Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Turnout and Representation: Caucuses Versus Primaries

Since the work of V. 0. Key, several surveys have tested representation in primary elections. In many states, however, open-precinct caucuses and conventions supplement or replace primaries as a basis for "grass roots" party organization and in presidential delegate selection. Contrary to most assumptions, one state party's open-precinct caucuses were found to perform as well as equivalent primaries in representing policy, candidate or party-related attitudes, although performing somewhat worse in demographic representation.
Improvement of Stability and Load Sharing in an Autonomous Microgrid Using Supplementary Droop Control Loop

This paper investigates the problem of appropriate load sharing in an autonomous microgrid. High gain angle droop control ensures proper load sharing, especially under weak system conditions. However, it has a negative impact on overall stability. Frequency-domain modeling, eigenvalue analysis, and time-domain simulations are used to demonstrate this conflict. A supplementary loop is proposed around a conventional droop control of each DG converter to stabilize the system while using high angle droop gains. Control loops are based on local power measurement and modulation of the d-axis voltage reference of each converter. Coordinated design of supplementary control loops for each DG is formulated as a parameter optimization problem and solved using an evolutionary technique. The supplementary droop control loop is shown to stabilize the system for a range of operating conditions while ensuring satisfactory load sharing.
Analysis of lung function test in patients with pleural empyema treated with thoracotomy and decortication.

UNLABELLED The fibrinopurulent phase of pleural empyema has very often been treated with thoracotomy and decortications. MATERIAL AND METHODS We analyzed the lung function of 19 surgically treated patients in the last 3 years. The lung function was followed up at least 6 months after surgery. RESULTS Before surgery the expected mean forced vital capacity (FVC) was 4650 ml, the expected mean forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) was 3450 ml, the realized mean FVC was 2850 ml, and the realized mean FEV1 was 1750 ml. The mean FVC 3 months after surgery was 3430 ml, and the mean FEV1 was 1700 ml. The mean FVC 6 months after surgery was 3850 ml, and the mean FEV1 was 2950 ml. DISCUSSION Early detection and treatment is essential in the treatment of empyema, where the use of thoracic drainage with or without streptokinase or the use of video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) decortication were methods of choice in treatment. Later, thoracotomy with decortication was the only treatment solution of the fibrinopurulent phase of empyema, where a trapped lung was frequently detected. CONCLUSION Thoracotomy with decortication is a useful method of treatment of the fibrinopurulent phase of empyema, which solved the problem and also significantly improved lung function, especially at the follow-up after 6 months.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education resident duty hour new standards: History, changes, and impact on staffing of intensive care units*

Objectives:The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recently released new standards for supervision and duty hours for residency programs. These new standards, which will affect over 100,000 residents, take effect in July 2011. In response to these new guidelines, the Society of Critical Care Medicine convened a task force to develop a white paper on the impact of changes in resident duty hours on the critical care workforce and staffing of intensive care units. Participants:A multidisciplinary group of professionals with expertise in critical care education and clinical practice. Data Sources and Synthesis:Relevant medical literature was accessed through a systematic MEDLINE search and by requesting references from all task force members. Material published by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and other specialty organizations was also reviewed. Collaboratively and iteratively, the task force corresponded by electronic mail and held several conference calls to finalize this report. Main Results:The new rules mandate that all first-year residents work no more than 16 hrs continuously, preserving the 80-hr limit on the resident workweek and 10-hr period between duty periods. More senior trainees may work a maximum of 24 hrs continuously, with an additional 4 hrs permitted for handoffs. Strategic napping is strongly suggested for trainees working longer shifts. Conclusions:Compliance with the new Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education duty-hour standards will compel workflow restructuring in intensive care units, which depend on residents to provide a substantial portion of care. Potential solutions include expanded utilization of nurse practitioners and physician assistants, telemedicine, offering critical care training positions to emergency medicine residents, and partnerships with hospitalists. Additional research will be necessary to evaluate the impact of the new standards on patient safety, continuity of care, resident learning, and staffing in the intensive care unit.
Can we Exploit Predictability in Bond Markets?

