Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Swing Voter's Curse

The authors analyze two-candidate elections in which some voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters. They demonstrate the existence of a swing voter's curse: less informed indifferent voters strictly prefer to abstain rather than vote for either candidate even when voting is costless. The swing voter's curse leads to the equilibrium result that a substantial fraction of the electorate will abstain even though all abstainers strictly prefer voting for one candidate over voting for another. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.
Voluntarily Separable Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma

Ordinary repeated games do not apply to real societies where one can cheat and escape from partners. We formulate a model of endogenous relationships that a player can unilaterally end and start with a randomly assigned new partner with no information flow. Focusing on two-person, two-action Prisoner's Dilemma, we show that the endogenous duration of partnerships generates a significantly different evolutionary stability structure from ordinary random matching games. Monomorphic equilibria require initial trust building, while a polymorphic equilibrium includes earlier cooperators than any strategy in monomorphic equilibria and is thus more efficient. This is due to the non-linearity of average payoffs. Copyright , Wiley-Blackwell.
Computational principles in Purkinje I and IV reflection pattern evaluation for the assessment of ocular alignment.

PURPOSE To develop a standardized reasoning for the evaluation of Purkinje I and IV Reflection Pattern data in primary, secondary, and tertiary positions of gaze in the diagnosis of strabismus with a mathematical approach. To demonstrate the applicability of certain mathematical relations and the appropriate graphic representation of computed ocular alignment data. METHODS Starting from the known Reflection Pattern Evaluation formulae, equations were derived that allowed for the computation of the relative and absolute positions of the optical and visual axes of both eyes from original data in binocular and monocular fixation. These equations were simplified for clinical use. RESULTS The authors obtained a set of equations that could be applied to the objective, quantitative analysis of eye alignment in screening for microtropia, in concomitant and incomitant diagnoses of strabismus in primary and nonprimary positions. CONCLUSIONS Purkinje I and IV Reflection Pattern Evaluation can be extended to the diagnosis of strabismus in nonprimary positions with sufficient clinical accuracy. The newly presented principles and equations serve as a basis for a convenient graphic representation of Purkinje I and IV Reflection Pattern data. These principles of evaluation may be applied to any data dealing with ocular alignment, independently of the method.
Isolation, Culture and Identification of Porcine Skeletal Muscle Satellite Cells

The objective of this study was to establish the optimum protocol for the isolation and culture of porcine muscle satellite cells. Mononuclear muscle satellite cells are a kind of adult stem cell, which is located between the basal lamina and sarcolemma of muscle fibers and is the primary source of myogenic precursor cells in postnatal muscle. Muscle satellite cells are a useful model to investigate the mechanisms of muscle growth and development. Although the isolation and culture protocols of muscle satellite cells in some species (e.g. mouse) have been established successfully, the culture system for porcine muscle satellite cells is very limited. In this study, we optimized the isolation procedure of porcine muscle satellite cells and elaborated the isolation and culture process in detail. Furthermore, we characterized the porcine muscle satellite cells using the immunofluorecence. Our study provides a reference for the isolation of porcine muscle satellite cells and will be useful for studying the molecular mechanisms in these cells.
RECONSTRUCTION OF SMOOTH SIGNALS FROM IRREGULAR SAMPLES BY USING RADIAL BASIS FUNCTION APPROXIMATION

Based on constrained least squares approximation and techniques from computational geometry, this paper shall provide a new approximation scheme which achieves to combine well-known features from radial basis function interpolation with recent developments concerning scattered data filtering. The suggested method is shown to be well-posed, and moreover by using local error estimates from radial basis function interpolation, approximation orders for the least squares error are proven. An efficient adaptive algorithm for the purpose of automatically selecting a suitable basis of the approximation space is provided.
Okuldan İşe Geçiş Becerileri Geliştirme Programının Kariyer Uyumu ve Kariyer İyimserliğine Etkisi

