Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
KARYOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE HOUSE BAT PIPISTRELLUS ABRAMUS ( MAMMALIA : CHIROPTERA ) FROM TAIWAN WITH COMMENTS ON ITS TAXONOMIC STATUS

-The chromosomes of the house bat Pipistrellus abramus from Taiwan were examined by conventional staining and by GTG-, and CBG-banding techniques. The diploid chromosome number (2n) and the fundamental autosomal arm number (FN) were 26 and 44, respectively. In the G-banded karyotype, large GTG-negative regions were detected in the pericentromeric regions of chromosomes 1 through 4, 10, 11 and X. All autosomes included centromeric constitutive heterochromatin. Large blocks of constitutive heterochromatin were observed after CBG-banding in the pericentromeric regions of chromosomes 1 through 4, 10, 11 and X. These findings were essentially identical to the results reported previously for P. abramus from Japan.
What Drives Female Labor Force Participation? Comparable Micro-Level Evidence from Eight Developing and Emerging Economies

We investigate the micro-level determinants of labor force participation of urban married women in eight low- and middle-income economies: Bolivia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Jordan, South Africa, Tanzania, and Vietnam. In order to understand what drives changes and differences in participation rates since the early 2000s, we build a unified empirical framework that allows for comparative analyses across time and space. We find that the coefficients of women's characteristics differ substantially across countries, and this explains most of the between-country differences in participation rates. In particular, the relationship between a woman's education and her participation in the labor force varies from being positive and linear (Brazil and South Africa) to being U- or J-shaped (India, Jordan, and Indonesia), or a mixture of both (Bolivia, Vietnam, and Tanzania). Overall, the economic, social, and institutional constraints that shape women's labor force participation remain largely country-specific. Nonetheless, rising education levels and declining fertility consistently increased participation rates, while rising household incomes contributed negatively in relatively poorer countries, suggesting that a substantial share of women work out of economic necessity.
The Effect of Diagnostic Absorbed Doses from 131I on Human Thyrocytes in Vitro

Background: Administration of diagnostic activities of 131I, performed in order to detect thyroid remnants after surgery and/or thyroid cancer recurrence/metastases, may lead to reduction of iodine uptake. This phenomenon is called “thyroid stunning”. We estimated radiation absorbed dose-dependent changes in genetic material, in particular in sodium iodide symporter (NIS) gene promoter, and NIS protein level in human thyrocytes (HT). Materials and Methods: We used unmodified HT isolated from patients subjected to thyroidectomy exposed to 131I in culture. The different 131I activities applied were calculated to result in absorbed doses of 5, 10, and 20 Gy. Results: According to flow cytometry analysis and comet assay, 131I did not influence the HT viability in culture. Temporary increase of 8-oxo-dG concentration in HT directly after 24 h (p < 0.05) and increase in the number of AP-sites 72 h after termination of exposition to 20 Gy dose (p < 0.0001) were observed. The signs of dose-dependent DNA damage were not associated with essential changes in the NIS expression on mRNA and protein levels. Conclusions: Our observation constitutes a first attempt to evaluate the effect of the absorbed dose of 131I on HT. The results have not confirmed the theory that the “thyroid stunning” reduces the NIS protein synthesis.
Generalized Adaptive Dictionary Learning via Domain Shift Minimization

Visual data driven dictionaries have been successfully employed for various object recognition and classification tasks. However, the task becomes more challenging if the training and test data are from contrasting domains. In this paper, we propose a novel and generalized approach towards learning an adaptive and common dictionary for multiple domains. Precisely, we project the data from different domains onto a low dimensional space while preserving the intrinsic structure of data from each domain. We also minimize the domain-shift among the data from each pair of domains. Simultaneously, we learn a common adaptive dictionary. Our algorithm can also be modified to learn class-specific dictionaries which can be used for classification. We additionally propose a discriminative manifold regularization which imposes the intrinsic structure of class specific features onto the sparse coefficients. Experiments on image classification show that our approach fares better compared to the existing state-of-the-art methods.
Phasic Firing in Vasopressin Cells: Understanding Its Functional Significance through Computational Models