This paper investigates the optimal bond portfolio choice of an investor in a model that captures both the failure of the expectation hypothesis and recent findings that variables not in the term structure of interest rates drive expected bond returns. I estimate a daily multifactor affine term structure model with a large set of unrevised macroeconomic data in which one of the state variables is unspanned by the contemporaneous yield curve. By characterizing the optimal bond portfolio choice under different information sets I quantify the importance of using information not reflected in the yield curve. I find that investors who only condition on bond prices would pay a significant amount of wealth to observe the (unobservable) risk-premium in real time. This implies that bond-risk premia cannot be filtered precisely solely from fixed-income securities. Instead, I find that investors who condition on macroeconomic variables perform much better and that payrolls, industrial production and gross domestic product are the most relevant to portfolio decision. These results show that expanding the information set to include macroeconomic information that is not already incorporated in prices can substantially increase the ex-ante utility (and ex-post performance) of bond portfolio investors. I document the importance of hedging demands at intermediate levels of risk-aversion and discuss some shortcomings of the affine framework when applied to bond portfolio decisions.
New Surprises from the Deep — The Family of Small Regulatory RNAs Increases

The amount of knowledge about new classes of small RNA molecules has expanded at a breathtaking pace in the last few years. This expansion is mainly due to the advent of new, advanced, technologies to profile RNAs, such as massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS) and 454 pyrosequencing. Until recently, rare RNA species had only a small chance of being discovered because of the small-scale sequencing approaches used. The vast amounts of data presently generated and coupled with computational analysis allow a yet unprecedented exploration of the heterogeneity of 20- to 30-nt-long small RNAs and their role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. The continual discovery of new small RNA species suggests that we are only just beginning to appreciate the complexity of small RNAs and their functions. Extended studies on these new exciting classes of small RNAs, which were previously thought to be mere degradation products, will undoubtedly uncover novel roles for these tiny molecules in health and disease.
The Subprime Solution

The subprime mortgage crisis has already wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people and now it threatens to derail the U.S. economy and economies around the world. In this trenchant book, best-selling economist Robert Shiller reveals the origins of this crisis and puts forward bold measures to solve it. He calls for an aggressive response--a restructuring of the institutional foundations of the financial system that will not only allow people once again to buy and sell homes with confidence, but will create the conditions for greater prosperity in America and throughout the deeply interconnected world economy. Shiller blames the subprime crisis on the irrational exuberance that drove the economy's two most recent bubbles--in stocks in the 1990s and in housing between 2000 and 2007. He shows how these bubbles led to the dangerous overextension of credit now resulting in foreclosures, bankruptcies, and write-offs, as well as a global credit crunch. To restore confidence in the markets, Shiller argues, bailouts are needed in the short run. But he insists that these bailouts must be targeted at low-income victims of subprime deals. In the longer term, the subprime solution will require leaders to revamp the financial framework by deploying an ambitious package of initiatives to inhibit the formation of bubbles and limit risks, including better financial information; simplified legal contracts and regulations; expanded markets for managing risks; home equity insurance policies; income-linked home loans; and new measures to protect consumers against hidden inflationary effects. This powerful book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got into the subprime mess--and how we can get out. In a new preface to this powerful book, Shiller discusses the development of the crisis in relation to the ideas presented in The Subprime Solution.
Influence of the Indigenous Gastrointestinal Microbial Flora on Duodenal Alkaline Phosphatase Activity in Mice

