Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structure energy calculations on optimum distance model structures: application to the silicate olivines

In order to understand more quantitatively the causes of ordering in the divalent-cation silicate olivines, we have modeled eight ordered and anti-ordered binary olivine pairs (FeMg, Mg-Ni, Fe-Mn, Mg-Ca, Mg-Co, Mg-Mn, Mn-Ca, and Fe-Ca) using distance leastsquares computer modeling. Relative structure energies were calculated for the hypothetical ordered and anti-ordered intermediate olivine structures using an electrostatic model with Coulomb and repulsive terms. Observed and model cell parameters agree very well, and changes in order/anti-order are reflected primarily in variations in the b cell parameter. Details of the structures demonstrate that the interatomic distances of any given Ml coordination polyhedron depend not only on its chemical occupancy, but also on the occupancy of the M2 polyhedron; likewise for the M2 polyhedral geometry. The calculated structure energies of the optimum distance models correctly and semi-quantitatively predict the observed site preferences in all eight cases, in contrast to the approximation using linear combinations of end-member site energies. The calculated energies are an approximation to the cation exchange energies to which ligand field stabilization energies and any covalency or polarization contributions may be added.
Quantification of serum hepatitis B surface antigen: is it useful for the management of chronic hepatitis B?

Chronic hepatitis B infection is a global health problem affecting more than 350 million people worldwide.1 Prolonged liver inflammation caused by active infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) may result in progression to liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and ultimately hepatocellular carcinoma and death.1 Since the 1960s, hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) has been the hallmark of HBV infection with concentrations reaching several hundred micrograms per millilitre.2 Recently, studies with newly available automated quantitative assays have shown that serum HBsAg levels vary significantly during the different phases of chronic HBV infection and are inversely correlated with the immune control of HBV: the higher control, the lower HBsAg level.3–6 These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that serum levels of HBsAg reflect the complex interplay between virus and immune system and provide complementary information to viral load as measured using HBV DNA levels. In fact, serum HBsAg levels result not only from virions (42 nm, Dane particles) but mainly from non-infectious HBsAg particles (20 nm diameter filaments of variable length and 20–22 nm spheres) which do not contain viral nucleic acids and exceed virions by a factor ranging between 102 and 105. The ratios between defective HBsAg particles and virions are not stable, but change over time. Filaments and spherical particles are produced in large excess in highly viraemic hepatitis B ‘e’ antigen (HBeAg)-positive carriers. While filaments decline in parallel with virions, spherical particles remain in moderate excess in low viraemic HBeAg-negative carriers.7 8 Thus, HBsAg production varies both quantitatively and qualitatively over time and appears to be dynamically regulated during different phases of the infection. HBsAg derives mainly from the intrahepatic viral minichromosome (cccDNA) by translation of specific RNAs that are distinct from pregenomic RNA, and HBsAg synthesis follows a pathway that is distinct from …
Aggregating Optimistic Planning Trees for Solving Markov Decision Processes

This paper addresses the problem of online planning in Markov decision processes using a randomized simulator, under a budget constraint. We propose a new algorithm which is based on the construction of a forest of planning trees, where each tree corresponds to a random realization of the stochastic environment. The trees are constructed using a "safe" optimistic planning strategy combining the optimistic principle (in order to explore the most promising part of the search space first) with a safety principle (which guarantees a certain amount of uniform exploration). In the decision-making step of the algorithm, the individual trees are aggregated and an immediate action is recommended. We provide a finite-sample analysis and discuss the trade-off between the principles of optimism and safety. We also report numerical results on a benchmark problem. Our algorithm performs as well as state-of-the-art optimistic planning algorithms, and better than a related algorithm which additionally assumes the knowledge of all transition distributions.
EXPOSURE TO MATERNAL DEPRESSION DURING CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE AND PROBLEM BEHAVIOR IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A POSSIBLE MEDIATING ROLE FOR BRAIN STRUCTURE

The purpose of the present study was to advance our understanding of neurobiological processes related to the intergenerational transmission of behavior problems related to emotional dysregulation by examining whether earlier and/or more chronic exposure to maternal depression would be associated with increased depressive symptoms and reactive aggressive behaviors in young adult offspring, and whether individual differences in amygdala volume, hippocampal volume, and/or amygdala:hippocampus volume ratio would mediate this association. Results were mixed, indicating that maternal depression evident in early childhood or chronic maternal depression was positively associated with offspring depression and reactive aggression in early adulthood in some but not all cases. Maternal depression was not significantly associated with the volume of any individual brain regions in offspring, but was, in some analyses, significantly associated with larger amygdala:hippocampal volume ratios. Likewise, the volume of individual brain regions was not linked with concurrent young adult depression or reactive aggression, but amygdala:hippocampal volume ratio was linked to young adult reactive aggression. Results did not support a mediating role for any individual brain region in the associations found between maternal depression and offspring depression or reactive aggression, but did suggest a mediating role for offspring amygdala:hippocampal volume ratio in the association between maternal depression trajectory grouping and offspring reactive aggression in young adulthood. Findings support a role for relative amygdala and hippocampus size in the intergenerational transmission of problems related to emotion regulation.
Spirituality and Ego Strength in Dissociative Identity Disorder