Bu arastirma, Okuldan Ise Gecis Becerileri Gelistirme Programinin (OIGBGP) universite son sinif ogrencilerinin kariyer uyumu ve kariyer iyimserligi uzerindeki etkisini sinamayi amaclamistir. Bu amac dogrultusunda, Amerika Birlesik Devletleri’nde (ABD) gelistirilen psiko-egitsel bir program, Turk kulturune uyarlanmis ve programa katilmaya gonullu olan universite son sinif ogrencilerine 12 hafta boyunca uygulanmistir. Arastirma kapsaminda olusturulan deney ve kontrol gruplarinda toplam 32 kisi yer almistir. Arastirmada on test-son test kontrol gruplu deney deseni kullanilmistir. Programin ogrencilere uygulamasi bittikten uc ay sonra, deney grubuna izleme testi uygulanmistir. Arastirmada veriler, Savickas ve Porfeli (2012) tarafindan gelistirilen ve Buyukgoze Kavas (2014) tarafindan Turkce’ye uyarlanan Kariyer Uyum Yetenekleri Olcegi (KUYO) ve bu calisma kapsaminda arastirmaci tarafindan gelistirilen Kariyer Iyimserligi Olcegi (KIO) ile toplanmistir. Bu verilerin cozumlenmesinde SPSS 21.0 paket programi kullanilmistir. Deney grubunun on test ve son test; son test ve izleme testi puanlarini karsilastirmak icin Wilcoxon Isaretli Siralar testinden yararlanilmistir. Deney ve kontrol grubunun son test puanlari ise Mann Whitney U testi ile karsilastirilmistir. Arastirma bulgularina gore, deney grubundaki ogrencilerin OIGBGP sonrasinda kariyer uyumu ve kariyer iyimserliklerinin arttigi; deney grubundaki ogrencilerin kariyer uyumu ve kariyer iyimserliklerinin kontrol grubundakilere kiyasla yuksek oldugu bulunmustur. Ayrica yapilan izleme testi calismasinda, programin kariyer uyumu ve kariyer iyimserligi uzerindeki etkisinin uc ay sonra da surdugu saptanmistir.
A negotiation‐based method for task allocation with time constraints in open grid environments

This paper addresses the task allocation problem in an open, dynamic grid environments and service‐oriented environments. In such environments, both grid/service providers and consumers can be modelled as intelligent agents. These agents can leave and enter the environment freely at any time. Task allocation under time constraints becomes a challenging issue in such environments because it is difficult to apply a central controller during the allocation process due to the openness and dynamism of the environments. This paper proposes a negotiation‐based method for task allocation under time constraints in an open, dynamic grid environment, where both consumer and provider agents can freely enter or leave the environment. In this method, there is no central controller available, and agents negotiate with each other for task allocation based only on local views. The experimental results show that the proposed method can outperform the current methods in terms of the success rate of task allocation and the total profit obtained from the allocated tasks by agents under different time constraints. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ROBUSTNESS OF POSITIVE INVARIANCE PROPERTY FOR CONTINUOUS-TIME SYSTEMS

Two majors issues in the design of control systems are the direct integration in the control law of technological/safety constraints and the performance robustness of the closed-loop system with respect to parametric perturbations. In the last years, many authors have been treated the problem of constraints sat isfaction for controlled linear systems through the use of the positive invariance property of polyhedral domain s. Those methodologies are mainly based on the solution of two matrix equations k nown as positive invariance relations (P.I.Rs), using either closed-loop eigenstructure assignment or linear programm ing techniques (see, for instance, [1] [3] [4] [6]). Together, the P.I. Rs. guarantees the decr easing, along the trajectories of the controlled system, of the L∞-norm induced in the state space by some polyhedral set of admissible initial conditions. Then, any trajectory em anating from the imposed invariant polyhedron does not escape from it. Accordingly with the introductory comment, also in the framework of positively invariant controllers it is of interest to use some robustness concepts to analyse and/or to improve the design methodologies. Then, the objective of this note is to extend for the case of continuous-time sy stems some results (previously presented for discrete-time systems) on the robustness of the positive invariance property of polyhedral domains. The theoretical results pres ented are strongly based on some properties of matrix measures (also called logarithmic norm s) [7]. It is also proposed and interpreted a linear programming formulation for solving state constrained control problems.
A Survey of current Approaches towards Specification and Management of Quality of Service for Web Services

