Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complexity of manipulating elections with few candidates

In multiagent settings where the agents have different preferences, preference aggregation is a central issue. Voting is a general method for preference aggregation, but seminal results have shown that all general voting protocols are manipulable. One could try to avoid manipulation by using protocols where determining a beneficial manipulation is hard. Especially among computational agents, it is reasonable to measure this hardness by computational complexity. Some earlier work has been done in this area, but it was assumed that the number of voters and candidates is unbounded. We derive hardness results for the more common setting where the number of candidates is small but the number of voters can be large. We show that with complete information about the others' votes, individual manipulation is easy, and coalitional manipulation is easy with unweighted voters. However, constructive coalitional manipulation with weighted voters is intractable for all of the voting protocols under study, except in the <i>Cup</i> protocol. Destructive manipulation tends to be easier, except in the <i>Single Transferable Vote</i> protocol. Randomizing over instantiations of the protocols (such as schedules of a Cup) can be used to make manipulation hard. Finally, we show that under weak assumptions, if weighted coalitional manipulation with complete information about the others' votes is hard in some voting protocol, then individual and unweighted manipulation is hard when there is uncertainty about the others' votes.
Striatal D1- and D2-type Dopamine Receptors Are Linked to Motor Response Inhibition in Human Subjects

Motor response inhibition is mediated by neural circuits involving dopaminergic transmission; however, the relative contributions of dopaminergic signaling via D1- and D2-type receptors are unclear. Although evidence supports dissociable contributions of D1- and D2-type receptors to response inhibition in rats and associations of D2-type receptors to response inhibition in humans, the relationship between D1-type receptors and response inhibition has not been evaluated in humans. Here, we tested whether individual differences in striatal D1- and D2-type receptors are related to response inhibition in human subjects, possibly in opposing ways. Thirty-one volunteers participated. Response inhibition was indexed by stop-signal reaction time on the stop-signal task and commission errors on the continuous performance task, and tested for association with striatal D1- and D2-type receptor availability [binding potential referred to nondisplaceable uptake (BPND)], measured using positron emission tomography with [11C]NNC-112 and [18F]fallypride, respectively. Stop-signal reaction time was negatively correlated with D1- and D2-type BPND in whole striatum, with significant relationships involving the dorsal striatum, but not the ventral striatum, and no significant correlations involving the continuous performance task. The results indicate that dopamine D1- and D2-type receptors are associated with response inhibition, and identify the dorsal striatum as an important locus of dopaminergic control in stopping. Moreover, the similar contribution of both receptor subtypes suggests the importance of a relative balance between phasic and tonic dopaminergic activity subserved by D1- and D2-type receptors, respectively, in support of response inhibition. The results also suggest that the stop-signal task and the continuous performance task use different neurochemical mechanisms subserving motor response inhibition.
Long-Term Effects of Specialized Stroke Care With Telemedicine Support in Community Hospitals on Behalf of the Telemedical Project for Integrative Stroke Care (TEMPiS)

Background and Purpose— Stroke unit treatment is effective in reducing death and dependency after stroke but is not available in many, particularly rural, areas. The implementation of a stroke network with telemedicine support was associated with improved outcome at 3 months. We report follow-up results at 12 and 30 months after acute stroke. Methods— Telemedical Project for Integrative Stroke Care (TEMPiS) consists of the set-up of specialized local stroke wards, continuous medical education, and telemedical consultation for patients with acute stroke by 2 stroke centers. In a prospective, nonrandomized, intervention study, 5 community hospitals participating in the network were compared with 5 matched control hospitals without specialized stroke facilities or telemedical support. All patients with consecutive ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke admitted between July 2003 and March 2005 were evaluated. Outcome “death and dependency” was defined by death, institutional care, or disability (Barthel index <60 or Rankin scale >3). Results— We followed-up 3060 patients (1938 in TEMPiS and 1122 in control hospitals). Follow-up rates were 97.2% after 12 months and 95.9% after 30 months for death or institutional care, and 96.5% after 12 months and 95.7% after 30 months for death and dependency. In multivariable regression analysis, there was no significant effect of the TEMPiS intervention for reduced “death or institutional care” at 12 months (OR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.75–1.07; P=0.23) and 30 months (OR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.78–1.11; P=0.40) but a significant reduction of “death and dependency” at 12 months (OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.54–0.78; P<0.01) and 30 months (OR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.68–0.98; P=0.031). Conclusions— Implementing a system of specialized stroke wards, continuing education, and telemedicine in community hospitals offers long-term benefit for acute stroke patients.
Influência do método de vulcanização nas propriedades mecânicas e na densidade de ligações cruzadas da borracha natural

