Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bolsa Família e voto na eleição presidencial de 2006: em busca do elo perdido

This article explores the impact of being a Family Grant Program beneficiary in vote choice for President in the 2006 elections and in Lula da Silva's government evaluations. Therefore, the article contributes to the growing literature on how social programs affect voting behaviour in Brazil. However, differently from all other studies, we use individual level data from the AmericasBarometer 2008 Brazilian round, and multivariate statistical analysis to test our hypotheses. Results indicate that being a recipient of the Family Grant Program positively affects vote for Lula and his administration's evaluations.
Completeness of Epistemic Coalition Logic with Group Knowledge

Coalition logic is one of the most popular logics for multi-agent systems. While epistemic extensions of coalition logic have received much attention, existence of their complete axiomatisations has so far been an open problem. In this paper we settle several of those problems. We prove completeness for epistemic coalition logic with common knowledge, with distributed knowledge, and with both common and distributed knowledge, respectively.
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We investigated the neural correlates of advance motor preparation in two experiments that required a movement in response to a peripheral visual stimulus. In one experiment (the memory delay paradigm), subjects knew the target location during a preparatory 'memory delay' interval; in the other experiment they did not know the target location during a 'gap period' (the gap paradigm). In both experiments we further varied the effector that was instructed, either the eye or the forelimb. An area that codes motor preparation should exhibit increases during the memory delay and gap period and such increases should predict some attribute of performance (planning to use the eye or the forelimb). We first identified the frontoparietal visuomotor areas using standard fMRI block designs. Subjects were then scanned using event-related fMRI. With the exception of primary motor cortex (M1), all areas (putative lateral intraparietal area (putLIP), dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), frontal eye field (FEF), ventral frontal eye field (FEFv), supplementary motor area (SMA)) showed gap and memory delay activation for both saccades and pointing. Gap activity in the frontal areas was higher than in the parietal area(s) investigated. The observation that 'memory delay' activity was equivalent or less than gap activity in all areas suggests that what is commonly considered to be memory-related responses largely represents advance motor preparation. Certain areas showed increased activation during the gap or memory delay intervals for pointing (PMd, FEF, FEFv) or saccades (SMA, putLIP). These observations suggest an important role of the frontal cortex in advance motor preparation.
Informal Caregiving Networks and Use of Formal Services by Inner-City African American Elderly with Dementia

Informal caregiving networks are the primary source of support for elderly persons with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. The authors studied a group of 200 urban African American elderly persons with dementia, the characteristics of their informal caregiving networks, and patterns of formal service use to examine relationships between informal caregiving networks and formal service use. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that elderly persons were less likely to use formal services when caregivers in the informal networks were more capable of making care-related decisions. In addition, elderly person's functional status, annual income, and Medicaid eligibility were also significantly related to their use of formal services. Practice implications of these findings are discussed.
Smart Agents: When Lower Search Costs for Quality Information Increase Price Sensitivity

Recent consumer research suggests that lowering search costs for quality information reduces consumer price sensitivity by creating greater perceived differentiation among brands (e.g., Kaul and Wittink 1995; Lynch and Ariely 2000). We argue that lowering quality search costs by smart agents can have the opposite effect on differentiation and price sensitivity. Smart agents screen through a universe of alternatives, recommending only a handful well-matched to the customer's quality preferences. In this research, we ask and answer the following questions: In markets in which price and quality are uncorrelated, will the use of screening agents increase or decrease prices paid compared to searching from an unordered list of options? Will increasing the size of the store's underlying assortment increase or decrease prices paid when options have been screened on quality? In markets where higher priced goods have higher quality, will the use of screening agents increase or decrease prices paid and quality selected? Experiments 1 and 2 test the effect of quality screening when price and quality are uncorrelated. We then present an analytic model for markets in which price and quality are correlated. We deduce that ordering can cause price and quality to increase or decrease depending on the slope of the price-quality relationship in comparison with the relative importance of price in the utility function. We find support for this model in experiment 3. Copyright 2003 by the University of Chicago.
The Rapid Extraction of Gist—Early Neural Correlates of High-level Visual Processing

