Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speeding up the Four Russians Algorithm by About One More Logarithmic Factor

We present a new combinatorial algorithm for Boolean matrix multiplication that runs in O(n3(log log n)3/log3 n) time. This improves the previous combinatorial algorithm by Bansal and Williams [FOCS'09] that runs in O(n3(log log n)2/log9/4 n) time. Whereas Bansal and Williams' algorithm uses regularity lemmas for graphs, the new algorithm is simple and uses entirely elementary techniques: table lookup, word operations, plus a deceptively straightforward divide-and-conquer. Our algorithm is in part inspired by a recent result of Impagliazzo, Lovett, Paturi, and Schneider (2014) on a different geometric problem, offline dominance range reporting; we improve their analysis for that problem as well.
Effect of metformin in pediatric patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE Metformin is the most commonly prescribed oral antidiabetic agent in the U.S. for adults with type 2 diabetes. The incidence of type 2 diabetes in children has increased dramatically over the past 10 years, and yet, metformin has never been formally studied in children with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of metformin at doses up to 1,000 mg twice daily in 82 subjects aged 10-16 years for up to 16 weeks in a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial from September 1998 to November 1999. Subjects with type 2 diabetes were enrolled if they had a fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels > or =7.0 and < or =13.3 mmol/l (> or =126 and < or =240 mg/dl), HbA(1c) > or =7.0%, stimulated C-peptide > or =0.5 nmol/l (> or =1.5 ng/ml), and a BMI > 50th percentile for age. RESULTS Metformin significantly improved glycemic control. At the last double-blind visit, the adjusted mean change from baseline in FPG was -2.4 mmol/l (-42.9 mg/dl) for metformin compared with +1.2 mmol/l (+21.4 mg/dl) for placebo (P < 0.001). Mean HbA(1c) values, adjusted for baseline levels, were also significantly lower for metformin compared with placebo (7.5 vs. 8.6%, respectively; P < 0.001). Improvement in FPG was seen in both sexes and in all race subgroups. Metformin did not have a negative impact on body weight or lipid profile. Adverse events were similar to those reported in adults treated with metformin. CONCLUSION Metformin was shown to be safe and effective for treatment of type 2 diabetes in pediatric patients.
Assessing the Link Between Online Mass Media and Trust in Government: Evidence From Seoul, South Korea: Online Mass Media and Trust in Government

This study examines the influence of citizens' use of online mass media on levels of trust in government, shedding light on the process by which citizens' use of online mass media serves to influence their levels of trust in government. I hypothesize that citizens' use of online mass media influences the relationship between citizens' predispositions toward government in general, and their levels of trust in government in particular, with perceptions of government performance acting as a mediating factor. To test this hypothesis a mediated moderation analysis is conducted using data from a sample of 907 Seoul citizens. The results suggest that citizens' use of online mass media has a positive indirect influence on their levels of trust in government. However, the strength of this influence decreases with more frequent use of online mass media.
Comparison of ethanol-related behaviors and FosB mapping in hybrid mice with distinct drinking patterns

C57BL/6J x FVB/NJ F1 (B6xFVB) mice consume more alcohol than C57BL/6J x NZB/B1NJ F1 (B6xNZB) mice and this high alcohol consumption is stable after abstinence whereas B6xNZB show reduced consumption, thus providing models of Sustained Alcohol Preference (SAP) and Reduced Alcohol Preference (RAP). We assessed several behavioral responses to define behaviors which might predict SAP and RAP. B6xFVB exhibited less severe ethanol-induced conditioned taste aversion and were less sensitive to ethanol-induced loss of righting reflex than B6xNZB. Both hybrids demonstrated ethanol-induced place preference and a low ethanol withdrawal severity. We found that these hybrids differ in their sensitivity to the aversive and sedative, but not rewarding, effects of ethanol. Results of elevated plus maze, mirror chamber, and locomotor tests reveal B6xFVB mice are less anxious and more active than B6xNZB mice. Results obtained offer insights about factors that determine SAP and RAP in these new genetic models of alcohol consumption.
The Recidivism of Offenders Given Suspended Sentences in New South Wales, Australia

The suspended sentence has been described as the ‘Sword of Damocles’ and praised as a means of exploiting the deterrent effects of prison while avoiding some of its human and financial costs. The deterrent value of suspended sentences is said to derive from the fact that the consequences of reoffending during the period of a suspended sentence are ‘known and certain’, whereas those attending a breach of probation are not. Past research, however, has shown that suspended sentences do little to reduce the use of imprisonment and, in some cases, actually increase it. Studies purporting to show the deterrent effectiveness of suspended sentences, on the other hand, have been few in number and methodologically weak. In this article, we use propensity matching to compare the effect of suspended sentences on recidivism to that of supervised bonds. We find no difference in rates of reconviction following the imposition of these sanctions. The implications of this finding for the UK system of suspended sentences are discussed.
An Analysis of Developmental Spelling in GYNS AT WRK.

