Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy

Directed links in social media could represent anything from intimate friendships to common interests, or even a passion for breaking news or celebrity gossip. Such directed links determine the flow of information and hence indicate a user's influence on others — a concept that is crucial in sociology and viral marketing. In this paper, using a large amount of data collected from Twitter, we present an in-depth comparison of three measures of influence: indegree, retweets, and mentions. Based on these measures, we investigate the dynamics of user influence across topics and time. We make several interesting observations. First, popular users who have high indegree are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions. Second, most influential users can hold significant influence over a variety of topics. Third, influence is not gained spontaneously or accidentally, but through concerted effort such as limiting tweets to a single topic. We believe that these findings provide new insights for viral marketing and suggest that topological measures such as indegree alone reveals very little about the influence of a user.
Learning Combinations of Activation Functions

In the last decade, an active area of research has been devoted to design novel activation functions that are able to help deep neural networks to converge, obtaining better performance. The training procedure of these architectures usually involves optimization of the weights of their layers only, while non-linearities are generally pre-specified and their (possible) parameters are usually considered as hyper-parameters to be tuned manually. In this paper, we introduce two approaches to automatically learn different combinations of base activation functions (such as the identity function, ReLU, and tanh) during the training phase. We present a thorough comparison of our novel approaches with well-known architectures (such as LeNet-5, AlexNet, and ResNet-56) on three standard datasets (Fashion-MNIST, CIFAR-10, and ILSVRC-2012), showing substantial improvements in the overall performance, such as an increase in the top-l accuracy for AlexNet on ILSVRC-2012 of 3.01 percentage points.
Osteopontin Is Induced by TGF-β2 and Regulates Metabolic Cell Activity in Cultured Human Optic Nerve Head Astrocytes

The aqueous humor (AH) component transforming growth factor (TGF)-β2 is strongly correlated to primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), and was shown to up-regulate glaucoma-associated extracellular matrix (ECM) components, members of the ECM degradation system and heat shock proteins (HSP) in primary ocular cells. Here we present osteopontin (OPN) as a new TGF-β2 responsive factor in cultured human optic nerve head (ONH) astrocytes. Activation was initially demonstrated by Oligo GEArray microarray and confirmed by semiquantitative (sq) RT-PCR, realtime RT-PCR and western blot. Expressions of most prevalent OPN receptors CD44 and integrin receptor subunits αV, α4, α 5, α6, α9, β1, β3 and β5 by ONH astrocytes were shown by sqRT-PCR and immunofluorescence labeling. TGF-β2 treatment did not affect their expression levels. OPN did not regulate gene expression of described TGF-β2 targets shown by sqRT-PCR. In MTS-assays, OPN had a time- and dose-dependent stimulating effect on the metabolic activity of ONH astrocytes, whereas TGF-β2 significantly reduced metabolism. OPN signaling via CD44 mediated a repressive outcome on metabolic activity, whereas signaling via integrin receptors resulted in a pro-metabolic effect. In summary, our findings characterize OPN as a TGF-β2 responsive factor that is not involved in TGF-β2 mediated ECM and HSP modulation, but affects the metabolic activity of astrocytes. A potential involvement in a protective response to TGF-β2 triggered damage is indicated, but requires further investigation.
Children's ideas about ecology 1: theoretical background, design and methodology

Abstract This paper provides an introduction to a study of the ecological understandings of children aged 5‐16 years in schools in the north of England. Children's ideas about selected ecological concepts were elicited through a series of written tasks and individual interviews set in a range of contexts, referred to here as probes. Responses of about 200 pupils, across the age range, were obtained on each probe. In this paper, issues relating to theoretical background, design and methodology are outlined. Two further papers present the major findings of the study: the first reports children's ideas about the cycling of matter between organisms and between organisms and the abiotic environment (Leach et al. in press a); the second reports children's ideas about the interdependency of organisms in ecosystems (Leach et al. in press b).
Evidence for the Concerted Evolution between Short Linear Protein Motifs and Their Flanking Regions

Background Linear motifs are short modules of protein sequences that play a crucial role in mediating and regulating many protein–protein interactions. The function of linear motifs strongly depends on the context, e.g. functional instances mainly occur inside flexible regions that are accessible for interaction. Sometimes linear motifs appear as isolated islands of conservation in multiple sequence alignments. However, they also occur in larger blocks of sequence conservation, suggesting an active role for the neighbouring amino acids. Results The evolution of regions flanking 116 functional linear motif instances was studied. The conservation of the amino acid sequence and order/disorder tendency of those regions was related to presence/absence of the instance. For the majority of the analysed instances, the pairs of sequences conserving the linear motif were also observed to maintain a similar local structural tendency and/or to have higher local sequence conservation when compared to pairs of sequences where one is missing the linear motif. Furthermore, those instances have a higher chance to co–evolve with the neighbouring residues in comparison to the distant ones. Those findings are supported by examples where the regulation of the linear motif–mediated interaction has been shown to depend on the modifications (e.g. phosphorylation) at neighbouring positions or is thought to benefit from the binding versatility of disordered regions. Conclusion The results suggest that flanking regions are relevant for linear motif–mediated interactions, both at the structural and sequence level. More interestingly, they indicate that the prediction of linear motif instances can be enriched with contextual information by performing a sequence analysis similar to the one presented here. This can facilitate the understanding of the role of these predicted instances in determining the protein function inside the broader context of the cellular network where they arise.
Asymptotic approximation of the move-to-front search cost distribution and least-recently used caching fault probabilities

