Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling the number density of Hα emitters for future spectroscopic near-IR space missions

Context. The future space missions Euclid and WFIRST-AFTA will use the H α emission line to measure the redshifts of tens of millions of galaxies. The H α luminosity function at z > 0.7 is one of the major sources of uncertainty in forecasting cosmological constraints from these missions. Aims. We construct unified empirical models of the H α luminosity function spanning the range of redshifts and line luminosities relevant to the redshift surveys proposed with Euclid and WFIRST-AFTA. Methods. By fitting to observed luminosity functions from H α surveys, we build three models for its evolution. Different fitting methodologies, functional forms for the luminosity function, subsets of the empirical input data, and treatment of systematic errors are considered to explore the robustness of the results. Results. Functional forms and model parameters are provided for all three models, along with the counts and redshift distributions up to z ~ 2.5 for a range of limiting fluxes ( F H α > 0.5 − 3 × 10 -16 erg cm -2 s -1 ) that are relevant for future space missions. For instance, in the redshift range 0.90 z -2 respectively at fluxes above F H α > 1 and 2 × 10 -16 erg cm -2 s -1 , and 32 000–48 0000 for F H α > 0.5 × 10 -16 erg cm -2 s -1 in the extended redshift range 0.40 z α luminosity density of the Universe, and the closely related cosmic star formation history.
Classification and feature extraction for remote sensing images from urban areas based on morphological transformations

Classification of panchromatic high-resolution data from urban areas using morphological and neural approaches is investigated. The proposed approach is based on three steps. First, the composition of geodesic opening and closing operations of different sizes is used in order to build a differential morphological profile that records image structural information. Although, the original panchromatic image only has one data channel, the use of the composition operations will give many additional channels, which may contain redundancies. Therefore, feature extraction or feature selection is applied in the second step. Both discriminant analysis feature extraction and decision boundary feature extraction are investigated in the second step along with a simple feature selection based on picking the largest indexes of the differential morphological profiles. Third, a neural network is used to classify the features from the second step. The proposed approach is applied in experiments on high-resolution Indian Remote Sensing 1C (IRS-1C) and IKONOS remote sensing data from urban areas. In experiments, the proposed method performs well in terms of classification accuracies. It is seen that relatively few features are needed to achieve the same classification accuracies as in the original feature space.
Cross-lingual RST Discourse Parsing

Discourse parsing is an integral part of understanding information flow and argumentative structure in documents. Most previous research has focused on inducing and evaluating models from the English RST Discourse Treebank. However, discourse treebanks for other languages exist, including Spanish, German, Basque, Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese. The treebanks share the same underlying linguistic theory, but differ slightly in the way documents are annotated. In this paper, we present (a) a new discourse parser which is simpler, yet competitive (significantly better on 2/3 metrics) to state of the art for English, (b) a harmonization of discourse treebanks across languages, enabling us to present (c) what to the best of our knowledge are the first experiments on cross-lingual discourse parsing.
I “Like” That: Exploring the Characteristics That Promote Social Media Engagement With News Photographs

While business models and technological innovations continue to disrupt journalistic practice, global image culture has never been stronger. Developed society is inundated daily with a torrent of images. Yet some of these are barely seen, while others almost instantly accrue scores of likes, shares, and comments. What, then, are the factors that constitute engaging, social photojournalism? Using Q methodology, which bridges qualitative and quantitative approaches, 30 participants ranked photos published on Instagram by news organizations or photographers and shared insight through interviews on what factors affect their engagement. In this way, the users' and the images' characteristics were both studied to shed light on why certain photos accrue more engagement and why certain types of people “like” certain types of content. The findings identify three types of users—feature lovers, newshounds, and optimists—and describe their motivations for interacting on the platform. Insights on how the number of people in the frame, the visibility of facial features, the presence of watermarks, and the post type affect user engagement were also gathered and discussed.
Population Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Paclitaxel and Carboplatin in Ovarian Cancer Patients: A Study by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer-Pharmacology and Molecular Mechanisms Group and New Drug Development Group

