Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Logistic Regression Based Auto Insurance Rate-Making Model Designed for the Insurance Rate Reform

Using a generalized linear model to determine the claim frequency of auto insurance is a key ingredient in non-life insurance research. Among auto insurance rate-making models, there are very few considering auto types. Therefore, in this paper we are proposing a model that takes auto types into account by making an innovative use of the auto burden index. Based on this model and data from a Chinese insurance company, we built a clustering model that classifies auto insurance rates into three risk levels. The claim frequency and the claim costs are fitted to select a better loss distribution. Then the Logistic Regression model is employed to fit the claim frequency, with the auto burden index considered. Three key findings can be concluded from our study. First, more than 80% of the autos with an auto burden index of 20 or higher belong to the highest risk level. Secondly, the claim frequency is better fitted using the Poisson distribution, however the claim cost is better fitted using the Gamma distribution. Lastly, based on the AIC criterion, the claim frequency is more adequately represented by models that consider the auto burden index than those do not. It is believed that insurance policy recommendations that are based on Generalized linear models (GLM) can benefit from our findings.
Spin densities in two‐component relativistic density functional calculations: Noncollinear versus collinear approach

With present day exchange‐correlation functionals, accurate results in nonrelativistic open shell density functional calculations can only be obtained if one uses functionals that do not only depend on the electron density but also on the spin density. We consider the common case where such functionals are applied in relativistic density functional calculations. In scalar‐relativistic calculations, the spin density can be defined conventionally, but if spin‐orbit coupling is taken into account, spin is no longer a good quantum number and it is not clear what the “spin density” is. In many applications, a fixed quantization axis is used to define the spin density (“collinear approach”), but one can also use the length of the local spin magnetization vector without any reference to an external axis (“noncollinear approach”). These two possibilities are compared in this work both by formal analysis and numerical experiments. It is shown that the (nonrelativistic) exchange‐correlation functional should be invariant with respect to rotations in spin space, and this only holds for the noncollinear approach. Total energies of open shell species are higher in the collinear approach because less exchange energy is assigned to a given Kohn‐Sham reference function. More importantly, the collinear approach breaks rotational symmetry, that is, in molecular calculations one may find different energies for different orientations of the molecule. Data for the first ionization potentials of Tl, Pb, element 113, and element 114, and for the orientation dependence of the total energy of I +2 and PbF indicate that the error introduced by the collinear approximation is ∼0.1 eV for valence ionization potentials, but can be much larger if highly ionized open shell states are considered. Rotational invariance is broken by the same amount. This clearly indicates that the collinear approach should not be used, as the full treatment is easily implemented and does not introduce much more computational effort. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 23: 779–785, 2002
Influenza A Exacerbates Staphylococcus aureus Pneumonia by Attenuating IL-1β Production in Mice

Pneumonia is a leading cause of death worldwide. Staphylococcal aureus can be a cause of severe pneumonia alone or a common pathogen in secondary pneumonia following influenza. Recently, we reported that preceding influenza attenuated the Type 17 pathway, increasing the lung’s susceptibility to secondary infection. IL-1β is known to regulate host defense, including playing a role in Th17 polarization. We examined whether IL-1β signaling is required for S. aureus host defense and whether influenza infection impacted S. aureus–induced IL-1β production and subsequent Type 17 pathway activation. Mice were challenged with S. aureus (USA 300), with or without preceding Influenza A/PR/8/34 H1N1 infection. IL-1R1−/− mice had significantly higher S. aureus burden, increased mortality, and decreased Type 17 pathway activation following S. aureus challenge. Coinfected mice had significantly decreased IL-1β production versus S. aureus infection alone at early time points following bacterial challenge. Preceding influenza did not attenuate S. aureus–induced inflammasome activation, but there was early suppression of NF-κB activation, suggesting an inhibition of NF-κB–dependent transcription of pro–IL-1β. Furthermore, overexpression of IL-1β in influenza and S. aureus–coinfected mice rescued the induction of IL-17 and IL-22 by S. aureus and improved bacterial clearance. Finally, exogenous IL-1β did not significantly rescue S. aureus host defense during coinfection in IL-17RA−/− mice or in mice in which IL-17 and IL-22 activity were blocked. These data reveal a novel mechanism by which Influenza A inhibits S. aureus–induced IL-1β production, resulting in attenuation of Type 17 immunity and increased susceptibility to bacterial infection.
Tonic and Phasic Nitric Oxide Signals in Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation

Nitric oxide (NO) participates in long-term potentiation (LTP) and other forms of synaptic plasticity in many different brain areas but where it comes from and how it acts remain controversial. Using rat and mouse hippocampal slices, we tested the hypothesis that tonic and phasic NO signals are needed and that they derive from different NO synthase isoforms. NMDA increased NO production in a manner that was potently inhibited by three different neuronal NO synthase (nNOS) inhibitors. Tonic NO could be monitored after sensitizing guanylyl cyclase-coupled NO receptors, allowing the very low ambient NO concentrations to be detected by cGMP measurement. The levels were unaffected by inhibition of NMDA receptors, nNOS, or the inducible NO synthase (iNOS). iNOS was also undetectable in protein or activity assays. Tonic NO was susceptible to agents inhibiting endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) and was missing in eNOS knock-out mice. The eNOS knock-outs exhibited a deficiency in LTP resembling that seen in wild-types treated with a NO synthase inhibitor. LTP in the knock-outs could be fully restored by supplying a low level of NO exogenously. Inhibition of nNOS also caused a major loss of LTP, particularly of late-LTP. Again, exogenous NO could compensate, but higher concentrations were needed compared with those restoring LTP in the eNOS knock-outs. It is concluded that tonic and phasic NO signals are both required for hippocampal LTP and the two are generated, respectively, by eNOS and nNOS, the former in blood vessels and the latter in neurons.
The Cost of Private Equity Investing and the Impact of Dry Powder

Private equity (PE) has developed into a well-established asset class with strong growth in capital commitments over the last decades. Consequently, fund returns have decreased over time and investors have become more cost conscious. We analyze whether the maturing PE asset class has become less costly over time. Costs are defined as the difference between gross and net returns (return spread) and provide a spread benchmark useful for investors to evaluate a fund’s costliness. Althoug return spreads have decreased over time, when controlling for falling gross returns causing lower performance-based fees, the cost of PE investing has increased. The higher costs are related to increased levels of unused capital (dry powder) because of swelling capital flows into the industry. The PE industry is thus a victim of its own success, suggesting that investors in the asset class should consider a more anti-cyclical investment approach.
Is superior hypogastric plexus block effective for treatment of chronic pelvic pain?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Hypograstric plexus block has been considered a safe and effective alternative for treat patients with chronic pelvic pain. Published studies available at MedLine on the subject were included and evaluated in this review. CONTENTS Some studies have documented superior hypogastric plexus block effectiveness in relieving pain and decreasing opioid consumption, mainly in cancer patients. However, studies had failures in method or design. CONCLUSIONS New prospective and better-designed studies are still needed to confirm the effectiveness of hypogastric plexus block in relieving pelvic pain. These studies shall have stricter inclusion criteria, longer follow-up, and evaluation of other symptoms and quality of life before and after the procedure. Superior hypogastric plexus block should be recommended as alternative and not as primary therapy.
A multimedia content identification system using audio and visual integrated features

With an overflow of multimedia information around us and an urgent need to identify data accurately, an audio and visual identification system with a high accuracy rate is developed to meet the demand. Classification and feature extraction are performed separately on audio and visual signals. Pending on the temporal correlation of the feature vectors of objects and speakers, indexes of all objects included in an audio/visual sequence are listed in a time sequence. In integrating the audio/visual features, every object or character of the key frames has a set of feature vectors; the user can select and search specific characters that have the audio and visual features from the entire index set. Due to integrating the audio/visual identification results in the time order, the proposed identification system can increase the accuracy about 4% and 6% in our experiments, comparing with the results using the audio features and visual features separately, respectively.
Ambulatory physical activity representation and classification using spectral distances approach

Methods for monitoring the human physical activity are recently investigated in order to assess the health status of the individuals and thus promote a healthier lifestyle. This paper proposes `dist-colorimetrics', a methodology that aims to represent and classify ambulatory activities based on the spectral distances measures. A data collection platform including four accelerometer sensors mounted on the chest, ankle, wrist and hip, is used to record five activities: running, walking, cycling, resting and car riding. The proposed approach converts raw acceleration data into relevant spectral distances parameters. A 2D colored illustration of these parameters provides efficient visual representation as to the similarity and the variation among activities. For a further validation in terms of recognition performance, the `dist-colorimetrics' model was trained and tested by implementing three classification techniques, namely the Naïve Bayes, the K-nearest neighbors and the decision tree. The results showed that the system reached up to 98.12% of overall recognition accuracy. With further improvement in the modeling of each activity, we have reason to believe that the spectral distances are a promising approach to distinguish between different physical activities.
Lifelong Augmentation of Multimodal Streaming Autobiographical Memories

