Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bulgaria: Ethnic differentials in rapidly declining fertility

This chapter provides a detailed description of the fertility changes in Bulgaria during recent decades and discusses possible reasons and consequences. It also gives an overview of the steps that the government has undertaken to offset the considerable decline in fertility. Before the fall of communism, fertility trends in Bulgaria were stable and characterized by a nearly universal entry into parenthood, dominance of a two-child family model, an early start and early end of childbearing, stable mean ages at entry into childbearing and marriage, and low percentages of non-marital births. During the 1990s and in the first years of the new century, we observe a marked, rapid change in fertility behaviour. Together with the severe decline in overall fertility rates, demographic data reveal a significant postponement of entry into motherhood and marriage, a decline of the two-child family model, and an emergence of new family forms. Most research attributes these changes to the particular political and social situation in Bulgaria since 1989.
Software Engineering Ethical Decision Making and Professional Responsibility

Software systems cut across miscellaneous spheres including medicine, business, warfare and aerospace. And as thus, the actions of software engineers have a non-trivial effect on software users and stakeholders. Therefore, more than ever, software engineers are faced not only with technical adequacy of software but also with the non-technical concerns, primarily, the ethical impact of their decisions through the software development process. With accountability abounding to varied constituents, professionals are constantly faced with conflicting loyalties or decisions and must make practical and ethically grounded choices. Although, there are codes of ethics in Software Engineering to guide software engineers on ethical decision making, it is not enough because it is general. A more specific approach is necessary as well. This paper proposes to explore practical ethical decision making processes, professional responsibility of software engineering practitioners and also a solution to the generalization of the present code of ethics.
Clinically important renal impairment in various groups of old persons

Objective – To assess renal function in various groups of elderly persons, and to determine the proportion of patients with clinically important renal impairment. Design – Cross-sectional study. Participants – Three geriatric populations aged 70 years and over, representing increasing levels of care/treatment: community-dwelling elderly referred to a geriatric outpatient department, inpatients on a geriatric ward, and nursing home patients. Main outcome measures – Cockroft and Gault's formula was applied to calculate glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Differences in GFR between age groups and between care levels were explored. Results – Altogether 288 elderly persons were included in the study. We observed a general age-related decline of renal function. Only 2% of the participants had normal renal function (GFR >90 ml/min), 13% had light (GFR 60–89 ml/min), 68% moderate (GFR 30–59 ml/min), and 17% severe (GFR 15–29 ml/min) impairment in GFR. Moderate or severely decreased GFR was observed in 75% of the outpatients, 78% of the patients from the geriatric ward, and 91% of the nursing home patients. Altogether 99% of patients aged 85+ had renal impairment necessitating dosing adjustment for drugs that are mainly eliminated through renal excretion. Conclusion – Clinically important renal impairment is common in old age, especially in the frailest elderly living in nursing homes. This finding underlines the necessity for close supervision of drug treatment based on renal function in old age.
Abbreviated title : Time course of emotion perception Tracing the time course of emotion perception : The impact of stimulus physics and semantics on gesture processing

2 Numerous ERP-studies reveal the differential processing of emotional and neutral stimuli. Yet, it is an ongoing debate to what extent the ERP-components found in previous research are sensitive to physical stimulus characteristics or emotional meaning. The present study manipulated emotional meaning and stimulus orientation to disentangle the impact of stimulus physics and semantics on emotional stimulus processing. Negative communicative hand gestures of Insult were contrasted with neutral control gestures of Allusion to manipulate emotional meaning. An elementary physical manipulation of visual processing was implemented by presenting these stimuli vertically and horizontally. Results showed dissociable effects of stimulus meaning and orientation on the sequence of ERP-components. Effects of orientation were pronounced in the P1-and N170-time frames and attenuated during later stages. Emotional meaning affected the P1, evincing a distinct topography to orientation effects. While the N170 was not modulated by emotional meaning, the EPN-and LPP-components replicated previous findings with larger potentials elicited by the Insult gestures. These data suggest that the brain processes different attributes of an emotional picture in parallel and that a coarse semantic appreciation may already occur during relatively early stages of emotion perception. Introduction Reacting rapidly and appropriately to threatening or life-sustaining stimuli is imperative for an organism's survival in a complex environment. Thus, motivationally relevant external stimuli may automatically induce a state of natural selective attention (Lang et al., 1997) and effectively guide ensuing perceptual processes. Research utilizing event-related brain potentials (ERP) has determined several indicators of preferential emotion processing along the time scale of visual perception (Flaisch et al., 2008b; Schupp et al., 2006). As emotionally guided perceptual amplification supposedly occurs from very early to relatively late stages of visual processing, the extent to which the observed emotional effects are driven by stimulus differences on a purely physical level or the semantic information associated with such differences is under debate. In the present study, we provide evidence that early indicators of emotion perception conceivably reflect semantic stimulus content and demonstrate that the effects of physical and semantic stimulus attributes can be differentiated along the sequence of emotion perception. Preferential processing of affective pictorial stimuli unfolds in a temporal sequence from relatively early to later stages (Schupp et al., 2006). Studies utilizing ERP-measures identified several electro-cortical components presumably reflecting distinct sub-processes of emotion perception. A large body of research has established the 'early posterior negativity' (EPN) and the 'late positive potential' (LPP) as indices of …
Mechanical characterization of cancer cell nuclei in situ

