Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of Trait Anxiety and Social Desirability with White Blood Cell Counts

The present study aimed to examine the association of trait anxiety and social desirability (SOD) with granulocyte (GRA) and lymphocyte (LYM) counts in healthy adults. Subjects were 23 (9 males and 14 females) eligible adults. Trait anxiety and SOD were assessed using the Anxiety and Lie Scores of the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS), respectively. White blood cells were counted by flow cytometry. Data were analyzed by logistic regression analyses. The results showed that the odds ratio (OR) of MAS score was significant for prediction of GRA count (OR: 1.399, p=0.032) and also for neutrophil (NEU) count (OR: 1.381, p=0.040). The OR of Lie Scale scores was significant for LYM count (OR: 0.165, p=0.036) and also for GRA count (OR: 1.879, p=0.048). The present study suggests that healthy subjects with higher trait anxiety have a higher GRA count.
Simulating Perverse Sheaves in Modular Representation Theory

For some time we have studied the representation theory of semisimple algebraic groups in characteristic p > 0. Of special interest is a celebrated conjecture of Lusztig [Ll] describing the characters of the simple modules when p is not too small relative to the root system. A similar conjecture, by Kazhdan and Lusztig [KLl], for the composition factor multiplicities of Verma modules for semisimple complex Lie algebras, has already been proved [BB] and [BK]. The method of proof was to establish a correspondence-actually an equivalence of categories-between a category containing the relevant Lie algebra modules and a category of “perverse sheaves”, where powerful geometric methods had already decided the issue (see Kazhdan and Lusztig [KL], and later treatments by Lusztig and Vogan [LV] and MacPherson [Sp]). Our recent research has centered on constructing a framework putting the salient features of the characteristic p modules as well as the characteristic 0 Lie algebra modules and perverse sheaves under one algebraic roof. The relevant notion is that of an abstract highest weight category, and the related concept of a quasi-hereditary algebra, as defined and developed by us in [CPSl], [CPS2], [CPS3]. In [PSI the second two authors succeeded in showing that the relevant perverse sheaves formed such an abstract highest weight category, and that their derived category coincided with the relative derived category of constructible sheaves appearing in the arguments of MacPherson cited above. Of course, our framework also encompasses the characteristic p modules we wish to study, so now it is possible and interesting to take a different viewpoint: What properties of perverse sheaves can be proved in the
Macroeconomic Trade-Offs and Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

Esta tese estuda os dilemas entre os niveis (Phillips) e as variâncias (Taylor) do hiato de desemprego e da inflacao, no conjunto da zona Euro, nas ultimas tres decadas do Seculo XX, bem como as implicacoes para o regime de politica monetaria da Area.O dilema de Phillips e analisado num modelo de componentes nao observaveis, estimado por maxima verosimilhanca com o filtro de Kalman, cujas principais equacoes de medida sao a curva de Phillips e a lei de Okun, e no qual a taxa de desemprego de equilibrio (NAIRU) inclui uma deriva estocastica, enquanto a tendencia do produto inclui uma deriva constante. Testes de assimetria nao rejeitam a hipotese da linearidade da curva de Phillips, indicando que existiu uma assimetria convexa na lei de Okun durante 1972-2000. Mostra-se que os dados da zona Euro sao compativeis com a curva de Phillips novo-keynesiana, desde que se admita algum desvio face a hipotese das expectativas racionais e que o hiato de desemprego seja calculado com uma NAIRU variavel e consistente com o modelo.No que respeita ao dilema de Taylor, documenta-se uma melhoria substancial a volta de 1986 e mostra-se que parte daquela melhoria se deve a emergencia dum regime de politica monetaria bem definido no conjunto da Zona, caracterizado por um objectivo de baixa taxa de inflacao. Os dois metodos alternativos usados - controlo optimo com estimacao pelo metodo dos momentos generalizados, e programacao dinâmica com estimacao por maxima verosimilhanca de informacao completa - estimam uma funcao preferencia do banco central nocional da Area em que o hiato nao e argumento significativo, o objectivo e uma inflacao pouco acima de 2.5 por cento, e o instrumento de politica evolui gradualmente. Ambos os metodos fornecem sinais de que choques de oferta algo mais suaves, e maior eficiencia na conducao da politica monetaria, terao tambem contribuido para a reducao da volatilidade macroeconomica. Finalmente, sugere-se um metodo para teste de assimetria nas preferencias das autoridades de politica monetaria, que se aplica aos nossos dados pos 1986, por forma a apresentar os resultados sobre o regime monetario da zona Euro duma forma alternativa.
Improved Defect Detection in Textile Visual Inspection Using Wavelet Analysis and Support Vector Machines.