(cid:12) (cid:145) as n ! 1 (cid:144) c;(cid:21);(cid:12) > 0 (cid:145) , then lim n ! 1 P (cid:146) C f > n (cid:147) P (cid:146) R > n (cid:147) D e (cid:13) ; independently of c;(cid:21);(cid:12) , where C f is a (cid:13)uid approximation of C . We experimentally demonstrate that the derived asymptotic formulas yield accurate results for lists of (cid:12)nite sizes. This should be contrasted with the exponential computational complexity of Burville and Kingman’s exact expression for (cid:12)nite lists. The results also imply that the fault probability of LRU caching is asymptotically at most a factor e (cid:13) (cid:144)(cid:25) 1 : 78 (cid:145) greater than for the optimal static arrangement.
A Community Assessment of Preschool Providers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion

A community assessment of preschool providers' attitudes was conducted to examine readiness for inclusive preschool participation. Participants included providers from private, community-based preschools, Head Start classes, and Chapter 1 programs. Multiple dimensions of preschool directors' and teachers' attitudes were assessed by examining their general attitudes toward inclusion, their attitudes toward serving children across diverse handicapping conditions and special needs, their perceived abilities and support needs in appropriately serving such children, and their actual behavioral choices when given an opportunity to sign up for inclusion-related activities. The findings indicated that respondents held moderately positive attitudes toward the general concept of inclusion. Providers differentiated between different types of special needs and they based decisions on where children should be served, accordingly. Implications for incremental development of inclusive options are discussed.
Impact of clinical pharmacy services on stress ulcer prophylaxis prescribing and related cost in patients with renal insufficiency

Compared to the general population, chronic kidney disease patients are more vulnerable to gastrointestinal haemorrhage and its morbidity and mortality. Due to the fear of gastrointestinal bleeding consequences in these patients on the one hand, and the perception of general safety of acid suppressive medications on the other hand, inappropriate stress ulcer prophylaxis (SUP) seems to be encountered in nephrology wards. The objectives of this study were to evaluate appropriateness of acid suppression therapy in kidney disease patients and to assess the role of clinical pharmacists to decrease inappropriate SUP prescribing and related costs for these patients.
Genomic Prediction of Barley Hybrid Performance

Hybrid breeding in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) offers great opportunities to accelerate the rate of genetic improvement and to boost yield stability. A crucial requirement consists of the efficient selection of superior hybrid combinations. We used comprehensive phenotypic and genomic data from a commercial breeding program with the goal of examining the potential to predict the hybrid performances. The phenotypic data were comprised of replicated grain yield trials for 385 two‐way and 408 three‐way hybrids evaluated in up to 47 environments. The parental lines were genotyped using a 3k single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array based on an Illumina Infinium assay. We implemented ridge regression best linear unbiased prediction modeling for additive and dominance effects and evaluated the prediction ability using five‐fold cross validations. The prediction ability of hybrid performances based on general combining ability (GCA) effects was moderate, amounting to 0.56 and 0.48 for two‐ and three‐way hybrids, respectively. The potential of GCA‐based hybrid prediction requires that both parental components have been evaluated in a hybrid background. This is not necessary for genomic prediction for which we also observed moderate cross‐validated prediction abilities of 0.51 and 0.58 for two‐ and three‐way hybrids, respectively. This exemplifies the potential of genomic prediction in hybrid barley. Interestingly, prediction ability using the two‐way hybrids as training population and the three‐way hybrids as test population or vice versa was low, presumably, because of the different genetic makeup of the parental source populations. Consequently, further research is needed to optimize genomic prediction approaches combining different source populations in barley.
Impacts of ‘Three Strikes and You're Out’ on Crime Trends in California and Throughout the United States

The impacts of Three Strikes on crime in California and throughout the U.S. are analyzed using cross-sectional time series analysis of state-level data from 1986 to 2005. The model measures both deterrence and incapacitation effects, controlling for pre-existing crime trends and economic, demographic, and policy factors. Despite limited usage outside California, the presence of a Three Strikes law appears to be associated with slightly but significantly faster rates of decline in robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft nationwide. Three Strikes is also associated with slower declines in murder rates. Although California’s law is the broadest and most-frequently-used Three Strikes policy, it has not produced greater incapacitation effects on crime than other states’ far more limited laws. The analyses indicate that the “toughest” sentencing policy is not necessarily the most effective option.
Constituent Parsing by Classification

