Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In search of online deliberation: Towards a new method for examining the quality of online discussions

Many advocates of deliberative democracy see in the Internet a new opportunity for the development of public spaces, public spheres, and places where deliberation can take place. An important element of the notion of the public sphere in general and of deliberation specifically, is the quality of the debate. In the past decade, many studies have been conducted to evaluate online discussions in light of the ideal notion of the public sphere. However, a wide gap exists between theoretical approaches and the actual operationalization of such theories for empirical research. In an attempt to bridge this gap we develop a method for examining the extent to which Internet forums meet the normative requirements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity. The methodological approach consists of a textual analysis of the contributions made to an online forum. The coding scheme presented in this article is based on a case study (UK Online) and guided by the theoretical notions of deliberative democracy.
HLA-A alleles and infectious mononucleosis suggest a critical role for cytotoxic T-cell response in EBV-related Hodgkin lymphoma

A proportion of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is believed to be causally related to infection with the ubiquitous lymphotropic EBV. The determining factors for development of EBV-related HL remain poorly understood, but likely involve immunological control of the viral infection. Accordingly, markers of the HLA class I region have been associated with risk of EBV-related HL. To study the host genetic component of EBV-related HL further, we investigated the lymphoma's association with HLA-A*01 and HLA-A*02 simultaneously in the setting of infectious mononucleosis (IM), a risk factor for EBV-related HL, in a case-series analysis including 278 EBV-related and 656 EBV-unrelated cases of HL. By logistic regression, HLA-A*01 alleles [odds ratio (OR) per allele, 2.15; 95% CI, 1.60–2.88] were associated with increased and HLA-A*02 alleles (OR per allele, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.51–0.97) with decreased risk of EBV-related HL. These allele-specific associations corresponded to nearly 10-fold variation in risk of EBV-related HL between HLA-A*01 and HLA-A*02 homozygotes. History of IM was also associated with risk of EBV-related HL (OR, 3.40; 95% CI, 1.74–6.66). The association between history of IM and EBV-related HL was not seen in the presence of HLA-A*02 because this allele appeared to neutralize the effect of IM on EBV-related HL risk. Our findings suggest that HLA class I-restricted EBV-specific cytotoxic T-cell responses and events in the early immune response to EBV infection in IM play critical roles in the pathogenesis of EBV-related HL.
Monitoring power system transient stability using synchrophasor data

Many interconnected power systems are constructed to meet the ever increasing electric power transfer demand. A disturbance anywhere in such an interconnected system will directly influence the power transfer capability of major transfer interfaces, as well as the transient stability of the system. Instead of monitoring the power transfer limit on a given interface, we propose a real-time synchrophasor measurement-based method to monitor the dynamic stability margin of the power system. This is accomplished by directly correlating the phase angle separation and voltage sag of critical buses to power transfer increase on the interface. The Eastern North American power system is used as a platform to illustrate the utility of the proposed method.
Ant Colony Optimization-Based Method for Placement of Sectionalizing Switches in Distribution Networks Using a Fuzzy Multiobjective Approach

This paper proposes a methodology for placement of sectionalizing switches in distribution networks in the presence of distributed generation sources. The multiobjective considerations are handled using a fuzzy approach. The primary objective is reliability improvement with consideration of economic aspects. Thus, the objectives are defined as reliability improvement and minimization of the cost of sectionalizing switches. A fuzzy membership function is defined for each term in the objective function according to relevant conditions. Some considerations incorporated in the proposed model are relocation of existing switches and operating constraints on distribution networks and distributed generation (DG) sources during post-fault service restoration. The ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is adopted to solve the fuzzy multiobjective problem efficiently. The performance of the proposed approach is assessed and illustrated by various case studies on a test distribution system and also a real distribution network.
Novel hierarchical approach for radiosity

In this paper, we propose an approach based on the concept of fuzzy reasoning to estimate the visibility among patches for hierarchical radiosity algorithms. The cost of determining visibility in form factors computation is the most expensive part in the whole process in the hierarchical radiosity algorithms. By applying the proposed fuzzy-based approach, we can improve the performance of hierarchical radiosity algorithms. We describe the algorithm and its implementation, and show that it can dramatically accelerate the hierarchical radiosity algorithms
Factors contributing to separation/divorce in parents of small children in Sweden