Vasopressin neurons, responding to input generated by osmotic pressure, use an intrinsic mechanism to shift from slow irregular firing to a distinct phasic pattern, consisting of long bursts and silences lasting tens of seconds. With increased input, bursts lengthen, eventually shifting to continuous firing. The phasic activity remains asynchronous across the cells and is not reflected in the population output signal. Here we have used a computational vasopressin neuron model to investigate the functional significance of the phasic firing pattern. We generated a concise model of the synaptic input driven spike firing mechanism that gives a close quantitative match to vasopressin neuron spike activity recorded in vivo, tested against endogenous activity and experimental interventions. The integrate-and-fire based model provides a simple physiological explanation of the phasic firing mechanism involving an activity-dependent slow depolarising afterpotential (DAP) generated by a calcium-inactivated potassium leak current. This is modulated by the slower, opposing, action of activity-dependent dendritic dynorphin release, which inactivates the DAP, the opposing effects generating successive periods of bursting and silence. Model cells are not spontaneously active, but fire when perturbed by random perturbations mimicking synaptic input. We constructed one population of such phasic neurons, and another population of similar cells but which lacked the ability to fire phasically. We then studied how these two populations differed in the way that they encoded changes in afferent inputs. By comparison with the non-phasic population, the phasic population responds linearly to increases in tonic synaptic input. Non-phasic cells respond to transient elevations in synaptic input in a way that strongly depends on background activity levels, phasic cells in a way that is independent of background levels, and show a similar strong linearization of the response. These findings show large differences in information coding between the populations, and apparent functional advantages of asynchronous phasic firing.
The Long-Term Effect of Slavery on Violent Crime : Evidence from US Counties * Preliminary Draft 16 March 2016

This study investigates the long-term relationship between slavery and violence in USA. Although considerable qualitative evidence suggests that slavery has been a key factor behind the prevalence of violence, especially in Southern USA, there has been no large-N study supporting this claim so far. Using county-level data for the USA, we find that the proportion of slaves in the population in 1860 is associated with an increase in the rate of violent crimes in all census years for the period 1970-2000. This relationship is robust to including state fixed effects, controlling for various historical and contemporary factors, as well as to instrumenting for slavery using environmental conditions. We explore two potential channels of transmission: (1) slavery leading to higher levels of inequality, which could increase violent crime, and (2) slavery contributing to an ingrained culture of Southern violence. Our results show that only the proportion of slaves living on large slave holdings, as opposed to small slave holdings, is related to contemporary violent crime, supporting inequality as a channel of transmission. We find some tentative evidence supporting culture of violence between the white and black population as a second channel of transmission. JEL Classification: J15, J71, K42, N31, Z13
Enrichment of Cellulosic Waste Hemp (Cannabis sativa) Hurd into Non-Toxic Microfibres

In this study a largely available lignocellulose feedstock hemp (Cannabis sativa), obtained as an industrial waste, was used for cellulose extraction. The extraction of cellulose microfibres from hemp biomass was conducted by alkaline treatment and an acidification process. The extracted cellulose microfibres were characterised using Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The viability of the study was determined by growing human fibroblasts on the preparation which resulted in being non-toxic; indicating its potential in preparing biological scaffolds. Upon enzymatic hydrolysis of the cellulose microfibre using cellulase from Trichoderma reesei, a maximum of 909 mg/g of reducing sugars were obtained, which endorses its suitability for biofuel production.
The state of employment and unemployment in South Africa

The unemployment problem in South Africa is not a recent phenomenon (Altman 2001a, 2001b; Bhorat & Hodge 1999; Edwards 2000; Kaplinsky 1995; Klasen & Woolard 2000; Meth 2001; DoL 1998). Net employment has been stagnant or falling since the early 1980s. The structural characteristics of falling employment have been caused by a number of factors related to the apartheid government’s policies aimed at promoting ‘separate development’. For example, the supply of labour suitable to a middle-income economy was constrained by a complementary set of adverse education, population control and labour market measures, whilst at the same time having the effect of diminishing household incomes and therefore a nation’s greatest resource: its people. At the same time, markets were constrained by a closed economy and legal constraints to black entrepreneurship amongst others. The direction of development has further limited labour absorption by putting the economy on a firmly capital-using path, as will be argued in this paper.
A Wavelet Exploration of the Q0957+561A,B Brightness Record

We analyze the Q0957+561 A, B brightness record with three types of wavelets in order to define properties that are independent of the nature of the analyzing wavelet. The wavelet analysis picks out features having arbitrary shape, localizes them in time, and fits amplitudes. We find that independently of the analyzing wavelet, the mean wavelet amplitude is zero, meaning that there are as many positive as negative brightness spikes. For all wavelet durations, the fitted amplitudes are equal in the A and B images, except that image B may have larger amplitude brightness fluctuations for the longest duration (64 day) features. Independently of the wavelet family fitted or the kind of statistical measure of the wavelet amplitude, the fitted amplitudes seem to increase as a linear function of the wavelet duration, with the mean absolute deviation being about a factor of 10 greater for 64 day wavelets than for 2 day wavelets. The underlying physical process producing the brightness fluctuations is found to have more power in long-duration wavelets than in short-duration wavelets as compared to a process dominated by white noise. Thus, it is established that the rapid brightness fluctuations observed in the Q0957 images A and B are not the result of observational noise.
Challenges in deploying a microphone array to localize and separate sound sources in real auditory scenes

