Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallel Behind Your Head

A miniature hair clip set-up presented to the first author gave inspiration for this study. After a number of studies investigating what is haptically perceived as parallel on horizontal, frontoparallel or midsagittal planes, the present study focusses on what is felt as parallel behind your head. The results show convincingly that also in this condition physically parallel is not the same as haptically parallel. Moreover, the deviations are large, idiosyncratic and in a direction predicted by assuming a biasing influence of an egocentric reference frame.
Hurt on the Hill: A Longitudinal Analysis of Obstacle Course Racing Injuries

Background: Obstacle course racing (OCR) has become a popular sport in recent years as it challenges participants’ mental and physical endurance through a combination of trail running and obstacles. There is currently only a limited amount of published work reporting injury types or rates at these events. Purpose: This study aims to build on the current literature, analyzing injury rates and patterns at OCR events. Methods: A secondary data analysis of deidentified medical charts from 33 OCR events in Canada from 2015 to 2017 was conducted. The scope of on-site care was first aid. Study Design: Descriptive epidemiology study. Results: A total of 1782 injuries occurred over 3 seasons from 73,366 participants, with an overall average injury rate of 2.4%; 1.0% (n = 17) of injuries required emergency medical services transport to a local emergency department, and the majority of these injuries were musculoskeletal in nature. The most common injuries treated were lacerations and musculoskeletal-related injuries; 93.9% of the injuries were able to be treated on site. These findings, in conjunction with the published literature, suggest that OCR medical teams should anticipate injury rates of up to 5.0% and a transportation rate of approximately 4.5% of those injuries to local emergency departments. Conclusion: The injury and transportation rates found in this study are congruent with the current literature and, most notably, they demonstrated a stable trend across a variety of course lengths (5-42 km ) and numbers of obstacles (≥20). While the majority of injuries may be treated on site, there is still a serious potential for life-threatening emergencies to occur.
Comprehensive multiyear carbon budget of a temperate headwater stream

Headwater streams comprise nearly 90% of the total length of perennial channels in global catchments. They mineralize organic carbon entering from terrestrial systems, evade terrestrial carbon dioxide (CO2), and generate and remove carbon through in‐stream primary production and respiration. Despite their importance, headwater streams are often neglected in global carbon budgets primarily because of a lack of available data. We measured these processes, in detail, over a 10 year period in a stream draining a 96 ha forested watershed in western Oregon, USA. This stream, which represents only 0.4% of the watershed area, exported 159 kg C ha−1 yr−1, similar to the global exports for large rivers. Stream export was dominated by downstream transport of dissolved inorganic carbon (63 kg C ha−1 yr−1) and by evasion of CO2 to the atmosphere (42 kg C ha−1 yr−1), leaving the remainder of 51 kg C ha−1 yr−1 for downstream transport of organic carbon (17 kg C ha−1 yr−1 and 34 kg C ha−1 yr−1 in dissolved and particulate form, respectively).
Contribution of Tau Pathology to Mitochondrial Impairment in Neurodegeneration

Tau is an essential protein that physiologically promotes the assembly and stabilization of microtubules, and participates in neuronal development, axonal transport, and neuronal polarity. However, in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), tau undergoes pathological modifications in which soluble tau assembles into insoluble filaments, leading to synaptic failure and neurodegeneration. Mitochondria are responsible for energy supply, detoxification, and communication in brain cells, and important evidence suggests that mitochondrial failure could have a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of AD. In this context, our group and others investigated the negative effects of tau pathology on specific neuronal functions. In particular, we observed that the presence of these tau forms could affect mitochondrial function at three different levels: (i) mitochondrial transport, (ii) morphology, and (iii) bioenergetics. Therefore, mitochondrial dysfunction mediated by anomalous tau modifications represents a novel mechanism by which these forms contribute to the pathogenesis of AD. In this review, we will discuss the main results reported on pathological tau modifications and their effects on mitochondrial function and their importance for the synaptic communication and neurodegeneration.
Role of Hysteroscopy in Diagnostic Evaluation of Intrauterine Causes of Abnormal Uterine Bleeding Compared to Pathology Reports

