Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Placental thickness-to-estimated foetal weight ratios and small-for-gestational-age infants at delivery

Abstract This study aimed to determine the correlation between the placental thickness-to-estimated foetal weight ratio on midterm ultrasonography and small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants. In this retrospective study, the placental thickness at the umbilical cord insertion site was measured and adjusted for foetal body weight at 18–24 weeks gestation. Investigators compared the data of women who delivered SGA infants (birth weight <10th percentile) with those of women who delivered non-SGA infants. Among the 1281 women in this study, those who delivered SGA infants were younger and less likely to be obese. Women with higher placental thickness-to-estimated foetal weight ratios delivered more SGA infants. In logistic regression analysis, a higher placental thickness-to-estimated foetal weight ratio remained associated with SGA infants. Since the placental thickness-to-estimated foetal weight ratio in midterm pregnancy was associated with infant body weight at delivery, this ratio could be an effective, adjunctive screening marker for predicting SGA status.
The Determinants Of Sticky Cost Behavior On Political Costs, Agency Costs, And Corporate Governance Perspectives

This study aimed to investigate the determinants of sticky cost behavior of Thai listed companies by using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. In order to obtain the good-fit cost behavior model, the AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) program was employed to construct the measurement models to confirm the latent variables of the sticky cost behavior model through the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results indicate that the measurement models were good-fit models. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multiple regression analysis were utilized to specify the determinants of cost stickiness. The results show that adjustment costs and agency costs were positively associated with the degree of cost stickiness, whereas political costs and corporate governance were negatively associated with the degree of cost stickiness. These findings will contribute to management for understanding cost behavior which is critical to managers for planning, controlling and reducing costs. In addition, the result of this study will also contribute to investors and financial analysts for understanding managers’ behavior, which is useful information in making the investment decisions. However, it is not publicly disclosed.
Tryptophan-Containing Dual Neuroprotective Peptides: Prolyl Endopeptidase Inhibition and Caenorhabditis elegans Protection from β-Amyloid Peptide Toxicity

Neuroprotective peptides represent an attractive pharmacological strategy for the prevention or treatment of age-related diseases, for which there are currently few effective therapies. Lactoferrin (LF)-derived peptides (PKHs) and a set of six rationally-designed tryptophan (W)-containing heptapeptides (PACEIs) were characterized as prolyl endopeptidase (PEP) inhibitors, and their effect on β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) toxicity in a Caenorhabditis elegans model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was evaluated. Two LF-derived sequences, PKH8 and PKH11, sharing a W at the C-terminal end, and the six PACEI heptapeptides (PACEI48L to PACEI53L) exhibited significant in vitro PEP inhibition. The inhibitory peptides PKH11 and PACEI50L also alleviated Aβ-induced paralysis in the in vivo C. elegans model of AD. Partial or total loss of the inhibitory effect on PEP was achieved by the substitution of W residues in PKH11 and PACEI50L and correlated with the loss of protection against Aβ toxicity, pointing out the relevance of W on the neuroprotective activity. Further experiments suggest that C. elegans protection might not be mediated by an antioxidant mechanism but rather by inhibition of Aβ oligomerization and thus, amyloid deposition. In conclusion, novel natural and rationally-designed W-containing peptides are suitable starting leads to design effective neuroprotective agents.
Family Inequality, School Inequalities, and Mathematics Achievement in 65 Countries: Microeconomic Mechanisms of Rent Seeking and Diminishing Marginal Returns

Background While many studies show that greater economic inequality widens the achievement gap between rich and poor students, recent studies indicate that countries with greater economic inequality have lower overall student achievement. Purpose This study explores whether family inequalities (family income) or school inequalities (educational materials or teachers with university degrees) reduce overall student achievement through micro-economic mechanisms, such as fewer educational resources (via rent-seeking) or inefficient resource allocation (via diminishing marginal returns). Population/Participants/Subjects The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD-PISA) selected 475,760 representative fifteen-year-olds and their principals from 18,094 schools in 65 countries. Research Design In this secondary analysis, we tested whether family or school inequalities were related to students’ mathematics test scores, and whether fewer educational resources or inefficient resources allocation mediated these relationships. Data Collection and Analysis Each student received a mathematics test. The students and their principals also received a questionnaire. World Bank economic data on each countries were merged with the OECD-PISA data. To analyze this data, we used item response models, Warm indices and multilevel analyses. Findings/Results In countries with greater family inequality (GDP Gini) or school inequalities (of educational materials or teacher quality), students had lower mathematics achievement. The results were similar in all student subsamples (high vs. low SES; high vs. low achievement). As the mediation results for each inequality differed, they suggest that these inequalities operate through different mechanisms. Family inequality and school inequality of teacher quality are linked to fewer teachers with post-secondary education and lower mathematics achievement. Meanwhile, school inequality of educational resources is linked to diminishing marginal returns and lower mathematics achievement. Conclusions/Recommendations Family inequality and school inequalities (educational materials, teacher quality) are distinct inequalities that are all linked to lower mathematics achievement, but not substantially correlated with one another. Thus, each inequality can be addressed separately. As none of the subgroups of students (not even the richest ones) benefit from any of the inequalities, disseminating the results widely can help more laypeople (especially the richest ones) recognize their mutual benefit in reducing these inequalities –or reduce their inclination to support policies that exacerbate these inequalities. As reducing family inequality can be extremely costly and politically controversial, a strategic intervention at the inequality mechanism level (e.g., increasing teacher quality in schools with few high quality teachers) might be improve mathematics achievement more effectively.
Adaptation of the Participant Role Scale (PRS) in a Spanish Youth Sample

