Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Working Paper Series 09 / 2005 The Constitution of Legitimacy : Engaging Realist Theoretical and Empirical Investigations on Legitimacy , Belief and Social Rules

They are circulated for discussion purposes only, their contents should be considered preliminary and are not to be quoted without the authors' permission. This work is still very much work in progress. Thank you for not citing or quoting without permission. Any comments are warmly welcome! Ismael Al-Amoudi Work in progress – thanks for not citing or quoting 2 Abstract I attempt to lay bases on which a realist study of the processes of legitimation can be engaged. My thesis is that the legitimacy of a social feature should be understood as its congruence with a set of respected legitimising social rules. I base my theoretical argument on contrastive ethnographic studies I conducted with participants working in various firms located in France. Contrary to alternative social theories (e.g. Institutional theory), I treat legitimacy as exlicandum rather than as explicans. Thus, I attempt to uncover and describe the legitimising social rules that enable and contribute to structure the processes of legitimation at play in particular configurations. By distinguishing between legitimacy and belief in legitimacy, I examine how legitimacy is constituted through a social process that presupposes the action of participants, the existence of a previous individual conception of legitimacy and the objective existence of respected social rules that are irreducible to (though dependent upon) the individual beliefs of participants. Also, by treating the constitution of legitimacy as a process, one is able to account for the dual evolution of people's conceptions of legitimacy and of the social rules that legitimise given social features. This research also includes emancipatory objectives as it may help people promoting social features they cherish, either by transforming other members' conceptions or by transforming the social rules that make these social features illegitimate. Work in progress – thanks for not citing or quoting 3 " Un homme épouvantable entre et se regarde dans la glace. '-Pourquoi vous regardez-vous au miroir, puisque vous ne pouvez vous y voir qu'avec déplaisir? ' L'homme épouvantable me répond: '-Monsieur, d'après les immortels principes de 89, tous les hommes sont égaux en droits; donc je possède le droit de me mirer; avec plaisir ou déplaisir, cela ne regarde que ma conscience. ' Au nom du bon sens, j'avais sans doute raison; mais, au point de vue de la loi, il n'avait pas tort. " Charles Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris – Petits Poëmes en Prose.
Self reported stress and risk of breast cancer: prospective cohort study

Abstract Objective To assess the relation between self reported intensity and frequency of stress and first time incidence of primary breast cancer. Design Prospective cohort study with 18 years of follow-up. Setting Copenhagen City heart study, Denmark. Participants The 6689 women participating in the Copenhagen City heart study were asked about their perceived level of stress at baseline in 1981-3. These women were followed until 1999 in the Danish nationwide cancer registry, with < 0.1% loss to follow-up. Main outcome measure First time incidence of primary breast cancer. Results During follow-up 251 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. After adjustment for confounders, women with high levels of stress had a hazard ratio of 0.60 (95% confidence interval 0.37 to 0.97) for breast cancer compared with women with low levels of stress. Furthermore, for each increase in stress level on a six point stress scale an 8% lower risk of primary breast cancer was found (hazard ratio 0.92, 0.85 to 0.99). This association seemed to be stable over time and was particularly pronounced in women receiving hormone therapy. Conclusion High endogenous concentrations of oestrogen are a known risk factor for breast cancer, and impairment of oestrogen synthesis induced by chronic stress may explain a lower incidence of breast cancer in women with high stress. Impairment of normal body function should not, however, be considered a healthy response, and the cumulative health consequences of stress may be disadvantageous.
Use of real‐world evidence from healthcare utilization data to evaluate drug safety during pregnancy

Because preapproval clinical trials typically exclude pregnant women, the evidence on drug safety during pregnancy required to inform drug labeling must come from postapproval controlled observational studies. Common designs have included pregnancy registries and case‐control studies. Recently, pregnancy cohorts nested within healthcare utilization databases are increasingly being used. Despite clear advantages, these databases share some important limitations that may threaten the validity of studies emerging from them.
DIGITAL SURVEY OF ANCIENT MOSAICS OF RAVENNA

: The aim of this paper is to show a methodology to ease problems due to the richness and heaviness of files of meshes derived from the digital 3D survey of mosaics, in order to store them in databases that can be accessible via Internet. In particular, the paper illustrates a comparative application of mesh simplification algorithms in order to simplify meshes derived from laser scanners without loss of the required details in 3D reconstructions. Despite the apparent two-dimensionality of these artefacts, mosaics have generally different levels of geometric complexity. In addition, problems due to occlusions and to the semi-transparency or reflectance of tesserae can effect metric measures obtained from laser scanners, requiring long post-processing operations of the derived meshes. The amount of these operations mainly depends on mosaics characteristics and on the aim of the survey. In order to allow scholars to access via web to 3D data collected in information systems, for example, meshes have to be simplified in order to show different levels of detail according to different and changing communication aims. This paper shows and compares two different approaches to the problem. In order to obtain different models corresponding to pre-defined LODs, a global and a local incremental simplification of triangular meshes are applied to the Master Model. The purpose of preserving feature edges and varying tessellation density is reached testing different algorithms that are available in common modeling packages.
EXTRACTION OF BIOMEDICAL INFORMATION FROM MEDLINE DOCUMENTS –A TEXT MINING APPRAOCH

