Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constraining the evolution of dark energy with type Ia supernovae and gamma-ray bursts

Aims. The behavior of the dark energy equation of state (EOS) is crucial in distinguishing different cosmological models. With a model independent approach, we constrain the possible evolution of the dark energy EOS. Methods. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) of redshifts up to z > 6 are used, in addition to type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We separate the redshifts into 4 bins and assume a constant EOS parameter for dark energy in each bin. The EOS parameters are decorrelated by diagonalizing the covariance matrix. And the evolution of dark energy is estimated out of the uncorrelated EOS parameters. Results. By including GRB luminosity data, we significantly reduce the confidence interval of the uncorrelated EOS parameter whose contribution mostly comes from the redshift bin of 0.5 < z < 1.8. At high redshift where we only have GRBs, the constraints on the dark energy EOS are still very weak. However, we can see an obvious cut at about zero in the probability plot of the EOS parameter, from which we can infer that the ratio of dark energy to matter most probably continues to decrease beyond redshift 1.8. We carried out analyses with and without including the latest BAO measurements, which themselves favor a dark energy EOS of w< −1. If they are included, the results show some evidence of an evolving dark energy EOS. If not included, however, the results are consistent with the cosmological constant within 1σ for redshift 0 < z 0. 5a nd 2σ for 0.5 z < 1.8.
Type D personality in patients with coronary artery disease.

BACKGROUND During the past decade studies have shown that Type D personality is associated with increased risk of cardiac events, mortality and poor quality of life. Some authors suggested that depression and Type D personality have substantial phenomenological overlap. SUBJECTS AND METHODS The sample consisted of non-consecutive case series of seventy nine patients with clinically stable and angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease (CAD), who had been admitted to the Clinic of Cardiology, University Clinical Centre, from May 2006 to September 2008. The patients were assessed by the Type-D scale (DS14), The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and provided demographic information. Risk factors for CAD were obtained from cardiologists. RESULTS The findings of our study have shown that 34.2% patients with CAD could be classified as Type D personality. The univariate analysis has shown that the prevalence of Type D personality was significantly higher in individuals with unstable angina pectoris and myocardial infarction (MI) diagnoses (p=0.02). Furthermore, some components of metabolic syndrome were more prevalent in patients with Type D personality: hypercholesterolemia (p=0.00), hypertriglyceridemia (p=0.00) and hypertension (p=0.01). Additionally, the distribution of depression in patients with a Type D personality and a non-Type D personality were statistically significantly different (p=0.00). CONCLUSION To our knowledge, this study is the first one to describe the prevalence and clinical characteristics of the Type D personality in patients with CAD in this region of Europe. We have found that the prevalence of Type D personality in patients with CAD is in concordance with the other studies. We also have found that Type D personality and depression are two distinctly different categories of psychological distress.
Quintessence, the gravitational constant, and gravity

Dynamical vacuum energy or quintessence, a slowly varying and spatially inhomogeneous component of the energy density with negative pressure, is currently consistent with the observational data. One potential difficulty with the idea of quintessence is that couplings to ordinary matter should be strongly suppressed so as not to lead to observable time variations of the constants of nature. We further explore the possibility of an explicit coupling between the quintessence field and the curvature. Since such a scalar field gives rise to another gravity force of long range ( > H −1 0 ), the solar system experiments
On rough isometries of Poisson processes on the line

Intuitively, two metric spaces are rough isometric (or quasi-isometric) if their large-scale metric structure is the same, ignoring fine details. This concept has proven fundamental in the geometric study of groups. Ab\'{e}rt, and later Szegedy and Benjamini, have posed several probabilistic questions concerning this concept. In this article, we consider one of the simplest of these: are two independent Poisson point processes on the line rough isometric almost surely? Szegedy conjectured that the answer is positive. Benjamini proposed to consider a quantitative version which roughly states the following: given two independent percolations on $\mathbb {N}$, for which constants are the first $n$ points of the first percolation rough isometric to an initial segment of the second, with the first point mapping to the first point and with probability uniformly bounded from below? We prove that the original question is equivalent to proving that absolute constants are possible in this quantitative version. We then make some progress toward the conjecture by showing that constants of order $\sqrt{\log n}$ suffice in the quantitative version. This is the first result to improve upon the trivial construction which has constants of order $\log n$. Furthermore, the rough isometry we construct is (weakly) monotone and we include a discussion of monotone rough isometries, their properties and an interesting lattice structure inherent in them.
Automatic quality assessment of content created collaboratively by web communities: a case study of wikipedia