The human cognitive system is highly efficient in extracting information from our visual environment. This efficiency is based on acquired knowledge that guides our attention toward relevant events and promotes the recognition of individual objects as they appear in visual scenes. The experience-based representation of such knowledge contains not only information about the individual objects but also about relations between them, such as the typical context in which individual objects co-occur. The present EEG study aimed at exploring the availability of such relational knowledge in the time course of visual scene processing, using oscillatory evoked gamma-band responses as a neural correlate for a currently activated cortical stimulus representation. Participants decided whether two simultaneously presented objects were conceptually coherent (e.g., mouse–cheese) or not (e.g., crown–mushroom). We obtained increased evoked gamma-band responses for coherent scenes compared with incoherent scenes beginning as early as 70 msec after stimulus onset within a distributed cortical network, including the right temporal, the right frontal, and the bilateral occipital cortex. This finding provides empirical evidence for the functional importance of evoked oscillatory activity in high-level vision beyond the visual cortex and, thus, gives new insights into the functional relevance of neuronal interactions. It also indicates the very early availability of experience-based knowledge that might be regarded as a fundamental mechanism for the rapid extraction of the gist of a scene.
SEAL-II - The Soft Spot between Richly Structured and Unstructured Knowledge

Recently, the idea of semantic portals on the Web or on the intranet has gained pop- ularity. Their key concern is to allow a community of users to present and share knowledge in a particular (set of) domain(s) via semantic methods. Thus, semantic portals aim at creating high- quality access — in contrast to methods like information retrieval or document clustering that do not exploit any semantic background knowledge at all. However, by way of this construction semantic portals may easily suffer from a typical knowledge management problem. Their initial value is low, because only little richly structured knowledge is available. Hence the motivation of its potential users to extend the knowledge pool is small, too. We here present SEAL-II, a methodology for semantic portals that extends its previous version, by providing a range of ontology-based means for hitting the soft spot between unstructured knowledge, which virtually comes for free, but which is of little use, and richly structured knowl- edge, which is expensive to gain, but of tremendous possible value. Thus, we give the portal builder tools and techniques in an overall framework to start the knowledge process at a semantic portal. SEAL-II takes advantage of the ontology in order to initiate the portal with knowledge, which is more usable than unstructured knowledge, but cheaper than richly structured knowledge.
Decorin induced by progesterone plays a crucial role in suppressing endometriosis

Dienogest, a synthetic progestin, has been shown to be effective against endometriosis, although it is still unclear as to how it affects the ectopic endometrial cells. Decorin has been shown to be a powerful endogenous tumor repressor acting in a paracrine fashion to limit tumor growth. Our objectives were to examine the direct effects of progesterone and dienogest on the in vitro proliferation of the human ectopic endometrial epithelial and stromal cell lines, and evaluate as to how decorin contributes to this effect. We also examined DCN mRNA expression in 50 endometriosis patients. The growth of both cell lines was inhibited in a dose-dependent manner by both decorin and dienogest. Using a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay, it was noted that progesterone and dienogest directly induced the binding of the decorin promoter in the EMOsis cc/TERT cells (immortalized human ovarian epithelial cells) and CRL-4003 cells (immortalized human endometrial stromal cells). Progesterone and dienogest also led to significant induced cell cycle arrest via decorin by promoting production of p21 in both cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. Decorin also suppressed the expression of MET in both cell lines. We confirmed that DCN mRNA expression in patients treated with dienogest was higher than that in the control group. In conclusion, decorin induced by dienogest appears to play a crucial role in suppressing endometriosis by exerting anti-proliferative effects and inducing cell cycle arrest via the production of p21 human ectopic endometrial cells and eutopic endometrial stromal cells.
Robust Matrix Elastic Net based Canonical Correlation Analysis: An Effective Algorithm for Multi-View Unsupervised Learning

This paper presents a robust matrix elastic net based canonical correlation analysis (RMEN-CCA) for multiple view unsupervised learning problems, which emphasizes the combination of CCA and the robust matrix elastic net (RMEN) used as coupled feature selection. The RMEN-CCA leverages the strength of the RMEN to distill naturally meaningful features without any prior assumption and to measure effectively correlations between different 'views'. We can further employ directly the kernel trick to extend the RMEN-CCA to the kernel scenario with theoretical guarantees, which takes advantage of the kernel trick for highly complicated nonlinear feature learning. Rather than simply incorporating existing regularization minimization terms into CCA, this paper provides a new learning paradigm for CCA and is the first to derive a coupled feature selection based CCA algorithm that guarantees convergence. More significantly, for CCA, the newly-derived RMEN-CCA bridges the gap between measurement of relevance and coupled feature selection. Moreover, it is nontrivial to tackle directly the RMEN-CCA by previous optimization approaches derived from its sophisticated model architecture. Therefore, this paper further offers a bridge between a new optimization problem and an existing efficient iterative approach. As a consequence, the RMEN-CCA can overcome the limitation of CCA and address large-scale and streaming data problems. Experimental results on four popular competing datasets illustrate that the RMEN-CCA performs more effectively and efficiently than do state-of-the-art approaches.
Neural circuits for peristaltic wave propagation in crawling Drosophila larvae: analysis and modeling

