Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Artificial light on water attracts turtle hatchlings during their near shore transit

We examined the effect of artificial light on the near shore trajectories of turtle hatchlings dispersing from natal beaches. Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) hatchlings were tagged with miniature acoustic transmitters and their movements tracked within an underwater array of 36 acoustic receivers placed in the near shore zone. A total of 40 hatchlings were tracked, 20 of which were subjected to artificial light during their transit of the array. At the same time, we measured current speed and direction, which were highly variable within and between experimental nights and treatments. Artificial lighting affected hatchling behaviour, with 88% of individual trajectories oriented towards the light and spending, on average, 23% more time in the 2.25 ha tracking array (19.5 ± 5 min) than under ambient light conditions (15.8 ± 5 min). Current speed had little to no effect on the bearing (angular direction) of the hatchling tracks when artificial light was present, but under ambient conditions it influenced the bearing of the tracks when current direction was offshore and above speeds of approximately 32.5 cm s−1. This is the first experimental evidence that wild turtle hatchlings are attracted to artificial light after entering the ocean, a behaviour that is likely to subject them to greater risk of predation. The experimental protocol described in this study can be used to assess the effect of anthropogenic (light pollution, noise, etc.) and natural (wave action, current, wind, moonlight) influences on the in-water movements of sea turtle hatchlings during the early phase of dispersal.
Clinical instruments: reliability and validity critical appraisal.

UNLABELLED RATIONALE, AIM AND OBJECTIVES: There is a lack of health care practitioners using objective clinical tools with sound psychometric properties. There is also a need for researchers to improve their reporting of the validity and reliability results of these clinical tools. Therefore, to promote the use of valid and reliable tools or tests for clinical evaluation, this paper reports on the development of a critical appraisal tool to assess the psychometric properties of objective clinical tools. METHOD A five-step process was followed to develop the new critical appraisal tool: (1) preliminary conceptual decisions; (2) defining key concepts; (3) item generation; (4) assessment of face validity; and (5) formulation of the final tool. RESULTS The new critical appraisal tool consists of 13 items, of which five items relate to both validity and reliability studies, four items to validity studies only and four items to reliability studies. The 13 items could be scored as 'yes', 'no' or 'not applicable'. CONCLUSION This critical appraisal tool will aid both the health care practitioner to critically appraise the relevant literature and researchers to improve the quality of reporting of the validity and reliability of objective clinical tools.
HTLV-1 Associated Myelopathy in Canada

ABSTRACT: We report the clinical and laboratory findings of six Canadian patients with progressive myelopathy associated with HTLV-1 infection. The diagnosis was suspected on clinical grounds and supported by serological studies and positive gene amplification. Only five had emigrated from an area endemic for HTLV-1 infection. Tropical spastic paraparesis should be considered in all patients with myelopathy, even those without standard serological markers of HTLV-1 infection. The pathogenesis of this condition and the serological and molecular biological means by which this diagnosis can be made are reviewed.
Economic evaluation of Safer Choices: a school-based human immunodeficiency virus, other sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy prevention program.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the cost-effectiveness and cost benefit of Safer Choices, a school-based human immunodeficiency virus, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancy prevention intervention for high school students. METHODS The baseline cost-effectiveness and cost benefit were derived in 4 steps: (1) estimation of intervention costs; (2) adaptation of the Bernoulli model to translate increases in condom use into cases of human immunodeficiency virus and other sexually transmitted diseases averted, and development of a model to translate increases in contraceptive use into cases of pregnancy averted; (3) translation of cases averted into medical costs and social costs averted; and (4) calculation of the net benefit of the program. Multivariable sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the robustness of the base-case results. RESULTS Under base-case assumptions, at an intervention cost of $105,243, Safer Choices achieved a 15% increase in condom use and an 11% increase in contraceptive use within 1 year among 345 sexually active students. An estimated 0.12 cases of human immunodeficiency virus, 24.37 cases of chlamydia, 2.77 cases of gonorrhea, 5.86 cases of pelvic inflammatory disease, and 18.5 pregnancies were prevented. For every dollar invested in the program, $2.65 in total medical and social costs were saved. Results of most of the scenarios remained cost saving under a wide range of model variable estimates. CONCLUSIONS The Safer Choices program is cost-effective and cost saving in most scenarios considered. School-based prevention programs of this type warrant careful consideration by policy makers and program planners. Program cost data should be routinely collected in evaluations of adolescent prevention programs.
Real options under a double exponential jump-diffusion model with regime switching and partial information