Robot systems that interact with humans over extended periods of time will benefit from storing and recalling large amounts of accumulated sensorimotor and interaction data. We provide a principled framework for the cumulative organization of streaming autobiographical data so that data can be continuously processed and augmented as the processing and reasoning abilities of the agent develop and further interactions with humans take place. As an example, we show how a kinematic structure learning algorithm reasons a-posteriori about the skeleton of a human hand. A partner can be asked to provide feedback about the augmented memories, which can in turn be supplied to the reasoning processes in order to adapt their parameters. We employ active, multimodal remembering, so the robot as well as humans can gain insights of both the original and augmented memories. Our framework is capable of storing discrete and continuous data in real-time. The data can cover multiple modalities and several layers of abstraction (e.g., from raw sound signals over sentences to extracted meanings). We show a typical interaction with a human partner using an iCub humanoid robot. The framework is implemented in a platform-independent manner. In particular, we validate its multi platform capabilities using the iCub, Baxter and NAO robots. We also provide an interface to cloud based services, which allow automatic annotation of episodes. Our framework is geared towards the developmental robotics community, as it: 1) provides a variety of interfaces for other modules; 2) unifies previous works on autobiographical memory; and 3) is licensed as open source software.
Artificial Dermis for Major Burns: A Multi‐Center Randomized Clinical Trial

This communication presents an 11-center prospective randomized trial using the artificial dermis invented by Burke and Yannas. Patients with life-threatening burns who underwent primary excision and grafting within 7 days of injury had comparable sites randomized to receive either the artificial dermis (study site) or the investigator's usual skin grafting material (control site). Control materials were autograft, allograft, xenograft, or a synthetic dressing. Epidermal grafts were applied to the study site during a second operation, and surviving patients were followed for 1 year after grafting. One hundred thirty-nine sites on 106 patients were studied. Mean burn size was 46.5 ± 15% mean total body surface (TBSA). Overall mortality was 13%, and mean hospital stay was 68 ± 45 days. Median artificial dermis take was 80% compared with 95% for all comparative sites, but the take was equivalent to that of all nonautograft control materials. Results with the artificial dermis improved slightly as the investigators became more familiar with the material. Donor site thickness for the study site averaged . 006“ ± . 002” compared to . 013“ ± . 018” for control (p < .0001) and the epidermal donor site healed an average of 4 days sooner (10 ± 6 vs. 14 ± 8 days) (p < .0001). As the wounds matured during the first year, both patients and surgeons felt that both sites became more comparable in appearance and function. At the completion of the study, there was less hypertrophic scarring of the artificial dermis, and more patients preferred the artificial dermis to the control graft. Artificial dermis with an epidermal graft provides a permanent cover that is at least as satisfactory as currently available skin grafting techniques, and uses donor grafts that are thinner and donor sites that heal faster.
How well are we doing? Families of adolescents or young adults with cerebral palsy share their perceptions of service delivery

Purpose : The satisfaction of families of adolescents and young adults with a diagnosis of cerebral palsy with the service delivery they had experienced in the areas of health, education, recreation, employment, housing and transportation was examined. Common themes across the six service areas were identified. Method : Forty-nine adolescents (13-15 years) and 39 young adults (19-23 years) and their families rated their satisfaction with services and then participated in semi-structured interviews to discuss their experiences. Results : Using a constant comparative method of analysis, common themes were identified from the transcribed interviews. Four themes were identified and named: caring and supportive people; fighting and fatigue; communication/information; and disability awareness. Conclusions : Families continue to experience dissatisfaction and frustration with service delivery in the six areas examined. Both bureaucratic structure and attitudes of service providers contribute to their dissatisfaction.
lbtA and lbtB Are Required for Production of the Legionella pneumophila Siderophore Legiobactin

ABSTRACT Under iron stress, Legionella pneumophila secretes legiobactin, a nonclassical siderophore that is reactive in the chrome azurol S (CAS) assay. Here, we have optimized conditions for legiobactin expression, shown its biological activity, and identified two genes, lbtA and lbtB, which are involved in legiobactin production. lbtA appears to be iron repressed and encodes a protein that has significant homology with siderophore synthetases, and FrgA, a previously described iron-regulated protein of L. pneumophila. lbtB encodes a protein homologous with members of the major facilitator superfamily of multidrug efflux pumps. Mutants lacking lbtA or lbtB were defective for legiobactin, producing 40 to 70% less CAS reactivity in deferrated chemically defined medium (CDM). In bioassays, mutant CDM culture supernatants, unlike those of the wild type, did not support growth of iron-limited wild-type bacteria in 2′,2′-dipyridyl-containing buffered charcoal yeast extract (BCYE) agar and a ferrous iron transport mutant on BCYE agar without added iron. The lbtA mutant was modestly defective for growth in deferrated CDM containing the iron chelator citrate, indicating that legiobactin is required in conditions of severe iron limitation. Complementation of the lbt mutants restored both siderophore expression, as measured by the CAS assay and bioassays, and bacterial growth in deferrated, citrate-containing media. The lbtA mutant replicated as the wild type did in macrophages, amoebae, and the lungs of mice. However, L. pneumophila expresses lbtA in the macrophage, suggesting that legiobactin, though not required, may play a dispensable role in intracellular growth. The discovery of lbtAB represents the first identification of genes required for L. pneumophila siderophore expression.
The Role of Tamoxifen in Breast Cancer Prevention

