Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-axis-symmetrical punching shear around internal columns of RC slabs without transverse reinforcement

Most analytical approaches and available test data for punching shear in flat slabs assume axis-symmetrical conditions, which seems realistic for representing slabs supported on columns equally spaced in both orthogonal directions. However, in practice, there are many instances where loading, geometry and reinforcement around internal columns differ significantly from ideal axis-symmetrical conditions. Typical examples include slab bridges, flat slabs with unequal spans and footings with unequal widths. This paper presents a series of punching shear tests on slabs without transverse reinforcement and different flexural reinforcement ratios or loading conditions in each orthogonal direction. The tests show that both the type of loading and the amount of flexural reinforcement have a significant influence on the punching shear strength and symmetry of the response. Eurocode 2 and BS 8110 code formulas provided reasonable strength predictions of the tests using the recommended average reinforcement ratio between the x and y directions. A physical explanation behind this assumption is presented, based on critical shear crack theory. A rational analytical approach was developed for non-axis-symmetrical punching, which provides accurate predictions of strength and deformation capacity. The novelty of the proposed method is that it considers a non-uniform shear strength distribution per unit length along the control perimeter, which results in a redistribution of shear near failure.
Altered Arterial Stiffness and Subendocardial Viability Ratio in Young Healthy Light Smokers after Acute Exercise

Background Studies showed that long-standing smokers have stiffer arteries at rest. However, the effect of smoking on the ability of the vascular system to respond to increased demands (physical stress) has not been studied. The purpose of this study was to estimate the effect of smoking on arterial stiffness and subendocardial viability ratio, at rest and after acute exercise in young healthy individuals. Methods/Results Healthy light smokers (n = 24, pack-years = 2.9) and non-smokers (n = 53) underwent pulse wave analysis and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity measurements at rest, and 2, 5, 10, and 15 minutes following an exercise test to exhaustion. Smokers were tested, 1) after 12h abstinence from smoking (chronic condition) and 2) immediately after smoking one cigarette (acute condition). At rest, chronic smokers had higher augmentation index and lower aortic pulse pressure than non-smokers, while subendocardial viability ratio was not significantly different. Acute smoking increased resting augmentation index and decreased subendocardial viability ratio compared with non-smokers, and decreased subendocardial viability ratio compared with the chronic condition. After exercise, subendocardial viability ratio was lower, and augmentation index and aortic pulse pressure were higher in non-smokers than smokers in the chronic and acute conditions. cfPWV rate of recovery of was greater in non-smokers than chronic smokers after exercise. Non-smokers were also able to achieve higher workloads than smokers in both conditions. Conclusion Chronic and acute smoking appears to diminish the vascular response to physical stress. This can be seen as an impaired ‘vascular reserve’ or a blunted ability of the blood vessels to accommodate the changes required to achieve higher workloads. These changes were noted before changes in arterial stiffness or subendocardial viability ratio occurred at rest. Even light smoking in young healthy individuals appears to have harmful effects on vascular function, affecting the ability of the vascular bed to respond to increased demands.
Using the theory of planned behaviour to understand binge drinking: the importance of beliefs for developing interventions.

OBJECTIVES To elicit students' salient beliefs in relation to binge drinking, and to examine the extent to which individual salient beliefs predict theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs in relation to binge drink, and actual drinking behaviour assessed later that evening. DESIGN Longitudinal, over a single evening. METHODS 192 students were recruited as they entered a campus bar at the beginning of the evening. They completed questionnaires with open-ended questions eliciting beliefs concerning binge drinking, and ratings scales assessing standard TPB constructs in relation to binge drinking. At the end of the evening, 181 completed a second questionnaire and recorded the number of alcoholic drinks they had consumed. RESULTS Beliefs were reliably coded (all kappas ≥0.79). Students with higher intentions to binge drink were more likely to believe that their friends approved of binge drinking, and that (lack of) money would make it difficult. Students who reported drinking more alcohol at the end of the evening were more likely to believe that getting drunk is an advantage/what they would like about binge drinking tonight, that their sports teams would approve, and that celebrating, drinking patterns, and environment would make it easy to binge drink. CONCLUSIONS The present study has identified the individually salient beliefs relating to drinking behaviour that the TPB states should be addressed by interventions to alter behaviour, and which that should be assessed as mediators in intervention research. As a whole, these findings highlight the importance of perceived peer norms in binge drinking in this population, and support the idea of interventions to challenge the perception of social pressure to binge drink.
Application of the mental toughness/ hardiness scale on the sample of athletes engaged in different types of sports