Teachers who understand that spelling is a complex developmental process can help students acquire spelling competency. Initially, the teacher must recognize five stages of spelling development. Once the stages are identified, the teacher can provide opportunities for children to develop cognitive strategies for dealing with English orthography, and assess the pupils' development. This article de monstrates a scheme for categorizing spelling development and shows ways to foster pupils' spelling competency. In doing so, it integrates important work by Bissex (1980), spelling re searchers, and reading/language re searchers over the past decade. GNYS A T WRK, an account of a case study conducted by Glenda Bissex (1980), contributes much understanding to how children may
Enhanced Gamma Oscillatory Activity in Rats with Chronic Inflammatory Pain

It has been reported that oscillatory gamma activity participates in brief acute pain and tonic ongoing pain. It is of great interest to determine whether the gamma activity is involved in chronic pain since chronic pain is a more severe pathological condition characterized by pain persistency. To investigate the oscillatory gamma activity in chronic pain, in the present study, we recorded spontaneous electrocorticogram (ECoG) signals during chronic pain development in rats with chronic inflammatory pain induced by monoarthritis. Power spectrum analysis of ECoG data showed that gamma power increased significantly at the late stage of chronic inflammatory pain. The increased gamma activity occurred mainly at electrodes over primary somatosensory cortices. In rats with chronic pain, the gamma power was positively correlated with the hyperalgesia measured by laser energy that elicited hindpaw withdrawal response. Furthermore, an increased coupling between the amplitude of gamma power and the phase of theta oscillations was observed in chronic inflammatory pain condition. These results indicate an enhanced spontaneous gamma activity in chronic pain and suggest a potential biomarker for the severity of chronic pain.
Measuring the Value of Sociology? Some Notes on Performative Metricization in the Contemporary Academy

The performative co-construction of academic life through myriad metrics is now a global phenomenon as indicated by the plethora of university research or journal ranking systems and the publication of ‘league’ tables based on them. If these metrics are seen as actively constituting the social world, can an analysis of this ‘naturally occurring’ data reveal how these new technologies of value and measure are recursively defining the practices and subjects of university life? In the UK higher education sector, the otherwise mundane realities of academic life have come to be recursively lived through a succession of research assessment exercises (RAEs). Lived through not only in the RAEs themselves, but also through the managed incremental changes to the academic and organizational practices linked to the institutional imaginings of planning for, and anticipating the consequences of, the actual exercises. In the ‘planning for’ mode an increasing proportion of formerly sociology submissions have shifted into ‘social policy’. This is one instance of how institutional ‘game-playing’ in relation to the RAE enacts the social in quite fundamental ways. Planning an RAE 2008 submission in Sociology required anticipation of how a panel of 16 peers would evaluate 39 institutions by weighted, relative worth of: aggregated data from 1,267 individuals who, between them cited a total of 3,729 ‘outputs’; the detailed narrative and statistical data on the research environment; and a narrative account of academic ‘esteem’. This data provided such institutional variables as postgraduate student numbers, sources of student funding, and research income from various sources. To evaluate the ‘quality’ of outputs various measures of the ‘impact’ and/or ‘influence’ of journals, as developed from the Thomson-Reuters Journal Citation Reports, was linked to the data. An exploratory modelling exercise using these variables to predict RAE 2008 revealed that despite what we might like to think about the subtle nuances involved in peer review judgements, it turns out that a fairly astonishing 83 per cent of the variance in outcomes can be predicted by some fairly simple ‘shadow metrics’: quality of journals in the submission, research income per capita and scale of research activity. We conclude that measuring the value of sociology involves multiple mutual constructions of reality within which ever more nuanced data assemblages are increasingly implicated and that analysis of this data can make explicit some of the parameters of enactment within which we operate in the contemporary academy.
Strategies to Mitigate the Negative and Accentuate the Positive Impacts of International Service-Learning on Host Communities