Purpose: Paclitaxel and carboplatin are frequently used in advanced ovarian cancer following cytoreductive surgery. Threshold models have been used to predict paclitaxel pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamics, whereas the time above paclitaxel plasma concentration of 0.05 to 0.2 μmol/L (tC > 0.05−0.2) predicts neutropenia. The objective of this study was to build a population pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic model of paclitaxel/carboplatin in ovarian cancer patients. Experimental Design: One hundred thirty-nine ovarian cancer patients received paclitaxel (175 mg/m2) over 3 h followed by carboplatin area under the concentration-time curve 5 mg/mL*min over 30 min. Plasma concentration-time data were measured, and data were processed using nonlinear mixed-effect modeling. Semiphysiologic models with linear or sigmoidal maximum response and threshold models were adapted to the data. Results: One hundred five patients had complete pharmacokinetic and toxicity data. In 34 patients with measurable disease, objective response rate was 76%. Neutrophil and thrombocyte counts were adequately described by an inhibitory linear response model. Paclitaxel tC > 0.05 was significantly higher in patients with a complete (91.8 h) or partial (76.3 h) response compared with patients with progressive disease (31.5 h; P = 0.02 and 0.05, respectively). Patients with paclitaxel tC > 0.05 > 61.4 h (mean value) had a longer time to disease progression compared with patients with paclitaxel tC > 0.05 < 61.4 h (89.0 versus 61.9 weeks; P = 0.05). Paclitaxel tC > 0.05 was a good predictor for severe neutropenia (P = 0.01), whereas carboplatin exposure (Cmax and area under the concentration-time curve) was the best predictor for thrombocytopenia (P < 10−4). Conclusions: In this group of patients, paclitaxel tC > 0.05 is a good predictive marker for severe neutropenia and clinical outcome, whereas carboplatin exposure is a good predictive marker for thrombocytopenia.
Neurocognitive Deficits In Pediatric Obesity

In the United States, 20% of adolescents suffer from obesity (body mass index— BMI—above the 95 percentile) and 8% of adolescents suffer from severe obesity (BMI 120% above the 95 percentile). Obesity carries increased risk for medical conditions with high morbidity (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes), poor sleep health, and psychopathology. In children, these risks are accompanied by lower academic achievement and worse social (e.g., discrimination) and psychological (e.g., self-esteem) outcomes. When examining cognition functioning, deficits in executive function (i.e., working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility), motivation (i.e., reward sensitivity and reward-related decision making), and memory have been shown to be particularly relevant for the regulation of obesogenic behaviors (i.e., behaviors that contribute to risk for obesity). Simultaneously, comorbidities of obesity, such as chronic inflammation, may have deleterious effects on the neural functioning subserving these cognitive processes. The three studies included in this dissertation were conducted with the goals of 1) determining the scope and specificity of cognitive deficits in pediatric obesity; 2) identifying potential confounding (intelligence, socio-demographic characteristics) and mediating (medical and psychopathological) factors related to cognitive deficits in pediatric obesity; and 3) examining the neurological underpinnings of observed cognitive deficits in pediatric obesity.
Price and Wealth Dynamics in a Speculative Market with an Arbitrary Number of Generic Technical Traders

We consider a simple pure exchange economy with two assets, one riskless, yielding a constant return, and one risky, paying a stochastic dividend, and we assume trading to take place in discrete time inside an endogenous price formation setting. Traders demand for the risky asset is expressed as a fraction of their individual wealth and is based on future prices forecast obtained on the basis of past market history. The general case is studied in which an arbitrary large number of heterogeneous traders operates in the market and any smooth function which maps the infinite information set to the present investment choice is allowed as agent's trading behavior. A complete characterization of equilibria is given and their stability conditions are derived. We find that this economy can only possess isolated generic equilibria where a single agent dominates the market and continuous manifolds of non-generic equilibria where many agents hold finite wealth shares. We show that irrespectively of agents number and of their behavior, all possible equilibria belong to a one dimensional "Equilibria Market Line". Finally we discuss the relative performances of different strategies and the selection principle governing market dynamics.
Islam's adaptation to the West: on the deconstruction and reconstruction of religion