The old dream of a universal repository containing all the human knowledge and culture is becoming possible through the Internet and the Web. Moreover, this is happening with the direct collaborative, participation of people. Wikipedia is a great example. It is an enormous repository of information with free access and edition, created by the community in a collaborative manner. However, this large amount of information, made available democratically and virtually without any control, raises questions about its relative quality. In this work we explore a significant number of quality indicators, some of them proposed by us and used here for the first time, and study their capability to assess the quality of Wikipedia articles. Furthermore, we explore machine learning techniques to combine these quality indicators into one single assessment judgment. Through experiments, we show that the most important quality indicators are the easiest ones to extract, namely, textual features related to length, structure and style. We were also able to determine which indicators did not contribute significantly to the quality assessment. These were, coincidentally, the most complex features, such as those based on link analysis. Finally, we compare our combination method with state-of-the-art solution and show significant improvements in terms of effective quality prediction.
Family Traditionalism and Family Structure

The present study examined how tolerance toward nontraditional family forms relates to family structure, by examining differences between youngsters and parents from intact and postdivorce families. We also explored whether intergenerational transmission of attitudes toward nontraditional family forms differed between intact and postdivorce families. We made use of three-wave longitudinal data of 959 adolescents and young adults aged 12 years to 24 years at the first wave, and also of one of the parents. Longitudinal multilevel analyses revealed that both youngsters and parents of postdivorce families are more tolerant toward nontraditional family forms and that parental attitude transmission is significantly lower in families after a divorce. Results apply to respondents of a broad age range. Several explanations are suggested for the flawed intergenerational transmission of attitudes in postdivorce families.
A New Finite Field Multiplication Algorithm to Improve Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem Implementations

This paper presents a new and efficient implementation approach for the elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) based on a novel finite field multiplication in GF(2 m ) and an efficient scalar multiplication algorithm. This new finite field multiplication algorithm performs zero chain multiplication and required additions in only one clock cycle instead of several clock cycles. Using modified (limited number of shifts) Barrel shifter; the partial result is also shifted in one clock cycle instead of several clock cycles. Both the canonical recoding technique and the sliding window method are applied to the multiplier to reduce the average number of required clock cycles. In the scalar multiplication algorithm of the proposed implementation approach, the point addition and point doubling operations are computed in parallel. The sliding window method and the signed-digit representation are also used to reduce the average number of point operations. Based on our analysis, the computation cost (the average number of required clock cycles) is effectively reduced in both the proposed finite field multiplication algorithm and the proposed implementation approach of ECC in comparison with other ECC finite field multiplication algorithms and implementation approaches.
Alcohol, transitions and the university 'bubble' : a qualitative case study

Summary. Drinking behaviour in the UK population continues to be of topical interest with ongoing references to a drinking culture consistent in the British media. This is despite an overall fall in drinking patterns across the UK reported by public health sources in recent years. ‘Heavy drinking’1 in universities has been suggested as a normative social behaviour and there are a number of studies that describe this in large scale descriptive studies of patterns of drinking and trends in morbidity and mortality. However, longitudinal, qualitative case studies which explore the interpretations of drinking in the social context of a university across different courses are limited. Design and methodology. This is a longitudinal, instrumental case study which followed a cohort of undergraduate students through their time at university with multiple data collection points across three years from 2012 to 2015. In depth interviews with a variety of stakeholders and other methods were triangulated to explore the nature of drinking behaviour over time at one university. Participants from a range of courses were recruited and individual and focus group interviews were conducted, recorded and transcribed. QSR NVivo software was used to collect, organise and code data and thematic analysis was utilised to explore the findings Key Findings: - There is an enduring perception at the Case University that heavy drinking is an expected student behaviour. - Participants felt ‘safe’ at the Case University to drink heavily because it was transient and they said they would not continue with that behaviour once they started work (the ‘bubble’ effect). - For younger students, (18-24-year-olds), the motivation for drinking alcohol changed over three years from ‘having fun’ and ‘partying’ in the first year to ‘relieving stress’ and ‘relaxing’ in the third year. - The Student Union (SU) body and some academic staff appeared complicit in the normalisation of drinking at the Case University. - Some young people ‘pretended’ to drink in order to achieve a sense of belonging to their peer group. - Non-drinkers felt uncomfortable in the SU bar and avoided that social space, reporting that there was particular pressure to drink in that environment. Key Recommendations - There needs to be a move towards changing the cultural expectations that heavy drinking is a key feature of student life at the Case University. - A culture of inclusivity at the Case University is needed to accommodate those who choose not to drink or drink in moderation. - Considerations of how the Case University promotes drinking in the setting and how risk is managed is important.
PRACTICAL PRECISE EVALUATION OF CACHE EFFECTS ON LOW LEVEL EMBEDDED VLIW COMPUTING

