Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Small Bowel in Crohn's Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction. Crohn's disease is most commonly found in the terminal ileum and colonic region. Magnetic resonance has become a useful modality for assessing small bowel activity. In this study, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis on the use of MR in detecting small bowel activity as well as extramural complications in Crohn's patients. Methods. Two independent reviewers sorted through articles until October 2, 2014. We included both studies providing raw data for pooling and studies without raw data. Sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for each study. Results. There were 27 included studies, of which 19 were included in the pooled analysis. Pooled analysis of the 19 studies (1020 patients) with raw data revealed a sensitivity of 0.88 (95% CI 0.86 to 0.91) and specificity was 0.88 (95% CI 0.84 to 0.91). In regard to detecting stenosis, pooled sensitivity was 0.65 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.76) and specificity was 0.93 (95% CI 0.89 to 0.96). Conclusion. MR imaging provides a reliable alternative in detecting small bowel activity in patients with Crohn's disease. Its advantages include high diagnostic accuracy and no radiation exposure while its disadvantages include high cost and limited availability.
IDENTIFICATION OF Pseudomonas spp. AS AMOEBA-RESISTANT MICROORGANISMS IN ISOLATES OF Acanthamoeba

Acanthamoeba is a “Trojan horse” of the microbial world. The aim of this study was to identify the presence of Pseudomonas as an amoeba-resistant microorganism in 12 isolates of Acanthamoeba. All isolates showed the genus Pseudomonas spp. as amoeba-resistant microorganisms. Thus, one can see that the Acanthamoeba isolates studied are hosts of Pseudomonas.
Effects of supportive work environment on employee retention

Purpose The purpose of the present study is to investigate the mediating effect of organizational engagement in the relationship between supportive work environment (SWE) and employee retention. Design/methodology/approach Primary data of 211 respondents from 67 organizations were analysed. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the dimensionality and validity of study variables. Further, the hypothesized model was tested with the help of multiple regression analysis. Findings The findings suggest that SWE plays a crucial role in predicting employee retention. Organizational engagement partially mediates the relationship between SWE and employee retention. Research limitations/implications The data were limited to the Indian setting and of cross-sectional design only; so, it may not be generalized across the world. Further, the sample size is also comparatively smaller but the results are not affected adversely. Originality/value The role of SWE along with organizational engagement is currently under-researched in the Indian context. The present study is an intense effort to analyse the mediating effect of organizational engagement in the relationship between SWE and employee retention.
Contrasting effects of selective lesions of nucleus accumbens core or shell on inhibitory control and amphetamine-induced impulsive behaviour

The core and shell subregions of the nucleus accumbens receive differential projections from areas of the medial prefrontal cortex that have dissociable effects on impulsive and perseverative responding. The contributions of these subregions to simple instrumental behaviour, inhibitory control and behavioural flexibility were investigated using a ‘forced choice’ task, various parameter manipulations and an omission schedule version of the task. Post‐training, selective core lesions were achieved with microinjections of quinolinic acid and shell lesions with ibotenic acid. After a series of behavioural task manipulations, rats were re‐stabilized on the standard version of the task and challenged with increasing doses of d‐amphetamine (vehicle, 0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg i.p. 30 min prior to test). Neither core‐ nor shell‐lesioned rats exhibited persistent deficits in simple instrumental behaviour or challenges to behavioural flexibility or inhibitory control. Significant differences between lesion groups were unmasked by d‐amphetamine challenge in the standard version of the forced task. Core lesions potentiated and shell lesions attenuated the dose‐dependent effect of d‐amphetamine on increasing anticipatory responses seen in sham rats. These data imply that the accumbens core and shell subregions do not play major roles in highly‐trained task performance or in challenges to behavioural control, but may have opposed effects following d‐amphetamine treatment. Specifically, they suggest the shell subregion to be necessary for dopaminergic activation driving amphetamine‐induced impulsive behaviour and the core subregion for the normal control of this behaviour via conditioned influences.
Assessing the Costs of K-12 Education in California Public Schools

The objective of this study is to estimate the costs for California districts to meet the achievement goals set for them by the state and examine how these costs vary across districts with different student characteristics. The author asks: 1. What do the data show about the current relationship in California school districts between spending and both costs and student outcomes? 2. What would it cost for California districts to meet the achievement goals set for them by the state, and how do these costs vary across districts with different student characteristics?
Finite Precision Analysis for Space-Time Decoding