We consider the irreversible investment in a project which generates a cash flow following a double exponential jump-diffusion process and its expected return is governed by a continuous-time two-state Markov chain. If the expected return is observable, we present explicit expressions for the pricing and timing of the option to invest. With partial information, i.e. if the expected return is unobservable, we provide an explicit project value and an integral-differential equation for the pricing and timing of the option. We provide a method to measure the information value, i.e. the difference between the option values under the two different cases. We present numerical solutions by finite difference methods. By numerical analysis, we find that: (i) the higher the jump intensity, the later the option to invest is exercised, but its effect on the option value is ambiguous; (ii) the option value increases with the belief in a boom economy; (iii) if investors are more uncertain about the economic environment, information is more valuable; (iv) the more likely the transition from boom to recession, the lower the value of the option; (v) the bigger the dispersion of the expected return, the higher the information value; (vi) a higher cash flow volatility induces a lower information value.
The Leadership Influence of National Board Certified Teachers in Elementary Schools

LYNCH, JAMEE OSBORN. The Leadership Influence of National Board Certified Teachers in Elementary Schools. (Under the direction of Dr. Lance Fusarelli.) This qualitative multiple case study focused on describing the leadership influence of National Board certified teachers in three elementary schools. The study explored how National Board certified teachers exert leadership influence on building-level school improvement and change, and it provides a detailed picture of leadership roles among National Board certified teachers (NBCTs) in three elementary schools in North Carolina school district. The study also provides an analysis on the school factors that seem to serve as either drivers or restrainers in supporting the leadership of National Board certified teachers. Study outcomes illuminate school factors and conditions that nurture and sustain teacher leadership. The study was undertaken using data collected from online surveys, school visits, school achievement data, community profile data, and individual and small focus group interviews. Overarching themes and conclusions were derived from analysis of interviews, school descriptions, community profiles, and school demographic and achievement data. Overall, the study found that National Board certified teachers tend to be teacher leaders, and leadership skills are not necessarily developed through the National Board certification process. Key findings were the critical role of principals in creating a school culture that fosters and supports teacher leaders; the finding that the leadership influence of NBCTs can be found in many arenas and is not necessarily tied to formal leadership roles, and that existing school structures and policy create barriers to deeper, richer teacher leadership roles. The study includes implications and recommendations for policy makers, practitioners, and
Analyzing Knowledge Retrieval Impairments Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease Using Network Analyses

A defining characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is difficulty in retrieving semantic memories, or memories encoding facts and knowledge. While it has been suggested that this impairment is caused by a degradation of the semantic store, the precise ways in which the semantic store is degraded are not well understood. Using a longitudinal corpus of semantic fluency data (listing of items in a category), we derive semantic network representations of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and of healthy controls. We contrast our network-based approach with analyzing fluency data with the standard method of counting the total number of items and perseverations in fluency data. We find that the networks of Alzheimer’s patients are more connected and that those connections are more randomly distributed than the connections in networks of healthy individuals. These results suggest that the semantic memory impairment of Alzheimer’s patients can be modeled through the inclusion of spurious associations between unrelated concepts in the semantic store. We also find that information from our network analysis of fluency data improves prediction of patient diagnosis compared to traditional measures of the semantic fluency task.
Dense Distributed Processing in a Hindlimb Scratch Motor Network

In reduced preparations, hindlimb movements can be generated by a minimal network of neurons in the limb innervating spinal segments. The network of neurons that generates real movements is less well delineated. In an ex vivo carapace-spinal cord preparation from adult turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans), we show that ventral horn interneurons in mid-thoracic spinal segments are functionally integrated in the hindlimb scratch network. First, mid-thoracic interneurons receive intense synaptic input during scratching and behave like neurons in the hindlimb enlargement. Second, some mid-thoracic interneurons activated during scratching project descending axons toward the hindlimb enlargement. Third, elimination of mid-thoracic segments leads to a weakening of scratch rhythmicity. We conclude that densely innervated interneurons in mid-thoracic segments contribute to hindlimb scratching and may be part of a distributed motor network that secures motor coherence.
Bullish Stock Recommendations and Market Self-Regulation

Public skepticism of Wall Street research coupled with the routinely optimistic stock recommendation distributions issued by most brokers has resulted in much regulatory and political criticism. In 2002, these criticisms materialized in the form of industry regulation intended, in part, to curtail the bullish nature of brokerage research. Some view this form of regulatory intervention as vital to protect investors from market hype. However, an alternative perspective is that the market is capable of recognizing analysts or brokers who are overly bullish and assessing its own penalties—for example, in the form of discounted responses to their subsequent research outputs. Results in this study support this notion of market self-regulation.
A Searchable Knowledge Map Based on Ontology

