Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simulation as Formal and Generative Social Science: The Very Idea

NUNO DAVID, JAIME SIMAO SICHMAN & HELDER COELHO Department of Information Science and Technology, ISCTE Av. das Forcas Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal E-mail: Nuno.David@iscte.pt Computer Engineering Department, University of Sao Paulo Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto 158 tv.3, 05508-900 Sao Paulo SP Brazil E-mail: Jaime.Sichman@poli.usp. br Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon Bloco C5, Piso 1, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal E-mail: hcoelho@di.fc. ul.pt
A 1-tap 40-Gbps look-ahead decision feedback equalizer in 0.18 /spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS technology

This paper describes a fully-differential 1-Tap decision feedback equalizer (DFE) in 0.18/spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS technology. The circuit is capable of equalizing NRZ data up to 40 Gbps. A look-ahead architecture is used with modifications to reduce complexity in the high speed clock distribution. An analog differential voltage controls the tap weights. The design is fabricated in 0.18 /spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS technology with a 160-GHz ft. It occupies an area of 1.5 mm /spl times/ 1mm and operates from a 3.3 V supply with 230 mA current. It is the first feedback equalizer at 40 Gbps in silicon.
TOWARD CASE‐BASED REASONING FOR DIABETES MANAGEMENT: A PRELIMINARY CLINICAL STUDY AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM PROTOTYPE

This paper presents a case‐based decision support system prototype to assist patients with Type 1 diabetes on insulin pump therapy. These patients must vigilantly maintain blood glucose levels within prescribed target ranges to prevent serious disease complications, including blindness, neuropathy, and heart failure. Case‐based reasoning (CBR) was selected for this domain because (a) existing guidelines for managing diabetes are general and must be tailored to individual patient needs; (b) physical and lifestyle factors combine to influence blood glucose levels; and (c) CBR has been successfully applied to the management of other long‐term medical conditions. An institutional review board (IRB) approved preliminary clinical study, involving 20 patients, was conducted to assess the feasibility of providing case‐based decision support for these patients. Fifty cases were compiled in a case library, situation assessment routines were encoded to detect common problems in blood glucose control, and retrieval metrics were developed to find the most relevant past cases for solving current problems. Preliminary results encourage continued research and work toward development of a practical tool for patients.
Slogans Are Not Forever: Adapting Linguistic Expressions to the News

Artistic creation is often based on the concept of blending. Linguistic creativity is no exception, as demonstrated for instance by the importance of metaphors in poetry. Blending can also be used to evoke a secondary concept while playing with an already given piece of language, either with the intention of making the secondary concept well perceivable to the reader, or instead, to subtly evoke something additional. Current language technology can do a lot in this connection, and automated language creativity can be useful in cases where input or target are to change continuously, making human production not feasible. In this work we present a system that takes existing well-known expressions and innovates them by bringing in a novel concept coming from evolving news. The technology is composed of several steps concerned with the selection of the sortable concepts and the production of novel expressions, largely relying on state of the art corpus-based methods. Proposed applications include: i) producing catchy news headlines by "parasitically" exploiting well known successful expressions and adapting them to the news at hand; ii) generating adaptive slogans that allude to news of the day and give life to the concept evoked by the slogan; iii) providing artists with an application for boosting their creativity.
Urogenital Chlamydia trachomatis strain types, defined by high-resolution multilocus sequence typing, in relation to ethnicity and urogenital symptoms among a young screening population in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Introduction Previous studies found conflicting results regarding associations between urogenital Chlamydia trachomatis infections and ethnicity or urogenital symptoms among at-risk populations using either ompA-based genotyping or high-resolution multilocus sequence typing (MLST). This study applied high-resolution MLST on samples of individuals from a selected young urban screening population to assess the relationship of C. trachomatis strain types with ethnicity and self-reported urogenital symptoms. Demographic and sexual risk behaviour characteristics of the identified clusters were also analysed. Methods We selected C. trachomatis-positive samples from the Dutch Chlamydia Screening Implementation study among young individuals in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. All samples were typed using high-resolution MLST. Clusters were assigned using minimum spanning tree analysis and were combined with epidemiological data of the participants. Results We obtained full MLST data for C. trachomatis-positive samples from 439 participants and detected nine ompA genovars. MLST analysis identified 175 sequence types and six large clusters; in one cluster, participants with Surinamese/Antillean ethnicity were over-represented (58.8%) and this cluster predominantly consisted of genovar I. In addition, we found one cluster with an over-representation of participants with Dutch ethnicity (90.0%) and which solely consisted of genovar G. No association was observed between C. trachomatis clusters and urogenital symptoms. Conclusions We found an association between urogenital C. trachomatis clusters and ethnicity among young screening participants in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. However, no association was found between C. trachomatis clusters and self-reported urogenital symptoms.
Alcohol Abstention Among Older Adults: Reasons for Abstaining and Characteristics of Abstainers

