Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypothalamo-hypophysial control of ovulation in the vole (Microtus agrestis).

Hypthalamohypophysial control of ovulation in the vole (Microtus agrestis) was studied. Adult virgin female voles were stimulated electrically in different regions of the hypothalamus received injections of sheep median eminence extracts into the suborbital canthal sinus or received iv or ip injections of varying doses of luteinizing hormone (LH). More animals ovulated following anterior hypothalamic stimulation than midhypothalamic stimulation (p less than .05). 6 of 12 stimulated in the anterior region had Graafian follicles present whereas those stimulated in the other 2 regions invariably had Graafian follicles when sacrificed 24 hours later. 13 of 18 which received the median eminence extract ovulated and all had Graafian follicles at autopsy. 1.2 mcg LH stimulated ovulation in all animals but 1 while 2.5 and 5 mcg did so in all but 2 in each group. 3 of 6 given . 6 mcg LH ovulated and none did so if . 3 mcg or less was administered. Graafian follicles were invariably present. Iv injections gave results similar to those of ip injections. These results indicated that next to mating anterior hypothalamic stimulation is the most potent ovulation stimulus.
What is the best way to prove a cryptographic protocol correct?

In this paper, we identify that protocol verification using invariants have significant limitations such as inapplicability to some protocols, non-standard attacker inferences and non-free term algebras. We argue that constraint solving for bounded process analysis can be used in conjunction with decidability of context-explicit protocols as a verification tool and can overcome those limitations. However, this is possible only when new decidability results are obtained for protocol security, especially in presence of non-standard inferences and non-free term algebras.
HotPLUZ: A BGP-aware green traffic engineering approach

Green networking techniques aim to shut down the least utilized links and/or routers during off-peaks hours. In this paper, we show that such techniques negatively impact the operation of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). We quantify the impacts of two representative green approaches: (i) GAES, a green technique that modifies link weights, and (ii) ESOL, a green technique that does not involve link weights adjustments. Experiments over the Abilene, AT&T, GEANT and SURFnet topologies show that when using GAES, routing changes and the proportion of rerouted traffic, both of which affect BGP, are in the order of 108% and 141% greater than ESOL. Therefore, we propose Hot Potato Low UtiliZation (HotPLUZ), a green approach that takes hot-potato routing into account. HotPLUZ reroutes traffic from lowly utilized links and aggregate said traffic onto highly utilized links, whilst minimizing any changes to the corresponding egress router of a given destination. In addition, HotPLUZ considers link utilization in order to avoid packet loss and high latencies. Our experimental results indicate an overall saving of up to 21% under low network load.
Dental caries and dental fluorosis at varying water fluoride concentrations.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between caries experience and dental fluorosis at different fluoride concentrations in drinking water. The impact of other fluoride products also was assessed. METHODS This study used data from the 1986-87 National Survey of US School-children. Fluoride levels of school water were used as an indicator of the children's water fluoride exposure. The use of fluoride drops, tablets, professional fluoride treatments, and school fluoride rinses were ascertained from caregiver questionnaires. Only children with a single continuous residence (n = 18,755) were included in this analysis. RESULTS The sharpest declines in dfs and DMFS were associated with increases in water fluoride levels between 0 and 0.7 ppm F, with little additional decline between 0.7 and 1.2 ppm F. Fluorosis prevalence was 13.5 percent, 21.7 percent, 29.9 percent, and 41.4 percent for children who consumed < 0.3, 0.3 to < 0.7, 0.7 to 1.2, and > 1.2 ppm F water. In addition to fluoridated water, the use of fluoride supplements was associated with both lower caries and increased fluorosis. CONCLUSIONS A suitable trade-off between caries and fluorosis appears to occur around 0.7 ppm F. Data from this study suggest that a reconsideration of the policies concerning the most appropriate concentrations for water fluoridation might be appropriate for the United States.
Tests of random walks and market efficiency in Latin American stock markets: An empirical note. Discussion Paper No. 157

This note examines the weak-form market efficiency of Latin American equity markets. Daily returns for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela are examined for random walks using serial correlation coefficient and runs tests, Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF), Phillips-Perron (PP) and Kwiatkowski, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin (KPSS) unit root tests and multiple variance ratio (MVR) tests. The results, which are in broad agreement across the approaches employed, indicate that none of the markets are characterised by random walks and hence are not weak-form efficient, even under some less stringent random walk criteria.
Enhancing Defect Prediction with Static Defect Analysis

