Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of personal beliefs, friends, and family in building climate change concern among adolescents

Abstract Understanding adolescent climate change concern (CCC) may be a key strategy for building a citizenry that supports climate change action, as adolescents are likely less influenced by ideological polarization than adults. Prior research shows that climate education may build concern among adolescents, but other factors such as peer pressure may also be important. We investigated the relationships between CCC, acceptance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), perceived level of acceptance among friends and family, and frequency of discussion of the issue among 426 middle school students in North Carolina, USA, and developed a novel instrument to measure each of these constructs. Acceptance of AGW had the strongest association with CCC. Frequency of discussion with friends and family was the second strongest predictor. Perceived level of acceptance among family and friends was the third strongest predictor. Model selection results suggest family had more influence than friends in this study. Girls perceived climate change as a higher risk than boys. In addition to building acceptance of AGW, leveraging discussions with peers and especially family may help build concern for climate change among future generations.
A closer look at linguistic complexity: Pinpointing individual linguistic features of science multiple-choice items associated with English language learner performance

ABSTRACT Linguistic complexity in test items may jeopardize the validity of interpreting English language learners’ (ELLs’) test scores as measures of their content knowledge in mathematics and science. Although previous studies have demonstrated the effect of linguistic complexity on ELL performance, few examined individual linguistic features. Particularly, little is known about features operating at the level of the item as a whole, rather than the word or sentence level. This study identified 13 linguistic features likely to impact ELL performance on 162 Grade 5 multiple-choice science items from a large-scale science assessment. After analyzing the frequency and distribution of features, we correlated their presence with items’ Differential Item Functioning (DIF) values disfavoring ELLs. Three features were positively correlated at a significant level with DIF disfavoring ELLs, and two features were negatively correlated at a significant level with DIF disfavoring ELLs. The results indicate that certain individual linguistic features may differentially impact ELL performance.
Effect of Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy with Capecitabine versus Fluorouracil for Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis was carried out to compare the efficacy and safety of capecitabine plus radiation with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) plus radiotherapy (RT) as neoadjuvant treatment in locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). We searched the Cochrane database, Ovid, Medline, Embase, ISI databases, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database between January 1998 and October 2014. Trials of capecitabine compared with 5-FU plus RT as neoadjuvant treatment for LARC were considered for inclusion. RevMan software was used to analyze these data. Nine trials were included in this meta-analysis, which covered a total of 3141 patients. The meta-analysis showed that capecitabine group had statistically significant better pCR rates (OR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.10–1.64; P = 0.003), T downstaging rates (OR, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.22–2.06; P = 0.0007), N downstaging rates (OR, 2.06; 95% CI, 1.34–3.16; P = 0.001), less distant metastasis (OR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.44–0.88; P = 0.007), and lowered leucocytes (OR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.11–0.54; P = 0.0005), but with higher incidence of hand-foot syndrome (HFS) (OR, 4.43; 95% CI, 1.59–12.33; P = 0.004). Capecitabine was more efficient than 5-FU in terms of tumor response in neoadjuvant treatment for patients with LARC and favourably low toxicity with the exception of HFS.
Estimating the burden of shigellosis in Thailand: 36-month population-based surveillance study.

OBJECTIVE To estimate incidence of shigellosis in the Kaengkhoi district, Saraburi Province, Thailand. METHODS Population-based surveillance of shigellosis based in treatment centres. The detected rates of treated shigellosis were corrected for the number of cases missed due to the low sensitivity of microbiological culture methods and participants' use of health-care providers not participating in the study. FINDINGS The overall uncorrected incidence of shigellosis was 0.6/1000 population per year (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.5-0.8). The unadjusted incidence of treated shigellosis was highest among children less than 5 years old (4/1000 children per year; 95% CI = 3-6) and significantly lower among people aged > 5 years (0.3/1000 population per year; 95% CI = 0.2-0.5; P < 0.001). Adjusting for cases likely to be missed as a result of culture and surveillance methods increased estimates approximately five times. The majority of Shigella isolates (122/146; 84%) were S. sonnei; the rest were S. flexneri. Of the 22 S. flexneri isolates, the three most frequently encountered serotypes were 2a (36%), 1b (23%) and 3b (28%). A total of 90-95% of S. sonnei and S. flexneri isolates were resistant to tetracycline and co-trimoxazole. In contrast to S. sonnei isolates, more than 90% of the S. flexneri isolates were also resistant to ampicillin and chloramphenicol (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION Estimates of incidence of Shigella infection in the community are 10-fold to 100-fold greater than those found from routine government surveillance. The high prevalence of Shigella strains resistant to multiple antibiotics adds urgency to the development of a vaccine to protect against shigellosis in this region of Thailand.
A McKinsey 7S Model-Based Framework for ERP Readiness Assessment

Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning ERP systems is a complex, lengthy and expensive process which usually faces serious challenges and failures. Thus, it is necessary to perform a readiness assessment at the initial stage of an ERP implementation project to identify weakness areas which may encounter the project with failure. This paper proposes a new framework for assessing readiness of an organization to implement the ERP project on the basis of McKinsey 7S model using confirmatory factor analysis. Through this method, the construct of ERP readiness is proposed based on 7 dimensions namely "structure", "strategy", "systems", "skills", "style/culture", "staff", and "shared values/ superordinate goals". Using the framework, the current situation of the organization can be determined and necessary changes can be made prior to system implementation. The proposed framework is then applied to 2 real Iranian banking cases and the advantages of the framework over available frameworks are illustrated.
Equilibrium statistical mechanics of bipartite spin systems

The aim of this paper is to give an extensive treatment of bipartite mean field spin systems, pure and disordered. At first, bipartite ferromagnets are investigated, and an explicit expression for the free energy is achieved through a new minimax variational principle. Then, via the Hamilton–Jacobi technique, the same structure of the free energy is obtained together with the existence of its thermodynamic limit and the minimax principle is connected to a standard max one. The same is investigated for bipartite spin-glasses. By the Borel–Cantelli lemma we obtain the control of the high temperature regime, while via the double stochastic stability technique we also obtain the explicit expression of the free energy in the replica symmetric approximation, uniquely defined by a minimax variational principle again. We also obtain a general result that states that the free energies of these systems are convex linear combinations of their independent one-party model counterparts. For the sake of completeness, we show further that at zero temperature the replica symmetric entropy becomes negative and, consequently, such a symmetry must be broken. The treatment of the fully broken replica symmetry case is deferred to a forthcoming paper. As a first step in this direction, we start deriving the linear and quadratic constraints to overlap fluctuations.
Sparse Dynamical Network Reconstruction: the EGFR network case

The ability to reconstruct and identify intracellular protein signaling and biochemical networks is of critical importance in biology today. However, the ability to dynamically measure and collect data from every protein/node within the network is impossible with current methodologies. Consequently, approaches are needed that can use experimentally collected data to accurately reconstruct and extrapolate the higher dimensional network. We sought to develop a mathematical approach to this problem using one of the most well-studied and clinically important signaling networks in biology today, the epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR) driven signaling cascade. More specifically, we suggest a method for the identification of links among nodes of ordinary differential equation networks from a small set of trajectories with different initial conditions. This method uses specific sparsity arguments that are tailored to the needs of often ill-conditioned systems of representation that arise from the collection of all given trajectories. The enforcement of sparsity allows to consider potentially very large spaces of models and to still be able to detect with high accuracy the few relevant links among nodes, even when moderate noise is added to the measured trajectories. After showing the performance of our method on a model of the EGFR protein network, we sketch briefly the potential future therapeutic applications of this approach.
New XMM-Newton Analysis of Three Bright X-Ray Sources in M31 Globular Clusters, Including a New Black Hole Candidate

We present a detailed analysis of three globular cluster X-ray sources in the XMM-Newton extended survey of M31. The X-ray counterpart to the M31 globular cluster Bo 45 (XBo 45) was observed with XMM-Newton on 2006 December 26. Its combined pn+MOS 0.3-10 keV light curve was seen to vary by ~10%, and its 0.3-7.0 keV emission spectrum was well described by an absorbed power law with photon index 1.44 ± 0.12. Its variability and emission is characteristic of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) in the low-hard state, whether the accretor is a neutron star or black hole. Such behavior is typically observed at luminosities ≲10% Eddington. However, XBo 45 exhibited this behavior at an unabsorbed, 0.3-10 keV luminosity of 2.5 ± 0.2 × 1038 erg s−1, or ~140% Eddington for a 1.4 M☉ neutron star accreting hydrogen. Hence, we identify XBo 45 as a new candidate black hole LMXB. XBo 45 appears to have been consistently bright for ~30 years, consistent with theoretical prediction for a globular cluster black hole binary formed via tidal capture. Bo 375 was observed in the 2007 January 2 XMM-Newton observation, and has a two-component spectrum that is typical for a bright neutron star LMXB. Bo 135 was observed in the same field as Bo 45, and could contain either a black hole or a neutron star.
Analytical, Practical and Emotional Intelligence and Line Manager Competencies