ABSTRACT The current Web service standard does not provide mechanisms for service offering and dynamic service selection based on QoS properties. A lot of research work related to this topic has been carried out recently both in the industrial and academic world. This article gives an overview of some recent efforts towards the specification and management of QoS-aware Web services.
On star formation and chemical evolution in the Galactic disc

The abundance gradients and the radial gas profile of the Galactic disc are analysed by means of a model for the chemical evolution of galaxies. As one of the major uncertainties in models for galaxy evolution is the star formation (SF) process, various SF laws are considered,to assess the response of model predictions to the different assumptions. Only some SF laws are successful in reproducing the metallicity gradient, and only if combined with a suitable infall timescale increasing outward (inside-out formation scenario). Still, it is difficult to reproduce at the same time also the observed gas distribution; we therefore suggest further improvements for the models.
HJB Equations for the Optimal Control of Differential Equations with Delays and State Constraints, II: Optimal Feedbacks and Approximations ∗

This paper, which is the natural continuation of [21], studies a class of optimal control problems with state constraints where the state equation is a differential equation with delays. This class includes some problems arising in economics, in particular the so-called models with time to build. In [21] the problem is embedded in a suitable Hilbert space H and the regularity of the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is studied. Therein the main result is that the value function V solves the HJB equation and has continuous classical derivative in the direction of the “present”. The goal of the present paper is to exploit such result to find optimal feedback strategies for the problem. While it is easy to define formally a feedback strategy in classical sense the proof of its existence and of its optimality is hard due to lack of full regularity of V and to the infinite dimension. Finally, we show some approximation results that allow us to apply our main theorem to obtain e-optimal strategies for a wider class of problems.
Menaquinone-7 Supplementation to Reduce Vascular Calcification in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease: Rationale and Study Protocol (VitaK-CAC Trial)

Coronary artery calcification (CAC) develops early in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and is a strong and independent predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Arterial calcification is caused by an imbalance in calcification regulatory mechanisms. An important inhibitor of calcification is vitamin K-dependent matrix Gla protein (MGP). Both preclinical and clinical studies have shown that inhibition of the vitamin K-cycle by vitamin K antagonists (VKA) results in elevated uncarboxylated MGP (ucMGP) and subsequently in extensive arterial calcification. This led us to hypothesize that vitamin K supplementation may slow down the progression of calcification. To test this, we designed the VitaK-CAC trial which analyses effects of menaquinone-7 (MK-7) supplementation on progression of CAC. The trial is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial including patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Patients with a baseline Agatston CAC-score between 50 and 400 will be randomized to an intervention-group (360 microgram MK-7) or a placebo group. Treatment duration will be 24 months. The primary endpoint is the difference in CAC-score progression between both groups. Secondary endpoints include changes in arterial structure and function, and associations with biomarkers. We hypothesize that treatment with MK-7 will slow down or arrest the progression of CAC and that this trial may lead to a treatment option for vascular calcification and subsequent CVD.
LAD Regression and Nonparametric Methods for Detecting Outliers and Leverage Points

The detection of influential observations for the standard least squares regression model is a question that has been extensively studied. LAD regression diagnostics offers alternative approaches whose main feature is the robustness. In this paper a new approach for nonparametric detection of influencial observations in LAD regression models is presented and compared with other classical methods of diagnostics.
Reverse transcription-PCR analysis of laser-captured cells points to potential paracrine and autocrine actions of neurotrophins in pancreatic cancer.

