Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adjusting global extinction rates to account for taxonomic susceptibility

Abstract Studies of extinction in the fossil record commonly involve comparisons of taxonomic extinction rates, often expressed as the percentage of taxa (e.g., families or genera) going extinct in a time interval. Such extinction rates may be influenced by factors that do not reflect the intrinsic severity of an extinction trigger. Two identical triggering events (e.g., bolide impacts, sea level changes, volcanic eruptions) could lead to different taxonomic extinction rates depending on factors specific to the time interval in which they occur, such as the susceptibility of the fauna or flora to extinction, the stability of food webs, the positions of the continents, and so on. Thus, it is possible for an extinction event with a higher taxonomic extinction rate to be caused by an intrinsically less severe trigger, compared to an event with a lower taxonomic extinction rate. Here, we isolate the effects of taxonomic susceptibility on extinction rates. Specifically, we quantify the extent to which the taxonomic extinction rate in a substage is elevated or depressed by the vulnerability to extinction of classes extant in that substage. Using a logistic regression model, we estimate that the taxonomic susceptibility of marine fauna to extinction has generally declined through the Phanerozoic, and we adjust the observed extinction rate in each substage to estimate the intrinsic extinction severity more accurately. We find that mass extinctions do not generally occur during intervals of unusually high susceptibility, although susceptibility sometimes increases in post-extinction recovery intervals. Furthermore, the susceptibility of specific animal classes to extinction is generally similar in times of background and mass extinction, providing no evidence for differing regimes of extinction selectivity. Finally, we find an inverse correlation between extinction rate within substages and the evenness of diversity of major taxonomic groups, but further analyses indicate that low evenness itself does not cause high rates of extinction.
On the Determinants and Dynamics of UK Capital Structure

In this paper we analyse the determinants of the capital structure for a panel of 1,054 listed UK companies from 1991 to 1997, giving a total of 6,001 firm-year observations. We find significant differences in the results depending on whether the estimation is undertaken using OLS or panel estimation, suggesting OLS results are inconsistent due to their failure to take into account firm effects. We extend the fixed effects panel estimation by incorporating time interactions with the intercept and each of the independent variables. Analysis of the dynamics in the panel reveals significant changes over time in the relationship between gearing and the level of growth opportunities, company size, profitability and tangibility. Over the period of analysis, there is a trend for larger companies to use more long-term securitised debt, with smaller companies making increasing use of long-term bank borrowing and trade credit. Companies with high levels of growth opportunities are in general reducing their level of indebtedness, particularly at short maturities. During the early years of the analysis, there is a strong negative relationship between gearing and profitability. However, there appears to be a significant shift during the 1990s, with short-term bank borrowing and trade credit becoming significantly positively related to profitability by the mid 1990s. Our results suggest the nature of the credit market in the UK has changed significantly during the 1990s.
Regional Principal Color Based Saliency Detection

Saliency detection is widely used in many visual applications like image segmentation, object recognition and classification. In this paper, we will introduce a new method to detect salient objects in natural images. The approach is based on a regional principal color contrast modal, which incorporates low-level and medium-level visual cues. The method allows a simple computation of color features and two categories of spatial relationships to a saliency map, achieving higher F-measure rates. At the same time, we present an interpolation approach to evaluate resulting curves, and analyze parameters selection. Our method enables the effective computation of arbitrary resolution images. Experimental results on a saliency database show that our approach produces high quality saliency maps and performs favorably against ten saliency detection algorithms.
Accelerating Alzheimer's pathogenesis by GRK5 deficiency via cholinergic dysfunction

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate a wide variety of physiological function. GPCR signaling is negatively regulated by the receptor desensitization, a procedure initiated by a group of kinases, including GPCR kinases (GRKs). Studies using genetargeted mice revealed that deficiency of a particular GRK member led to dysfunction of a highly selective group of GPCRs. In particular, for example, GRK5 deficiency specifically disrupts M2/M4-mediated muscarinic cholinergic function. Emerging evidence indicates that ? -amyloid accumulation may lead to GRK5 deficiency, while the latter impairs desensitization of M2/M4 receptors. Within memory circuits, M2 is primarily presynaptic autoreceptor serving as a negative feedback to inhibit acetylcholine release. The impaired desensitization of M2 receptor by GRK5 deficiency leads to hyperactive M2, which eventually suppresses acetylcholine release and results in an overall cholinergic hypofunctioning. Since the cholinergic hypofunctioning is known to cause ? -amyloid accumulation, the GRK5 deficiency appears to connect the cholinergic hypofunctioning and ? -amyloid accumulation together into a self-amplifying cycle, which accelerates both changes. Given that the ? -amyloid accumulation and the cholinergic hypofucntioning are the hallmark changes in the ? -amyloid hypothesis and the cholinergic hypothesis, respectively, the GRK5 deficiency appears to bring the two major hypotheses in Alzheimer’s disease together, whereas the GRK5 deficiency is the pivotal link. Therefore, any strategies that can break this cycle would be therapeutically beneficial for Alzheimer’s patients.
Explaining Ethnic, Racial, and Immigrant Differences in Private School Attendance