Analyzing the auditory scene of real environments is challenging partly because an unknown number and type of sound sources are observed at the same time and partly because these sounds are observed on a significantly different sound pressure level at the microphone. These are difficult problems even with state-of-the-art sound source localization and separation methods. In this paper, we exploit two such methods using a microphone array: (1) Bayesian nonparametric microphone array processing (BNP-MAP), which is capable of separating and localizing sound sources when the number of sound sources is unspecified, and (2) robot audition software “HARK” is capable of separating and localizing in real time. Through experimentation, we found that BNP-MAP is more robust against differences in the sound pressure levels of the source signals and in the spatial closeness of source positions. Experiments analyzing real scenes of human conversations recorded in a big exhibition hall and bird calling recorded at a natural park demonstrate the efficacy and applicability of BNP-MAP.
SU(3) lattice QCD study for octet and decuplet baryon spectra

The spectra of octet and decuplet baryons are studied using SU(3) lattice QCD at the quenched level. As an implementation to reduce the statistical fluctuation, we employ the anisotropic lattice with O(a) improved quark action. In relation to Λ(1405), we measure also the mass of the SU(3) flavor-singlet negative-parity baryon, which is described as a three quark state in the quenched lattice QCD, and its lowest mass is measured about 1.6 GeV. Since the experimentally observed negative-parity baryon Λ(1405) is much lighter than 1.6 GeV, Λ(1405) may include a large component of a NK bound state rather than the three quark state. The mass splitting between the octet and the decuplet baryons are also discussed in terms of the current quark mass.
Assessing fi re effects on forest spatial structure using a fusion of Landsat and airborne LiDAR data in Yosemite National Park

a School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Box 352100, Seattle, WA 98195, USA b USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, 1731 Research Park Dr., Davis, CA 95618, USA c Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322-5230, USA d P.O. Box 2163, Yosemite National Park, CA 95389, USA e Yosemite National Park, P.O. Box 577, Yosemite, CA 95389, USA f USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, University of Washington, Box 352100, Seattle, WA 98195, USA g U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Yosemite Field Station, El Portal, CA 95318, USA
Energy Efficiency of Many-Soft-Core Processors

The growing capacity of integration allows to instantiate hundreds of soft-core processors in a single FPGA to create a reconfigurable multiprocessing system. Lately, FPGAs have been proven to give a higher energy efficiency than alternative platforms like CPUs and GPGPUs for certain workloads and are increasingly used in data-centers. In this paper we investigate whether many-soft-core processors can achieve similar levels of energy efficiency while providing a general purpose environment, more easily programmed, and allowing to run other applications without reconfiguring the device. With a simple application example we are able to create a reconfigurable multiprocessing system achieving an energy efficiency 58 times higher than a recent ultra-low-power processor and 124 times higher than a recent high performance GPGPU.
Qualifying the Expressivity/eeciency Tradeoo: Reformation-based Diagnosis

This paper presents an approach to model-based diagnosis that rst compiles a rst-order system description to a propositional representation, and then solves the diagnostic problem as a linear programming instance. Relevance reasoning is employed to isolate parts of the system that are related to certain observation types and to economically instantiate the theory, while methods from operations research ooer promising results to generate near-optimal diagnoses eeciently.
Towards the Detection of Inconsistencies in Public Security Vulnerability Reports

Public vulnerability databases such as the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) and the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) have achieved great success in promoting vulnerability disclosure and mitigation. While these databases have accumulated massive data, there is a growing concern for their information quality and consistency. In this paper, we propose an automated system VIEM to detect inconsistent information between the fully standardized NVD database and the unstructured CVE descriptions and their referenced vulnerability reports. VIEM allows us, for the first time, to quantify the information consistency at a massive scale, and provides the needed tool for the community to keep the CVE/NVD databases up-to-date. VIEM is developed to extract vulnerable software names and vulnerable versions from unstructured text. We introduce customized designs to deep-learning-based named entity recognition (NER) and relation extraction (RE) so that VIEM can recognize previous unseen software names and versions based on sentence structure and contexts. Ground-truth evaluation shows the system is highly accurate (0.941 precision and 0.993 recall). Using VIEM, we examine the information consistency using a large dataset of 78,296 CVE IDs and 70,569 vulnerability reports in the past 20 years. Our result suggests that inconsistent vulnerable software versions are highly prevalent. Only 59.82% of the vulnerability reports/CVE summaries strictly match the standardized NVD entries, and the inconsistency level increases over time. Case studies confirm the erroneous information of NVD that either overclaims or underclaims the vulnerable software versions.
Adverse drug reactions to antiretroviral therapy during the early art period at a tertiary hospital in Ghana