In recent years, bullying research has transitioned from investigating the characteristics of the bully–victim dyad to examining bullying as a group-level process, in which the majority of children play some kind of role. This study used a shortened adaptation of the Participant Role Scale (PRS) to identify these roles in a representative sample of 2,050 Spanish children aged 8 to 13 years. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed three different roles, indicating that the adapted scale remains a reliable way to distinguish the Bully, Defender, and Outsider roles. In addition, measurement invariance of the adapted scale was examined to analyze possible gender differences among the roles. Peer status was assessed separately by gender through two sociometric procedures: the nominations-based method and the ratings-based method. Across genders, children in the Bully role were more often rated as rejected, whereas Defenders were more popular. Results suggest that although the PRS can reveal several different peer roles in the bullying process, a more clear distinction between bullying roles (i.e., Bully, Assistant, and Reinforcer) could better inform strategies for bullying interventions.
Two CuII complexes of 3,4,5-trimethyl-1H-pyrazole

The crystal structures of two CuII complexes of 1-H-3,4,5-trimethylpyrazole, cis-[{CuCl[3,4,5-(CH3)3(C3H2N2)]2}2(μ-Cl)2] and [Cu{3,4,5-(CH3)3(C3HN2)}4(H2O)](NO3)2, are presented and compared to the 3-methyl-1H-pyrazole and 3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrozole analogues.
Effects of particle shape and size on nanofluid properties for potential Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)

Application of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in oil and gas industry is very important to increase oil recovery and prolong the lifetime of a reservoir but it has been very costly and losing properties of EOR agent due to harsh condition. Nanoparticles have been used in EOR application since they are not degradable in reservoir condition and used in smaller amount compared to polymer usage. Commonly, EOR techniques are focusing on increasing the sweep efficiency by controlling the mobility ratio between reservoir fluid and injected fluid. Thus, this research aimed to analyze the nanofluid viscosity at different particle size and shape, volumetric concentration and types of dispersing fluid, as well as to determine the oil recovery performance at different nanofluid concentration. The nanofluid viscosity was investigated at nanoparticle sizes of 15nm and 60nm and shapes of 15nm spherical-solid and porous. Five nanofluid samples with concentration ranging from 0.1wt. % to 7wt. % were used to investigate the effect of volumetric concentration. Distilled water, ethanol, ethylene glycol (EG) and brine were used for the effect of dispersing fluids. Oil recovery was investigated at five different concentrations of nanofluid samples through flooding test. It was found that viscosity of nanofluid increased with decreasing particle size and increasing volumetric concentration. Solid shape particle and increasing dispersing fluid viscosity resulted in higher nanofluid viscosity. The higher the nanofluid concentration, the higher the oil recovery obtained. It can be concluded that nanofluid properties have been significantly affected by the environment and the particle used for potential EOR application.
An early influence of common ground during speech planning

ABSTRACT In order to communicate successfully, speakers have to take into account which information they share with their addressee, i.e. common ground. In the current experiment we investigated how and when common ground affects speech planning by tracking speakers’ eye movements while they played a referential communication game. We found evidence that common ground exerts an early, but incomplete effect on speech planning. In addition, we did not find longer planning times when speakers had to take common ground into account, suggesting that taking common ground into account is not necessarily an effortful process. Common ground information thus appears to act as a partial constraint on language production that is integrated flexibly and efficiently in the speech planning process.
Enhanced hydrogen sorption properties over Mg2+ modified solvothermal synthesized HKUST-1 (Mg2+/HKUST-1)

