Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender Quotas for Legislatures and Corporate Boards

The global proliferation of quotas for women over the past 30 years is both remarkable and consequential. Targeting decision-making positions historically resistant to women’s equal inclusion, the adoption of electoral and corporate board quotas has at times been controversial. After adoption, quotas have influenced women’s numbers, the performance and outcomes of decision-making bodies, and broader public attitudes. In this review, we distinguish among types of electoral and corporate quotas, trace arguments for and against the adoption of quotas, and review research on factors that influence quota adoption across time and space. After outlining the methodological difficulties in demonstrating an impact of gender quotas, we review research that is able to isolate an impact of quotas in politics and business. We conclude by providing several suggestions to ensure that future research continues to advance our understanding of the form, spread, and impact of gender quotas. Expected final online publication .
One test, five scoring procedures: different ways of approaching the cognitive reflection test

ABSTRACT Although the cognitive reflection test (CRT) represents a frequently used instrument within the field of judgement and decision-making, its scope and detailed characteristics are still not well understood. Therefore, the present article discusses 5 different ways of scoring the CRT that include the regular CRT scoring procedure (CRT-Regular), adding up the intuitive answers (CRT-Intuitive), calculating the proportion of intuitive in total incorrect answers (CRT-Proportion Intuitive), scoring only non-intuitive answers irrespective of their correctness (CRT-Reflection) and calculating the proportion of correct in total non-intuitive answers (CRT-Calculation). We conducted 2 studies aimed at investigating the associations among these scoring techniques and their relationships with thinking dispositions, specifically the need for cognition, faith in intuition, superstitious thinking, maximising and post-choice regret. The results indicate that thinking dispositions play a modest role in explaining the performance on the CRT. The specific associations among the investigated dispositions and different CRT scoring techniques are discussed.
Image Inpainting Using Directional Tensor Product Complex Tight Framelets

In this paper we are particularly interested in the image inpainting problem using directional complex tight wavelet frames. Under the assumption that frame coefficients of images are sparse, several iterative thresholding algorithms for the image inpainting problem have been proposed in the literature. The outputs of such iterative algorithms are closely linked to solutions of several convex minimization models using the balanced approach which simultaneously combines the $l_1$-regularization for sparsity of frame coefficients and the $l_2$-regularization for smoothness of the solution. Due to the redundancy of a tight frame, elements of a tight frame could be highly correlated and therefore, their corresponding frame coefficients of an image are expected to close to each other. This is called the grouping effect in statistics. In this paper, we establish the grouping effect property for frame-based convex minimization models using the balanced approach. This result on grouping effect partially explains the effectiveness of models using the balanced approach for several image restoration problems. Inspired by recent development on directional tensor product complex tight framelets (TP-CTFs) and their impressive performance for the image denoising problem, in this paper we propose an iterative thresholding algorithm using a single tight frame derived from TP-CTFs for the image inpainting problem. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm can handle well both cartoons and textures simultaneously and performs comparably and often better than several well-known frame-based iterative thresholding algorithms for the image inpainting problem without noise. For the image inpainting problem with additive zero-mean i.i. d. Gaussian noise, our proposed algorithm using TP-CTFs performs superior than other known state-of-the-art frame-based image inpainting algorithms.
18 F-THK 523 : a novel in vivo tau imaging ligand for Alzheimer ’ s disease

F-THK523: a novel in vivo tau imaging ligand for Alzheimer’s disease Michelle T. Fodero-Tavoletti, Nobuyuki Okamura, Shozo Furumoto, Rachel S. Mulligan, Andrea R. Connor, Catriona A. McLean, Diana Cao, Angela Rigopoulos, Glenn A. Cartwright, Graeme O’Keefe, Sylvia Gong, Paul A. Adlard, Kevin J. Barnham, Christopher C. Rowe, Colin L. Masters, Yukitsuka Kudo, Roberto Cappai, Kazuhiko Yanai and Victor L. Villemagne
Human amniotic epithelial cell feeder layers maintain iPS cell pluripotency by inhibiting endogenous DNA methyltransferase 1

