Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns of spatial distribution in macroalgal communities from tropical lotic ecosystems

Foram analisados tres pontos em cada uma das tres seguintes regioes tropicais: 1) regiao Noroeste do Estado de Sao Paulo, representando regiao degradada; 2) regiao de Bonito, Mato Grosso do Sul, representando ambiente de aguas duras; e 3) regiao de Ubatuba, litoral Norte de Sao Paulo, ambiente de Mata Atlântica bem preservado. A regiao de aguas duras apresentou maiores valores medios de riqueza de especies de macroalgas e indices de diversidade (6,3 especies por ponto e H' = 0,62). As regioes Noroeste e de Mata Atlântica apresentaram maiores valores medios de cobertura percentual (22,5% e 17,0%, respectivamente). Em todos os pontos da regiao noroeste ocorreu uma ou duas especies dominantes (com cobertura percentual significativamente maior que as demais), o que caracteriza o padrao de distribuicao do tipo pre-ocupacao de nicho. O mesmo padrao foi encontrado para dois pontos da regiao de mata Atlântica. Na regiao de aguas duras foi verificada dominância de uma especie em dois dos tres pontos amostrados, mas ao contrario da regiao noroeste, os valores de sobreposicao de nicho foram menores, evidenciando o padrao de distribuicao em mosaico. A competicao por espaco e um dos principais fatores que explica a distribuicao espacial. De forma geral, ambientes com o padrao do tipo pre-ocupacao de nicho apresentaram baixa riqueza de especies, altos valores de sobreposicao e largura de nicho, alta cobertura percentual para as especies dominantes e altos valores para o indice de dominância. Em contrapartida, ambientes com o padrao de distribuicao em mosaico apresentaram alta riqueza de especies, baixos valores de largura e sobreposicao de nicho, baixa cobertura percentual e baixo indice de dominância.
Fertility, family planning, and women's health: new data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth.

OBJECTIVES This report shows data on a wide range of topics from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), including: pregnancy and birth, marriage, divorce, cohabitation, sexual intercourse, contraception, infertility, use of family planning and other medical services, and health conditions and behavior. METHODS The data in this report are based on in-person interviews with a national sample of 10,847 women 15-44 years of age. The interviews lasted an average of 103 minutes. The response rate was 79 percent. The sample data are adjusted for nonresponse and are national estimates. RESULTS Following large increases in the 1970's and 1980's, the proportion of teenagers who have ever had sexual intercourse decreased slightly between 1990 and 1995; condom use, both at first intercourse and currently, has increased markedly since the 1970's. These changes may have contributed to the decreases in the teen birth rate observed in the 1990's. For all women 15-44 years of age, the number whose partner was currently using the condom (at the date of interview) increased from 3.6 million in 1982 to 5.1 million in 1988 and 7.9 million in 1995. About 8 percent of women reported that their first intercourse was not voluntary. This result is consistent with an earlier national survey. About 20 percent reported that they had been forced by a man to have intercourse at some time in their lives. About 10 percent of births in 1990-95 were unwanted by the mother compared with 12 percent in 1984-88. The decrease in unwanted births was particularly large for black women. It appears that the prevalence of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and vaginal douching have both decreased since 1988.
Mixed finite element methods for linear elasticity with weakly imposed symmetry

In this paper, we construct new finite element methods for the approximation of the equations of linear elasticity in three space dimensions that produce direct approxima- tions to both stresses and displacements. The methods are based on a modified form of the Hellinger-Reissner variational principle that only weakly imposes the symmetry condition on the stresses. Although this approach has been previously used by a number of authors, a key new ingredient here is a constructive derivation of the elasticity complex starting from the de Rham complex. By mimicking this construction in the discrete case, we derive new mixed finite elements for elasticity in a systematic manner from known discretizations of the de Rham complex. These elements appear to be simpler than the ones previously derived. For example, we construct stable discretizations which use only piecewise linear elements to approximate the stress field and piecewise constant functions to approximate the displacement field.
Dynamics to Equilibrium in Network Games: Individual Behavior and Global Response

