Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual Experiments Enable Exploring and Challenging Explanatory Mechanisms of Immune-Mediated P450 Down-Regulation

Hepatic cytochrome P450 levels are down-regulated during inflammatory disease states, which can cause changes in downstream drug metabolism and hepatotoxicity. Long-term, we seek sufficient new insight into P450-regulating mechanisms to correctly anticipate how an individual’s P450 expressions will respond when health and/or therapeutic interventions change. To date, improving explanatory mechanistic insight relies on knowledge gleaned from in vitro, in vivo, and clinical experiments augmented by case reports. We are working to improve that reality by developing means to undertake scientifically useful virtual experiments. So doing requires translating an accepted theory of immune system influence on P450 regulation into a computational model, and then challenging the model via in silico experiments. We build upon two existing agent-based models—an in silico hepatocyte culture and an in silico liver—capable of exploring and challenging concrete mechanistic hypotheses. We instantiate an in silico version of this hypothesis: in response to lipopolysaccharide, Kupffer cells down-regulate hepatic P450 levels via inflammatory cytokines, thus leading to a reduction in metabolic capacity. We achieve multiple in vitro and in vivo validation targets gathered from five wet-lab experiments, including a lipopolysaccharide-cytokine dose-response curve, time-course P450 down-regulation, and changes in several different measures of drug clearance spanning three drugs: acetaminophen, antipyrine, and chlorzoxazone. Along the way to achieving validation targets, various aspects of each model are falsified and subsequently refined. This iterative process of falsification-refinement-validation leads to biomimetic yet parsimonious mechanisms, which can provide explanatory insight into how, where, and when various features are generated. We argue that as models such as these are incrementally improved through multiple rounds of mechanistic falsification and validation, we will generate virtual systems that embody deeper credible, actionable, explanatory insight into immune system-drug metabolism interactions within individuals.
‘To drink or not to drink’: media framing of evidence and debate about alcohol consumption in pregnancy

Abstract The issue of women’s consumption of alcohol during pregnancy has gained increasing public attention in Australia in recent years. This article examines the framing of the issue in news media and pregnancy and parenting websites during 2013–2014, with particular attention to the two most prominent frames of ‘contested evidence and advice’ and ‘women’s rights’. Public health guidelines in Australia, as elsewhere, advise women that not drinking during pregnancy is the safest option, but debate continues to surround the evidence to support this advice and its impact. This article considers these guidelines in the context of critical public health scholarship highlighting the intensification of discourses of health, risk, and responsibility in relation to pregnancy and maternal practices. Newly published scientific research provided a key source of news about the risks associated with alcohol consumption during pregnancy, with stories reporting on studies that variously identified evidence of harm, or no harm, to the fetus. In the context of the ‘women’s rights’ frame, consuming alcohol during pregnancy was not constructed primarily as a matter of scientific research or expert opinion but as one of many social practices women negotiate during pregnancy. It foregrounded the rights of women to make their own decisions about alcohol consumption. The deployment of these two frames in mediated public discussion of the issue reflects the inconclusiveness of evidence about the risks of low to moderate consumption and shows women critically engaging with public health advice in the context of the numerous directives they are inundated with during pregnancy.
Lagrangian two-spheres can be symplectically knotted

This paper shows that there are symplectic four-manifolds M with the following property: a single isotopy class of smooth embedded two-spheres in M contains infinitely many Lagrangian submanifolds, no two of which are isotopic as Lagrangian submanifolds. The examples are constructed using a special class of symplectic automorphisms ("generalized Dehn twists"). The proof uses Floer homology. Revised version: one footnote removed, one reference added
Differential Effects of Provider Recommendations and Consumer Reviews in E-Commerce Transactions: An Experimental Study

Despite the importance of online product recommendations (OPRs) in e-commerce transactions, there is still little understanding about how different recommendation sources affect consumers' beliefs and behavior, and whether these effects are additive, complementary, or rivals for different types of products. This study investigates the differential effects of provider recommendations (PRs) and consumer reviews (CRs) on the instrumental, affective, and trusting dimensions of consumer beliefs and shows how these beliefs ultimately influence continued OPR usage and product purchase intentions. This study tests a conceptual model linking PRs and CRs to four consumer beliefs (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived affective quality, and trust) in two different product settings (search products versus experience products). Results of an experimental study show that users of PRs express significantly higher perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use than users of CRs, while users of CRs express higher trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality than users of PRs, resulting in different effect mechanisms toward OPR reuse and purchase intentions in e-commerce transactions. Further, CRs were found to elicit higher perceived usefulness, trusting beliefs, and perceived affective quality for experience goods, while PRs were found to unfold higher effects on all of these variables for search goods.
The Relationship Between Eating Disorders and Conformity in Female College Students