Maintaining induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in an undifferentiated, self-renewing state during long-term cultivation is, at present, a major challenge. We previously showed that human amniotic epithelial cells (HuAECs) were able to provide a good source of feeder cells for mouse and human embryonic or spermatogonial stem cells; however, the epigenetic mechanisms have not been elucidated. In the present study, mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and HuAECs were compared as feeder layers for the long-term culture of human iPS cells. The HuAEC feeders allowed human iPS cells to maintain a high level of alkaline phosphatase (AP) activity and to express key stem cell markers during long-term subculture whereas the MEF feeders did not,. Moreover, the HuAEC feeders significantly affected the cell cycle regulation of the iPS cells, maintaining them in the resting stage and the early stage of DNA synthesis (G0/G1 stage). Furthermore, the CpG islands of the Nanog and Oct4 promoters were hypomethylated, while the Nanog- and Oct4-specific loci exhibited higher levels of histone H3 acetylation and lower levels of H3K27 trimethylation in iPS cells cultured on HuAECs compared with those cultured on MEFs. The DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) expression in iPS cells cultured on HuAECs was shown to be lower than in those cultured on MEFs. In addition, DNMT1-silenced human iPS cells were able to maintain pluripotency over long-term culture on MEFs. In combination, these results suggest that endogenous DNMT1 expression in human iPS cells may be regulated by HuAEC feeder cells and that Nanog and Oct4 are crucial components required for the maintenance of iPS cells in an undifferentiated, proliferative state, capable of self-renewal.
Advanced search in the Qur'an using semantic modeling

The Qur'an is the religious text of Islam, distinguished by its miraculous style, it is considered as the basic reference for all Islamic sciences, and therefore it's very sensitive to model its content for fear to make bad assumptions and axioms. In recent years a number of researches has been done to facilitate the retrieval of knowledge from the Qur'an, but most of the available researches are using human readable data resources and therefore cannot be reused and linked using semantic web technologies, this is why in this project we will adopt an approach that enables humans and computers to understand the Qur'an knowledge throughout the creation of a Qur'anic ontology. The goal of the ontology is to build a computational model capable of representing as much as possible of the concepts mentioned on the Qur'an and the relationships between them using Protégé-OWL. The ontology can be queried using SPARQL queries, we also developed a search engine that will parse user's questions by extracting and stemming the keywords, and then it generates SPARQL queries using the concepts defined by the ontology.
LEXICAL ENTRAINMENT IN SPONTANEOUS DIALOG

It is often desirable to predict or constrain the lexical choices people make with spoken language systems. I discuss lexical variability in language use; while there is a great deal of variability across conversations, there is little within. In conversation, people achieve conceptual pacts, or shared conceptualizations, which they mark by using the same terms; this process of lexical entrainment limits and systematizes lexical variability (Brennan & Clark, 1996). In text and speech dialogs with computer systems, people often adopt the systems' terms; this process shares some aspects in common with lexical entrainment, and it differs in some ways as well. After summarizing five experiments on lexical variability with human partners and computers, I present some implications of this work for spoken language systems.
Facebook Use and Social Capital - A Longitudinal Study

How does the use of social networking sites (SNSs) affect social capital offline and online? The increasing popularity of SNSs such as Facebook (FB) implies a significant change in the way we interact with others. In an extensive longitudinal study (N = 311), carried out in Norway between 2008 - 2010, we examined the relationship between FB use and social capital, with a focus on interpersonal interaction, including face-to-face (F2F) interaction. Our findings suggest that overall FB use does not significantly affect offline capital, despite a significant increase in the use of FB from 2008 to 2010, after controlling for age, gender and education. However, different types of communication strategies on FB correlate with various kinds of F2F interaction. Importantly, FB users who focus on FB communication with their close friends, also interact more frequently with their close friends F2F, compared to those using FB to communicate with "online strangers”. The results also indicate that FB has become an important tool for keeping in touch with family members and existing friends rather than forming new connections.
EFFECT OF AGE ON TIME-COMPRESSED SPEECH PERCEPTION AND SPEECH PERCEPTION IN NOISE IN NORMAL-HEARING INDIVIDUALS

