Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Escitalopram tolerability as mono- versus augmentative therapy in patients with affective disorders: a naturalistic study

Background: Escitalopram is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, widely used in the treatment of affective disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine its safety and tolerability, as mono- versus augmentative therapy, in a group of patients with affective disorders. Materials and methods: The sample consisted of 131 patients suffering from different affective disorders, including major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, who received escitalopram for at least 4 weeks. Data were analyzed on the basis of mono- versus augmentative therapy, as well as age, gender, mean daily dosage, and patterns of combination therapy. Results: Sixty-seven (51.1%) patients were treated with monotherapy (mean dose of 11.76 mg/day) and 64 (48.9%) with augmentative escitalopram (mean dose of 12.81 mg/day). The mean duration of escitalopram treatment was 14 months. The most frequently combined compounds were: other antidepressants (36.5%), mood stabilizers (33.4%), and atypical antipsychotics (30.1%). Side effects were reported in 5.3% of the total sample and the most common were insomnia (2.3%), nausea (2.3%), and dizziness (0.8%). No significant difference, in terms of tolerability, in mono- versus augmentative therapy groups was found. In addition, neither age nor gender was significantly correlated with a greater presence of side effects. Finally, no significant correlation between dosage and side effects was observed. Conclusion: Over a 14-month observation period, escitalopram, either as monotherapy or an augmentative treatment, was found to be well tolerated in a large sample of patients with affective disorders, with an overall low rate of side effects.
Posture invariant surface description and feature extraction

We propose a posture invariant surface descriptor for triangular meshes. Using intrinsic geometry, the surface is first transformed into a representation that is independent of the posture. Spin image is then adapted to derive a descriptor for the representation. The descriptor is used for extracting surface features automatically. It is invariant with respect to rigid and isometric deformations, and robust to noise and changes in resolution. The result is demonstrated by using the automatically extracted features to find correspondences between articulated meshes.
Code Generation from B Specification based on Component Oriented Approach

In this paper we propose a framework for code generation from B formal specification based on component based method. First, software components can be derived form B abstract machines according to their relativity. Then, by using proved translation rules the elicited software components are translated into code directly. Finally, all the software components are assembled into a whole system with correct assembly rules. The trustworthiness of generated code is insured by the correctness of B abstract machines and the assembly strategies. Component based approach is used to ease complex verification among different B abstract machines and it also facilitates the software reuse.
Productive Signaling Equilibria and Over-Maintenance: An Application to Real Estate Markets

When there is asymmetric information regarding the quality of a traded durable asset, the informed seller might signal asset quality to prospective uninformed buyers by investing in improvements and maintenance. In contrast to Spence (1973), however, this signal may be productive. We derive conditions of signal productivity under which signaling separating, signaling pooling, and no-signaling pooling equilibria persist. We examine welfare implications of the model and identify the over-investment in maintenance effect that persists in efficient markets with asymmetric information and productive signaling. Furthermore, we conduct comparative statics analysis of the results and show the range of parameter values in which a particular equilibrium is attained. While the model and its outcomes apply to various durable assets, we particularly refer in the analysis to real estate markets.
From polyvariant flow information to intersection and union types

Many polyvariant program analyses have been studied in the 199Os, including k-CFA, poly-k-CFA, and the Cartesian product algorithm. The idea of polyvariance is to analyze functions more than once and thereby obtain better precision for each call site. In this paper we present the first formal relationship between polyvariant analysis and standard notions of type. In the spirit of Nielson and Nielson, we study a parameterized flow analysis which can be instantiated to the analyses of Agesen, Schmidt, and as a simple case also 0-CFA. Extended with safety checks, the flow analysis accepts and rejects programs, much like a type checker. We prove that if a program can be safety-checked by a finitary instantiation of the flow analysis, then it can also be typed in a type system with intersection types, union types, subtyping, and recursive types, but no universal or existential quantifiers. This provides a framework for designing and understanding combinations of flow analyses and type systems.
A case study of risk management in agile systems development

A principal objective of agile development methods is to reduce risk thereby resulting in more successful and effective information systems. However, while there is an extensive body of academic literature on risk management, very little research has attempted to rigorously apply this as a lens to study risk management in agile development projects. The purpose of this research was to ascertain the extent to which risk management practices are incorporated into agile development projects. A case study was conducted involving a change management consultancy firm whose main business involved the deployment of agile approaches. The study found that while there is a perception that risk management practices are not carried out in agile environments, the extent to which risk management is conducted on these projects is in some cases just as substantial to that carried out on traditional projects. In fact, in this case it appeared that the teams were more rigorous in their risk management than is often the case.
Convex Transmit Beamforming for Downlink Multicasting to Multiple Co-Channel Groups