This paper aims at investigating a novel solution to the problem of defect detection from textile images using the Discrete Wavelet Transform Analysis and the Support Vector Machines (SVM) classification approach, that can find applications in the design of robust quality control systems for the textile industry. The suggested solution focuses on detecting defects for textile manufacturing applications from their discrete wavelet transformation and vector quantization related properties of the associated wavelet coefficients. More specifically, a novel methodology is investigated for discriminating defects by applying a supervised neural classification technique, namely SVM, to innovative multidimensional wavelet based feature vectors. These vectors are extracted from the K-Level 2-D DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform) transformed original image using Vector Quantization techniques and a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) Analysis applied to these wavelet domain quantization vectors. The results of the proposed methodology are illustrated in defective textile images where the defective areas are recognized with higher accuracy than the one obtained by applying two rival defect detection methodologies. The first one of them uses all the wavelet coefficients derived from the k-Level 2-D DWT and involves SVM again in the classification stage, while the second one uses again all the wavelet coefficients derived from the k-Level 2-D DWT but involves a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network in the classification stage. The promising results herein shown outline the importance of judicious selection and processing of 2-D DWT wavelet coefficients for industrial pattern recognition applications as well as the generalization performance benefits obtained by involving SVM neural networks instead of other ANN models.
Trace Norm Regularized Matrix Factorization for Service Recommendation

We present in this paper a novel QoS prediction approach to tackle service recommendation, which is to recommend services with the best QoS to users. QoS prediction exploits available QoS information to estimate users' QoS experience from previously unknown services. In this regard, it can be modeled as a general matrix completion problem, which is to recover a large QoS matrix from a small subset of QoS entires. The infinite number of ways to complete an arbitrary QoS matrix makes the problem extremely ill posed. The highly sparse QoS data further complicates the challenges. Nonetheless, real-world QoS data exhibits two key features, which can be leveraged for accurate QoS predictions, leading to high-quality service recommendations. First, QoS delivery can be significantly affected by a small number dominant factors in the service environment (e.g., communication link and user-service distance). Hence, it is natural to assume that the QoS matrix has a low-rank or approximately low-rank structure. Second, users (or services) that share common environmental factors are expected to receive (or deliver) similar QoS and hence can be grouped together. The proposed approach seamlessly amalgamates these two features into a unified objective function and employs an effective iterative algorithm to approach the optimal completion of an arbitrary QoS matrix. We conduct a set of experiments on real-world QoS data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Primary marine aerosol emissions: size resolved eddy covariance measurements with estimates of the sea salt and organic carbon fractions

Primary marine aerosol fluxes were measured using eddy covariance (EC), a condensation particle counter (CPC) and an optical particle counter (OPC) with a heated inlet. The later was used to discriminate between sea salt and total aerosol. Measurements were made from the 25m tower at the research station Mace Head at the Irish west coast, May to September 2002. The aerosol fluxes were dominated by upward fluxes, sea spray from bubble bursting at the ocean surface. The sea salt aerosol number emissions increased two orders of magnitude with declining diameter from 1 to 0.1 um where it peaked at values of 105 to 107 particles m−2s−1. The sea salt emissions increased at all sizes in the wind range 4 to 22 ms−1, in consistency with a power function of the wind speed. The sea salt emission data were compared to three recent sub micrometer sea salt source parameterisations. The best agreement was with Martensson et al. (2003), which appear to apply from 0.1 to 1.1 um diameters in temperate water (12oC) as well as tropical water (25oC). The total aerosol emissions were independent of the wind speed below 10ms−1, but increased with the wind above 10ms−1. The aerosol volume emissions were larger for the total aerosol than for the sea salt at all wind speeds, while the sea salt number emissions approached the total number emissions at 15 ms−1. It is speculated that this is caused by organic carbon in the surface water that is depleted at high wind speeds. The data are consistent with an internal aerosol mixture of sea salt, organic carbon and water. Using the aerosol model by Ellison et al. (1999) (a mono-layer of organic carbon surrounding a water-sea-salt brine) we show that the total and sea salt aerosol emissions are consistent. This predict that the organic carbon fraction increase with decreasing diameter from a few % at 1 μm over 50% at about 0.5 um to about 90% at 0.1 um, in consistency with simulta25 neous chemical data by Cavalli et al. (2004). The combined models of Martensson et al. (2003) and Ellison et al. (1999) reproduce the observed total aerosol emissions and offer an approach to model the organic sea spray fraction.
Constructing and exploring composite items

