Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Legislative recruitment

Many legislative recruitment scholars seek to explain why women, visible minorities and other social groups are underrepresented in the world’s legislatures. Researchers in this area often use a supply and demand metaphor to frame their work, but cannot agree whether underrepresentation is mainly a supply- or demand-side problem. With an eye to moving this debate forward, this article offers a new approach to operationalizing supply and demand and shows how reverse-flow diagnostic testing, supply-first analysis and an improved testing regime can pinpoint when and why underrepresentation begins to occur in any political system. The new diagnostic approach is applied to data from a provincial election in British Columbia, Canada. The article uses the new diagnostic and BC case to demonstrate how underrepresentation in any political system is attributable to demand-side discrimination by gatekeepers and not an undersupply of political aspirants from any particular social group.
Ventrolateral prefrontal activation during a N-back task assessed with multichannel functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been used to investigate the changes in the concentration of oxygenated (O2Hb) and deoxygenated (HHb) hemoglobin in brain issue during several cognitive tasks. In the present study, by means of multichannel dual wavelength light-emitting diode continuous-wave (CW) NIRS, we investigated the blood oxygenation changes of prefrontal cortex in 18 healthy subjects while performing a verbal n-back task (0-back and 2-back), which has been rarely investigated by fNIRS. Compared to the 0-back task (control task), we found a significant increase of O2Hb and total amount of hemoglobin (THb) in left and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) during the execution of the 2-back task compared to the 0-back task (p<0.05, FDR corrected). This result is consistent with the previous functional neuroimaging studies that have found the VLPFC activation related to verbal working memory. However, we found no significant hemisphere dominance. In addition, the effects of gender and its interaction with task performance on O2Hb concentration change were suggested in the present study. Our findings not only confirm that multichannel fNIRS is suitable to detect spatially specific activation during the performance of cognitive tasks; but also suggest that it should be cautious of gender-dependent difference in cerebral activation when interpreting the fNIRS data during cognitive tasks.
Psychological Well-Being Among Fathers of Children With and Without Disabilities: The Role of Family Cohesion, Adaptability, and Paternal Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of family cohesion, adaptability, and paternal self-efficacy in psychological well-being of fathers of children with and without disabilities and whether the effects of these variables on psychological well-being were the same for both groups of fathers. In addition, the potential differences in perceived well-being between the two groups of fathers were examined. Sixty-three fathers of children with disabilities and 217 fathers of typically developing children participated in this study. Fathers of children with disabilities scored significantly higher on the self-acceptance dimension of psychological well-being compared with fathers of children without disabilities. After controlling for the demographic factors, family cohesion and paternal self-efficacy significantly and positively predicted well-being of fathers; the effects of these variables on well-being were the same for both groups of fathers.
On-Line Domain Knowledge Management for Case-Based Medical Recommendation

Domain knowledge may be used in a medical application to avoid wrong decisions, e.g., decisions raising contraindications. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it presents an approach for exploiting domain knowledge in a case-based decision support system in the domain of oncology. This approach is based on the so-called conservative adaptation that provides a solution necessarily consistent with the domain knowledge. Second, this paper describes an approach for the evolution of this domain knowledge when the expert rejects a proposed solution as being inconsistent with his/her knowledge. This inconsistency is characteristic of a difference between the domain knowledge of the system and the expert knowledge; from an interactive analysis, a piece of knowledge to be added to the domain knowledge is pointed out. This approach to domain knowledge evolution is implemented in a prototype called FrakaS.
BTG2 antiproliferative protein interacts with the human CCR4 complex existing in vivo in three cell-cycle-regulated forms

The yeast CCR4-NOT complex exists in two forms (1.0 and 1.9 MDa) that share several common subunits, including yCCR4, yCAF1 and five NOT proteins (NOT1-5). Here, we report that different complexes containing mammalian homologs of CCR4-NOT subunits exist in mammalian cells, with estimated sizes of ∼1.9 MDa, ∼1 MDa and ∼650 kDa, and that BTG2, a member of a protein family with antiproliferative functions, can associate with these complexes. Immunoprecipitation and gel filtration experiments established that BTG2 interacts in vivo with hCCR4 protein via hCAF1 and hPOP2. Moreover, we show that hCCR4, as well as hCAF1 and BTG2, modulate the transcription regulation mediated by ERα. Finally, we demonstrate that the cellular localization of hCAF1 and the cell content in hCAF1-containing complexes change as cells progress from quiescence to S phase. These findings suggest that the different regulatory pathways in which hCAF1 is involved, notably transcription regulation and mRNA turnover, may occur through distinct CCR4 complexes in the course of cell-cycle progression.
Evaluation of sensory and proximate properties of reservoir grown tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) and cage cultured genetically improved farmed tilapia (gift)

