Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Road Extraction by Using Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling Integrated Encoder-Decoder Network and Structural Similarity Loss

The technology used for road extraction from remote sensing images plays an important role in urban planning, traffic management, navigation, and other geographic applications. Although deep learning methods have greatly enhanced the development of road extractions in recent years, this technology is still in its infancy. Because the characteristics of road targets are complex, the accuracy of road extractions is still limited. In addition, the ambiguous prediction of semantic segmentation methods also makes the road extraction result blurry. In this study, we improved the performance of the road extraction network by integrating atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) with an Encoder-Decoder network. The proposed approach takes advantage of ASPP’s ability to extract multiscale features and the Encoder-Decoder network’s ability to extract detailed features. Therefore, it can achieve accurate and detailed road extraction results. For the first time, we utilized the structural similarity (SSIM) as a loss function for road extraction. Therefore, the ambiguous predictions in the extraction results can be removed, and the image quality of the extracted roads can be improved. The experimental results using the Massachusetts Road dataset show that our method achieves an F1-score of 83.5% and an SSIM of 0.893. Compared with the normal U-net, our method improves the F1-score by 2.6% and the SSIM by 0.18. Therefore, it is demonstrated that the proposed approach can extract roads from remote sensing images more effectively and clearly than the other compared methods.
Can the efficacy of electrically stimulated pedaling using a commercially available ergometer BE improved by minimizing the muscle stress–time integral?

Introduction: The cardiorespiratory and muscular strength benefits of functional electrical stimulation (FES) pedaling for spinal cord injury (SCI) subjects are limited because the endurance of electrically stimulated muscle is low. Methods: We tested new electrical stimulation timing patterns (Stim3, designed using a forward dynamic simulation to minimize the muscle stress–time integral) to determine whether SCI subjects could increase work and metabolic responses when pedaling a commercial FES ergometer. Work, rate of oxygen uptake (V̇O2), and blood lactate data were taken from 11 subjects (injury level T4–T12) on repeated trials. Results: Subjects performed 11% more work pedaling with Stim3 than with existing stimulation patterns (StimErg) (P = 0.043). Average (V̇O2) and blood lactate concentrations were not significantly different between Stim3 (442 ml/min, 5.9 mmol/L) and StimErg (417 ml/min, 5.9 mmol/L). Conclusion: The increased mechanical work performed with Stim3 supports the use of patterns that minimize the muscle stress–time integral to prolong FES pedaling. Muscle Nerve, 2012
The Influence of Cash Flow Volatility on Capital Structure and the Use of Debt of Different Maturities

The empirical literature on the relationship between capital structure and firm cash flow volatility is inconclusive. We explore this relationship using several measures of a firm's cash flow volatility and econometric methods that account for the non-linear relationship of proportional variables. Overall, our evidence indicates that ceteris paribus a one standard deviation increase from the mean of cash flow volatility implies an approximately 24% decrease in the long-term debt ratio, a 26% decrease in probability of holding debt with over 10years to maturity, and a 39% increase in the probability of holding neither short nor long term debt.
Depressive mood and frontal alpha asymmetry during the luteal phase in premenstrual dysphoric disorder

Patients with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) experience moderate to severe physical and mood symptoms during the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. The purposes of this study were to examine whether there were significant differences in frontal alpha asymmetry between PMDD and non‐PMDD women during a depressive induction condition during the luteal and follicular phases and to examine the relations between premenstrual distress and depressive symptoms, and frontal alpha asymmetry.
Bevacizumab alone and in combination with irinotecan in recurrent glioblastoma.