Low complexity optimal (or nearly optimal) decoders for space-time codes have recently been under intensive investigation. For example, recent works by Sirianunpiboon and others show that the Silver code and the Golden code can be decoded optimally (or nearly optimally) with quadratic decoding complexity. Fast decodability makes them very attractive in practice. In implementing these decoders, floating-point to fixed-point conversion (FFC) needs to be carefully undertaken to minimize hardware cost while retaining decoding performance. The process of quantization for fixed-point representations is often ignored by research community and lacks investigation, and so FFC is often conducted heuristically based on simulations. This paper studies the effects of quantization to space-time coded systems from an information theoretic perspective. It shows the analytical relationship between quantization error and decoding performance deterioration. This paper also proposes a general finite precision implementation methodology including two FFC criteria for space-time coded systems within an integer optimization framework. As a particular example, this paper examines the finite precision implementation of the quadratic optimal decoding algorithm of the Silver code. However, our methodology and techniques can be applied to general space-time codes.
Desired image retrieval using multiple local features of query images

In this paper, desired images retrieval method using multiple local features of query images is proposed. Multiple color and texture features in local windows are extracted from an image. Color moment is calculated to use for color feature. Texture histogram based on local binary pattern of dual-tree complex wavelet transform is calculated to use for texture feature. When user's interest points of window in query images are selected, similarity between multiple local features of query images and those of blocks of database images is measured by weighted Euclidean norm. Our system is implemented using graphical user interface. In simulations, performance of our method is analyzed with a standard image database. Effectiveness is verified by evaluating retrieval accuracy.
Static and Dynamic Frequency Scaling on Multicore CPUs

Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) typically adapts CPU power consumption by modifying a processor’s operating frequency (and the associated voltage). Typical DVFS approaches include using default strategies such as running at the lowest or the highest frequency or reacting to the CPU’s runtime load to reduce or increase frequency based on the CPU usage. In this article, we argue that a compile-time approach to CPU frequency selection is achievable for affine program regions and can significantly outperform runtime-based approaches. We first propose a lightweight runtime approach that can exploit the properties of the power profile specific to a processor, outperforming classical Linux governors such as powersave or on-demand for computational kernels. We then demonstrate that, for affine kernels in the application, a purely compile-time approach to CPU frequency and core count selection is achievable, providing significant additional benefits over the runtime approach. Our framework relies on a one-time profiling of the target CPU, along with a compile-time categorization of loop-based code segments in the application. These are combined to determine at compile-time the frequency and the number of cores to use to execute each affine region to optimize energy or energy-delay product. Extensive evaluation on 60 benchmarks and 5 multi-core CPUs show that our approach systematically outperforms the powersave Linux governor while also improving overall performance.
Analytics to literacies: The development of a learning analytics framework for multiliteracies assessment

The rapid advances in information and communication technologies, coupled with increased access to information and the formation of global communities, have resulted in interest among researchers and academics to revise educational practice to move beyond traditional ‘literacy’ skills towards an enhanced set of “multiliteracies” or “new media literacies”. Measuring the literacy of a population, in the light of its linkage to individual and community wealth and wellbeing, is essential to determining the impact of compulsory education. The opportunity now is to develop tools to assess individual and societal attainment of these new literacies. Drawing on the work of Jenkins and colleagues (2006) and notions of a participatory culture, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for how learning analytics can assist in measuring individual achievement of multiliteracies and how this evaluative process can be scaled to provide an institutional perspective of the educational progress in fostering these fundamental skills.
MOTY AMAR , DAN ARIELY , SHAHAR AYAL ,

When consumers carry multiple debts, how do they decide which debt to repay first? Normatively, consumers should repay the debt with the highest interest rate most quickly. However, because people tend to break complicated tasks into more manageable parts, and because losses are most distressing when segregated, the authors hypothesize that people will pay off the smallest loan first to reduce the total number of outstanding loans and achieve a sense of tangible progress toward debt repayment. To experimentally examine how consumers manage multiple debts, the authors develop an incentive-compatible debt management game, in which participants are saddled with multiple debts and need to decide how to repay them over time. Consistent with the hypothesis, four experiments reveal evidence of debt account aversion: Participants consistently pay off small debts first, even though the larger debts have higher interest rates. The authors also find that restricting participants’ ability to completely pay off small debts, and focusing their attention on the amount of interest each debt has accumulated, helps them reduce overall debt more quickly.
Challenges and opportunities facing successful women in Morocco

ABSTRACT Over a decade since the passage of a revised family status code (mudawana) in Morocco, the literature varies in its assessment of the code's impact on women's rights and opportunities. While some studies point to the formal support for gender equality reflected in the revised code, others note that Moroccan women continue to face challenges in the social and symbolic spheres. Drawing on interviews conducted by the authors with women leaders in Morocco in 2016, this paper investigates the opportunities and obstacles these women have encountered in their personal journeys. The paper explores the extent to which elite background, work sector, religion, and legal codes affect women's ascent to leadership roles and shares the women's own views regarding improving women's status.
Measuring political agenda setting and representation in Turkey

