Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SampleClean: Fast and Reliable Analytics on Dirty Data

An important obstacle to accurate data analytics is dirty data in the form of missing, duplicate, incorrect, or inconsistent values. In the SampleClean project, we have developed a new suite of techniques to estimate the results of queries when only a sample of data can be cleaned. Some forms of data corruption, such as duplication, can affect sampling probabilities, and thus, new techniques have to be designed to ensure correctness of the approximate query results. We first describe our initial project on computing statistically bounded estimates of sum, count, and avg queries from samples of cleaned data. We subsequently explored how the same techniques could apply to other problems in database research, namely, materialized view maintenance. To avoid expensive incremental maintenance, we maintain only a sample of rows in a view, and then leverage SampleClean to approximate aggregate query results. Finally, we describe our work on a gradient-descent algorithm that extends the key ideas to the increasingly common Machine Learning-based analytics.
Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

About the Editors vii Notes on Contributors xi Lexicon lxi Introduction lxix Acknowledgments lxxiii Volume I Criminology and Criminal Justice Ab Co 1 Volume II Criminology and Criminal Justice Cr Gu 462 Volume III Criminology and Criminal Justice Ha Mu 999 Volume IV Criminology and Criminal Justice Na Ru 1503 Volume V Criminology and Criminal Justice Sa Wr 2017 Index 2499
Some Functions of Active Handling: Studies with Blinded Humans

A review of a five-year research into the characteristics of effective search strategies and the contribution made by exploratory scanning to accurate perception, involving comparisons of blind and sighted individuals performing shape matching tasks by hand. Videotaping of hand movements combined with accuracy data in the experiments revealed that exploratory activity functions to focus attention and encode stimulus information so that what is learned and remembered about a shape is influenced by how it is explored. Exploratory activity seems to become more proficient and economical with experience, suggesting that the more accurate haptic perception of shape by blinded individuals might be linked to perceptual learning of better ways to explore the stimulus. Findings are considered in terms of implications for future research, especially in the area of braille reading.
Concepciones de los alumnos en Física y diferencias individuales.

ResumenEl presente estudio tiene por objeto investigar la influencia del nivel de razonamiento formal y del estilo cognitivo Dependencia/Independenciade Campo en la naturaleza y consistencia de las ideas intuitivas de los alumnos en Fisica. La muesta analizadaesta formadapor 269 alumnos de 2° de BUP de un instituto publico de Cadiz. Los resultados obtenidos indican que ninguna de las variables independientesconsideradasafecta a la naturaleza cualitativa ni cuantitativade las preconcepcionesde los estudiantes, determinadas estas mediante cuestionarios de interpretacion/prediccion de fenomenos. No obstante, los datos aportados sugieren que el nivel de consistencia en las ideas a traves de diferentes contextos aumenta a medida que lo hace la habilidad de razonamiento formal.
New advances in the study of the confidence-accuracy relationship in the memory for events

It has been suggested that calibration, and not correlation, could be a better analysis to examine the confidence-accuracy relationship. Calibration refers to the degree in which confidence ratings correspond with the objective probability that the answer is correct. However, to date calibration has been calculated only in a few studies that have addressed eyewitness identification, and never in the memory for events. For this reason, four experiments were conducted to examine the calibration between confidence and accuracy in the recognition and recall of a criminal situation. The basic procedure involved the presentation of a crime through slides or video, followed by a questionnaire. Confidence ratings were also required. Results showed in general a good confidence-accuracy calibration, with variations depending on the memory test and the variables manipulated. They also showed that participants are slightly overconfident, and that they do not calibrate confidence well in the low-medium levels of difficulty. The main conclusion of this research is that confidence could help to evaluate the accuracy of a testimony under certain circumstances, although generalising the results to real-life situations should be done with caution.
Caveolin-Induced Activation of the Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase/Akt Pathway Increases Arsenite Cytotoxicity