PURPOSE We evaluated the efficacy of bevacizumab, alone and in combination with irinotecan, in patients with recurrent glioblastoma in a phase II, multicenter, open-label, noncomparative trial. PATIENTS AND METHODS One hundred sixty-seven patients were randomly assigned to receive bevacizumab 10 mg/kg alone or in combination with irinotecan 340 mg/m(2) or 125 mg/m(2) (with or without concomitant enzyme-inducing antiepileptic drugs, respectively) once every 2 weeks. Primary end points were 6-month progression-free survival and objective response rate, as determined by independent radiology review. Secondary end points included safety and overall survival. RESULTS In the bevacizumab-alone and the bevacizumab-plus-irinotecan groups, estimated 6-month progression-free survival rates were 42.6% and 50.3%, respectively; objective response rates were 28.2% and 37.8%, respectively; and median overall survival times were 9.2 months and 8.7 months, respectively. There was a trend for patients who were taking corticosteroids at baseline to take stable or decreasing doses over time. Of the patients treated with bevacizumab alone or bevacizumab plus irinotecan, 46.4% and 65.8%, respectively, experienced grade > or = 3 adverse events, the most common of which were hypertension (8.3%) and convulsion (6.0%) in the bevacizumab-alone group and convulsion (13.9%), neutropenia (8.9%), and fatigue (8.9%) in the bevacizumab-plus-irinotecan group. Intracranial hemorrhage was noted in two patients (2.4%) in the bevacizumab-alone group (grade 1) and in three patients (3.8%) patients in the bevacizumab-plus-irinotecan group (grades 1, 2, and 4, respectively). CONCLUSION Bevacizumab, alone or in combination with irinotecan, was well tolerated and active in recurrent glioblastoma.
Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment During Economic Transition in Mongolia

This paper investigates the trends, patterns and determinants of foreign investment in Mongolia using a panel data set of 17 countries over 21 years. The empirical evidence suggest market growth rate, quality of infrastructure, geographic proximity and the Chinese economic boom are the important determinants of foreign direct investment in Mongolia. In terms of policy implications, our findings suggest that Mongolia can attract much needed technology and capital for ensuring employment-intensive growth, particularly in manufacturing and agriculture, through further reforms with a heavy focus on infrastructure development.
Accounting Aggregation And Decision-Making Performance - An Experimental Investigation

An important decision faced by accounting information system designers concerns the amount of detail to be incorporated into each accounting report. Too little detail may result in relevant information being omitted, whereas too much detail may lead to user confusion or frustration. Thus, a misjudgment in either direction can cause decision quality to be reduced. The objective of this study is to explore the effect of data aggregation on decision quality in an accounting context based on an hypothesized curvilinear relationship. Previous empirical studies (e.g., Barefield [1972], Abdel-khalik [1973], Chervany and Dickson [1974], and Harvey, Rhode, and Merchant [1979]) have provided some weak evidence that higher or lower levels of aggregation can lead to either better or worse performance, depending on the circumstances. While this prior work is consistent with a curvilinear hypothesis, predictions of the effect of aggregation on decision quality clearly require more detailed specifications of the form of the relationship. Our results provide weak support for one such curvilinear relationship. Two commonly used models of the accounting aggregation process, communication theory (as developed by Lev [1968]) and information economics (as developed by Demski [1972] and Feltham [1977]), do not provide an explicit rationale for predicting a deterioration in decision quality when a user is faced with a great deal of data (low level of aggregation). However, a change in decision quality is often incorporated in models of human information processing. All three models are seen as complementary and can be used in conjunction to provide an adequate
Achieving Scalable Push Multicast Services Using Global Name Resolution

This paper presents a novel approach to achieving scalable push multicast services using the distributed global name resolution service associated with emerging name-based network architectures. The proposed named-object multicast (NOMA) scheme employs unique names to identify multicast groups while using the global name resolution service (GNRS) to store the tree structure and maintain current mappings to mobile end-user addresses. The NOMA scheme achieves improved scalability and performance over conventional multicast protocols such as PIM-SM and MDSP by taking advantage of the GNRS to simplify tree management and limit control overhead. Performance evaluation results including comparisons with IP multicast are given using a combination of analysis and NS-3 simulation. The results show good scalability properties along with low control overhead for medium to large multicast groups. In addition, NOMA seamlessly handles mobility for end-hosts subscribed to a group, avoiding data losses upon mobility events. Results further demonstrate how separating names from addresses enables NOMA to dynamically forward traffic to mobile users. In conclusion, we describe a proof-of-concept prototype developed for further experimental validation of the proposed NOMA multicast routing scheme.
Institutional Investor Trading in a Short Investment Horizon: Evidence from the Korean Stock Market

