Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Network Reporting Methods

This dissertation is about how the science of sampling and survey research can be generalized beyond the individual: while traditional surveys ask respondents to report about themselves, we study network reporting surveys in which respondents are asked to report about others. Despite many technical challenges, understanding how to design and analyze network reporting studies is worth the effort: network reporting surveys can be used to study many important rare and hidden populations for which traditional survey methods are inadequate. We begin by introducing the network reporting framework, a general toolkit that can help researchers develop new estimators and new data collection methods. The framework can also help researchers better understand many existing estimators. We apply the framework to analyze network scale-up, an existing method for studying epidemiologically important hidden populations like sex workers and drug injectors. We derive the precise conditions required for the basic scale-up estimator to have desirable statistical properties; we also introduce a new, generalized scale-up estimator, which we expect to outperform the existing estimator in many settings. Next, we turn to a key question for all network reporting studies: which personal network should respondents be asked to report about? We conjecture that there may be a trade-off between the quantity and the quality of information obtained from different personal networks. We test this conjecture by embedding an experiment in a large, nationally-representative household survey that we conducted in Rwanda. Our results show that there may indeed be a trade-off, but future work is required to understand this possibility in more detail. Finally, we apply the network reporting framework to a critical, unsolved problem in demography: estimating adult death rates in countries that lack complete vital registration systems. We introduce a new estimator and data collection procedure called network survival, and we test our new approach using the Rwanda survey. iii Our results demonstrate that a network reporting study is feasible in an environment where adult mortality estimates are sorely needed, and the estimated network survival rates have plausible levels and age-patterns. However, more work is required before we can fully assess the accuracy of this new approach.
Making Sense of Images of Fact and Fiction: A Critical Review of the Knowledge Base for School Leadership in Vietnam.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review both international and domestic (i.e. Vietnamese language) journal articles and graduate theses and dissertations on educational leadership in Vietnam. The review addresses two specific goals: first, to describe and critically assess the nature of the formal knowledge base on principal leadership in Vietnam, second, to synthesize findings from the existing literature on principal leadership in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employed a method for conducting systematic reviews of research. The authors conducted a detailed, exhaustive search for international and “local” papers from Vietnam, yielding 120 research sources. Information from these papers was extracted and evaluated prior to analysis. Data analysis included both quantitative description of the “review database” as well as critical synthesis of substantive findings. Findings – The review supports and extends an earlier review which found that the practice of educational leadership.
Tctex2-related outer arm dynein light chain is phosphorylated at activation of sperm motility.

When the motility of sperm is activated, only one light chain of flagellar outer arm dynein is phosphorylated in many organisms. We show here that the light chain to be phosphorylated was shown to be light chain 2 (LC2) in rainbow trout and chum salmon sperm and LC1 in sea urchin sperm. Molecular analyses of the phosphorylated light chains from sperm flagella of the salmonid fishes and sea urchin revealed that the light chains are homologs of the mouse t complex-encoded protein Tctex2, which is one of the putative t complex distorters. These results suggest that mouse Tctex2 might also be a light chain of flagellar outer arm dynein and that the abortive phosphorylation of Tctex2/outer arm dynein light chain might be related to the less progressive movement of sperm.
Personality’s Top 40

We created an activity in an upper-level personality psychology course in which interested students created an “entry” for a contest in which they chose a popular song that illustrated a course concept. The class evaluated these entries and voted on their favorites in a tournament-style bracket system; winners received extra credit. Students enjoyed the activity regardless of whether they created an entry or simply voted for their favorite entry. For example, they indicated the activity helped clarify course concepts, encouraged them to think about the concepts in novel ways, and increased their appreciation for psychology. We created final exam items that assessed knowledge relevant to each entry. Students were more likely to answer these items correctly than a randomly selected subset of items unrelated to the entries. This activity could be adapted for other courses both within and outside of psychology.
Dose-Dependent Change in Elimination Kinetics of Ethanol due to Shift of Dominant Metabolizing Enzyme from ADH 1 (Class I) to ADH 3 (Class III) in Mouse

ADH 1 and ADH 3 are major two ADH isozymes in the liver, which participate in systemic alcohol metabolism, mainly distributing in parenchymal and in sinusoidal endothelial cells of the liver, respectively. We investigated how these two ADHs contribute to the elimination kinetics of blood ethanol by administering ethanol to mice at various doses, and by measuring liver ADH activity and liver contents of both ADHs. The normalized AUC (AUC/dose) showed a concave increase with an increase in ethanol dose, inversely correlating with β. CLT (dose/AUC) linearly correlated with liver ADH activity and also with both the ADH-1 and -3 contents (mg/kg B.W.). When ADH-1 activity was calculated by multiplying ADH-1 content by its V max⁡/mg (4.0) and normalized by the ratio of liver ADH activity of each ethanol dose to that of the control, the theoretical ADH-1 activity decreased dose-dependently, correlating with β. On the other hand, the theoretical ADH-3 activity, which was calculated by subtracting ADH-1 activity from liver ADH activity and normalized, increased dose-dependently, correlating with the normalized AUC. These results suggested that the elimination kinetics of blood ethanol in mice was dose-dependently changed, accompanied by a shift of the dominant metabolizing enzyme from ADH 1 to ADH 3.
Hematopoietic stem cell: self‐renewal versus differentiation