During working with athletes, important is the understanding how psychological factors affect the performance of an individual: considering individual differences among athletes is necessary. Characteristics closely related to stress and coping with stress in athletes are mental toughness (toughness) and hardiness, which actually describe how an individual cope with stress and how remains resistant to stress. Main aim of this study is to determine the basic psychometric characteristics of Mental Toughness /Hardiness Scale (SMZO), as a part of the battery called Multidimensional questionnaire of sporting excellence (MUSI). Second aim is related to the determination of the differences in specific aspects of mental toughness/ hardiness, with regard to gender, type of sport, age group of athletes and the type of engagement in sport. Then we are determined the correlations established between some aspects of mental toughness/ hardiness, with chronological age of the athletes and their sports experience. A total of 248 participants is examined, 103 male athletes (age 24.52 ± 11.80 years) and 145 female athletes (age 16.61 ± 6.69 years), from Croatian sports clubs, engaged in 16 different sports. Factor analysis and determining the reliability type internal consistency showed that one-factor solution of SMZO has satisfactory reliability and validity. The means for all aspects of mental toughness / hardiness are above the theoretical average, both for male and female athletes, while the number of statistically significant differences in relation to independent variables is small. None statistically significant correlations are found, in relation to athletes' age and sports experience.
F 1000 , Mendeley and Traditional Bibliometric Indicators

This article compares the Faculty of 1000 (F1000) quality filtering results and Mendeley usage data with traditional bibliometric indicators, using a sample of 1397 Genomics and Genetics articles published in 2008 selected by F1000 Faculty Members (FMs). Both Mendeley user counts and F1000 article factors (FFas) correlate significantly with citation counts and associated Journal Impact Factors. However, the correlations for Mendeley user counts are much larger than those for FFas. It may be that F1000 is good at disclosing the merit of an article from an expert practitioner point of view while Mendeley user counts may be more closely related to traditional citation impact. Articles that attract exceptionally many citations are generally disorder or disease related, while those with extremely high social bookmark user counts are mainly historical or introductory.
‘Collaboration’ in Contemporary Music: A Theoretical View

Contemporary composers frequently find themselves working with other artists in composing. The paper presents a framework which aims to provide a better understanding of the working relationships found in such situations, and the factors which affect the type of working relationships which develop. A distinction is drawn between dialogic creative activity—the universal situation of creating in a context—and creating with others actually present. Four different types of relationship which develop when working directly with others are defined. This typology can help in the better understanding of the relationships which composers establish and can act as a stimulus to the review and further development of compositional practice. The relationship between the language of an art form and the language used for communication between creative partners is identified as a key factor in affecting the type of working relationships which develop between artists.
Implementing Seeking Safety therapy for PTSD and substance abuse : Clinical Guidelines

Lisa M. Najavits, PhD is Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Trauma Research Program in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center at McLean Hospital (Belmont, Massachusetts). She is the author of Seeking Safety: A Treatment Manual for PTSD and Substance Abuse (Guilford Press, New York; 2002) and A Woman’s Addiction Workbook (New Harbinger Press; 2002), and over 70 professional publications. She is recipient of the 1997 Chaim Danieli Young Professional Award of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the 1998 Early Career Contribution Award of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. She has received four National Institutes of Health grants, including an Independent Scientist Award. She is a practicing therapist and psychotherapy supervisor.
Integrating and Ranking Interests From User Profiles

textabstract Many websites allow their users to personalize their profiles. As users subscribe to many personalization websites, such as social net- works or search systems, each user owns different profiles, which are seldom compatible. Yet, there is a strong need for comparing the profiles of different users to discover shared interests, e.g., by integrating all user profiles into a global one. In this paper, we propose a novel method for in- tegrating and ranking user interests from various profiles. Our approach relies on the identification of high-level concepts around which similar user interests are clustered. We compute the weight of each cluster with respect to the other ones, thus enabling the ranking of the most shared user interests between user profiles.
Analisis pengaruh set kesempatan investasi, manajemen laba, leverage dan dividen terhadap hubungan antara aliran kas bebas dan nilai pemegang saham

