Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors motivating and influencing clothing disposal behaviours

This study of 232 college students was framed by Ajzen and Fishbein's theory of reasoned action and examined factors that motivate and influence college students' clothing disposal behaviours. Using survey questionnaires, we investigated four different clothing disposal options (resale, donation, reusing and discarding) and examined five motivational factors (environmental, economic, charity and convenience concerns and information unavailability). The influences of attitudes towards the environment and subjective norms of family and friends on clothing disposal behaviours also were examined. Results indicated that resale and donation behaviours were explained by environmental concerns and that reuse and resale behaviours were explained by economic concerns. Charity concerns motivated donation behaviours and convenience motivated discarding behaviours. Further, findings indicated that family subjective norms influenced environmentally motivated resale and donation behaviours.
Perturbation resilience and superiorization of iterative algorithms

Iterative algorithms aimed at solving some problems are discussed. For certain problems, such as finding a common point in the intersection of a finite number of convex sets, there often exist iterative algorithms that impose very little demand on computer resources. For other problems, such as finding that point in the intersection at which the value of a given function is optimal, algorithms tend to need more computer memory and longer execution time. A methodology is presented whose aim is to produce automatically for an iterative algorithm of the first kind a ‘superiorized version’ of it that retains its computational efficiency but nevertheless goes a long way toward solving an optimization problem. This is possible to do if the original algorithm is ‘perturbation resilient’, which is shown to be the case for various projection algorithms for solving the consistent convex feasibility problem. The superiorized versions of such algorithms use perturbations that steer the process in the direction of a superior feasible point, which is not necessarily optimal, with respect to the given function. After presenting these intuitive ideas in a precise mathematical form, they are illustrated in image reconstruction from projections for two different projection algorithms superiorized for the function whose value is the total variation of the image.
Safety and efficacy of topical norfloxacin versus tobramycin in the treatment of external ocular infections

Bacterial conjunctivitis appears to resolve more rapidly when treated with appropriate topical antimicrobial agents. In this multicenter, randomized, double-blind study of efficacy and safety, patients with presumed bacterial external eye infections were assigned to topical therapy with 0.3% norfloxacin or 0.3% tobramycin. A total of 120 patients were enrolled. Of the total, 65 had documented bacterial infections and were evaluable; 59 of these patients had bacterial conjunctivitis. All of the patients with documented infections were cured or improved regardless of the drug treatment regimen or in vitro susceptibility testing results. The most common bacteria isolated were Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, alpha-hemolytic streptococci, Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus sp. No patients had serious adverse reactions attributed to their therapy. Norfloxacin ophthalmic solution seems to be a safe, effective, and appropriate agent for the treatment of bacterial external eye infections.
Broadband Single-Stage Models for Microwave Band-Pass Filters

A single-stage expandable equivalent circuit is proposed to model a microwave band-pass filter up to several times its passband frequency. The equivalent circuit adopts a modified T-equivalent network to achieve an extremely large bandwidth. The modeled results for a 2.4 GHz WLAN bandpass filter fabricated in LTCC technology demonstrate good agreement with the measured results over a frequency range up to 8.5 GHz. Such a broadband model can be used to accurately predict the suppression of harmonics and interferences in system simulation of wireless front-end modules
Warm gas in central regions of nearby galaxies. Extended mapping of CO(3-2) emission