We consider the problem of transmit beamforming to multiple cochannel multicast groups. Since the direct minimization of transmit power while guaranteeing a prescribed minimum signal to interference plus noise ratio (SENR) at each receiver is nonconvex and NP-hard, we present convex SDP relaxations of this problem and study when such relaxations are tight. Our results show that when the steering vectors for all receivers are of Vandermonde type (such as in the case of a uniform linear array and line-of-sight propagation), a globally optimum solution to the corresponding transmit beamforming problem can be obtained via an equivalent SDP reformulation. We also present various robust formulations for the problem of single-group multicasting, when the steering vectors are only approximately known. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of our SDP relaxations and reformulations
A learning from demonstration system architecture for robots learning social group recreational activities

Group-based recreational activities have shown to have a number of health benefits for people of all ages. The handful of social robots designed to facilitate such activities are currently only able to implement a priori known recreational activities that have been pre-programmed by human experts. Once deployed in their intended facility, these robots are not able to learn new activities from non-expert humans. In this paper, we present the development of a novel learning from demonstration (LfD) system architecture for a social robot in order for it to learn from non-expert teachers the structure of an activity and monitor the execution of the new activity. In order to obtain user compliance, personalized persuasive strategies are also learned by the robot to use while implementing the activity during human-robot interactions (HRI) with the intended users. The architecture has been integrated into our socially assistive robot Tangy to learn the group-based activity Bingo. System performance experiments were conducted with Tangy to first learn to facilitate Bingo from non-expert teachers and then use the learned activity to physically facilitate Bingo with multiple users. The results showed Tangy was able to effectively and efficiently learn the new Bingo activity structure as well as personalize its persuasive strategies to individual users in order to obtain activity compliance.
A Proxy Blind Signature Scheme over Braid Groups

A proxy signature scheme, introduced by Mambo, Usuda and Okamoto, allows a designated person to sign on behalf of an original signer. Blind signatures, introduced by D. Chaum allow a user to get a signature from a signer without revealing any information about message or its signature. A proxy blind signatures, first time introduced by Tan et al in 2002, combines all the security properties of both proxy signatures and of blind signatures. In this paper we have proposed a proxy blind signature scheme using conjugacy search problem over braid groups. Our proxy blind signature scheme is partial protected proxy signature.
Rigor in Information Systems Positivist Case Research: Current Practices

Case research has commanded respect in the information systems (IS) discipline for at least a decade. Notwithstanding the relevance and potential value of case studies, this methodological approach was once considered to be one of the least systematic. Toward the end of the 1980s, the issue of whether IS case research was rigorously conducted was first raised. Researchers from our field (e.g., Benbasat et al. 1987; Lee 1989) and from other disciplines (e.g., Eisenhardt 1989; Yin 1994) called for more rigor in case research and, through their recommendations, contributed to the advancement of the case study methodology. Considering these contributions, the present study seeks to determine the extent to which the field of IS has advanced in its operational use of case study method. Precisely, it investigates the level of methodological rigor in positivist IS case research conducted over the past decade. To fulfill this objective, we identified and coded 183 case articles from seven major IS journals. Evaluation attributes or criteria considered in the present review focus on three main areas, namely, design issues, data collection, and data analysis. While the level of methodological rigor has experienced modest progress with respect to some specific attributes, the overall assessed rigor is somewhat equivocal and there are still significant areas for improvement. One of the keys is to include better documentation particularly regarding issues related to the data collection and analysis processes.
Nonmarket Strategy Performance: Evidence from U.S. Electric Utilities

This paper develops and tests a theory of the performance determinants of a firm's nonmarket strategy in shaping public policy outcomes. Building on the concept of political market attractiveness, we argue that nonmarket performance is influenced by both the characteristics of a firm's regulatory and political environment, especially rivalry among interest groups or politicians, and by internal capabilities that enable a firm to mitigate political transaction costs. Using data on regulatory filings for rate increases made by U. S. Electric utilities over a 13-year period, we find empirical support for our approach.
Backlight scaled contrast enhancement for liquid crystal displays using image key-based compression

