Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Project Screening with Tiered Evaluation

We study a Bayesian game of two-sided incomplete information in which an agent, who owns a project of unknown quality, considers proposing it to an evaluator, who has the choice of whether or not to accept it. There exist two distinct tiers of evaluation that differ in the benefits they deliver to the agent upon acceptance of a project. The agent has to select the tier to which the project is submitted for review. Making a proposal incurs a cost on the agent in the form of a submission cost. We examine the effect of changes in the payoff parameters at the two tiers of evaluation on the efficiency of the equilibrium outcome. We show that changes in these parameters that are aimed at increasing the level of self-screening exerted by the agent do not necessarily have beneficial effects either on the quality of projects submitted for review or on the quality of projects that are implemented. From a methodological viewpoint, our paper proposes a novel method of performing comparative statics in games whose equilibria are defined by a system of equations with no closed-form solution.
Gender-Linked Hypertension in Offspring of Lard-Fed Pregnant Rats

Abstract—Epidemiological studies suggest an association between maternal nutrition and offspring cardiovascular disease. We previously demonstrated endothelial dysfunction and abnormal aortic fatty acid composition in adult female offspring of rats fed animal lard during pregnancy. We have now further investigated this model. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a control breeding diet (5.3% fat) or a diet rich in lard (25.7% fat) 10 days before and throughout pregnancy and lactation. Male and female offspring were implanted with radiotelemeters for recording of blood pressure, heart rate, and activity at 80, 180, and 360 days of age. Reactivity to acetylcholine and to nitric oxide were assessed in isolated small mesenteric arteries from 80- and 180-day-old littermates. Systolic blood pressure (awake phase) was raised in female offspring (180 days: offspring of control, 130.7±1.6 mm Hg, n=5, versus offspring of lard-fed, 138.1±2.9, n=5, P =0.029; 360 days: offspring of control, 129.7±3.7 mm Hg, n=6, versus offspring of lard-fed, 142.1±3.2, n=6, P =0.005). Diastolic blood pressure was also raised at 180 days (offspring of control, 87.6±1.0 mm Hg, n=5, versus offspring of lard-fed, 94.7±2.6, n=5, P =0.011). Blood pressure was not raised in male offspring. Endothelium-dependent relaxation to acetylcholine was blunted in male and female offspring of lard-fed dams (80 and 180 days). Feeding a diet rich in lard to pregnant rats leads to gender-related cardiovascular dysfunction in normally fed offspring.
The dual effect of membrane potential on sodium conductance in the giant axon of Loligo

This paper contains a further account of the electrical properties of the giant axon of Loligo. It deals with the 'inactivation' process which gradually reduces sodium permeability after it has undergone the initial rise associated with depolarization. Experiments described previously (Hodgkin & Huxley, 1952a, b) show that the sodium conductance always declines from its initial maximum, but they leave a number of important points unresolved. Thus they give no information about the rate at which repolarization restores the ability of the membrane to respond with its characteristic increase of sodium conductance. Nor do they provide much quantitative evidence about the influence of membrane potential on the process responsible for inactivation. These are the main problems with which this paper is concerned. The experimental method needs no special description, since it was essentially the same as that used previously (Hodgkin, Huiley & Katz, 1952; Hodgkin & Huxley, 1952b).
Approaching Shannon's capacity limit by 0.2 dB using simple Hamming codes

The authors show that the Shannon capacity limit for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel can be approached within 0.27 dB at a bit error rate (BER) of 10/sup -5/ by applying long but simple Hamming codes as component codes to an iterative turbo-decoding scheme. In general, the complexity of soft-in/soft-out decoding of binary block codes is rather high. However, the application of a neurocomputer in combination with a parallelization of the decoding rule facilitates an implementation of the decoding algorithm in the logarithmic domain which requires only matrix additions and multiplications. But the storage requirement might still be quite high depending on the interleavers used.
Benchmarking the (1+1)-CMA-ES on the BBOB-2009 noisy testbed