Objectives: To investigate factors contributing to separation and divorce in first-time parents. Methods: Quantitatively analyzing data using Mann–Whitney-U-test, Chi-square and logistic regression analysis test from separated and non-separated mothers and fathers, when first child was six months and four years of age. Outcome measures were quality of dyadic relationship, QDR-index and its dimensions and variables. Also, a qualitative content analysis of comments to one open question about contributing factors to the experienced situation from the separated parents (n = 39) was conducted. Results: The experienced quality of the relationship measured with QDR-index and especially Dyadic Satisfaction, Dyadic Consensus and also Dyadic Cohesion showed a statistically secured difference between the groups of separated and non-separated parents. The qualitative description showed seven categories of factors contributing to separation: Strains from parenthood, Stressful conditions, Lack of intimacy, Insufficient communication, Differing personalities & interests, No commitment, and Negative effects of addiction. The described factors were in accordance with the factors described in earlier non-Swedish research. Some of the factors may be possibly prevented from leading to separation, such as lack of equality, insufficient communication and lack of intimacy. Conclusion: Primary health professionals meet the majority of parents-to-be and new parents and should therefore take on the task of supporting them in their relationships, thereby helping to prevent unnecessary separations.
Mirroring Meaning Making

This article illustrates the use of students’ personal narratives and ‘thick description’ in reflecting on field and research experiences in a social work programme. Narrative as an educational tool enabled the authors to collaborate with students, field supervisors and each other in building reflexive links between past, present and future actions. In telling and retelling stories of lived experience around the tasks of social work, all players were able to come together and dialogue at deepening levels of understanding. The complexities involved in taking effective action were brought to the fore by the use of ‘thick description’ in students’ narratives of an identified learning moment. In the history of social work, stories abound of the struggles involved in consciously learning by doing. Our project allowed for such stories, written by students, to be used in facilitating the development of critical reflexivity as an integral part of becoming a practitioner. Subsequently, with student permission, some of these narratives were used in field educators’ workshops. This exercise has made for a weaving of theory, practice and reflection from the perspectives of students, academics and field educators to the shared ends of improving practice.
Towards a Reference Framework for Software Product Management

In the last decade, software product management has received much practical attention, though research in this area is still scattered. In this paper, we present a reference framework for software product management, in which the key process areas, namely portfolio management, product roadmapping, release planning and requirements management, are identified, as well as the stakeholders and their relations. With this reference framework, we provide a structure for a body of knowledge for software product management
Comparison of the performance of screening mammography, physical examination, and breast US and evaluation of factors that influence them: an analysis of 27,825 patient evaluations.

PURPOSE To (a) determine the performance of screening mammography, ultrasonography (US), and physical examination (PE); (b) analyze the influence of age, hormonal status, and breast density; (c) compare the size and stage of tumors detected with each modality; and (d) determine which modality or combination of modalities optimize cancer detection. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 11,130 asymptomatic women underwent 27,825 screening sessions, (mammography and subsequent PE). Women with dense breasts subsequently underwent screening US. Abnormalities were deemed positive if biopsy findings revealed malignancy and negative if findings from biopsy or all screening examinations were negative. RESULTS In 221 women, 246 cancers were found. Sensitivity, specificity, negative and positive predictive values, and accuracy of mammography were 77.6%, 98.8%, 99.8%, 35.8%, and 98.6%, respectively; those of PE, 27.6%, 99.4%, 99.4%, 28.9%, and 98.8%, respectively; and those of US, 75.3%, 96.8%, 99.7%, 20.5%, and 96.6%, respectively. Screening breast US increased the number of women diagnosed with nonpalpable invasive cancers by 42% (30 of 71). Mammographic sensitivity declined significantly with increasing breast density (P <.01) (48% for the densest breasts) and in younger women with dense breasts (P =.02); the effects were independent. Mammography and US together had significantly higher sensitivity (97%) than did mammography and PE together (74%) (P <.001). Tumors detected at mammography and/or US were significantly smaller (P =.01) and of lower stage (P =.01) than those detected at PE. CONCLUSION Mammographic sensitivity for breast cancer declines significantly with increasing breast density and is independently higher in older women with dense breasts. Addition of screening US significantly increases detection of small cancers and depicts significantly more cancers and at smaller size and lower stage than does PE, which detects independently extremely few cancers. Hormonal status has no significant effect on effectiveness of screening independent of breast density.
An Imputation Approach for Oligonucleotide Microarrays