Sensory and nutritional properties of GIFT reared in cages installed at Kattakaduwa reservoir, Hambantota District, Sri Lanka over O. niloticus caught from the same reservoir was compared. Cage cultured fish were fed with four different formulated diets having 26% and 30 % protein content and each diet having 12% and 8% lipid content in their feed. Three fish from each sex having 200-250 g were collected from each treatment as well as from the reservoir. A trained panel evaluated five sensory characteristics; overall acceptance, flavour, juiciness, oiliness and tenderness of the steam cooked fish fillets. Sensory scores were assessed through Friedman non parametric and proximate data were assessed through one way ANOVA. Cage cultured fish in all treatments obtained higher scores for flavour indicating better taste and the values were significantly different (p < 0.05) from the fish captured from the reservoir. Overall acceptance of fish fillets with lower fat content (8%) showed no significant difference with reservoir fish. In contrast, fish fed with higher fat content (12%) acceptance was significantly different when compared to reservoir fish. Protein, lipid, dry matter and ash contents were significantly different (p < 0.05) among four formulated diets. Reservoir grown fish recorded lowest values for all proximate parameters and were significantly different (p < 0.05) from all cage culture treatments. Present study reveals that GIFT raised in cages with supplementary feed rich with fat irrespective of protein levels, gives better flavour and acceptance than O. niloticus that feed on naturally available food in reservoir.
Time Interval Moderates the Relationship Between Psyching-up and Actual Sprint Performance

Abstract Hammoudi-Nassib, S, Chtara, M, Nassib, S, Briki, W, Hammoudi-Riahi, S, Tod, D, and Chamari, K. Time interval moderates the relationship between psyching-up and actual sprint performance. J Strength Cond Res 28(11): 3245–3254, 2014—This study attempted to test whether the strongest effect of psyching-up (PU) strategy on actual sprint performance can be observed when the strategy is used immediately (or almost) before performance compared with when there is a delay between PU and performance. To do so, 16 male sprinters (age, 20.6 ± 1.3 years; body mass, 77.5 ± 7.1 kg; height, 180.8 ± 5.6 cm) were enrolled in a counterbalanced experimental design in which participants were randomly assigned to 10 sessions (2 [Experimental Condition: imagery vs. distraction] × 5 [Time Intervals: no interval, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes]). Before performing the experimental tasks, participants rated: (a) the Hooper index, (b) their degree of self-confidence, and (c) after the completion of the experimental test; they rated their perceived effort. Findings showed that the imagery significantly improved sprint performance. Specifically, the imagery enhanced performance on the phase of acceleration (0–10 m) and on the overall sprint (0–30 m) when used immediately before performance and at 1- and 2-minute intervals but not for 3- and 5-minute intervals. These findings support the hypothesis that the potential effect of the PU strategy on performance vanishes over time. The pre-experimental task Hooper and self-efficacy indexes did not change across the 10 experimental sessions, reinforcing the view that the observed performance changes were directly caused by the experimental manipulation and not through any altered status of the athletes (self-efficacy, fatigue/recovery, and stress). The potential mechanisms underlying such a process and practical applications are discussed.
Identifying and modelling clinical subpopulations from the Malmö breast tomosynthesis screening trial

Virtual Clinical Trials (VCT) are an effective tool to evaluate the performance of novel imaging systems using computer simulations. VCT results depend on the selection of virtual patient populations. In the case of breast imaging, virtual patients should be matched to a desired clinical population in terms of selected anatomical or demographic descriptors. We are developing a virtual population of women who participated in the Malmö Breast Tomosynthesis Screening Trial (MBTST). We have used clinical values of the compressed breast thickness and volumetric breast density to develop a multidimensional distribution of women in MBTST. Breast density and thickness values were obtained from anonymized, previously collected tomosynthesis images of 14,746 women. In this paper, we compare several approaches to identify clinical subpopulations and select virtual patients that represent various groups of clinical subjects. We performed two methods to identify clinical subpopulations by clustering clinical data using the K-means algorithm or woman’s age. The obtained clusters have been explored and compared using the silhouette mean. The K-means algorithm yielded grouping of MBTST data into two clusters; however, that grouping was, shown to be suboptimal by the silhouette analysis. The agebased clustering showed significant overlap in terms of breast thickness and density. We also compared two approaches to select sets of representative phantoms. Our analysis has emphasized benefits and limitations of different clustering methods. The preferred method depends on the specific task that should be addressed using VCTs. Simulation of representative phantoms is ongoing. Potential correlations with pathological findings and/or parenchymal properties will be investigated.
Revisiting monitoring and evaluation strategies for applied drama and theatre practice in African contexts

