Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Radiological cervical spine involvement in young adults with polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

OBJECTIVES Radiological cervical spine involvement in JIA has already been assessed with a large range of prevalence (5-80%), but most studies were performed a long time ago, in symptomatic JIA and without differentiating subsets of JIA. We set out to describe structural cervical spine involvement in young adults with polyarticular JIA (pJIA) regardless of the cervical symptoms and to compare lesions with those observed in adult RA. METHODS All consecutive pJIAs followed in a transition programme were included. Standard radiographs of the cervical spine, hands, feet and hip were analysed by two independent radiologists blinded to the diagnosis. An RA control group (<55 years), matched for sex and disease duration, was recruited. RESULTS Fifty-seven pJIA and 58 RA patients were included. Radiographs showed cervical lesions in 65% of pJIA and 67% of RA patients. In total, 51% of pJIA with radiographic abnormalities had no clinical symptoms. In pJIA, the most frequent structural lesions were anterior atlantoaxial subluxation (33%), erosion of the odontoid process (19%), C1-C2 arthritis (17%) and apophyseal joint arthritis (16%). Cervical lesions in pJIA were similar to those in RA except for ankylosis and hypotrophia (P < 0.05). The presence of cervical lesions correlated with a more severe disease. CONCLUSION Structural cervical spine involvement is common in pJIA persisting into adulthood, frequently asymptomatic and associated with a more severe disease. We suggest that radiographic assessment of the cervical spine should be done systematically at onset of the disease and regularly during its course regardless of clinical symptoms.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Characteristics of Tumefactive Demyelinating Lesions

Tumefactive demyelinating lesions (TDLs) are often misdiagnosed as brain tumors. To identify imaging characteristics of TDLs for their proper diagnosis, their differences from malignant gliomas, etc., were investigated based on 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and MR spectroscopy data that was obtained from 5 patients diagnosed with TDLs in our hospital. MfRI displayed a paraventricular lesion with a maximum diameter of ≥2 cm. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) displayed a region of bright signal intensity at the margin of the lesion, and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) imaging displayed high signal intensity at the core of the lesion. The mass effect was mild relative to the size of the lesion, and the edema around the lesion was mild to moderate. Gadolinium-enhanced MRI displayed a characteristic open-ring sign, in which the ring of enhancement was incomplete (open towards the cortex), with the medullary vein running through the lesion, resulting in the enhancement of the surrounding area. MR spectroscopy displayed an increase in the choline peak, a decrease in the N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) peak, the presence of lactate/lipid peaks, and the presence of β, γ-glutamate-glutamine (GLX) peaks that are slightly shifted to a higher resonance frequency (2.1 - 2.4 ppm) from the NAA peak. Taken together, the following main characteristics were identified as imaging features of TDLs: bright rim on DWI, a high signal core on ADC imaging, an open-ring sign, and β, γ-GLX peaks on proton MR spectroscopy. We concluded that the key to the improvement of neurological symptoms of patients is the prompt initiation of steroid treatment following the accurate diagnosis of TDLs.
Topology Discovering Mechanism for Power Saving in Ad-hoc Wireless Networks

Power saving is an important issue in ad-hoc wireless networks, where no centralized communication is issued. Each node works as router to the others to allow the network connectivity. So, each node consumes parts of its energy in a forwarding others packets. In this paper we propose a self adjustment power saving mechanism for routing in ad-hoc wireless networks that results in significant power saving for all the network. Our mechanism is based on TDA (topology discovering algorithm) in which each node knows who are the active nodes in a fraction of the network. By determined simulation experiments, our simulation results show that in a topology like that constructed by TDA, the power consumption in routing is independent on the network size and is related only to the height of the tree built by the algorithm and to the packet size
An alternative lattice algorithm for option pricing

ed / Indexed in: Database of EBSCO, Massachusetts, USA Chinese Database of CEPS, Airiti Inc. & OCLC Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P. R. China Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory ProQuest/CSA Social Science Collection, Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS), USA Subscription Information: Print $360 Online $300 Print and Online $560 David Publishing Company 1840 Industrial Drive, Suite 160, Libertyville, Illinois 60048 Tel: 1-847-281-9826. Fax: 1-847-281-9855 E-mail: order@davidpublishing.com China-USA Business Review Volume 9, Number 5, May 2010 (Serial Number 83)
Effects of reproductive and social variables on fecal glucocorticoid levels in a sample of adult male ring‐tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) at the Beza Mahafaly Reserve, Madagascar