Nowadays, online shopping has become a daily activity. Web users purchase a variety of items ranging from books to electronics. The large supply of online products calls for sophisticated techniques to help users explore available items. We propose to build composite items which associate a central item with a set of packages, formed by satellite items, and help users explore them. For example, a user shopping for an iPhone (i.e., the central item) with a price budget can be presented with both the iPhone and a package of other items that match well with the iPhone (e.g., {Belkin case, Bose sounddock, Kroo USB cable}) as a composite item, whose total price is within the user's budget. We define and study the problem of effective construction and exploration of large sets of packages associated with a central item, and design and implement efficient algorithms for solving the problem in two stages: summarization, a technique which picks k representative packages for each central item; and visual effect optimization, which helps the user find diverse composite items quickly by minimizing overlap between packages presented to the user in a ranked order. We conduct an extensive set of experiments on Yahoo! Shopping1 data sets to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our algorithms.
Hyperglycemia and nocturnal systolic blood pressure are associatedwith left ventricular hypertrophy and diastolic dysfunction in hypertensive diabetic patients

Background: The aim of this study was to determine if hypertensive type 2 diabetic patients, when compared to patients with essential hypertension have an increased left ventricular mass index (LVMI) and a worse diastolic function, and if this fact would be related to 24-h pressoric levels changes. Methods: Ninety-one hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) (group-1 [G1]), 59 essential hypertensive patients (group-2 [G2]) and 26 healthy controls (group-3 [G3]) were submitted to 24-h Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) and echocardiography (ECHO) with Doppler. We calculated an average of fasting blood glucose (AFBG) values of G1 from the previous 4.2 years and a glycemic control index (GCI) (percentual of FBG above 200 mg/dl). Results: G1 and G2 did not differ on average of diurnal systolic and diastolic BP. However, G1 presented worse diastolic function and a higher average of nocturnal systolic BP (NSBP) and LVMI (NSBP = 132 ± 18 vs 124 ± 14 mmHg; P < 0.05 and LVMI = 103 ± 27 vs 89 ± 17 g/m2; P < 0.05, respectively). In G1, LVMI correlated with NSBP (r = 0.37; P < 0.001) and GCI (r = 0.29; P < 0.05) while NSBP correlated with GCI (r = 0.27; P < 0.05) and AFBG (r = 0.30; P < 0.01). When G1 was divided in tertiles according to NSBP, the subgroup with NSBP≥140 mmHg showed a higher risk of LVH. Diabetics with NSBP≥140 mmHg and AFBG>165 mg/dl showed an additional risk of LVH (P < 0.05; odds ratio = 11). In multivariate regression, both GCI and NSBP were independent predictors of LVMI in G1. Conclusion: This study suggests that hyperglycemia and higher NSBP levels should be responsible for an increased prevalence of LVH in hypertensive patients with Type 2 DM. Published: 12 September 2006 Cardiovascular Diabetology 2006, 5:19 doi:10.1186/1475-2840-5-19 Received: 03 July 2006 Accepted: 12 September 2006 This article is available from: http://www.cardiab. com/content/5/1/19 © 2006 Felício et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Differential expression of synaptophysin and synaptoporin mRNAs in the postnatal rat central nervous system

Synaptophysin and synaptoporin are two homologous integral membrane proteins of small synaptic vesicles. Here, the distribution of the corresponding transcripts in the CNS of the rat was investigated by in situ hybridization using sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes. Synaptophysin mRNA was abundantly distributed through all major brain regions, whereas synaptoporin transcripts displayed a more restricted localization in telencephalic structures. Resolution at the cellular level disclosed a differential labeling of distinct cell types in different areas, suggesting that synaptophysin and synaptoporin are expressed by specific subpopulations of central neurons. Consistent with this conclusion, relative synaptoporin mRNA contents were found to vary between different brain regions during postnatal development, whereas synaptophysin transcripts showed a more uniform increase during the same period.
Including social goals in achievement motivation research: Examples from the Philippines

Traditional theories of achievement motivation such as achievement goal theory mostly neglected its more social aspects. This paper focuses on social goal as a key construct and argues for the need to include social goals in the research agenda. This is especially important when conducting research among collectivist societies where the interdependent self-construal is more salient. Examples of social goal research done within one collectivist culture, the Philippines, are provided. Overall, social goal research in the Philippines supports the inclusion of social goals when examining students’ motivational dynamics. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu. edu/orpc/vol5/iss3/4
Behavioral economics and its applications in finance