Alkaline phosphatase activity was assayed by two procedures in duodenal homogenates from specific pathogen-free (SPF) mice of various ages, adult germfree mice, adult ex-germ-free mice colonized with an indigenous microflora from the SPF mice, and adult ex-germ-free mice monocontaminated with a Lactobacillus sp. indigenous to the SPF mice. In the SPF neonates, the activity remained at low levels until at least 12 days of age, increased to high levels at 20 days of age, and then fell to adult levels between the early neonatal and later high levels. In the germ-free mice, the activity levels were significantly higher than the levels in SPF mice at any age. In contrast, in the ex-germ-free animals, colonized by an entire indigenous microflora, the values fell within the range for adult SPF animals. In the ex-germ-free mice colonized only by the Lactobacillus sp. , the activity levels were intermediate between the values for germ-free and SPF mice. These findings show that the indigenous microbial flora influences considerably the intestinal alkaline phosphatase activity in the mouse.
Investigation on Evolutionary Chaos Controller Synthesis for Hénon Map Stabilization

This research deals with the synthesis of control law by means of Analytic Programming (AP) for the Henon Map, which is discrete chaotic system. The tool for symbolic regression (AP) is used for the purpose of stabilization of stable state and higher periodic orbits, which represent oscillations between several values of chaotic system. For experimentation, Self‐Organizing Migrating Algorithm (SOMA) with AP and Differential Evolution (DE) as the second algorithm for meta‐evolution were used.
Wage dynamics in Denmark

Compared with the previous decades the rate of wage increase in Denmark has been subdued since the mid-1990s, given the pressure that gradually arose in the labour market. The paper describes changes in the labour market in recent years, including labour-market reforms and decentralisation of wage formation, and an empirical analysis of wage development in Denmark from 1975 to 2007 is performed. The results indicate that in the long term Danish wage development can be described by a real-wage curve. In the short term a wage equation with error correction towards this real-wage curve seems to outperform a simple Phillips curve. Comments from seminar participants at the University of Copenhagen and at Danmarks Nationalbank are gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reect the views of Danmarks Nationalbank. yAddress: Havnegade 5, 1093 København K, Denmark. E-mail: pso@nationalbanken.dk
Therapy‐related leukemia following chemoradiotherapy for esophageal cancer

Chemoradiotherapy has improved the outcome of patients with esophageal cancer. Although a sufficiently long‐time survival has resulted in the increase of several treatment‐related late toxicities, little is still known about the incidence of secondary malignancies. In our hospital, 348 patients with esophageal cancer received chemotherapy consisting of nedaplatin and 5‐fluorouracil and concurrent irradiation. Median and average follow‐up durations were 8 and 21 months (1–92), respectively. Four patients developed leukemia after 19–48 months of follow‐up. Two patients were diagnosed with overt leukemia from myelodysplastic syndrome presenting a complex karyotype, including the deletion of chromosome 5 or 7. Notably, one patient showed an additional chromosomal abnormality with t(9;22)(q34;q11). Other patients developed acute myeloid leukemia with t(9;22)(q34;q11) and Burkitt leukemia with t(8;14)(q24;q32). All patients eventually succumbed to leukemia. Platinum and fluorouracil have shown relatively lower risks for secondary malignancies in comparison with alkylating agents and topoisomerase II inhibitors. Especially, nedaplatin has never been described to introduce secondary neoplasms. Our report supports the idea that the concurrent administration of radiotherapy with these agents affects the risk of leukemia. Interestingly, rare balanced chromosomal abnormalities were observed in the present cases, thus providing new insights into the leukemogenesis of therapy‐related leukemia.
Ethnic Groups Differences in Domestic Recovery after the Catastrophe: A Case Study of the 2008 Magnitude 7.9 Earthquake in China