While reduced whole cell stiffness has long been used to identify cancerous cells, cancer progression usually results in enhanced nuclear deformability as well. However, previous studies on nuclear mechanical properties were conducted either on isolated nuclei or intact nuclei indirectly, and intracellular characterization in situ has been missing. In this paper, an AFM technique to study nuclear mechanics in situ is shown. Using this technique we demonstrated that isolated nuclei exhibited significantly lower Young's moduli than intact nuclei in situ (8.64 ± 1.36 kPa vs. 78.46 ± 14.88 kPa, p=0.0001), and we characterized and compared the mechanical properties of nuclei in situ between RT4 and T24 cells with different metastatic potential. It was quantitatively demonstrated that the cell nuclei were significantly stiffer than the cytoplasm, and that intact nuclei of RT4 exhibited significantly higher stiffness than that of T24 cells (8.4 ± 1.02 kPa vs. 5.67 ± 0.48 kPa, p<;0.03). These results may provide insight into the mechanisms by which the nuclear mechanics influences cell function, contributing to cancer development.
Conduction Accompanied With Transient Radiative Heat Transfer Using Finite Volume Method

 Abstract — The objective of this research work is to investigate for one dimensional transient radiative transfer equations with conduction using finite volume method. Within the infrastructure of finite-volume, we obtain the conservative discretization of the terms in order to preserve the overall conservative property of finite-volume schemes. Coupling of conductive and radiative equation resulting in fluxes is governed by the magnitude of emissivity, extinction coefficient, and temperature of the medium as well as geometry of the problem. The problem under consideration has been solved, for a slab dominating radiation coupled with transient conduction based on finite volume method. The boundary conditions are also chosen so as to give a good model of the discretized form of radiation transfer equation. The important feature of the present method is flexibility in specifying the control angles in the FVM, while keeping the simplicity in the solution procedure. Effects of various model parameters are examined on the distributions of temperature, radiative and conductive heat fluxes and incident radiation energy etc. The finite volume method is considered to effectively evaluate the propagation of radiation intensity through a participating medium.
Bioremediating Oil Spills in Nutrient Poor Ocean Waters Using Fertilized Clay Mineral Flakes: Some Experimental Constraints

Much oil spill research has focused on fertilizing hydrocarbon oxidising bacteria, but a primary limitation is the rapid dilution of additives in open waters. A new technique is presented for bioremediation by adding nutrient amendments to the oil spill using thin filmed minerals comprised largely of Fullers Earth clay. Together with adsorbed N and P fertilizers, filming additives, and organoclay, clay flakes can be engineered to float on seawater, attach to the oil, and slowly release contained nutrients. Our laboratory experiments of microbial activity on weathered source oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico show fertilized clay treatment significantly enhanced bacterial respiration and consumption of alkanes compared to untreated oil-in-water conditions and reacted faster than straight fertilization. Whereas a major portion (up to 98%) of the alkane content was removed during the 1 month period of experimentation by fertilized clay flake interaction; the reduced concentration of polyaromatic hydrocarbons was not significantly different from the non-clay bearing samples. Such clay flake treatment could offer a way to more effectively apply the fertilizer to the spill in open nutrient poor waters and thus significantly reduce the extent and duration of marine oil spills, but this method is not expected to impact hydrocarbon toxicity.
An Analysis of Web File Sizes : New Methods and Models

Since the large-scale introduction of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, computer scientists have studied many of the Web’s characteristic statistical distributions. These measures, such as the time required for files to transfer or the sizes of those files, help researchers understand Web traffic. In particular, the distribution of requested file sizes has been a primary study, with mixed results. Researchers have had difficulty predicting the largest files in a given file size set, such that currently-proposed file size models tend to severely overestimate or underestimate these sizes. We consider such models and how to improve their fits. This thesis contributes to file size research in several ways. First, we compare the performances of three currently proposed file size models, the lognormal, lognormal-Pareto, and double Pareto distributions, to find the relative strengths and weaknesses of each model. In doing so, we perform the first empirical test of the recently-created double Pareto model. Second, we propose a new and simple file size model, the log-t distribution. Third, we show that file types exhibit relatively-consistent size distribution behaviors, which can then be used to build type-based mixture models. We find that the lognormal-Pareto model provides the best file size fits of the three considered currently-proposed models, but that our log-t model provides roughly equivalent fits using a simpler model. Results also show that type-based mixture models can provide significantly-improved file size estimations over type-blind models. We therefore present a range of useful new file size models, which allow for one to increase a model’s accuracy with increased complexity.
Stochastic High-speed Rotation of Escherichia coli ATP Synthase F1 Sector