The mammalian blood system, containing more than 10 distinct mature cell types, stands on one specific cell type, hematopoietic stem cell (HSC). Within the system, only HSCs possess the ability of both multipotency and self‐renewal. Multipotency is the ability to differentiate into all functional blood cells. Self‐renewal is the ability to give rise to HSC itself without differentiation. Since mature blood cells (MBCs) are predominantly short‐lived, HSCs continuously provide more differentiated progenitors while properly maintaining the HSC pool size throughout life by precisely balancing self‐renewal and differentiation. Thus, understanding the mechanisms of self‐renewal and differentiation of HSC has been a central issue. In this review, we focus on the hierarchical structure of the hematopoietic system, the current understanding of microenvironment and molecular cues regulating self‐renewal and differentiation of adult HSCs, and the currently emerging systems approaches to understand HSC biology. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Transforming growth factor-beta1 levels in hypertensive patients: association with body mass index and leptin.

BACKGROUND Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) has been demonstrated to be overexpressed in hypertension. Leptin, an adipocyte product, has been shown to play a role in obesity-related hypertension and in vitro studies demonstrated a biologic interaction between leptin and TGF-beta1. Thus, we evaluate a possible in vivo association between TGF-beta1, body mass index (BMI), and leptin circulating levels in hypertensive subjects. METHODS Blood samples for fasting leptin and TGF-beta1, were evaluated in 29 overweight, 46 obese, and 29 nonobese hypertensive patients before and after a 12-week calorie-restricted diet. Monocyte cultures were used for in vitro experiments. RESULTS Transforming growth factor-beta1 was significantly elevated in hypertensive obese patients (n = 46) as compared with TGF-beta1 levels of hypertensive patients with normal BMI (n = 29) (8. 9 +/- 3 ng/mL v 4.4 +/- 2; P < .001). The circulating levels of TGF-beta1 were associated with BMI and leptin levels in an univariate analysis (r = 0.59, P < .0001; r = 0.62, P < .0001, respectively) and these associations were still present after stepwise multivariate analysis. Weight loss of 10% produced a parallel decrease in TGF-beta1 (from 8.9 +/- 3 ng/mL to 5.3 +/- 2.8 ng/mL; P < .01) and leptin levels (from 30 +/- 24 ng/mL to 17 +/- 14; P < .05). In vitro experiments showed that leptin is able to induce a dose-dependent increase in TGF-beta1 production and mRNA expression in human monocyte cultures. CONCLUSIONS Our data indicate that TGF-beta1 levels are positively associated with BMI and leptin levels in hypertensive patients and suggest that adipose tissue may be an important determinant of TGF-beta1 levels possibly by a leptin-dependent pathway.
Propolis organogel as a novel topical delivery system for treating wounds

Abstract Context: Propolis has traditionally been used in curing infections and healing wounds and burns. Objective: The aim of this study is to formulate pluronic lecithin organogel of propolis to improve its availability and antimicrobial activity. Materials and methods: Different organogels were prepared by using soybean lecithin, isopropyl palmitate, pluronic F127 and water. The effect of quantity of lecithin and pluronic F127 and percentage of oil phase was investigated. The organogels were evaluated for appearance, texture, pH, drug content and viscosity. In vitro release studies were carried out using cellophane membrane. Drug permeation through abdominal rat skin from organogels that showed high % drug release was compared to that from propolis suspension in distilled water. Finally, the antimicrobial activity of the selected propolis formulation against different bacterial isolates was compared with that of propolis suspension in water. Results and discussion: Results showed that all organogel formulations except the formula containing 10% pluronic F127, showed acceptable physical properties. Drug content of organogel formulations was in the range of 97.5–100.2%. The pH of the formulations was in the range of 5.5–6.3 that suits the skin pH, indicating skin compatibility. The viscosity was in the range of 5366–8984 cp. A significant decrease in drug release from formulations was observed with increase in concentration of lecithin and pluronic F127. Decreasing oil phase percentage to 20% w/w led to a decrease in drug release from the formulation. Conclusion: The formula containing 3% lecithin and 20% pluronic F127 exhibited superior skin permeation and antimicrobial activity over propolis suspension in water.
Crisis in Education: A Call to ACT

