Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DIRECTOR STOCK OWNERSHIP AND ACQUISITION ACTIVITY OF FIRMS

Using a Zero-Inflated Poisson (ZIP) model, we examine the effects of nonemployee director ownership and director plan adoption on the firms’ acquisition activity. We hypothesize that the firms’ acquisition activity increases with directors’ ownership as the directors’ incentives become more aligned with those of the shareholders, and they become less risk-averse. But at higher levels of ownership, the directors become more concerned with preserving their wealth invested in the firm, and hence, the firms’ acquisition activity will decrease. The results support our hypothesis and we find nonemployee directors’ stock ownership levels are related to the firms’ acquisition activity in a nonlinear positive manner. The results show that acquisition rates increase at a decreasing rate with directors’ ownership. Further we find that the presence of director ownership plans, that are designed to implement mandatory stock ownership requirements for non-employee directors, do not directly affect the decision to acquire. Overall, we conclude that stock ownership serves as an incentive for non-employee directors to affect a firm’s investment decisions through mergers and acquisitions.
'What sort of Fish was it?' How Players Understand their Narrative in Online Games

Online worlds have become a fundamental element of the virtual landscape. The development of MMORPGs has helped give credence to the idea that online spaces can support valid social communities. Having proved that these communities exist, scholars must now decide whether these communities are different to those in the 'real' world. What makes gaming communities stand out? This paper looks at how players contextualise their behaviour within game narratives. In particular, the ways that players manipulate the divergent narratives of each game, and the paradoxes that these structures create is investigated. MMORPGs are rife with social tension. Players appear to use a series of different social codes when they justify their behaviour, borrowing from different rules sets dictated by circumstances in the game according to their need. To contextualise this, this paper examines how players express and argue their ideas through their understanding of the game world and narrative. Like fan communities , players appropriate the MMORPG text for themselves, reinscribing it according to their own conceptions. However, whereas fans must do this away from their key source, in MMORPGs, players discuss the text as they enact it. Narratives are deliberately dynamic – purporting to give players agency to move at their own pace or to chose the routes and standpoints they take throughout each game. Thus fans actively work upon the text in a much broader context, and their discussions are often visible to large amounts of people within the game. If all players consider themselves as fans, then how does this affect the perception of the text itself?
The variance of sodium current fluctuations at the node of Ranvier

1. Single myelinated nerve fibres 12‐17 μm in diameter from Rana temporaria and Rana pipiens were voltage clamped at 2‐5 °C. Potassium currents were blocked by internal Cs+ and external tetraethylammonium ion. Series resistance compensation was employed.
High gain bidirectional multiport DC to DC converter for DC microgrid

Generally, operating voltage of photovoltaic (PV) arrays are low. To interface such systems with high voltage DC bus, a high gain converter is needed. Moreover, power generated by the PV systems is non-uniform most of the time. Therefore, for this purpose, a battery port is mandatory. Hence, for this application a high gain multi port converter is suitable candidate that increases conversion efficiency with a reduced cost. In this work, a high gain multi port bidirectional DC to DC converter for the DC microgrid application is proposed. Proposed converter has three ports. One for the power source, the second for the battery, the third for the high voltage DC Bus. Converter is analyzed in boost/battery discharging and buck/battery charging mode. Detailed theoretical analysis and operation of the converter is presented. The proposed converter has inter source and bidirectional power flow capability. A gain comparison is performed with its previous counterpart converters. A 744 W converter is simulated in the Matlab to validate the theoretical and operational analysis of the converter. Experimental results are performed using the developed prototype converter and dSPACE (DS-1104) controller.
Association of IL-4 and IL-1RN (receptor antagonist) gene variants and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus: a study in the north Indian population.

BACKGROUND Inflammation is a key event closely associated with the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Association of genetic polymorphisms of inflammatory cytokines with T2DM is largely unknown. Our objective was to investigate the relationship of polymorphism of IL-1RN and IL-4, two important biomarkers of inflammation, with the risk of T2DM. SETTING AND DESIGN We recruited 120 clinically diagnosed T2DM patients and 150 normal healthy controls for this study in order to evaluate the nature of polymorphisms of IL-1RN and IL-4. MATERIALS AND METHODS Genomic DNA was isolated from the blood of all subjects, and the variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphisms of IL-1RN and IL-4 genes was identified by polymerase chain reaction. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED Genotype distribution and allelic frequencies were compared between patients and control group. Means, as well as odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CI), were calculated using SPSS software (version 11.5). RESULTS Our study revealed that distribution of both IL-4 and IL-1RN (VNTR) gene polymorphisms were significantly associated with T2DM subjects. We, however, failed to find any association of gene-gene (IL-4 and IL-1RN) interaction with T2DM. CONCLUSIONS Both IL-4 and IL-1RN (VNTR) gene polymorphisms were significantly associated with T2DM subjects. This may suggest that the genetic polymorphisms of IL-4 and IL-1RN genes could serve as susceptibility indicators for T2DM in the Indian population, but the actual mechanism of these associations will require more elaborate investigations. Lack of association of gene-gene (IL-4 and IL-1RN) interaction with T2DM may indicate the independent nature of influence of both these genes on the risk of T2DM.
A New Line Immunoassay for the Multiparametric Detection of Antiganglioside Autoantibodies in Patients with Autoimmune Peripheral Neuropathies