In the software development process, how to develop better software at lower cost has been a major issue of concern. One way that helps is to find more defects as early as possible, on which defect prediction can provide effective guidance. The most popular defect prediction technique is to build defect prediction models based on machine learning. To improve the performance of defect prediction model, selecting appropriate features is critical. On the other hand, static analysis is usually used in defect detection. As static defect analyzers detects defects by matching some well-defined "defect patterns", its result is useful for locating defects. However, defect prediction and static defect analysis are supposed to be two parallel areas due to the differences in research motivation, solution and granularity. In this paper, we present a possible approach to improve the performance of defect prediction with the help of static analysis techniques. Specifically, we present to extract features based on defect patterns from static defect analyzers to improve the performance of defect prediction models. Based on this approach, we implemented a defect prediction tool and set up experiments to measure the effect of the features.
Pruning strategies for a Volterra series model used in digital predistortion (DPD) of RF power amplifiers

Strategies for reducing the number of basis waveforms used in a Volterra series model for digital predistortion (DPD) of RF power amplifiers (PAs) are proposed. Simple DPD models are generalized so that elemental terms within the Volterra series are grouped together or pruned. It is shown that grouping and pruning produce similar ACLR results when the coefficient estimator notch filters the linear signal bandwidth and applies regularization.
Repayment Flexibility Can Reduce Financial Stress: A Randomized Control Trial with Microfinance Clients in India

Financial stress is widely believed to cause health problems. However, policies seeking to relieve financial stress by limiting debt levels of poor households may directly worsen their economic well-being. We evaluate an alternative policy – increasing the repayment flexibility of debt contracts. A field experiment randomly assigned microfinance clients to a monthly or a traditional weekly installment schedule (N = 200). We used cell phones to gather survey data on income, expenditure, and financial stress every 48 hours over seven weeks. Clients repaying monthly were 51 percent less likely to report feeling “worried, tense, or anxious” about repaying, were 54 percent more likely to report feeling confident about repaying, and reported spending less time thinking about their loan compared to weekly clients. Monthly clients also reported higher business investment and income, suggesting that the flexibility encouraged them to invest their loans more profitably, which ultimately reduced financial stress.
Health Status and Labour Force Participation: Evidence from the HILDA Data

This paper examines the effect of health on labour force participation using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The potential endogeneity of health, especially self-assessed health, in the labour force participation equation is addressed by estimating the health equation and the labour force participation equation simultaneously. Taking into account the correlation between the error terms in the two equations, the estimation is conducted separately for males aged 15 to 49, males aged 50 to 64, females aged 15 to 49 and females aged 50 to 60. The results indicate that better health increases the probability of labour force participation for all four groups. However the effect is larger for the older groups and for women. As for the feedback effect, it is found that labour force participation has a significant positive impact on older femalesâ€™ health, and a significant negative effect on younger malesâ€™ health. For younger females and older males, the impact of labour force participation on health is not significant. The null-hypothesis of exogeneity of health to labour force participation is rejected for all groups.
The Mechanics of Devaluations and the Output Response in a DSGE Model: How Relevant is the Balance Sheet Effect?

The relative importance of different mechanisms through which devaluations affect output are analyzed using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for a small open economy with imperfect competition and nominal rigidities. Devaluations are defined as an increase in the central bank's nominal exchange rate target, which induces a decrease in the nominal interest rate. Three main mechanisms through which devaluations affect output are considered: The traditional expansionary expenditure-switching effect, the balance sheet effect which allows the possibility of contractionary effects when firms' debt are dollar-denominated, and a monetary channel associated with an interest rule that targets the nominal exchange rate. The model is calibrated and simulated under alternative scenarios of exchange rate regimes and shocks. Devaluations are found to be expansionary despite the contractionary balance sheet effect. In response to adverse external shocks the economy's output response improves with a devaluation the less flexible the exchange rate regime is.
Examining Efficiency of Islamic and Conventional Banks in Pakistan: Using Data Envelopment Analysis

This study employs two approaches to assess efficiency of Islamic and Conventional banks in Pakistan by using Ratio analysis technique and a non parametric Data Envelopment Analysis technique. This research study considers 19 banks over the period of 2007-2011. The findings reveal in both methods that conventional banks are performing better than Islamic banks. This research study differ from other studies in respect that it uses two approaches to evaluate efficiency of public, private, foreign and Islamic banks. Furthermore, efficiency under Data Envelopment Analysis is evaluated by considering input and output oriented measures while lending funds, deposits and portfolio investments are taken as an output variable while input variables are borrowed funds and capital. This study calculates technical, pure and scale efficiency.
Using Penalized Regression to Uncover Peer Effects in the Spatial Autoregressive Model