Vulcanization is an important factor on rubber mechanical properties determination. The influence of vulcanization method on mechanical properties is still an ongoing issue. Thus, a composition based in natural rubber (NR), named NR4010-A, was vulcanized by autoclave and press, on purpose to evaluated the vulcanization method influence on crosslink formation and thereafter on the mechanical properties of this material. Samples of vulcanized material in both conditions were characterized through swelling, rheometer tests, tear strength, strain strength and hardness. The mechanical properties studied and crosslink density were increased when the material was vulcanized by autoclave. Therefore, autoclave vulcanization method showed be more effective than press at the same conditions of temperature.
Behavioral Heterogeneity in Stock Prices

We estimate a dynamic asset pricing model characterized by heterogeneous boundedly rational agents. The fundamental value of the risky asset is publicly available to all agents, but they have different beliefs about the persistence of deviations of stock prices from the fundamental benchmark. An evolutionary selection mechanism based on relative past profits governs the dynamics of the fractions and switching of agents between different beliefs or forecasting strategies. A strategy attracts more agents if it performed relatively well in the recent past compared to other strategies. We estimate the model to annual US stock price data from 1871 until 2003. The estimation results support the existence of two expectation regimes, and a bootstrap F-test rejects linearity in favor of our nonlinear two-type heterogeneous agent model. One regime can be characterized as a fundamentalists regime, because agents believe in mean reversion of stock prices toward the benchmark fundamental value. The second regime can be characterized as a chartist, trend following regime because agents expect the deviations from the fundamental to trend. The fractions of agents using the fundamentalists and trend following forecasting rules show substantial time variation and switching between predictors. The model offers an explanation for the recent stock prices run-up. Before the 90s the trend following regime was active only occasionally. However, in the late 90s the trend following regime persisted and created an extraordinary deviation of stock prices from the fundamentals. Recently, the activation of the mean reversion regime has contributed to drive stock prices back closer to their fundamental valuation.
Diagnosis and Treatment Procedures for Patients With Anxiety Disorders by the Psychiatric Consultation Liaison Service in a General Hospital in Germany: A Retrospective Analysis.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the population of patients with anxiety disorders in a general hospital in Germany who required treatment by a consultation psychiatrist. METHOD A retrospective investigation of psychiatric consultations concerning 119 patients with anxiety disorders (DSM-IV criteria) from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2012, was conducted in a general hospital of the Charité Berlin, Berlin, Germany. The frequency of different anxiety disorders, the distribution of anxiety disorders among the departments of the general hospital, and the recommended treatment procedure were investigated. RESULTS The largest group of patients with anxiety symptoms presented panic attacks. Many of these patients sought treatment in the emergency department of the hospital primarily due to their anxiety symptoms. Within the group of somatically ill patients, panic attacks were prominent, especially in patients with cardiac or respiratory diseases. Treatment procedures comprised pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic interventions. Benzodiazepines and psychoeducation were common acute treatments; antidepressants, pregabalin, and psychotherapy were recommended for long-term treatment. CONCLUSIONS Many patients who primarily suffer from symptoms of anxiety seek treatment in a general hospital, especially in the emergency department. It is therefore very important for the individual patient as well as the health care system that the correct treatment is initiated. The consultation-liaison psychiatric service within a general hospital is important to ensure the best possible diagnostic procedures as well as treatment for patients with anxiety disorders.
On the Origins and Control of Community Types in the Human Microbiome