Analyses of a survey of 826 persons aged 65 and older identified three groups of respondents who consumed no alcohol during the previous 12 months: lifetime abstainers, infrequent drinkers, and former drinkers. The three groups differed significantly in endorsement of various reasons for abstaining. When the three groups of abstainers were compared to each other, to infrequent drinkers and to other current drinkers on demographic and psychosocial variables, it was found that lifetime abstainers and infrequent drinkers who abstained during the previous 12 months tended to be older, less educated and more religious than former and current drinkers. Current drinkers were more likely than all groups of abstainers to own their own home, had larger social networks and engaged in more social activities. Former drinkers reported more stress, greater depression, and lower sense of coherence than current drinkers and other types of abstainers. These results demonstrate the importance of distinguishing different typ.
USVM: Selection of SNPs in Diseases Association Study Using UMDA and SVM

With the rapid development of high-throughput genotyping technologies, more and more attentions are paid to the disease association study identifying DNA variations that are highly associated with a specific disease. One main challenge for this study is to find the optimal subsets of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) which are most tightly associated with diseases. Feature selection has become a necessity in many bioinformatics applications. In this paper, we propose a wrapper algorithm named USVM which combines Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm (UMDA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) for disease association study. USVM not only eliminates the redundancy of feature, but also solves the problem of SVM's parameters selection. We use USVM to analyze the Crohn's disease (CD) dataset including 387 samples and each one has 103 SNPs. The experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms the current algorithms including DNF, CSP, ORF and so on.
Improving Mortality Predictions in Trauma Patients Undergoing Damage Control Strategies

The increased use of damage control surgery in complex trauma patients requires accurate prognostic indicators. We compared the discriminatory capacity of commonly used trauma and intensive care unit (ICU) scores, including revised trauma score, injury severity scores, trauma score-injury severity scores, acute physiology and chronic health evaluations II, and clinical and laboratory parameters, on 83 consecutive trauma patients admitted to the ICU, undergoing damage control. Logistic regressions were built for mortality prediction within 30 days. Performances of the models were assessed in terms of discrimination and calibration. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve from the models were compared. Overall mortality was 38.5 per cent. A “clinical” model was constructed including ICU admission pH and hypothermia (≤ 35 C °) and the number of packed red blood cells during the first 24 hours. This model was adjusted for age and demonstrated better discrimination for mortality prediction (areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.8054) than injury severity score (P value = 0.049), abdominal trauma index (P value = 0.049), and acute physiology and chronic health evaluations II (P value = 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in discrimination for mortality prediction between the “clinical” model and revised trauma score (P value = 0.4) and trauma score-injury severity score (P value = 0.4). We concluded that the combination of ICU admission pH and hypothermia and blood transfusions during 24 hours provided an excellent discriminatory capacity for mortality prediction in this complex patient population.
Antioxydant response to biotic and abiotic inducers for the resistance against fusarium wilt disease in eggplant (solanum melongena l.)