We propose a technique for estimating the spatial weights matrix (SWM) of the spatial autoregressive model (SAR) using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso), first proposed by Tibshirani (1996). The SWM is typically assumed a priori as a known matrix of correlations among spatially correlated data, as it cannot be estimated using standard techniques due to overfitting. However, we use the Lasso to discover the most prominent spatial coefficients in the SWM and estimate them using feasible generalized least squares, while setting the relatively unimportant effects to zero. Furthermore, the Lasso solutions are optimized to minimize mean squared error over a grid of possible spatial lag parameters. Finally, we use the LARS-Lasso algorithm to compute an illustrative example of the technique.
Reconsidering hippocampal neurogenesis in Alzheimer's disease

Hippocampal neurogenesis is oftenthought to be necessary to maintainhippocampus-dependent cognitive abil-ities (see references in Deng et al., 2010). Most investigations using transgenic ani-mal models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)report a reduction in hippocampal neu-rogenesis (see references in Mu and Gage,2011) giving rise to the idea that impairedneurogenesishasanimportantroleduringthe onset and progression of the dis-ease. In many animal models of AD withfamilial-type mutations, this decrease inneurogenesis is associated with the pres-ence of toxic amyloid beta peptides (Aβ
Aerodynamic drag in cycling: methods of assessment

When cycling on level ground at a speed greater than 14 m/s, aerodynamic drag is the most important resistive force. About 90% of the total mechanical power output is necessary to overcome it. Aerodynamic drag is mainly affected by the effective frontal area which is the product of the projected frontal area and the coefficient of drag. The effective frontal area represents the position of the cyclist on the bicycle and the aerodynamics of the cyclist-bicycle system in this position. In order to optimise performance, estimation of these parameters is necessary. The aim of this study is to describe and comment on the methods used during the last 30 years for the evaluation of the effective frontal area and the projected frontal area in cycling, in both laboratory and actual conditions. Most of the field methods are not expensive and can be realised with few materials, providing valid results in comparison with the reference method in aerodynamics, the wind tunnel. Finally, knowledge of these parameters can be useful in practice or to create theoretical models of cycling performance.
ORBITAL ORIENTATIONS OF EXOPLANETS: HAT-P-4b IS PROGRADE AND HAT-P-14b IS RETROGRADE

We present observations of the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect for two exoplanetary systems, revealing the orientations of their orbits relative to the rotation axes of their parent stars. HAT-P-4b is prograde, with a sky-projected spin-orbit angle of λ = −4.9 ± 11.9 deg. In contrast, HAT-P-14b is retrograde, with λ = 189.1 ± 5.1 deg. These results conform with a previously noted pattern among the stellar hosts of close-in giant planets: hotter stars have a wide range of obliquities and cooler stars have low obliquities. This, in turn, suggests that three-body dynamics and tidal dissipation are responsible for the short-period orbits of many exoplanets. In addition, our data revealed a third body in the HAT-P-4 system, which could be a second planet or a companion star.
Affective Personalization of a Social Robot Tutor for Children's Second Language Skills

Though substantial research has been dedicated towards using technology to improve education, no current methods are as effective as one-on-one tutoring. A critical, though relatively understudied, aspect of effective tutoring is modulating the student's affective state throughout the tutoring session in order to maximize long-term learning gains. We developed an integrated experimental paradigm in which children play a second-language learning game on a tablet, in collaboration with a fully autonomous social robotic learning companion. As part of the system, we measured children's valence and engagement via an automatic facial expression analysis system. These signals were combined into a reward signal that fed into the robot's affective reinforcement learning algorithm. Over several sessions, the robot played the game and personalized its motivational strategies (using verbal and non-verbal actions) to each student. We evaluated this system with 34 children in preschool classrooms for a duration of two months. We saw that (1) children learned new words from the repeated tutoring sessions, (2) the affective policy personalized to students over the duration of the study, and (3) students who interacted with a robot that personalized its affective feedback strategy showed a significant increase in valence, as compared to students who interacted with a non-personalizing robot. This integrated system of tablet-based educational content, affective sensing, affective policy learning, and an autonomous social robot holds great promise for a more comprehensive approach to personalized tutoring.
The reliability of quadratic dynamic systems

A key quantity for the assessment of the reliability of a dynamic system subjected to stochastic load processes is the mean level crossing rate of the response process. This paper discusses a new method for calculating this quantity for a stochastic response process represented as a second order stochastic Volterra series. The derivation of this procedure consists of three stages. First the expression for the mean crossing rate is rewritten in terms of a joint characteristic function. Secondly, it is shown that a closed form expression for this joint characteristic function can be derived. Thirdly, it is then demonstrated how the method of steepest descent can be applied to the numerical calculation of the mean crossing rate. It is shown by an example that the numerical accuracy of this method is apparently very high.
Tick-borne rickettsial pathogens in questing ticks, removed from humans and animals in Mexico