Abstract: The Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (P‐1: BCPT) of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) randomized 13,388 women, ≥35 years of age, at increased risk for breast cancer [≥1.66% by Gail model criteria or with a history of lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS)] to 5 years of tamoxifen or placebo. A 49% reduction (P < 0.00001) in invasive breast cancers occurred, 175 with placebo versus 89 with tamoxifen, mainly among estrogen receptor (ER)‐positive tumors (130 with placebo vs. 41 with tamoxifen). The major toxicities of tamoxifen were endometrial cancer (15 with placebo vs. 36 with tamoxifen) and thromboembolic disease, both predominantly in women who were ≥50 years old. Ramifications emerging from the P‐1 results regarding the efficacy and toxicities of preventive tamoxifen include the following: (1) Does tamoxifen induce more virulent breast cancers? (2) Does tamoxifen induce more virulent endometrial cancers? (3) Tamoxifen is especially efficacious in reducing breast cancer risk in LCIS (18 invasive breast cancers with placebo vs. 8 with tamoxifen group) and atypical ductal hyperplasia (AH) (23 invasive breast cancers with placebo vs. 3 with tamoxifen). (4) Does tamoxifen reduce breast cancer risk in women at increased risk due to genetic mutations? (5) How can we prevent tamoxifen‐resistant breast cancers? (6) What do the BCPT results tell us about who should take preventive tamoxifen? In its ongoing effort to lower the incidence of breast cancer, the NSABP is now implementing its second breast cancer prevention trial, the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), which is comparing the two agents with regard to efficacy and toxicity.
Cell-penetration efficiency of PEGylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes is dependent on cell types

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely investigated as one of the most promising nanomaterials in biomedical applications. Functionalization of CNTs with poly(ethylene glycol) diamine (PEG) is a recognized methodology with good solubility and biocompatibility. In this study, PEG conjugated (PEGylated) multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) were prepared and labeled with fluorophore FITC. Using fluorophore-conjugated PEGylated MWCNTs, we monitored their accumulation in transformed cancer cells and in normal cells. The intracellular accumulation of PEGylated MWCNTs was studied under confocal microscope and transmission electron microscope. At the same concentration and exposure time, PEGylated MWCNTs entered all three of the cancer cell lines tested much more efficiently than the three primary human fibroblast lines. This different cell-penetration efficiency was observed both in separate cell culture separate exposure conditions and in co-culture and co-exposure conditions. This study highlights that the cell-penetration efficiency of PEGylated MWCNTs is dependent on cell types, and possibly due to different metabolic rates in different cell types. Furthermore, the intracellular accumulation of PEGylated MWCNTs did not impair membrane integrity, and the treated cells remained normal morphology, indicating good biocompatibility of PEGylated MWCNTs. This study suggests that PEGylated MWCNTs can be developed as potential drug carrier with its intrinsic higher preference to tumor cells than normal cells.
Teletraffic Analysis of an Overlaid System Using CDMA and TDMA With Cell Coverage Area Restriction

Wireless communication has emerged as the most promising and one of the leading sectors of the telecommunications industry in the 21st century. To appreciate the expansion of the wireless sector, in 1990, there were only ten million cellular phone subscribers worldwide that frequently use first-generation technology. Today, there are more than one billion subscribers, and it is expected to increase to more than three billion subscribers during 2007-2010. Attempting to more efficiently use the limited frequency bands available for mobile communications, the idea of overlaying a code-division multiple-access (CDMA) system on an existing narrowband system has been proposed and explored. The basic idea of a CDMA overlay is to allow wideband CDMA waveforms to share a common spectrum with narrowband conventional waveforms to take advantage of the unexploited bandwidth available in the narrowband systems. Theoretically, the separation of CDMA and narrowband waveforms can be accomplished through notch filters. However, the filtering techniques are not sufficient for eliminating the multicross interference problem. In this paper, as a means of reducing the interference that cannot be eliminated by the use of filters, we have introduced a new proposal of an overlaid system in which we reduce the coverage area of the time-division multiple-access (TDMA) interference slots (slots inside the CDMA bandwidth are henceforth cited as cochannel slots). With this new strategy, we significantly reduce the effect of TDMA interference over the CDMA system.
Media Advocacy for Public Health

On 1 December 2012 Australia became the first nation in the world to implement plain packaging of all tobacco products, after the legislation was supported by all three of Australia’s main political parties. No country had ever mandated the entire appearance of packaging for any consumer product, so this historic legislation was at once exceptional, radical and a massive affront to the global transnational tobacco industry, which had for over 100 years packaged its products in highly consumer-tested boxes designed to maximise the appeal of both smoking and each brand.