Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hierarchy Prediction in Online Communities

With the development of the Internet, a big part of social interactions have moved online, and people have unconsciously brought their daily communicational habits to the web. Understanding these communications is important because it will lead to a better understanding of online communities, and can improve areas such as e-commerce, advertisement, topic modeling, security, and others. We propose to develop a natural language based ranking algorithm to predict user influence levels in online communication groups.
A geometric correction scheme for spatial leakage effects in MEG/EEG seed‐based functional connectivity mapping

Spatial leakage effects are particularly confounding for seed‐based investigations of brain networks using source‐level electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG). Various methods designed to avoid this issue have been introduced but are limited to particular assumptions about its temporal characteristics. Here, we investigate the usefulness of a model‐based geometric correction scheme (GCS) to suppress spatial leakage emanating from the seed location. We analyze its properties theoretically and then assess potential advantages and limitations with simulated and experimental MEG data (resting state and auditory‐motor task). To do so, we apply Minimum Norm Estimation (MNE) for source reconstruction and use variation of error parameters, statistical gauging of spatial leakage correction and comparison with signal orthogonalization. Results show that the GCS has a local (i.e., near the seed) effect only, in line with the geometry of MNE spatial leakage, and is able to map spatially all types of brain interactions, including linear correlations eliminated after signal orthogonalization. Furthermore, it is robust against the introduction of forward model errors. On the other hand, the GCS can be affected by local overcorrection effects and seed mislocation. These issues arise with signal orthogonalization too, although significantly less extensively, so the two approaches complement each other. The GCS thus appears to be a valuable addition to the spatial leakage correction toolkits for seed‐based FC analyses in source‐projected MEG/EEG data. Hum Brain Mapp 36:4604–4621, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Applications of Structured Recursion Schemes

Recursive structures are quite common in various areas of science, especially where expressions of a certain grammar are involved, like in natural languages, programming languages or generally in formal systems. Analysis, transformation and reasoning is closely tied to the structure of these expressions but at the same time the actual operations to be carried out at different levels of the recursive structure may vary considerably. Category theory provides a set of tools that can naturally represent and deal with exactly these constructs. In this work, we review the formulation of recursion schemes over such structures and highlight two use cases: one related to programming language compilation and another one in machine learning.
Histologic evaluation of the bone integration of TiO(2) blasted and turned titanium microimplants in humans.

Twenty-seven patients received 2 microimplants each during implant surgery. One microimplant was blasted with 25 microm sized particles of TiO(2); the other was left as machined i.e. a turned surface. Before insertion the surface topography was characterized with an optical confocal laser profilometer. The surface roughness was greater than standard implants, and was similar for both surface modifications averaging over all parts of the implant i.e. tops, valley and flanks. The mean surface roughness from flank measurements only replicated previously reported findings: i.e. significantly rougher surfaces on blasted implants. After a mean healing period of 6.3 months in the maxillae and 3.9 months in the mandible, the microimplants and surrounding tissue were removed with a trephine burr. The histomorphometrical evaluation demonstrated significantly higher bone-to-implant contact for the blasted implants, inserted in the maxilla or in the mandible. Significantly more bone was found inside the threaded area for the blasted implants in the mandible, but there was no difference for implants positioned in maxillae.
Semiautomatic Algorithm for Lymph Node Analysis Corrected for Partial Volume Effects in Combined Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography

Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) is superior compared to stand-alone PET in evaluation of malignancies. Few studies have employed high-resolution structural information to correct PET. We designed a semiautomatic algorithm using CT and PET to obtain a partial volume corrected (PVC) standardized uptake value (SUV) and a combined morphologic and functional parameter (multimodal SUV) for lymph node assessment. Lesions were segmented by a semiautomatic algorithm in CT images. Lesion volume was used for PVC and for calculating the multimodal SUV. The method was applied to 47 lymph nodes (30 patients) characterized as suspicious in 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET-CT. In phantoms, PVC improved significantly the measured uptake of the lesion. In patients, 36 lymph nodes could be segmented without problems; in 11 lesions, a manual interaction was necessary. SUVs before PVC (mean 1.29) increased significantly (p < .0005) after PVC (mean 2.8). If SUV 2.5 was used as a threshold value to distinguish between benign and malignant lesions, 11 of the 47 lesions changed from benign to malignant after the PVC. The mean multimodal SUV was 0.39 mL for the benign lesions and 4.47 mL for the malignant lesions. In this work we presented a method for quantitative analysis of lymph nodes in PET-CT. PVC leads to significant differences in SUV.
UK Corporate Governance Code