The current education system in the United States is riddled with difficulties which include an increasing demand for qualified teachers and persistently high attrition rates. Teachers are prone to low job satisfaction, low self-efficacy, as well as increased stress and burnout. Although these problems are widely discussed in the literature, scant intervention research is available. Additionally, existing interventions miss two key elements that may be especially relevant to the challenges faced by educators: acceptance and values. The current study examined the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for reducing teacher burnout through a day-long professional development workshop. Thirty-five teachers were assigned to either an experimental (n=20) or waitlist control group (n=15). At three months followup, burnout levels significantly decreased for the ACT group and increased for the control group. Additionally, changes in burnout were mediated by the acceptance of undesirable thoughts and feelings. The current study supports ACT as an effective method for reducing burnout in teachers. Education Crisis 4
A study on risk perception of community youth

To overcome serious risks in risk society, risk perception of youths are very crucial. The purpose of this study is to analyze risk perception of community youth. The data were gathered from students participating after-school academy program in elementary school and middle school with questionnaire. The results of this study are as follows; Firstly, risk perception of youth is rather higher than average point(2.5) and community youths perceive more risky about sexual criminology, criminology and traffic accidents in general life-world domains. Secondly, middle school students perceive more risky about war, sexual criminology, economic crisis than those of elementary school students. Thirdly, elder youths feel more risky about war, sexual criminology, economic crisis than those of younger youths. In conclusion, the study suggests that our society should extend political practices about general life-wold in risk domains for youth. Keywords: 위험인식, 위험사회, 지역사회 청소년, 국민생활영역, risk perception, risk society, community youth, general life-world, Human trafficking :: Language: ko
Exploiting Smoothness in Statistical Learning, Sequential Prediction, and Stochastic Optimization

In the last several years, the intimate connection between convex optimization and learning problems, in both statistical and sequential frameworks, has shifted the focus of algorithmic machine learning to examine this interplay. In particular, on one hand, this intertwinement brings forward new challenges in reassessment of the performance of learning algorithms including generalization and regret bounds under the assumptions imposed by convexity such as analytical properties of loss functions (e.g., Lipschitzness, strong convexity, and smoothness). On the other hand, emergence of datasets of an unprecedented size, demands the development of novel and more efficient optimization algorithms to tackle large-scale learning problems. The overarching goal of this thesis is to reassess the smoothness of loss functions in statistical learning, sequential prediction/online learning, and stochastic optimization and explicate its consequences. In particular we examine how smoothness of loss function could be beneficial or detrimental in these settings in terms of sample complexity, statistical consistency, regret analysis, and convergence rate, and investigate how smoothness can be leveraged to devise more efficient learning algorithms.
Dynamics of among-individual behavioral variation over adult lifespan in a wild insect

Lay Summary Wild crickets show consistent patterns of behavior over their adult lifetimes and as they get older they become increasingly predictable. We tagged crickets and then periodically recaptured them and measured their behavior in the lab. This revealed that rather than variation in how age affects behavior, there were consistent patterns across the whole population. We do not have a situation where some crickets live fast and die young while others take it easy and slow.
pH-dependent bactericidal effects of acidulated fluoride gels on preformed plaque aggregates of Streptococcus mutans 6715

The anticaries action of topically applied sodium fluoride (NaF) preparations has been attributed, at least in part, to the antibacterial effect of fluoride on cariogenic bacteria. In this report we examined the bactericidal activity of acidulated NaF gels against preformed plaque aggregates of Streptococcus mutans 6715. Both commercially available and laboratory-prepared gels were tested. Prepared NaF gels were acidified to various pH levels with HCl, H3PO4, or HF. The aggregates of S. mutans were immersed in the various fluoride gels for 5 min and then monitored for viability. None of the commercially available NaF gels with pHs of 3.5 to 4.5 and fluoride concentrations of 5,000 to 12,300 micrograms/ml were capable of exerting complete bactericidal activity against aggregates of S. mutans. For the laboratory-prepared NaF gels, neither the source of hydrogen ion nor the source of fluoride influenced the outcome when fluoride was present at the appropriate MBC and pH. NaF gels with a fluoride concentration of 37,000 micrograms/ml were bactericidal to S. mutans at pH 3.0. At pH 2.5 and 2.0, approximately 12,000 and 1,100 micrograms of fluoride per ml, respectively, was bactericidal. Results from this study suggest that the bactericidal properties of acidulated NaF gels can be enhanced by lowering their pHs to below 3.0.
Zero-metallicity stellar sources and the reionization epoch