This article describes the process of the deconstruction and reconstruction of Islam in its transition from an Islamic to a Western culture, and does so from a hermeneutical perspective. In this process of reinterpretation of tradition ‘Western’ Muslims have a number of options: traditionalism, moderate orthodoxy, fundamentalism, radicalism and religious liberalism. On the basis of the process of change in orthodox Reformed churches in the last part of the twentieth century, I describe the process of change among Muslims who have to find a way in Western Europe. This process of reinterpretation in such a different context necessarily triggers off a discussion of the principles of fiqh and the right understanding of the Qur'an and hadith. In this discussion the ‘options’ mentioned arise. This hermeneutical analysis adds theological insights to processes of change and conflict that often are analysed only in terms of social-economic processes, and can help to understand the developments also from a theological perspective.
Parents’ Charitable Giving and Volunteering: Are They Influenced by Their Children’s Ages and Life Transitions? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study in the United States

Earlier cross-sectional studies have suggested that parents’ levels of charitable giving and volunteering are influenced by transitions in their children’s lives, such as the arrival of a new baby, the entry of their oldest child into elementary school, and the leaving home of their youngest child. To better investigate this contention, I used longitudinal data from the 2001-2009 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. When a new baby arrived, parents’ charitable giving and volunteering decreased; when the oldest child reached the age of 2, their giving increased, but not their volunteering. When the oldest child entered middle and high school, parents’ charitable giving and volunteering increased; when their youngest child left the household, parents decreased their giving and volunteering and redirected their charitable giving toward health and environmental organizations. The negative effects on volunteering were stronger for mothers, whereas the positive effects on volunteering were stronger for fathers.
When the Learner Becomes a Teacher: Foreign Language Anxiety as an Occupational Hazard

This study investigated classroom teacher anxiety with respect to teaching foreign languages in Korea, and sought to identify sources and symptoms of this anxiety. The subjects' anxiety was measured using the Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety Scale (FLTAS), a scale that was developed for this study. A number of participants acknowledged that they had experienced teaching anxiety in foreign-language classrooms. These results provide evidence for the construct of foreign language teaching anxiety, the existence of which was suggested by Horwitz (1996). However, an ANOYA failed to identify the effects of background factors on foreign language teaching anxiety. The results of the open-ended survey generally supported the quantitative findings related to teaching anxiety, providing more specific data about how language teachers feel about their teaching anxiety. The results also provide a potential explanation of anxiety-provoking situations in foreign language classrooms, the causes of that anxiety, and coping strategies that teachers use to alleviate their anxiety.
A Comparative Study of Cathepsin D Expression in Peripheral and Central Giant Cell Granuloma of the Jaws by Immunohistochemistry Technique

Statement of the Problem Peripheral and central giant cell granuloma are two common benign lesions of the oral cavity. In spite of histopathological similarities, they have different clinical behaviors. Cathepsin D is a lysosomal enzyme which has different functions on the basis of protein and applied peptide cleavage. Purpose This research aimed to evaluate and compare the expression level of Cathepsin D in these two lesions to find the reasons for the differences in clinical and biologic characteristics. Materials and Method The expression of Cathepsin D was investigated by using the immunohistochemistry method in 20 samples of peripheral giant cell granuloma and 20 samples of central giant cell granuloma. The percentage of stained giant cells (labeling index), the intensity of staining of giant cells, and staining-intensity-distribution in both groups were calculated and compared. Results The labeling indices of Cathepsin D in peripheral giant cell granuloma and central giant cell granuloma were 95.9±4.03 and 95.6±2.34, respectively. There was no significant difference in the percentages of stained giant cells between the two groups (p= 0.586). The intensity of staining of giant cells in central giant cell granuloma was stronger than that of peripheral giant cell granuloma (p> 0.001). Staining- intensity- distribution of giant cells in central giant cell granuloma was significantly greater than that of the peripheral type of lesion (p= 0.001). Conclusion The higher expression level of Cathepsin D in central giant cell granuloma compared to peripheral type of lesion can explain more aggressive behavior of central giant cell granuloma.
- 1-LEPTIN MODULATES THE EXPRESSION OF SECRETED AND MEMBRANE-ASSOCIATED MUCINS IN COLONIC EPITHELIAL CELLS BY TARGETING PKC , PI 3 K AND MAPK PATHWAYS