Most of the applied drama and theatre projects being carried out in African contexts tend to be one-off events with limited follow-up in terms of building the capacity of target communities and organising them for action. Besides bringing people together for workshops, performances and post-performance discussions, such projects simply pass by with little or no impact. The few that have been given attention remain trapped within a modernising paradigm that seeks to create external blueprints for monitoring and evaluation (M & E). This article focuses on the current drive among international donor agencies, non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders in adopting more participatory strategies in M & E practice. The article argues for the adoption of a Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) framework where stakeholders at different levels share control over the form and content of the monitoring and evaluation process. While conventional M & E strategies mainly involve outside experts coming in to measure the impact of projects against prescribed social science-based indicators, PM&E seeks to engage all the stakeholders in planning, designing, implementing and assessing the outcome of projects.
Real-World RESTful Service Composition: A Transformation-Annotation-Discovery Approach

Existing Web API search engines allow for only category-based browsing and keyword or tag-based searches for RESTful services without offering the capability of discovering and composing real-world RESTful services from the viewpoint of application developers. Therefore, we propose a novel approach, referred to as TAD (Transformation-Annotation-Discovery), to address the above issue. TAD firstly transforms OpenAPI (Swagger) documents of RESTful services into the graph structure in graph database, and provides an annotation engine to automatically annotate the semantic concepts on each graph node by using LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), and WordNet. Next, TAD conducts service composition based on the user requirement by the two modules, service discovery chain and pipeline-based composition. The service discovery chain checks service interface compatibility and retrieves supported and aided services to bridge the gap between the user requirement and the current discovered services based on the Hungarian algorithm. The pipeline-based composition module finds services that semantically fit the user's required tasks based on the annotated graph database and sends candidate services to service discovery chains to simultaneously seek for multiple possible composition solutions fitting the user's composition requirement. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is with good performance under the precision metric.
EXPLOSIVE RADIATION OF A BACTERIAL SPECIES GROUP

The current diversity of life on earth is the product of macroevolutionary processes that have shaped the dynamics of diversification. Although the tempo of diversification has been studied extensively in macroorganisms, much less is known about the rates of diversification in the exceedingly diverse and species‐rich microbiota. Decreases in diversification rates over time, a signature of explosive radiations, are commonly observed in plant and animal lineages. However, the few existing analyses of microbial lineages suggest that the tempo of diversification in prokaryotes may be fundamentally different. Here, we use multilocus and genomic sequence data to test hypotheses about the rate of diversification in a well‐studied pathogenic bacterial lineage, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (sl). Our analyses support the hypothesis that an explosive radiation of lineages occurred near the origin of the clade, followed by a sharp decay in diversification rates. These results suggest that explosive radiations may be a general feature of evolutionary history across the tree of life.
How to Think about Environmental Studies

It is not possible to date when environmental studies became ‘Environmental Studies’. Nevertheless it has had a turbulent history marked by inconsistency, conflict and change. It is not surprising that at present it lacks disciplinary coherence and is subject to various definitions, often contradictory. There is ongoing speculation as to the cause of this identity crisis: ‘curricular universalism’ (absence of a unifying concept), academic territorialism and pedagogical clashes. I argue that a philosophical inquiry into the role of values in Environmental Studies provides the missing coherence and unity. Further, I argue that environmental problems directly related to deliberate human action are the province of applied philosophy and offer a formal argument to support this claim, and briefly address and dismiss the controversy over the teaching of values. I conclude that Environmental Studies is inherently part of the philosophical enterprise; as such it belongs with the humanities. The discussion takes as its starting point the context of college and university education in the US, but the issues raised have more general relevance.
Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology Is There a Value Paradox of E-learning in Mba Programs?

Academic institutions invest considerable resources in improving the website quality of their MBA courses, in the hope of increasing student retention and willingness to recommend the programs to others. Despite this investment, it seems that the old "keep it simple" rule is also true for e-learning. Data collected from students enrolled in a blended distance learning MBA program at the Open University of Israel, shows that the students were most satisfied with the simple and relatively inexpensive e-learning tools, which did not require their active participation. The paper discusses bounded rationality and attention economy as suggested theoretical explanations for this phenomenon, as well as practical implications for academic institutions and educators.
Treatment of Corneal Neovascularization Using Anti-VEGF Bevacizumab

Purpose. To evaluate antiangiogenic effect of local use of bevacizumab (anti-VEGF antibody) in patients with corneal neovascularization. Methods. Patients were divided into two groups. All patients suffered from some form of corneal neovascularization (NV). Patients in group A received 0.2–0.5 mL of bevacizumab solution subconjunctivally (concentration 25 mg/mL) in a single dose. Group A included 28 eyes from 27. Patients in group B applied bevacizumab eye drops twice daily (concentration 2.5 mg/mL) for two weeks. Group B included 38 eyes from 35 patients. We evaluated the number of corneal segments affected by NV, CDVA, and the incidence of complications and subjective complaints related to the treatment. The minimum follow-up period was six months. Results. By the 6-month follow-up, in group A the percentage reduction of the affected peripheral segments was 21.6% and of the central segments was 9.6%; in group B the percentage reduction of the central segments was 22.7% and of the central segments was 38.04%. In both groups we noticed a statistically significant reduction in the extent of NV. Conclusion. The use of bevacizumab seems to be an effective and safe method in the treatment of corneal neovascularization, either in the subconjunctival or topical application form.
FLUTAMIDE METABOLISM IN FOUR DIFFERENT SPECIES IN VITRO AND IDENTIFICATION OF FLUTAMIDE METABOLITES IN HUMAN PATIENT URINE BY HIGH PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY/TANDEM MASS SPECTROMETRY