Microbiome-based stratification of healthy individuals into compositional categories, referred to as “enterotypes” or “community types”, holds promise for drastically improving personalized medicine. Despite this potential, the existence of community types and the degree of their distinctness have been highly debated. Here we adopted a dynamic systems approach and found that heterogeneity in the interspecific interactions or the presence of strongly interacting species is sufficient to explain community types, independent of the topology of the underlying ecological network. By controlling the presence or absence of these strongly interacting species we can steer the microbial ecosystem to any desired community type. This open-loop control strategy still holds even when the community types are not distinct but appear as dense regions within a continuous gradient. This finding can be used to develop viable therapeutic strategies for shifting the microbial composition to a healthy configuration.
Are needles of Pinus pinaster more vulnerable to xylem embolism than branches? New insights from X-ray computed tomography.

Plants can be highly segmented organisms with an independently redundant design of organs. In the context of plant hydraulics, leaves may be less embolism resistant than stems, allowing hydraulic failure to be restricted to distal organs that can be readily replaced. We quantified drought-induced embolism in needles and stems of Pinus pinaster using high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). HRCT observations of needles were compared with the rehydration kinetics method to estimate the contribution of extra-xylary pathways to declining hydraulic conductance. High-resolution computed tomography images indicated that the pressure inducing 50% of embolized tracheids was similar between needle and stem xylem (P50 needle xylem = -3.62 MPa, P50 stem xylem = -3.88 MPa). Tracheids in both organs showed no difference in torus overlap of bordered pits. However, estimations of the pressure inducing 50% loss of hydraulic conductance at the whole needle level by the rehydration kinetics method were significantly higher (P50 needle = -1.71 MPa) than P50 needle xylem derived from HRCT. The vulnerability segmentation hypothesis appears to be valid only when considering hydraulic failure at the entire needle level, including extra-xylary pathways. Our findings suggest that native embolism in needles is limited and highlight the importance of imaging techniques for vulnerability curves.
Toward Reliable and Efficient Reporting in Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy-efficiency is one of the major concerns in wireless sensor networks since it impacts the network lifetime. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between sensor network performance, particularly its lifetime, and the number of active reporting nodes N by using both analytical and simulation approaches. We first demonstrate that decreasing the number of reporting nodes increases the number of reports that need to be sent to the sink in order to achieve the desired information reliability regarding a detected event. On an other side, we show that reducing the number of reporting nodes reduces the probability of collision occurrence. Based on these results, and as a first main contribution, we derive the optimal number of reporting nodes Nopt_energy that minimizes the energy consumed to report reliably the occurrence of an event. In other words, we prove that limiting the reporting tasks of a detected event to a small subset of sensor nodes (i.e., Nopt_energy), instead of using all the sensor nodes in the event area, enables significant energy conservation.
Efficient and guaranteed rank minimization by atomic decomposition

Recht, Fazel, and Parrilo provided an analogy between rank minimization and ℓ0-norm minimization. Subject to the rank-restricted isometry property, nuclear norm minimization is a guaranteed algorithm for rank minimization. The resulting semidefinite formulation is a convex problem but in practice the algorithms for it do not scale well to large instances. Instead, we explore missing terms in the analogy and propose a new algorithm which is computationally efficient and also has a performance guarantee. The algorithm is based on the atomic decomposition of the matrix variable and extends the idea in the CoSaMP algorithm for ℓ0-norm minimization. Combined with the recent fast low rank approximation of matrices based on randomization, the proposed algorithm can efficiently handle large scale rank minimization problems.
Joint trajectory generation for redundant robots in an environment with obstacles