This article introduces a novel data set on the agenda of the Turkish legislature and political parties. Using the Comparative Agendas Project approach, we trace political issue attention over an 11–year-period (2003–2013). By topic coding various political activities, this approach illustrates the dynamics of the Turkish political agenda and the issue attention of the political parties, and, therefore, sheds new empirical light on the dynamics of Turkish legislative politics and party competition. In this article, we explain the construction of the data set from data collection to coding, describe its features, and provide examples of possible applications.
Feedback Enhances Feedforward Figure-Ground Segmentation by Changing Firing Mode

In the visual cortex, feedback projections are conjectured to be crucial in figure-ground segregation. However, the precise function of feedback herein is unclear. Here we tested a hypothetical model of reentrant feedback. We used a previous developed 2-layered feedforwardspiking network that is able to segregate figure from ground and included feedback connections. Our computer model data show that without feedback, neurons respond with regular low-frequency (∼9 Hz) bursting to a figure-ground stimulus. After including feedback the firing pattern changed into a regular (tonic) spiking pattern. In this state, we found an extra enhancement of figure responses and a further suppression of background responses resulting in a stronger figure-ground signal. Such push-pull effect was confirmed by comparing the figure-ground responses withthe responses to a homogenous texture. We propose that feedback controlsfigure-ground segregation by influencing the neural firing patterns of feedforward projecting neurons.
Predicting the effectiveness of naïve data fusion on the basis of system characteristics

Effective automation of the information retrieval task has long been an active area of research, leading to sophisticated retrieval models. With many IR schemes available, researchers have begun to investigate the benefits of combining the results of different IR schemes to improve performance, in the process called “data fusion. ” There are many successful data fusion experiments reported in IR literature, but there are also cases in which it did not work well. Thus, if would be quite valuable to have a theory that can predict, in advance, whether fusion of two or more retrieval schemes will be worth doing. In previous study (Ng & Kantor, 1998), we identified two predictive variables for the effectiveness of fusion: (a) a list‐based measure of output dissimilarity, and (b) a pair‐wise measure of the similarity of performance of the two schemes. In this article we investigate the predictive power of these two variables in simple symmetrical data fusion. We use the IR systems participating in the TREC 4 routing task to train a model that predicts the effectiveness of data fusion, and use the IR systems participating in the TREC 5 routing task to test that model. The model asks, “when will fusion perform better than an oracle who uses the best scheme from each pair? ” We explore statistical techniques for fitting the model to the training data and use the receiver operating characteristic curve of signal detection theory to represent the power of the resulting models. The trained prediction methods predict whether fusion will beat an oracle, at levels much higher than could be achieved by chance.
The Interstellar Extinction Towards the Milky Way Bulge with Planetary Nebulae, Red Clump, and RR Lyrae Stars

Abstract I review the literature covering the issue of interstellar extinction towards the Milky Way bulge, with emphasis placed on findings from planetary nebulae, RR Lyrae, and red clump stars. I also report on observations from HI gas and globular clusters. I show that there has been substantial progress in this field in recent decades, most particularly from red clump stars. The spatial coverage of extinction maps has increased by a factor ~ 100 × in the past 20 yr, and the total-to-selective extinction ratios reported have shifted by ~ 20–25%, indicative of the improved accuracy and separately, of a steeper-than-standard extinction curve. Problems remain in modelling differential extinction, explaining anomalies involving the planetary nebulae, and understanding the difference between bulge extinction coefficients and ‘standard’ literature values.
THE SPATIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF COOLING GAS AND INTRINSIC X-RAY-ABSORBING MATERIAL IN COOLING FLOWS