ABSTRACT The inhibitory effect of caveolin on the cellular response to growth factor stimulation is well established. Given the significant overlap in signaling pathways involved in regulating cell proliferation and stress responsiveness, we hypothesized that caveolin would also affect a cell's ability to respond to environmental stress. Here we investigated the ability of caveolin-1 to modulate the cellular response to sodium arsenite and thereby alter survival of the human cell lines 293 and HeLa. Cells stably transfected with caveolin-1 were found to be much more sensitive to the toxic effects of sodium arsenite than either untransfected parental cells or parental cells transfected with an empty vector. Unexpectedly, the caveolin-overexpressing cells also exhibited a significant activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway, which additional studies suggested was likely due to decreased neutral sphingomyelinase activity and ceramide synthesis. In contrast to its extensively documented antiapoptotic influence, the elevated activity of Akt appears to be important in sensitizing caveolin-expressing cells to arsenite-induced toxicity, as both pretreatment of cells with the PI3K inhibitor wortmannin and overexpression of a dominant-negative Akt mutant markedly improved the survival of arsenite-treated cells. This death-promoting influence of the PI3K/Akt pathway in caveolin-overexpressing cells appeared not to be unique to sodium arsenite, as wortmannin pretreatment also resulted in increased survival in the presence of H2O2. In summary, our results indicate that caveolin-induced upregulation of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, which appears to be a death signal in the presence of arsenite and H2O2, sensitizes cells to environmental stress.
Thermal and Endocrine Regulation of Gonadal Apoptosis during Sex Differentiation in Pejerrey Odontesthes bonariensis

The fate of the differentiating gonads in pejerrey Odontesthesbonariensis is determined by the environmental water temperature experienced by the larvae during the critical period of sex determination. We previously reported a link between apoptosis, temperature and sex differentiation in this species. To clarify this link, we subjected larvae to thermal and endocrine treatments between hatching and the onset of histological sex differentiation of the gonads and assessed the patterns of gonadal development and apoptosis by light microscopic histology and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) analysis, respectively. Apoptotic labeling was widespread among somatic cells of the anterior region of the right gonads of fish reared at the male-producing temperature (MPT) and part of the fish at the mixed sex-producing temperature prior to sex differentiation. In contrast, TUNEL-positive cells were rarely observed in gonads at the female-producing temperature (FPT). Administration of exogenous estrogen completely prevented MPT-induced masculinization, induced feminization and reduced gonadal apoptosis, whereas an aromatase inhibitor (fadrozole) induced TUNEL signals in the gonads of FPT-reared larvae. These results provide strong evidence that apoptosis in somatic cells in the right lobe of the gonads might play a key role in testicular differentiation in pejerrey and that estrogens are involved in the regulation of this process.
Connectome‐scale assessments of structural and functional connectivity in MCI

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has received increasing attention not only because of its potential as a precursor for Alzheimer's disease but also as a predictor of conversion to other neurodegenerative diseases. Although MCI has been defined clinically, accurate and efficient diagnosis is still challenging. Although neuroimaging techniques hold promise, compared to commonly used biomarkers including amyloid plaques, tau protein levels and brain tissue atrophy, neuroimaging biomarkers are less well validated. In this article, we propose a connectomes‐scale assessment of structural and functional connectivity in MCI via two independent multimodal DTI/fMRI datasets. We first used DTI‐derived structural profiles to explore and tailor the most common and consistent landmarks, then applied them in a whole‐brain functional connectivity analysis. The next step fused the results from two independent datasets together and resulted in a set of functional connectomes with the most differentiation power, hence named as “connectome signatures. ” Our results indicate that these “connectome signatures” have significantly high MCI‐vs‐controls classification accuracy, at more than 95%. Interestingly, through functional meta‐analysis, we found that the majority of “connectome signatures” are mainly derived from the interactions among different functional networks, for example, cognition–perception and cognition–action domains, rather than from within a single network. Our work provides support for using functional “connectome signatures” as neuroimaging biomarkers of MCI. Hum Brain Mapp 35:2911–2923, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Phosphorylation of chemoattractant receptors regulates chemotaxis, actin reorganization and signal relay