Drosophila larvae crawl by peristaltic waves of muscle contractions, which propagate along the animal body and involve the simultaneous contraction of the left and right side of each segment. Coordinated propagation of contraction does not require sensory input, suggesting that movement is generated by a central pattern generator (CPG). We characterized crawling behavior of newly hatched Drosophila larvae by quantifying timing and duration of segmental boundary contractions. We developed a CPG network model that recapitulates these patterns based on segmentally repeated units of excitatory and inhibitory (EI) neuronal populations coupled with immediate neighboring segments. A single network with symmetric coupling between neighboring segments succeeded in generating both forward and backward propagation of activity. The CPG network was robust to changes in amplitude and variability of connectivity strength. Introducing sensory feedback via “stretch-sensitive” neurons improved wave propagation properties such as speed of propagation and segmental contraction duration as observed experimentally. Sensory feedback also restored propagating activity patterns when an inappropriately tuned CPG network failed to generate waves. Finally, in a two-sided CPG model we demonstrated that two types of connectivity could synchronize the activity of two independent networks: connections from excitatory neurons on one side to excitatory contralateral neurons (E to E), and connections from inhibitory neurons on one side to excitatory contralateral neurons (I to E). To our knowledge, such I to E connectivity has not yet been found in any experimental system; however, it provides the most robust mechanism to synchronize activity between contralateral CPGs in our model. Our model provides a general framework for studying the conditions under which a single locally coupled network generates bilaterally synchronized and longitudinally propagating waves in either direction.
Diagnosing Performance Changes by Comparing Request Flows

The causes of performance changes in a distributed system often elude even its developers. This paper develops a new technique for gaining insight into such changes: comparing request flows from two executions (e.g., of two system versions or time periods). Building on end-to-end request-flow tracing within and across components, algorithms are described for identifying and ranking changes in the flow and/or timing of request processing. The implementation of these algorithms in a tool called Spectroscope is evaluated. Six case studies are presented of using Spectroscope to diagnose performance changes in a distributed storage service caused by code changes, configuration modifications, and component degradations, demonstrating the value and efficacy of comparing request flows. Preliminary experiences of using Spectroscope to diagnose performance changes within select Google services are also presented.
Information retrieval at the millenium

Information retrieval systems were among the first medical informatics applications, yet their use has changed substantially in this decade with the growth of end-user computers and the Internet. While early challenges revolved around how to increase the amount of information available in electronic form, more recent challenges center on how to manage the growing volume. Traditional information retrieval issues--such as how to organize and index information to make it more retrievable as well as how to evaluate the effectiveness of systems--are still as pertinent as ever.
Absolute Magnitude Calibration for the W UMa-type Contact Binary Stars

Hipparcos parallax data for 19 contact binary stars of the W UMa-type (with M V < 0:25) are used to check the previous absolute-magnitude calibration of the form M V = M V (log P; B ? V), and to derive a new one. The new calibration covers the ranges 1:7 < M V < 5:5, and gives practically identical predictions for M V as the previous one, although it is based on entirely independent M V data, with only 2 systems common to both input datasets. The main limitations of the calibration are the inadequate quality of the ground-based photometric data and its sensitivity to the inclusion of rare systems which lie far from the general period{colour relation.
Scheduling split intervals

We consider the problem of scheduling jobs that are given as <i>groups</i> of non-intersecting segments on the real line. Each job <i>J<inf>j</inf></i> is associated with an interval, <i>I<inf>j</inf>,</i> which consists of up to <i>t</i> segments, for some <i>t</i> ≥ 1, a positive weight, <i>w<inf>j</inf>,</i> and two jobs are in conflict if any of their segments intersect. Such jobs show up in a wide range of applications, including the transmission of continuous-media data, allocation of linear resources (e.g. bandwidth in linear processor arrays), and in computational biology/geometry. The objective is to schedule a subset of non-conflicting jobs of maximum total weight.In a single machine environment, our problem can be formulated as the problem of finding a <i>maximum weight independent set</i> in a <i>t-interval</i> graph (the special case of <i>t</i> = 1 is an ordinary interval graph). We show that, for <i>t</i> ≥ 2, this problem is APX-hard, even for highly restricted instances. Our main result is a 2<i>t</i>-approximation algorithm for general instances, based on a novel <i>fractional</i> version of the Local Ratio technique. Previously, the problem was considered only for proper union graphs, a restricted subclass of <i>t</i>-interval graphs, and the approximation factor achieved was (2<sup><i>t</i></sup> - 1 + 1/2<sup><i>t</i></sup>). A bi-criteria polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) is developed for the subclass of <i>t-union</i> graphs.In the online case, we consider uniform weight jobs that consist of at most two segments. We show that when the resulting 2-interval graph is <i>proper,</i> a simple greedy algorithm is 3-competitive, while any randomized algorithm has competitive ratio at least 2.5. For general instances, we give a randomized <i>O</i>(log<sup>2</sup> <i>R</i>)-competitive (or <i>O</i>((log <i>R</i>)<sup>2+ε</sup>)-competitive) algorithm, where <i>R</i> is the known (unknown) ratio between the longest and the shortest segment in the input sequence.
Social background, achievement motivation, optimism and health: A longitudinal study