Background: Abnormal uterine bleeding is a common gynaecological problem affecting 25-35% women of reproductive age group and upto 50 % women of perimenopausal age group . there are various causes of AUB classified according to PALM COEIN classification . it is a debilitating condition affecting women in their middle age and its management depends on correct diagnosis. hysteroscopy is an important diagnostic modality used for diagnosis of structural causes of AUB . AIM of study: To study role of hysteroscopy in diagnostic evaluation of intrauterine causes of AUB compared to histopathology reports . Material and methods: This is a retrospective observational study in which we studied 350 patients of AUB who underwent hysteroscopy for diagnostic evaluation followed by guided biopsy of the lesions and D& C . hysteroscopic findings and histopathology reports were reviewed for all patients and correlated . Observation and results: 80 % patients were in peri and postmenopausal age group in our study . Commomest presenting symptom was menorrhagia . Hysteroscopy detected abnormality in 210 cases of AUB. Most common pathology seen on hysteroscopy was polyp followed by hyperplastic thickened endometrium. Sensitivity of hysteroscopy for detecting intrauterine pathology was 100 % and specificity was 76.5% . PPV and NPV value were 79.5% and 100% respectively . hysteroscopy detected all cases of polyp and submucous myomas . it overdiagnosed few cases of hyperplastic endometrium but did not miss any case of hyperplasia or malignancy . Conclusion: diagnostic hysteroscopy is good for evaluation of intrauterine causes of AUB and it correlates well with the hitopathology reports especially for the detection of polyps , submucous myomas and endometrial hyperplasia . hence it can be used as a first line diagnostic test for detection of these abnormalities and taking guided biopsy from any lesion ,however it can not replace biopsy and histopathological evaluation which gives a detail understanding about the nature of the pathology like hyperplastic endometrium and rulesout atypia and malignancy . hence hysteroscopy with guided biopsy should be ideal for diagnostic evaluation of intrauterine causes of AUB . keywords: hysteroscopy, AUB ,endometrial polyp, endometrial hyperplasia. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Date of Submission: 14 -07-2017 Date of acceptance: 29-09-2017 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Primary hematite in Neoarchean to Paleoproterozoic oceans

Banded iron formations (BIFs) are ironand silica-rich chemical sedimentary rocks formed throughout the Archean and Paleoproterozoic Eras. The presence of hematite (Fe2O3) and magnetite (Fe3O4) in BIFs has led to the widespread assumption that Fe(II) oxidation must have occurred in the ancient oceans via either a biological or chemical mechanism. However, it is unclear whether the ferric iron now present in BIF represents the original ferric oxyhydroxide [e.g., ferrihydrite, Fe(OH)3] precipitated in the water column, or if it is the result of later-stage circulation of oxidizing fl uids through the sediment pile. In this study, we conducted high-resolution microscopic investigations on BIF from the 2728 Ma Abitibi greenstone belt located in the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield and the 2460 Ma Kuruman Iron Formation in South Africa to ascertain the timing and paragenesis of the hematite. Three types of hematite are identifi ed by high-resolution electron microscopic characterization and selected area electron diffraction: (1) 3–5 nm ultrafi ne hematite particles in the iron oxide–rich bands (H1); (2) submicrometer subhedral to euhedral hema tite crystals randomly distributed in the chert matrix of transitional zones between iron oxide– and chert-rich bands (H2); and (3) needle-like, radial and fi brous hematite that replaced stilpnomelane or carbonates and is distributed along fractures or layer boundaries (H3). We interpret the fi rst two types as primary minerals dehydrated from precursor ferric oxyhydroxides. H1 remains ultrafi ne in size, while H2 has undergone an Ostwald coarsening process facilitated by internal fl uids produced during amorphous silica to quartz transformation. H3 is a later-stage mineral formed by external fl uid-mediated replacement of iron silicates or carbonates. These results indicate that a signifi cant fraction of the hematite in the BIF originated from ferric oxyhydroxide precursors. Importantly, this implies that photosynthetic Fe(II) oxidation, by either a direct or indirect biological mechanism, did exist in seawaters from which some BIF material was deposited.
Privacy-preserving Machine Learning through Data Obfuscation