Summary Migratory cells, including mammalian leukocytes and Dictyostelium, use G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling to regulate MAPK/ERK, PI3K, TORC2/AKT, adenylyl cyclase and actin polymerization, which collectively direct chemotaxis. Upon ligand binding, mammalian GPCRs are phosphorylated at cytoplasmic residues, uncoupling G-protein pathways, but activating other pathways. However, connections between GPCR phosphorylation and chemotaxis are unclear. In developing Dictyostelium, secreted cAMP serves as a chemoattractant, with extracellular cAMP propagated as oscillating waves to ensure directional migratory signals. cAMP oscillations derive from transient excitatory responses of adenylyl cyclase, which then rapidly adapts. We have studied chemotactic signaling in Dictyostelium that express non-phosphorylatable cAMP receptors and show through chemotaxis modeling, single-cell FRET imaging, pure and chimeric population wavelet quantification, biochemical analyses and TIRF microscopy, that receptor phosphorylation is required to regulate adenylyl cyclase adaptation, long-range oscillatory cAMP wave production and cytoskeletal actin response. Phosphorylation defects thus promote hyperactive actin polymerization at the cell periphery, misdirected pseudopodia and the loss of directional chemotaxis. Our data indicate that chemoattractant receptor phosphorylation is required to co-regulate essential pathways for migratory cell polarization and chemotaxis. Our results significantly extend the understanding of the function of GPCR phosphorylation, providing strong evidence that this evolutionarily conserved mechanism is required in a signal attenuation pathway that is necessary to maintain persistent directional movement of Dictyostelium, neutrophils and other migratory cells.
Enterprise Social Networks: A Successful Implementation within a Telecommunication Company

Although enterprise social network (ESN) has been implemented within a number of organizations to facilitate communication, collaboration and engagement among employees, many organizations are struggling to realize the benefits of this emergent workplace social platform (due to employee underutilization). This paper aims to elucidate a successful ESN use case among employees within a leading Australian telecommunication company. The findings indicate that the employees’ ESN behavior is gravitated by utilitarian and hedonic values, and driven by socio-technical factors. The factors are generically categorized as technological (i.e. platform and content quality), organizational (e.g. community management and top management involvement), social (e.g. critical mass, and constructive communication climate), individual (e.g. knowledge self-efficacy) and task factors (i.e. equivocal tasks and integration to business processes). We suggest that a successful implementation of ESN within an organization involves the nexus between these five factors and recommendations are also made about how ESN usage can be enhanced.
Towards Mori’s program for the moduli space of stable maps

We introduce and compute the class of a number of effective divisors on the moduli space of stable maps $\overline{{\scr M}}_{0,0}({\Bbb P}^{r}, d)$, which, for small $d$, provide a good understanding of the extremal rays and the stable base locus decomposition for the effective cone. We also discuss various birational models that arise in Mori's program, including the Hilbert scheme, the Chow variety, the space of $k$-stable maps, the space of branchcurves and the space of semi-stable sheaves.
Effect of imaging parameters on the accuracy of apparent diffusion coefficient and optimization strategies.

PURPOSE We aimed to investigate the effect of key imaging parameters on the accuracy of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps using a phantom model combined with ADC calculation simulation and propose strategies to improve the accuracy of ADC quantification. METHODS Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) sequences were acquired on a phantom model using single-shot echo-planar imaging DWI at 1.5 T scanner by varying key imaging parameters including number of averages (NEX), repetition time (TR), echo time (TE), and diffusion preparation pulses. DWI signal simulations were performed for varying TR and TE. RESULTS Magnetic resonance diffusion signal and ADC maps were dependent on TR and TE imaging parameters as well as number of diffusion preparation pulses, but not on the NEX. However, the choice of a long TR and short TE could be used to minimize their effects on the resulting DWI sequences and ADC maps. CONCLUSION This study shows that TR and TE imaging parameters affect the diffusion images and ADC maps, but their effect can be minimized by utilizing diffusion preparation pulses. Another key imaging parameter, NEX, is less relevant to DWI and ADC quantification as long as DWI signal-to-noise ratio is above a certain level. Based on the phantom results and data simulations, DWI acquisition protocol can be optimized to obtain accurate ADC maps in routine clinical application for whole body imaging.
Phylogenetic and functional alpha and beta diversity in temperate and tropical tree communities