Penelitian ini menguji hubungan aliran kas bebas dan nilai pemegang saham dengan mempertimbangkan faktor kontekstual set kesempatan investasi, manajemen laba, leverage, dan dividen sebagai variabel pemoderasi. Secara lebih spesifik penelitian ini menguji apakah masing-masing variabel pemoderasi atau kombinasi beberapa diantaranya mempengaruhi hubungan aliran kas bebas dengan nilai pemegang saham. Sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah perusahaan sektor nonkeuangan yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Jakarta yang menyediakan data keuangan berturut-turut dari tahun 1994-2002. Analisis data menggunakan perioda 1995-2002. Sampel dibagi menjadi kelompok sampel dengan aliran kas bebas positif dan aliran kas bebas negatif karena terdapat perbedaan landasan teori diantara keduanya. Teori yang melandasi aliran kas bebas positif adalah teori keagenan aliran kas bebas dari Jensen (1986), sedangkan teori yang melandasi aliran kas bebas negatif adalah teori keagenan masalah kontrak utang. Hasil pengujian menunjukkan bahwa aliran kas bebas positif dapat dipakai sebagai determinan nilai pemegang saham dengan mempertimbangkan faktor-faktor kontekstual set kesempatan investasi, manajemen laba, leverage, dan dividen. Set kesempatan investasi yang tinggi akan memperkuat hubungan aliran kas bebas dengan nilai pemegang saham; manajemen laba yang tinggi (menaikkan maupun menurunkan) akan memperlemah hubungan aliran kas bebas dengan nilai pemegang saham; peningkatan utang akan memperkuat hubungan aliran kas bebas dengan nilai pemegang saham dan kebijakan pendistribusian dividen juga memperkuat hubungan aliran kas bebas dengan nilai pemegang saham. Sebaliknya untuk kelompok sampel aliran kas bebas negatif pada umumnya menunjukkan hasil yang secara statistis tidak signifikan. Hasil ini menunjukkan bahwa kandungan informasi yang ada pada aliran kas bebas memiliki makna yang berbeda untuk kelompok aliran kas bebas positif dan negatif. Aliran kas bebas positif pada umumnya dinilai secara konsisten oleh para pengguna laporan keuangan sebagai suatu nilai yang menggambarkan keberhasilan manajemen dalam mengelola perusahaan, sebaliknya aliran kas bebas negatif dinilai secara beragam. Para pengguna informasi keuangan belum mampu membedakan makna aliran kas bebas negatif yang disebabkan karena eksploitasi investasi yang tidak menguntungkan di satu pihak, dengan aliran kas bebas negatif yang terjadi akibat investasi perusahaan yang sedang bertumbuh sehingga reaksi mereka atas informasi aliran kas bebas negatif menjadi beragam.
The Celiac Iceberg: Characterization of the Disease in Primary Schoolchildren