The introduction of caches inside high performance processors provides technical ways to reduce the memory gap by tolerating long memory access delays. While such intermediate fast caches accelerate program execution in general, they have a negative impact on the predictability of program performances. This lack of performance stability is a non-desirable characteristic for embedded computing. We will present the progress of our experimental study about the influence of cache effects on embedded VLIW processors ( ST2xx processors). We are trying to understand qualitatively and quantitatively the interactions between cache effects (Data cache) and instruction level parallelism at different granularities: a pplications and functions (coarse grain), program regions (medium grain) and instructions (fine grain). Our aim is to come up with experimental arguments helping to decide whether non-blocking caches would be a r asonable architectural design choice for embedded VLIW processors. By reasonable, we mean bringing opportunities at two levels: 1) program execution acceleration with tolerable performance predictability, and 2) active interactions with compiler optimization techniques. Our study is based on many months of full-time simulations on tens of workstations producing many terabytes of data to analyse.
Exploration and exploitation in product innovation

A central theoretical problem in organizational evolution is how organizations acquire new capabilities. Organizational exploitation of current capabilities often reduces exploration of new capabilities, resulting in a short-term bias in organizational adaptation (March, 1991). In addition, problemistic search and slack search have different consequences for exploration and exploitation because exploration has greater risk and less routinization. Exploration and exploitation are also affected by organizational momentum (Kelly and Amburgey, 1991) and direct competition from exploitation to exploration (March, 1991). These propositions are tested using data on innovations in shipbuilding between 1972 and 2000. Copyright 2007 , Oxford University Press.
A Nature-Based Social-Emotional Approach to Supporting Young Children's Holistic Development in Classrooms with and without Walls: The Social-Emotional and Environmental Education Development (SEED) Framework.

This paper describes a nature-based social-emotional approach to supporting young children’s holistic development that can be applied in a range of early childhood settings from forest kindergartens and nature-based preschools to more traditional center-based early childhood programs. The Social-Emotional and Environmental Education Development (SEED) Framework blends early childhood education, environmental education, and social-emotional development through the integration of best practice recommendations from (a) National Association for the Education of Young Children Early Childhood Program Standards, (b) Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence, and (c) Pyramid Model for Supporting Social-Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children. The SEED Framework provides early childhood programs a guide for integrating and infusing a nature-based social-emotional approach throughout all aspects of their program.
Curbing Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation in Planning: Reference Class Forecasting in Practice

Absract The American Planning Association recently endorsed a new forecasting method called reference class forecasting, which is based on theories of planning and decision-making that won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics. This paper details the method and describes the first instance of reference class forecasting in planning practice. First, the paper documents that inaccurate projections of costs, demand, and other impacts of plans are a major problem in planning. Second, the paper explains inaccuracy in terms of optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Third, the theoretical basis is presented for reference class forecasting, which achieves accuracy in projections by basing them on actual performance in a reference class of comparable actions and thereby bypassing both optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation. Fourth, the paper presents the first case of practical reference class forecasting, which concerns cost projections for planning of large transportation infrastructure investments in the UK, including the Edinburgh Tram and London's £15 billion Crossrail project. Finally, potentials for and barriers to reference class forecasting are assessed.
Human herpesvirus 8 K1-associated nuclear factor-kappa B-dependent promoter activity: role in Kaposi's sarcoma inflammation?