Various social contexts can be depicted as games of strategic interactions on networks, where an individual’s welfare depends on both her and her partners’ actions. Whereas much attention has been devoted to Bayes-Nash equilibria in such games, here we look at strategic interactions from an evolutionary perspective. To this end, we present the results of a numerical simulations program for these games, which allows us to find out whether Nash equilibria are accessible by adaptation of player strategies, and in general to identify the attractors of the evolution. Simulations allow us to go beyond a global characterization of the cooperativeness at equilibrium and probe into individual behavior. We find that when players imitate each other, evolution does not reach Nash equilibria and, worse, leads to very unfavorable states in terms of welfare. On the contrary, when players update their behavior rationally, they self-organize into a rich variety of Nash equilibria, where individual behavior and payoffs are shaped by the nature of the game, the social network’s structure and the players’ position within the network. Our results allow to assess the validity of mean-field approaches we use to describe the dynamics of these games. Interestingly, our dynamically-found equilibria generally do not coincide with (but show qualitatively the same features of) those resulting from theoretical predictions in the context of one-shot games under incomplete information.
The Small Nuclear Genomes of Selaginella Are Associated with a Low Rate of Genome Size Evolution

The haploid nuclear genome size (1C DNA) of vascular land plants varies over several orders of magnitude. Much of this observed diversity in genome size is due to the proliferation and deletion of transposable elements. To date, all vascular land plant lineages with extremely small nuclear genomes represent recently derived states, having ancestors with much larger genome sizes. The Selaginellaceae represent an ancient lineage with extremely small genomes. It is unclear how small nuclear genomes evolved in Selaginella. We compared the rates of nuclear genome size evolution in Selaginella and major vascular plant clades in a comparative phylogenetic framework. For the analyses, we collected 29 new flow cytometry estimates of haploid genome size in Selaginella to augment publicly available data. Selaginella possess some of the smallest known haploid nuclear genome sizes, as well as the lowest rate of genome size evolution observed across all vascular land plants included in our analyses. Additionally, our analyses provide strong support for a history of haploid nuclear genome size stasis in Selaginella. Our results indicate that Selaginella, similar to other early diverging lineages of vascular land plants, has relatively low rates of genome size evolution. Further, our analyses highlight that a rapid transition to a small genome size is only one route to an extremely small genome.
Analyzing facebook privacy settings: user expectations vs. reality

The sharing of personal data has emerged as a popular activity over online social networking sites like Facebook. As a result, the issue of online social network privacy has received significant attention in both the research literature and the mainstream media. Our overarching goal is to improve defaults and provide better tools for managing privacy, but we are limited by the fact that the full extent of the privacy problem remains unknown; there is little quantification of the incidence of incorrect privacy settings or the difficulty users face when managing their privacy. In this paper, we focus on measuring the disparity between the desired and actual privacy settings, quantifying the magnitude of the problem of managing privacy. We deploy a survey, implemented as a Facebook application, to 200 Facebook users recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. We find that 36% of content remains shared with the default privacy settings. We also find that, overall, privacy settings match users' expectations only 37% of the time, and when incorrect, almost always expose content to more users than expected. Finally, we explore how our results have potential to assist users in selecting appropriate privacy settings by examining the user-created friend lists. We find that these have significant correlation with the social network, suggesting that information from the social network may be helpful in implementing new tools for managing privacy.
The Role and Effect of Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs Within the Hospital and How Rapid Diagnostics Can Make an Impact

Rapid diagnostics paired with an active antimicrobial stewardship (ASP) can have a positive impact on patients and hospitals because it can provide pathogen identification and antimicrobial susceptibility results sooner allowing patients to be placed on appropriate antimicrobial faster than conventional methods. Antimicrobial resistance is a growing concern because antimicrobials are being overprescribed and there are few antimicrobials in development leaving physicians with minimal treatment options. ASPs are being formed within hospitals in order to help combat the growing antimicrobial resistance issue in order to reduce the overuse of antimicrobials. A total of six recent peer-reviewed articles were reviewed and compared to each other in order to determine if rapid diagnostics and ASP can have a positive impact on reducing antimicrobial usage, decreasing time to pathogen identification, and reducing time to appropriate therapy. Overall hospital outcomes were also reviewed to determine if they can help reduce length of stay, decrease hospital costs and lower mortality rates. Overall, the studies all showed a reduction in time to pathogen identification, time to antimicrobial susceptibility and optimal therapy. A majority of the studies showed a decrease in mortality, reduction in length of stay and decreased hospital costs. All of these studies showed that pairing rapid diagnostics with an active ASP can have a positive effect on patient care and improve hospital outcomes. Providing fast acting results to clinicians sooner can help patients receive appropriate therapy faster and potentially discharge them sooner helping to reduce the risk of developing further infections and decreasing the risk of antimicrobial resistance for the patient.
A systematic literature review for agile development processes and user centred design integration

