Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ALFF changes in brain areas of human with high myopia revealed by resting-state functional MRI

Objective: To study the changes of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) of the resting-fMRI in brain areas of human with high myopia. Methods: Twenty graduate students with high myopia and twenty ones with normal vision underwent two resting-state fMRI scanning sessions, one for eyes-open (EO) with no fixation and one for eyes-closed (EC) conditions. After data preprocessing, ALFF was obtained by calculating the square root of the power spectrum in the frequency range of 0.01∼0.08Hz. Results: In EO condition, decreased ALFF was observed in the left occipital lobe, bilateral frontal lobe and right inferior parietal lobule in high myopia group compared to normal vision group; increased ALFF was observed in the left caudate nucleus and thalamus compared to normal vision group. In EC condition, decreased ALFF was observed in the bilateral frontal lobe, right parietal lobe and right middle temporal lobe in high myopia group. In high myopia group, the ALFF in EO condition is significantly higher than that in EC condition in the left caudate nucleus and the cuneus. In normal vision group, there were significant ALFF differences between EO and EC conditions. Conclusions: Bad vision might reduce the neural activities in prefrontal and parietal cortex within the default mode network (DMN). While, Human with bad vision need stronger neural activities in the caudate nucleus in EO condition to regulate the transmission of information between the thalamus and the orbitofrontal cortex which may be induced by their bad vision.
Abella: A System for Reasoning about Relational Specifications

The Abella interactive theorem prover is based on an intuitionistic logic that allows for inductive and co-inductive reasoning over relations. Abella supports the λ-tree approach to treating syntax containing binders: it allows simply typed λ-terms to be used to represent such syntax and it provides higher-order (pattern) unification, the nabla quantifier, and nominal constants for reasoning about these representations. As such, it is a suitable vehicle for formalizing the meta-theory of formal systems such as logics and programming languages. This tutorial exposes Abella incrementally, starting with its capabilities at a first-order logic level and gradually presenting more sophisticated features, ending with the support it offers to the two-level logic approach to meta-theoretic reasoning. Along the way, we show how Abella can be used prove theorems involving natural numbers, lists, and automata, as well as involving typed and untyped λ-calculi and the π-calculus.
Belonging to a peer support group enhance the quality of life and adherence rate in patients affected by breast cancer: A non-randomized controlled clinical trial*

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. It seems that breast cancer patients benefit from meeting someone who had a similar experience. This study evaluated the effect of two kinds of interventions (peer support and educational program) on quality of life in breast cancer patients. METHODS: This study was a controlled clinical trial on women with non-metastatic breast cancer. The patients studied in two experimental and control groups. Experimental group took part in peer support program and control group passed a routine educational program during 3 months. The authors administered SF-36 for evaluating the quality of life pre-and post intervention. Also, patient's adherence was assessed by means of a simple checklist. RESULTS: Two groups were similar with respect of age, age of onset of the disease, duration of having breast cancer, marital status, type of the treatment receiving now, and type of the received surgery. In the control group, there were statistically significant improvements in body pain, role-physical, role-emotional and social functioning. In experimental group, role-physical, vitality, social functioning, role-emotional and mental health showed significant improvement. Vitality score and mental health score in experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group, both with p < 0.001. Also, it was shown that adherence was in high levels in both groups and no significant difference was seen after the study was done. CONCLUSIONS: According to the results of this study, supporting the patients with breast cancer by forming peer groups or by means of educational sessions could improve their life qualities.
Cloning, expression, and sequence analysis of the Bacillus methanolicus C1 methanol dehydrogenase gene

The gene (mdh) coding for methanol dehydrogenase (MDH) of thermotolerant, methylotroph Bacillus methanolicus C1 has been cloned and sequenced. The deduced amino acid sequence of the mdh gene exhibited similarity to those of five other alcohol dehydrogenase (type III) enzymes, which are distinct from the long-chain zinc-containing (type I) or short-chain zinc-lacking (type II) enzymes. Highly efficient expression of the mdh gene in Escherichia coli was probably driven from its own promoter sequence. After purification of MDH from E. coli, the kinetic and biochemical properties of the enzyme were investigated. The physiological effect of MDH synthesis in E. coli and the role of conserved sequence patterns in type III alcohol dehydrogenases have been analyzed and are discussed.
Differentiation and Comparison of Left handed and Right handed writers on the basis of Strokes and Slope of letter