The study of biodiversity has tended to focus primarily on relatively information-poor measures of species diversity. Recently, many studies of local diversity (alpha diversity) have begun to use measures of functional and phylogenetic alpha diversity. Investigations into the phylogenetic and functional dissimilarity (beta diversity) of communities have been far less numerous, but these dissimilarity measures have the potential to infer the mechanisms underlying community assembly and dynamics. Here, we relate levels of phylogenetic and functional alpha diversity to levels of phylogenetic and functional beta diversity to infer the mechanism or mechanisms responsible for the assembly of tree communities in six forests located in tropical and temperate latitudes. The results show that abiotic filtering plays a role in structuring local assemblages and governing spatial turnover in community composition and that phylogenetic measures of alpha and beta diversity are not strong predictors of functional alpha and beta diversity in the forests studied.
Socioeconomic position and major mental disorders.

Psychiatric epidemiologists were among the first to use the term “social epidemiology” (1), and the role of the social environment in the etiology and course of major mental disorders continues to be investigated (2–5). A number of reviews published in the late 1990s documented the associations between socioeconomic position (SEP) and specific mental disorders (6–9); in 2003, a comprehensive meta-analysis of the research on SEP and depression (10) concluded that both prevalence and incidence studies show that persons of low SEP (i.e., low educational and low income levels) are at a higher risk of depression.
Pediatric Anaphylaxis

TARGET AUDIENCE This CME activity is intended for physicians, nurse practitioners, and nurses who manage children in an emergency department, office practice, or any setting where medications or vaccines are administered. Specialists including pediatricians, emergency physicians, family practitioners, allergists, pediatric emergency physicians, and pediatric intensivists will find this information especially useful.
Active and passive smoking and the incidence of asthma in the Black Women's Health Study.

RATIONALE Evidence linking active or passive smoking to the incidence of adult-onset asthma is inconsistent with both positive and inverse associations being reported. Most previous studies of active smoking have not accounted for passive smoke exposure, which may have introduced bias. OBJECTIVES To assess the separate associations of active and passive smoking to the incidence of adult-onset asthma in the U.S. Black Women's Health Study, a prospective cohort of African American women followed since 1995 with mailed biennial questionnaires. METHODS Active smoking status was reported at baseline and updated on all follow-up questionnaires. Passive smoke exposure during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood was ascertained in 1997. Asthma cases comprised women who reported doctor-diagnosed asthma with concurrent asthma medication use. Cox regression models were used to derive multivariable hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for former and current smoking and for passive smoking among nonsmokers compared with a reference category of never active or passive smokers. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Among 46,182 participants followed from 1995 to 2011, 1,523 reported incident asthma. The multivariable HRs for former active smoking, current active smoking, and passive smoking only were, respectively, 1.36 (95% CI, 1.11-1.67), 1.43 (95% CI, 1.15-1.77), and 1.21 (95% CI, 1.00-1.45), compared with never active/passive smoking. CONCLUSIONS In this large population with 16 years of follow-up, active smoking increased the incidence of adult-onset asthma, and passive smoke exposure increased the risk among nonsmokers. Continued efforts to reduce exposure to tobacco smoke may have a beneficial effect on the incidence of adult-onset asthma.
Codoping and Interstitial Deactivation in the Control of Amphoteric Li Dopant in ZnO for the Realization of p-Type TCOs