The development of high capacity materials for hydrogen storage such as MOFs to support the utilization of hydrogen as a renewable energy source is an attractive area for further investigation. In this research, a well-known type of MOF, specifically HKUST-1, was synthesized using the solvothermal method and ex-situ modified with magnesium(II) ions at 3, 5, and 10 wt% to serve as additional binding sites to form Mg2+/HKUST-1. The resulting materials were analysed via XRD, FTIR, SEM-EDX, and a nitrogen sorption isotherm. Hydrogen sorption measurements were conducted using a Sievert system. The structure and morphology of HKUST-1 remained stable after it was embedded with Mg2+ according to X-ray diffraction, FTIR, and SEM analysis. Nitrogen sorption isotherm revealed that before and after modification with Mg2+, the materials could be classified as microporous and the surface area increased significantly from 713.283 to 1200.211 m2/g. The presence of Mg2+ in the HKUST-1 enhanced its hydrogen sorption capacity up to 0.292 wt% at 1.2 bar under an operational temperature of 30°C and 0.48 wt% at 80°C (1.4 bar).
Socioeconomic disparities in small-for-gestational-age birth and preterm birth.

BACKGROUND Maternal socioeconomic disadvantage has been associated with increased risk of small-for-gestational-age birth and preterm birth. Few studies, however, have considered maternal education and income simultaneously to better understand the mechanisms underlying perinatal health disparities. This analysis examines both maternal education and income and their association with the risk of small-for-gestational-age birth and preterm birth. DATA AND METHODS The study is based on 127,694 singleton live births from the 2006 Canadian Birth-Census Cohort, a national cohort of births registered from May 2004 to May 2006 that were linked to the 2006 long-form Census. Unadjusted rates of small-for-gestational-age birth (sex-specific birth weight below the 10th percentile for gestational age) and preterm birth (before 37 completed weeks of gestation) were estimated across selected maternal characteristics. Logistic regression was used to estimate crude and covariate-adjusted risk ratios of both outcomes according to maternal education and income adequacy quintiles. RESULTS Small-for-gestational-age birth was associated with both maternal education and income adequacy, while preterm birth was associated with maternal education only. These findings persisted after taking factors including maternal age, ethnicity, and marital status into account. The results suggest that the mechanism by which maternal education is associated with these outcomes is likely not through income, nor does income replace education as a potentially meaningful measure of socioeconomic position. INTERPRETATION The mechanisms underlying associations between socioeconomic position and perinatal health disparities are complex. The results of this study indicate that more than one socioeconomic factor may play a role.
Interval‐valued probabilistic linguistic term sets in multi‐criteria group decision making

The theory of probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) is very useful in objectively dealing with the multi‐criteria group decision making (MCGDM) problems in which there is hesitancy in providing linguistic assessments; and PLTSs allow experts to express their preferences on one linguistic term over another. In order to reflect the uncertainty and inconsistency of decision‐makers and handle incomplete linguistic information, we propose a new PLTS called interval‐valued probabilistic linguistic term set (IVPLTS). In addition, the existing approaches associated with PLTSs are limited or highly complex in real applications. Therefore, new operations, comparison laws, and aggregation operators are developed for IVPLTS. Furthermore, we establish an efficient framework for MCGDM problems based on the proposed comparison method and the fuzzy preference relation. Then we apply it to a real‐life case under linguistic environment. The extended TOPSIS methods combined with PLTSs by using different operational laws are also included for comparison. The final results demonstrate the efficiency and practicality of the new framework.
Dynamic Information Revelation in Cheap Talk

This paper studies a multi-stage version of Crawford and Sobel’s communication game. In every period the receiver determines a test about the unknown state whose result is privately observed by the sender. After the sender sends a costless message about an outcome of the test, the receiver selects a test in the next period. After a finite number of periods of interaction, the receiver makes a decision. The paper offers a sequence of tests that refine sender’s information step-by-step and preserve truthtelling in every period. This sequence allows the receiver to learn the state in a subinterval of the state space with an arbitrary precision and has appealing theoretical properties. It consists of simple binary tests which reveal whether the state is above a certain cutoff, where the cutoffs are monotonic across periods and independent from results of the previous tests. Finally, we show that the relative payoff efficiency of multi-stage interaction compared to a single-stage game increases without a bound as the bias in preferences tends to zero.
Variability in the sensitivity among model simulations of permafrost and carbon dynamics in the permafrost region between 1960 and 2009