Background: This work studied, in individuals with normal hearing, the perception of time-compressed speech, compression ratio, and speech perception in noise using phonemically balanced (PB) word lists in Kannada. The effect of age was also studied. Materials and Methods: Participants were 29 young and middle-aged adults (native Kannada speakers) aged 15 to 50 years. The Speech Perception in Noise (SPIN) test was administered at signal to noise ratios (SNRs) of +5 dB, 0 dB, –5 dB, and in quiet. The Time-Compressed Speech Test (TCST) was administered on all participants at compression ratios of 0%, 40%, 50%, and 60%. Results: Young adults performed better than middle-aged adults in both the TCST and SPIN tests. As difficulty levels rose, performance decreased in both tests. Conclusions: Even in individuals with normal hearing, ageing has a deleterious effect on the performance of the central auditory processing system, which is necessary for speech perception under adverse listening conditions.
On The Optimal Two-Block H ∞ Problem

This paper provides the duality structure of the optimal two-block H∞ problem. The dual description leads naturally to a numerical solution based on convex programming for LTI (including infinite dimensional) systems. Alignment conditions are obtained and show that the optimal solution is flat in general, and unique in the SISO case. It is also proved that under specific conditions a well-known HankelToepltiz operator achieves its norm on the discrete spectrum, therefore generalizing a similar result obtained formerly for finite-dimensional (rational) systems. The norm of this HankelToeplitz operator corresponds to the optimal two-block H∞ performance.
How Does the Stadium Atmosphere at a College Football Game Affect Behavioral Intentions Across Gender Lines? The Mediating Role of Spectator Satisfaction

This study, grounded in the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, examines the mediating role of spectator satisfaction in the relationship between sports stadium atmosphere (SSA) and spectatorsâ€™ behavioral intentions in the context of American college football. It also investigates if gender differences are evident in the hypothesized pathways. Survey data collected from 211 spectators during a 2014 college football game were analyzed using structural equation modeling procedure. Supporting the S-O-R model, the direct association between SSA and behavioral intentions was not significant but the effect of SSA on word-of-mouth was fully mediated by spectator satisfaction in both males and females. However, satisfaction mediated the effects of SSA on intent to recommend and intent to attend for females but not males. We discuss managerial and theoretical implications for sports managers
Regionally selective atrophy of subcortical structures in prodromal HD as revealed by statistical shape analysis

Huntington disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that involves preferential atrophy in the striatal complex and related subcortical nuclei. In this article, which is based on a dataset extracted from the PREDICT‐HD study, we use statistical shape analysis with deformation markers obtained through “Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping” of cortical surfaces to highlight specific atrophy patterns in the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, at different prodromal stages of the disease. On the basis of the relation to cortico‐basal ganglia circuitry, we propose that statistical shape analysis, along with other structural and functional imaging studies, may help expand our understanding of the brain circuitry affected and other aspects of the neurobiology of HD, and also guide the most effective strategies for intervention. Hum Brain Mapp 35:792–809, 2014. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Secondary Solid Organ Neoplasm in Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Nationwide Population-Based Study in Taiwan