Abstract The authors administered the Spiritual Orientation Inventory and the Ego Resiliency Scale to 23 subjects with dissociative identity disorder and 23 comparison subjects scoring below 30 on the Dissociative Experiences Scale. All subjects in both groups reported childhood physical and/or sexual abuse, were in treatment at a psychiatric hospital or in private practices, and met criteria for major depressive episode. The dissociative identity disorder subjects did not differ from the comparison subjects on ego resiliency and scored higher on the measure of spirituality.
Place Based Policies, Heterogeneity, and Agglomeration

Place based policies, though hardly new, have just begun to attract serious attention from econ omists. ' As evidence on the effects of these pro grams begins to trickle in, it is useful to revisit the theoretical rationale for spatially targeted subsidies. Why after all should governments pay firms to move to less productive areas and incentivize workers to live in neighborhoods they don't like? And who ultimately benefits from these subsidies in a general equilibrium environment? I study here some stylized models of spatial equilibrium designed to answer these questions. My conclusions are shown to depend critically upon the degree of preference hetero geneity in the population and the structure of any agglomeration economies.
Plot Induction and Evolutionary Search for Story Generation

In this paper we develop a story generator that leverages knowledge inherent in corpora without requiring extensive manual involvement. A key feature in our approach is the reliance on a story planner which we acquire automatically by recording events, their participants, and their precedence relationships in a training corpus. Contrary to previous work our system does not follow a generate-and-rank architecture. Instead, we employ evolutionary search techniques to explore the space of possible stories which we argue are well suited to the story generation task. Experiments on generating simple children's stories show that our system outperforms previous data-driven approaches.
Efficient Photonic Microwave Mixer With Compensation of the Chromatic Dispersion-Induced Power Fading

The conversion gain of a photonic microwave mixer is often limited by the large carrier of the modulated optical signal, and may be further deteriorated by the chromatic dispersion-induced power fading after transmission over fiber. To solve this problem, an efficient photonic microwave mixer based on a dual-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator is proposed in this paper. The carrier of the modulated optical signal is suppressed by bidirectional use of the modulator in a Sagnac loop, and a 21.9-dB improvement of the conversion gain is achieved in the experiment. In addition, the frequency response of the mixer after transmission over fiber can be tuned by simply adjusting the direct current bias of the modulator. This feature is applied to compensate the dispersion-induced power fading of the mixing product. In the proof of concept experiment, a vector signal centered at 2.4 GHz is up-converted to 16 GHz and transmitted over 25-km single mode fiber. After power compensation, the constellation diagram, error vector magnitude and receiver sensitivity are significantly improved, and are almost as good as that without fiber transmission.
Comparison of the clinical characteristics among hepatocellular carcinoma of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and non-B non-C patients.

BACKGROUND/AIMS The present study was undertaken to compare the clinical characteristics, availability of initial treatment options and prognostic features of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma in relation to hepatitis B or C viral infection. METHODOLOGY Six hundred and ninety-two patients with hepatocellular carcinoma treated during the 12-year-period from Jan 1989 to Dec 2000 were categorized into three groups as follows: 1) 59 were classified as the HBV group: positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and negative for antibody to hepatitis C (HCVAb), 2) 594 were placed in the HCV group: negative for HBsAg and positive for HCVAb, and 3) 39 were put into the Non-B, Non-C (NBNC) group: negative for both HBsAg and HCVAb. The age distribution, gender ratio, serum alpha-fetoprotein level, the presence of underlying cirrhosis, tumor size, the number of hepatocellular carcinoma tumors at the initial detection, the types of follow-up until the initial detection of hepatocellular carcinoma, the initial treatments chosen, and the survival were analyzed and compared among the three groups. RESULTS Regarding age, the HBV group showed a younger age (56.3 +/- 12.2 years old) than the other two groups (the HCV group: 66.3 +/- 8.3, the NBNC group: 67.9 +/- 8.5 years old), however, no difference was observed in the male-to-female ratio of the three groups. The serum alpha-fetoprotein level, the prevalence of hepatocellular carcinoma measuring more than 3 cm in diameter, non-solitary hepatocellular carcinoma and portal thrombosis were strongly demonstrated at the initial detection in the HBV group, which was most likely due to the poor follow-up until detection. Consequently, the 1-, 3-, 5- and 7-year survivals of the patients in the HBV group were 40.4, 25.1, 18.8 and 5.2%, and were significantly shorter than both the HCV group which were 72.6, 44.9, 25.0 and 10.0%, and the NBNC group which were 71.2, 41.4, 31.1 and 31.1%, respectively. As for the NBNC group, in spite of the lack of a careful follow-up a longer survival was observed probably because they had a better preserved liver condition. CONCLUSIONS Regarding the hepatocellular carcinoma patients, those infected with HBV presented at the advanced stage due to the lack of a careful follow-up, thus resulting in a shorter survival. As a result, hepatocellular carcinoma patients infected with HBV need to be strictly followed up.
Parameterized dataflow modeling of DSP systems