We reconsider the problem of the cosmological reionization owing to stellar sources. Using a method similar to that developed by Haiman & Loeb, we investigate the effect of changing the stellar models and the stellar spectra adopted for deriving the ionizing photon production rate. In particular, we study the consequences of adopting zero-metallicity stars, which is the natural choice for the first stellar populations. We construct young isochrones representative of Population III stars from existing sets of evolutionary models (by Forieri and Cassisi & Castellani) and calculate a suitable library of zero-metallicity model atmospheres. The number of ionizing photons emitted by such a zero-metal population is about 40 per cent higher than that produced by standard metal-poor isochrones. We find that adopting suitable zero-metallicity models modifies the reionization epoch. However the latter is still largely affected by current uncertainties in other important physical processes such as the efficiency of the star formation and the fraction of escaping UV photons.
Quality Estimation of English-French Machine Translation: A Detailed Study of the Role of Syntax

We investigate the usefulness of syntactic knowledge in estimating the quality of English-French translations. We find that dependency and constituency tree kernels perform well but the error rate can be further reduced when these are combined with hand-crafted syntactic features. Both types of syntactic features provide information which is complementary to tried-and-tested nonsyntactic features. We then compare source and target syntax and find that the use of parse trees of machine translated sentences does not affect the performance of quality estimation nor does the intrinsic accuracy of the parser itself. However, the relatively flat structure of the French Treebank does appear to have an adverse effect, and this is significantly improved by simple transformations of the French trees. Finally, we provide further evidence of the usefulness of these transformations by applying them in a separate task ‐ parser accuracy prediction.
Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission

Aims. The CoRoT space mission continues to photometrically monitor about 12 000 stars in its field-of-view for a series of target fields to search for transiting extrasolar planets ever since 2007. Deep transit signals can be detected quickly in the “alarm-mode” in parallel to the ongoing target field monitoring. CoRoT’s first planets have been detected in this mode. Methods. The CoRoT raw lightcurves are filtered for orbital residuals, outliers, and low-frequency stellar signals. The phase folded lightcurve is used to fit the transit signal and derive the main planetary parameters. Radial velocity follow-up observations were initiated to secure the detection and to derive the planet mass. Results. We report the detection of CoRoT-5b, detected during observations of the LRa01 field, the first long-duration field in the galactic anticenter direction. CoRoT-5b is a “hot Jupiter-type” planet with a radius of 1.388 +0.046 −0.047 RJup ,am ass of 0.467
Dynamic Distance Minimization Problems for dynamic multi-objective optimization

In this article we propose a new dynamic multi-objective optimization problem. This dynamic Distance Minimization Problem (dDMP) functions as a benchmark problem for dynamic multi-objective optimization and is based on the static versions from the literature. The dDMP introduces a useful property and challenge for dynamic multi-objective algorithms. Not only the positions of the Pareto-optimal solutions in the search space change over time, but also the complexity of the problem can be adjusted dynamically. In addition the problem is based on a simple geometric structure, which makes it useful to visualize the search behaviour of algorithms. We describe the basic principles of the problem, and introduce the possible dynamic changes and their implementation and effects of the Pareto-optimal areas. Our experiments show how a possible instance of the dynamic DMP can be defined and how different algorithms react to the dynamic changes.
Sulfonanilide Derivatives in Identifying Novel Aromatase Inhibitors by Applying Docking, Virtual Screening, and MD Simulations Studies

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death noticed in women across the world. Of late the most successful treatments rendered are the use of aromatase inhibitors (AIs). In the current study, a two-way approach for the identification of novel leads has been adapted. 81 chemical compounds were assessed to understand their potentiality against aromatase along with the four known drugs. Docking was performed employing the CDOCKER protocol available on the Discovery Studio (DS v4.5). Exemestane has displayed a higher dock score among the known drug candidates and is labeled as reference. Out of 81 ligands 14 have exhibited higher dock scores than the reference. In the second approach, these 14 compounds were utilized for the generation of the pharmacophore. The validated four-featured pharmacophore was then allowed to screen Chembridge database and the potential Hits were obtained after subjecting them to Lipinski's rule of five and the ADMET properties. Subsequently, the acquired 3,050 Hits were escalated to molecular docking utilizing GOLD v5.0. Finally, the obtained Hits were consequently represented to be ideal lead candidates that were escalated to the MD simulations and binding free energy calculations. Additionally, the gene-disease association was performed to delineate the associated disease caused by CYP19A1.
Social Structure and Cultural Production: An Empirical Analysis of Festivals' Networks

ABSTRACT Do cultural producers know each other? Do their relations influence the cultural field? This article analyzes the impact of the social structure on the art festivals' field in Piedmont, Italy. Cultural production is described through the perspective of the relations among the producers. Festivals' organizations observe each other, exchange information and artists, co-produce events, and share performing spaces. These actions generate relations that constitute the field. Analytical tools from social network analysis and QAP regression for network data are applied to describe the field through the relational perspective and assess the impact of the social structure on the cultural system.