The FRC is responsible for promoting high quality corporate governance and reporting to foster investment. We set the UK Corporate Governance and Stewardship Codes as well as UK standards for accounting, auditing and actuarial work. We represent UK interests in international standard-setting. We also monitor and take action to promote the quality of corporate reporting and auditing. We operate independent disciplinary arrangements for accountants and actuaries, and oversee the regulatory activities of the accountancy and actuarial professional bodies. The FRC does not accept any liability to any party for any loss, damage or costs howsoever arising, whether directly or indirectly, whether in contract, tort or otherwise from any action or decision taken (or not taken) as a result of any person relying on or otherwise using this document or arising from any omission from it.
The process of ending inter‐organizational cooperation

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the process of ending inter‐organizational cooperation by identifying the underlying reasons and stages of the ending.Design/methodology/approach – The empirical context of this study is a joint company amongst a group of competitors. The findings of this paper are based on a longitudinal case study within the construction industry in the region of Ostrobothnia in Finland. Interviews with managing directors were carried out in 1998, 2000 and 2004.Findings – The reasons for ending a co‐operational relationship can be found on three levels: external, relational, and organizational. When taking into consideration the underlying reasons as well as time, the process consists of the following stages: pre‐start, harmony, consideration, disengagement, communication and post‐ending.Research limitations/implications – There are rare opportunities for generalizations, resulting in a risk of a fairly case specific study. Further research on this .
Pantograph-catenary Dynamic Interaction for a Overhead Line Supported by Noise Barrier

Subject of the paper is a particular configuration of overhead line, in which noise barrier structure is used as supports of the catenary instead of standard poles. This configuration is foreseen in case the noise barrier position is in conflict with the poles location. If the catenary is supported by the noise barrier, the motion that the latter undergo due to wave pressure associated to train transit is transmitted to the overhead line, so that potentially it influences the interaction between the catenary itself and the pantograph of the passing train. The paper focuses on the influence of such peculiar configuration on the quality of the current collection of high speed pantograph, for single and double current collection. The study has been carried out first with an experimental investigation on the pressure distribution on noise barrier, both in wind tunnel and with in-field tests. Subsequently a numerical analysis of the dynamics of the barrier subjected to the wave pressure due to train transit has been carried out, and the output of such analysis has been used as input data for the simulation of the pantograph-dynamic interaction at different speeds and with front or rear pantograph in operation. Consideration of structural modifications was then highlighted, in order to reduce the influence on the contact loss percentage.
Job Satisfaction and Career Commitment Among Nursing Assistants Providing Alzheimer's Care

As part of a statewide dementia-specific training collaborative, data were collected from nursing assistants and aides who provide paid Alzheimer's care. This study explored the relevance of previous education and practical experiences to specific constructs associated with worker recruitment and retention. Direct-care providers with prior training in gerontology and geriatrics had lower levels of extrinsic job satisfaction and career resilience than those without this kind of continuing education. Program participants who were currently or previously the primary caregiver for a friend or relative with Alzheimer's disease had higher levels of intrinsic job satisfaction but lower levels of career resilience than those with no informal caregiving experience. Current or previous informal caregiving experience may enhance intrinsic job satisfaction by increasing personal commitment to pursue formal care work and providing a kind of inoculation against the demoralization that is too often suffered in these very challenging jobs.
Exploring employee satisfaction and leadership attributes within the research industries in Gauteng Province

The purpose of this study was to identify the key attributes that affect employee satisfaction in the market and social research industries in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The data used for the analysis was collected face-to-face from employees using a quantitative questionnaire. An overall Cronbach alpha of 0.982 showed that the results are statistical reliable. The study found that a statistically significant relationship exists between employee satisfaction and leadership attributes within the market and social research industries in Gauteng Province. Issues of corporate climate and leadership were important determinants of overall employee satisfaction. The key drivers of employee satisfaction were identified to be job security, commitment or adherence to agreements, relative remuneration, company culture, conflict resolution and ethical considerations by management. Critical leadership factors that were identified included sharing vision of the company into the future, assisting and giving feedback to employees. Exploratory factor analysis results showed that the data was best explained by four factors. The data was also classified into four strategic quadrants derived from the standardised beta coefficients of the attributes derived from regression analysis. Leadership and management must put in place well thought systems that allow employees to effectively utilise their potential in order to perform at their level best to optimise labour productivity. The researcher recommends that leadership should be delineated across all the different levels within the companies to ensure that all employees understand the operations of the company in order to achieve their optimum operational levels.
Adenoviral-mediated Gene Transfer to Mouse Salivary Glands