Tick-borne rickettsial diseases (TBRD) are commonly encountered in medical and veterinary clinical settings. The control of these diseases is difficult, requiring disruption of a complex transmission chain involving a vertebrate host and ticks. The geographical distribution of the diseases is related to distribution of the vector, which is an indicator of risk for the population. A total of 1,107 ticks were collected by tick dragging from forests, ecotourism parks and hosts at 101 sites in 22 of the 32 states of Mexico. Collected ticks were placed in 1.5 mL cryovials containing 70% ethanol and were identified to species. Ticks were pooled according to location/host of collection, date of collection, sex, and stage of development. A total of 51 ticks were assayed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to confirm species identification using morphological methods. A total of 477 pools of ticks were assayed using PCR techniques for selected tick-borne pathogens. Anaplasma phagocytophilum was the most commonly detected pathogen (45 pools), followed by, Ehrlichia (E.) canis (42), Rickettsia (R.) rickettsii (11), E. chaffeensis (8), and R. amblyommii (1). Rhipicephalus sanguineus was the tick most frequently positive for selected pathogens. Overall, our results indicate that potential tick vectors positive for rickettsial pathogens are distributed throughout the area surveyed in Mexico.
Service on the community college campus: The Millennial generation perspective

iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Problem 2 Purpose 3 Research Questions 3 Significance 4 Delimitations 5 Site 5 Theoretical Framework 7 Definitions 8 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE 10 The Millennial Generation 10 Student as Customer in Higher Education 15 Customer Service and Employees in Higher Education 19 Summary 21 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN 23 Qualitative Approach 23 Epistemology 24 Theoretical Perspective and Framework 25 Methodology 25 Methods 27 Data Collection 29 Data Analysis 32 Goodness and Trustworthiness 33 Participants 34 Human Subjects Approval and Informed Consent 36 Positionality and Role of Researcher 37 CHAPTER FOUR: RESEARCH AND THEMES 38 Participants 38 Tanya 39 Doug 40 Jake 41 Molly 42 Sally Jo 42 Bob 44 Angie 44 Evelyn 45 Observation Sites 46 Bookstore 46 Financial Aid Office 46
Real-time estimation of quaternion impropriety

An algorithm for tracking the degree of quaternion impropriety in real-time is proposed. This is achieved by exploiting the i-, j-, and k-pseudo-covariances, which makes it possible to introduce an impropriety measure as the minimum mean square error (MMSE) solution for estimating the quaternion involutions along the i, j, and k axes from the quaternion random variable itself. For rigour, convergence conditions for both the mean and mean square behavior of such a real-time impropriety tracker are established, and the effect of the degree of impropriety on the steady-state performance of the algorithm is analyzed. The concept is supported by simulations on both synthetic data and on real-world wind data recordings.
A Typology of Partnerships for Promoting Innovation

As educational partnerships and collaboratives have become more popular in the last several decades, researchers and practitioners have sought to understand why these arrangements flourish or flounder. Taking into consideration the contextual factors affecting partnerships, we have conceptualized a framework of the types of partnerships that can develop between a school system and an external resource agency. The framework reflects the dynamic nature of partnerships, including the growing complexity of interorganizational arrangements that exist as partnerships move from a cooperative to a collaborative relationship. We conclude by discussing the value and utility of this framework as school districts and external agencies consider establishing short- or long-term partnerships.
Partitioning of catchment water budget and its implications for ecosystem carbon exchange

Abstract. Spatially averaged annual carbon budget is one of the key information needed to understand ecosystem response and feedback to climate change. Water availability is a primary constraint of carbon uptake in many ecosystems and therefore the estimation of ecosystem water use may serve as an alternative to quantify Gross Primary Productivity (GPP). To examine this concept, we estimated a long-term steady state water budget for the Han River basin (~26 000 km2) in Korea and examined its application for catchment scale carbon exchange. For this, the catchment scale evapotranspiration (ET) was derived from the long term precipitation (P) and discharge (Q) data. Then, using stable isotope data of P and Q along with other hydrometeorological information, ET was partitioned into evaporation from soil and water surfaces (ES), evaporation from intercepted rainfall (EI, and transpiration (T). ES was identified as a minor component of ET in the study areas regardless of the catchment scales. The annual T, estimated from ET after accounting for EI and ES for the Han River basin from 1966 to 2007, was 22~31% of annual P and the proportion decreased with increasing P. Assuming that T further constrains the catchment scale GPP in terms of water use efficiency (WUE), we examined the possibility of using T as a relative measure for the strength and temporal changes of carbon uptake capacity. The proposed relationship would provide a simple and practical way to assess the spatial distribution of ecosystem GPP, provided the WUE estimates in terms of GPP/T at ecosystem scale could be obtained. For carbon and water tracking toward a sustainable Asia, ascertaining such a spatiotemporally representative WUE and their variability is a requisite facing the flux measurement and modeling communities.