Abstract Using 1990 Census microdata, we explore ethnic, racial, and immigrant differences in private school attendance. We find high rates of private school attendance among white natives, white immigrants, and Asian natives. In contrast, we find low private school rates among black and Hispanic natives and immigrants. Asian immigrants, and other natives. Variations in income per capita and especially parental education account for over 70% of the gap in private school attendance rates between white natives and all other groups. We discuss ramifications for racial, language, and socioeconomic segregation in America's schools and possible effects of school vouchers on segregation.
Research on Blended Teaching Mode of College English based on Rain Classroom

Based on the blended teaching of the rain classroom, it can not only utilize the high-quality rain classroom resource, but also meet the needs of students' differentiation and individualization, and make up for the shortcomings of traditional teaching. The college English blended teaching reform based on the rain classroom is on the basis of the data and intelligent information provided by the rain classroom to support the process of college English teaching reform. This paper analyzes the college English blended teaching mode based on rain classroom including the front-end analysis, teaching design and learning evaluation; teaching resource, teaching environment and teaching evaluation are designed; the implementation measures of college English blended teaching based on the rain classroom is proposed. The application of the research results in this paper can mobilize the enthusiasm of students, improve the efficiency of classroom teaching, and improve students' practical application ability in English.
Perception of Robot Smiles and Dimensions for Human-Robot Interaction Design

As robots enter everyday life and start to interact with ordinary people the question of their appearance becomes increasingly important. Our perception of a robot can be strongly influenced by its facial appearance. Synthesizing relevant ideas from narrative art design, the psychology of face recognition, and recent HRI studies into robot faces, we discuss effects of the uncanny valley and the use of iconicity and its relationship to the self-other perceptive divide, as well as abstractness and realism, classifying existing designs along these dimensions. A new expressive HRI research robot called KASPAR is introduced and the results of a preliminary study on human perceptions of robot expressions are discussed
Simultaneous point matching and 3D deformable surface reconstruction

It has been shown that the 3D shape of a deformable surface in an image can be recovered by establishing correspondences between that image and a reference one in which the shape is known. These matches can then be used to set-up a convex optimization problem in terms of the shape parameters, which is easily solved. However, in many cases, the correspondences are hard to establish reliably. In this paper, we show that we can solve simultaneously for both 3D shape and correspondences, thereby using 3D shape constraints to guide the image matching and increasing robustness, for example when the textures are repetitive. This involves solving a mixed integer quadratic problem. While optimizing this problem is NP-hard in general, we show that its solution can nevertheless be approximated effectively by a branch-and-bound algorithm.
Association between Changes in Chronotype during Clerkship and Defense Style among Medical Students

Poor sleep quality, sleep deprivation, and excessive daytime sleepiness are common in medical students, especially during clinical clerkship [1-3]. Sleep disturbances may partly reflect the fact that the normal circadian rhythm clashes with early clinical schedules. Circadian preference is associated with specific personality patterns in young adults [4-7]. The morning-type preference has been reported to be associated with higher conscientiousness and agreeableness and lower openness to experience, extraversion, and neuroticism [6]. In terms of the latter, morningness tends to be associated with low-level neuroticism [4,8], although some studies have reported a negative or no relationship between morningness and neuroticism [7,9]. Eveningness is associated with depression [10-12], eating disorders [13], anxiety Association between Changes in Chronotype during Clerkship and Defense Style among Medical Students
Residents report on adverse events and their causes.

BACKGROUND Resident physicians are frontline providers with a unique vantage point from which to comment on patient safety-related events. METHODS We surveyed trainees at 2 teaching hospitals about experiences with adverse events (AEs), mistakes, and near misses, as well as the potential causes. RESULTS Responses were obtained from 821 (57%) of 1440 eligible trainees. Analysis was restricted to 689 clinical trainees. More than half (55%) reported ever caring for a patient who had an AE. The most common types of AEs were procedural and medication related. More than two thirds of AEs were considered significant. Of the most recent AEs, 24% were attributed to mistakes. The most common reasons for mistakes, as perceived by residents, were excessive work hours (19%), inadequate supervision (20%), and problems with handoffs (15%). In the last week, 114 respondents (18%) reported having a patient with an AE; of these, 42 (37%) reported AEs involving a mistake for which they considered themselves responsible. In addition, 141 (23%) reported near-miss incidents in the last week for which they considered themselves responsible. In multivariate analyses, significant predictors of AEs in the last week were inpatient rotation, duty hours in the last week, and procedural specialty. Predictors of near-miss errors in the last week were inpatient rotation, days of fatigue in the last month, and postgraduate year 1 status. CONCLUSIONS These findings support the perception that AEs are commonly encountered by physicians and often associated with errors. Causes of errors in teaching hospitals appear to be multifactorial, and a variety of measures are necessary to improve safety. Eliciting residents' perspectives is important because residents may perceive events, actions, and causal relationships that medical record reviewers or observers cannot.
A study of investigating learners attitudes toward e-learning