As machine learning becomes a practice and commodity, numerous cloud-based services and frameworks are provided to help customers develop and deploy machine learning applications. While it is prevalent to outsource model training and serving tasks in the cloud, it is important to protect the privacy of sensitive samples in the training dataset and prevent information leakage to untrusted third parties. Past work have shown that a malicious machine learning service provider or end user can easily extract critical information about the training samples, from the model parameters or even just model outputs. In this paper, we propose a novel and generic methodology to preserve the privacy of training data in machine learning applications. Specifically we introduce an obfuscate function and apply it to the training data before feeding them to the model training task. This function adds random noise to existing samples, or augments the dataset with new samples. By doing so sensitive information about the properties of individual samples, or statistical properties of a group of samples, is hidden. Meanwhile the model trained from the obfuscated dataset can still achieve high accuracy. With this approach, the customers can safely disclose the data or models to third-party providers or end users without the need to worry about data privacy. Our experiments show that this approach can effective defeat four existing types of machine learning privacy attacks at negligible accuracy cost.
Contextual Bandits under Delayed Feedback

Delayed feedback is an ubiquitous problem in many industrial systems employing bandit algorithms. Most of those systems seek to optimize binary indicators as clicks. In that case, when the reward is not sent immediately, the learner cannot distinguish a negative signal from a not-yet-sent positive one: she might be waiting for a feedback that will never come. In this paper, we define and address the contextual bandit problem with delayed and censored feedback by providing a new UCB-based algorithm. In order to demonstrate its effectiveness, we provide a finite time regret analysis and an empirical evaluation that compares it against a baseline commonly used in practice.
Fusariotoxins in wheat grain in Serbia

Samples of wheat grain (41), collected during the 2010 harvest from seven localities in Serbia, were analyzed for the presence of zearalenone (ZEA), T-2 toxin, deoxynivalenol (DON) and fumonisine B1 (FB1). Results of Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) showed that all analysed samples were positive for the presence of at least one of four observed fusariotoxins. The most distributed mycotoxins were ZEA (90.2%, with the average concentration of 442.6μg kg-1) and T-2 (90.2%, with the average concentration of 24.2 μg kg-1). DON (73.2%) and FB1 (84.4%) were detected in a somewhat smaller number of samples, but their average concentrations were higher (1988.1 μg DON kg-1 and 882.7 μg FB1 kg-1). The established correlations between concentrations of DON and FB1 (r = 0.32) or DON and ZEA (r = 0.22) were not statistically significant. A negative correlation was established between concentrations of T-2 and FB1 (r= -0.24), as well as, between T-2 and DON (r = -0.36). Detected concentrations of ZEA and T-2 were bellow the level prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), while concentrations of FB1 and DON detected in five that is, 17 samples, respectively, were above the permissible limit for human consumption.
Chinese Lexical Analysis with Deep Bi-GRU-CRF Network

Lexical analysis is believed to be a crucial step towards natural language understanding and has been widely studied. Recent years, end-to-end lexical analysis models with recurrent neural networks have gained increasing attention. In this report, we introduce a deep Bi-GRU-CRF network that jointly models word segmentation, part-of-speech tagging and named entity recognition tasks. We trained the model using several massive corpus pre-tagged by our best Chinese lexical analysis tool, together with a small, yet high-quality human annotated corpus. We conducted balanced sampling between different corpora to guarantee the influence of human annotations, and fine-tune the CRF decoding layer regularly during the training progress. As evaluated by linguistic experts, the model achieved a 95.5% accuracy on the test set, roughly 13% relative error reduction over our (previously) best Chinese lexical analysis tool. The model is computationally efficient, achieving the speed of 2.3K characters per second with one thread.
Length of stay overestimates severity of post-ERCP pancreatitis: Is it time to revise the consensus definition?