Mucins play an essential role in the protection and repair of gastrointestinal mucosa. We recently showed that luminal leptin strongly stimulated mucin secretion in vivo in rat colon. In the present study, we challenged the hypothesis that leptin may act directly on goblet cells to induce mucin expression in rat and human intestinal mucin-producing cells (DHE and HT29-MTX). The endoluminal effect of leptin was also studied in vivo in rat perfused colon model. The presence of leptin receptors was demonstrated in the two cell lines by western blot and RT-PCR. In rat DHE cells, leptin (0.01-10 nmol/L, 60-min) dose-dependently increased the secretion of mucins (210 +/-3 % of controls) and the expression of Muc2, Muc3 and Muc4 (2 fold basal level) but not of Muc1 and Muc5AC. Luminal perfusion of leptin (60-min, 0.1-100 nmol /L) in rat colon also increased the mRNA level of Muc2, Muc3 and Muc4 but not of Muc1. In human HT29-MTX cells, leptin (0.01-10 nmol/L, 60-min) dose-dependently enhanced MUC2, MUC5AC and MUC4 mRNA levels. These effects were prevented by pre-treatment of cells with the leptin mutein L39A/D40A/F41A which acts as a receptor antagonist. Finally, pathway inhibition experiments suggest that leptin increased mucin expression by activating PKC, PI3-kinase and MAPK-dependent pathways but not JAK/STAT pathway. In conclusion, leptin may contribute significantly to membrane-associated and secreted mucin production via a direct stimulation of colonic epithelial cells and the activation of leptin receptors. These data are consistent with a role for leptin in regulation of the intestinal barrier function.
Survival Signals in T Cells Gene and Its Role in Interleukin-6-Induced stat 3 Tissue-Specific Autoregulation of the

10.1128/MCB.21. 19.6615-6625.2001. 2001, 21(19):6615. DOI: Mol. Cell. Biol. Hirano Masahiko Hibi, Katsuhiko Ishihara, Koichi Nakajima and Toshio Kamimura, Sung-Joo Park, Katsunori Mizuno, Jun-ichi Miyazaki, Takuya Ohtani, Keigo Nishida, Motoyuki Itoh, Daisuke Masahiro Narimatsu, Hisoka Maeda, Shousaku Itoh, Toru Atsumi, Survival Signals in T Cells Gene and Its Role in Interleukin-6-Induced stat3 Tissue-Specific Autoregulation of the
Modeling biomass of forests in the southwest Amazon by polar ordination of Landsat TM

Polar ordination is used to project all pixels in Landsat TM band space onto a single axis whose endpoints are the centroids of training areas in two spectrally distinct natural forest types - one with and the other without bamboo - which dominate the landscape in the southwest Amazon. Assuming the same wood density in both forests, biometric data collected in the training areas (Oliveira, 2000) indicated that biomass of forest with high bamboo density was 29% lower than forest without bamboo. Linear interpolation along the ordination axis models biomass of spectrally intermediate pixels. Thresholds based on band-space distance from the axis and ordinated distance beyond the axis endpoints are used to mask pixels unacceptable for modeling: water, beaches, pastures, roads, urban area, and deep topographic shade. The final product is a biomass image of an area covering 90x90 km, with 79% of all pixels being modeled. Because of spectral variability between bamboo forests in different recovery stages after their last monocarpic dieback, the model should only be applied to landscapes with mature, spectrally stable bamboo populations.
On smoothness measures of active contours and surfaces