In a longitudinal study over 4 years, the relationship between home background, achievement motivation, optimism, psychological well-being and self-rated health was investigated in 149 young adults. The participants were assessed at school at age 16 years and then at two follow up points, 2 years and 4 years later. The data produced shows that the home background variables of socioeconomic status, family size and parental employment predict psychological well-being, self-rated health, achievement motivation and optimism at subsequent stages. Achievement motivation and optimism play a mediating role between home background and the outcome measures of self-rated health and psychological well-being. Furthermore achievement motivation appears to only take on an important role in terms of the development of identity.
Audio and Chat Combined - Are Two Media Better Than One?

Meetings and collaborative work are part of the everyday business life. Audio communication in the form of VoIP and instant messaging-based chat communication offer new and inexpensive ways to communicate in groups. Our previous research has shown that the selection of either audio or chat has a significant impact on the collaborative productivity. This experiment observes the impact of selecting both audio and chat communication at the same time. We analyze whether the polychronicity helps to achieve a higher productivity. This work provides quantitative, experimental-based data. We show with this data that typical users are overwhelmed by the combination of both media. The complexity of listening to the audio conversation, reading the chat dialog and observing the shared whitespace together with communicating seems to induce too high a cognitive load on the user, thus preventing productive work. This paper shows the importance of quantitative experiments about polychronicity and proposes further work about the correlation of media synchronicity and polychronicity research.
Microbial Diversity of Genital Ulcer Disease in Men Enrolled in a Randomized Trial of Male Circumcision in Kisumu, Kenya

Background Medical male circumcision (MMC) reduces the risk of genital ulcer disease (GUD) in men by 50%. In Ugandan and Kenyan trials, a sexually transmissible agent was not identified in 50–60% of GUD specimens by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. We sought to better define the etiology of GUD in men participating in the Kenyan trial and examine how MMC affects GUD etiology. Methods We defined GUD of unknown etiology as negative for HSV (type 1 and type 2), T. pallidum, and H. ducreyi by PCR, and negative for HSV-2 and T. pallidum by serology. We identified bacterial microbiota in a subset of 59 GUD specimens using multitag pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and compared results by unknown vs. STI-associated etiology. Statistical analysis employed Bray-Curtis similarity measure of bacterial community by etiology, hierarchical clustering and logistic regression. Results In 59 GUD specimens from 59 men, 23 (39%) had unknown etiology. Bacterial diversity was greater in GUD of unknown than STI etiology (p = 0.01). Fusobacteria (Fusobacterium spp. and Sneathia spp.) were more commonly detected in men with GUD of unknown etiology [adjusted OR = 5.67; 95% CI: 1.63–19.8] as were Oxobacter spp. and Anaerovorax spp. [adjusted OR = 3.12; 95% CI: 0.83–11.7]. Sequences from these four anaerobic bacterial taxa were more often detected in uncircumcised men than circumcised men (p<0.05). Conclusions Anaerobic bacteria are more common in genital ulcers of uncircumcised men. The specific anaerobic bacteria associated with GUD of unknown etiology have cytotoxic properties that can exacerbate epithelial disruptions leading to ulcer-like appearance. MMC may reduce GUD through a reduction in these anaerobic bacteria.
Analysis of Location Monitoring Techniques with Privacy Preservation in WSN

The trend of location surveillance system is increasing day-by-day, so the range of such services providing systems like GPS and PDA's conjointly increase parallel. As a result of this, we tend to get the precise and applicable location of monitoring object. However at an equivalent time the foremost necessary issue of privacy is missing. WSN chiefly consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors that monitor physical or environmental conditions and cooperatively pass their data through the wireless network to a main location in WSN. The main challenges in wireless sensor network are heterogeneousness, distributed processing, low bandwidth communication, large scale coordination and secured location monitoring. There is a variety of applications that are developed on the basis of wireless sensor network, such as navigation, habitat monitoring, objects detection and tracking. Location monitoring systems are used to detect human activities and provide monitoring services with low privacy. This paper gives comparative analysis of the location monitoring and privacy providing schemes. There are some problems in previous papers that are: wrong location providing, provide precise location except privacy, providing privacy as well location except the data used is static data. The method proposed in this paper is more reliable to overcome such problems.