Abstract Introduction Length of stay (LOS) is an important determinant of the severity of post-ERCP pancreatitis (PEP) in the consensus definition. The aim of our study was to evaluate and compare severity of PEP based on the revised Atlanta classification (RAC) and the consensus definition. Patients and methods Between 1/2000 and 12/2011, all adult patients admitted with suspicion of PEP after outpatient ERCP were evaluated. PEP was defined using the RAC, but the severity of PEP was defined using both revised Atlanta and consensus definitions. Results A total of 341 patients (mean age 49 years and 75 % females) were diagnosed with PEP. The consensus definition classified 57 %, 37 %, and 8 % of patients with mild, moderate, and severe PEP, respectively. The RAC diagnosed 94 %, 6 %, and 0 % with mild, moderate, and severe acute pancreatitis, respectively. Of the patients diagnosed with moderate-severe PEP by consensus definition, only 12.5 % had clinical parameters of pancreatitis severity, such as acute fluid collection(s), pancreatic necrosis, transient organ failure and/or required percutaneous or surgical drainage, while 87.5 % were classified only based on a LOS ≥ 4 days. The most common reason for increased LOS was persistent post-procedural abdominal pain in 47 % of patients, followed by other reasons not related to pancreatitis in 17 %. Conclusion The consensus definition overestimates the rates of severe PEP when compared to the RAC. The majority of PEP patients classified as moderate-severe PEP have extended LOS, due to post-procedural abdominal pain rather than complications of PEP.
Impact of Correlation between Link Blockages on Macro-Diversity Gains in mmWave Networks

Blocking objects between a transmitter and receiver cause the transition of wireless communication links from line-of-sight (LOS) to non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation. This reduces the received power, particularly at higher frequencies such as millimeter wave (mmWave). We consider a form of macro-diversity in a mmWave cellular network in which a mobile user attempts to connect to two base stations (BSs) simultaneously, to increase the probability of having at least one LOS link. We develop a framework for determining the LOS probability when taking into account the correlation between blockages: for example, a single blockage close to the device could block multiple BSs. We also show that the BS density must scale as the square of the blockage density to maintain a given level of LOS probability.
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Migrants' support for welfare state spending in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands

This contribution describes differences between 10 migrant groups and natives in their attitudes towards government spending in three residence countries: Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. Previous research provided evidence that “ migrants ” as a catch ‐ all category of people from different origins are in favor of more government spending on social welfare. We study to what extent support for government spending can be explained by self ‐ interest explanations of welfare state attitudes as well as by differences in ideological position. The contribution employs data from the Migrants' Welfare State Attitudes project, including migrant groups from similar origins in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. The study moves beyond the larger migrant groups of Turks and Poles that received attention in previous research as well, and includes a greater variety of groups that differ in terms of their skill levels. The overall finding is that migrants' welfare state spending preferences are, as in the case of natives, significantly related to socio ‐ demographic differences and standard ideology measures of attitudes to regulation of the economy and family values. However, even with these standard variables included, spending preferences differ strongly between migrant groups, residence countries, and welfare spending domain. A comparison between country of origin and residence country provisions seems to be a promising path for further understanding migrant group differences in welfare state spending attitudes. The study challenges the idea that all migrants are supportive of extended welfare state arrangements.
Thymidylate synthase expression in primary colorectal cancer as a predictive marker for the response to 5-fluorouracil- and oxaliplatin-based preoperative chemotherapy for liver metastases

In patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM), predictive markers for response to preoperative chemotherapy are lacking. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the expression of thymidylate synthase (TS) and excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) as predictive markers in CRLM. A total of 24 patients with CRLM were included in this study. Tumor response was evaluated using the tumor regression grade (TRG) and Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) methods. TS and ERCC1 expression in paired CRLM and primary lesions were assessed by immunohistochemistry. We analyzed correlations between i) the response to preoperative chemotherapy evaluated by TRG and RECIST, ii) TS and ERCC1 expression and the response evaluated by TRG and RESICT, and iii) TS and ERCC1 expression in matched pairs of primary tumor and CRLM. The preoperative chemotherapy response evaluated by TRG and RECIST was significantly associated (P=0.0005). The response based on RECIST criteria and TRG was significantly associated with TS expression in the primary tumor (P=0.0272, and P=0.0137, respectively). No correlations were detected between marker expression in the primary tumor and in CRLM for either TS or ERCC1 (P=0.371 and P=1.00, respectively). Our data suggested that TS expression in the primary tumor is a predictive marker of preoperative chemotherapy response in CRLM based on both TRG and RECIST methods.
Distributed resource allocation through utility design - Part I: optimizing the performance certificates via the price of anarchy

Game theory has emerged as a novel approach for the coordination of multiagent systems. A fundamental component of this approach is the design of a local utility function for each agent so that their selfish maximization achieves the global objective. In this paper we propose a novel framework to characterize and optimize the worst case performance (price of anarchy) of any resulting equilibrium as a function of the chosen utilities, thus providing a performance certificate for a large class of algorithms. More specifically, we consider a class of resource allocation problems, where each agent selects a subset of the resources with the goal of maximizing a welfare function. First, we show that any smoothness argument is inconclusive for the design problems considered. Motivated by this, we introduce a new approach providing a tight expression for the price of anarchy (PoA) as a function of the chosen utility functions. Leveraging this result, we show how to design the utilities so as to maximize the PoA through a tractable linear program. In Part II we specialize the results to submodular and supermodular welfare functions, discuss complexity issues and provide two applications.
Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics Founder-CEOs, Investment Decisions, and Stock Market Performance

Eleven percent of the largest public U.S. firms are headed by the CEO who founded the firm. Founder-CEO firms differ systematically from successor-CEO firms with respect to firm valuation, investment behavior, and stock market performance. Founder-CEO firms invest more in R&D, have higher capital expenditures, and make more focused mergers and acquisitions. An equal-weighted investment strategy that had invested in founder-CEO firms from 1993–2002 would have earned a benchmarkadjusted return of 8.3% annually. The excess return is robust; after controlling for a wide variety of firm characteristics, CEO characteristics, and industry affiliation, the abnormal return is still 4.4% annually. The implications of the investment behavior and stock market performance of founder-CEO led firms are discussed.
Pre- and Post-Partum Whistle Production of a Bottlenose Dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) Mother-Calf Dyad

Vocal learning has been defined as the process by which an individual modifies its vocal repertoire as a result of the sound environment (Marler, 1976a; McCowan & Reiss, 1997). Vocal learning has been found in a number of species, including the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)(see review: Janik & Slater, 1997). Dolphins mimic sounds heard in their sound environment, and modify their vocal repertoire based on this mimicry. Much of the research on vocal learning in bottlenose dolphins has focused on whistle development in dolphin calves (Fripp et al. literature focuses on the sounds calves may select as part of their signature whistles and has suggested that a calf's signature whistle is strongly influenced by the sounds it hears, especially those sounds produced by conspecifics Few studies have addressed the ontogeny of whistle development during a calf's early life (McCowan & Reiss, 1995; Morisaka et al., 1995). Studies that have attempted to discuss the early development of calf acoustic repertoires, rarely address the roles of adult dolphin signature whistles in this development. For example, bottlenose dolphin mothers increase their signature whistle rates surrounding, and it has been suggested that this increase could serve as a model for dolphin calves in the development of their own signature whistle (Fripp & Tyack, 2008).