We have mapped the CO(3{2) line emission from several nearby galaxies, using the Heinrich-Hertz- Telescope on Mt. Graham, Arizona. Unlike earlier observations, our investigation is not restricted to starburst galaxies, but includes twelve galaxies of various types and in dierent stages of star forming activity. Furthermore, we have not only observed the central positions of these objects, but have obtained maps of the extended CO(3{2) emission, with a typical map extent of 2 to 3 arcmin in each direction. Our observations show that this extended mapping is necessary to reveal spatial changes of the ISM properties within the galaxies. In this paper we present the data sets and some data analysis. We compare the galaxies in view of their morphology and excitation conditions, using line ratios, luminosities and other properties, like the extent of the CO(3{2) emission. The main results of this CO(3{2) survey are: 1. In none of the observed objects the emission is conned to the nucleus, as claimed in some earlier publications. CO(3{2) emission can be detected for some objects to the same extent as the CO(2{1) and the CO(1{0) lines. 2. The emission is more concentrated to the vicinity of star forming structures (nuclear regions and spiral arms) than the lower CO transitions for most of the observed objects. This is shown by decreasing (3{2)/(1{0) line intensity ratios from the very centres towards larger radii. The (deconvolved) sizes of the central emission peaks in the CO(3{2) line vary from about 300 pc up to 3 kpc. 3. The CO(3{2) luminosity is stronger in objects that contain a nuclear starburst or morphological peculiarities. The total power emitted in the CO(3{2) line from the central regions (i.e. excluding spiral arms/outer disk) is highest in the starburst galaxies NGC 2146, M 82, NGC 3628, and in the spiral galaxy M 51. When comparing the total power normalized to the size of the emission region, the starburst galaxies M 82 and NGC 253 show the highest values (about three times higher than most other objects), while NGC 278 and NGC 4631 show the lowest. 4. With the present spatial resolution, the line ratios R3;1 seem to be independent of Hubble type, color or luminosity. Most galaxies with enhanced central star formation (\starbursts") show line ratios of the integrated intensities of R3;1 1: 3i n the very centre and 1.0 at a radius of about 1 kpc. Objects with a ring-like (or double-peak if seen edge-on) molecular gas distribution (NGC 253, M 82, and NGC 4631) show lower ratios. The two galaxies that have CO(3{ 2) emission distributed over their spiral arms (NGC 891 and M 51) show very low line ratios despite their high infrared luminosities. This result suggests that CO emission in these objects reflects a large amount of molecular gas, but not enhanced star forming activity. 5. Starburst galaxies show CO(3{2) emission also in their disks. The line intensities are higher than that of normal galaxies. This suggests that even if a starburst is a localized phenomenon, it is related to dierent properties of the molecular gas over the whole galaxy.
Distributional Representations of Words for Short Text Classification

Traditional supervised learning approaches to common NLP tasks depend heavily on manual annotation, which is labor intensive and time consuming, and often suffer from data sparseness. In this paper we show how to mitigate the problems in short text classification (STC) through word embeddings ‐ distributional representations of words learned from large unlabeled data. The word embeddings are trained from the entire English Wikipedia text. We assume that a short text document is a specific sample of one distribution in a Bayesian framework. A Gaussian process approach is used to model the distribution of words. The task of classification becomes a simple problem of selecting the most probable Gaussian distribution. This approach is compared with those based on the classical maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model and the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) approach. Our approach achieved better performance and also showed advantages in dealing with unseen words.
New Tools to Study Astrocyte Ca2+ Signal Dynamics in Brain Networks In Vivo

Sensory information processing is a fundamental operation in the brain that is based on dynamic interactions between different neuronal populations. Astrocytes, a type of glial cells, have been proposed to represent active elements of brain microcircuits that, through dynamic interactions with neurons, provide a modulatory control of neuronal network activity. Specifically, astrocytes in different brain regions have been described to respond to neuronal signals with intracellular Ca2+ elevations that represent a key step in the functional recruitment of astrocytes to specific brain circuits. Accumulating evidence shows that Ca2+ elevations regulate the release of gliotransmitters that, in turn, modulate synaptic transmission and neuronal excitability. Recent studies also provided new insights into the spatial and temporal features of astrocytic Ca2+ elevations revealing a surprising complexity of Ca2+ signal dynamics in astrocytes. Here we discuss how recently developed experimental tools such as the genetically encoded Ca2+ indicators (GECI), optogenetics and chemogenetics can be applied to the study of astrocytic Ca2+ signals in the living brain.
First Description of a Cluster of Acute/Subacute Paracoccidioidomycosis Cases and Its Association with a Climatic Anomaly