Abstract We examine the weekly trading activities of institutional investors in the Korean stock market. First, we find that average net trades by institutional investors this week are negatively related to one-week lagged returns, suggesting that they could be contrarian traders. Second, our finding shows that institutional investors’ net trades this week are positively related to the net trades next week, consistent with persistent trading and/or herding behavior. Third, we find that institutional net trades are positively related to the post one-week returns. Finally, our findings are most pronounced in the group of short-term institutional investors.
Pediatric cervical spine injuries: defining the disease.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE Pediatric cervical spine injuries are uncommon. Most previous studies have been hampered by the small number of patients available for evaluation. The purpose of this study is to determine the incidence and characteristics of pediatric cervical spine injury utilizing a multiinstitutional pediatric trauma database, and to assess the impact of age and level of spine injury on mortality rate. METHODS All children with cervical spine injury entered into the National Pediatric Trauma Registry over a consecutive 10-year period were identified. Patients were stratified by age, mortality, presence or absence of bony injury, level of cervical spine injury, and presence of neurologic deficit. Data were analyzed utilizing Student's t test for continuous variables and chi(2) analysis for categorical variables. Statistical significance was accepted at the P less than . 05 level. RESULTS From a database of 75,172 injured children, 1,098 were identified with cervical spine injury, overall incidence 1.5%. The mean age of the study group was 11 +/- 5 years, and 61% were boys. Nine hundred eight children (83%) had bony spine injury. Distribution of bony injury among upper cervical spine, lower cervical spine, or both was 52%, 28%, and 7%, respectively. The remaining 13% comprised unspecified levels of injury. Upper cervical spine injuries were prevalent among all age groups (42%, age < or = 8; 58%, age > 8), whereas lower spine injuries predominated in older children (85%, age > 8). One third of children in the study group had neurologic injury, and half of these had no radiographic evidence of bony injury. Ninety-four children (24%) had a complete cord injury, and the remaining 76% had an incomplete spinal cord injury. One hundred eleven children (23%) with upper spine injury died compared with 11 children (4%) with lower spine injury. Mortality rate was highest (48%) in those with atlanto-occipital dislocation. CONCLUSIONS From this, the largest experience with pediatric cervical spine injury, several conclusions can be drawn. (1) Cervical spine injury occurs in 1.5% of injured children. (2) Upper cervical spine injuries are not limited to younger children but are equally prevalent in both age groups. (3) Associated mortality rate is nearly 6-fold higher in patients with upper cervical injury. (4) Seventeen percent of children with cervical spine trauma show no radiologic anomaly, yet 50% of children with cervical spinal cord injury have no initial radiologic abnormalities. (5) Of those in whom cervical spine injury is associated with a neurologic deficit, the deficit is complete in 24% of children.
Modification of engineering return-stroke models to include dispersion effects

Recently, Baba and Ishii (see ibid., vol.44, p.476-7, Aug. 2002) have presented a method to modify the transmission-line (TL) type model to incorporate current distortion. In this brief, we generalize their method, as well as an exponential decay return stroke speed model, to simple engineering return-stroke models, and investigate the influence of dispersion effects on associated electromagnetic fields. Results show that the proposed modification to the models eliminates the inherent discontinuity in the traveling current source (TCS) model and the Bruce-Golde (BG) model at the upward-moving front. In addition, it turns out that an increase in the current risetime with height does not have significant effect on magnetic hump, electric ramp, and distant zero crossing, while a rapid decrease in return stroke speed with height could affect these features.
An Individual Differences Measure of Attributions Affecting Helping Behavior

