Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Women-only management training: An essential part of women's leadership development

A change is needed in the way companies approach leadership development, which currently results in the reproduction of male leaders similar to those of the previous generation. At present, many women do not develop to their full potential -- a serious waste in the war for talent. Managing diversity and developing tomorrow's diverse leaders are key tasks for leadership in UK organisations. This paper considers the important role of women-only training in the development of the females in the next generation of leaders, and in the enhancement of their careers. The authors believe that in addition to, and not as a substitute for, other leadership courses and support mechanisms such as mentoring and coaching, women-only training enables women to clarify their leadership ambitions, recognise their leadership strengths and access leadership positions. Organisations that support such learning experiences will benefit from a wider and stronger pool of talent than before.
Human ectoparasites and the spread of plague in Europe during the Second Pandemic

Significance Plague is infamous as the cause of the Black Death (1347–1353) and later Second Pandemic (14th to 19th centuries CE), when devastating epidemics occurred throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Despite the historical significance of the disease, the mechanisms underlying the spread of plague in Europe are poorly understood. While it is commonly assumed that rats and their fleas spread plague during the Second Pandemic, there is little historical and archaeological support for such a claim. Here, we show that human ectoparasites, like body lice and human fleas, might be more likely than rats to have caused the rapidly developing epidemics in pre-Industrial Europe. Such an alternative transmission route explains many of the notable epidemiological differences between historical and modern plague epidemics. Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, can spread through human populations by multiple transmission pathways. Today, most human plague cases are bubonic, caused by spillover of infected fleas from rodent epizootics, or pneumonic, caused by inhalation of infectious droplets. However, little is known about the historical spread of plague in Europe during the Second Pandemic (14–19th centuries), including the Black Death, which led to high mortality and recurrent epidemics for hundreds of years. Several studies have suggested that human ectoparasite vectors, such as human fleas (Pulex irritans) or body lice (Pediculus humanus humanus), caused the rapidly spreading epidemics. Here, we describe a compartmental model for plague transmission by a human ectoparasite vector. Using Bayesian inference, we found that this model fits mortality curves from nine outbreaks in Europe better than models for pneumonic or rodent transmission. Our results support that human ectoparasites were primary vectors for plague during the Second Pandemic, including the Black Death (1346–1353), ultimately challenging the assumption that plague in Europe was predominantly spread by rats.
Serum uric acid levels are associated with hypertension and metabolic syndrome but not atherosclerosis in Chinese inpatients with type 2 diabetes

Objective: Serum uric acid (SUA) is associated with many cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension (HTN) and metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, the association of SUA with atherosclerosis remains controversial. Our aim was to investigate the relationships of SUA with HTN, MetS and atherosclerosis in Chinese inpatients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed with a sample of 2388 hospitalized Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes. Both carotid and lower limb atherosclerotic lesions were assessed for intima–media thickness, plaque and stenosis by Doppler ultrasound. Atherosclerotic plaque and stenosis were defined as the presence of either carotid or lower limb plaques and stenoses, respectively. Results: There were significant increases in the prevalence of both HTN and MetS across the SUA quartiles (HTN: 43.4, 49.6, 56.1 and 66.3% for the first, second, third and fourth quartiles, respectively, P < 0.001; MetS: 59.9, 68.8, 74.7 and 84.9% for the first, second, third and fourth quartiles, respectively, P < 0.001). A fully adjusted multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that SUA quartile was independently associated with the presence of HTN (P = 0.001) and MetS (P = 0.006). The prevalence of atherosclerotic plaque and stenosis was obviously higher in the patients with either HTN or MetS than in those without HTN or MetS. However, there was no significant association of SUA quartile with the presence of atherosclerotic lesions. Conclusions: SUA levels were closely associated with HTN and MetS, but not with atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes. Our findings strongly suggest that, in select populations such as those with type 2 diabetes, the role of uric acid in atherosclerosis might be attributable to other cardiovascular risk factors, such as HTN and MetS.
The Prevalence of Human Papillomavirus between the Neonates and Their Mothers