Abstract Purpose: The research objective was to examine to what extent line manager competencies are linked to intelligence, and more specifically, three types of intelligence: analytical (fluid), practical and emotional. Methodology: The research was carried out with line managers (N=98) who took part in 12 Assessment Centre sessions and completed tests measuring analytical, practical and emotional intelligence. The adopted hypotheses were tested using a multiple regression. In the regression model, the dependent variable was a managerial competency (management and striving for results, social skills, openness to change, problem solving, employee development) and the explanatory variables were the three types of intelligence. Five models, each for a separate management competency, were tested in this way. Findings: In the study, it was hypothesized that practical intelligence relates to procedural tacit knowledge and is the strongest indicator of managerial competency. Analysis of the study results testing this hypothesis indicated that practical intelligence largely accounts for the level of competency used in managerial work (from 21% to 38%). The study findings suggest that practical intelligence is a better indicator of managerial competencies among line managers than traditionally measured IQ or emotional intelligence. Originality: This research fills an important gap in the literature on the subject, indicating the links between major contemporary selection indicators (i.e., analytical, practical and emotional intelligence) and managerial competencies presented in realistic work simulations measured using the Assessment Centre process.
Measuring perceived quality of speech and video in multimedia conferencing applications

There is currently much discussion of Quality of Service (QoS) measurements at the network level of real-time multimedia services, but it is the subjective qualify perceived by the user that will determine whether these applications are adopted This paper argues that ITU-recommended methods for subjective quality assessment of speech and video are not suitable for assessing the quality of many newer services and applications. We present an outline of what we believe to be a more suitable testing methodology, which acknowledges the multi-dimensional nature of perceived audio and video quality.
Brain Remodelling following Endothelin-1 Induced Stroke in Conscious Rats

The extent of stroke damage in patients affects the range of subsequent pathophysiological responses that influence recovery. Here we investigate the effect of lesion size on development of new blood vessels as well as inflammation and scar formation and cellular responses within the subventricular zone (SVZ) following transient focal ischemia in rats (n = 34). Endothelin-1-induced stroke resulted in neurological deficits detected between 1 and 7 days (P<0.001), but significant recovery was observed beyond this time. MCID image analysis revealed varying degrees of damage in the ipsilateral cortex and striatum with infarct volumes ranging from 0.76–77 mm3 after 14 days, where larger infarct volumes correlated with greater functional deficits up to 7 days (r = 0.53, P<0.05). Point counting of blood vessels within consistent sample regions revealed that increased vessel numbers correlated significantly with larger infarct volumes 14 days post-stroke in the core cortical infarct (r = 0.81, P<0.0001), core striatal infarct (r = 0.91, P<0.005) and surrounding border zones (r = 0.66, P<0.005; and r = 0.73, P<0.05). Cell proliferation within the SVZ also increased with infarct size (P<0.01) with a greater number of Nestin/GFAP positive cells observed extending towards the border zone in rats with larger infarcts. Lesion size correlated with both increased microglia and astrocyte activation, with severely diffuse astrocyte transition, the formation of the glial scar being more pronounced in rats with larger infarcts. Thus stroke severity affects cell proliferation within the SVZ in response to injury, which may ultimately make a further contribution to glial scar formation, an important factor to consider when developing treatment strategies that promote neurogenesis.
Inverse modelling of the spatial distribution of NO x emissions on a continental scale using satellite data

The recent important developments in satellite measurements of the composition of the lower atmosphere open the challenging perspective to use such measurements as independent information on sources and sinks of atmo- spheric pollutants. This study explores the possibility to im- prove estimates of gridded NOx emissions used in a conti- nental scale chemistry transport model (CTM), CHIMERE, by employing measurements performed by the GOME and SCIAMACHY instruments. We set-up an original inverse modelling scheme that not only enables a computationally efficient optimisation of the spatial distribution of seasonally averaged NOx emissions (during summertime), but also al- lows estimating uncertainties in input data and a priori emis- sions. The key features of our method are (i) replacement of the CTM by a set of empirical models describing the rela- tionships between tropospheric NO2 columns and NOx emis- sions with sufficient accuracy, (ii) combination of satellite data for tropospheric NO2 columns with ground based mea- surements of near surface NO2 concentrations, and (iii) eval- uation of uncertainties in a posteriori emissions by means of a special Bayesian Monte-Carlo experiment which is based on random sampling of errors of both NO2 columns and emis- sion rates. We have estimated the uncertainty in a priori emissions based on the EMEP emission inventory to be about 1.9 (in terms of geometric standard deviation) and found the uncertainty in a posteriori emissions obtained from our in- verse modelling scheme to be significantly lower (about 1.4). It is found also that a priori NOx emission estimates are prob- able to be persistently biased in many regions of Western Eu- rope, and that the use of a posteriori emissions in the CTM improves the agreement between the modelled and measured data.
Text Feature Selection Based on Class Subspace