Medline and Pubmed repositories are rich in medical literature. The exponential growth of these online repositories and availability of large volume of documents has motivated the search for the hidden knowledge from these resources. Therefore, an automated system which could correctly extract information from PubMed, is needed. Text mining can enhance the retrieval of useful information from PubMed and Medline. It can be viewed as an extension of data mining or knowledge discovery from databases. The goal of biomedical information system is to discover knowledge from online repositories and put it into practical use in the forms of diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases. We proposed a novel text mining algorithm to enhance the performance of the information retrieval system. Our experiments conducted on various data sets showed that, it improves the accuracy and precision of the information retrieval.
On the Design of a Point-to-Multipoint Gigabit WLAN System on 60 GHz Millimeter Wave

Increasing demand on the broadband wireless communication over Gigabits has focused renewed attention on 60 GHz millimeter wave. We developed a novel Point-to-Multipoint (P2MP) Gigabit WLAN System on 60 GHz millimeter wave. The proposed system employed wide angle beams antenna overcomes the usability of the conventional system, covers larger areas. Maximum transmission rate was designed to be 1.2 Gigabit/sec. Orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) using 1024 points FFT, and convolutional code were implemented with PHY layer of the WLAN equipments. Superframe for multiple beams and frame aggregation for high throughput were designed for MAC layer. All control channels for downlink such as broadcast, frame control and access feedback were aggregated to reduce overhead in addition to aggregation of data frame. Maximum improvement of throughput due to control channel aggregation was evaluated to be 200 % compared with individual transmission. Evaluated throughput using proposed frame aggregation was confirmed to be more than 852 Mbit/sec in the case of aggregation size of 16 × 1500byte.
Global test for high‐dimensional mediation: Testing groups of potential mediators

We address the problem of testing whether a possibly high‐dimensional vector may act as a mediator between some exposure variable and the outcome of interest. We propose a global test for mediation, which combines a global test with the intersection‐union principle. We discuss theoretical properties of our approach and conduct simulation studies that demonstrate that it performs equally well or better than its competitor. We also propose a multiple testing procedure, ScreenMin, that provides asymptotic control of either familywise error rate or false discovery rate when multiple groups of potential mediators are tested simultaneously. We apply our approach to data from a large Norwegian cohort study, where we look at the hypothesis that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer by modifying the level of DNA methylation.
Identification of Resilient and At-Risk Neighborhoods for Cardiovascular Disease Among Black Residents: the Morehouse-Emory Cardiovascular (MECA) Center for Health Equity Study

Introduction Despite the growing interest in place as a determinant of health, areas that promote rather than reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) in blacks are understudied. We performed an ecologic analysis to identify areas with high levels of CVD resilience and risk among blacks from a large southern, US metropolitan area. Methods We obtained census tract–level rates of cardiovascular deaths, emergency department (ED) visits, and hospitalizations for black adults aged 35 to 64 from 2010 through 2014 for the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area. Census tracts with substantially lower rates of cardiovascular events on the basis of neighborhood socioeconomic status were identified as resilient and those with higher rates were identified as at risk. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of being classified as an at-risk versus resilient tract for differences in census-derived measures. Results We identified 106 resilient and 121 at-risk census tracts, which differed in the rates per 5,000 person years of cardiovascular outcomes (mortality, 8.13 vs 13.81; ED visits, 32.25 vs 146.3; hospitalizations, 26.69 vs 130.0), despite similarities in their median black income ($46,123 vs $45,306). Tracts with a higher percentage of residents aged 65 or older (odds ratio [OR], 2.29; 95% CI, 1.41–3.85 per 5% increment) and those with incomes less than 200% of the federal poverty level (OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.02–1.39 per 5% increment) and greater Gini index (OR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.19– 2.07 per 0.05 increment) were more likely to be classified as at risk than resilient neighborhoods. Discussion Despite matching on median income level, at-risk neighborhoods for CVD among black populations were associated with a higher prevalence of socioeconomic indicators of inequality than resilient neighborhoods.
Speech/music discrimination based on posterior probability features