Knowledge visualization and retrieval are the key techniques to implement effective knowledge management. Traditional research on knowledge map emphasizes on building global view of knowledge base, but ignores its support to knowledge retrieval. In this paper, a searchable knowledge map model is proposed. Based on this model, we extent the search-ability of knowledge map and propose three practical algorithms to retrieve related entities (knowledge and information) and relationships respectively. In these algorithms, entity search finds all information and knowledge relative with the target entity in knowledge map; relationship search discoveries all relation paths ordered by their importance between class and class or instance and instance in which we accelerate the instances relationship search utilizing search result set from classes. Finally, We build a searchable visual knowledge map in our knowledge map system and give a case study and evaluation.
Design of Cloud-Connected IoT System for Smart Buildings on Energy Management (Invited paper)

Building energy management (BEM) system can provide cost-effective energy management solutions for smart buildings. However, the success of BEM is contingent on identifying large energy consuming devices, monitoring energy usage, optimal scheduling of flexible appliances, and distinguishing and controlling energy wastage. To this end, this paper discusses the design of Internet of Things (IoT) for a flexible BEM with the backend analytic that performs analysis on energy usage pattern and the wastage. We present the experimental results of real-time monitoring of consumers’ energy usage in a commercial space to identify the electricity wastage. The experiment is conducted at an office testbed using a comprehensive wireless sensor network. Extensive analysis is done to identify the energy wastage pattern of users for reducing the electricity cost. It is demonstrated that it is possible to reduce significant energy wastage when an office building is equipped with the proposed IoT system. Received on 22 October 2015; accepted on 22 October 2015; published on 01 January 2016
Transfer Zero-Entropy and Its Application for Capturing Cause and Effect Relationship Between Variables

Detection of causality is an important and challenging problem in root cause and hazard propagation analysis. It has been shown that the transfer entropy approach is a very useful tool in quantifying directional causal influence for both linear and nonlinear relationships. A key assumption for this method is that the sampled data should follow a well-defined probability distribution; yet this assumption may not hold for some industrial process data. In this paper, a new information theory-based measure, transfer 0-entropy (T0E), is proposed for causality analysis on the basis of the definitions of 0-entropy and 0-information without assuming a probability space. For the cases of more than two variables, a direct T0E (DT0E) concept is presented to detect whether there is a direct information and/or material flow pathway from one variable to another. Estimation methods for the T0E and the DT0E are addressed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by two data sets, one based on data from a pilot scale process and a second evaluation based on data from a benchmark industrial case study.
Hospital Construction

out clearly what constitutes the essentials of a modern general hospital. In our article published in July 1907, page 433, we brought out clearly that no population is justified in incurring a large expenditure upon hospital buildings unless it is prepared to maintain those buildings in efficiency, and fully occupied, when they are completed and ready to receive patients. Unfortunately the modern tendency in hospital construction has sometimes proved that the desire to extend, and ever to increase the amount of work undertaken by a given hospital, is so strong that financial considerations which ought to have the first place in the minds of prudent men before they engage in the luxury of bricks and mortar, are too often relegated to the background. The public are beginning to realise this fact, and unless more prudence is shown by those responsible for hospital buildings of all kinds, in London especially, they must expect to find that the public will refuse to contribute money for these enterprises ; so it may come to pass that a great hospital which has enjoyed many years of public confidence and prosperity may find itself in a most critical financial position. Two great schemes of hospital reconstruction have been successfully carried out in the metropolis in the last decade. One is the practical rebuilding of the London Hospital, which has entailed an expenditui of ? 491,703, a full account of which appeared in issue for August 17, page 537. Of this sum ? 340,^ has been supplied by the public, mainly through t energy of the Chairman, the Hon. Sydney Holla1} > i.e., ? 130,000 by a few donors of large gifts ?
The coexistence of serotonin- and substance P-like immunoreactivity in the spinal cord of the rat as shown by immunofluorescent double labeling

This study surveyed the coexistence of serotonin-like immunoreactivity (5-HT-IR) with substance P-like immunoreactivity (SP-IR) in fibers and terminals within various portions of the spinal cord of the rat. A previously characterized technique of immunofluorescent double labeling was used to stain 5-HT-IR red and SP-IR green, and a search was then made for single fibers that fluoresced both colors. These were found to be most common in the ventral horn, wherein 99% of 5-HT-IR fibers were also immunoreactive for SP. Coexistence of these substances was very rare in the superficial dorsal horn: fewer than 3% of 5-HT-IR fibers were immunoreactive for SP. In the region surrounding the central canal and in the intermediolateral cell column (IML), over half of all 5-HT- IR fibers and terminals were doubly labeled. In the white matter, doubly labeled fibers were most common in the ventral funiculus and somewhat less common in the lateral funiculus. They were rare in the dorsal columns. It is concluded that the coexistence of 5-HT and SP in nerve fibers and terminals is associated with somatic and sympathetic autonomic motoneurons. The role of the coexistence of 5-HT and SP in somatosensation, including pain, is unclear.
Research on Evaluation Method of Rail Transit Train Operation Scheme Based on DEA Method