Glucocorticoids, a group of adrenal hormones, are secreted in response to stress. In male primates, variables such as breeding seasonality, dominance hierarchy stability, and aggressive and affiliative interactions can affect glucocorticoid levels. In this study, we examined interindividual differences in mean fecal glucocorticoid (fGC) levels among males in three groups of wild ring‐tailed lemurs to better understand the physiological costs of group living for males in a female‐dominant species that exhibits strict reproductive seasonality. Fecal and behavioral data samples were collected during one mating and two postmating seasons (2001 and 2003). The mean fGC levels were examined in relation to reproductive season, male rank, number of resident males, intermale and female–male agonism, and affiliative behavior with females. The mean fGC levels were not significantly elevated during mating season compared to the postmating period. During the mating season, male dominance hierarchies broke down and rank effects could not be tested; however, there was no relationship between male rank and fGC levels in the postmating periods. In 2001, males that resided in the group with the fewest males exhibited lower fGC levels during the postmating period. They also affiliated more with females than did males in the other groups. During the mating season of 2003, males engaged in more affiliative behaviors with females compared to the postmating season, but female–male agonism did not differ by season. However, rates of intermale agonism were significantly higher during mating compared to postmating periods, but such heightened agonism did not translate to a higher stress response. Thus, neither male–male competition for mates nor heightened agonism between males during the breeding season affected male fGC levels. Fewer males residing in a group, however, did have some effect on male–female affiliation and male fGC levels outside of the mating period. Males that live in a group with only a few (two or three) males may experience less physiological stress than those that live in groups with more males. Am. J. Primatol. 67:5–23, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A survey on synthesis of resistive n-port networks

A survey on the development of resistive network synthesis is presented. Tellegen’s result is first introduced, which shows that paramountcy is the necessary and sufficient condition for synthesis if n ≤ 3. Then, some more general cases are presented, including works by Cederbaum, Guillemin, Brown, Reed, Weinberg, and Boesch. These results range from necessary realizability conditions of general resistive nport networks to realizability conditions of a subclass of such networks, which are mostly based on graph theory. Recently, there has been some new development on the realization of resistive n-port networks containing 2n terminals, motivated by mechanical network synthesis using the element extraction method.
Discourse Parsing with Attention-based Hierarchical Neural Networks

RST-style document-level discourse parsing remains a difﬁcult task and efﬁcient deep learning models on this task have rarely been presented. In this paper, we propose an attention-based hierarchical neural network model for discourse parsing. We also incorporate tensor-based transformation function to model complicated feature interactions. Experimental results show that our approach obtains comparable performance to the contemporary state-of-the-art systems with little manual feature engineering.
Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems ( PACIS ) 6-18-2013 Obtaining Management Support for IT Projects : A Persuasion View

While it is widely agreed that obtaining top management support is critical for the success of IT projects, little research has provided prescriptive implications for how such support can be obtained. Much of the prescriptive literature has argued for cognition-based approaches, where managers are persuaded to participate in an IT project using logical arguments and factual evidence. We apply a persuasion view to investigate how management can be persuaded to participate in an IT project. Through a survey, we demonstrate the importance of not only cognition, but affect; one can influence top management’s emotions to support an IT project. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of two persuasion behaviors by the project team on management attitude and participation. Both persuasion behaviors induce management participation by increasing management’s cognitive and emotional involvement in the project, albeit with emotion being a stronger predictor of management participation. Some important implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Economics of monetary union

The ninth edition of Economics of Monetary Union provides a concise analysis of the theories and policies relating to monetary union. The author analyses both the costs and benefits associated with having one currency, as well as the practical workings and current issues with the Euro. In Part One the author examines the implications of adopting a common currency; assessing the countries benefit from being in the Eurozone members, while also questioning whether other parts of the world would gain from monetary unification. Part Two of the book looks at the problems of running a monetary union by analysing Europe's experience and the issues faced by the European Central Bank. Review comments: 'As a book that focuses on the Economics of the EMU, it is literally and metaphorically without competition and thus beyond compare'. Professor Rob Ackrill, Nottingham Trent University 'I think it is the best in the field. ' Dr Matteo Iannizzotto, Durham University 'It is clearly the leading textbook for lecturers teaching modules in European Integration and a key reference for students and researchers. ' Dr Jan Fidrmuc, Brunel University Online Resource Centre: For Students: Links to data sources Essay questions links to articles and papers For Lecturers: Instructor manual PowerPoint slides
Analysis of Temperature Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm applicability and sensitivity