Background Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is more common in children than in adults. Secondary neoplasms (SNs) in childhood ALL have been widely reported. However, only one study has demonstrated SNs in adult ALL. Because of the poorer survival of adult ALL, the incidence might be underestimated. Objective To evaluate the incidence and risk factors of secondary solid organ neoplasms among adult and child ALL patients. Methods Newly diagnosed ALL patients between 1997 and 2011 were recruited from the Taiwan National Health Insurance database. Those who had antecedent or combined malignancies were excluded. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were analyzed to compare the risk of our cohort to general population in the same age, sex and calendar year. Risk factors for SN development were analyzed by Cox proportional hazards models. Effects of treatments were treated as time-dependent variables. Results The 15-year cumulative incidence of SN was 1.9% and 8.4% in 1,381 child and 2,154 adult ALL patients, respectively. The SIR was significantly increased in child ALL (SIR 6.06), but not in adult ALL (SIR 1.16). The SIRs of follow-up periods were 5.14, 2.24, . 87 and . 71 at ≥ 10 years, 5–10 years, 1–5 years and 0–1, respectively. Overall, 15 SNs developed, and CNS tumors (SIR 11.56) were the most common type. Multivariate analysis showed that age ≥ 20 years (hazard ratio [HR] 5.04), end-stage renal disease (HR 18.98) and cranial irradiation (HR 8.12) were independent risk factors for cancer development. Conclusions When compared with the general population, child ALL shows a increased risk of developing SNs. CNS tumors are the most common type, and cranial irradiation is an independent risk factor. With longer follow-up, the risk of SNs increases. Hence, physicians need to pay more attention on the risk of developing SNs in long-term ALL survivors with risk factors.
Changes in Serum Adenosine Deaminase Activity during Normal Pregnancy

Adenosine deaminase (ADA), an enzyme essential for the differentiation of lymphoid cells, has been used for monitoring diseases with altered immunity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in serum ADA activity throughout normal pregnancy. We measured the catalytic values of serum ADA from 202 normal pregnant women using a commercial kit. Subjects were divided into four groups according to the gestational age in weeks (Gwks) (Group I: 5-9 Gwks [n=58]; Group II: 15-20 Gwks [n= 63]; Group III: 24-30 Gwks [n=34]; Group IV: 30-39 Gwks [n=47]). The serum ADA levels for the Groups I, II, III, and IV were as follows: 20.1±6.9 IU/L, 20.0±7.6 IU/L, 37.9±19.9 IU/L, and 24.5±8.6 IU/L, respectively. The serum ADA activity of group III was significantly higher than the other groups (p<0.05). However, there was no significant correlation between the Gwks and the serum ADA activity. Furthermore, other parameters, such as maternal age (p=0.29), gestational age at delivery (p=0.07), delivery mode (p=0.39), and birth weight (p=0.59) had no correlation with ADA activity. Reference values of serum ADA in normal pregnancy may provide important database for making clinical decisions in pregnancies complicated by conditions where cellular immunity has been altered.
Using Convolutional Neural Network Filters to Measure Left-Right Mirror Symmetry in Images

We propose a method for measuring symmetry in images by using filter responses from Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). The aim of the method is to model human perception of left/right symmetry as closely as possible. Using the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) approach has two main advantages: First, CNN filter responses closely match the responses of neurons in the human visual system; they take information on color, edges and texture into account simultaneously. Second, we can measure higher-order symmetry, which relies not only on color, edges and texture, but also on the shapes and objects that are depicted in images. We validated our algorithm on a dataset of 300 music album covers, which were rated according to their symmetry by 20 human observers, and compared results with those from a previously proposed method. With our method, human perception of symmetry can be predicted with high accuracy. Moreover, we demonstrate that the inclusion of features from higher CNN layers, which encode more abstract image content, increases the performance further. In conclusion, we introduce a model of left/right symmetry that closely models human perception of symmetry in CD album covers.
Cognitive impairment in chronic kidney disease:are oculomotor tests an effective detection marker?