Adenoviral vectors effectively transfer genes to rat salivary glands. However, potent immune responses limit their use in vivo. Mice offer more opportunities than rats for the study of these immune processes. We first established conditions for infection of mouse salivary glands, with an adenoviral vector. The effects of time, viral dose, viral diluent buffer volume, and dexamethasone on expression of a transgene, luciferase, were determined by means of the recombinant vector AdCMVluc. Optimal luciferase expression was observed when the vector was suspended in 50 μL of buffer. This volume completely filled the gland parenchyma and slightly distended the capsule. Dexamethasone increased immediate transgene expression and reduced the acute inflammation one day following viral administration, but did not alter subsequent mononuclear inflammation or transgene expression 14 or 28 days later. An adenoviral vector encoding either antiinflammatory cytokine IL-4 or IL-10 was co-administered with AdCMVluc to increase transgene expression at 14 and 28 days. While this strategy did not extend the duration of luciferase expression, co-administration of AdCMVIL-10 with AdCMVluc almost completely eliminated the chronic inflammatory infiltrate in the glands after 28 days. This study demonstrates that adenoviral-mediated gene transfer to mouse submandibular glands is possible by intraductal cannulation and that reduction of either the acute or chronic inflammatory infiltrates was insufficient to increase long-term transgene expression in this tissue.
Mechanoresponsive Properties of the Periodontal Ligament

The periodontal ligament (PDL) functions as an enthesis, a connective tissue attachment that dissipates strains created by mechanical loading. Entheses are mechanoresponsive structures that rapidly adapt to changes in their mechanical loading; here we asked which features of the PDL are sensitive to such in vivo loading. We evaluated the PDL in 4 physiologically relevant mechanical environments, focusing on mitotic activity, cell density, collagen content, osteogenic protein expression, and organization of the tissue. In addition to examining PDLs that supported teeth under masticatory loading and eruptive forces, 2 additional mechanical conditions were created and analyzed: hypoloading and experimental tooth movement. Collectively, these data revealed that the adult PDL is a remarkably quiescent tissue and that only when it is subjected to increased loads—such as those associated with mastication, eruption, and orthodontic tooth movement—does the tissue increase its rate of cell proliferation and collagen production. These data have relevance in clinical scenarios where PDL acclimatization can be exploited to optimize tooth movement.
CORPORATE FINANCING BEHAVIOUR OF SHARIAH COMPLIANT E50 SMEs. A PANEL DATA APPROACH OF GMM.

Motivated by the recent outstanding growth of Islamic Finance in Malaysia, this study aims to investigate the debt financing behaviour of Shariah compliant E50 SMEs in Malaysia covering the existence of target debt, speed of adjustment and factors affecting the adjustment speed to target debt from 2009 to 2013. The Shariah Advisory Council (SAC), has set up certain standard of parameters as guidelines and carried out periodical monitoring in classifying Shariah compliant securities like the prohibition of activities that involve interest (riba), gambling (maisir), uncertainties and speculative trading (gharar). The dynamic model employed and estimated using the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM). Under the dynamic model, the observed debt of a firm should be equal to its optimal debt. However, with the presence of adjustment cost, a firm performs only a partial adjustment to be at the target debt. The model revealed certain determinants significantly influence target debt financing. The positive relationship between tangibility and capital structure yielded in this study enhances Shariah imposition that debt must be asset-backed which means a firm operating under Islamic principles cannot have debt exceeding the tangible assets. This study contributes to the literature and fills the gap by exploring into a relatively new area of debt financing which is the dynamic aspects and also help to enhance the understanding on debt financing behaviour of Shariah compliant SMEs in Malaysia.
Horizontal Mergers in Optimal Auctions