Dataflow has proven to be an attractive computation model for programming DSP applications. A restricted version of dataflow, termed synchronous dataflow (SDF), that offers strong compile-time predictability properties, but has limited expressive power, has been studied extensively in the DSP context. Many extensions to synchronous dataflow have been proposed to increase its expressivity, while maintaining its compile-time predictability properties as much as possible. We propose a parameterized data-flow framework that can be applied as a meta-modeling technique to significantly improve the expressive power of an arbitrary data-flow model that possesses a well-defined concept of a graph iteration. Indeed, the parameterized dataflow framework is compatible with many of the existing dataflow models for DSP including SDF, CSDF, and SSDF. We develop a precise, formal semantics for parameterized synchronous dataflow that allows data-dependent dynamic DSP systems to be modeled in a natural and intuitive fashion. Desirable properties of a modeling environment like dynamic re-configurability and design re-use emerge as inherent characteristics of the parameterized framework. An example of a speech compression application is used to illustrate the efficacy of the parameterized modeling techniques in real-life data-dependent DSP systems.
SCO5745, a Bifunctional RNase J Ortholog, Affects Antibiotic Production in Streptomyces coelicolor

ABSTRACT The bacterial RNases J are considered bifunctional RNases possessing both endo- and exonucleolytic activities. We have isolated an RNase J ortholog from Streptomyces coelicolor encoded by the gene sco5745. We overexpressed a decahistidine-tagged version of SCO5745 and purified the overexpressed protein by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography. We demonstrated the presence of both 5′-to-3′ exonucleolytic and endonucleolytic activities on the Bacillus subtilis thrS transcript. Exonucleoytic activity predominated with 5′ monophosphorylated thrS, while endonucleolytic activity predominated with 5′ triphosphorylated thrS. While sco5745 is the only RNase J allele in S. coelicolor, the gene is not essential. Its disruption resulted in delayed production of the antibiotic actinorhodin, overproduction of undecylprodigiosin, and diminished production of the calcium-dependent antibiotic, in comparison with the parental strain.
System-wide learning from root cause analysis: a report from the New South Wales Root Cause Analysis Review Committee

Background Preventable errors are common in healthcare. Over the last decade, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) has become a key tool for healthcare services to investigate adverse events and try to prevent them from happening again. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the work of the New South Wales (NSW) RCA Review Committee. The benefits of correctly classifying, aggregating and disseminating RCA data to clinicians will be discussed. In NSW, we perform an average of 500 RCAs per year. It is estimated that each RCA takes between 20 and 90 h to perform. In 2007, the NSW Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) and the Quality and Safety Branch at the Department of Health constituted an RCA review committee. 445 RCAs were reviewed by the committee in 14 months. 41 RCAs were related to errors in managing acute coronary syndrome. Results and discussion The large number of RCAs has enabled the committee to identify emerging themes and to aggregate the information about underlying human (staff), patient and system factors. The committee has developed a taxonomy based on previous work done within health and aviation and assesses each RCA against this set of criteria. The effectiveness of recommendations made by RCA teams requires further review. There has been conjecture that staff do not feel empowered to articulate root causes which are beyond the capacity of the local service to address. Conclusion Given the number of hours per RCA, it seems a shame that the final output of the process may not in fact achieve the desired patient safety improvements.
ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE TOWARDS ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATIONS AMONG STUDENTS OF HEALTH SCIENCES COLLEGE IN ASEER REGION