The γ subunit of the ATP synthase F1 sector rotates at the center of the α3β3 hexamer during ATP hydrolysis. A gold bead (40–200 nm diameter) was attached to the γ subunit of Escherichia coli F1, and then its ATP hydrolysis-dependent rotation was studied. The rotation speeds were variable, showing stochastic fluctuation. The high-speed rates of 40- and 60-nm beads were essentially similar: 721 and 671 rps (revolutions/s), respectively. The average rate of 60-nm beads was 381 rps, which is ∼13-fold faster than that expected from the steady-state ATPase turnover number. These results indicate that the F1 sector rotates much faster than expected from the bulk of ATPase activity, and that ∼10% of the F1 molecules are active on the millisecond time scale. Furthermore, the real ATP turnover number (number of ATP molecules converted to ADP and phosphate/s), as a single molecule, is variable during a short period. The ϵ subunit inhibited rotation and ATPase, whereas ϵ fused through its carboxyl terminus to cytochrome b562 showed no effect. The ϵ subunit significantly increased the pausing time during rotation. Stochastic fluctuation of catalysis may be a general property of an enzyme, although its understanding requires combining studies of steady-state kinetics and single molecule observation.
THE OTOTOXICITY OF CHLOROQUINE PHOSPHATE.

In the past 20 years or so there has been a revival of interest in the causes of acquired congenital perceptive nerve deafness. Gregg 1 in 1941 reported the occurrence of cataract in the children of women who had rubella during the first trimester. It was not until a few years later, however, that it became apparent that deafness was the most important sequela. 2 The increase in knowledge of the other forms of acquired perceptive deafness in more recent times has enabled us to diagnose (and sometimes prevent) cases that would have previously remained obscure or ascribed to hereditary factors. At present some of the known causes include maternal rubella, erythroblastosis fetalis, birth trauma, and the ototoxic drugs. These ototoxic drugs are many, and the list is growing. Perhaps the most important group at present, in view of their widespread use, are the ototoxic antibiotics, including streptomycin, dihydrostreptomycin, kanamycin,
Correlation of iridescence with changes in iridophore platelet ultrastructure in the squid Lolliguncula brevis.

Cephalopods are renowned for their unique colour change system in which neurally controlled chromatophore organs in the dermis work in combination with subjacent iridescent cells (iridophores) to produce colours and patterns of a wide range (Messenger, 1979; Hanlon, 1982). Some iridophores in squids are physiologically active and reversibly change from non-iridescent to iridescent (Hanlon, 1982). We discovered examples of these active iridophores in the dorsal mantle of the squid Lolliguncula brevis. The state of iridescence in these dorsal mantle iridophores can be controlled in vitro in isolated dermal layers with the putative neuromodulator acetylcholine (ACh), as well as by means of other factors (Hanlon & Cooper, 1985). We compared the ultrastructure of non-iridescent and iridescent iridophores in these isolated dermal layers to determine the cytologicaJ basis for the change in optical properties. In this paper we report the correlation of structural changes within the iridophore platelets with the appearance of iridescence. Schooling L. brevis maintained in laboratory tanks (Hanlon, Hixon & Hulet, 1983) occasionally show iridescent pink on the dorsal mantle, varying from bright in the dorsal mantle collar to a soft sheen in other dorsal regions. The iridophores responsible for this iridescence are in multiple layers in the collar, but in a single layer elsewhere. We excised dermal tissue containing the single iridophore layer for our study (Fig. 1A). The dermal layers were pinned out in Petri dishes filled partially with Sylgard® 184 elastomer (pre-blackened with osmium) and covered with freshly prepared artificial sea water (in mmolP: NaCl, 500; KC1, 10; CaCl2, 10; MgCl2, 12; unbuffered with a pH of approximately 6-5; prepared from refrigerated stock solutions). The iridophores were illuminated with 45° incident light (fibre optics), with the direction of the light beam from dorsal towards ventral in relation to tissue orientation. Care was taken not to vary the intensity, angle of incidence, or direction of incident light when comparisons of iridescence were undertaken. The tissue was illuminated only briefly during observations or photography. Experiments were carried out at maintenance tank temperatures of 20— 21 °C. Experimental solutions (2-3 ml) were pipetted onto the drained iridophore layers, and results were observed
An Empirical Study of Speed and Communication in Globally Distributed Software Development