Most existing contrast enhancement methods obtain the maximum clipping point by iterations under a given PSNR/SSIM value, and perform backlight scaling to maintain image quality. However, they need high computational complexity to determine the optimal clipping point and often cause over-saturation in images. In this paper, we propose backlight scaled contrast enhancement for LCDs without given PSNR/SSIM values using image key-based compression. We automatically determine the optimal clipping point for backlight scaling using image decomposition and image key-based compression. We first decompose an image into base and detail layers using bilateral filtering, and then determine the maximum clipping point using image key-based compression. Finally, we perform image compensation from the clipping point using gamma correction. Extensive experiments on various test images demonstrate that the proposed method minimizes over-saturation effects and enhances overall image quality in backlight scaling while significantly reducing power consumption.
Improving the matching of graphs generated from shapes by the use of procrustes distances into a clique-based MAP formulation

Structural graph matching methods often fail when trying to match graphs which are small and present low structural constraints. An extra source of information is needed in order to eliminate the ambiguities produced by the lack of structural information. In this paper we introduce positional information into the cliques model in order to enhance the matching criterion. Procrustes methods provide a proper framework to do statistics with coordinate positions. Results show that our model significantly improves the matching capability in graphs generated from shapes (handwritten capital letters).
Libet's Temporal Anomalies: A Reassessment of the Data

Benjamin Libet compared the perceived time of direct brain stimulation to the perceived time of skin stimulation. His results are among the most controversial experiments at the interface between psychology and philosophy. The new element that I bring to this discussion is a reanalysis of Libet's raw data. Libet's original data were difficult to interpret because of the manner in which they were presented in tables. Plotting the data as psychometric functions shows that the observers have great uncertainty about the relative timing of events, as seen the shallow psychometric slopes. A second indication of uncertainty comes from Libet's use of three response categories, A first; B first; and A and B simultaneous. The large number of "perceptually simultaneous" responses provides a further measure of the difficulty of the judgment. There are thus a very broad range of stimulus delays in which the subject is unable to make an accurate ordering response. These points provide evidence that there is no compelling reason to invent exotic or ad hoc mechanisms to account for Libet's data since the uncertainty window is large enough to allow simple mechanism such as memory shifts. Libet argued that his data provide evidence for a backward referral in time. I argue that even though Libet's own data are weak, there are good arguments for a backward referral mechanism to help the subject make sense out of the tangled chaos of asynchronous information associated with experienced events.
Particle filter based multi-pedestrian tracking by HOG and HOF

Automatic pedestrian detection and tracking is an important issue in the field of computer vision and robot navigation. We propose a scheme to implement multi-pedestrian tracking in a scene obtained by a static camera. We combine HOG and HOF features to describe the characteristics of persons. AdaBoost algorithm is then utilized to train a strong classifier for better detection accuracy of persons. We use particle filter as the tracking framework and train a online SVM classifier, which is the observation model, by reliable samples from associated detections without occlusion. In consideration of the target's velocity into the weights calculation, the data association is more reliable. The preliminary experiments on some benchmark data demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme.
Study of the Noninverting Amplifier Based on Memristor with Linear Dopant Drift

According to the HP memristor model with linear do pant drift, the electrical characteristics of memristor are analyzed. Then, the transmission characteristics of memristor based noninverting op amplifier are investigated. The theoretical results are well demonstrated by the SPICE circuit simulation with a published memristor sub circuit with linear do pant drift.
The Role of Consumer Confidence on the Time-Series Association between Prices and Fundamentals †

We investigate whether time-series variation in consumer confidence affects the long-run association between prices and accounting based measures of fundamental value (hereafter, fundamentals). We estimate the components of consumer confidence related to expected growth and investor sentiment. We find a significant role for both expected growth and investor sentiment on the time-series association, or co-movement, between prices and fundamentals. We then investigate the ability of fundamentals to forecast shortand long-term aggregate market returns. In the short-term, fundamentals, expected growth and investor sentiment are positively associated with future aggregate market returns. Over longer horizons, expected growth and investor sentiment are negatively associated with future aggregate market returns. The role of investor sentiment is strongest in the more volatile markets observed in recent time periods. Our results are consistent with both the rational incorporation of growth expectations and noise-trader sentiment affecting the pricing of accounting fundamentals.
Determination of EOQ of Multi-Item inventory Problems through nonlinear Goal Programming with penalty Function

This paper describes how the proper priority structure of non-linear goal programming (NLGP) model can be selected for obtaining economic order quantity(EOQ) of multi-item inventory problems. In the solution process, sensitivity analysis of the priority under the given weight structure of goals has been performed. A set of solution is obtained. From the solutions, the ideal solution is identified. The D1-distances of dierent solutions from the ideal solution are calculated. The solution corresponding to the minimum D1-distance gives the best compromise solution. Finally, a case study demonstrates the applicability of the proposed technique.
Using Automated Replay Annotation for Case-Based Planning in Games