The relation between conformity and eating disorders was investigated in female college students. Undergraduate college women answered questions from the Cooperativeness (formerly Conformity) subscale of the Jackson Personality Inventory and completed the Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI). Results indicated a significant positive correlation between conformity scores and EDI scores. Sorority members scored significantly higher than nonsorority members on both the conformity scale and the EDI. These findings are congruent with Gaylor, Meilman, and von Hippel (1991) who focused on the relationship between sorority membership, pressure to be thin, and the incidence of eating disorders.
EFFECT OF SIZE OF INTESTINAL DIVERSIONS IN OBESE PATIENTS WITH METABOLIC SYNDROME SUBMITTED TO GASTRIC BYPASS

ABSTRACT Background: There is no consensus on the ideal size of intestinal loops in gastric bypass of bariatric surgeries. Aim: To evaluate the metabolic outcome of patients submitted to gastric bypass with alimentary and biliopancreatic loops of different sizes. Methods: Was conducted a retrospective cohort study in diabetic obese patients (BMI≥35 kg/m2) with metabolic syndrome submitted to gastric bypass. The patients were divided into three groups according to the size of the intestinal loop: group 1, biliopancreatic limb 50 cm length and alimentary limb 100 cm length; group 2 , biliopancreatic limb 50 cm length and alimentary limb 150 cm length; and group 3, biliopancreatic limb 100 cm length and alimentary limb 150 cm length. The effect of gastric bypass with different sizes of intestinal loops in relation to the parameters that define metabolic syndrome was determined. Results: Sixty-three patients were evaluated, and they had a mean age of 44.7±9.4 years. All were diabetics, with 62 (98.4%) being hypertensive and 51 (82.2%) dyslipidemic. The three groups were homogeneous in relation to the variables. In 24 months, there was a remission of systemic arterial hypertension in 65% of patients in group 1, 62.5% in group 2 and 68.4% in group 3. Remission of diabetes occurred in 85% of patients in group 1, 83% in group 2 and 84% in group 3. There was no statistical difference in %LEW between the groups, and waist measurements decreased in a homogeneous way in all groups. The size of loops also had no influence on the improvement in dyslipidemia. Conclusion: Variation in size of intestinal loops does not appear to influence improvement in metabolic syndrome in this group of patients.
Interconnection conditions for the stability of nonlinear sampled-data extremum seeking schemes

The application of numerical optimization methods to the problem of extremum seeking control (ESC) has the potential to greatly diversify the types and capabilities of ESC schemes. The first uniform treatment of such sampled-data ESC schemes was given in [1]. We approach the problem from the point of view of interconnected systems' theory, deriving a different, more structurally concrete set of conditions that guarantee the closed-loop stability of such schemes. Our main assumptions concern the interconnection terms arising from the dynamic coupling between a numerical optimization algorithm and a continuous-time nonlinear plant. We demonstrate how these assumptions are satisfied for a special case involving an approximate gradient descent. Our primary motivation in deriving these new conditions is their natural suitability for the development and analysis of decentralized ESC schemes.
Investigating inspirational leader communication in an elite team sport context

The purpose of this study was to examine how leader communication inspires athletes in a team sport context. Footage of elite rugby coaches and athlete leaders delivering genuine speeches were used as a stimulus. Team sport athletes (n = 20) watched this footage and identified which aspects of the communication inspired them. Follow-up interviews were conducted to explore what the participants were inspired by and why. Thematic analyses revealed six main dimensions of what was inspiring within the content of the speech, including showing how the team can be successful, embracing and reinforcing the underdog status, and creating pride and unity within the team. In addition, a number of features of effective delivery were identified, including the tone of voice, fluency of speech, and the way key ideas were emphasised.
Effectiveness of an e-portfolio-based writing method using analytic traits on writing performance of EFL students