Background Identifying clusters of acute paracoccidioidomycosis cases could potentially help in identifying the environmental factors that influence the incidence of this mycosis. However, unlike other endemic mycoses, there are no published reports of clusters of paracoccidioidomycosis. Methodology/Principal Findings A retrospective cluster detection test was applied to verify if an excess of acute form (AF) paracoccidioidomycosis cases in time and/or space occurred in Botucatu, an endemic area in São Paulo State. The scan-test SaTScan v7.0. 3 was set to find clusters for the maximum temporal period of 1 year. The temporal test indicated a significant cluster in 1985 (P<0.005). This cluster comprised 10 cases, although 2.19 were expected for this year in this area. Age and clinical presentation of these cases were typical of AF paracccidioidomycosis. The space-time test confirmed the temporal cluster in 1985 and showed the localities where the risk was higher in that year. The cluster suggests that some particularities took place in the antecedent years in those localities. Analysis of climate variables showed that soil water storage was atypically high in 1982/83 (∼2.11/2.5 SD above mean), and the absolute air humidity in 1984, the year preceding the cluster, was much higher than normal (∼1.6 SD above mean), conditions that may have favored, respectively, antecedent fungal growth in the soil and conidia liberation in 1984, the probable year of exposure. These climatic anomalies in this area was due to the 1982/83 El Niño event, the strongest in the last 50 years. Conclusions/Significance We describe the first cluster of AF paracoccidioidomycosis, which was potentially linked to a climatic anomaly caused by the 1982/83 El Niño Southern Oscillation. This finding is important because it may help to clarify the conditions that favor Paracoccidioides brasiliensis survival and growth in the environment and that enhance human exposure, thus allowing the development of preventive measures.
Midwives’ and obstetricians’ knowledge and management of women presenting with decreased fetal movements

Background. Maternal perception of decreased fetal movements (DFM) affects 5–15% of pregnancies. DFM is associated with intra‐uterine fetal death (IUFD) and intra‐uterine growth restriction (IUGR). It has been proposed that maternal perception of DFM may be used as a screening tool for IUFD or IUGR. However, this proposal is complicated by variations in definitions and management of DFM. Hypothesis. We hypothesised that uncertainties in the definition and management of women presenting with DFM leads to variation in clinical practice. Methods. A postal questionnaire was sent to midwives and consultant obstetricians in the UK. Results. The majority of respondents enquired about the presence of fetal movements after 28 weeks gestation. There was little agreement on a definition of DFM, with a maternal perception of decreased movements for 24 h gaining the greatest acceptance. Few practitioners used formal fetal movement counting, with the majority of respondents stating they were ineffective in the prevention of IUGR or IUFD and led to increased intervention. There was large variation in the knowledge of associations with DFM and management of women presenting with DFM. Conclusions. There were wide variations in the practice of obstetricians and midwives with regard to women presenting with DFM; many aspects of practice were not based on the available evidence. The variation in practice may result from a lack of robust evidence on which to base the provision of care. Further research is needed to provide and disseminate evidence to direct the management of women presenting with DFM.
A Competitive Texas Hold'em Poker Player via Automated Abstraction and Real-Time Equilibrium Computation

We present a game theory-based heads-up Texas Hold'em poker player, GS1. To overcome the computational obstacles stemming from Texas Hold'em's gigantic game tree, the player employs our automated abstraction techniques to reduce the complexity of the strategy computations. Texas Hold'em consists of four betting rounds. Our player solves a large linear program (offline) to compute strategies for the abstracted first and second rounds. After the second betting round, our player updates the probability of each possible hand based on the observed betting actions in the first two rounds as well as the revealed cards. Using these updated probabilities, our player computes in real-time an equilibrium approximation for the last two abstracted rounds. We demonstrate that our player, which incorporates very little poker-specific knowledge, is competitive with leading poker-playing programs which incorporate extensive domain knowledge, as well as with advanced human players.
Direct Sequencing of Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) Revealed an Intronic Variant rs201231411 in Iranian Patients with Pancreatic Cancer