A major challenge in the field of case-based reasoning is building case libraries representative of the state space the system will encounter. We approach this problem by automating the process of converting expert demonstrations, in the form of game replays, into cases. To achieve this, we present a technique for annotating traces with goals that can be used by a case-based planner. We have implemented this technique in the case-based planning system Darmok 2 and applied it to the task of playing complete games of StarCraft. By automating the process of case generation, we enable our system to harness the large number of expert replays available on the web.
Platelet-Derived Growth Factor Over-Expression in Retinal Progenitors Results in Abnormal Retinal Vessel Formation

Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) plays an important role in development of the central nervous system, including the retina. Excessive PDGF signaling is associated with proliferative retinal disorders. We reported previously that transgenic mice in which PDGF-B was over-expressed under control of the nestin enhancer, nes/tk-PdgfB-lacZ, exhibited enhanced apoptosis in the developing corpus striatum. These animals display enlarged lateral ventricles after birth as well as behavioral aberrations as adults. Here, we report that in contrast to the relatively mild central nervous system phenotype, development of the retina is severely disturbed in nes/tk-PdgfB-lacZ mice. In transgenic retinas all nuclear layers were disorganized and photoreceptor segments failed to develop properly. Since astrocyte precursor cells did not populate the retina, retinal vascular progenitors could not form a network of vessels. With time, randomly distributed vessels resembling capillaries formed, but there were no large trunk vessels and the intraocular pressure was reduced. In addition, we observed a delayed regression of the hyaloid vasculature. The prolonged presence of this structure may contribute to the other abnormalities observed in the retina, including the defective lamination.
Developing factors for effective IT governance mechanism

Great strides have been made in IT governance in the past decade. Today's organizations need a flexible, complementary and collaborative IT governance mechanism to prosper in a turbulent environment that would enable organizations to sustain realizing value from IT instead of restraining its contribution by emphasizing control. The review of existing literature to identify and determine best practices that had been studied by previous researchers in order to construct the factors within each category. The aim of this paper is to identify the domain of IT governance and provide insights practice with each domains that were detected thru literature.
Simple sample size calculation for cluster-randomized trials.

BACKGROUND Cluster-randomized trials, in which health interventions are allocated randomly to intact clusters or communities rather than to individual subjects, are increasingly being used to evaluate disease control strategies both in industrialized and in developing countries. Sample size computations for such trials need to take into account between-cluster variation, but field epidemiologists find it difficult to obtain simple guidance on such procedures. METHODS In this paper, we provide simple formulae for sample size determination for both unmatched and pair-matched trials. Outcomes considered include rates per person-year, proportions and means. For simplicity, formulae are expressed in terms of the coefficient of variation (SD/mean) of cluster rates, proportions or means. Guidance is also given on the estimation of this value, with or without the use of prior data on between-cluster variation. CASE STUDIES The methods are illustrated using two case studies: an unmatched trial of the impact of impregnated bednets on child mortality in Kenya, and a pair-matched trial of improved sexually-transmitted disease (STD) treatment services for HIV prevention in Tanzania.
Human seroprevalence indicating hantavirus infections in tropical rainforests of Côte d’Ivoire and Democratic Republic of Congo

Hantaviruses are members of the Bunyaviridae family carried by small mammals and causing human hemorrhagic fevers worldwide. In Western Africa, where a variety of hemorrhagic fever viruses occurs, indigenous hantaviruses have been molecularly found in animal reservoirs such as rodents, shrews, and bats since 2006. To investigate the human contact to hantaviruses carried by these hosts and to assess the public health relevance of hantaviruses for humans living in the tropical rainforest regions of Western and Central Africa, we performed a cross-sectional seroprevalence study in the region of Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire and the Bandundu region near the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo. Serum samples were initially screened with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays using nucleoproteins of several hantaviruses as diagnostic antigens. Positive results were confirmed by Western blotting and immunofluorescence testing. Seroprevalence rates of 3.9% (27/687) and 2.4% (7/295), respectively, were found in the investigated regions in Côte d’Ivoire and the DR Congo. In Côte d’Ivoire, this value was significantly higher than the seroprevalence rates previously reported from the neighboring country Guinea as well as from South Africa. Our study indicates an exposure of humans to hantaviruses in West and Central African tropical rainforest areas. In order to pinpoint the possible existence and frequency of clinical disease caused by hantaviruses in this region of the world, systematic investigations of patients with fever and renal or respiratory symptoms are required.