Abstract Acibenzolar-S-methyl as an abiotic plant activator and a non-host isolate of Fusarium oxysporum on eggplant (F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis) as a biotic inducer were applied to eggplant seedlings in order to confer increased resistance to F. oxysporum f. sp. melongenae, the causal agent of Fusarium wilt of eggplant. Acibenzolar-S-methyl and F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis were applied 72 h before pathogen inoculation and the development of disease symptoms was assessed with a Fusarium yellow rating at 7th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 21th day after inoculation. Pretreatment of eggplants with Acibenzolar-S-methyl and F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis significantly reduced the severity of Fusarium wilt disease. The severity of the disease in positive control plants reached to 92.50% whereas that of acibenzolar-S-methyl and F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis-pretreated seedlings of eggplants was only 32.21% and 21.13%, respectively, 21 days after inoculation. Acibenzolar-S- -methyl and F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis pretreatments resulted in a hypersensitive reaction and triggered the elaboration of histological barriers such as callose and H2O2 synthesis. In situ studies demonstrated that the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) accumulation and the callose deposition as responses to the pathogen attack started 24 h after inoculation. Acibenzolar- S-methyl and F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis-pretreated plants also showed significant increases in the activity of catalase and polyphenol oxidase enzymes along with the increase of proline and H2O2 content when compared to F. oxysporum f. sp. melongenae-infected plants.
Strain-Rate Imaging Predicts the Attenuation of Left Ventricular Remodeling Induced by Ischemic Postconditioning After Myocardial Infarction in Mice

Background— Systolic strain rate (SR) has been shown to correlate with the transmural extent of myocardial infarction (MI). Ischemic postconditioning (PC) decreases MI size. We aimed to determine whether SR may predict the reduction of left ventricular (LV) remodeling induced by PC in a murine model of ischemia-reperfusion. Methods and Results— C57BL6 mice underwent 60 minutes of left coronary artery occlusion followed by reperfusion. PC consisted of 3 cycles of 1 minute of reperfusion and 1 minute of ischemia performed immediately after reperfusion. After 24 hours of reperfusion, a first subset of mice was euthanized for determination of infarct size. An additional subset of mice underwent 3 months of reperfusion. Echocardiography and SR were serially assessed at baseline, 3 days, and 1, 2, 3 months after reperfusion. PC decreased the infarct size and increased SR values within infarcted segments as soon as 24 hours after reperfusion as compared with controls (14±1 versus 6±1 s−1, P<0.001). Systolic SR was correlated with MI size assessed by the area of infarction/area at risk (r=−0.88, P<0.001). At 3 months, PC improved LV ejection fraction (55±4 versus 45±3%; P<0.05) and decreased LV dimensions as compared with controls. Strain rate at day 3 correlated with LV ejection fraction (0.75; P<0.001), end-systolic (r=−0.75; P=0.001), and end-diastolic volumes (r=−0.70; P<0.001) at month 3. Conclusions— In this murine model of MI, SR accurately assessed the reduction in MI size induced by PC early after reperfusion and the subsequent reduction of LV remodeling.
Fibrin D-dimer: a useful clinical marker of thrombogenesis?

Thrombus formation (thrombogenesis) is a process involving platelet adherence to the vessel wall (sometimes at sites of endothelial injury), platelet aggregation and release, thrombin generation and fibrin formation. In addition, it is also well recognized that the process of atherosclerosis is closely related to ongoing formation and organization of mural thrombi [ l , 21. Improved biochemical definition of the factors involved in thrombogenesis and newer assay techniques have allowed the clinical measurement of such factors in assessment of the process of thrombogenesis. The study of the possible mechanisms of thrombogenesis in conditions with a particular risk of thromboembolism is therefore feasible. Measurement of these plasma factors may allow the screening of patients in order to identify those most at risk of thromboembolism, and hence those who might benefit most from anti-thrombotic therapy. In addition, these plasma factors may provide prognostic information and enable monitoring of the eficacy of anti-thrombotic therapy. Such measurements also raise the possibility of developing new strategies in anti-thrombotic therapy. One marker which is attracting interest as an index of intravascular thrombogenesis is the plasma level of the fibrin D-dimer antigen. As fibrin D-dimer is considered to originate from cross-linked fibrin assembled during thrombus formation, a rise in fibrin D-dimer levels is indicative of thrombus formation. Plasma fibrin D-dimer assays are currently available from several manufacturers in clinical practice for the diagnosis of disseminated intravascular coagulation and venous thromboembolism. Recently, prospective studies have suggested a prognostic value of quantitative assays of plasma fibrin D-dimer in the prediction of arterial thrombosis; associations with atrial fibrillation and with other Prothrombin
A Complete WordNet1.5 to WordNet1.6 Mapping