PURPOSE Neurotrophins (NTs) can stimulate cell proliferation and differentiation in various cell types, and play a role in certain human cancers. In this study we analyzed the expression and localization of NTs and their receptors in microdissected pancreatic cancer tissue samples, and studied their ability to stimulate cell growth. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN The expression of nerve growth factor, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, NT-3, and NT-4/5, and the receptors tropomyosin receptor kinase A, B, and C, and P75 was studied in pancreatic cancer cell lines, and normal and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tissue samples by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR. Laser capture microdissection was performed in 21 PDAC samples, and mRNA levels were determined in cancer cells, acinar cells, desmoplastic stroma areas, and nerve fibers. Cell growth assays with NTs and in coculture with dorsal root ganglia were performed. RESULTS NT receptors were differentially expressed in the cancer cell lines, whereas tropomyosin receptor kinase C was not detectable. NTs modulated pancreatic cancer cell growth. Analysis of nonmicrodissected samples revealed that all of the receptors and tested ligands were overexpressed in PDAC when compared with normal pancreas. Analysis of laser captured samples revealed that NTs and their receptors were expressed in the cancer cells but were especially abundant in the intratumoral nerves. Coculture of dorsal root ganglia with T3M4 cells significantly enhanced the proliferation of this cell line. CONCLUSION The abundance of NTs in the intratumoral nerves in PDAC and the presence of NT receptors in the cancer cells, in conjunction with the ability of NTs to modulate pancreatic cancer cell growth, point to potential paracrine and autocrine effects of NTs in PDAC. Thus, our findings provide additional evidence that blocking NT actions may have a therapeutic potential in PDAC.
Rasburicase-Induced Methemoglobinemia in a Patient with Aggressive Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Patient: Male, 74 Final Diagnosis: Rasburicase-induced methemoglobinemia Symptoms: Acute shortness of breath Medication: Rasburicase Clinical Procedure: Attempted percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) Specialty: Oncology Objective: Unusual or unexpected effect of treatment Background: Rasburicase is a recombinant urate oxidase enzyme that converts uric acid to allantoin (an inactive and soluble metabolite that is readily excreted in urine). It is used for the management of tumor lysis syndrome (TLS) in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Although rasburicase is a generally safe and effective treatment, it can be associated with the rare and potentially severe complication of methemoglobinemia. Here, we report a case of rasburicase-induced methemoglobinemia in a patient who was diagnosed with aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Case Report: A 74-year-old man with aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was admitted for initiation of chemotherapy. Upon admission, the patient was found to have hyperkalemia, hyperuricemia, hyperphosphatemia, elevated LDH levels, and acute renal failure. As a result, he was diagnosed with TLS. Rasburicase 6 mg was administered intravenously over a period of 30 min to treat TLS. Later, methemoglobinemia developed, with requirements for oxygen supplementation. Multiple units of packed red blood cells were transfused for recurrent significant anemia secondary to his cancer co-morbidity. The patient was tested for glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, which returned negative; therefore, methylene blue was considered. After transfusion, the methemoglobin level normalized over the course of a few days, and the oxygen saturation improved without the use of methylene blue. However, during his hospitalization, the patient also developed a pulmonary embolism and had evidence of acute coronary syndrome. Later, the patient died of multiple complications related to his cancer co-morbidity on day 12 of admission. Conclusions: Blood transfusion and supplemental oxygen, without the use of methylene blue, may be an appropriate therapeutic alternative in rasburicase-induced methemoglobinemia treatment.
The HCV Non-Nucleoside Inhibitor Tegobuvir Utilizes a Novel Mechanism of Action to Inhibit NS5B Polymerase Function