In this paper, we established an evaluation index system and then calculated different efficiencies of the two kinds of efficient decision-making units and the non-effective ones to evaluate and rank them synthetically. At the same time, the inherent requirements and characteristics of the Data Envelopment Analysis is also considered. The comparison between our method and the existing research verifies the reasonability and practicability of this paper. The results of the case study illustrate that the method proposed in this paper will play a guiding role in train planning comparison and selection practice.
Wideband Uniplanar Artificial Magnetic Conductors Based on Curved Coupled Microstrip Line Resonators

Novel broadband artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) structures based on curved coupled microstrip line resonators are presented. The characteristic feature of the proposed resonators is their relatively wideband resonance. Coupled microstrip lines composed of single-, double-, and multiple-loop AMC unit cells are proposed. The effects of the structure parameters on the fractional bandwidth are studied. Among the proposed structures, the multiple-loop geometry, which fills more space on the top layer of the planar (microstrip) AMC, demonstrates the largest bandwidth. The designed structure exhibits polarization angle independence, and it is also stable under small angular incident angle.
Sunshine for Sale: Environmental Contractors and the Freedom of Information Act

When Great Lakes Dredge & Dock signed a $122 million contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge Miami’s harbor, they not only won a government bid, they entered into an agreement that limits the public’s access to information about the environmental impacts of a project which will forever change the harbor and its ecosystem. This information limitation occurs because the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which grants U.S. citizens access to government information, does not apply to private entities. The FOIA is a vital tool for environmental protection and advocacy, exposing federal practices to the public eye and warning environmental and public health advocates of potential threats. However, the FOIA’s scope spares contractors from the law’s public scrutiny and discourse requirements. As swaths of information move from FOIA’s realm into the protected world of contractor practices, environmental information becomes veiled from public view. The FOIA is being hollowed out as the government outsourcing and public-private partnerships increase and contractors take over more and more traditionally regulatory roles. This paper explores the effects of outsourcing environmentally focused tasks and suggests using government contract clauses as a mechanism for assuring transparency in situations where the government allows private entities to do its environmental work.
A neurogenetics approach to defining differential susceptibility to institutional care

An individual’s neurodevelopmental and cognitive sequelae to negative early experiences may, in part, be explained by genetic susceptibility. We examined whether extreme differences in the early caregiving environment, defined as exposure to severe psychosocial deprivation associated with institutional care compared to normative rearing, interacted with a biologically informed genoset comprising BDNF (rs6265), COMT (rs4680), and SIRT1 (rs3758391) to predict distinct outcomes of neurodevelopment at age 8 (N = 193, 97 males and 96 females). Ethnicity was categorized as Romanian (71%), Roma (21%), unknown (7%), or other (1%). We identified a significant interaction between early caregiving environment (i.e., institutionalized versus never institutionalized children) and the a priori defined genoset for full-scale IQ, two spatial working memory tasks, and prefrontal cortex gray matter volume. Model validation was performed using a bootstrap resampling procedure. Although we hypothesized that the effect of this genoset would operate in a manner consistent with differential susceptibility, our results demonstrate a complex interaction where vantage susceptibility, diathesis stress, and differential susceptibility are implicated.
Complementary Gli activity mediates early patterning of the mouse visual system

The Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway plays a key role in the development of the vertebrate central nervous system, including the eye. This pathway is mediated by the Gli transcription factors (Gli1, Gli2, and Gli3) that differentially activate and repress the expression of specific downstream target genes. In this study, we investigated the roles of the three vertebrate Glis in mediating midline Shh signaling in early ocular development. We examined the ocular phenotypes of Shh and Gli combination mutant mouse embryos and monitored proximodistal and dorsoventral patterning by the expression of specific eye development regulatory genes using in situ hybridization. We show that midline Shh signaling relieves the repressor activity of Gli3 adjacent to the midline and then promotes eye pattern formation through the nonredundant activities of all three Gli proteins. Gli3, in particular, is required to specify the dorsal optic stalk and to define the boundary between the optic stalk and the optic cup. Developmental Dynamics 235:594–605, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.