Global software development is rapidly becoming the norm for technology companies. Previous qualitative research suggests that distributed development may increase development cycle time for individual work items (modification requests). We use both data from the source code change management system and survey data to model the extent of delay in a distributed software development organization and explore several possible mechanisms for this delay. One key finding is that distributed work items appear to take about two and one-half times as long to complete as similar items where all the work is colocated. The data strongly suggest a mechanism for the delay, i.e., that distributed work items involve more people than comparable same-site work items, and the number of people involved is strongly related to the calendar time to complete a work item. We replicate the analysis of change data in a different organization with a different product and different sites and confirm our main findings. We also report survey results showing differences between same-site and distributed social networks, testing several hypotheses about characteristics of distributed social networks that may be related to delay. We discuss implications of our findings for practices and collaboration technology that have the potential for dramatically speeding distributed software development.
Hard Fairness versus Proportional Fairness in Wireless Communications: the Single-Cell Case

We consider the uplink and the downlink of a multiuser wireless system with one base station and K user terminals (single-cell case). Each user is affected by a position-dependent path loss, fixed in time, and by a slowly time-varying frequency-selective fading channel modeled as M parallel block-fading channels. We study the system throughput (sum rate) versus Eb/N0 under hard fairness and proportional fairness constraints. We obtain closed-form expressions for the throughput in the limit of a large number of users, as well as for the asymptotics in the low and high SNR regions
Prevalence, molecular characteristics and risk factors for cryptosporidiosis among Iranian immunocompromised patients

Cryptosporidium spp. is a major cause of diarrhea in developing countries, mainly affecting people with compromised immune systems in general and HIV‐infected individuals with low CD4 + T‐cell counts in particular. This infection is self‐limiting in healthy persons; however, it can be severe, progressive and persistent in those who are immunocompromised. There are few published studies concerning cryptosporidiosis and Cryptosporidium genotypes in Iranian immunocompromised patients and none of them describe risk factors. This study was undertaken to identify prevalence, genotypes and risk factors for cryptosporidiosis in immunocompromised patients. Three fecal samples were obtained at two day intervals from each of the 183 patients and processed with modified Ziehl–Neelsen staining methods and 18S rRNA gene amplification and sequencing. The overall infection prevalence was 6%. Cryptosporidium parvum was identified in isolates from five HIV‐infected patients, one patient who had undergone bone marrow transplantation and one with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Cryptosporidium hominis was identified in isolates from two HIV‐infected patients and two patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia. According to univariate analysis, the statistically significant factors were diarrhea (OR = 21.7, CI = 2.83–78.4, P= 0.003), CD4 + lymphocytes less than 100 cells/mm3 (OR = 41.3, CI = 13.45–114.8, P < 0.0001), other microbial infections (OR = 7.1321.7, CI = 1.97–25.73, P = 0.006), weight loss (OR = 73.78, CI = 15.5–350, P < 0.0001), abdominal pain (OR = 10.29, CI = 2.81–37.74.4, P= 0.001), dehydration (OR = 72.1, CI = 17.6–341.5, P < 0.0001), vomiting (OR = 4.87, CI = 1.4–16.9, P= 0.015), nausea (OR = 9.4, CI = 2.38–37.2, P < 0.001), highly active antiretroviral therapy (OR = 0.089, CI = 0.01–0.8, P= 0.015) and diarrhea in household members (OR = 7.37, CI = 2.04–26.66, P= 0.001). After multivariate analysis and a backward deletion process, only < 100 CD4 + T‐lymphocytes/mm3 maintained a significant association with infection. The authors recommend that this infection should be suspected in patients with diarrhea, weight loss and dehydration in general and in diarrheal individuals with < 100 CD4 + T‐lymphocytes/mm3.
Learning hierarchical invariant spatio-temporal features for action recognition with independent subspace analysis

Previous work on action recognition has focused on adapting hand-designed local features, such as SIFT or HOG, from static images to the video domain. In this paper, we propose using unsupervised feature learning as a way to learn features directly from video data. More specifically, we present an extension of the Independent Subspace Analysis algorithm to learn invariant spatio-temporal features from unlabeled video data. We discovered that, despite its simplicity, this method performs surprisingly well when combined with deep learning techniques such as stacking and convolution to learn hierarchical representations. By replacing hand-designed features with our learned features, we achieve classification results superior to all previous published results on the Hollywood2, UCF, KTH and YouTube action recognition datasets. On the challenging Hollywood2 and YouTube action datasets we obtain 53.3% and 75.8% respectively, which are approximately 5% better than the current best published results. Further benefits of this method, such as the ease of training and the efficiency of training and prediction, will also be discussed. You can download our code and learned spatio-temporal features here: http://ai.stanford. edu/∼wzou/