We report on first principle investigations about the electrical character of Li-X codoped ZnO transparent conductive oxides (TCOs). We studied a set of possible X codopants including either unintentional dopants typically present in the system (e.g., H, O) or monovalent acceptor groups, based on nitrogen and halogens (F, Cl, I). The interplay between dopants and structural point defects in the host (such as vacancies) is also taken explicitly into account, demonstrating the crucial effect that zinc and oxygen vacancies have on the final properties of TCOs. Our results show that Li-ZnO has a p-type character, when Li is included as Zn substitutional dopant, but it turns into an n-type when Li is in interstitial sites. The inclusion of X-codopants is considered to deactivate the n-type character of interstitial Li atoms: the total Li-X compensation effect and the corresponding electrical character of the doped compounds selectively depend on the presence of vacancies in the host. We prove that LiF-doped ZnO is the only codoped system that exhibits a p-type character in the presence of Zn vacancies.
Reduction in LFP cross-frequency coupling between theta and gamma rhythms associated with impaired STP and LTP in a rat model of brain ischemia

The theta-gamma cross-frequency coupling (CFC) in hippocampus was reported to reflect memory process. In this study, we measured the CFC of hippocampal local field potentials (LFPs) in a two-vessel occlusion (2VO) rat model, combined with both amplitude and phase properties and associated with short and long-term plasticity indicating the memory function. Male Wistar rats were used and a 2VO model was established. STP and LTP were recorded in hippocampal CA3-CA1 pathway after LFPs were collected in both CA3 and CA1. Based on the data of relative power spectra and phase synchronization, it suggested that both the amplitude and phase coupling of either theta or gamma rhythm were involved in modulating the neural network in 2VO rats. In order to determine whether the CFC was also implicated in neural impairment in 2VO rats, the coupling of CA3 theta–CA1 gamma was measured by both phase-phase coupling (n:m phase synchronization) and phase-amplitude coupling. The attenuated CFC strength in 2VO rats implied the impaired neural communication in the coordination of theta-gamma entraining process. Moreover, compared with modulation index (MI) a novel algorithm named cross frequency conditional mutual information (CF-CMI), was developed to focus on the coupling between theta phase and the phase of gamma amplitude. The results suggest that the reduced CFC strength probably attributed to the disruption of the phase of CA1 gamma envelop. In conclusion, it implied that the phase coupling and CFC of hippocampal theta and gamma played an important role in supporting functions of neural network. Furthermore, synaptic plasticity on CA3-CA1 pathway was reduced in line with the decreased CFC strength from CA3 to CA1. It partly supported our hypothesis that directional CFC indicator might probably be used as a measure of synaptic plasticity.
Unravelling the ontogeny of a Devonian early gnathostome, the “acanthodian” Triazeugacanthus affinis (eastern Canada)

The study of vertebrate ontogenies has the potential to inform us of shared developmental patterns and processes among organisms. However, fossilised ontogenies of early vertebrates are extremely rare during the Palaeozoic Era. A growth series of the Late Devonian “acanthodian” Triazeugacanthus affinis, from the Miguasha Fossil-Fish Lagerstätte, is identified as one of the best known early vertebrate fossilised ontogenies given the exceptional preservation, the large size range, and the abundance of specimens. Morphological, morphometric, histological and chemical data are gathered on a growth series of Triazeugacanthus ranging from 4 to 52 mm in total length. The developmental trajectory of this Devonian “acanthodian” is characteristic of fishes showing a direct development with alternating steps and thresholds. Larvae show no squamation but a progressive appearance of cartilaginous neurocranial and vertebral elements, and appendicular elements, whereas juveniles progress in terms of ossification and squamation. The presence of cartilaginous and bony tissues, discriminated on histological and chemical signatures, shows a progressive mineralisation of neurocranial and vertebral elements. Comparison among different body proportions for larvae, juveniles and adults suggest allometric growth in juveniles. Because of the phylogenetic position of “acanthodians”, Triazeugacanthus ontogeny informs us about deep time developmental conditions in gnathostomes.