The purpose of this paper is to assess the spectral Temperature Emissivity Separation algorithm (TES) proposed by Gillespie et al. (1998) as a simple method to retrieve surface emissivity from ground-based measurements. First, we validate different empirical relationships for the Minimum Maximum Difference module, on which the TES is based, with a large dataset (about 500 surfaces from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) spectral library including man-made materials) for multiband data in the long wave infrared (LWIR: 7.5–14 µm), and hyperspectral data in the middle wave infrared (MWIR: 3.4–5.2 µm) and LWIR. We show the applicability of TES for hyperspectral data using a specific empirical relationship; this is confirmed by experimental measurements. For multiband data, we improve the TES for high contrast emissivity surfaces by integrating broadband 8–14 µm measurements in the iterative algorithm. We also found that metals do not confirm these empirical relationships. TES accuracy, extensively assessed by simulations, remains for multiband simulations (respectively for hyperspectral) within about 0.03 (0.02) for emissivity and within about 1.2 K (0.3 K) for temperature. However, surfaces with low maximum emissivity give higher errors. Except for these particular surfaces, the TES approach, applied on measurements from a portable multiband thermal radiometer, appears as the most efficient and accurate method for emissivity determination in the field without any a priori assumption on the surface nature.
Stabilization of a Class of Switched Systems with Mismatched Switching

The stabilization of switched systems with switching mismatched controller is investigated in this paper. When the controller mismatches the switching law, the stabilization condition for switched system during both matching and mismatching period is investigated and an approach of designing stabilizing controller for switched systems based on average dwell time is proposed, and then the approach is extended to design of stabilizing controller for switched systems with perturbations. Finally, the simulation results show that the approach designed by this paper is very effective.
Prices as Signals of Quality in Duopoly

This paper studies price signaling in a multi-sender context with two competing firms. Either firm may offer a high or a low quality, but potential customers are, initially, incompletely informed about the quality available at a given outlet. In particular, consumers do not know a priori whether the goods offered are vertically differentiated or homogenous, and, in the latter case, whether they are of high or low quality. We show that fully revealing equilibria are ruled out by a natural equilibrium refinement, whereas partial revelation of information is possible in equilibrium. However, we note that a non-revealing outcome with standard Bertrand-features (pricing at cost) seems likely, whether the goods offered are vertically differentiated or homogenous.
Technical Aspects and Validation of a New Biofeedback System for Measuring Lower Limb Loading in the Dynamic Situation

Background: A variety of techniques for measuring lower limb loading exists, each with their own limitations. A new ambulatory biofeedback system was developed to overcome these limitations. In this study, we described the technical aspects and validated the accuracy of this system. Methods: A bench press was used to validate the system in the static situation. Ten healthy volunteers were measured by the new biofeedback system and a dual-belt instrumented treadmill to validate the system in the dynamic situation. Results: Bench press results showed that the sensor accurately measured peak loads up to 1000 N in the static situation. In the healthy volunteers, the load curves measured by the biofeedback system were similar to the treadmill. However, the peak loads and loading rates were lower in the biofeedback system in all participants at all speeds. Conclusions: Advanced sensor technologies used in the new biofeedback system resulted in highly accurate measurements in the static situation. The position of the sensor and the design of the biofeedback system should be optimized to improve results in the dynamic situation.
Modeling Frequently Accessed Wireless Data With Weak Consistency

To reduce the response times of wireless data access in a mobile network, caches are utilized in wireless handheld devices. If the original data entry has been updated, the cached data in the handheld device becomes stale. Thus, a mechanism is required to predict when the cached copy will expire. This paper studies a weakly consistent data access mechanism that computes the time-to-live (TTL) interval to predict the expiration time. We propose an analytic model to investigate this TTL-based algorithm for frequently accessed data. The analytic model is validated against simulation experiments. Our study quantitatively indicates how the TTL-based algorithm reduces the wireless communication cost by increasing the probability of stale accesses. Depending on the requirements of the application, appropriate parameter values can be selected based on the guidelines provided in this paper.
Estimates of effective guarantees and tax rates in the AFDC program for the post-OBRA period

We employ the model used by Fraker, Moffitt, and Wolf (1985) to estimate effective tax rates and guarantees in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program for the years 1967-82 to produce comparable estimates for 1983-91. We compare this method of benefit prediction with other methods in the literature and clarify the interpretation of estimates generated using the Fraker, Moffitt, and Wolf model. We use our estimates for the period from 1983 to 1991 to examine how effective AFDC tax rates and guarantee levels have changed over time and relative to nominal, or official, program parameters.
Channeling Mr. Potato head - Face super-resolution using semantic components