International service-learning can have a transformative effect on student participants, but little research has been done on the impact of these experiences on host communities. The authors make the case that an emphasis on intentional personal, cultural, and group preparation is imperative to have the best possible impact on both the student and host community. Overarching strategies include: 1) preparing students for their experience prior to departure from both an individual and group development perspective; 2) designing reflection activities and discussions that include members of the host community; 3) facilitating open conversations about equitable relationships, international perspectives of Americans, and potential negative effects the group could have on the host community; 4) providing opportunities for post-travel dialogue and personal action plans for re-engaging with the local community upon return. The authors draw from both theoretical frameworks and many years of experience traveling abroad with students to underpin the strategies outlined in this article. KEYWORDS service-learning; group development; international
Fracture Diaphyseal Femur in a Case of Ipsilateral Excision Arthroplasty of Hip: Report of Two Cases with Description of an Unusual Injury Pattern, Mechanism, and Clinical Decision-making in Management

Introduction: Although fracture diaphyseal femur is commonly seen in orthopedic practice, its association with ipsilateral resection arthroplasty of hip/pseudarthrosis of neck is rare. The technique of excision arthroplasty has undergone modification with emphasis on preserving as much bone as possible. However, it is not always possible to preserve bone while removing the earlier prosthesis and cement. This often leads to extensive proximal bone loss. Associated ipsilateral fracture femur presents a unique scenario. Till date, only one case report is published highlighting its surgical management. Case Report: We report two cases of diaphyseal fracture femur associated with resection arthroplasty of hip at subtrochanteric level with greater trochanter as a separate fragment (Case 1) and other with pseudarthrosis of the neck of femur with intact greater trochanter (Case 2). The first case was operated with surface fixation, whereas the second was operated with closed antegrade intramedullary nail. Conclusion: Decision-making and formulating treatment plan includes taking various factors into account such as level of resection arthroplasty of hip/pseudarthrosis of neck, status of greater trochanter (intact or separate fragment), osteoporosis, and post-operative ambulation and rehabilitation. In this report, we highlight the unusual occurrence, probable mechanism of injury, risk factors for fracture, and decision-making in the surgical management of such a condition.
PermaNT: Persistent Shared Memory for Windows NT/2000 Clusters

This paper examines a new architecture for cluster-based shared memory parallel computing on networks of industry-standard workstations. Traditionally, such software distributed shared memory systems have been implemented as a user-level library that is linked statically or dynamically with a shared memory application. The library provides the abstraction of shared memory, relieving the application programmer from the burden of explicitly moving data between nodes in the systems. The PermaNT system represents a departure from these systems in that a single instance of the shared memory runtime system hosts multiple applications simultaneously, resulting in lower application initialization overhead, more balanced resource usage, reduced system management, and improved support for fault tolerance. This paper examines the proposed architecture of the PermaNT system.
Future directions in learning to rank

The results of the learning to rank challenge showed that the quality of the predictions from the top competitors are very close from each other. This raises a question: is learning to rank a solved problem? On the on hand, it is likely that only small incremental progress can be made in the "core" and traditional problematics of learning to rank. The challenge was set in this standard learning to rank scenario: optimize a ranking measure on a test set. But on the other hand, there are a lot of related questions and settings in learning to rank that have not been yet fully explored. We review some of them in this paper and hope that researchers interested in learning to rank will try to answer these challenging and exciting research questions.
A Comparative Study of Buyers' and Sellers' Transaction Intentions in Consumer-to-Consumer E-Marketplaces

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) e-marketplaces cannot survive without participations from both a large number of buyers and sellers. Prior research on trust in e-commerce is mainly conducted from the buyers’ perspective. Combined with TAM constructs, this research explores the relative impacts of trust in terms of trust in market-maker and institution-based trust, and risk on individual’s transaction intentions in C2C e-marketplaces from both buyers’ and sellers’ perspectives. The results suggest that the major determinants of transaction intention in e-marketplaces differ between buyer and sellers. Perceived risk is found to have a stronger effect on sellers’ intention than on buyers’ intention to transact in e-marketplaces. In addition, we found that perceived usefulness influences only buyers’ transaction intention, whereas institution-based trust and perceived ease of use influence only sellers’ transaction intention. This study contributes theoretically to C2C e-commerce research and has practical implications for C2C e-commerce practitioners.
Design and Numerical Analysis of W-band Oscillators With Hollow Electron Beam