Tegobuvir (TGV) is a novel non-nucleoside inhibitor (NNI) of HCV RNA replication with demonstrated antiviral activity in patients with genotype 1 chronic HCV infection. The mechanism of action of TGV has not been clearly defined despite the identification of resistance mutations mapping to the NS5B polymerase region. TGV does not inhibit NS5B enzymatic activity in biochemical assays in vitro, suggesting a more complex antiviral mechanism with cellular components. Here, we demonstrate that TGV exerts anti-HCV activity utilizing a unique chemical activation and subsequent direct interaction with the NS5B protein. Treatment of HCV subgenomic replicon cells with TGV results in a modified form of NS5B with a distinctly altered mobility on a SDS-PAGE gel. Further analysis reveals that the aberrantly migrating NS5B species contains the inhibitor molecule. Formation of this complex does not require the presence of any other HCV proteins. The intensity of the aberrantly migrating NS5B species is strongly dependent on cellular glutathione levels as well as CYP 1A activity. Furthermore analysis of NS5B protein purified from a heterologous expression system treated with TGV by mass spectrometry suggests that TGV undergoes a CYP- mediated intracellular activation step and the resulting metabolite, after forming a glutathione conjugate, directly and specifically interacts with NS5B. Taken together, these data demonstrate that upon metabolic activation TGV is a specific, covalent inhibitor of the HCV NS5B polymerase and is mechanistically distinct from other classes of the non-nucleoside inhibitors (NNI) of the viral polymerase.
Evaluating software engineering methods and tool part 1: The evaluation context and evaluation methods

In the last five issues of SIGSOFT Notes, Shari Lawrence Pfleeger has discussed the use of formal experiments to evaluate software engineering methods and tools [1]. Shari's articles were based on work she performed for the U.K. DESMET project which aimed to develop a methodology for evaluating software engineering methods and tools.The DESMET project identified a number of useful evaluation methods in addition to formal experiments, and Shari asked me to continue this column by describing some of other methods. As a starting point, I will give an overview of the scope of the DESMET methodology in this article and describe the nine different evaluation methods DESMET identified. In the next few articles I will discuss criteria for selecting a specific method in particular circumstances. Later I will present the DESMET guidelines for performing quantitative case studies and feature analysis.
Proximity-Aware cache Replication

We propose Proximity-Aware cache Replication (PAR), an LLC replication technique that elegantly integrates an intelligent cache replication placement mechanism and a hierarchical directory-based coherence protocol into one cost-effective and scalable design. PAR dynamically allocates replicas of either shared or private data to a few predefined and fixed locations that are calculated at chip design time. Therefore, PAR fits well to future many-core CMPs thanks to its scalable on-chip storage and coherence design. Simulation results on a 64-core CMP show that PAR can achieve 12% speedup over the baseline shared cache design with SPLASH2 and PARSEC workloads. It also provides around 5% speedup over a couple contemporary approaches with much simpler and scalable support. Translating this speedup to cache performance, PAR achieves 40% and 70% reduction over the baseline in average L1 miss latency and on-chip network traffic, respectively. Furthermore, PAR shows good speedup with multiprogrammed workloads.
Gesture and Action Recognition via Modeling Trajectories on Riemannian manifolds

This paper addresses the problem of recognizing human gestures from videos using models that are built from the Riemannian geometry of shape spaces. We represent a human gesture as a temporal sequence of human poses, each characterized by a contour of the associated human silhouette. The shape of a contour is viewed as a point on the shape space of closed curves and, hence, each gesture is characterized and modeled as a trajectory on this shape space. We propose two approaches for modeling these trajectories. In the first template-based approach, we use dynamic time warping (DTW) to align the different trajectories using elastic geodesic distances on the shape space. The gesture templates are then calculated by averaging the aligned trajectories. In the second approach, we use a graphical model approach similar to an exemplar-based hidden Markov model, where we cluster the gesture shapes on the shape space, and build non-parametric statistical models to capture the variations within each cluster. We model each gesture as a Markov model of transitions between these clusters. To evaluate the proposed approaches, an extensive set of experiments was performed using two different data sets representing gesture and action recognition applications. The proposed approaches not only are successfully able to represent the shape and dynamics of the different classes for recognition, but are also robust against some errors resulting from segmentation and background subtraction.
Sex Differences in Intelligence: The Developmental Theory

It is a paradox that males have a larger average brain size than females, that brain size is positively associated with intelligence, and yet numerous experts have asserted that there is no sex difference in intelligence. This paper presents the developmental theory of sex differences in intelligence as a solution to this problem. This states that boys and girls have about the same IQ up to the age of 15 years but from the age of 16 the average IQ of males becomes higher than that of females with an advantage increasing to approximately 4 IQ points in adulthood.