Agile development processes and User Centred Design (UCD) integration have been gaining increased interest, in part due to the complementarity of the techniques, the benefits each can apply to the other, and the challenges associated with their combination. This paper describes a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) that was conducted on Agile and UCD integration. The aim of this SLR was to identify various challenging factors that restrict Agile and User Centred Design Integration (AUCDI) and explore the proposed practices to deal with them. The study included a total of 71 papers and excluded 80 papers published from the year 2000 till 2012. AUCDI challenges and their respective proposed practices and success factors were synthesized. A description and taxonomy of AUCDI challenges and its respective success factors and practices were reported. Practitioners can utilise the results in identifying potential AUCDI challenges and practices or success factors to deal with them.
Cell Distance Mapping Identifies Functional T Follicular Helper Cells in Inflamed Human Renal Tissue

Visualizing and quantifying the spatial relationships between T and B cells identifies adaptive immune cell networks in human inflammation. Putting Human Inflammation on the Map B cells cannot fight infection by antigen stimulation alone—they need help from T cells. In mice, two-photon electron microscopy has demonstrated that T follicular helper (TFH) cells are critical for providing B cell help in germinal centers. However, it has remained unclear whether—and if so, how—TFH cells provide B cell help in humans. Now, Liarski et al. report that cell distance mapping (CDM) can be used to demonstrate cognate TFH-mediated B cell help in the context of human inflammation. CDM is a computational tool that quantifies spatial relationships between different cell types in tissue. The authors used CDM to measure the internuclear distances between TFH and B cells in inflamed human tissues. They were able to discriminate between noncognate and cognate interactions, which are required for providing help. They also characterized cognate-competent TFH cells and found that they expressed Bcl-6 and IL-21. This technique should be generalizable to diverse antigen presentation and immune cell interactions and, if so, should enhance our knowledge of the immune system in situ. T follicular helper (TFH) cells are critical for B cell activation in germinal centers and are often observed in human inflamed tissue. However, it is difficult to know if they contribute in situ to inflammation. Expressed markers define TFH subsets associated with distinct functions in vitro. However, such markers may not reflect in situ function. The delivery of T cell help to B cells requires direct cognate recognition. We hypothesized that by visualizing and quantifying such interactions, we could directly assess TFH cell competency in situ. Therefore, we developed computational tools to quantify spatial relationships between different cell subtypes in tissue [cell distance mapping (CDM)]. Analysis of inflamed human tissues indicated that measurement of internuclear distances between TFH and B cells could be used to discriminate between apparent cognate and noncognate interactions. Furthermore, only cognate-competent TFH cell populations expressed high levels of Bcl-6 and interleukin-21. These data suggest that CDM can be used to identify adaptive immune cell networks driving in situ inflammation. Such knowledge should help identify diseases, and disease subsets, that may benefit from therapeutic targeting of specific T cell–antigen-presenting cell interactions.
Land-Use/Land-Cover Change and Anthropogenic Causes Around Koupa Matapit Gallery Forest, West-Cameroon

This study assesses land cover change of the Koupa Matapit forest gallery, West Cameroon, in relation to anthropogenic factors. Ethnobotanical surveys were conducted to investigate the relationships between the local population and the gallery forest; the spatio-temporal dynamics of the landscapes around the gallery forest were studied from the diachronic analysis of three Landsat TM satellite images of 1984, Landsat ETM + 1999 and Landsat OLI_TIRS of 2016, supplemented by verification missions on field. The satellite images were processed using ArcGIS and Erdas Imagine software. According to surveys, it should be noted that agriculture and livestock are the main economic activities of the population of Koupa Matapit, agriculture and fuel wood collection for energy were the main anthropogenic activities responsible for deforestation and degradation of the forest gallery. The collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) would have a significant implication in land use and cover changes. The results indicate that the extension of savannah/agricultural land (from 6989 ha in 1984 to 7604 ha in 2016) and bare soil/built up area (from 71 ha in 1984 to 342 ha in 2016) would have led to the disappearance of much of the forest area (1465 ha in 1984 to 580 ha in 2016). The rapid population growth of Koupa Matapit would be responsible for these pressures. There is an urgent need to implement appropriate land use policy in this area.
Analytic continuation of the resolvent of the Laplacian on SL(3)/ SO(3)

In this paper we continue our program of extending the methods of geometric scattering theory to encompass the analysis of the Laplacian on symmetric spaces of rank greater than one and their geometric perturbations. In our previous work we described the resolvent, and specifically the asymptotic behavior of the Green's function, on SL (3)/ SO (3) using methods from three-particle scattering. Here we extend the technique of complex scaling to symmetric spaces to show that the resolvent continues analytically across the spectrum.
Attrition of MSM with HIV/AIDS along the continuum of care from screening to CD4 testing in China