In an attempt to study and explore individual's attitudes and behaviors in using e-learning, this research proposes gender difference, computer related experience, self-efficacy, and motivation aspects. In this study, 424 university students use the Blackboard system and answer a questionnaire after using it for two months. The results demonstrate male students have more positive e-learning attitudes than female students do, computer related experience is a significant predictor on learners' self-efficacy and motivation toward e-learning. Furthermore, self-efficacy and motivation, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, are significantly predictors on behavioral intention of using e-learning.
Nonparametric Independence Screening in Sparse Ultra-High-Dimensional Additive Models

A variable screening procedure via correlation learning was proposed by Fan and Lv (2008) to reduce dimensionality in sparse ultra-high-dimensional models. Even when the true model is linear, the marginal regression can be highly nonlinear. To address this issue, we further extend the correlation learning to marginal nonparametric learning. Our nonparametric independence screening (NIS) is a specific type of sure independence screening. We propose several closely related variable screening procedures. We show that with general nonparametric models, under some mild technical conditions, the proposed independence screening methods have a sure screening property. The extent to which the dimensionality can be reduced by independence screening is also explicitly quantified. As a methodological extension, we also propose a data-driven thresholding and an iterative nonparametric independence screening (INIS) method to enhance the finite- sample performance for fitting sparse additive models. The simulation results and a real data analysis demonstrate that the proposed procedure works well with moderate sample size and large dimension and performs better than competing methods.
‘Messy Democracy’: Democratic pedagogy and its discontents*

This paper reflects on a recent participatory installation by the artists’ collective @. ac, entitled Messy Democracy, as a case study to raise questions concerning the ‘distribution of the sensible’ within the neoliberal art school. The project set up a quasi-autonomous artists’ space within Hanover Project gallery 9 April–3 May, 2018 at University of Central Lancashire, Preston. This exhibition functioned as a space of collective pedagogy, co-labour and ‘dissensus’ situated in relation to the wider operation of the department of Fine Art. It also sought to operate as a critical alternative to contemporary models of the art school, rooted in notions of usefulness and romantic self-realisation, but re-structured in the service of ‘commodification’ and ‘financialisation’ in wake of the Browne Report (2010). Most importantly, Messy Democracy represented a ‘theatocractic’ ‘undercommons’ for alternate and counter-hegemonic subjectivities to emerge. However, hierarchical logics, resulting from the hegemonic ‘distribution of the sensible’ stubbornly persisted even within this nascent pedagogic democracy.
Locating facial landmarks with binary map cross-correlations

Precise facial landmark localization in still images is a key step for many face analysis applications, such as biometrics or automatic emotion recognition. In this paper, we propose a framework for facial point detection in frontal and near-frontal images. We introduce a new appearance model based on binary map cross-correlations that efficiently uses LBP and LPQ in a localization context. Inclusion of shape-related constraints is performed by a nonparametric voting method using relational properties within triplets of points, designed to correct outliers without losing precision for accurately detected points. We tested our system's performance on the widely used as benchmark BioID database obtaining state-of-the-art results. We also discuss evaluation metrics used to compare facial landmarking systems and which have been mixed up in recent literature.
Schisandrin B inhibits cell growth and induces cellular apoptosis and autophagy in mouse hepatocytes and macrophages: implications for its hepatotoxicity