We benchmark an independent-restart-(1+1)-CMA-ES on the BBOB-2009 noisy testbed. The (1+1)-CMA-ES is an adaptive stochastic algorithm for the optimization of objective functions defined on a continuous search space in a black-box scenario. The maximum number of function evaluations used here equals 104 times the dimension of the search space. The algorithm could only solve $4$ functions with moderate noise in 5-D and 2 functions in 20-D.
An Incomplete Data Approach to the Ecological Inference Problem

In this paper, we propose to formulate ecological inference as a coarse data problem where only a subset of the complete-data sample space is observed. Applying the related assumptions and theoretical results of Heitjan and Rubin (1991), we formally identify three key factors that aect ecological inference; distributional, contextual and aggregation eects. Dierent modeling strategies are discussed to deal with distributional and contextual eects. While aggregation eects cannot be statistically adjusted, we show how to formally quantify the magnitude of such eects through the use of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm. The paper concludes with simulations and empirical applications that assess the performance of the proposed models. C-code used to implement the proposed method is available with easy-to-use R interface.
The Long-Term Effect of an Independent Capacity Protocol on Emergency Department Length of Stay: A before and after Study

Purpose In this study, we determined the long-term effects of the Independent Capacity Protocol (ICP), in which the emergency department (ED) is temporarily used to stabilize patients, followed by transfer of patients to other facilities when necessary, on crowding metrics. Materials and Methods A before and after study design was used to determine the effects of the ICP on patient outcomes in an academic, urban, tertiary care hospital. The ICP was introduced on July 1, 2007 and the before period included patients presenting to the ED from January 1, 2005 to June 31, 2007. The after period began three months after implementing the ICP from October 1, 2007 to December 31, 2010. The main outcomes were the ED length of stay (LOS) and the total hospital LOS of admitted patients. The mean number of monthly ED visits and the rate of inter-facility transfers between emergency departments were also determined. A piecewise regression analysis, according to observation time intervals, was used to determine the effect of the ICP on the outcomes. Results During the study period the number of ED visits significantly increased. The intercept for overall ED LOS after intervention from the before-period decreased from 8.51 to 7.98 hours [difference 0.52, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.04 to 1.01] (p=0.03), and the slope decreased from -0.0110 to -0.0179 hour/week (difference 0.0069, 95% CI: 0.0012 to 0.0125) (p=0.02). Conclusion Implementation of the ICP was associated with a sustainable reduction in ED LOS and time to admission over a six-year period.
Executive attention, action selection and attention-based learning in neurally controlled autonomous agents

I describe the design and implementation of an integrated neural architecture, modelled on human executive attention, which is used to control both automatic (reactive) and willed action selection in a simulated robot. The model, based upon Norman and Shallice's supervisory attention system, incorporates important features of human attentional control: selection of an intended task over a more salient automatic task; priming of future tasks that are anticipated; and appropriate levels of persistence of focus of attention. Recognising that attention-based learning, mediated by the limbic system, and the hippocampus in particular, plays an important role in adaptive learning, I extend the Norman and Shallice model, introducing an intrinsic, attention-based learning mechanism that enhances the automaticity of willed actions and reduces future need for attentional effort required for dealing with distractions. These enhanced features support a new level of attentional autonomy in the operation of the simulated robot. Some properties of the model are explored using lesion studies, leading to the identification of a correspondence between the behavioural pathologies of the simulated robot and those seen in human patients suffering dysfunction of executive attention.
Computer Generated Stereoscopic Artwork

The focus of this work is to investigate and simulate artistic techniques in stereoscopy that go beyond stereo photography, such as stereoscopic painting. We briefly discuss the topic from a stereo artist's perspective and map some of our observations from traditional stereo techniques to the scientific domain, where we use them to tackle technical tasks involved in the generation of stereo artwork. We describe a framework that we use in our stereoscopic image-based non-photorealistic rendering algorithms, but it can be adopted by other single-view artistic image synthesis techniques in order to generate stereoscopic output.
A Case of Systemic Mastocytosis Associated with Acute Myeloid Leukemia Terminating as Aleukemic Mast Cell Leukemia after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