The aim of this study is to describe attrition of newly diagnosed men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV/AIDS from screening to CD4 testing and provide suggestions to improve HIV case management in China. Data from 15 China-Gates Program project cities were collected on number of MSM who underwent each step from HIV screening to CD4 testing. Descriptive statistics were calculated. A total of 76,628 HIV screening tests were performed among MSM, of which 4563 were HIV-positive. Most attrition occurred at confirmatory and CD4 testing. Within the same year, 21% (1065/4063) of MSM who screened HIV-positive did not receive confirmatory testing and 34% (1025/3024) of MSM newly diagnosed with HIV/AIDS did not receive CD4 testing. Marked differences were observed between project areas in attrition at these points of the care continuum. Marked differences were also observed across areas in the rate of CD4 counts <350 cells/mcl, ranging from 23% to 87%. In the current process for diagnosis and management of HIV infection in China, many MSM are lost to follow-up at HIV confirmation and CD4 testing. Actions should be taken to reduce complexity and time lag from screening to CD4 test and emphasize the importance of remaining in care during posttest counseling.
Existence of equilibria in constrained discontinuous games

We establish the existence of pure strategy equilibria in games with discontinuous payoffs where the set of feasible actions of each player varies, also in a discontinuous fashion, as a function of the actions of the other players. Such games are used in modeling abstract economies and other games where players share common constraints. Our approach circumvents the difficulties that arise from the presence of discontinuities by modifying the original problem and allowing the players to use strategies that possibly lie outside their feasible sets. We then show that each modified game has $$\varepsilon $$ε-equilibria points. Under certain conditions, and as the extent of modification becomes smaller and smaller and $$\varepsilon $$ε approaches zero, the $$\varepsilon $$ε-equilibria points of the modified games will converge to a strategy profile that is an equilibrium of the original game. Hence, we obtain a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of pure equilibria of the original game. We apply our results to a number of classic games that have discontinuous payoffs and discontinuous constraint correspondences.
P-Selectin and P-Selectin Glycoprotein Ligand 1 Are Major Determinants for Th1 Cell Recruitment to Nonlymphoid Effector Sites in the Intestinal Lamina Propria

The recruitment of activated T cell subsets to sites of effector immune responses is mediated by homing receptors induced upon activation in secondary lymphoid tissue. Using an adoptive transfer model, the intestinal recruitment of CD4+ T cells activated with intraperitoneal antigen in complete Freund's adjuvant was examined. The data demonstrate that activated CD4+ T cells recruited to intestinal Peyer's patches (PP) and lamina propria (LP) up-regulate functional P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1 (PSGL-1). Blockade of IL-12 inhibited functional PSGL-1 expression and reduced PP and LP CD4+ T cell recruitment by >40%. P-Selectin blockade reduced LP recruitment of activated cells by 56% without affecting PP recruitment. Studies of mice examined 3 d after adoptive transfer of differentiated T cell subsets revealed that Th1 but not Th2 cells were recruited to small intestine PP and LP. Mucosal addressin cell adhesion molecule blockade reduced Th1 recruitment to PP by 90% and to LP by >72%, whereas P-selectin blockade reduced Th1 recruitment to PP by 18% and Th1 recruitment to LP by 84%. These data suggest that IL-12–induced functional PSGL-1 expression is a major determinant for the recruitment of Th1 effector cells to noninflamed as well as inflamed intestine.
Optimal Flexible Spectrum Access in Wireless Networks with Software Defined Radios

We investigate the problem of flexible spectrum access in multihop wireless networks. We assume radios that are capable of transmitting on channels of contiguous frequency bands and which do not require any sophisticated processing. Because these radios can flexibly configure their transmissions anywhere in the available frequency band, the spectrum becomes vulnerable to fragmentation and interference. We consider the joint problem of routing, link scheduling and spectrum allocation where scheduling feasibility is considered under the physical interference (SINR) constraint. We present a primal-dual decomposition for this complex optimization problem based on column generation. We show that obtaining the optimal solution to this problem is computationally not feasible, except for very small networks. We thus adopt a two-fold method to circumvent the complexity while yielding practical solutions. First, we relax the SINR constraint and use a simplified graph-based model for the interference. Second, we use a simulated annealing (SA) approach to solve the dual subproblem. Our SA approach however is augmented with an SINR feasibility check. Our results confirm that the primal-dual decomposition method using SA substantially reduces the computation time and achieves near optimal solutions. The results also reveal that substantial improvement in network performance is obtained with flexible spectrum assignment which results from its capability of better managing the interference in the network.