A significant portion of the large amount of carbon (C) currently stored in soils of the permafrost region in the Northern Hemisphere has the potential to be emitted as the greenhouse gases CO2 and CH4 under a warmer climate. In this study we evaluated the variability in the sensitivity of permafrost and C in recent decades among land surface model simulations over the permafrost region between 1960 and 2009. The 15 model simulations all predict a loss of near‐surface permafrost (within 3 m) area over the region, but there are large differences in the magnitude of the simulated rates of loss among the models (0.2 to 58.8 × 103 km2 yr−1). Sensitivity simulations indicated that changes in air temperature largely explained changes in permafrost area, although interactions among changes in other environmental variables also played a role. All of the models indicate that both vegetation and soil C storage together have increased by 156 to 954 Tg C yr−1 between 1960 and 2009 over the permafrost region even though model analyses indicate that warming alone would decrease soil C storage. Increases in gross primary production (GPP) largely explain the simulated increases in vegetation and soil C. The sensitivity of GPP to increases in atmospheric CO2 was the dominant cause of increases in GPP across the models, but comparison of simulated GPP trends across the 1982–2009 period with that of a global GPP data set indicates that all of the models overestimate the trend in GPP. Disturbance also appears to be an important factor affecting C storage, as models that consider disturbance had lower increases in C storage than models that did not consider disturbance. To improve the modeling of C in the permafrost region, there is the need for the modeling community to standardize structural representation of permafrost and carbon dynamics among models that are used to evaluate the permafrost C feedback and for the modeling and observational communities to jointly develop data sets and methodologies to more effectively benchmark models.
Selection of den, rendezvous, and resting sites by wolves in the Bialowieza Forest, Poland

We studied wolf (Canis lupus) selection of 19 den, 10 rendezvous, and 31 resting sites found between 1986 and 2000 in the Bialowieza Forest (Poland). Our objective was to determine whether wolves selected sites far from villages, forest edges, and roads, and whether these sites had dense ground cover for concealment. We also tested whether wolves selected a particular forest type for their den sites. Den and rendezvous sites were located at greater distances from villages, forest edges, and intensively used roads than random points. Locations of resting sites were not affected by these manmade structures. Wolves selected dry coniferous forests for den sites but also used other forest types. We concluded that the suitability of an area for pup raising depended mainly on the spatial distribution of forest, human settlements, and public roads, and to a lesser extent on habitat characteristics.
What’s in a Domain? Learning Domain-Robust Text Representations using Adversarial Training

Most real world language problems require learning from heterogenous corpora, raising the problem of learning robust models which generalise well to both similar (in domain) and dissimilar (out of domain) instances to those seen in training. This requires learning an underlying task, while not learning irrelevant signals and biases specific to individual domains. We propose a novel method to optimise both in- and out-of-domain accuracy based on joint learning of a structured neural model with domain-specific and domain-general components, coupled with adversarial training for domain. Evaluating on multi-domain language identification and multi-domain sentiment analysis, we show substantial improvements over standard domain adaptation techniques, and domain-adversarial training.
Real-time communication systems based on taut strings

We consider buffered real-time communication over channels with time-dependent capacities which are known in advance. The real-time constraint is imposed in terms of limited transmission time between sender and receiver. For a network consisting of a single channel it is shown that there is a coding rate strategy, geometrically characterized as a taut string, which minimizes the average distortion with respect to all convex distortion-rate functions. Utilizing the taut string characterization further, an algorithm that computes the optimal coding rate strategy is provided. We then consider more general networks with several connected channels in parallel or series with intermediate buffers. It is shown that also for these networks there is a coding rate strategy, geometrically characterized as a taut string, which minimizes the average distortion with respect to all convex distortion-rate functions. The optimal offline strategy provides a benchmark for the evaluation of different coding rate strategies. Further, it guides us in the construction of a simple but rather efficient strategy for channels in the online setting which alternates between a good and a bad state.
Association between FTO gene polymorphism (rs9939609 T/A) and cancer risk: a meta‐analysis

&NA; Obesity is a risk factor of cancer. Several genes have been found to play an important role in aetiology of obesity and tumourigenesis. Recently, some studies suggested that rs9939609 polymorphism might be significantly associated with cancer risk, while the results of some other studies were controversial. Databases with time limitation from January 1984 to April 2015 were searched. The pooled odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval was calculated to assess the associations, and subgroup meta‐analyses were performed according to the type of cancer and ethnicity of the study populations. Overall, the significant association between rs9939609 polymorphism and cancer risk was found in homozygote model and recessive model. As to subgroup classified by cancer type, there was significant association in endometrial cancer and pancreatic cancer, while no statistical significance was detected in other kind of cancers. Besides, in the subgroup analysis of ethnicity, our results indicated that rs9939609 polymorphism was significantly associated with cancer risk in Asians. The rs9939609 polymorphism may be involved the susceptibility of endometrial cancer and pancreatic cancer, especially in Asian populations. Thus, rs9939609 may be a potential biomarker in early diagnosis or gene therapy target of endometrial cancer and pancreatic cancer.