Objective: Celiac disease (CD) has a prevalence of 0.55% to 1% in Italy. Identifying CD in schoolchildren to characterize CD iceberg and evaluate the effect of diagnosis in screening-detected children. Methods: A total of 7377 5- to 8-year-old children were invited to participate. A total of 5733 salivary samples were collected and tested for anti-transglutaminase antibodies (tTGAb), using a fluid-phase radioimmunoassay. Salivary tTGAb-positive children were analyzed for serum antibodies (anti-endomysium antibodies, radioimmunoassay, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay tTGAb). Positive children underwent endoscopy and then started gluten-free diet (GFD) and periodical follow-up. Results: Forty-six subjects were found salivary tTGAb–positive and 16 border-line. Forty-five of 46 and 5 of 15 of them were also serum antibody–positive. Forty-two children showed duodenal villous atrophy and 1 had only type 1 lesions. Three children started GFD without performing endoscopy. CD prevalence (including 23 previously diagnosed children with CD) was 1.2%. Considering all 65 celiacs in our sample, a silent CD was found in 64%, typical in 28%, atypical in 7%, and potential in 1%. All patients showed strict adherence to GFD, weight and stature increase, and well-being improvement. Eighty-five percent and all but 2 screening-detected children with CD had Italian parents. Conclusions: Our sample size, representative of primary schoolchildren of our region, demonstrated that CD prevalence is growing in Italy, with a modified clinical spectrum and iceberg deepness.
Multidimensional Intratile Parallelization for Memory-Starved Stencil Computations

Optimizing the performance of stencil algorithms has been the subject of intense research over the last two decades. Since many stencil schemes have low arithmetic intensity, most optimizations focus on increasing the temporal data access locality, thus reducing the data traffic through the main memory interface with the ultimate goal of decoupling from this bottleneck. There are, however, only a few approaches that explicitly leverage the shared cache feature of modern multicore chips. If every thread works on its private, separate cache block, the available cache space can become too small, and sufficient temporal locality may not be achieved. We propose a flexible multidimensional intratile parallelization method for stencil algorithms on multicore CPUs with a shared outer-level cache. This method leads to a significant reduction in the required cache space without adverse effects from hardware prefetching or TLB shortage. Our Girih framework includes an autotuner to select optimal parameter configurations on the target hardware. We conduct performance experiments on two contemporary Intel processors and compare with the state-of-the-art stencil frameworks Pluto and Pochoir, using four corner-case stencil schemes and a wide range of problem sizes. Girih shows substantial performance advantages and best arithmetic intensity at almost all problem sizes, especially on low-intensity stencils with variable coefficients. We study in detail the performance behavior at varying grid sizes using phenomenological performance modeling. Our analysis of energy consumption reveals that our method can save energy through reduced DRAM bandwidth usage even at a marginal performance gain. It is thus well suited for future architectures that will be strongly challenged by the cost of data movement, be it in terms of performance or energy consumption.
Functions of the lethal leaf-spot 1 gene in wheat cell death and disease tolerance to Puccinia striiformis

Pheophorbide a oxygenase (PaO) is a key enzyme in chlorophyll catabolism that is known to suppress cell death in maize and Arabidopsis. The catalytic activity of PaO in chlorophyll degradation has been clearly demonstrated, but the function of PaO in the regulation of cell death and plant–microbe interactions is largely unknown. In this study, we characterized a PaO homologue in wheat of the lethal leaf-spot 1 gene, TaLls1, that was induced in leaves infected by Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici (Pst) and wounding treatment. The TaLls1 protein contains a conserved Rieske [2Fe-2S] motif and a mononuclear iron-binding site typical of PaOs. Silencing of TaLls1 by virus-induced gene silencing in wheat led to leaf cell death without pathogen attacks, possibly due to the accumulation of pheophorbide a (upstream substrate of PaO), indicating a suppressor role of TaLls1, while overexpression of TaLls1 also triggered cell death in both tobacco and wheat leaves, probably owing to the accumulation of the red chlorophyll catabolite (downstream product of PaO). Further deletion mutant analysis showed that the conserved Rieske domain, but not the iron-binding site, was essential for cell death induction. These results thus suggest a threshold for TaLls1 in maintaining cell homeostasis to adapt in various stresses, and shed new light on the role of TaLls1 in cell death regulation. Furthermore, silencing of TaLls1 in wheat did not change the disease symptoms but enhanced tolerance to Pst via an significant increase in H2O2 generation, elevated cell death occurrence, and upregulation of pathogenesis-related genes.
Toward a Theory of Charitable Fundraising