[MorgB95] N. Morgan and H. Bourlard, “Continuous Speech Recognition: An Introduction to the Hybrid HMM/Connectionist Approach,” Signal Processing Magazine, pp 25-42, May 1995. [Cook99] G. Cook, J. Christie, D. Ellis, E. Fosler-Lussier, Y. Gotoh, B. Kingsbury, N. Morgan, S. Renals, A. Robinson and G. Williams, “The SPRACH System for the Transcription of Broadcast News,” Proc. DARPA Broadcast News Transcription and Understanding Workshop, Herndon VA, Feb 1999. [ScheirS97] E. Scheirer and M. Slaney, “Construction and evaluation of a robust multifeature speech/music discriminator,” Proc. ICASSP, Munich, 1997. [Williams99] G. Williams, Acoustic confidence measures in connectionist speech recognition, Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Sheffield, 1999.
Evaluation and Selection of Wavelet Filters for Denoising Medical Images Using Stationary Wavelet Transform ( SWT )

Image processing techniques in medical imaging are used to analyze the symptoms of the patients with ease. Often images get noise during acquisition process. Traditionally, statistical methods are used to estimate the noises. Many researchers have successfully applied and proved the advantages of the Discrete Wavelet Transform for image denoising [1][2]. DWT in image denoising has limitation due to its non-invariance in time/space. The time invariant property of SWT is useful in denoising the image. In this paper we have analysed and chosen the best wavelet filter for de-noising the medical images using SWT, because there is no filter that performs the best for all images [3]. Daubechies, Symlet, Haar, Coiflet and biorthogonal wavelet transforms applied through different orders at level 1 to 5 on the MRI images and evaluated through structural distortion measurement i.e. universal quality index instead of error measurement. Our results show that the sym6 give the better results at level 5. The application of this method would improve the accuracy of MRI Image, and therefore easily identify the diseased in MRI image for diagnosing critical diseases.
Video coding with lifted wavelet transforms and complementary motion-compensated signals

This paper investigates video coding with wavelet transforms applied in the temporal direction of a video sequence. The wavelets are implemented with the lifting scheme in order to permit motion compensation between successive pictures. We improve motion compensation in the lifting steps and utilize complementary motion-compensated signals. Similar to superimposed predictive coding with complementary signals, this approach improves compression efficiency. We investigate experimentally and theoretically complementary motion-compensated signals for lifted wavelet transforms. Experimental results with the complementary motion-compensated Haar wavelet and frame-adaptive motion compensation show improvements in coding efficiency of up to 3 dB. The theoretical results demonstrate that the lifted Haar wavelet scheme with complementary motion-compensated signals is able to approach the bound for bit-rate savings of 2 bits per sample and motion-accuracy step when compared to optimum intra-frame coding of the input pictures.
Differential Expression and Localization of Branchial AQP1 and AQP3 in Japanese Medaka (Oryzias latipes)

Aquaporins (AQPs) facilitate transmembrane water and solute transport, and in addition to contributing to transepithelial water transport, they safeguard cell volume homeostasis. This study examined the expression and localization of AQP1 and AQP3 in the gills of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) in response to osmotic challenges and osmoregulatory hormones, cortisol, and prolactin (PRL). AQP3 mRNA was inversely regulated in response to salinity with high levels in ion-poor water (IPW), intermediate levels in freshwater (FW), and low levels in seawater (SW). AQP3 protein levels decreased upon SW acclimation. By comparison, AQP1 expression was unaffected by salinity. In ex vivo gill incubation experiments, AQP3 mRNA was stimulated by PRL in a time- and dose-dependent manner but was unaffected by cortisol. In contrast, AQP1 was unaffected by both PRL and cortisol. Confocal microscopy revealed that AQP3 was abundant in the periphery of gill filament epithelial cells and co-localized at low intensity with Na+,K+-ATPase in ionocytes. AQP1 was present at a very low intensity in most filament epithelial cells and red blood cells. No epithelial cells in the gill lamellae showed immunoreactivity to AQP3 or AQP1. We suggest that both AQPs contribute to cellular volume regulation in the gill epithelium and that AQP3 is particularly important under hypo-osmotic conditions, while expression of AQP1 is constitutive.
Depth-based thinning: A new non-iterative skeletonization algorithm for 2D digital images

Thinning of binary image processing is a fundamental and important technology. Most of the existing image thinning algorithms are based on processing the same picture multiple times, and deleting the edge points layer by layer. For a amount of information in the image, the image thinning processing is relatively slow. To address this problem, an improved thinning algorithm is proposed in this paper. In particular, this algorithm uses the depth of each point to find the deepest points, only considers the deepest points and its neighboring points to determine the point can be deleted. The thinning processing time is decreased, and the skeleton is smooth, clear and continuous.
The neural crest lineage as a driver of disease heterogeneity in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex and Lymphangioleiomyomatosis