We describe a robust approach for linking already existing lexical/semantic hierarchies. We use a constraint satisfaction algorithm (relaxation labelling) to select --among a set of candidates-- the node in a target taxonomy that bests matches each node in a source taxonomy. In this paper we present the complete mapping of the nominal, verbal, adjectival and adverbial parts of WordNet 1.5 onto WordNet 1.6.
Ethnomedicinal survey of plants used by the Kanuris of North-eastern Nigeria

Documentation and preservation of indigenous knowledge deserve high priority if future generations are to benefit from it, especially with the current surge of emerging problems in health, agriculture and pharmaceutical industry. To this end, a study was conducted to assess and document plant species used in ethnomedicine by the indigenous Kanuri tribe of North-eastern Nigeria. Based on interview conducted with traditional healers of Kanuri origin residing in Maiduguri, Borno state, a brief account of 29 plant species used by these people to treat various ailments is presented here. It is interesting to note that some plants can be used in treating more than one disease or ailment. The diseases and ailments whose treatments were covered by the plants identified include malaria, anemia, paralysis, impotency, diarrhea, leprosy, cough, catarrh, toothache, ulcer, hypertension, rheumatism, chest pain and general body pain. The manner in which the traditional healers make their prescriptions showed that a seventh of the prescriptions contained composite remedies. There is equally a revelation that a wide range of health problems are treated by the traditional healers using medicinal plants in various combinations and dosage forms.
Connecting the Dots: Towards Human-Level Grammatical Error Correction

We build a grammatical error correction (GEC) system primarily based on the state-of-the-art statistical machine translation (SMT) approach, using task-specific features and tuning, and further enhance it with the modeling power of neural network joint models. The SMT-based system is weak in generalizing beyond patterns seen during training and lacks granularity below the word level. To address this issue, we incorporate a character-level SMT component targeting the misspelled words that the original SMT-based system fails to correct. Our final system achieves 53.14% F 0.5 score on the benchmark CoNLL-2014 test set, an improvement of 3.62% F 0.5 over the best previous published score.
Modulation of Energy Metabolism in C6 Glioma Cells as Possible Mechanism Contributing to Zinc Neurotoxicity

Elevated tissue levels of zinc (Zn) have been associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as global ischemia, seizure, and Alzheimer's. The mechanism of action of Zn in causing neuronal injury is not clear. One of the possible mechanisms is the ability of Zn to alter cellular energy metabolism. Using the C6 glioma cell as a model, the present study aimed to determined the effects of increasing concentrations of Zn on cellular energy states, as defined by the levels of adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP), adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP), and adenosine 5'-monophosphate (AMP), the total adenosine nucleotides (TAN) (TAN = ATP + ADP + AMP), and the energy charge potential (ECP = [ATP + 0.5 ADP]/TAN). Uptake of Zn was visualized by the appearance of N-(6-methoxy-8-quinolyl)-p-toluene sulfonamide (TSQ)-stained fluorescent granules after a 3-h exposure to Zn in the medium. At [Zn] = 1 mM, cells appeared apoptotic. Levels of ATP and TAN decreased as the level of Zn increased. The change mirrors the increase in cell death as determined by the trypan blue exclusion test. However, when the ratio of ATP:ADP:AMP within the TAN was calculated, the percentage of ATP in the TAN increased significantly, while that of AMP decreased. The change in the relative AMP level mirrored the change in cell viability as measured by the MTT assay, which indicated a decreased in mitochondrial activity. Cellular ECP increased significantly from 0.85 ± 0.007 to 0.92 ± 0.04. The elevated ECP and relative ATP level, together with a significant decrease in the relative AMP level, are all indicators of inhibition of cellular metabolism. These results support the notion that acute exposure of C6 glioma cells to a high concentration of Zn might initially result in a decrease in relative AMP and an inhibition of mitochondrial activity. However, the ultimate toxic action of Zn on the C6 glioma cells appears to be due to a gradual inhibition of energy utilization, leading to cell shrinkage and apoptosis.
Economic Consequences of SEC Disclosure Regulation