Ordinary classification techniques can drive a conceptually simple constituent parser that achieves near state-of-the-art accuracy on standard test sets. Here we present such a parser, which avoids some of the limitations of other discriminative parsers. In particular, it does not place any restrictions upon which types of features are allowed. We also present several innovations for faster training of discriminative parsers: we show how training can be parallelized, how examples can be generated prior to training without a working parser, and how independently trained sub-classifiers that have never done any parsing can be effectively combined into a working parser. Finally, we propose a new figure-of-merit for best-first parsing with confidence-rated inferences. Our implementation is freely available at: http://cs.nyu. edu/~turian/software/parser/
The global burden of eating disorders

Purpose of review In 2015, the findings of the most recent Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), GBD 2013, were published. Burden was quantified for two eating disorders: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Recent findings In GBD 2013, burden was attributed to both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa particularly in young females in high-income countries. As low- and middle-income countries continue to develop and undergo cultural change, the burden of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in these countries will potentially rise. However, eating disorders present unique challenges in regards to epidemiological data and burden quantification methodology which makes trends in burden difficult to determine. Summary This article presents the GBD 2013 burden findings for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa and explores the methodology underpinning these estimates. Limitations of the available raw data and methodological challenges are discussed along with the real world implications of these findings and opportunities for the field.
Resource Dependence Theory: A Review

Thirty years have passed since Pfeffer and Salancik’s seminal work on resource dependence theory (RDT). During this time RDT has been applied broadly across the research domain to explain how organizations reduce environmental interdependence and uncertainty. In this review, the authors assess the conceptual development, empirical research, and application of RDT. They structure their review around the five options that Pfeffer and Salancik propose firms can enact to minimize environmental dependences: (a) mergers/vertical integration, (b) joint ventures and other interorganizational relationships, (c) boards of directors, (d) political action, and (e) executive succession.The authors summarize past work, synthesize contemporary thought, and propose future research directions.
Intravenous Thrombolysis in Stroke Attributable to Cervical Artery Dissection

Background and Purpose— Intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) for stroke seems to be beneficial independent of the underlying etiology. Whether this is also true for cervical artery dissection (CAD) is addressed in this study. Methods— We used the Swiss IVT databank to compare outcome and complications of IVT-treated patients with CAD with IVT-treated patients with other etiologies (non-CAD patients). Main outcome and complication measures were favorable 3-month outcome, intracranial cerebral hemorrhage, and recurrent ischemic stroke. Modified Rankin Scale score ≤1 at 3 months was considered favorable. Results— Fifty-five (5.2%) of 1062 IVT-treated patients had CAD. Patients with CAD were younger (median age 50 versus 70 years) but had similar median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores (14 versus 13) and time to treatment (152.5 versus 156 minutes) as non-CAD patients. In the CAD group, 36% (20 of 55) had a favorable 3-month outcome compared with 44% (447 of 1007) non-CAD patients (OR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.41 to 1.26), which was less favorable after adjustment for age, gender, and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score (OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.27 to 0.95; P=0.03). Intracranial cerebral hemorrhages (asymptomatic, symptomatic, fatal) were equally frequent in CAD (14% [7%, 7%, 2%]) and non-CAD patients (14% [9%, 5%, 2%]; P=0.99). Recurrent ischemic stroke occurred in 1.8% of patients with CAD and in 3.7% of non-CAD-patients (P=0.71). Conclusion— IVT-treated patients with CAD do not recover as well as IVT-treated non-CAD patients. However, intracranial bleedings and recurrent ischemic strokes were equally frequent in both groups. They do not account for different outcomes and indicate that IVT should not be excluded in patients who may have CAD. Hemodynamic compromise or frequent tandem occlusions might explain the less favorable outcome of patients with CAD.
Specialized podosome- or invadopodia-like structures (PILS) for focal trabecular meshwork extracellular matrix turnover.