This research examined the ethnic differences in domestic recovery after the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China. In 2014, 866 valid questionnaires were collected. Han and Qiang & Zang households were analyzed using logistic regression to determine the factors influencing household recovery. It was found that the householder of the Qiang & Zang group played a more important role in household recovery. Different from the Han, females from Qiang & Zang households had negative attitudes on recovery, and Qiang & Zang households did not believe in the effectiveness of public donations for post-quake recovery. The study also showed that local workers in a household were more helpful for household recovery than were migrant workers in a household, regardless of ethnicity. Therefore, the government should create more local jobs in Han and Qiang & Zang households and pay more attention to women in Qiang households. Assistance should be established specifically for the psychological recovery of Qiang women and family recovery projects.
BRD4 is an atypical kinase that phosphorylates Serine2 of the RNA Polymerase II carboxy-terminal domain

The bromodomain protein, BRD4, has been identified recently as a therapeutic target in acute myeloid leukemia, multiple myeloma, Burkitt’s lymphoma, NUT midline carcinoma, colon cancer, and inflammatory disease; its loss is a prognostic signature for metastatic breast cancer. BRD4 also contributes to regulation of both cell cycle and transcription of oncogenes, HIV, and human papilloma virus (HPV). Despite its role in a broad range of biological processes, the precise molecular mechanism of BRD4 function remains unknown. We report that BRD4 is an atypical kinase that binds to the carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) of RNA polymerase II and directly phosphorylates its serine 2 (Ser2) sites both in vitro and in vivo under conditions where other CTD kinases are inactive. Phosphorylation of the CTD Ser2 is inhibited in vivo by a BRD4 inhibitor that blocks its binding to chromatin. Our finding that BRD4 is an RNA polymerase II CTD Ser2 kinase implicates it as a regulator of eukaryotic transcription.
HLS-dv: A High-Level Synthesis Framework for Dual-Vdd Architectures

Dual supply voltage design is widely accepted as an effective way to reduce the power consumption of CMOS circuits. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive design framework that includes dual- scheduling, dual- allocation, controller synthesis as well as layout generation. In particular, we address a problem of high-level synthesis with objective of minimizing power consumption of storage units and multiplexers using dual- ; this is made possible by utilizing timing slack that is left in the data-path after operation scheduling. We use integer linear programming (ILP) and also provide heuristic algorithms to solve the dual- register and connection allocation. The physical layout of dual-circuits has to separate power rails of and cells from each other. We propose a voltage island based placement algorithm to relieve this restriction and allow more flexibility of placement. In experiments on benchmark designs implemented in 1.08 V (with Vddl of 0.8 V) 65-nm CMOS technology, both switching and leakage power are reduced by 20% on average, respectively, compared to data-path with dual-Vdd applied to functional units alone. Detailed analysis of area and wirelength is performed to assess feasibility of the proposed method.
A novel multiprocessor architecture for k-means clustering algorithm based on network-on-chip

The k-means clustering is one of the widely used algorithms in Data Mining and Machine Learning domains due to the simplicity, efficiency and scalability involved. The algorithm allocates N data-points or samples to k-clusters employing the minimum distances from respective cluster centroids. Distance calculation is intrinsically a computationally intensive task which is usually accelerated by using specific hardware platforms like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Graphic Processing Unit (GPUs) etc. Hardware implementations absolve k-means from these exhaustive computations by using the inherent parallelism of the k-means clustering technique. In this paper we propose a Multi-Processor based sequentially unfolded architecture for k-means clustering using N-tiles in a collaborative working environment. The tiles work independently in parallel and largely interchange data at the end of iteration. In proposed framework the exchange of data between titles is carried out using a Network-on-Chip (NoC) inter-connect to elevate communication bottleneck caused by concurrent working of tiles. The modularity of the proposed model permits scalability with respect to the number of working tiles. The performance evaluation of proposed architecture is done using Speed, Area and average Throughput.
A 600-msample/s, 25-mW, 6-bit folding and interpolating ADC in 0.13µm CMOS