Objective: The objectives of this study were to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of male students at the Health Science College in Abha, towards road traffic regulations. Material and Methods: This study was carried out during the second semester of the academic year 2002G among the students studying at the Health Science College for Boys in Abha, Aseer Region, Saudi Arabia. A questionnaire of 28 different questions was distributed to all available students and responded to under the direct supervision of the heads of the six departments of the college. The questionnaire consisted of three main parts; the first was about the socio-demographic and scientific data of the students; the second on the knowledge of road traffic regulations and the third dealt with attitudes and practice of driving and the use of seat belts. Results: Two hundred thirty eight out of 297 students (80%) responded to the questionnaire in this study. The mean age of the participants was 21 years, 47% lived in cities, 70% and 72% had cars and driving licenses respectively. More than half of the students had been involved in road traffic accidents (RTAs), 22% of these had been injured in these RTAs and 13% admitted to hospital for an average of nine days. High speed was the main cause of their RTAs. The mean speed at which the students drove their cars within and outside the city boundaries were 81 KM/h and 127 KM/h respectively. The degree of knowledge of road traffic regulation was moderate to high in more than 75% of the students, while more than 90% of them believed in the importance of the use of seat belts. More than 75% of the participants mentioned that they had problems with the use of seat belts, the most common of which were forgetfulness and anxiety. Conclusion: This study revealed that many students had been involved in RTAs as a result of driving at high speed. Most of the students had good attitudes towards the use of seat belts. The rate of compliance to the use of seat belts increased with the legislation on its use. Continuing health education and the monitoring of compliance to road traffic regulations is necessary if the incidence of RTAs is to be reduced.
Math anxiety in elementary and secondary school students.

We assessed math anxiety in 6ththrough 12th-grade children (N = 564) as part of a comprehensive longitudinal investigation of children's beliefs, attitudes, and values concerning mathematics. Confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence for two components of math anxiety, a negative affective reactions component and a cognitive component. The affective component of math anxiety related more strongly and negatively than did the worry component to children's ability perceptions, performance perceptions, and math performance. The worry component related more strongly and positively than did the affective component to the importance that children attach to math and their reported actual effort in math. Girls reported stronger negative affective reactions to math than did boys. Ninth-grade students reported experiencing the most worry about math and sixth graders the least.
Abstraction Refinement for 3-Valued-Logic Analysis

ion Refinement for 3-Valued-Logic Analysis Alexey Loginov, Thomas Reps, and Mooly Sagiv 1 Comp. Sci. Dept., University of Wisconsin; {alexey,reps}@cs.wisc. edu 2 School of Comp. Sci., Tel-Aviv University; msagiv@post.tau. ac.il Abstract. This paper concerns the question of how to create abstractions that are useful for program analysis. It presents a method that refines an abstraction automatically for analysis problems in which the semantics of statements and the query of interest are expressed using logical formulas. Refinement is carried out by introducing new instrumentation relations (defined via logical formulas over core relations, which capture the basic properties of memory configurations). A tool that incorporates the algorithm has been implemented and applied to several algorithms that manipulate linked lists and binary-search trees. In all but a few cases, the tool is able to demonstrate (i) the partial correctness of the algorithms, and (ii) that the algorithms possess additional properties—e.g., stability or antistability. This paper concerns the question of how to create abstractions that are useful for program analysis. It presents a method that refines an abstraction automatically for analysis problems in which the semantics of statements and the query of interest are expressed using logical formulas. Refinement is carried out by introducing new instrumentation relations (defined via logical formulas over core relations, which capture the basic properties of memory configurations). A tool that incorporates the algorithm has been implemented and applied to several algorithms that manipulate linked lists and binary-search trees. In all but a few cases, the tool is able to demonstrate (i) the partial correctness of the algorithms, and (ii) that the algorithms possess additional properties—e.g., stability or antistability.
Nephrolithiasis: Evaluation and Management

Nephrolithiasis is a major cause of morbidity involving the urinary tract. The prevalence of this disease in the United States has increased from 3.8% in the 1970s to 5.2% in the 1990s. There were nearly two million physician-office visits for nephrolithiasis in the year 2000, with estimated annual costs totaling $2 billion. New information has become available on the clinical presentation, epidemiologic risk factors, evaluative approach, and outcome of various therapeutic strategies. In this report, we will review the epidemiology and mechanisms of kidney-stone formation and outline management aimed at preventing recurrences. Improved awareness and education in both the general population and among health-care providers about these modifiable risk factors has the potential to improve general health and decrease morbidity and mortality secondary to renal-stone disease.
Learning in virtual worlds: Using communities of practice to explain how people learn from play

Although there is interest in the educational potential of online multiplayer games and virtual worlds, there is still little evidence to explain specifically whatandhowpeoplelearnfromtheseenvironments.Thispaperaddressesthis issue by exploring the experiences of couples that play World of Warcraft together. Learning outcomes were identified (involving the management of ludic, social and material resources) along with learning processes, which followed Wenger’s model of participation in Communities of Practice. Comparing this with existing literature suggests that productive comparisons can be drawn with the experiences of distance education students and the social pressures that affect their participation.
Recollections of gay men: Retrospectively exploring how school-based supports lessen the effects of victimization for gay high school students

ii Dedication.iii Acknowledgements.iv Vita.v List of Illustrations.vii Chapter 1: Statement of Research Topic.1 Chapter 2: Literature Review.4 Chapter 3: Methodology.16 Chapter 4: Findings.25 Chapter 5: Discussion.50 Chapter 6: Conclusion.63 References.67