Oligonucleotide microarrays are commonly adopted for detecting and qualifying the abundance of molecules in biological samples. Analysis of microarray data starts with recording and interpreting hybridization signals from CEL images. However, many CEL images may be blemished by noises from various sources, observed as “bright spots”, “dark clouds”, and “shadowy circles”, etc. It is crucial that these image defects are correctly identified and properly processed. Existing approaches mainly focus on detecting defect areas and removing affected intensities. In this article, we propose to use a mixed effect model for imputing the affected intensities. The proposed imputation procedure is a single-array-based approach which does not require any biological replicate or between-array normalization. We further examine its performance by using Affymetrix high-density SNP arrays. The results show that this imputation procedure significantly reduces genotyping error rates. We also discuss the necessary adjustments for its potential extension to other oligonucleotide microarrays, such as gene expression profiling. The R source code for the implementation of approach is freely available upon request.
Agreeing to disagree, some ironies, disappointing scientific practice and a call for better: reply to >

This letter is a response to a Divergent Views article entitled > (Garmire and Subramaniam 2013), which was a response to our Divergent Views article entitled > (Zhou et al. 2013). Using reproducible code examples, we showed that they incorrectly used our normalization method and highlighted additional concerns with their study. Here, I wish to debunk several untrue or misleading statements made by the authors (hereafter referred to as GS) in their response. Unlike GSs, my claims are supported by R code, citations and email correspondences. I finish by making a call for better practice.
Distributed detection of a common random signal

We consider the problem of distributed detection of a common random signal. After evaluating the detection performance of the centralized detector, we propose two distributed detectors. Detector 1 employs energy detector at the local sensors and a monotone fusion rule at the fusion center (FC). Detector 2 uses a Sign detector at each local sensor and a two-sided test at the FC. Detector 1 performs better for the somewhat extreme cases where the number of sensors is very small. When the number of sensors is reasonably large, we prove that detector 2 outperforms detector 1 using the Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) and Stein's lemma. In fact, for sensor networks with a reasonable number of sensors, the performance of detector 2 is about equation as effective as the centralized case where no local quantization is made. We validate the derived results via numerical Monte Carlo Simulations.
The Pathogenic Mechanism of the Mycobacterium ulcerans Virulence Factor, Mycolactone, Depends on Blockade of Protein Translocation into the ER

Infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans is characterised by tissue necrosis and immunosuppression due to mycolactone, the necessary and sufficient virulence factor for Buruli ulcer disease pathology. Many of its effects are known to involve down-regulation of specific proteins implicated in important cellular processes, such as immune responses and cell adhesion. We have previously shown mycolactone completely blocks the production of LPS-dependent proinflammatory mediators post-transcriptionally. Using polysome profiling we now demonstrate conclusively that mycolactone does not prevent translation of TNF, IL-6 and Cox-2 mRNAs in macrophages. Instead, it inhibits the production of these, along with nearly all other (induced and constitutive) proteins that transit through the ER. This is due to a blockade of protein translocation and subsequent degradation of aberrantly located protein. Several lines of evidence support this transformative explanation of mycolactone function. First, cellular TNF and Cox-2 can be once more detected if the action of the 26S proteasome is inhibited concurrently. Second, restored protein is found in the cytosol, indicating an inability to translocate. Third, in vitro translation assays show mycolactone prevents the translocation of TNF and other proteins into the ER. This is specific as the insertion of tail-anchored proteins into the ER is unaffected showing that the ER remains structurally intact. Fourth, metabolic labelling reveals a near-complete loss of glycosylated and secreted proteins from treated cells, whereas cytosolic proteins are unaffected. Notably, the profound lack of glycosylated and secreted protein production is apparent in a range of different disease-relevant cell types. These studies provide a new mechanism underlying mycolactone's observed pathological activities both in vitro and in vivo. Mycolactone-dependent inhibition of protein translocation into the ER not only explains the deficit of innate cytokines, but also the loss of membrane receptors, adhesion molecules and T-cell cytokines that drive the aetiology of Buruli ulcer.
Percentiles of the Product of Uncertainty Factors for Establishing Probabilistic Reference Doses