A 600-MS/s 6-bit folding and interpolation analog-to digital converter (ADC) is presented. This ADC with single track-and-hold (T/H) circuits is based on cascaded folding amplifiers and input-connection-improved active interpolating amplifiers. Under a supply voltage of 1.4 V, the ADC achieves 5.55 bit of effective number of bits (ENOB) and 47.84 dB of spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) at 10-MHz input and 4.3 bit of ENOB and 35.65 dB of SFDR at 200-MHz input with 500-Ms/s sampling rate and achieves 5.48 bit of ENOB and 43.52 dB of SFDR at 1-MHz input and 4.66 bit of ENOB and 39.56 dB of SFDR at 30.1-MHz input with 600-Ms/s sampling rate. Differential nonlinearity (DNL) and integral nonlinearity (INL) are 0.62 LSB and 0.66 LSB, respectively. The circuit is prototyped in 0.13-µm CMOS process and occupies a core area of 0.17 mm2. The converter only dissipates 25 mW1.
The Wilkie Model for Retail Price Inflation Revisited

ABSTRACT A first order autoregressive model was proposed in Wilkie (1995) for the retail price inflation series as a part of his stochastic investment model. In this paper we apply time series outlier analysis to the data set and a revised model is derived. It significantly alleviates the problem of leptokurtic and positive skewed residual distribution as found in the original model. Finally, ARCH models for the original series and the outlier-adjusted data are also considered.
Inhibition of Inositol Phosphorylceramide Synthase by Aureobasidin A in Candida and AspergillusSpecies

ABSTRACT Inositol phosphorylceramide (IPC) synthase is an enzyme common to fungi and plants that catalyzes the transfer of phosphoinositol from phosphatidylinositol to ceramide to form IPC. The reaction is a key step in fungal sphingolipid biosynthesis and the target of the antibiotics galbonolide A, aureobasidin A, and khafrefungin. As a first step toward understanding the antifungal spectrum of IPC synthase inhibitors, we examined the sensitivity of IPC synthase to aureobasidin A in membrane preparations of Candida species (Candida albicans, C. glabrata, C. tropicalis, C. parapsilosis, and C. krusei) and Aspergillus species (Aspergillus fumigatus, A. flavus, A. niger, andA. terreus). As expected, preparations from the fiveCandida species, all exquisitely susceptible to aureobasidin A (MICs, <2 μg/ml), had IPC synthase activity (specific activity, 50 to 400 pmol/min/mg of protein) sensitive to aureobasidin A (50% inhibitory concentrations [IC50s], 2 to 4 ng/ml). Surprisingly, preparations from the fourAspergillus species, including A. fumigatus andA. flavus, which are intrinsically resistant to aureobasidin A (MICs, >50 μg/ml), had IPC synthase activity (specific activity, 1 to 3 pmol/min/mg of protein) also sensitive to aureobasidin A (IC50s, 3 to 5 ng/ml). The mammalian multidrug resistance modulators verapamil, chlorpromazine, and trifluoperazine lowered the MIC of aureobasidin A for A. fumigatus from >50 μg/ml to 2 to 3 μg/ml, suggesting that the resistance of this major fungal pathogen is the result of increased efflux.
An Integrated Approach to Swept Wing Icing Simulation

This paper describes the various elements of a simulation approach used to develop a database of ice shape geometries and the resulting aerodynamic performance data for a representative commercial transport wing model exposed to a variety of icing conditions. This effort included testing in the NASA Icing Research Tunnel, the Wichita State University Walter H. Beech Wind Tunnel, and the ONERA F1 Subsonic Wind Tunnel as well as the use of ice accretion codes, an inviscid design code, and computational fluid dynamics codes. Additionally, methods for capturing full three-dimensional ice shape geometries, geometry interpolation along the span of the wing, and creation of artificial ice shapes based upon that geometric data were developed for this effort. The icing conditions used for this effort were representative of actual ice shape encounter scenarios and run the gamut from ice roughness to full three-dimensional scalloped ice shapes. The effort is still underway so this paper is a status report of work accomplished to date and a description of the remaining elements of the effort.