This paper examines the economic consequences of SEC disclosure regulation. We exploit a recent regulatory change mandating firms on the OTC Bulletin Board to comply with the reporting requirements under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This change substantially increases the amount and enforcement of required disclosures for firms that previously did not file with the SEC. In this unique setting, we document that the imposition of SEC disclosure requirements and enforcement results in significant costs for smaller firms, which are essentially forced off the OTCBB. However, SEC disclosure regulation also has significant benefits. Firms already filing with the SEC prior to the rule change experience positive stock returns and permanent increases in market liquidity. This evidence is consistent with positive externalities from disclosure regulation. Moreover, newly compliant firms exhibit significant increases in market liquidity upon compliance consistent with the notion that commitment to higher-quality disclosures increases market liquidity. JEL classification: G18, G38, K22, G39, M44, G14
The added value of the positive: A literature review of positive psychology interventions in organizations

This paper systematically reviews research investigating the effects of positive psychology interventions applied in the organizational context. We characterize a positive psychology intervention as any intentional activity or method that is based on (a) the cultivation of positive subjective experiences, (b) the building of positive individual traits, or (c) the building of civic virtue and positive institutions. A systematic literature search identified 15 studies that examined the effects of such an intervention in organizational contexts. Subsequent analyses of those studies revealed that positive psychology interventions seem to be a promising tool for enhancing employee well-being and performance. As a side-effect, positive psychology interventions also tend to diminish stress and burnout and to a lesser extent depression and anxiety. Implications of those findings for theory and praxis and recommendations for future research on positive psychology interventions in organizations are discussed.
ADAM-17 Is Activated by the Mitogenic Protein Kinase ERK in a Model of Kidney Fibrosis

Chronic kidney disease affects 1 of 9 Americans. Recent studies showed increased activation of the metalloenzyme disintegrin ADAM-17 during the development of the disease and that threonine phosphorylation of ADAM-17 may be an important regulator of the enzyme activity. Using kidney mesangial cells we investigated whether profibrotic serotonin (5-HT) induces phosphorylation of ADAM-17 with concomitant increase in the enzyme activity. We found that 5-HT treatment (1 mM for 10 minutes) induced a significant 3-fold increase in ADAM-17 phosphorylation and employing a fluorogenic enzyme activity assay we showed 2.3-fold activation of ADAM-17, both of which was inhibited by PD98059 (1 mM), an inhibitor of extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) activation. In coimmunoprecipitation analysis, we observed increased (2.7-fold) binding of activated ERK to ADAM-17 during 5-HT stimulation. We concluded that, during profibrotic stimulus, ERK phosphorylates ADAM-17 in kidney cells which induces concomitant increase in the enzyme activity.
Free‐choice environmental learning: framing the discussion

Education is a lifelong endeavor; the public learns in many places and contexts, for a diversity of reasons, throughout their lives. During the past couple of decades, there has been a growing awareness that free‐choice learning experiences – learning experiences where the learner exercises a large degree of choice and control over the what, when and why of learning – play a major role in lifelong learning. Worldwide, most environmental learning is not acquired in school, but outside of school through free‐choice learning experiences. Included in this article are brief overviews of environmental learning, the nature of learning, the educational infrastructure, and free‐choice learning as a term. This article provides a framework for thinking about free‐choice environmental learning and sets the stage for thinking about the other articles in this special issue.