Handwriting is a written speech of an individual with characteristics peculiar to himself. The handwriting of a person is a product of his mental, emotional, intellectual and physical personality. Once the handwriting is set it is unique expression of his graphic personality. The differentiation for the identification of handedness of author plays an important role to identify an individual in document cases and to study this differentiation and comparison of left handed and right handed writers on the basis of strokes and slope of letter, the present study was conducted at Bilaspur district, Chhattisgarh in which 100 samples of handwriting, 50 left-handed and 50 right-handed writer were collected. The handwriting samples were examined by hand lens, flexible arm illuminated magnifier, grid scale and the characteristics features like stroke and slope were observed in various letters. A significant difference was observed in left handed and right handed writing and was concluded that left-handed writer make strokes in right-to-left direction and the slope of letters has an inclination in backward direction where as right-handed writer make strokes in left-to-right direction and the inclination of slope was in forward direction. Thus, this differentiation and comparison helps to solve many document cases.
Intracuneate mechanisms underlying primary afferent cutaneous processing in anaesthetized cats

The cutaneous primary afferents from the upper trunk and forelimbs reach the medial cuneate nucleus in their way towards the cerebral cortex. The aim of this work was twofold: (i) to study the mechanisms used by the primary afferents to relay cutaneous information to cuneate cuneolemniscal (CL) and noncuneolemniscal (nCL) cells, and (ii) to determine the intracuneate mechanisms leading to the elaboration of the output signal by CL cells. Extracellular recordings combined with microiontophoresis demonstrated that the primary afferent cutaneous information is communicated to CL and nCL cells through AMPA, NMDA and kainate receptors. These receptors were sequentially activated: AMPA receptors participated mainly during the initial phase of the response, whereas kainate‐ and NMDA‐mediated activity predominated during a later phase. The involvement of NMDA receptors was confirmed by in vivo intracellular recordings. The cutaneous‐evoked activation of CL cells was decreased by GABA and increased by glycine acting at a strychnine‐sensitive site, indicating that glycine indirectly affects CL cells. Two subgroups of nCL cells were distinguished based on their sensitivity to iontophoretic ejection of glycine and strychnine. Overall, the results support a model whereby the primary afferent cutaneous input induces a centre‐surround antagonism in the cuneate nucleus by activating (via AMPA, NMDA and kainate receptors) and disinhibiting (via serial glycinergic–GABAergic interactions) a population of CL cells with overlapped receptive fields that at the same time inhibit (via GABAergic cells) other neighbouring CL cells with different receptive fields.
Wavelet Shrinkage for Nonparametric Mixed-eeects Models

In this article, a nonparametric regression problem is discussed on wavelet bases via a Bayesian structure. The resulting model is a nonpara-metric mixed-eeects model. Regularities of the prior and the posterior spaces are studied and compared. Both Bayes and empirical Bayes es-timators are derived. Moreover, the proposed empirical Bayes estimator is shown to have the Gauss-Markov type optimality when the prior parameters are available. It is also equivalent to a Sobolev regularization. Adaptive variants of the empirical Bayes estimator are also investigated when the prior parameters are not feasible. The theoretical justiications and simulation results of these new wavelet shrinkage methods are reported .
Suppression in object-based attention

ABSTRACT This study examines suppression in object-based attention in three experiments using an object-based attention task similar to Egly, R. , Driver, J., & Rafal, R. D. (1994. Shifting visual attention between objects and locations: Evidence from normal and parietal lesion subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123(2), 161–177. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.123. 2.161) with the addition of a distractor. In Experiment 1 participants identified a target object at one of four ends of two rectangles. The target location was validly cued on 72% of trials. The remaining 28% were located on the same or a different object. Sixty-eight percent of trials also included a distractor on one of the two objects. Experiment 1 failed to show suppression when a distractor was present, but did demonstrate the spread of attention across the attended object when no distractor was present. Experiment 2 added a mask to the paradigm to make the task more difficult and engage suppression. When suppression was engaged in the task, data showed suppression on the unattended (different) object, but not on the attended (same) object. Experiment 3 replicated findings from Experiment 1 and 2 using a within participants design. Findings are discussed in relation to the role of suppression in visual selective attention.
A Morphological-Rank-Linear Approach for Software Development Cost Estimation

This work presents a Morphological-Rank-Linear approach to solve the problem of Software Development Cost Estimation (SDCE). It consists of a hybrid morphological model, which is a linear combination between a Morphological-Rank (MR) operator (nonlinear) and a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) operator (linear), referred to as Morphological-Rank-Linear (MRL) filter. A gradient steepest descent method to adjust the MRL filter parameters (learning process), using the Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithm, and a systematic approach to overcome the problem of nondifferentiability of the morphological-rank operator are used to improve the numerical robustness of training algorithm. Furthermore, an experimental analysis is conducted with the proposed approach using the well-known NASA database. In the experiments, two relevant performance metrics and an evaluation function are used to assess the performance of the proposed approach. The results obtained are compared to models recently presented in literature.
Stability and Growth Pact and its Institutional Inconsistencies Reforming: The Stability and Growth Pact Presentation: ECPR-Standing Group on the European Union Second Pan-European Conference on EU Politics