Introduction Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has reduced HIV morbidity and mortality worldwide but has many adverse effects. These adverse drug reactions (ADRs) lead to discontinuations, disease progression or treatment failure. We explored the types and risk factors for ADRs in a cohort starting ART in a teaching hospital in Accra, Ghana where the main regimens used were a combination of nucleotide and non nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Methods A Cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted reviewing data of 2042 patients initiated on HAART from 2003 to 2007. Univariate analysis was done for the dependent and independent variables. Stepwise logistic regression procedures were used to model the effect of gender on the development of ADRs controlling for other variables like age, marital status, weight at baseline and CD4 at baseline. Results The period prevalence of ADRs was 9.4%. The two most common adverse reactions were anaemia and diarrhoea. Female sex was a statistically significant independent predictor of an adverse drug reaction (AOR: 1.66, p = 0.01, CI: 1.16-2.36). CD4 counts 250 cells/mm3 or more was significantly associated with the occurrence of an ADR. The occurrence of anaemia in females was statistically significant compared to males. Conclusion Adverse drug reactions were less common than expected, anaemia was the commonest ADR. Female sex and high CD4 counts >250mm3 were predictors of ADRs whereas females were significantly more likely to develop anaemia than males. Recommendations were made for interventions to prevent and also mitigate the high levels of anaemia especially among women in the ART scale up.
What Drives Research Efforts? Find Scientific Claims that Count!

Researchers often struggle to solve a common problem: how does one know whether a research hypothesis is worth investigating? Given the increasing number of research publications, it is complicated to guide such decisions. Previous work has shown how predicting generally emerging research topics can provide some help. Yet, in specialized scientific domains, only little is known about how to provide a service that allows users to ease the identification of scientific claims worth investigating. Scientific claims here means a natural language sentence that expresses a relationship between two entities. In particular, how one of them affects, manipulates, or causes the other entity. In this paper, we propose a data-driven approach aiming at filling this gap and empowering users at query level: given the results of a query, we deliver a characterization of clusters of the query results to discover the contextualization of scientific claims and the identification of those claims that may be worth more research efforts. To do so, we cluster documents with scientific claims that share the same context by leveraging co-clustering. After that, we characterize the clusters to annotate them. Our annotation focuses on two core aspects: controversy and diversity of claims in a given cluster. Controversy arises when two or more claims semantically contradict each other; diversity means the presence of different semantics of the claims that do not contradict each other but provide different insights expressed by some paper. To evaluate the benefits of our approach, we performed an extensive retrospective analysis on PubMed.
Perceptual Organization in Parkinson’s Disease: A Behavioral Investigation of Basal Ganglia Dysfunction

The basal ganglia provide a major neural system through which the cortex affects behavior. Most notable among these effects are those related to the voluntary control of movement as seen in neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease (PD). Well known tests of visual perception in PD “explicitly” measure object recognition (a high-level visual process) but “implicitly” rely on intact mid-level visual processes like grouping and figure-ground segmentation to structure the image. Hence, exploring the importance of the basal ganglia in perceptual organization (PO) abilities by examining the specific impairments incurred with the damage of such a vital structure is imperative. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate PD performance in tasks in computerized classic gestalt perception experiments with the aim of identifying any mid-level visuo-perceptual deficits. Differences were observed in the grouping by proximity dot counting task but not in other tasks that involved figure-ground segregation, part detection in embedded contexts or shape discrimination. Perceptual Organization in Parkinson’s Disease: A Behavioral Investigation of Basal Ganglia Dysfunction Padmapriya Muralidharan GENERAL AUDIENCE ABSTRACT Damage to the basal ganglia, a group of structures in the subcortical part of the brain (below the cerebral cortex), has long been associated primarily with Parkinson’s Disease (PD), a neurological disorder that manifests with symptoms like muscle rigidity and tremors. While several key visual and perceptual problems have also been connected to this area, very few studies have tried to describe the mechanisms by which PD functionally alters their ability to perceive the visual world. Hence, this study attempted to investigate PD performance in computerized classic perception experiments with the aim of exploring mechanisms that organize incoming visual information to structure the image called perceptual organization (PO). Differences were observed in tasks that tested their ability to group “dots” when they are varied by proximity to each other but not in other tasks that involved their ability to segregate figures from the ground, detect parts of shapes in embedded contexts or discriminate between shapes.