Abstract: A novel line immunoassay for the multiparametric detection of 11 antiganglioside autoantibodies (GM1, GM2, GM3, GM4, GD1a, GD1b, GD2, GD3, GT1a, GT1b, and GQ1b) was evaluated by comparing the reactivities in sera of 77 patients with suspected or definite autoimmune peripheral neuropathies (PNP), 60 blood donors, and 30 systemic lupus erythematodes (SLE) patients. At least one antiganglioside autoantibody was detectable in 97.4% of the patients with neuropathies compared to 12.2% in the control group. A broad spectrum of reactivities with more than two antiganglioside autoantibodies including all tested gangliosides except GD2 and GT1b was found in nearly one‐third of the patients with neuropathies whereas in the control group autoantibody profiles with more than two reactivities were observed in two SLE patients only. For the first time anti‐GM4 IgG and IgM antibodies were shown in PNP including Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), Miller–Fisher syndrome (MFS), and multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). Different autoantibody profiles detectable by this multiparametric assay may help to diagnose different entities within the growing spectrum of autoimmune PNP.
Spontaneous Preterm Birth Is Associated with Differential Expression of Vaginal Metabolites by Lactobacilli-Dominated Microflora

A major challenge in preventing preterm birth (PTB) is identifying women at greatest risk. This pilot study prospectively examined the differences in vaginal microbiota and metabolite profiles of women who delivered prematurely compared to their term counterparts in a cohort of asymptomatic (studied at 20–22, n = 80; and 26–28 weeks, n = 41) and symptomatic women (studied at 24–36 weeks, n = 37). Using 16S rRNA sequencing, the vaginal microbiota from cervicovaginal fluid samples was characterized into five Community State Types (CST) dominated by Lactobacillus spp. : CSTI (Lactobacillus crispatus), CSTII (Lactobacillus gasseri), CSTIII (Lactobacillus iners), CSTV (Lactobacillus jensenii); and mixed anaerobes—CSTIV. This was then related to the vaginal metabolite profile and pH determined by 1H-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy and pH indicator paper, respectively. At 20–22 weeks, the term-delivered women (TDW) indicated a proportion of CSTI-dominated microbiota >2-fold higher compared to the preterm-delivered women (PTDW) (40.3 vs. 16.7%, P = 0.0002), and a slightly higher proportion at 26–28 weeks (20.7 vs. 16.7%, P = 0.03). CSTV was >2-fold higher in the PTDW compared to TDW at 20–22 (22.2 vs. 9.7%, P = 0.0002) and 26–28 weeks (25.0 vs. 10.3%, P = 0.03). Furthermore, at 26–28 weeks no PTDW had a CSTII-dominated microbiome, in contrast to 28% of TDW (P < 0.0001). CSTI-dominated samples showed higher lactate levels than CSTV at 20–22 weeks (P < 0.01), and 26–28 weeks (P < 0.05), while CSTII-dominated samples indicated raised succinate levels over CSTV at 26–28 weeks (P < 0.05). These were supported by Principal coordinates analysis, which revealed strong clustering of metabolites according to CST. In addition, the CSTI-dominated samples had an average pH of 3.8, which was lower than those of CSTII—4.4, and CSTV—4.2 (P < 0.05). Elevated vaginal lactate and succinate were associated with predominance of CSTI and II over CSTV in women who delivered at term compared with their preterm counterparts. This suggests that L. jensenii-dominance and decreased lactate and/or succinate could increase the risk of PTB, while L. crispatus/gasseri may confer some protection against inflammation-associated PTB and highlight the need for further study in this area.
Thermogravimetric study of the dehydration kinetics of talc