A new metabolic scheme of flutamide is proposed in this article. Some patients treated with flutamide, a nonsteroidal antiandrogen, have developed severe hepatic dysfunction. Toxic metabolites have been proposed to be responsible for these negative effects. In this study, the qualitative aspects of the in vitro metabolism of flutamide in liver microsomes from human, dog, pig, and rat were evaluated. A direct comparison of the flutamide metabolism in liver and prostate microsomes from pig was made, and the in vivo metabolism of flutamide was investigated in urine from orally treated prostate cancer patients. Liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry was used for analysis. The mass spectrometer was equipped with an electrospray interface and operated in the negative ion mode. In liver microsomes from pig, dog, and rat, extensive hydroxylation of flutamide occurred. One, two, or three hydroxy groups were attached, and isomeric forms were detected for both monohydroxylated and trihydroxylated drug. In pig liver microsomes, isomers of a third metabolite, hydroxylated 4-nitro-3-(trifluoromethyl)-aniline, were also found after incubation with either flutamide or 2-hydroxyflutamide. In human liver microsomes, the pharmacologically active 2-hydroxyflutamide was the only metabolite detected. Several phase I metabolites as well as four intact phase II metabolites could be recovered from the urine samples. For the first time in humans, glucuronic acid conjugates of hydroxylated 4-nitro-3-(trifluoromethyl)-aniline, and mono- and dihydroxylated flutamide were identified, together with hydroxylated 4-nitro-3-(trifluoromethyl)-aniline conjugated with sulfate. In addition, one mercapturic acid conjugate of hydroxylated flutamide, probably formed from flutamide via a reactive intermediate, was detected.
High-performance and tunable stereo reconstruction

Traditional stereo algorithms have focused their efforts on reconstruction quality and have largely avoided prioritizing for run time performance. Robots, on the other hand, require quick maneuverability and effective computation to observe its immediate environment and perform tasks within it. In this work, we propose a high-performance and tunable stereo disparity estimation method, with a peak frame-rate of 120Hz (VGA resolution, on a single CPU-thread), that can potentially enable robots to quickly reconstruct their immediate surroundings and maneuver at high-speeds. Our key contribution is a disparity estimation algorithm that iteratively approximates the scene depth via a piece-wise planar mesh from stereo imagery, with a fast depth validation step for semi-dense reconstruction. The mesh is initially seeded with sparsely matched keypoints, and is recursively tessellated and refined as needed (via a resampling stage), to provide the desired stereo disparity accuracy. The inherent simplicity and speed of our approach, with the ability to tune it to a desired reconstruction quality and runtime performance makes it a compelling solution for applications in high-speed vehicles.
Are There Gender Differences in Computer Performance? If So, Can Motivation Explain Them?

Abstract. Building on previous research which suggests that females are at a disadvantage when working with computers, the current paper investigates possible explanations. We used the cognitive-motivational process model (Vollmeyer & Rheinberg, 1999, 2000) to explore if motivation can account for the performance differences between male and female students. The model assumes that initial motivation affects strategies and motivation during learning which then influence performance. Male and female students from an introductory statistics class (N = 40), had to solve four statistics tasks with SPSS in 30 minutes. Measurements included initial motivation, functional state (i.e., flow) during task performance, navigation style, and task performance. Results show that males outperform females in terms of time needed for task completion and performance level. Male students displayed more solution-oriented navigation traces than female students. In a tentative exploratory path model, flow-experience and navigat.
DETC 2002 / DAC-34097 OPTIMAL DESIGN DECISIONS IN PRODUCT PORTFOLIO VALUATION

ne ill ets ign on ing w nly sica ine he hed ct ABSTRACT Product portfolio valuation is a core business milesto in a firm’s product development process: Determine what w be the final value to the firm derived from allocating ass into an appropriate product mix. Optimal engineering des typically deals with determining the best product based technological (and, occasionally, cost) requirements. Link technological with business decisions allows the firm to follo a product valuation process that directly considers not o what assets to invest but also what are the appropriate phy properties of these assets. Thus, optimal designs are determ within a business context that maximizes the firm’s value. T article demonstrates how this integration can be accomplis analytically using a simple example in automotive produ development.