The problem of determining collision-free joint space trajectories for redundant robots is considered, and the command-generator approach is used to generate such trajectories. In this approach, a distance objective function is defined and is optimized along the robot joint trajectories through a vector in a null space. Algorithms for implementing this optimization problem are fully developed. It is shown that the proposed collision-free trajectory generation scheme is efficient and practical. Extensive simulation results of a four-link robot example are presented and analyzed. <<ETX>>
Discovery and preclinical evaluation of a novel class of small-molecule compounds in hormone-dependent and -independent cancer cell lines

We discovered a series of salicylhydrazide class of compounds with remarkable anticancer activity against a panel of hormone receptor–positive and -negative cell lines. In the present study, we evaluated the in vitro activity of SC21 and SC23 against a range of human tumor cell types and the in vivo efficacy of compound SC21 in a PC3 human prostate cancer xenograft model in mice. We also determined the effects of SC21 on cell cycle regulation and apoptosis. Our in vitro results show that salicylhydrazides are highly potent compounds effective in both hormone receptor–positive and -negative cancer cells. SC21 induced apoptosis and blocked the cell cycle in G0/G1 or S phase, depending on the cell lines used and irrespective of p53, p21, pRb, and p16 status. SC21 effectively reduced the tumor growth in mice without apparent toxicity. Although the mechanism of action of SC21 is not completely elucidated, the effect on cell cycle, the induction of apoptosis and the activity against a panel of tumor cell lines of different origins prompted us to carry out an in-depth preclinical evaluation of SC21.
Exosomes Derived from M. Bovis BCG Infected Macrophages Activate Antigen-Specific CD4+ and CD8+ T Cells In Vitro and In Vivo

Activation of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells is required for an effective immune response to an M. tuberculosis infection. However, infected macrophages are poor antigen presenting cells and may be spatially separated from recruited T cells, thus limiting antigen presentation within a granuloma. Our previous studies showed that infected macrophages release from cells small membrane-bound vesicles called exosomes which contain mycobacterial lipid components and showed that these exosomes could stimulate a pro-inflammatory response in naïve macrophages. In the present study we demonstrate that exosomes stimulate both CD4+ and CD8+ splenic T cells isolated from mycobacteria-sensitized mice. Although the exosomes contain MHC I and II as well as costimulatory molecules, maximum stimulation of T cells required prior incubation of exosomes with antigen presenting cells. Exosomes isolated from M. bovis and M. tuberculosis infected macrophages also stimulated activation and maturation of mouse bone marrow-derived dendritic cells. Interestingly, intranasal administration of mice with exosomes isolated from M. bovis BCG infected macrophages induce the generation of memory CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. The isolated T cells also produced IFN-γ upon restimulation with BCG antigens. The release of exosomes from infected macrophages may overcome some of the defects in antigen presentation associated with mycobacterial infections and we suggest that exosomes may be a promising M. tuberculosis vaccine candidate.
OPTIMIZING EEG CHANNEL SELECTION BY REGULARIZED SPATIAL FILTERING AND MULTI BAND SIGNAL DECOMPOSITION

Appropriate choice of number of electrodes and their positions are essential in Brain-Computer Interface applications since using less electrodes collects insufficient information for classification purposes whereas using more collects redundant information that could degrade BCI performance. This paper proposes a novel method of optimizing EEG channel selection by using the regularized Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) algorithm to discard redundant channels and multi band signal decomposition to select subject-specific frequency range. The performance of the proposed method is compared with EEG channel selection using Fisher criterion, mutual information, support vector and CSP on 9 subjects for two motor imagery tasks. Experiment results show the proposed method yields the highest accuracy in selecting 4 to 10 channels compared with the methods studied as well as using all the channels. The results also illustrate the proposed method significantly improves by multi band filtering and can achieve an average of 47% reduction of channels with only an averaged drop of 1.04% in classification accuracy.
An overview of attention deficits after paediatric traumatic brain injury