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare neoplastic disease, best characterized by the formation of proliferative nodules that express smooth muscle and melanocytic antigens within the lung parenchyma, leading to progressive destruction of lung tissue and function. The pathological basis of LAM is associated with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), a multi-system disorder marked by low-grade tumors in the brain, kidneys, heart, eyes, lung and skin, arising from inherited or spontaneous germ-line mutations in either of the TSC1 or TSC2 genes. LAM can develop either in a patient with TSC (TSC-LAM) or spontaneously (S-LAM), and it is clear that the majority of LAM lesions of both forms are characterized by an inactivating mutation in either TSC1 or TSC2, as in TSC. Despite this genetic commonality, there is considerable heterogeneity in the tumor spectrum of TSC and LAM patients, the basis for which is currently unknown. There is extensive clinical evidence to suggest that the cell of origin for LAM, as well as many of the TSC-associated tumors, is a neural crest cell, a highly migratory cell type with extensive multi-lineage potential. Here we explore the hypothesis that the types of tumors that develop and the tissues that are affected in TSC and LAM are dictated by the developmental timing of TSC gene mutations, which determines the identities of the affected cell types and the size of downstream populations that acquire a mutation. We further discuss the evidence to support a neural crest origin for LAM and TSC tumors, and propose approaches for generating humanized models of TSC and LAM that will allow cell of origin theories to be experimentally tested. Identifying the cell of origin and developing appropriate humanized models is necessary to truly understand LAM and TSC pathology and to establish effective and long-lasting therapeutic approaches for these patients.
On the Magnetic Field Evolution in shell-like Supernova Remnants

In this paper we apply and discuss a method for the determination of the magnetic eld (H) evolution in supernova remnants (SNRs) from radio luminosity at given frequency to diameter (L D) correlation. We assumed that H evolves as H / D , where D is the diameter of the remnant. A value 1:2 is obtained under the equipartition assumption from the equations for revised equipartition calculation (REC) and by using the data sample from the nearby starburst galaxy M82. We try to investigate whether or not SNRs in M82 are in the equipartition state. This is done by comparison of our empirically obtained with the theoretical value expected for equipartition conditions. The inconsistency between the value obtained for equipartition conditions and adiabatic expansion ( = 1:5) and the value empirically obtained herein can be explained mainly by the inuence of sensitivity selection eects which tend to atten the slope of the L D relations for extragalactic samples.
Preparation and Properties of Jute Fiber Long-Chain Fatty Acid Esters in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

A two-step method involving continuous screw-extrusion steam explosion (CSESE) pretreatment and esterification in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is used to prepare long-chain fatty acid-modified jute fiber. The weight gain percentage (WG %) of CSESE-pretreated jute laurate (JL) was 110.7% when esterification was carried out in scCO2 at 14 MPa and 100 °C for 2 h. The corresponding WG % was 105.5% when esterification was instead carried out in pyridine at 100 °C for 2 h. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction indicated that CSESE pretreatment enhanced the reactivity of jute fiber, with esterification in scCO2 simultaneously occurring on the fibers surface and internal walls. The glass transition temperature of esterified jute was approximately 119 °C, indicating that it could be hot processed over a wide temperature range. The esterified jute had an oil absorption ratio of 17.01 g/g, so it can be used as an oil absorption material.
A four-step filtering strategy based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry for comprehensive profiling the major chemical constituents of Akebiae Fructus.

RATIONALE Akebiae Fructus (AF) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with antiphlogistic, analgesic, antineoplastic, diuretic, antirheumatic, antidepressant and antiobesity activies. Identification of chemical constituents from AF is helpful to discover the potential active ingredients and to control the quality of AF. METHODS A four-step filtering strategy was as follows: 1) To extract the accurate mass by the different adduct ions. 2) To screen different types of the compounds using the diagnostic ion. 3) By the characteristic ion filtering, to confirm the substituted position and the sugar chain numbers. 4) Based on the neutral loss (NL), to identify the type of monosaccharide and the compositions of sugar chains of triterpenoid saponins and the structure of CGAs. RESULTS A total of 94 compounds (85 triterpenoid saponins, 9 chlorogenic acids) were unambiguously or reasonably identified. 50 constituents were first discovered from AF. 9 types of triterpenoid saponins, including Akebonoic acid (Type I), Norhederagenin (Type II), Oleanolic acid (Type III), 2α,3β-dihydroxy-23-oxo-30-norolean-12,20(21)-dien-28-oic acid (Type IV), Gypsogenin (Type V), Norarjunolic acid (Type VI), Hederagenin (Type VII), 2α,3β-dihydroxy-23-oxo-olean-12-en-28-oic acid (Type VIII), Arjunolic acid (Type IX), and 2 types of chlorogenic acids (mono-CQA and di-CQA) were identified in AF. CONCLUSIONS An ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry with MSE (UPLC-QTOF-MSE ) analysis with four-step filtering strategy was established and successfully applied to identify the chemical constituents of AF, which would provide chemical support for further research and play an important role in the quality control of AF.