The impact of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection on pregnancy is a major problem of medicine. The transmission of the virus from mother to fetus is a process yet unresolved. The immune response and changed hormonal status of pregnant women might facilitate infection. A research on the prevalence of HPV infection was conducted at the Clinic of Obstetrics, Medical University of Lublin (Poland). The studied group included 152 randomly selected women. The material was tested for the presence of HPV DNA by means of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The aim of the research was to assess the relation between HPV infections detected in the buccal smears of the neonates and the incidence of such infections in the cervical/buccal smears of their mothers. In the group of 152 infants HPV was found in 16 (10.53%). Among the cervical/buccal smears, HPV was isolated, respectively, in 24 (15.79%) and in 19 (12.5%) pregnant women. Statistically significant differences in the prevalence of HPV swabs from the newborns and the cervical/buccal smears of their mothers were found (p < 0.001). The identification of mothers in whose buccal smears HPV was detected can help develop a group of children who run a relatively significant risk of being infected.
Femoroacetabular impingement and classification of the cam deformity: the reference interval in normal hips

Background and purpose Most patients with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) have a cam deformity, which may be quantified by measuring the alpha angle and anterior offset ratio (AOR). Knowledge of what constitutes a “normal” alpha angle and AOR is limited. We defined the reference intervals of these measurements from normal hips in the general population. Patients and methods 157 individuals from the general population were reviewed clinically and radiographically. 74 individuals with clinical evidence of hip disease or radiographic evidence of osteoarthritis (OA) were excluded, leaving a study group of 83 individuals (mean age 46 (22–69) years, 44 females) with normal hips. The alpha angles and AORs were measured from cross-table lateral radiographs taken in 15° internal rotation. A validation study consisting of a cadaver study and a measurement reliability study was also performed. Results The mean alpha angle was 48° in men and 47° in women. The mean AOR was 0.19, the same in men and women. Thus, sexes were combined to derive 95% confidence intervals for the population mean alpha angle (46–49°) and AOR (0.18–0.20). The 95% reference interval for the alpha angle was 32–62° degrees, and for the AOR it was 0.14–0.24. The validation study confirmed that these measurements were resistant to a reasonable degree of variation in positioning and that the repeatability and reproducibility of the measurements was good. Interpretation These reference intervals indicate that clinically and radiographically normal hips may have alpha angles and AORs that have previously been considered “abnormal”. The thresholds provided by this study will aid classification of individuals involved in longitudinal studies of FAI and OA, and may be of use to the practicing clinician in evaluating the young adult with hip pain.
LFM-Pro: a tool for detecting significant local structural sites in proteins

MOTIVATION The rapidly growing protein structure repositories have opened up new opportunities for discovery and analysis of functional and evolutionary relationships among proteins. Detecting conserved structural sites that are unique to a protein family is of great value in identification of functionally important atoms and residues. Currently available methods are computationally expensive and fail to detect biologically significant local features. RESULTS We propose Local Feature Mining in Proteins (LFM-Pro) as a framework for automatically discovering family-specific local sites and the features associated with these sites. Our method uses the distance field to backbone atoms to detect geometrically significant structural centers of the protein. A feature vector is generated from the geometrical and biochemical environment around these centers. These features are then scored using a statistical measure, for their ability to distinguish a family of proteins from a background set of unrelated proteins, and successful features are combined into a representative set for the protein family. The utility and success of LFM-Pro are demonstrated on trypsin-like serine proteases family of proteins and on a challenging classification dataset via comparison with DALI. The results verify that our method is successful both in identifying the distinctive sites of a given family of proteins, and in classifying proteins using the extracted features. AVAILABILITY The software and the datasets are freely available for academic research use at http://bioinfo.ceng. metu.edu. tr/Pub/LFMPro.
The role of gamma and alpha oscillations for blocking out distraction

Although alpha activity (10 Hz) is by far the strongest signal produced by the human brain, it has for decades been considered to reflect rest or idling. However, recent studies have clearly demonstrated that alpha activity plays a pivotal role for cognitive processing. Gamma oscillations (> 30 Hz) and their role for cognition have also been the subject of intensive research. While gamma activity is thought to reflect functional processing, alpha oscillations are now thought to reflect functional inhibition in order to suppress the processing of distracting information. In our recent magnetoencephalography study we found that both power and phase of posterior alpha oscillations are top-down modulated in order to prevent the incorporation of predictable distracters in working memory. We further discuss these results here. We additionally show that the processing of the distracters is clearly distinguishable from the processing of the items to be remembered. The former induced a weaker gamma power and evoked a higher alpha activity. The higher the evoked alpha activity, the better the efficiency of distracter suppression which also depends on the pre-distracter alpha power and phase adjustment. Altogether, these results emphasize the protecting role of alpha activity and its remarkable flexibility. This ability to inhibit distracter information is crucial in our complex environment, as illustrated by the difficulties encountered by patients suffering from attentional disorders.
Finite-state concurrent programs can be expressed pairwise