The dehydration kinetics of nearly pure talc, (MgorrFeoo,). Si4oro(OH)r, and of pure synthetic talc to enstatite and SiO, was studied as a function of temperature between 777 and 917 oC and of grain size by thermogravimetry experiments. In the grain-size range of I 5I pm, the rate of dehydration of talc increased with decreasing grain size, but further decrease ofgrain size did not significantly affect the dehydration rate. This may be caused by (l) clustering ofthe fine-grained particles as a result ofsurface charging, (2) a tradeoff between the positive effect of larger surface area and the negative effect of nucleating a larger number of product phases, or (3) both. The kinetic data can be adequately modeled by a second-order phenomenological rate law. The rate constant (ft) for the size fraction of 10-15 pm of the natural talc follows an Arrhenian relation, k: 1.98 x l}toexp(-Q/ RQ/min, where the activation energy Q: 372 + 7 (o) kJ/mol. Compared with talc of the same grain size, the synthetic talc was found to have a significantly faster dehydration rate. TEM images showed topotactic growth of enstatite on talc, with a concomitant formation of tridymite.
Computationally efficient algorithms for statistical image processing. Implementation in R

In the series of our earlier papers on the subject, we proposed a novel statistical hypothesis testing method for detection of objects in noisy images. The method uses results from percolation theory and random graph theory. We developed algorithms that allowed to detect objects of unknown shapes in the presence of nonparametric noise of unknown level and of unknown distribution. No boundary shape constraints were imposed on the objects, only a weak bulk condition for the object's interior was required. Our algorithms have linear complexity and exponential accuracy. In the present paper, we describe an implementation of our nonparametric hypothesis testing method. We provide a program that can be used for statistical experiments in image processing. This program is written in the statistical programming language R.
Interference mitigation in resource allocation for OFDMA-based macro/femtocell two-tier wireless networks

In this paper, we present the OFDMA-based macro/femtocell wireless system as a geometric model, based on which we propose a resource allocation (RA) scheme that mitigates cross-tier and inter-femto interference. To mitigate the cross-tier interference, the neighboring area where the macro mobile station (MMS) is regarded as neighboring MMS (NMMS) is decided according to the average signal-to-interference-ratio (ASIR) threshold; then the total spectrum resource is partitioned by the femtocell and its NMMS. Subsequently, RA for each femto-cell is implemented as a strategic non-cooperative game by which the inter-femto interference is mitigated. Simulation results show that better performance can be achieved in terms of macrocell throughput, femtocell throughput on each subcarrier, MMS and femto mobile station (FMS) CDF of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), with negligible femtocell throughput sacrifice.
Derandomization from Algebraic Hardness: Treading the Borders

A hitting-set generator (HSG) is a polynomial map Gen:F^k → F^n such that for all n-variate polynomials Q of small enough circuit size and degree, if Q is non-zero, then Q ∘ Gen is non-zero. In this paper, we give a new construction of such a HSG assuming that we have an explicit polynomial of sufficient hardness in the sense of approximative or border complexity. Formally, we prove the following result over any characteristic zero field F: Suppose P(z_1,., z_k) is an explicit k-variate degree d polynomial that is not in the border of circuits of size s. Then, there is an explicit hitting-set generator Gen(P): F^2k → F^n such that every non-zero n-variate degree D polynomial Q(x) in the border of size s′ circuits satisfies Q ≠ 0 ⇒ Q ∘ Gen(P) ≠ 0 provided n^10k d D s'< s. This is the first HSG in the algebraic setting that yields a complete derandomization of polynomial identity testing (PIT) for general circuits from a suitable algebraic hardness assumption. As a direct consequence, we show that even a slightly non-trivial explicit construction of hitting sets for polynomials in the border of constant-variate circuits implies a deterministic polynomial time algorithm for PIT. Let δ > 0 be a constant and k be a large enough constant. Suppose, for every s ≥ k, there is an explicit hitting set of size s^k-δ for all degree s polynomials in the border of k-variate size s algebraic circuits. Then, there is an explicit hitting set of size poly(s) for the border s-variate algebraic circuits of size s and degree s. Unlike the prior constructions of such maps (e.g.[NW94], [KI04], [AGS19], [KST19]), our construction is purely algebraic and does not rely on the notion of combinatorial designs.
Neuronal MCP‐1 Mediates Microglia Recruitment and Neurodegeneration Induced by the Mild Impairment of Oxidative Metabolism

Chemokines are implicated in the neuroinflammation of several chronic neurodegenerative disorders. However, the precise role of chemokines in neurodegeneration is unknown. Thiamine deficiency (TD) causes abnormal oxidative metabolism in the brain as well as a well‐defined microglia activation and neurodegeneration in the submedial thalamus nucleus (SmTN), which are common features of neurodegenerative diseases. We evaluated the role of chemokines in neurodegeneration and the underlying mechanism in a TD model. Among the chemokines examined, TD selectively induced neuronal expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 (MCP‐1) in the SmTN prior to microglia activation and neurodegeneration. The conditioned medium collected from TD‐induced neurons caused microglia activation. With a neuron/microglia co‐culture system, we showed that MCP‐1‐induced neurotoxicity required the presence of microglia, and exogenous MCP‐1 was able to activate microglia and stimulated microglia to produce cytokines. A MCP‐1 neutralizing antibody inhibited MCP‐1‐induced microglia activation and neuronal death in culture and in the thalamus. MCP‐1 knockout mice were resistant to TD‐induced neuronal death in SmTN. TD selectively induced the accumulation of reactive oxygen species in neurons, and antioxidants blocked TD‐induced MCP‐1 expression. Together, our results indicated an induction of neuronal MCP‐1 during mild impairment of oxidative metabolism caused by microglia recruitment/activation, which exacerbated neurodegeneration.
Automatic method completion