We present the results from a study of the spatial distributions of cooling gas and intrinsic X-ray-absorbing material in a sample of nearby, X-ray-bright cooling flow clusters observed with the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) on ROSAT. Our method of analysis employs X-ray colour profiles, formed from ratios of the surface brightness profiles of the clusters in selected energy bands, and an adapted version of the deprojection code of Fabian et al. We show that all of the cooling flow clusters in our sample exhibit significant central concentrations of cooling gas. At larger radii the clusters appear approximately isothermal. In detail, the spatial distributions and emissivity of the cooling material are shown to be in excellent agreement with the predictions from the deprojection code, and can be used to constrain the ages of the cooling flows. The X-ray colour profiles also indicate substantial levels of intrinsic X-ray absorption in the clusters. The intrinsic absorption increases with decreasing radius, and is confined to the regions occupied by the cooling flows. We explore a range of likely spatial distributions for the absorbing gas and discuss the complexities involved in the measurement of column densities from X-ray data. We show that the application of simple spectral models, in which the intrinsic absorber is treated as a uniform foreground screen, will naturally lead to significant underestimates of the true amounts of absorption. Comparison of our results with previously reported observations made with the Einstein Observatory Solid State Spectrometer shows reasonable agreement, but requires that the absorbing material only partially covers the X-ray-emitting regions. The mass of absorbing gas in the central (30 arcsec radius) regions of the clusters calculated under the assumption of solar metallicity in the absorbing material can be accumulated by the cooling flows on time­ scales of a few 108 yr, which are much less than the ages of the flows. This implies that most of the material deposited by the cooling flows in these regions cannot remain in X-ray-absorbing gas. The results presented in this paper provide strong support for the standard model of inhomogeneous cooling flows in clusters of galaxies.
Theory and Experimental Evidence

We consider a model where two adversaries can spend resources in acquiring public information about the unknown state of the world in order to influence the choice of a decision maker. We characterize the sampling strategies of the adversaries in the equilibrium of the game. We show that, as the cost of information acquisition for one adversary increases, that person collects less evidence whereas the other adversary collects more evidence. We then test the results in a controlled laboratory setting. The behavior of subjects is close to the theoretical predictions. Mistakes are relatively infrequent (15%). They occur in both directions, with a higher rate of over-sampling (39%) than under-sampling (8%). The main difference with the theory is the smooth decline in sampling around the theoretical equilibrium. Comparative statics are also consistent with the theory, with adversaries sampling more when their own cost is low and when the other adversary's cost is high. Finally, there is little evidence of learning over the 40 matches of the experiment.
On a generalized notion of mistake bounds

This paper proposes the use of constructive ordinals as mistake bounds in the on-line learning model. This approach elegantly generalizes the applicability of the on-line mistake bound model to learnability analysis of very expressive concept classes like pattern languages, unions of pattern languages, elementary formal systems, and minimal models of logic programs. The main result in the paper shows that the topological property of effective finite bounded thickness is a sufficient condition for on-line learnability with a certain ordinal mistake bound. An interesting characterization of the on-line learning model is shown in terms of the identification in the limit framework. It is established that the classes of languages learnable in the on-line model with a mistake bound of ? are exactly the same as the classes of languages learnable in the limit from both positive and negative data by a Popperian, consistent learner with a mind change bound of ? This result nicely builds a bridge between the two models.
Braneworld holography in Gauss-Bonnet gravity

We investigate holography on an (n − 1)>-dimensional brane embedded in a background of AdS black holes, in n-dimensional Gauss–Bonnet gravity. We demonstrate that for a critical brane near the AdS boundary, the Friedmann equation corresponds to that of the standard cosmology driven by a CFT dual to the AdS bulk. We show that there is no holographic description for non-critical branes, or when the brane is further away from the AdS boundary. We then derive a Cardy–Verlinde formula for the dual CFT on the critical brane near the boundary. This gives us insight into the remarkable correspondence between Cardy–Verlinde formulae and Friedmann equations in Einstein gravity.
Defining Brugia malayi and Wolbachia symbiosis by stage-specific dual RNA-seq

Background Filarial nematodes currently infect up to 54 million people worldwide, with millions more at risk for infection, representing the leading cause of disability in the developing world. Brugia malayi is one of the causative agents of lymphatic filariasis and remains the only human filarial parasite that can be maintained in small laboratory animals. Many filarial nematode species, including B. malayi, carry an obligate endosymbiont, the alpha-proteobacteria Wolbachia, which can be eliminated through antibiotic treatment. Elimination of the endosymbiont interferes with development, reproduction, and survival of the worms within the mamalian host, a clear indicator that the Wolbachia are crucial for survival of the parasite. Little is understood about the mechanism underlying this symbiosis. Methodology/ Principle findings To better understand the molecular interplay between these two organisms we profiled the transcriptomes of B. malayi and Wolbachia by dual RNA-seq across the life cycle of the parasite. This helped identify functional pathways involved in this essential symbiotic relationship provided by the co-expression of nematode and bacterial genes. We have identified significant stage-specific and gender-specific differential expression in Wolbachia during the nematode’s development. For example, during female worm development we find that Wolbachia upregulate genes involved in ATP production and purine biosynthesis, as well as genes involved in the oxidative stress response. Conclusions/ Significance This global transcriptional analysis has highlighted specific pathways to which both Wolbachia and B. malayi contribute concurrently over the life cycle of the parasite, paving the way for the development of novel intervention strategies.