We present a pairwise normal form for finite-state shared memory concurrent programs: all variables are shared between exactly two processes, and the guards on transitions are conjunctions of conditions over this pairwise shared state. This representation has been used to efficiently (in polynomial time) synthesize and model-check correctness properties of concurrent programs. Our main result is that any finite state concurrent program can be transformed into pairwise normal form. Specifically, if Q is an arbitrary finite-state shared memory concurrent program, then there exists a finite-state shared memory concurrent program P expressed in pairwise normal form such that P is strongly bisimilar to Q. Our result is constructive: we give an algorithm for producing P, given Q.
Variation at range margins across multiple spatial scales: environmental temperature, population genetics and metabolomic phenotype

Range margins are spatially complex, with environmental, genetic and phenotypic variations occurring across a range of spatial scales. We examine variation in temperature, genes and metabolomic profiles within and between populations of the subalpine perennial plant Arabidopsis lyrata ssp. petraea from across its northwest European range. Our surveys cover a gradient of fragmentation from largely continuous populations in Iceland, through more fragmented Scandinavian populations, to increasingly widely scattered populations at the range margin in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Temperature regimes vary substantially within some populations, but within-population variation represents a larger fraction of genetic and especially metabolomic variances. Both physical distance and temperature differences between sites are found to be associated with genetic profiles, but not metabolomic profiles, and no relationship was found between genetic and metabolomic population structures in any region. Genetic similarity between plants within populations is the highest in the fragmented populations at the range margin, but differentiation across space is the highest there as well, suggesting that regional patterns of genetic diversity may be scale dependent.
SPLASH: Stanford parallel applications for shared-memory

We present the Stanford Parallel Applications for Shared-Memory (SPLASH), a set of parallel applications for use in the design and evaluation of shared-memory multiprocessing systems. Our goal is to provide a suite of realistic applications that will serve as a well-documented and consistent basis for evaluation studies. We describe the applications currently in the suite in detail, discuss some of their important characteristics, and explore their behavior by running them on a real multiprocessor as well as on a simulator of an idealized parallel architecture. We expect the current set of applications to act as a nucleus for a suite that will grow with time.
Cellular and subcellular distribution of HNK‐1 immunoreactivity in the neural tube of Xenopus

The HNK‐1 antigen, a carbohydrate moiety bound to many cell adhesion and recognition molecules, is implicated in cell‐cell and cell‐substrate interactions during neural development. HNK‐1 immunoreactivity (HNK1‐IR) appears on neurons of the Xenopus neural tube very early in their development (Nordlander, Devel. Brain Res., 50:147‐153, 1989). The distribution and onset of expression of the HNK‐1 epitope on and within individual neurons is examined in this study. HNK‐1 labels developing neurons and their processes, and focal areas of other structures which are directly contacted by neurons, such as neuroepithelial cell surfaces, basal lamina, and culture surfaces. HNK1‐IR first appears in the Golgi apparatus and subsequently on the cell surface and in streams of punctate material directed toward the site of axon initiation and into the developing axon and its growth cone. The entire neuron is coated with a thin (20‐30 nm) surface layer of HNK1‐IR. In addition, the surface is dotted with small (100‐250 nm) boluses of HNK1‐IR material. Such boluses also occur within cytoplasmic vesicles, and extracellularly on basal lamina and culture substrata in proximity to neurons or their processes. The subcellar distribution of HNK1‐IR in this tissue is compatible with a role for the HNK‐1 epitope in axonal outgrowth and guidance. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Modelling Valence and Arousal in Facebook posts

Access to expressions of subjective personal posts increased with the popularity of Social Media. However, most of the work in sentiment analysis focuses on predicting only valence from text and usually targeted at a product, rather than affective states. In this paper, we introduce a new data set of 2895 Social Media posts rated by two psychologicallytrained annotators on two separate ordinal nine-point scales. These scales represent valence (or sentiment) and arousal (or intensity), which defines each post’s position on the circumplex model of affect, a well-established system for describing emotional states (Russell, 1980; Posner et al., 2005). The data set is used to train prediction models for each of the two dimensions from text which achieve high predictive accuracy – correlated at r = . 65 with valence and r = . 85 with arousal annotations. Our data set offers a building block to a deeper study of personal affect as expressed in social media. This can be used in applications such as mental illness detection or in automated large-scale psychological studies.
A randomized trial to assess the potential of different beverages to affect hydration status: development of a beverage hydration index.