We propose to study different smoothness measures of planar contours or surfaces. We first define a smoothness measure as a functional that follows three types of invariance, invariance to changes of contour parameterization, invariance to contour rotations and translations and invariance to the contour sizes. We then introduce different smoothness measures that can be classified into local or global functionals but that can also be of geometric or algebraic nature. We finally discuss their implementation by observing the advantages and disadvantages of explicit and implicit contour representations.
Aging of complex heart rate dynamics

We reveal unexpected origins of age induced departure from 1/f-type temporal scaling in healthy human heart rate. Contrary to the widely established view, we provide evidence that age induced dynamical imbalance in the autonomic control is not due to the emergent functional dominance of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), but due to emerging (age dependent) relative dynamic dominance of the parasympathetic nervous system function. In particular, we demonstrate that the age induced alterations of healthy heart rate dynamics asymptotically resemble those in so-called primary autonomic failure with neurogenic SNS dysfunction and in other neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease even without known autonomic abnormalities. Based upon this, we propose a novel picture of "autonomic aging", characterized by an insufficiency of the SNS function to cope dynamically with various environmental stimuli.
Rescaling and Stepsize Selection in Proximal Methods Using Separable Generalized Distances

This paper presents a convergence proof technique for a broad class of proximal algorithms in which the perturbation term is separable and may contain barriers enforcing interval constraints. There are two key ingredients in the analysis: a mild regularity condition on the differential behavior of the barrier as one approaches an interval boundary and a lower stepsize limit that takes into account the curvature of the proximal term. We give two applications of our approach. First, we prove subsequential convergence of a very broad class of proximal minimization algorithms for convex optimization, where different stepsizes can be used for each coordinate. Applying these methods to the dual of a convex program, we obtain a wide class of multiplier methods with subsequential convergence of both primal and dual iterates and independent adjustment of the penalty parameter for each constraint. The adjustment rules for the penalty parameters generalize a well-established scheme for the exponential method of multipliers. The results may also be viewed as a generalization of recent work by Ben-Tal and Zibulevsky [SIAM J. Optim, 7 (1997), pp. 347--366] and Auslender, Teboulle, and Ben-Tiba [ Comput. Optim. Appl. , 12 (1999), pp. 31--40; Math. Oper. Res., 24 (1999), pp. 645--668] on methods derived from $\varphi$-divergences. The second application established full convergence, under a novel stepsize condition, of Bregman-function-based proximal methods for general monotone operator problems over a box. Prior results in this area required strong restrictive assumptions on the monotone operator.
Fourier analysis and expanding phenomena in finite fields

In this paper the authors study set expansion in finite fields. Fourier analytic proofs are given for several results recently obtained by Solymosi, Vinh and Vu using spectral graph theory. In addition, several generalizations of these results are given. In the case that $A$ is a subset of a prime field $\mathbb F_p$ of size less than $p^{1/2}$ it is shown that $|\{a^2+b:a,b \in A\}|\geq C |A|^{147/146}$, where $|\cdot|$ denotes the cardinality of the set and $C$ is an absolute constant.
Investment Spending in the Netherlands: The Impact of Liquidity and Corporate Governance

This paper examines the relation between cash flow, corporate governance and fixed-investment spending. In perfect capital markets we expect no systematic relationship. However, Myers and Majluf's (1984) asymmetric information hypothesis and Jensen's (1986) managerial discretion hypothesis present imperfections and predict a positive impact of cash flow on investment in fixed assets. Aspects of corporate governance play an important role in both theories. We measure the impact of cash flow on investment for a set of Dutch firms and aim to distinguish between the asymmetric information hypothesis and the managerial discretion hypothesis. Our findings show that cash flow is an important determinant of investment expenditures. The impact of cash flow is largest for firms with low growth opportunities suggesting that the managerial discretion hypothesis is most at work in the Dutch setting. We also discern that the impact of governance characteristics on both investment and the cash flow-sensitivity of investment differ between firms having low and high growth opportunities. This implies that governance affects the managerial discretion and asymmetric information hypotheses differently.