Incorporating individual differences in causal attributions has been successful in self perception but there has been little attention to attributional styles in person perception. A key domain in person perception is attributions affecting helping behavior. Attributing a negative outcome to causes personally controllable by the victim elicits anger/disgust toward the victim and low levels of aid. Thus, a tendency to make such attributions (i.e., an unsupportive attributional style) should reduce the likelihood of helping behavior. Two studies examined the factor structure, reliability, and predictive validity of the Reasons for Misfortune Questionnaire (RMQ), a measure of unsupportive attributional style. The findings demonstrate that unsupportive attributional style is an individual differences moderator variable in the attributional theory of helping behavior, and extend personality research on at-risk populations in health care domains.
The role of Doppler velocimetry in the management of high risk pregnancies.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether knowledge of the result of Doppler velocimetry of the umbilical artery is beneficial to the management of a high risk pregnancy. DESIGN Randomised controlled trial. The trial was of the management type, designed to assess benefit accruing from additional information supplied by Doppler velocimetry. SETTING Tygerberg Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. The hospital serves a population from the lower socio-economic groups. SUBJECTS Women with pregnancies 28 or more weeks gestation with hypertensive diseases and/or suspected small for gestational age fetuses were referred for Doppler velocimetry. From this population, three subsets were formed: 1. those with fetuses with absent end-diastolic velocities (20 fetuses); 2. those with hypertension but with fetuses with end-diastolic velocities (89 fetuses); and 3. those with fetuses suspected of being small for gestational age but with end-diastolic velocities (104 fetuses). INTERVENTIONS Doppler velocimetry on all subjects. The study group consisted of 10 cases with absent end-diastolic velocities, 47 cases with hypertensive diseases with end-diastolic velocities and 51 cases with suspected small for gestational age fetuses but with end-diastolic velocities in which the result was revealed to the clinician. The control group consisted of 10, 42 and 53 cases, respectively, in which the Doppler results were not revealed. All other routine investigations (sonar and antenatal fetal heart rate monitoring) were available to the clinicians. Standard management protocols were followed in all groups. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Perinatal mortality and morbidity, antenatal hospitalisation, maternal intervention, admission to the neonatal intensive care unit and hospitalisation until discharge from the neonatal wards. RESULTS In the study and control groups the gestational age at entry to the study, maternal age, parity and various complications were not significantly different. In the subset with absent end-diastolic velocities, there was one neonatal death in the study group, but in the control group there were six deaths, five intrauterine and one perinatally related infant death (P = 0.029). Because of this significant finding, the study was stopped. There were no differences in outcome in the subset where there was hypertensive disease with end-diastolic velocities between the study and control groups. In the subset in which small for gestational age fetuses were suspected, but in which end-diastolic velocities were present, the women in the study group had significantly fewer days in hospital before delivery (P < 0.001) and tended to have fewer maternal interventions (study group = 27%, control group = 43%; P = 0.07; odds ratio (OR) 0.49, 95% confidence limits (CL) 0.2 and 1.25) and caesarean sections (study group = 13%, control group = 27%; P = 0.08; OR 0.43, 95% CL 0.14 and 1.32). The infants of the study group in this subset also spent significantly less time in the neonatal wards (P = 0.029).
Cloning and evaluation of reference genes for quantitative real-time PCR analysis in Amorphophallus

Quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) has been widely used in the detection and quantification of gene expression levels because of its high accuracy, sensitivity, and reproducibility as well as its large dynamic range. However, the reliability and accuracy of RT-qPCR depends on accurate transcript normalization using stably expressed reference genes. Amorphophallus is a perennial plant with a high content of konjac glucomannan (KGM) in its corm. This crop has been used as a food source and as a traditional medicine for thousands of years. Without adequate knowledge of gene expression profiles, there has been no report of validated reference genes in Amorphophallus. In this study, nine genes that are usually used as reference genes in other crops were selected as candidate reference genes. These putative sequences of these genes Amorphophallus were cloned by the use of degenerate primers. The expression stability of each gene was assessed in different tissues and under two abiotic stresses (heat and waterlogging) in A. albus and A. konjac. Three distinct algorithms were used to evaluate the expression stability of the candidate reference genes. The results demonstrated that EF1-a, EIF4A, H3 and UBQ were the best reference genes under heat stress in Amorphophallus. Furthermore, EF1-a, EIF4A, TUB, and RP were the best reference genes in waterlogged conditions. By comparing different tissues from all samples, we determined that EF1-α, EIF4A, and CYP were stable in these sets. In addition, the suitability of these reference genes was confirmed by validating the expression of a gene encoding the small heat shock protein SHSP, which is related to heat stress in Amorphophallus. In sum, EF1-α and EIF4A were the two best reference genes for normalizing mRNA levels in different tissues and under various stress treatments, and we suggest using one of these genes in combination with 1 or 2 reference genes associated with different biological processes to normalize gene expression. Our results will provide researchers with appropriate reference genes for further gene expression quantification using RT-qPCR in Amorphophallus.
On some aspects of validation of predictive quantitative structure–activity relationship models

The success of any quantitative structure–activity relationship model depends on the accuracy of the input data, selection of appropriate descriptors and statistical tools and, most importantly, the validation of the developed model. Validation is the process by which the reliability and relevance of a procedure are established for a specific purpose. This review focuses on the importance of validation of quantitative structure–activity relationship models and different methods of validation. Some important issues, such as internal versus external validation, method of selection of training set compounds and training set size, applicability domain, variable selection and suitable parameters to indicate external predictivity, are also discussed.
LHRH neurons migrate into the trigeminal nerve when the developing olfactory nerve fibers are physically interrupted in chick embryos.

Most LHRH neurons actively migrate from the olfactory epithelium to the forebrain during embryonic days (ED) 3.5-8. When a small piece of the membrane filter was placed on the central course of the olfactory nerve in ED 3.5-5 chick embryos, LHRH neurons deviated from their regular migratory course at ED 6.5-7.5 to follow a route along the PSA-NCAM-positive medial and lateral nasal branches of the ophthalmic nerve of the trigeminal nerve. The olfactory nerve fibers which were specifically immunoreactive for somatostatin also deviated into the ophthalmic nerve. Enzymatic removal of PSA using endoneuraminidase did not interfere with the migration of LHRH neurons into the ophthalmic nerve bundle of the trigeminal nerve. The presence of structural supports seems to be primarily of importance in the migration of LHRH neurons along the olfactory and trigeminal nerve bundles. PSA may be less important for the migration of the LHRH neurons along peripheral neural elements.
Determinants of Banking Sector Performance in Pakistan

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between bank-specific and macro-economic indicator over bank performance by using data of ten Pakistani banks including five conventional banks and five Islamic banks over the period 2010-2014.Dependent variable taken for this study is Return on assets, Return on Equity to measure the Banking Sector Performance and independent variable taken for this study including specific factors (Size, Capital, Loan, Deposits, Expenses, Credit Risk and Liquidity) and macroeconomic factors (Gross Domestic Product ,Foreign Direct investment and Inflation). This paper uses the correlation and regression method to investigate the impact of size, loans, capital, deposits, liquidity, credit risk, expenses, economic growth, inflation and foreign direct investment on major performance indicators. The empirical results have found strong evidence that both internal and external factors have a strong influence on the performance. A result of study denotes that credit risk, expenses and inflation have indirect link with the bank performance, whereas size of bank, capital, deposit and loan have a significant positive relation with bankâ€™s performance and liquidity have insignificant positive relation with Performance of bank . This study reveals the positive insignificant relation between GDP and performance but significant relation between FDI and performance and indirect relation between inflation and profitability. The results of the study are of value to both academics and policy makers.