cells themselves may provoke immune escape of cancer cells. Here, we describe a well-controlled co-culture system for studying the dynamic T cell – cancer cell interplay, using human melanoma as a model. We explain starting material, controls, and culture parameters to establish reproducible and comparable cultures with highly heterogeneous tumor cells. Low passage melanoma cell lines and melanoma-specific CD8+ T cell clones generated from patient blood were cultured together for up to 3 days. Living melanoma cells were isolated from the co-culture system by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. We demonstrate that the characterization of isolated melanoma cells is feasible using flow cytometry for protein expression analysis as well as an Agilent whole human genome microarray and the NanoString technology for differential gene expression analysis. In addition, we identify five genes (ALG12, GUSB, RPLP0, KRBA2, and ADAT2) that are stably expressed in melanoma cells independent of the presence of T cells or the T cell-derived cytokines IFNγ and TNFα. These genes are essential for correct normalization of gene expression data by NanoString. Further to the characterization of melanoma cells after exposure to CTLs, this experimental system might be suitable to answer a series of questions, including how the affinity of CTLs for their target antigen influences the melanoma cell response and whether CTL-induced gene expression changes in melanoma cells are reversible. Taken together, our human T cell – melanoma cell culture system is well suited to characterize immune-related mechanisms in cancer cells.
Teething and tooth eruption in infants: A cohort study.

OBJECTIVE Many symptoms are attributed to teething in infants. There is little evidence to support these beliefs, despite their implications for clinical management. We investigated relationships between tooth eruption, fever, and teething symptoms. METHODS Prospective cohort study. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-one children 6 to 24 months old attending 3 suburban long-day care centers >/=3 days/week. Measures. 1) Daily temperature recording and examination of alveolar ridges for tooth eruption (dental therapist). 2) Daily questionnaires-symptoms over preceding 24 hours (staff and parents independently). 3) Final questionnaire-beliefs/experiences related to teething (parents). Definitions. Eruption day-the first day a tooth could be seen or felt. Non-toothdays-more than 28 days clear of any eruption day. Toothdays-the 5 days preceding eruption days. RESULTS Data were collected for 236 toothdays and 895 non-toothdays pertaining to 90 teeth. Child temperatures were similar on toothdays and non-toothdays (36.21 vs 36.18, paired t test). Logistic regression adjusted for age did not show an association between toothdays and temperature (odds ratio [OR] = 1.35, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.80, 2.27 for high fever; OR = 1.34, 95% CI = 0.48, 3.77 for low fever). Logistic regression models allowing for within-child cluster effects and age were fitted to daily staff and parent reports of mood, wellness/illness, drooling/dribbling, sleep, diarrhea, strong diapers, red cheeks, and rashes/flushing. Only parent-reported (but not staff-reported) loose stools were significantly associated with tooth eruption (OR = 1.86, 95% CI = 1. 26, 2.73). When the toothday definition was varied to 10 days preceding or 5 days surrounding tooth eruption, this single significant association was no longer apparent (OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 0.98, 2.05 and OR = 1.47, 95% CI = 0.97, 2.21, respectively). All parents retrospectively reported that their own children had suffered a range of teething symptoms. CONCLUSIONS This study did not confirm the expected strong associations between tooth eruption and a range of teething symptoms in children 6 to 30 months old, although we cannot rule out the possibility that weak associations may exist (Type II error). These findings contrast with strong parent and professional beliefs to the contrary. Such beliefs may preclude optimal management of common patterns of illness and behavior in young children.teething, infants, symptoms, tooth eruption, illness.