BACKGROUND The identification of beverages that promote longer-term fluid retention and maintenance of fluid balance is of real clinical and practical benefit in situations in which free access to fluids is limited or when frequent breaks for urination are not desirable. The postingestion diuretic response is likely to be influenced by several beverage characteristics, including the volume ingested, energy density, electrolyte content, and the presence of diuretic agents. OBJECTIVE This study investigated the effects of 13 different commonly consumed drinks on urine output and fluid balance when ingested in a euhydrated state, with a view to establishing a beverage hydration index (BHI), i.e., the volume of urine produced after drinking expressed relative to a standard treatment (still water) for each beverage. DESIGN Each subject (n = 72, euhydrated and fasted male subjects) ingested 1 L still water or 1 of 3 other commercially available beverages over a period of 30 min. Urine output was then collected for the subsequent 4 h. The BHI was corrected for the water content of drinks and was calculated as the amount of water retained at 2 h after ingestion relative to that observed after the ingestion of still water. RESULTS Total urine masses (mean ± SD) over 4 h were smaller than the still-water control (1337 ± 330 g) after an oral rehydration solution (ORS) (1038 ± 333 g, P < 0.001), full-fat milk (1052 ± 267 g, P < 0.001), and skimmed milk (1049 ± 334 g, P < 0.001). Cumulative urine output at 4 h after ingestion of cola, diet cola, hot tea, iced tea, coffee, lager, orange juice, sparkling water, and a sports drink were not different from the response to water ingestion. The mean BHI at 2 h was 1.54 ± 0.74 for the ORS, 1.50 ± 0.58 for full-fat milk, and 1.58 ± 0.60 for skimmed milk. CONCLUSIONS BHI may be a useful measure to identify the short-term hydration potential of different beverages when ingested in a euhydrated state. This trial was registered at www.isrctn. com as ISRCTN13014105.
A cross sectional study of newborn care practices in Gilgit, Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to explore the traditional newborn-care beliefs and practices and to identify factors that affect newborn health, aiming to design an appropriate, culturally-sensitive and acceptable intervention to reduce neonatal morbidity and mortality. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted in the district of Gilgit in Pakistan. A structured questionnaire was administered to 708 mothers who gave birth to a live child in the past one year. Descriptive and inferential analysis was performed to identify socio-economic and health care factors associated with newborn care practices. RESULTS Illiterate mothers were more likely to use harmful newborn care practices, while those seeking health care from private sector were less likely to use harmful newborn care practices. Ninety-four percent of the newborns were given a bath soon after birth, likelihood to be 2 times more amongst illiterate mothers. Cord application was a very common practice, mostly with matti (crashed apricot seed), and a majority of the mothers reported newborn massage generally with mustard oil. The administration of colostrum as the first feed was relatively common in the study area. Twenty-seven percent of mothers reported giving pre-lacteals; from which prominent feeds included salt water (44%) and cow's milk (26%). Initiation of breastfeeding within 1 hour after birth was (71%), while (29%) reported to breastfeed their newborn within 24 hours. Thirty-seven percent newborns were exclusively breastfed for six months. CONCLUSION This study underscores the existence and predominance of risky practices in newborn care; that stresses the need for health education programs to ensure safety of the newborn.
Networks cannot compute their diameter in sublinear time

We study the problem of computing the diameter of a network in a distributed way. The model of distributed computation we consider is: in each synchronous round, each node can transmit a different (but short) message to each of its neighbors. We provide an Ω(n) lower bound for the number of communication rounds needed, where n denotes the number of nodes in the network. This lower bound is valid even if the diameter of the network is a small constant. We also show that a (3/2 − e)-approximation of the diameter requires Ω (√n + D) rounds. Furthermore we use our new technique to prove an Ω (√n + D) lower bound on approximating the girth of a graph by a factor 2 − e.