People with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at increased risk of developing cognitive impairment (CI) compared to the general population, in fact, it has been estimated that 60% of people with CKD are cognitively impaired. Despite this high percentage, there is no adequate screening process for the detection of CI in this high risk population. Lack of a suitable diagnostic tool therefore allows impairment to go unchecked, increasing the risk of dementia evolution. Previous research has demonstrated that oculomotor tasks may be advantageous over traditional neuropsychological measures for detecting CI in early Alzheimer’s disease, specifically uncorrected error rate in the anti-saccade paradigm. This particular measure examines individuals’ inhibitory control, self-monitoring and executive functioning abilities. Consequently, these facets of cognitive functioning are commonly found to be impaired in people with CKD. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of uncorrected error rate in the anti-saccade paradigm as a detection tool for CI in people with CKD. In a cross-sectional design, 44 CKD patients and 25 controls completed the anti-saccade task and a neuropsychological battery that assessed global ability, working memory, and executive function. The prevalence of CI was evaluated, as was the anti-saccade task’s ability in predicting the extent of cognitive impairment. Subsequently, it was found that uncorrected error rate was significantly higher in those with advanced CKD requiring haemodialysis, as was prevalence of CI according to scores in the neuropsychological battery. Furthermore, uncorrected error rate was predictive of deterioration in some cognitive abilities, namely visuospatial memory, verbal working memory, and verbal inhibitory control with small to moderate effect sizes. These results support previous research in that those with advanced CKD are more likely to have CI when compared to the general population. They also represent the first exploration of the anti-saccade paradigm as a monitoring tool for CI in CKD, and indicate that the antisaccade task has the potential to act as a cost and time-effective means of periodically assessing certain domains of cognition in people with CKD. Despite this, further work using the anti-saccade paradigm longitudinally and in larger population sizes is needed to confirm its use in clinical practice.
Video object segmentation using Eulerian region-based active contours

We address the problem of moving object segmentation using active contours. As far as segmentation of moving objects is concerned, region-based terms must be incorporated in the evolution equation of the active contour, in addition to classical boundary-based terms. In this paper, we propose a general framework for region-based active contours. Novel aspects of the segmentation method include a new Eulerian proof to compute the evolution equation of the active contour from the minimization of a criterion, and the introduction of functions name "descriptors" of the regions. In this proof, the dynamical scheme is directly introduced in the criterion before differentiation. With such a method, the case of descriptors depending on the evolution of the curve, i.e. depending upon features globally attached to the region, can readily be taken into account. The variation of these descriptors upon the evolution of the curve induces additional terms in the evolution equation of the active contour. The proof ensures the fastest decrease of the active contour towards a minimum of the criterion. Inside this theoretical framework, a set of descriptors is evaluated on real sequences for the detection of moving objects.
Association between venous thromboembolism and plasma levels of both soluble fibrin and plasminogen-activator inhibitor 1 in 170 patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty

Background and purpose Markers of coagulation and fibrinolysis, such as soluble fibrin (SF), D-dimer, and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), have been developed in order to determine thrombotic tendency. We investigated whether these markers could be used to diagnose venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the early phase after primary total hip arthroplasty (THA). Methods This prospective study involved 2 groups: an intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) group (67 patients who underwent IPC only as prophylaxis for VTE) and a fondaparinux (FPX) group (103 patients who received IPC and FPX postoperatively). Plasma levels of SF and PAI-1 were measured on postoperative day 1. To diagnose postoperative VTE, multi-detector row computed tomography (MDCT) and duplex ultrasonography (US) were performed on postoperative day 7. Results VTE was detected postoperatively in 17 cases in the IPC group (25%) and in 8 cases in the FPX group (6%). In the IPC group, plasma levels of SF and PAI-1 were higher in patients with VTE (p < 0.01) than in those without VTE. On the other hand, in the FPX group there were no differences in the levels of SF or PAI-1 measured before administration of FPX on postoperative day 1. The diagnostic criterion of an increase in SF or PAI-1 above the cutoff level (19.8 µg/mL and 53.5 ng/mL, respectively) provided a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 67% in the IPC group. In addition, when this criterion was applied to FPX patients, 7 of the 8 patients with VTE met the criterion, and there was a negative agreement rate of 48/49. Interpretation Screening using the cutoff levels of SF and PAI-1 may be useful and shows high sensitivity in predicting postoperative VTE in the early phase after THA.