Modern software development environments include tools to help programmers write code efficiently and accurately. For example many integrated development environments include variable name completion, method name completion and recently refactoring tools have been added to some environments. This work extends the idea of automatic completion to include completion of the body of a method by employing machine learning algorithms on the near duplicate code segments that frequently exist in large software projects.
Androgen deficiency syndrome in older people

Purpose: To support nurse practitioners in their encounters with aging male patients with signs and symptoms related to the decline of male sex hormones. Data sources: An electronic search was conducted on studies from 2006 to 2013 from the following databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and related health resources websites. The search terms used included male menopause, andropause, androgen deficiency, testosterone deficiency, late‐onset hypo‐gonadism, and testosterone replacement therapy. Relevant studies in English were selected for an integrative review. Conclusions: Androgen deficiency syndrome has been overlooked in clinical settings. However, there has been an increase in health needs related to low testosterone levels. A diagnosis should be made carefully, considering other possible causes of the problems as well as the decision to initiate testosterone treatment (TT) and monitoring. In this article, the current awareness of androgen deficiency syndrome, pathophysiology of aging men's sex organ, clinical presentation, differential diagnoses, diagnostic strategy, clinical management, monitoring, and referral plans are discussed. Implications for practice: The rapidly growing aged population in our society makes androgen deficiency syndrome a growing issue that needs to be understood, adequately diagnosed, and carefully managed by nurse practitioners.
Extracting and Understanding Contrastive Opinion through Topic Relevant Sentences

Contrastive opinion mining is essential in identifying, extracting and organising opinions from user generated texts. Most existing studies separate input data into respective collections. In addition, the relationships between the topics extracted and the sentences in the corpus which express the topics are opaque, hindering our understanding of the opinions expressed in the corpus. We propose a novel unified latent variable model (contraLDA) which addresses the above matters. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our model in mining contrasted opinions, outperforming our baselines.
Memory Consolidation by Replay of Stimulus-Specific Neural Activity

Memory consolidation transforms initially labile memory traces into more stable representations. One putative mechanism for consolidation is the reactivation of memory traces after their initial encoding during subsequent sleep or waking state. However, it is still unknown whether consolidation of individual memory contents relies on reactivation of stimulus-specific neural representations in humans. Investigating stimulus-specific representations in humans is particularly difficult, but potentially feasible using multivariate pattern classification analysis (MVPA). Here, we show in healthy human participants that stimulus-specific activation patterns can indeed be identified with MVPA, that these patterns reoccur spontaneously during postlearning resting periods and sleep, and that the frequency of reactivation predicts subsequent memory for individual items. We conducted a paired-associate learning task with items and spatial positions and extracted stimulus-specific activity patterns by MVPA in a simultaneous electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. As a first step, we investigated the amount of fMRI volumes during rest that resembled either one of the items shown before or one of the items shown as a control after the resting period. Reactivations during both awake resting state and sleep predicted subsequent memory. These data are first evidence that spontaneous reactivation of stimulus-specific activity patterns during resting state can be investigated using MVPA. They show that reactivation occurs in humans and is behaviorally relevant for stabilizing memory traces against interference. They move beyond previous studies because replay was investigated on the level of individual stimuli and because reactivations were not evoked by sensory cues but occurred spontaneously.
HPPNET: A novel network for HPC and its implication for communication software

With the widespread adoption of multicore processors in high performance computing (HPC) environment, the balance between computation and communication moves towards computation. It has been becoming more important to design a high efficient network for HPC system, which commonly has two challengers associated: 1) To provide a communication environment with low latency, high bandwidth, and high small message processing rate; 2) and to efficiently support the partitioned global address space (PGAS) programming model. With respects to these needs this paper proposes a novel network named HPPNET. By adopting HyperTransport interface, separate channel design, on-load part of processing work to host, and transparent direct load/store in global physical address space, HPPNET can sufficiently support both needs for HPC. Meanwhile, we have adopted several key technologies to minimize the implication of new network for communication software. Evaluation shows that HPPNET hardware design can achieve high performance and bring no barrier to high efficiency software design. Our results also show that the 8 bytes remote store cost 0.4s in HPPNET prototype.