A number of drugs and herbal compounds have been documented to cause hepatoxicity. Schisandrin B (Sch B) is an active dibenzocyclooctadiene isolated from Schisandrae fructus, with a wide array of pharmacological activities. However, the potential hepatotoxicity of Sch B is a major safety concern, and the underlying mechanism for Sch B-induced liver toxic effects is not fully elucidated. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the liver toxic effects and the molecular mechanisms of Sch B in mouse liver and macrophage cells. The results have shown that Sch B exhibits potent grow inhibitory, proapoptotic, and proautophagic effects in AML-12 and RAW 264.7 cells. Sch B markedly arrested cells in G1 phase in both cell lines, accompanied by the down-regulation of cyclin dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) and cyclin D1 and up-regulation of p27 Kip1 and checkpoint kinase 1. Furthermore, Sch B markedly increased the apoptosis of AML-12 and RAW 264.7 cells with a decrease in the expression of B-cell lymphoma-extra-large and (Bcl-xl) B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), but an increase in the expression of B-cell lymphoma 2-associated X protein (Bax). Sch B promoted the cleavage of caspase 3 and poly-adenosine diphosphate-ribose polymerase (PARP) in both cell lines. Additionally, Sch B significantly induced autophagy of AML-12 and RAW 264.7 cells. Sch B inhibited the activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway, as indicated by their altered phosphorylation, contributing to the proautophagic effect of Sch B. Taken together, our findings show that the inducing effects of Sch B on cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and autophagy may contribute to its liver toxic effects, which might provide a clue for the investigation of the molecular toxic targets and underlying mechanisms for Sch B-induced hepatotoxicity in herbal consumers. More studies are warranted to fully delineate the underlying mechanisms, efficacy, and safety of Sch B for clinical use.
Evaluation of Automatic Updates of Roget's Thesaurus

Thesauri and similarly organised resources attract increasing interest of Natural Language Processing researchers. Thesauri age fast, so there is a constant need to update their vocabulary. Since a manual update cycle takes considerable time, automated methods are required. This work presents a tuneable method of measuring semantic relatedness, trained on Roget’s Thesaurus, which generates lists of terms related to words not yet in the Thesaurus. Using these lists of terms, we experiment with three methods of adding words to the Thesaurus. We add, with high confidence, over 5500 and 9600 new word senses to versions of Roget’s Thesaurus from 1911 and 1987 respectively. We evaluate our work both manually and by applying the updated thesauri in three NLP tasks: selection of the best synonym from a set of candidates, pseudo-word-sense disambiguation and SAT-style analogy problems. We find that the newly added words are of high quality. The additions significantly improve the performance of Roget’s-based methods in these NLP tasks. The performance of our system compares favourably with that of WordNet-based methods. Our methods are general enough to work with different versions of Roget’s Thesaurus.
Risk factors for incident delirium among older people in acute hospital medical units: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: delirium affects up to 40% of older hospitalised patients, but there has been no systematic review focussing on risk factors for incident delirium in older medical inpatients. We aimed to synthesise data on risk factors for incident delirium and where possible conduct meta-analysis of these. Methods: PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched (January 1987–August 2013). Studies were quality rated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. We used the Mantel–Haenszel and inverse variance method to estimate the pooled odds ratio (OR) or mean difference for individual risk factors. Results: eleven articles met inclusion criteria and were included for review. Total study population 2338 (411 patients with delirium/1927 controls). The commonest factors significantly associated with delirium were dementia, older age, co-morbid illness, severity of medical illness, infection, ‘high-risk’ medication use, diminished activities of daily living, immobility, sensory impairment, urinary catheterisation, urea and electrolyte imbalance and malnutrition. In pooled analyses, dementia (OR 6.62; 95% CI (confidence interval) 4.30, 10.19), illness severity (APACHE II) (MD (mean difference) 3.91; 95% CI 2.22, 5.59), visual impairment (OR 1.89; 95% CI 1.03, 3.47), urinary catheterisation (OR 3.16; 95% CI 1.26, 7.92), low albumin level (MD −3.14; 95% CI −5.99, −0.29) and length of hospital stay (OR 4.85; 95% CI 2.20, 7.50) were statistically significantly associated with delirium. Conclusion: we identified risk factors consistently associated with incident delirium following admission. These factors help to highlight older acute medical inpatients at risk of developing delirium during their hospital stay.
eIF4E promotes nuclear export of cyclin D1 mRNAs via an element in the 3′UTR

The eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF4E is a critical modulator of cellular growth with functions in the nucleus and cytoplasm. In the cytoplasm, recognition of the 5′ m7G cap moiety on all mRNAs is sufficient for their functional interaction with eIF4E. In contrast, we have shown that in the nucleus eIF4E associates and promotes the nuclear export of cyclin D1, but not GAPDH or actin mRNAs. We determined that the basis of this discriminatory interaction is an ∼100-nt sequence in the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of cyclin D1 mRNA, we refer to as an eIF4E sensitivity element (4E-SE). We found that cyclin D1 mRNA is enriched at eIF4E nuclear bodies, suggesting these are functional sites for organization of specific ribonucleoproteins. The 4E-SE is required for eIF4E to efficiently transform cells, thereby linking recognition of this element to eIF4E mediated oncogenic transformation. Our studies demonstrate previously uncharacterized fundamental differences in eIF4E-mRNA recognition between the nuclear and cytoplasmic compartments and further a novel level of regulation of cellular proliferation.