Private providers of public goods, such as charities, invariably enlist a fundraiser to organize and collect contributions. Common in charitable fundraising during capital campaigns is seed money, either from a government grant or from a group of "leadership givers," that launches the fund drive and generates additional gifts. This paper provides a theoretical basis for fundraisers and seeds to charity. The primary assumption that is added to the standard model of privately provided public goods is simply that the charity has fixed costs. With this it is shown that fundraisers have a natural and important role, and that sometimes only a small amount of seed money can grow into a substantial charity.
Acoustic modeling with deep neural networks using raw time signal for LVCSR

In this paper we investigate how much feature extraction is required by a deep neural network (DNN) based acoustic model for automatic speech recognition (ASR). We decompose the feature extraction pipeline of a state-of-the-art ASR system step by step and evaluate acoustic models trained on standard MFCC features, critical band energies (CRBE), FFT magnitude spectrum and even on the raw time signal. The focus is put on raw time signal as input features, i.e. as much as zero feature extraction prior to DNN training. Noteworthy, the gap in recognition accuracy between MFCC and raw time signal decreases strongly once we switch from sigmoid activation function to rectiﬁed linear units, offering a real alternative to standard signal processing. The analysis of the ﬁrst layer weights reveals that the DNN can discover multiple band pass ﬁlters in time domain. Therefore we try to improve the raw time signal based system by initializing the ﬁrst hidden layer weights with impulse responses of an audiologically motivated ﬁlter bank. Inspired by the multi-resolutional analysis layer learned automatically from raw time signal input, we train the DNN on a combination of multiple short-term features. This illustrates how the DNN can learn from the little differences between MFCC, PLP and Gammatone features, suggesting that it is useful to present the DNN with different views on the underlying audio.
Clinical and laboratory characteristics of hypernatraemia in an internal medicine clinic.

BACKGROUND Hypernatraemia is a frequent electrolyte disorder in hospitalized patients that has been mainly studied in an entire hospital population. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence, clinical characteristics, concomitant electrolyte abnormalities and outcome of hypernatraemia in an internal medicine clinic. Also, we sought to identify differences between patients who were admitted with hypernatraemia and those who developed hypernatraemia during hospitalization. METHODS We prospectively studied patients who either on admission to our internal medicine clinic or during their hospitalization were found to have hypernatraemia (sodium concentration greater than 148 meq/l, 148 mmol/l). One hundred and thirteen patients out of 9158 patients at risk had hypernatraemia (incidence 1.2%). Of those, fifty patients had hypernatraemia on admission, whereas 63 had hospital-acquired hypernatraemia. RESULTS Patients who developed hypernatraemia before hospital admission had a much lower mortality rate than patients with hospital-acquired hypernatraemia (28% vs 47.6%, P=0.03), despite the fact that they had a higher peak serum sodium concentration (160.4+/-9.9 vs 154.4+/-2.4 meq/l, P=0.000). Furthermore, they did not differ in either age or the frequency of concomitant electrolyte abnormalities in comparison with patients who developed hypernatraemia during hospitalization. There were two main subgroups of patients with hospital-acquired hypernatraemia. A total of 26 Patients (41%) exhibited a biochemical profile consistent with extracellular volume depletion, whereas 32 patients (51%) with euvolaemia. On the contrary, the majority of patients (82%) who were hypernatraemic on admission had hypovolaemic hypernatraemia. The construction of the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) plots revealed that the urea to creatinine ratio was the best predictor of the extracellular volume status. Indeed, a urea to creatinine value of 57 could differentiate between the groups with euvolaemic or hypovolaemic hypernatraemia with a sensitivity of 96.5% and a specificity of 100%. CONCLUSION The incidence of hypernatraemia in the present study was 1.2% with a high mortality rate mainly in patients with hospital-acquired hypernatraemia. There were two main profiles of hospital-acquired hypernatraemia, one consistent with extracellular volume depletion and another with euvolaemia. On the contrary, the majority of hypernatraemic patients on admission exhibited hypovolaemia. Almost half of our hypernatraemic patients had at least one additional electrolyte disturbance.