The major focus of this study was on the effect of an alternative method of writing instruction on the writing ability of Iranian university students in a public Malaysian university. The writing method introduced and implemented in this study was developed based on the four dimensions of process, genre, electronic portfolios, and analytic traits of writing. The data were sequentially collected by collecting the major and prior quantitative data through conducting an experimental study. The selected sample for the study was randomly assigned to two Experimental Groups and one Control Group. The first treatment group (WE1) incorporated the use of an on-line e-portfolio system with the analytic traits of writing while the second (WE2) only used the on-line system. The results of the research showed that although the observed difference between the two treatment groups was not significant, the learners in WE1 expressed a difference in the attitudes towards the use of analytic traits of writing. Both groups, however, showed a significant difference when compared to the performance of students in the control group. Multiple Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) also showed significant differences between both WE1 and WE2 compared to the control group in performance on the five traits of writing (Content, Organisation, Vocabulary, Language Use, and Mechanics). Although the learners in WE1 were expected to have higher writing performance compared to WE2 due to their exposure to the analytic traits of writing, this outcome was not observed. Nevertheless, the respondents of WE1 expressed satisfaction with the learning strategies they learned and applied in the course. From a teaching perspective, it was found very crucial to scaffold the writers and provide them with a framework and a pattern to know what to do and how to cover the different stages of writing.
Hexagon-Based Q-Learning Algorithm and Applications

This paper presents a hexagon-based Q-leaning algorithm to find a hidden target object with multiple robots. An experimental environment was designed with five small mobile robots, obstacles, and a target object. Robots went in search of a target object while navigating in a hallway where obstacles were strategically placed. This experiment employed two control algorithms: an area-based action making (ABAM) process to determine the next action of the robots and hexagon-based Q-learning to enhance the area-based action making process.
Social psychological predictors of involvement in childcare: the mediating role of changes in women’s work patterns after childbirth

ABSTRACT This study sought to explore the role of couples’ social psychological characteristics in the division of childcare responsibilities. Using a longitudinal sample of 148 expecting couples, gender ideologies, attitudes toward the father role and self-enhancement values were measured during the third trimester of pregnancy. As hypothesized, prenatal gender ideologies predicted maternal and paternal involvement in childcare one year postpartum, and their effect was mediated by changes in the mothers’ work patterns following childbirth. Moreover, parents’ attitudes toward the father role predicted the father’s involvement in childcare, and the importance the parents placed on self-enhancement values predicted their own lower levels of involvement in childcare and greater involvement of their spouses. Taken together, the findings stress the importance of couples’ social psychological characteristics and suggest that they guide couples’ decisions about changes in the mother’s work hours and income, which in turn affect the division of childcare responsibilities.
Multiple‐change‐point detection for high dimensional time series via sparsified binary segmentation

Time series segmentation, which is also known as multiple‐change‐point detection, is a well‐established problem. However, few solutions have been designed specifically for high dimensional situations. Our interest is in segmenting the second‐order structure of a high dimensional time series. In a generic step of a binary segmentation algorithm for multivariate time series, one natural solution is to combine cumulative sum statistics obtained from local periodograms and cross‐periodograms of the components of the input time series. However, the standard ‘maximum’ and ‘average’ methods for doing so often fail in high dimensions when, for example, the change points are sparse across the panel or the cumulative sum statistics are spuriously large. We propose the sparsified binary segmentation algorithm which aggregates the cumulative sum statistics by adding only those that pass a certain threshold. This ‘sparsifying’ step reduces the influence of irrelevant noisy contributions, which is particularly beneficial in high dimensions. To show the consistency of sparsified binary segmentation, we introduce the multivariate locally stationary wavelet model for time series, which is a separate contribution of this work.
When Safe Proved Risky: Commercial Paper During the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009

Commercial paper is one of the largest money market instruments and has long been viewed as a safe haven for investors seeking low risk. However, during the financial crisis of 2007-2009, the commercial paper market experienced twice the modern-day equivalent of a bank run with investors unwilling to refinance maturing commercial paper. We analyze the supply of and demand for commercial paper and show that, in contrast to previous turbulent episodes, the crisis centered on commercial paper issued by, or guaranteed by, financial institutions. We describe the importance of Federal Reserve's interventions in restoring stability of the market. Finally, we propose three possible explanations for the sharp decline of the commercial paper market: substitution to alternative sources of financing by commercial paper issuers, adverse selection, and institutional constraints among money market funds.
How k-12 students search for learning?: analysis of an educational search engine log

In this study, we analyze an educational search engine log for shedding light on K-12 students' search behavior in a learning environment. We specially focus on query, session, user and click characteristics and compare the trends to the findings in the literature for general web search engines. Our analysis helps understanding how students search with the purpose of learning in an educational vertical, and reveals new directions to improve the search performance in the education domain.
Soil water and nitrate fluxes modifications by alfalfa and corn root systems Modification des flux d ' eau et de nitrates par les systèmes