We present a novel approach to face super-resolution using information about semantic components. For each facial component, we seek a similar matching aligned component from a dictionary of training face images. During this process, we also consider the appropriate face pose and use information about people wearing glasses. We then blend the gradient and the high-frequency information of the best-matching high-resolution facial components along with glasses to the input image that has been up-scaled by an existing method. In this paper, we compare with several state-of-the-art methods and demonstrate improvements for multiple poses and expressions.
Dynamics of a recurrent network of spiking neurons beforeand following learningDaniel

Extensive simulations of large recurrent networks of integrate-and-re exci-tatory and inhibitory neurons in realistic cortical conditions (before and after Hebbian unsupervised learning of uncorrelated stimuli) exhibit a rich phe-nomenology of stochastic neural spike dynamics, and in particular, coexistence between two types of stable states: spontaneous activity, upon stimulation by an unlearned stimulus; and`working memory' states strongly correlated with learned stimuli. Firing rates have very wide distributions, due to the variability in the connectivity from neuron to neuron. ISI histograms are exponential, except for small intervals. Thus the spike emission processes are well approximated by a Poisson process. The variability of the spike emission process is eeectively controlled by the magnitude of the post-spike reset potential relative to the mean depolarization of the cell. Cross-correlations (CC) exhibit a central peak near zero delay, anked by damped oscillations. The magnitude of the central peak in the CCs depends both on the probability that a spike emitted by a neuron aaects another randomly chosen neuron and on ring rates. It increases when average rates decrease. Individual CCs depend very weakly on the synaptic interactions between the pairs of neurons. The dependence of individual CCs on the rates of the pair of neurons is in agreement with experimental data. The distribution of ring rates among neurons is in very good agreement with a simple theory, indicating that correlations between spike emission processes in the network are eeectively small. 1 Modeling the dynamical activity in cortex is becoming increasingly realistic as to allow direct confrontation with data of single and of multiple electrode recordings. The confrontation includes, beyond mean spike rates in spontaneous and in selective activity, also single cell spike statistics and cross correlations The question that naturally poses itself is: how much complexity of the neural elements and how much speciic structure of the neural assembly are actually indispensable for the reproduction of the experimental data? Most of the work cited above has dealt with visual cortex, where data is more accessible and hypotheses about geometric connectivity structure are plausible. Moreover, in visual cortex neural dynamics is investigated in the presence of visual stimuli, which in turn relate to the assembly structure via receptive elds and tuning properties of cells. We have been motivated by delay activity in associative cortex (Miyashita 1993, Wilson et al 1993, Goldman-Rakic et al 1990, Fuster 1995). Such delay activity could be sustained by the synaptic eecacies formed …
Game Development Accelerator - Initial Design and Research Approach

Start-ups and game development are trending topics. There are estab- lished methods for both, but these are not suitable as such for starting game companies developing their first commercial game product. In this paper, a de- sign for a series of accelerator programs, targeted for the first-time game devel- opers, and an accompanying research approach are discussed. The goal of the approach is to combine quality research with relevant, imminent results, which help game start-ups to raise the success probability and lower the investors' risks. Initial ideas of the accelerator design are presented to activate discussion with other researchers and practitioners planning or doing similar experiments.
Directly Measured and Self-Reported Physical Activity in a Sample of Finnish Secondary School Students

Background: Previous studies based on self-reports show that a majority of children and adolescents in Western countries fail to achieve the recommendation of 60 minutes moderate to vigorous physical activity (PA) on a daily basis. The specific aim of the study was to analyze the relationship between directly measured and self-reported PA in a cross-sectional sample of Finnish secondary school students. Moreover, how large proportion of adolescents accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous PA on a daily basis using self-reports and direct measure scores. Methods: Participants were recruited from a secondary school located in Northeast Finland. The sample comprised 96 students (58 girls, 38 boys) aged between 12- to 16-years (M = 15.03, SD = .94). Students’ directly measured PA was collected using accelerometers over a seven-day period. The self-reported PA data was gathered during the school’s allotted 90-minute lessons. Results: Results indicated that girls and boys were similarly physically active, based PA measured using both accelerometers and questionnaires. Grade 7 students were physically more active than Grade 9 students when PA was assessed using self-reports but no significant difference was found when direct measure scores were used. Self-reported PA emerged as the significant positive predictor for students’ directly measured PA within Grade 8 (p < .001), and Grade 9 students (p < .01). The results highlighted that only 10% of adolescents met the recommendation of 60 minutes moderate to vigorous PA daily, when PA was measured using self-reports. On the contrary, a portion of 85% of students met the recommendation, when direct measure scores were used. Conclusion: Because the current and previous findings indicated substantial differences in the assessments results for similarly aged samples, continuing studies using directly assessed techniques are required to gain detailed information concerning the PA behavior of Finnish children and adolescents.