In up to 40% of systemic mastocytosis (SM) cases, an associated clonal hematological non-mast cell lineage disease such as AML is diagnosed before, simultaneously with, or after the diagnosis of SM. A 40-yr-old man was diagnosed with AML with t(8;21)(q22;q22). Mast cells were not noted at diagnosis, but appeared as immature forms at relapse. After allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), leukemic myeloblasts were not observed; however, neoplastic metachromatic blasts strikingly proliferated during the state of bone marrow aplasia, and finally, aleukemic mast cell leukemia developed. As the disease progressed, we observed serial morphologic changes from immature mast cells with myeloblasts to only metachromatic blasts and atypical mast cells as mast cell leukemia; FISH analysis showed that the neoplastic mast cells originated from the same clone as the leukemic myeloblasts of AML.
A research on the construction of team leadership effectiveness and its relationship with big-five personality

Methods based on the relative team theory and logical analysis, the paper supposed the theoretical model of the Team Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire. Date was collected from 237 students who had the experience of student organization, The Team Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire was composed of perceived leadership effectiveness, leadership satisfaction, and task achievement by means of expletory factor-analysis, the cumulative variance was 64.43%. Furthermore, 28 task teams completed the Team Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire; the result of Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the theoretical model of the Team Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire. The validation and reliability of the Questionnaire were good. The results of correlation analysis showed that there was no differences between self and other assessment, team leader's personality have a moderate influence on team leadership effectiveness.
WWOX induces apoptosis and inhibits proliferation of human hepatoma cell line SMMC-7721.

AIM To investigate the effects of the WWOX gene on the human hepatic carcinoma cell line SMMC-7721. METHODS Full-length WWOX cDNA was amplified from normal human liver tissues. Full-length cDNA was subcloned into pEGFP-N1, a eukaryotic expression vector. After introduction of the WWOX gene into cancer cells using liposomes, the WWOX protein level in the cells was detected through Western blotting. Cell growth rates were assessed by methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) and colony formation assays. Cell cycle progression and cell apoptosis were measured by flow cytometry. The phosphorylated protein kinase B (AKT) and activated fragments of caspase-9 and caspase-3 were examined by Western blotting analysis. RESULTS WWOX significantly inhibited cell proliferation, as evaluated by the MTT and colony formation assays. Cells transfected with WWOX showed significantly higher apoptosis ratios when compared with cells transfected with a mock plasmid, and overexpression of WWOX delayed cell cycle progression from G1 to S phase, as measured by flow cytometry. An increase in apoptosis was also indicated by a remarkable activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3 and a dephosphorylation of AKT (Thr308 and Ser473) measured with Western blotting analysis. CONCLUSION Overexpression of WWOX induces apoptosis and inhibits proliferation of the human hepatic carcinoma cell line SMMC-7721.
Divorce and separation

With the Family Law Act in 1975 came the concept of the 'no-fault divorce'. There is now only a single ground for divorce - 'irretrievable breakdown' of the marriage. The court is no longer concerned about the reasons behind the breakdown of the marriage - such as whether a spouse has committed adultery, or who left who and how.
Deconstructing the Bat Skin Microbiome: Influences of the Host and the Environment