PURPOSE There are distinctive areas of colocalization of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 and -14 on trabecular meshwork (TM) cells that resemble podosomes or invadopodia. Studies were conducted to determine whether TM cells exhibit podosome- or invadopodia-like structures (PILS) and whether they produce focal extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover. METHODS Porcine and human TM cells and perfused anterior segment organ cultures were studied. Localization of PILS components on TM cells and in sections from anterior segments was determined by immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy. Cells were grown on type I collagen labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) for degradation analysis. Confocal time lapse images were taken of labeled TM cells on FITC-collagen. RESULTS Immunostaining for MMP-2, MMP-14, and the typical PILS components cortactin, caldesmon, alpha-actinin, N-WASP, Arp-3, and cdc42 colocalized on these distinctive structures. Integrin-alphaV and -beta1, fibronectin, and versican colocalized with PILS components. TM cells on FITC-conjugated collagen developed focal regions of degradation. Time-lapse imaging showed dramatic and controlled movement of TM cell processes during this ECM degradation and fragment internalization. MMP-2, MMP-14, and cortactin colocalized at regions that appear to be PILS on cells within the outflow pathway in sections of human anterior segments. CONCLUSIONS TM cells exhibit areas where PILS components colocalize with MMP-2 and -14. Similar structures are found in sections, suggesting that PILS occur in situ in the outflow pathway. The collagen degradation suggests that PILS may serve as focal sites for targeted ECM turnover, an event linked to modifications of aqueous outflow resistance and intraocular pressure homeostasis.
Reference Values for Plasma Dipeptidyl Peptidase IV Activity and Their Association with Other Laboratory Parameters

Abstract In blood, the exopeptidase dipeptidyl-peptidase IV (DPPIV; EC 3.4.14.5) is predominantly present in a soluble form in plasma/serum and as an activation antigen on the membrane of lymphocytes (CD26). It modifies some important biologically active peptides (neuropeptides, chemokines), and a regulatory role for DPPIV/CD26 in immune and endocrine processes has been demonstrated. The aim of this study was to determine reference values for plasma/serum DPPIV activity and to study the association of this activity with a series of biochemical and hematological parameters and baseline characteristics such as age, gender, blood pressure and body mass index. We studied 481 healthy subjects aged between 19 and 61 years. The group consisted of 213 men and 268 women equally divided between the different categories of age. Among the women, 127 were taking hormone therapy (contraception/hormone replacement) and 141 were not. A multiple regression model shows that DPPIV activity decreases significantly with age. The activity in women is slightly lower than in men. We observed an important association with liver, muscle and lipid metabolism-related parameters. In this model, no significant contribution of body mass index, blood pressure or hormone therapy could be stated.
Development of Dual-Activity Vectors by Co-Envelopment of Adenovirus and SiRNA in Artificial Lipid Bilayers

Gene therapy with human adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) has been extensively explored for the treatment of diseases resistant to traditional therapies. Intravenous administration leads to rapid clearance from blood circulation and high liver accumulation, which restrict the use of Ad-based vectors in clinical gene therapy protocols that involve systemic administration. We have previously proposed that such limitations can be improved by engineering artificial lipid envelopes around Ad and designed a variety of artificial lipid bilayer envelopes around the viral capsid. In this study, we sought to explore further opportunities that the artificially enveloped virus constructs could offer, by designing a previously unreported gene therapy vector by simultaneous envelopment of Ad and siRNA within the same lipid bilayer. Such a dual-activity vector can offer efficacious therapy for different genetic disorders where both turning on and switching off genes would be needed. Dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy were used to characterize these vectors. Agarose gel electrophoresis, Ribo green and dot blot assays showed that siRNA and Ad virions can be enveloped together within lipid bilayers at high envelopment efficiency. Cellular uptake and in vitro transfection experiments were carried out to show the feasibility of combining siRNA-mediated gene silencing with viral gene transfer using these newly designed dual-activity vectors.
Feasibility study of tumor size classification via contrast-enhanced UWB breast imaging — A complex-domain analysis

Lesion classification using the tumor's backscatter signature can be very challenging in microwave breast imaging due to the small intrinsic contrast between the dielectric properties of dysplastic and normal tissues. A possible solution to this problem is to use microwave contrast agents such as microbubbles, where the differential breast response before and after the administration of the agent to a dysplastic inclusion is used to classify various anomaly properties (size, depth, morphology, etc.). In this paper, we study the feasibility of contrast-agent-aided imaging for lesion size classification by studying received signals in the complex domain. A finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) numerical phantom is employed to simulate electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation inside the breast and extract the reflected waveforms with and without microbubbles in the tumor site. The complex-domain transfer function of differential response is then used to draw the poles-zero plots (PZPs) and Bode plots (BPs), which demonstrate the viability of the proposed method for lesion size categorization.
Bidirectional Associations Between Self‐Regulation and Parenting Styles in Early Adolescence

The goal of this study was to explore bidirectional associations between teens' self-regulation and maternal and paternal parenting styles (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive-indulgent) over one year. As part of an ongoing longitudinal study, 489 teens ages 11–16 (51% female, 70% European American, 69% in two-parent households) and their parents completed questionnaires on two occasions. Analyses revealed high temporal stability of parenting and self-regulation over time. No cross-lagged effects emerged in either authoritative parenting model. Bidirectional effects were observed in the maternal authoritarian parenting model only. Child effects on parenting were revealed in both permissive-indulgent parenting models. The interpretation of these findings and their implications for future research are delineated in the discussion.