Purpose: Attention could be categorized into sustained, selective, shifting, divided and attention span. The primary objective was to evaluate the type of attention deficits that occurs after paediatric traumatic brain injury. Methods: Keywords were used such as ‘attention’, ‘child’, ‘traumatic’, ‘brain’ and ‘injury’ on MEDLINE articles published in 1991–2009. Articles found through MEDLINE were manually cross-referenced. Main outcomes and results: Out of the examined categorizes, divided and sustained attention seem to be the most vulnerably, frequently displaying deficits in the children with TBI. Attention span seemed to be the most resistant and the shifting and selective categories falling somewhere in between. Most of the recovery is expected within the first year post-injury, even if some individuals continue to improve for years, and deficits often persist into adulthood. Conclusions: The attention domains are not affected to the same extent by TBI and this should be taken into consideration when evaluating a child. The commonly used tests also seem to differ in how sensitive they are in detecting deficits. The definition of attention domains and TBI would benefit to be stricter and agreed upon, to further facilitate research and rehabilitation programmes.
Extent of Linkage Disequilibrium and Effective Population Size in Four South African Sanga Cattle Breeds

Knowledge on the extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) in livestock populations is essential to determine the minimum distance between markers required for effective coverage when conducting genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This study evaluated the extent of LD, persistence of allelic phase and effective population size (Ne) for four Sanga cattle breeds in South Africa including the Afrikaner (n = 44), Nguni (n = 54), Drakensberger (n = 47), and Bonsmara breeds (n = 46), using Angus (n = 31) and Holstein (n = 29) as reference populations. We found that moderate LD extends up to inter-marker distances of 40–60 kb in Angus (0.21) and Holstein (0.21) and up to 100 kb in Afrikaner (0.20). This suggests that genomic selection and association studies performed within these breeds using an average inter-marker r2≥ 0.20 would require about 30,000–50,000 SNPs. However, r2≥ 0.20 extended only up to 10–20 kb in the Nguni and Drakensberger and 20–40 kb in the Bonsmara indicating that 75,000 to 150,000 SNPs would be necessary for GWAS in these breeds. Correlation between alleles at contiguous loci indicated that phase was not strongly preserved between breeds. This suggests the need for breed-specific reference populations in which a much greater density of markers should be scored to identify breed specific haplotypes which may then be imputed into multi-breed commercial populations. Analysis of effective population size based on the extent of LD, revealed Ne = 95 (Nguni), Ne = 87 (Drakensberger), Ne = 77 (Bonsmara), and Ne = 41 (Afrikaner). Results of this study form the basis for implementation of genomic selection programs in the Sanga breeds of South Africa.
Patterns and trends in carbohydrate consumption and their relation to disease

Well-trained diabetics might do much in imparting their practical knowledge of food values to the rest of the community to bring about an economic level of good nutrition such as we experienced in Britain during the war. The regulation of a balanced diet in an affluent society needs self-control and it is not going too far to say that the diabetic’s diet should be considered the normal arrangement and not a special diet at all.
A General Method for Computing the Homfly Polynomial of DNA Double Crossover 3-Regular Links

In the last 20 years or so, chemists and molecular biologists have synthesized some novel DNA polyhedra. Polyhedral links were introduced to model DNA polyhedra and study topological properties of DNA polyhedra. As a very powerful invariant of oriented links, the Homfly polynomial of some of such polyhedral links with small number of crossings has been obtained. However, it is a challenge to compute Homfly polynomials of polyhedral links with large number of crossings such as double crossover 3-regular links considered here. In this paper, a general method is given for computing the chain polynomial of the truncated cubic graph with two different labels from the chain polynomial of the original labeled cubic graph by substitutions. As a result, we can obtain the Homfly polynomial of the double crossover 3-regular link which has relatively large number of crossings.