Exposure guidelines for potentially toxic substances are often based on a reference dose (RfD) that is determined by dividing a no‐observed‐adverse‐effect‐level (NOAEL), lowest‐observed‐adverse‐effect‐level (LOAEL), or benchmark dose (BD) corresponding to a low level of risk, by a product of uncertainty factors. The uncertainty factors for animal to human extrapolation, variable sensitivities among humans, extrapolation from measured subchronic effects to unknown results for chronic exposures, and extrapolation from a LOAEL to a NOAEL can be thought of as random variables that vary from chemical to chemical. Selected databases are examined that provide distributions across chemicals of inter‐ and intraspecies effects, ratios of LOAELs to NOAELs, and differences in acute and chronic effects, to illustrate the determination of percentiles for uncertainty factors. The distributions of uncertainty factors tend to be approximately lognormally distributed. The logarithm of the product of independent uncertainty factors is approximately distributed as the sum of normally distributed variables, making it possible to estimate percentiles for the product. Hence, the size of the products of uncertainty factors can be selected to provide adequate safety for a large percentage (e.g., approximately 95%) of RfDs. For the databases used to describe the distributions of uncertainty factors, using values of 10 appear to be reasonable and conservative. For the databases examined the following simple ‘Rule of 3s’ is suggested that exceeds the estimated 95th percentile of the product of uncertainty factors: If only a single uncertainty factor is required use 33, for any two uncertainty factors use 3 × 33 ≈ 100, for any three uncertainty factors use a combined factor of 3 × 100 = 300, and if all four uncertainty factors are needed use a total factor of 3 × 300 = 900. If near the 99th percentile is desired use another factor of 3. An additional factor may be needed for inadequate data or a modifying factor for other uncertainties (e.g., different routes of exposure) not covered above.
The magnitude of the global problem of acute diarrhoeal disease: a review of active surveillance data.

Data from 24 published studies were anlayzed in order to estimate the annual morbidity and mortality from acute diarrheal diseases in the developing world. 22 of the studies involved frequent surveillance through home visits to families in communities; the other 2 were multicountry studies in which diarrhea mortality was calculated on the basis of death certificate information. Morbidity rates were found to be highest in the 6-11 month age group, while the mortality rates were greatest in infants under 1 year of age and children 1 year old. For children under 5 years of age, the median incidence of diarhhea was 2.2 episodes/child/year for all studies and 3.0 episodes/child/year for the studies that had the smallest populations and most frequent surveillance. Using 1980 population estimates, the estimated total yearly morbidity and mortality from diarrheal diseases for children under 5 years of age in Africa, Asia (excluding China), and Latin America were 744-1000 million episodes and 4.6 million deaths. (author's)
Business and Society and Business Ethics Journals: A Citation and Impact Analysis

Business & Society (B&S), Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ), and the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) are leading journals in the related fields of business ethics and business and society. Citations may be used as an indicator of relative influence. An analysis of their 2001 citations to one another and to the Academy of Management Journal and the Academy of Management Review is presented, showing that an argument could be made for ranking for any of the three journals first, depending on criteria used for judgement and the definition of the universe of those being influenced. The journal most widely recognized among management scholars in general is JBE; however, BEQ and B&S are favoured by experts in their respective sub-disciplines, with B&S citations indicating a closer relationship to the Academy of Management journals.
From structural dilemmas to institutional imperatives: a descriptive theory of the school as an institution and of school organizations

This study outlines a descriptive theory that seeks to grasp the complexity of the school as a state and societal institution as well as single schools as organizations. A significant characteristic of this complexity is the ambiguity of the missions and goals—the outer boundaries—of the school‐institution. The more institutional ambiguity that characterizes these outer boundaries, the more extended is the available scope of action for single schools. To focus on the scope of action for single schools gives attention to the more and less extended latitude for conducting professionally‐oriented school‐development work.
Genetic deficiency of Syk protects mice from autoantibody-induced arthritis

Objective The Syk tyrosine kinase plays an important role in diverse functions in hematopoietic lineage cells. Although previous in vitro and pharmacologic analyses suggested Syk to be a possible player in the development of autoimmune arthritis, no in vivo genetic studies addressing that issue have yet been reported. The aim of the present study was to test whether genetic deficiency of Syk affects autoantibody-induced experimental arthritis in the K/BxN serum–transfer model. Methods Syk−/− bone marrow chimeras carrying a Syk-deficient hematopoietic system were generated by transplanting Syk−/− fetal liver cells into lethally irradiated wild-type recipients. After complete repopulation of the hematopoietic compartment, autoantibody-mediated arthritis was induced by injection of arthritogenic K/BxN serum. Arthritis development was monitored by macroscopic and microscopic observation of the ankle joints, micro–computed tomography of bone morphology, as well as a joint function assay. Results Genetic deficiency of Syk in the hematopoietic compartment completely blocked the development of all macroscopic and microscopic signs of arthritis. The Syk−/− mutation also prevented the appearance of periarticular bone erosions. Finally, Syk−/− bone marrow chimeras were completely protected from arthritis-induced loss of articular function. Conclusion Our results indicate that Syk is critically involved in the development of all clinically relevant aspects of autoantibody-mediated K/BxN serum–transfer arthritis in experimental mice. These results provide the first in vivo genetic evidence of the role of Syk in the development of autoimmune arthritis.