Bats are geographically widespread and play an important role in many ecosystems, but relatively little is known about the ecology of their associated microbial communities and the role microbial taxa play in bat health, development, and evolution. Moreover, few vertebrate animal skin microbiomes have been comprehensively assessed, and thus characterizing the bat skin microbiome will yield valuable insight into the variability of vertebrate skin microbiomes as a whole. The recent emergence of the skin fungal disease white-nose syndrome highlights the potentially important role bat skin microbial communities could play in bat health. Understanding the determinant of bat skin microbial communities could provide insight into important factors allowing individuals to persist with disease. We collected skin swabs from a total of 11 bat species from the eastern United States (n = 45) and Colorado (n = 119), as well as environmental samples (n = 38) from a subset of sites, and used 16S rRNA marker gene sequencing to observe bacterial communities. In addition, we conducted a literature survey to compare the skin microbiome across vertebrate groups, including the bats presented in this study. Host species, region, and site were all significant predictors of the variability across bat skin bacterial communities. Many bacterial taxa were found both on bats and in the environment. However, some bacterial taxa had consistently greater relative abundances on bat skin relative to their environments. Bats shared many of their abundant taxa with other vertebrates, but also hosted unique bacterial lineages such as the class Thermoleophilia (Actinobacteria). A strong effect of site on the bat skin microbiome indicates that the environment very strongly influences what bacteria are present on bat skin. Bat skin microbiomes are largely composed of site-specific microbiota, but there do appear to be important host-specific taxa. How this translates to differences in host-microbial interactions and bat health remains an important knowledge gap, but this work suggests that habitat variability is very important. We identify some bacterial groups that are more consistent on bats despite site differences, and these may be important ones to study in terms of their function as potential core microbiome members.
A Framework for MT and Multilingual NLG Systems Based on Uniform Lexico-Structural Processing

In this paper we describe an implemented framework for developing monolingual or multilingual natural language generation (NLG) applications and machine translation (MT) applications. The framework demonstrates a uniform approach to generation and transfer based on declarative lexico-structural transformations of dependency structures of syntactic or conceptual levels ("uniform lexico-structural processing"). We describe how this framework has been used in practical NLG and MT applications, and report the lessons learned.
Trunk-Assisted Prehension: Specification of Body Segments With Imposed Temporal Constraints

Abstract The authors used a trunk-assisted prehension task to examine intersegment coordination. Participants (N = 7) reached to grasp an object placed beyond full arm extension, thus requiring trunk flexion to achieve the target object, under 4 varying temporal constraints. Kinematic analyses were performed in which the motions of the arm, the trunk, and the endpoint were characterized. The spatial trajectories and the segments' peak velocity data revealed that under high temporal constraints the arm was more responsible for endpoint motion than the trunk, whereas in the unconstrained condition the trunk was more involved. In addition, the arm exhibited a decline in spatial variability toward the end of the movement in all conditions, whereas the trunk did not. The present study is the first to show that when temporal demand is increased for a trunk-assisted prehensile task, the arm plays a larger role than the trunk in the transport of the hand to the object The data also suggest that the arm participates in the fine accuracy control of the reach, whereas the trunk does not.
Data‐Driven Object Manipulation in Images

We present a framework for interactively manipulating objects in a photograph using related objects obtained from internet images. Given an image, the user selects an object to modify, and provides keywords to describe it. Objects with a similar shape are retrieved and segmented from online images matching the keywords, and deformed to correspond with the selected object. By matching the candidate object and adjusting manipulation parameters, our method appropriately modifies candidate objects and composites them into the scene. Supported manipulations include transferring texture, color and shape from the matched object to the target in a seamless manner. We demonstrate the versatility of our framework using several inputs of varying complexity, for object completion, augmentation, replacement and revealing. Our results are evaluated using a user study.
Hydrogen peroxide modulates synaptic transmission in ventral horn neurons of the rat spinal cord

Excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is implicated in many central nervous system disorders; however, the physiological role of ROS in spinal ventral horn (VH) neurons remains poorly understood. We investigated how pathological levels of H2O2, an abundant ROS, regulate synaptic transmission in VH neurons of rats using a whole‐cell patch clamp approach. H2O2 increased the release of glutamate and GABA from presynaptic terminals. The increase in glutamate release involved N‐type voltage‐gated calcium channels (VGCCs), ryanodine receptors (RyRs), and inositol trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs); the increase in GABA release, which inhibited glutamatergic transmission, involved IP3R. Inhibiting N‐type VGCCs and RyRs attenuates excitotoxicity resulting from increased glutamatergic activity while preserving the neuroprotective effects of GABA, and may represent a novel strategy for treating H2O2‐induced motor neuron disorders resulting from trauma or ischaemia–reperfusion injury.
Drug treatment developments in schizophrenia and bipolar mania: latest evidence and clinical usefulness

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often highly debilitating with chronic courses, and psychotropic drugs represent cornerstones in the treatment. The primary aim of the review was to summarize the latest evidence with regards to the efficacy and effectiveness of drug treatment of schizophrenia and the manic phases of bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia systematic reviews conclude that antipsychotic drugs are effective in treating overall symptoms of psychosis and in preventing relapse. Some of the newer agents, the second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs), have demonstrated superiority compared with the older first-generation drugs and other SGAs but side-effect differences among the drugs are of a greater magnitude than effect differences. The pragmatic randomized trials of effectiveness have shown a longer time until treatment discontinuation for olanzapine compared with other antipsychotics. Cohort studies have found superiority for the long-acting injection formulations compared with the oral formulations of the drugs, and lower total mortality risk in users of antipsychotics compared with non-users. In bipolar mania SGAs have shown superior antimanic efficacy compared with other mood-stabilizing drugs. In conclusion antipsychotics, in particular some of the SGAs, seem to be drugs of first choice for both schizophrenia and bipolar mania. This perspective review focused on mean effects but the group means may not always be particularly useful as schizophrenia and bipolar mania are biologically heterogeneous disorders with large inter-individual variations in drug response and tolerance. In patients with a prior drug history the different pharmacological and clinical profiles may be exploited in subsequent choices of drugs.
Considerations for high-speed configurable-bandwidth time-interleaved digital delta-sigma modulators and synthesis in 28 nm UTBB FDSOI

This paper presents the design and simulation of a time-interleaved delta-sigma modulator as part of a digital transmitter chain. The architecture is chosen based on a critical path analysis in order to reach very high frequency operation. The modulator's configurability allows it to target signal bandwidths from 20 MHz up to 160 MHz with a SNR greater than 67 dB. Finally, the modulator is synthesized using standard cells in 28nm FDSOI CMOS from STMicroelectronics and simulated for different numbers of time-interleaved channels, reaching a sample rate of up to 6 GS/s. An optimum number of channels can be found based on a trade-off between operating frequency, supply voltage, power consumption and area.
Groupwise Constrained Reconstruction for Subspace Clustering

Reconstruction based subspace clustering methods compute a self reconstruction matrix over the samples and use it for spectral clustering to obtain the final clustering result. Their success largely relies on the assumption that the underlying subspaces are independent, which, however, does not always hold in the applications with increasing number of subspaces. In this paper, we propose a novel reconstruction based subspace clustering model without making the subspace independence assumption. In our model, certain properties of the reconstruction matrix are explicitly characterized using the latent cluster indicators, and the affinity matrix used for spectral clustering can be directly built from the posterior of the latent cluster indicators instead of the reconstruction matrix. Experimental results on both synthetic and realworld datasets show that the proposed model can outperform the state-of-the-art methods.
Lie Symmetry Preservation by Finite Difference Schemes for the Burgers Equation

Invariant numerical schemes possess properties that may overcome the numerical properties of most of classical schemes. When they are constructed with moving frames, invariant schemes can present more stability and accuracy. The cornerstone is to select relevant moving frames. We present a new algorithmic process to do this. The construction of invariant schemes consists in parametrizing the scheme with constant coefficients. These coefficients are determined in order to satisfy a fixed order of accuracy and an equivariance condition. Numerical applications with the Burgers equation illustrate the high performances of the process.