Traditional theories in economics state that people make their decisions in order to maximize their utility function and all the relevant constraints and preferences are included and weighted appropriately. In other words, in standard models, it is usually assumed that decision makers are fully rational. However, some studies in behavioral economics and finance suggest that individuals deviate from standard models. Behavioral economic models try to make standard models more realistic by modifying these assumptions. This thesis focuses on some applications of behavioral economics in three chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on individuals’ deviations from standard preferences. Based on standard models, individuals have the same preferences about future plans at different points in time and the discounting factor between any two time periods is independent of when utility is evaluated. However, robust laboratory experiments show choice reversal behavior in humans and animals. The aim of chapter 1 is to find an approach for measuring the decision makers’ awareness of choice reversal by analyzing demand for commitment. We use the data from an experimental study by Casari (2009) to measure the awareness of the selfcontrol problem. Also, the welfare implications of introducing a commitment device are studied in this chapter. The results show that decision makers are partially aware of their self-control problems. Moreover, introducing a costless commitment device can increase the total welfare of the studied population. This increase depends on individuals’ awareness of future choice reversal. The aim of chapter 2 is to analyze stock price movements as a result of fundamental or technical shocks under a heterogeneous agents model (HAM). In this study, it is assumed that the market involves heterogeneous agents that have different rules for trading and that prices are endogenously determined through interactions between these agents. I use the numerical simulation method to examine changes in the prices as the result of fundamental shocks. The result of this chapter indicates that increasing heterogeneity in technical trading strategies could lead to more price oscillations, which is consistent with the excess volatility in stock prices. The aim of chapter 3 is to predict stock price movements under a new HAM. I use the HAM framework proposed in the previous chapter. The value added by this chapter is estimating stock prices in a heterogeneous agent environment where chartists use different moving average trading strategies. I use monthly data from S&P 500 from 1990 until 2012 and discuss the forecasting ability of the model. The results of this chapter show that the presented model has a better one-step ahead, out-of-sample forecasting power compared with Boswijk et al. (2007) and Chiarella et al. (2012).
Macroscopic and microscopic thermal equilibrium

We study the nature of and approach to thermal equilibrium in isolated quantum systems. An individual isolated macroscopic quantum system in a pure or mixed state is regarded as being in thermal equilibrium if all macroscopic observables assume rather sharply the values obtained from thermodynamics. Of such a system (or state) we say that it is in macroscopic thermal equilibrium (MATE). A stronger requirement than MATE is that even microscopic observables (i.e., ones referring to a small subsystem) have a probability distribution in agreement with that obtained from the micro‐canonical, or equivalently the canonical, ensemble for the whole system. Of such a system we say that it is in microscopic thermal equilibrium (MITE). The distinction between MITE and MATE is particularly relevant for systems with many‐body localization (MBL) for which the energy eigenfuctions fail to be in MITE while necessarily most of them, but not all, are in MATE. However, if we consider superpositions of energy eigenfunctions (i.e., typical wave functions ψ) in an energy shell, then for generic macroscopic systems, including those with MBL, most ψ are in both MATE and MITE. We explore here the properties of MATE and MITE and compare the two notions, thereby elaborating on ideas introduced in .
The role of learning in firm R&D persistence

This paper analyses the role of learning in the persistence of the firms’ decision to perform R&D activities using firm level panel data. We estimate discrete time proportional hazard models accounting both for firm observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The data used is a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms drawn from the Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales, for the period 1990-2000. After controlling for other firm and industry characteristics that might have an effect on firm persistence in R&D activities, we find that learning from R&D performance affects persistence in R&D activities.
Performance of hemoglobin A1c assay methods: good enough?

Two very interesting articles on hemoglobin A1c (Hb A1c)2 method performance appear in this issue of Clinical Chemistry . Woodworth et al. (1) use Hb A1c as an example of how the risk of reporting inaccurate results can be estimated to guide individualized QC strategies. They assess the risk of reporting unreliable Hb A1c results with 6 different methods in 4 academic medical centers; 5 are laboratory instruments and 1 is a point-of-care (POC) method. Patient-weighted σ metrics were calculated on the basis of 1–2s QC rules with an average of 1 QC for every 100 samples. The authors found considerable differences in the risk of reporting unreliable results among the methods used at these sites, and that only 1 method, the Capillarys2 Flex Piercing, achieved a patient-weighted σ metric >3 at a total error allowable (TEa) of 6%. This total error limit is also used for College of American Pathologists (CAP) proficiency testing and National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program (NGSP) certification and is considered optimal for clinical care at this time. This means that for all but the aforementioned method, “maximum QC (three levels, three times per day) should be performed to achieve the necessary error detection. ” Of note was that for some methods there was a substantial amount of bias (up to 5.8% relative for values within the reference interval), and CV values were higher than the recommended 2% for either the high or low QC for 3 of the methods studied (2). The maximum number of Hb A1c results out of 100 expected to be unreliable from an out-of-control condition at TEa of 6% ranged from 0.60 to 71.48 (! ), and for 2 methods the number of results expected to be unreliable was >19 of 100 even when …
Neural basis of motivational approach and withdrawal behaviors in neurodegenerative disease

The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) have been theorized as neural systems that regulate approach/withdrawal behaviors. Behavioral activation/inhibition balance may change in neurodegenerative disease based on underlying alterations in systems supporting motivation and approach/withdrawal behaviors, which may in turn be reflected in neuropsychiatric symptoms.