In this paper we study the impact of mergers among bidders when the auctioneer can respond optimally to changes in the market concentration. We find that the auctioneer's ability to exercise such "buyer power" limits the ability of the merged bidders to exercise "market power. " In particular, while mergers always harm the auctioneer, the magnitude of the harm is much smaller than in an open auction benchmark. Bidder concentration matters but is less important than the auctioneer's reservation utility. We also find that mergers benefit non-merging bidders, and will become unprofitable when the potential surplus is small enough. Welfare effects are complex as they depend both on the profile of the merging parties as well as on the auctioneer's reservation utility.
Demand for Health Care Services in Uganda: Implications for Poverty Reduction

Using the 2002/03 Uganda National Household Survey data we empirically examine the nature and determinants of individuals’ decisions to seek care on condition of illness reporting. The major findings include: first, cost of care is regressive and substantially reduces the health care utilization for any formal provider by the poorer individuals after controlling for other factors. In other words, even among public facilities cost of care remains a barrier to utilization of these services. Second, there is no doubt that putting in place strategies aimed at increasing the income of the poor will increase their utilization of the health facilities, though the impact will be higher for private care. Third, besides income and cost of care, other factors, in particular education and physical access proxied by distance to the facilities are important determinants of health care utilization.
[Development and validation of a sympathy scale].

The authors developed a 22-item scale of interpersonal sympathy that is informed by relevant practices and meanings of contemporary Japanese cultural context. In three independent samples the scale was shown to be reasonably reliable (alpha > .80). Furthermore, the scale had a systematic relationship with related variables, hence exhibiting satisfactory construct validity. Specifically, sympathy was positively correlated with both a reported frequency of prosocial behaviors (Study 1) and emotional empathy (Study 2). Moreover, sympathy formed a higher-order factor with interdependent construal of self, which was orthogonal to another higher-order factor comprised of independent construal of self and self-esteem (Study 3). Finally, some directions for future research are discussed.
Portfolio Choice, Minimum Return Guarantees, and Competition in DC Pension Systems

Regulation in countries that have adopted de…ned contribution (DC) pension systems based on savings accounts typically includes minimum return guarantees (MRG) provisions to limit the risk of …nancial downturns. This paper studies the consequences of this regulation over asset allocation within a standard model of dynamic portfolio selection, where managers act strategically while making their investment decisions as in (Basak and Makarov, 2008, Strategic Asset Allocation with Relative Performance Concerns. Working Paper. London Business School). We study a standard dynamic portfolio choice problem in a setting that includes two new ingredients: strategic interaction among portfolio managers and the presence of a MRG. The (pure strategy Nash) equilibrium portfolios are provided in closed-form in the Black and Scholes setting. They are shown to be weighted averages of investment rules that are themselves optimal in scenarios that may become optimal once the uncertainty has resolved. Our results also suggest that MRG rules that rely on index-based benchmark portfolios (as opposed to peer-group ones) may help to mitigate some of the problems that arise when portfolio managers are too prone to relative performance concerns (i.e., the selection of myopic portfolios).
A Comparison of Objective Characteristics and User Perception of Web Sites

ABSTRACT The study reported in this paper employed a combination of web-based content analysis and web-assisted personal interviews to identify key characteristics of Web sites and how consumers perceive them. The extent of site characteristics found via the content analysis showed no major differences among the three designated computer manufacturers’ Web sites. On the other hand, the user perception of these site characteristics, obtained through in-depth interviews, provided a different outcome. Discussion on the incongruence between objective Web site characteristics and subjective perception is provided. Theoretical and methodological concerns and suggestions for future research are also addressed.
Polya gastrectomy with Y anastomosis in the treatment of duodenal ulcer: Experience during an eight‐year period

that a number of our cases developed the postgastrectomy syndrome. The term ‘ post-gastrectomy syndrome’ is used in the widest sense, but we were primarily interested in bilious vomiting and excessive loss of weight. It is an unhappy experience to sit face to face with a patient who, having had a Polya gastrectomy performed, nevertheless regrets having submitted to operation on account of severe postgastrectomy symptoms. Such a condition requires a drastic remedy, and so in 1950 it was decided to anastomose the afferent and efferent loops in 7 postgastrectomy cases suffering from bilious vomiting. The results were satisfactory, and after further consideration we decided to eliminate the afferent loop altogether by using the Y anastomosis, both in the primary Polya operation for duodenal ulcer and as a conversion operation in cases suffering from severe post-gastrectomy syndrome. HISTORICAL NOTE (Fig. 204)