One of the most illustrating example in history of the EUROPEAN Monetary Union are the growing interactions between sovereign countries -each retaining a large degree of scal autonomy- and the single monetary authority, which managing European monetary policy, since the establishment of the monetary union in 1999. Additionally some regulations as the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP; 1997) introduce new conicts and gets to one of the mainstays in the European scal framework. Since the Econ-council meeting in November, 2003 and the failure to impose sanctions against sinner states, the ’Stability and Growth Pact’ is subject of lively academic and public debate. Dieren t alternatives to the current ’Stability and Growth Pact’ exists. There are three main elds of critics about the ’Stability and Growth Pact’. First, the institutional problems. Second, the thresholds and targets and nally the implementation problems. This paper presents a critical assessment of the SGP. The contribution of this paper is: First, summarize the alternative proposals and present a good overview about the huge number of partly vague reform suggestions. In a second step I analyze the the proposals and categorize them into four dieren t ’Reform Alternatives’. Finally, I will extract a reform alternative which takes nearly all critics into consideration and nd an answer to: How should the European scal framework reformed in future especially the SGP? Moreover the primary target of the paper is to look for new ecien t ’supranational-national’ interaction mechanisms. A new nding presented here is that ecien t ’supranational-national’ mechanisms need adequate rewards for the restricted party. Additionally I demonstrate that coordination is necessary but with positive incentives. So the paper concludes and shows: How can you solve the interaction between the ’European’ and ’National’ interests ecien t.
Indicators for metabolic disturbances in anovulatory women with polycystic ovary syndrome diagnosed according to the Rotterdam consensus criteria.

BACKGROUND Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with metabolic abnormalities. It is debated whether all women with PCOS should be screened for metabolic abnormalities as these may vary with PCOS phenotype, age and ethnicity. The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence of metabolic abnormalities in Dutch anovulatory PCOS women and to define criteria for metabolic screening. METHODS Anovulatory patients, diagnosed with PCOS according to the Rotterdam consensus criteria, underwent metabolic screening. Through stepwise multivariate analysis patient characteristics associated with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and insulin resistance (IR) were evaluated for their use as selection parameters for metabolic screening. RESULTS Overall, prevalence of MetS and IR was 15.9% (n = 25) and 14% (n = 22), respectively, in 157 PCOS women (age 29.0 +/- 4.8 years, BMI 26.1 +/- 6.7 kg/m(2)). Anovulatory hyperandrogenic women (with or without polycystic ovaries) had more often MetS and IR (with, 20.8 and 19.8%; without, 100 and 40%, respectively) than non-hyperandrogenic PCOS women (0 and 1.8%; P < 0.001). Waist circumference >83.5 cm along with increased free androgen index (FAI) had the most powerful association with the presence of MetS and IR (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.912) and offered a reduction in the necessity of screening for metabolic derailments of about 50%. CONCLUSIONS The hyperandrogenic PCOS phenotypes are highly linked to the presence of MetS and IR in Dutch PCOS women. Waist circumference combined with FAI was identified as an efficient combination test to select those PCOS women who should be screened for the presence of MetS and/or IR.
Disparate measures in the workplace-Quantifying overall job satisfaction

Basing its critique on a close examination of BHPS data, the paper points to three inadequacies in recent treatment of the job satisfaction concept: 1. a semantic confusion between ‘job’ in the primary sense of ‘paid appointment’ and in the secondary sense of ‘work tasks actually performed’; 2. a model of the employee which places stress on affectivity and responsiveness, rather than on purposive rationality, throwing doubt on the possibility of competent and well-grounded actor judgements about the advantages of a job as paid appointment, while giving too much weight to shifting ‘attitudes’ and a supposed priority among employees of inner needs for self-actualisation, involvement, empowerment, etc; 3. an excessively laid-back confidence in the performance of measures, with a too frequent disregard for measurement basics and a routine failure to examine validity, resulting in oversight of the internal complexity of job satisfaction, construct bias towards the affectivity/responsiveness image of employees, and potentially serious misinterpretation. The paper argues that a major source of these difficulties lies in use of a single-item indicator for overall job satisfaction. This measure is shown to be biased, as well as too rough and ready for use in advanced analysis. Yet an alternative, composite measure is easy to create and has helped to disclose striking differences in the job satisfaction profiles of the unit occupations of SOC. The critical themes are illustrated by recent examples drawn from management psychology and labour economics. If objections to a single-item indicator of overall job satisfaction are valid, consideration might have to be given to discontinuing the version currently used in BHPS and to restoring the enquiries about the job facets a) promotion opportunities and b) relations with own manager/supervisor, which were suspended at wave 8.
Pain-to-hospital times, cardiovascular risk factors, and early intrahospital mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction

Background The aim of the study was to analyze the most recent trends in myocardial infarction (MI) care, the number of patients treated for MI and their outcomes, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and pain-to-hospital times in MI patients. Subjects and methods For 778 patients treated for acute MI at the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) of University Hospital Split, Croatia the following data were acquired: outcome during hospitalization (survived, deceased), cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, previous MI, smoking), and pain-to-CCU time. Results Among 778 patients treated for acute MI, there were 291 (37%) women and 487 (63%) men. Forty-five patients (6%) died during hospitalization, mostly due to cardiogenic shock. An association was found between early intrahospital mortality and the following risk factors: age >70 years, female sex, previous MI, and smoking. Median pain-to-call time was 2 hours, and median time from the onset of pain to arrival into the CCU was 4 hours. There were 59 (7.6%) patients admitted to the CCU within recommended 90 minutes. Diabetic comorbidity was not associated with early death or with longer time from pain to emergency calls. Conclusion Some of the risk factors associated with adverse outcomes in MI are modifiable. Prehospital delay of 4 hours observed in patients who suffered an MI is too long, and more effort should be devoted to investments in health care and education of the general public regarding chest pain symptoms.
Association of markers at chromosome 15q14 in Chinese patients with moderate to high myopia

Purpose To investigate the association of two reported regions on chromosome 15 with moderate to high myopia in two Chinese cohorts from southern China. Methods Two candidate regions on 15q14 and 15q25 were selected based on reported association with refractive error in the literature. Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped in 300 university students with high myopia at Guangzhou and 308 without refractive error, and 96 university students of Chaoshan Chinese origin with moderate to high myopia and 96 without refractive error. Genotypes were evaluated using direct sequencing and analyzed with chi-square, Armitage trend, and Mantel-Haenszel tests, and regression analysis. Results Of the five SNPs screened, alleles of rs634990 and rs524952 in the 15q14 region showed evidence of allelic association with moderate to high myopia (p<8.81×10−7 and p<1.57×10−6, respectively) in the Guangzhou group, but not in the Chaoshan group. The SNPs at 15q25 did not show significant association in any group. Association of rs634990 and rs524952 were still significant when both groups were combined into a single analysis (p<1.66×10−6 and p<2.72×10−6, respectively), and for genotypic, additive, and dominant models. Conclusions This study confirms the significant association of rs634990 and rs524952 on chromosome 15q14 previously reported in European and Japanese populations with high myopia in the Guangzhou but not the Chaoshan Chinese populations, suggesting that genetic contributors to high myopia in the Chaoshan population might be different from other Chinese populations.
Classification with a Reject Option using a Hinge Loss

We consider the problem of binary classification where the classifier can, for a particular cost, choose not to classify an observation. Just as in the conventional classification problem, minimization of the sample average of the cost is a difficult optimization problem. As an alternative, we propose the optimization of a certain convex loss function φ, analogous to the hinge loss used in support vector machines (SVMs). Its convexity ensures that the sample average of this surrogate loss can be efficiently minimized. We study its statistical properties. We show that minimizing the expected surrogate lossthe φ-riskalso minimizes the risk. We also study the rate at which the φ-risk approaches its minimum value. We show that fast rates are possible when the conditional probability P(Y=1|X) is unlikely to be close to certain critical values.
Assessing bettors' ability to process dynamic information: Policy implications

Regulation is often employed to encourage the provision of readily interpretable, explicit information to betting markets in an effort to promote their efficiency. This approach is supported by a considerable volume of laboratory-based research which suggests that individuals make poor judgments in the face of implicit, dynamic information. This article investigates to what extent horserace bettors, who have strong incentives to make good probability judgments, require the regulator’s protection from such hostile information environments. In particular, we examine the accuracy of the subjective probabilities of bettors concerning 16,344 horses in 1671 races. We find that bettors are skilled in adopting effective heuristics to simplify their dynamic information environment and, even in the face of restricted information, develop well-calibrated judgments using outcome feedback. A number of factors that help bettors to achieve good calibration are identified and the implications for market regulation are discussed.
Critical success factors for implementing knowledge management in small and medium enterprises

Purpose – To date, critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing knowledge management (KM) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have not been systematically investigated. Existing studies have derived their CSFs from large companies' perspectives and have not considered the needs of smaller businesses. This paper is aimed to bridge this gap.Design/methodology/approach – Existing studies on CSFs were reviewed and their limitations were identified. By integrating insights drawn from these studies as well as adding some new factors, the author proposed a set of 11 CSFs which is believed to be more suitable for SMEs. The importance of the proposed CSFs was theoretically discussed and justified. In addition, an empirical assessment was conducted to evaluate the extent of success of this proposition.Findings – The overall results from the empirical assessment were positive, thus reflecting the appropriateness of the proposed CSFs.Practical implications – The set of CSFs can act as a list of items for SMEs .