The use of hollow electron beams permits a significant increase in the diameter of the beam tunnel in comparison with the conventional pencil-beam slow-wave electron devices. As a result, the current density and the heating of the microwave structure are decreased, which allows increasing the average radiation power at high frequencies. To demonstrate this capability, two versions of W-band oscillators, namely, an axisymmetric orotron and a backward-wave oscillator (BWO), have been designed. The electron beam with an outer diameter of 1.6 mm and a 0.1-mm thick wall could be produced in a 30 kV/1 A Pierce-like electron gun with the hundredfold magnetic compression. Oscillators use microwave structures with an azimuthally symmetric corrugation, sinusoidal for the orotron and rectangular for the BWO. Simulations based on the averaged equations and 3-D PIC-code predict an output power up to 1 kW for the orotron and 0.7 kW for the BWO, whereas the thermal regime in the BWO is easier for continuous-wave operation. Wideband frequency tuning of the BWO is simulated. To reduce ohmic losses, a smooth downtaper of the corrugation in the orotron and an abrupt cutoff with a specially optimized last tooth in the BWO were designed.
Time-of-flight based Scene Reconstruction with a Mesh Processing Tool for Model based Camera Tracking

The most challenging algorithmical task for markerless Augmented Reality applications is the robust estimation of the camera pose. With a given 3D model of a scene the camera pose can be estimated via model-based camera tracking without the need to manipulate the scene with fiducial markers. Up to now, the bottleneck of model-based camera tracking is the availability of such a 3D model. Recently time-of-flight cameras were developed which acquire depth images in real time. With a sensor fusion approach combining the color data of a 2D color camera and the 3D measurements of a time-of-flight camera we acquire a textured 3D model of a scene. We propose a semi-manual reconstruction step in which the alignment of several submeshes with a mesh processing tool is supervised by the user to ensure a correct alignment. The evaluation of our approach shows its applicability for reconstructing a 3D model which is suitable for model-based camera tracking even for objects which are difficult to measure reliably with a time-of-flight camera due to their demanding surface characteristics.
Research in International Business and Finance Oil Commodity Returns and Macroeconomic Factors: a Time-varying Approach

JEL classification: Q43 G13 C22 Keywords: Commodity prices Oil Time-varying model Kalman filter a b s t r a c t This paper analyses the dynamic influence of macroeconomic factors on oil commodity returns (crude oil and heating oil) shown in monthly data over the period of 1990–2013. Using a time-varying parameter model via the Kalman filter, we find that macroeconomic factors are relevant for explaining oil commodity returns. We find that multilateral exchange rates have a negative effect on commodity returns. We confirm the existence of a strong linkage between energy and non-energy commodities. More importantly, we find shifts in global demand and SP500 effects that are not identified through the constant parameter model. These variables have had a progressively positive effect on oil commodity returns, especially since 2008.
Peering Inward for Ethnic Identity: Consumer Interpretation of DNA Test Results

During the past decade, commercial DNA testing has been made available to the public. Tens of thousands of persons in the United States and additional tens of thousands worldwide have purchased DNA tests to identify their paternal, maternal, and biogeographic ancestries. These tests promise to link persons to ancestors and locales in their distant past, but the tests can also have a profound impact on personal conceptions of identity and ethnicity. We address two types of identity issues: (a) how the social mythologies surrounding a given ethnic heritage may be used to construct a desired identity grounded in DNA test results, and (b) the identity disjunctures that occur when persons learn through autosomal DNA testing that they do not have the ethnic ancestry that they had believed. As social theorists become increasingly cognizant of the continuing nature of identity construction throughout the life course and the importance of accounting for the ethnic aspects of identity, personal DNA testing promises to provide a fertile site for inquiry. I'm relatively new at this, but I am learning a lot from this list. We used Oxford Ancestors [OA] for a test of my father's mtDNA and received some very nice “frameable” certificates and notification of which of the seven daughters of Eve he descends from. All quite exciting. From the articles people have mentioned, … I have learned about a much bigger picture of the clan mothers between mtEve and Sykes' seven daughters and of many other clan mothers worldwide. I have learned how they use the [genetic] region from 16001 to 16400 on the OA test to determine one's clan. OA also offers a Y-chromosome service. … They will interpret the results and place my dad into one of the y-chromosome clans they have named. I am also interested in their “Are you an Anglo-Saxon/Danish Viking, a Celt or a Norwegian Viking” service which you can get for an additional 25 pounds. All of these things I can add to my family history. (Entry on the DNA-List@Rootsweb WebBoard)
The use of agents in human learning systems

This paper examines agent-based systems designed for a variety of human learning tasks. These are typically split into two areas: "training", which generally refers to adult learning of job-related skills, frequently but not exclusively in military settings; and "education", which generally refers to child and adult learning in academic settings, including primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. While the terms may indicate diverse areas within the field of human learning, from the standpoint of agent-based systems development, many of the more prominent issues are held in common; as well, these issues can be generalized to most interactive agent-based environments. Here, we categorize three major trends in development of agents to assist human learners: pedagogical agents, peer learning agents and demonstrating agents. We highlight recent work within each of these categories, bringing to light common themes and issues.