Effects of alfalfa root systems on soil physical properties, soil nitrate leaching and corn nutrition were investigated in two separate experiments conducted on Kalamazoo loam soils (coarse-loamy, mixed, mesic Typic Hapludalf) in southwestern Michigan from 1994 to 1996. In the first field experiment, soil nitrogen dynamics were compared under alfalfa and bare fallow. The second field experiment was conducted in conventional and no tillage plots under corn-alfalfa rotation equipped with undisturbed, in situ, large monolith lysimeters. Measurements in both experiments included: 1) soluble soil mineral nitrogen from suction lysimeters, and fixed soil mineral nitrogen from soil core extractions, 2) volumetric soil water contents by time domain reflectometry, 3) root biomass extracted from deep probe samples, 4) root populations from in situ minirhizotron techniques, and 5) plant biomass and yields. Soil physical properties were analyzed in the alfalfa/bare fallow experiment, after two years of treatment. The presence of alfalfa root systems significantly increased saturated hydraulic conductivity, and total and macro porosity of soils, compared to bare fallow. Living alfalfa root systems were very efficient in preventing nitrate leaching year round, with soil solutions generally kept below 1ppm of NO3-N. Second year alfalfa stands averaged 26 and 76 kg N ha -1 in the crowns and roots, respectively. Alfalfa shoots had little impact on soil nitrate contents, compared to root systems. Nitrogen released from spring spray-killed alfalfa was sufficient to cover all subsequent corn crop requirements and produce an excess of 20 kg of mineral nitrogen per hectare by the fall of the same year. Root densities per horizons of corn planted after alfalfa mimicked alfalfa root distributions, while no consistent pattern could be observed for corn after corn or alfalfa after corn. An excess of 40% corn roots recolonized alfalfa root induced macropores, which proved significantly higher than root recolonization of corn after corn or alfalfa after corn.
Aberrant Oscillatory Activity during Simple Movement in Task-Specific Focal Hand Dystonia

In task-specific focal hand dystonia (tspFHD), the temporal dynamics of cortical activity in the motor system and how these processes are related to impairments in sensory and motor function are poorly understood. Here, we use time-frequency reconstructions of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data to elaborate the temporal and spatial characteristics of cortical activity during movement. A self-paced finger tapping task during MEG recording was performed by 11 patients with tspFHD and 11 matched healthy controls. In both groups robust changes in beta (12–30 Hz) and high gamma (65–90 Hz) oscillatory activity were identified over sensory and motor cortices during button press. A significant decrease [p < 0.05, 1% False Discovery Rate (FDR) corrected] in high gamma power during movements of the affected hand was identified over ipsilateral sensorimotor cortex in the period prior to (−575 ms) and following (725 ms) button press. Furthermore, an increase (p < 0.05, 1% FDR corrected) in beta power suppression following movement of the affected hand was identified over visual cortex in patients with tspFHD. For movements of the unaffected hand, a significant (p < 0.05, 1% FDR corrected) increase in beta power suppression was identified over secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) in the period following button press in patients with tspFHD. Oscillatory activity within in the tspFHD group was however not correlated with clinical measures. Understanding these aberrant oscillatory dynamics can provide the groundwork for interventions that focus on modulating the timing of this activity.
An empirical evaluation of system and regression testing

We had the opportunity to conduct an empirical study in the context of the testing environment for a large commercial product. The particular goal of the organization for which this study was done, was to gain a strong understanding of how particular aspects of their testing practice impact on the quality of the released products. In this paper we present some of the results of that research as it relates to the verification of intuitive claims of those in this industrial environment, and documented claims from other research about the relationships between several parameters. The parameters of interest to the organization were: breadth of system and regression testing of software components defined by code coverage, number of defects discovered by an in-house test team prior to the release of those software components, and number of defects discovered by the customer in the field subsequent to the release of those software components.
Lie Derivatives along Antisymmetric Tensors, and the M-Theory Superalgebra

Free differential algebras (FDAs) provide an algebraic setting for field theories with antisymmetric tensors. The “presentation” of FDAs generalizes the Cartan-Maurer equations of ordinary Lie algebras, by incorporating p-form potentials. An extended Lie derivative along antisymmetric tensor fields can be defined and used to recover a Lie algebra dual to the FDA that encodes all the symmetries of the theory including those gauged by the p-forms. The general method is applied to the FDA of D = 11 supergravity: the resulting dual Lie superalgebra contains the M-theory supersymmetry anticommutators in presence of 2-branes. MSC 2010: 53Z05, 83F50.