BACKGROUND There are hoarding documents for the biological importance of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in pancreatic carcinogenesis. We aimed to thoroughly investigate the DNA sequence variations of whole COX-2 exons in a large case-control study of pancreatic cancer by direct sequencing. METHODS The entire exonic regions of COX-2 including 10 exons were sequenced in the germline DNA of 96 patients with pancreatic cancer. Selected variants within exons six to seven (E6E7) amplicon from the test panel were genotyped in 96 controls. RESULTS The COX-2 gene was demonstrated to be genetically conserved. Four missense mutations were found in three cases. However the common variant c.724-10_724-7delATTT (rs201231411) that is located in intron 6, showed significant difference between cases and controls (21 [21.9%] vs 11 [%11.5], p=0.05). CONCLUSION This study determined that COX-2 has a conservative sequence, which is required for its enzymatic activity and supports the important role of this enzyme’s expression in pancreatic cancer rather than any changes in its activity. The effect of intronic variant rs201231411 on COX-2 expression could be analyzed in future studies.
Distribution and Interrelationship of Smoking, Drinking, and Physical Exercising among Some Rural Adult, an Application of the Transtheoretical Model

Transtheoretical model of change has been proven very effective in explaining both the acquisition and cessation of many health related behaviors. The objectives of this study were to describe the distribution of smokers by stage of change of smoking, alcoholic drinking, and exercising in rural residents and to develope health promotion strategies. This study was done in Okchun County of Chungbuk Province. The representative sample were 892 residents over 30 years old. The questionnaires of interview included socio-demographic, the six stage distribution of smoking, alcoholic drinking, and exercising. In male, 50.6% of smokers were in the precontemplation stage, 32.5% in the contemplation. In female, corresponding figures were 60.6% and 28.8%. Precontemplation and contemplation stage of drinker were 72.8%, 19.3% in male and 80.3%, 15.5%. Distribution of exercise were 80.6%, 1.8% in male, 87.6%, 1.2% in female, respectively. The stage distribution of smoker, alcoholic drinker, and exerciser was shift to left of the distribution. And the stage distribution was slightly differ with each health behavior. The stage of change with smoking, drinking and exercising was correlated with each other but not concordant. So interventions in rural residents need to take into account the large proportion of precontemplators repeatedly observed among smoker, drinker, and non-exerciser. And intervention strategies of each risk behavior should be different approach. Result of concordance analysis suggest reconstruct validity of the transtheoretical model in our country due to ethnic and sociocultural difference. This results and theory should be tested in prospective intervention studies for seeking the possible gateway of health behavior.
THE DEEP2 GALAXY REDSHIFT SURVEY: THE VORONOI–DELAUNAY METHOD CATALOG OF GALAXY GROUPS

We present a public catalog of galaxy groups constructed from the spectroscopic sample of galaxies in the fourth data release from the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe 2 (DEEP2) Galaxy Redshift Survey, including the Extended Groth Strip (EGS). The catalog contains 1165 groups with two or more members in the EGS over the redshift range 0 < z < 1.5 and 1295 groups at z > 0.6 in the rest of DEEP2. Twenty-five percent of EGS galaxies and fourteen percent of high-z DEEP2 galaxies are assigned to galaxy groups. The groups were detected using the Voronoi–Delaunay method (VDM) after it has been optimized on mock DEEP2 catalogs following similar methods to those employed in Gerke et al. In the optimization effort, we have taken particular care to ensure that the mock catalogs resemble the data as closely as possible, and we have fine-tuned our methods separately on mocks constructed for the EGS and the rest of DEEP2. We have also probed the effect of the assumed cosmology on our inferred group-finding efficiency by performing our optimization on three different mock catalogs with different background cosmologies, finding large differences in the group-finding success we can achieve for these different mocks. Using the mock catalog whose background cosmology is most consistent with current data, we estimate that the DEEP2 group catalog is 72% complete and 61% pure (74% and 67% for the EGS) and that the group finder correctly classifies 70% of galaxies that truly belong to groups, with an additional 46% of interloper galaxies contaminating the catalog (66% and 43% for the EGS). We also confirm that the VDM catalog reconstructs the abundance of galaxy groups with velocity dispersions above ∼300 km s−1 to an accuracy better than the sample variance, and this successful reconstruction is not strongly dependent on cosmology. This makes the DEEP2 group catalog a promising probe of the growth of cosmic structure that can potentially be used for cosmological tests.
Band ligation of gastric antral vascular ectasia is a safe and effective endoscopic treatment

Gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) or ‘watermelon stomach’ is a rare and often misdiagnosed cause of occult upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Treatment includes conservative measures such as transfusion and endoscopic therapy. A recent report suggests that endoscopic band ligation (EBL) offers an effective alternative treatment. The aim of the present study is to demonstrate our experiences with this novel technique, and to compare argon plasma coagulation (APC) with EBL in terms of safety and efficacy.
Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype

Background The ‘broader autism phenotype’ (BAP) refers to the mild expression of autistic-like traits in the relatives of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Establishing the presence of ASD traits provides insight into which traits are heritable in ASD. Here, the ability to recognise facial identity was tested in 33 parents of ASD children. Methodology and Results In experiment 1, parents of ASD children completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT), and a questionnaire assessing the presence of autistic personality traits. The parents, particularly the fathers, were impaired on the CFMT, but there were no associations between face recognition ability and autistic personality traits. In experiment 2, parents and probands completed equivalent versions of a simple test of face matching. On this task, the parents were not impaired relative to typically developing controls, however the proband group was impaired. Crucially, the mothers' face matching scores correlated with the probands', even when performance on an equivalent test of matching non-face stimuli was controlled for. Conclusions and Significance Components of face recognition ability are impaired in some relatives of ASD individuals. Results suggest that face recognition skills are heritable in ASD, and genetic and environmental factors accounting for the pattern of heritability are discussed. In general, results demonstrate the importance of assessing the skill level in the proband when investigating particular characteristics of the BAP.
Voting and Bribing in Single-Exponential Time

We introduce a general problem about bribery in voting systems. In the R-Multi-Bribery problem, the goal is to bribe a set of voters at minimum cost such that a desired candidate is a winner in the perturbed election under the voting rule R. Voters assign prices for withdrawing their vote, for swapping the positions of two consecutive candidates in their preference order, and for perturbing their approval count to favour candidates. As our main result, we show that R-Multi-Bribery is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the number of candidates |C| with only a single-exponential dependence on |C|, for many natural voting rules R, including all natural scoring protocols, maximin rule, Bucklin rule, Fallback rule, SP-AV, and any C1 rule. The vast majority of previous work done in the setting of few candidates proceeds by grouping voters into at most |C|! types by their preference, constructing an integer linear program with |C|! 2 variables, and solving it by Lenstra’s algorithm in time |C|! |C|! 2, hence double-exponential in |C|. Note that it is not possible to encode a large number of different voter costs in this way and still obtain a fixed-parameter algorithm, as that would increase the number of voter types and hence the dimension. These two obstacles of double-exponential complexity and restricted costs have been formulated as “Challenges #1 and #2” of the “Nine Research Challenges in Computational Social Choice” by Bredereck et al. Hence, our result resolves the parameterized complexity of R-Swap-Bribery for the aforementioned voting rules plus Kemeny’s rule, and for all rules except Kemeny brings the dependence on |C| down to single-exponential. The engine behind our progress is the use of a new integer linear programming formulation, using so-called “n-fold integer programming. ” Since its format is quite rigid, we introduce “extended n-fold IP,” which allows many useful modeling tricks. Then, we model R-Multi-Bribery as an extended n-fold IP and apply an algorithm of Hemmecke et al. [Math. Prog. 2013].