BACKGROUND The growing number of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infections worldwide and the increasing use of immunosuppressive modalities for organ transplantation have contributed to an epidemic of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), which has been etiologically linked to human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) or KS-associated virus. Since the onset of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic, inflammation has been recognized as an essential component of KS pathology. HHV8 bears a gene (K1) encoding a transmembrane protein with an immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif. This motif is present in receptors that mediate inflammation. PURPOSE To dissect the cellular effects of K1 function and the eventual role of K1 in KS, we developed a cell model for studying K1 expression. METHODS K1 was cloned from BC-3 lymphoma cells. To monitor transcriptional activation, K1 was coexpressed with plasmids containing luciferase under control of various promoters. K1 expression was monitored by indirect immunofluorescence and by combined immunoprecipitation/immunoblot analysis. Inflammatory cytokines were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS Cellular transfection of the K1 gene induced reporter expression under control of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappaB), which controls the transcription of numerous proteins involved in inflammation. Treatment of cells with aspirin, an agent that targets this intracellular pathway and blocks cell inflammatory responses, blocked K1-induced NF-kappaB-dependent promoter activity. When a second KS cofactor, i.e., the HIV-1-transactivating gene tat, was coexpressed with K1, we observed an additive effect on NF-kappaB-dependent transcription. K1 transfection stimulated the secretion of cytokines interleukin (IL) 6, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, and IL-12. Cells treated with the conditioned media of K1 transfectants exhibited similar characteristics of K1 transfectants, indicating that a paracrine loop was being activated. CONCLUSION Thus, K1 may activate cells in which it is expressed, as well as other cells in a paracrine manner. K1 cooperates in signaling with HIV-1 Tat, suggesting that both of the proteins from these viruses converge to reach an enhanced level of inflammation that may underlie progressive KS.
Orthologs from maxmer sequence context

Context-dependent identification of orthologs customarily relies on conserved gene order or whole-genome sequence alignment. It is shown here that short-range context--as short as single maximal matches--also provides an effective means to identify orthologs within whole genomes. On pristine (un-repeatmasked) mammalian whole-genome assemblies we perform a genome "intersection" that in general consumes less than one thirtieth of the computation time required by commonly used methods for whole-genome alignment, and we extract "non-embedded maximal matches," maximal matches that are not embedded into other maximal matches, as potential orthologs. An ortholog identified via non-embedded maximal matches is analogous to a "positional ortholog" or a "primary ortholog" as defined in previous literature; such orthologs constitute homologs derived from the same direct ancestor whose ancestral positions in the genome are conserved. At the nucleotide level, non-embedded maximal matches recapitulate most exact matches identified by a Lastz net alignment. At the gene level, reciprocal best hits of genes containing non-embedded maximal matches recover one-to-one orthologs annotated by Ensembl Compara with high selectivity and high sensitivity; these reciprocal best hits additionally include putatively novel orthologs not found in Ensembl (e.g. over two thousand for human/chimpanzee). The method is especially suitable for genome-wide identification of orthologs.
Magic sets and stratified databases

This article considers the efficient bottom‐up query evaluation for stratified databases. We investigate the applicability of magic‐set method to stratified databases containing negative body literals and show that culprit cycles cause unstratification. Based on the analysis, we present a labeling algorithm to distinguish the context for constructing magic sets, which is simpler and more efficient than the algorithms proposed by Balbin et al. [J. Logic Programming, 295–344 (1991)]. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Diabetic Foot: Infections and Outcomes in Iranian Admitted Patients

Background: Diabetes mellitus (along with its complications) has become a global problem. Diabetic foot infection, among the most common complications, is responsible for 40 to 50% of foot amputations. Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, however, have compromised empiric therapy in the infected patients. Objectives: The current study aimed to determine the most common microorganisms involved in diabetic foot infection in order to minimize the failure of antibiotic therapy and the risk of developing complications. Patients and Methods: All patients with diabetic foot infection admitted to the infectious diseases, surgery and endocrinology wards of two teaching hospitals from 2007 to 2010 (n = 196) were recruited. In this retrospective study, demographic characteristics, type of lesions, history of hospitalization/antibiotic therapy, isolated microorganisms, clinical complications, administered treatment (medical or surgical) and outcome were recorded. Results: Patients’ mean age was 60.84 (± 10.30) years. Totally, 113 (57.65%) of the patients were male and 83 (42.35%) were female. According to Wagner’s grading, deep ulcers with/without osteomyelitis accounted for the majority of lesions. A single microorganism was isolated (most common: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella spp.) from 81 of the patients (80.20%); while for the remaining polymicrobial infection was reported. Isolated pathogens showed no significant correlation with duration of diabetes, type of the lesions (P = 0.13) and history of hospitalization (P = 0.61). The majority of patients (n = 118, 60.20%) were treated surgically; however 11 patients expired due to sepsis. Amputation (most common at toes and below the knee) was performed for 89 patients (45.40%). The response rate to medical treatment was 31.6% for single-pathogen and 10% for polymicrobial infection (with a 30% mortality rate). Conclusions: Physicians are recommended to take microbiological cultures before starting empirical therapy recommended to cover Gram-negative microorganisms in order to lower the risk of antibiotic resistance.