For text data, feature dimension reduction is a very significant and important work for simplifying document representation and enhancing computation of learning algorithm. There are usually two main dimension reduction strategies, feature extraction and feature selection. Feature extraction is to create new features to represent documents, whereas feature selection will return a subset of words as features. Comparing two strategies, feature extraction has powerful capacity in reducing dimensionality, but it will lost intuitive semantic for documents. Feature selection has perfect interpretability for text contents, and specially is significant for text dimension reduction, but it is still a difficult work to design a suitable measure for feature evaluation. In this paper we present a new feature selection method called class subspace feature selection (CSFS) method. We utilize PCA feature extraction method to capture lower dimensional class subspaces, and then base on the subspaces to choose the most relevant features to the subspaces. The feature words chosen by our method can approximate the class subspace which has lower dimensionality and also owns intuitive semantic understanding for the class. The experimental results on three text data sets show the effectiveness of our proposal feature selection method.
Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors in Pregnancy: Can Genes Help Us in Predicting Neonatal Adverse Outcome?

Lots has been written on use of SSRI during pregnancy and possible short and long term negative outcomes on neonates. the literature so far has described a various field of peripartum illness related to SSRI exposure during foetal life, such as increased incidence of low birth weight, respiratory distress, persistent pulmonary hypertension, poor feeding, and neurobehavioural disease. We know that different degrees of outcomes are possible, and not all the newborns exposed to SSRIs during pregnancy definitely will develop a negative outcome. So far, still little is known about the possible etiologic mechanism that could not only explain the adverse neonatal effects but also the degree of clinical involvement and presentation in the early period after birth. Pharmacogenetics and moreover pharmacogenomics, the study of specific genetic variations and their effect on drug response, are not widespread. This review describes possible relationship between SSRIs pharmacogenetics and different neonatal outcomes and summarizes the current pharmacogenetic inquiries in relation to maternal-foetal environment.
Tyrphostin AG 1024 modulates radiosensitivity in human breast cancer cells

Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) plays an important growth-promoting effect by activating the PI3K/Akt signalling pathway, inhibiting apoptotic pathways and mediating mitogenic actions. Tyrphostin AG 1024, one selective inhibitor of IGF-1R, was used to evaluate effects on proliferation, radiosensitivity, and radiation-induced cell apoptosis in a human breast cancer cell line MCF-7. Exposure to Tyrphostin AG 1024 inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis in a time-dependent manner, and the degree of growth inhibition for IC20 plus irradiation (4 Gy) was up to 50% compared to the control. Examination of Tyrphostin AG 1024 effects on radiation response demonstrated a marked enhancement in radiosensitivity and amplification of radiation-induced apoptosis. Western blot analysis indicated that Tyrphostin AG 1024-induced apoptosis was associated with a downregulation of expression of phospho-Akt1, increased expression of Bax, p53 and p21, and a decreased expression of bcl-2 expression, especially when combined with irradiation. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that an IGF-1 inhibitor was able to markedly increase the response of tumour cells to ionizing radiation. These results suggest that Tyrphostin AG 1024 could be used as a potential therapeutic agent in combination with irradiation. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer. com
Proximity Operators - So Near And Yet So Far

Testing of the hypothesis that good precision-recall performance can be based entirely on proximity relationships in a focus of current TREC work at ANU. PADRE's Z-mode method (based on proximity spans) of scoring relevance has been shown to produce reasonable results for hand crafted queries in the Adhoc section. It is capable of producing equally good results in database merging and routing contexts due to its independence from collection statistics. Further work is needed to determine whether Z-mode is capable of achieving top-flight results. A new approach to automatic query generation designed to work with the shorter TREC-4 query produced reasonable results relative to other groups but fell short of expectations based on training performance. Investigation of causes is still under way.
Antioxidant oils and Salmonella enterica Typhimurium reduce tumor in an experimental model of hepatic metastasis

Fruit seeds high in antioxidants have been shown to have anticancer properties and enhance host protection against microbial infection. Recently we showed that a single oral dose of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium expressing a truncated human interleukin-2 gene (SalpIL2) is avirulent, immunogenic, and reduces hepatic metastases through increased natural killer cell populations in mice. To determine whether antioxidant compounds enhance the antitumor effect seen in SalpIL2-treated animals, we assayed black cumin (BC), black raspberry (BR), and milk thistle (MT) seed oils for the ability to reduce experimental hepatic metastases in mice. In animals without tumor, BC and BR oil diets altered the kinetics of the splenic lymphocyte response to SalpIL2. Consistent with previous reports, BR and BC seed oils demonstrated independent antitumor properties and moderate adjuvant potential with SalpIL2. MT oil, however, inhibited the efficacy of SalpIL2 in our model. Based on these data, we conclude that a diet high in antioxidant oils promoted a more robust immune response to SalpIL2, thus enhancing its antitumor efficacy.