Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fertility Issues in Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors.

PURPOSE Many adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors place great importance on fertility. This study explored AYAs' discussions of fertility in the context of discussing their survivorship experiences. METHODS Secondary analyses of a qualitative study of young adult survivors of adolescent cancers ("AYA survivors") was performed using semistructured individual interviews and focus groups. Analyses were conducted using grounded theory using thematic content analysis with an inductive data-driven approach. RESULTS Participants (n = 43) were 16-24 years old, diagnosed with cancer between ages 14 and 18 years, and were at least 6 months post-treatment. Before treatment, 5 males banked sperm and no females preserved fertility. More males (50%) than females (39%) reported uncertainty about their fertility. Three major categories emerged from the data: fertility concerns, emotions raised when discussing fertility, and strategies used to manage fertility concerns. Fertility concerns focused on dating/partner reactions, health risks, and what potential infertility would mean for their life narrative. Emotions included distress, feeling overwhelmed and hopeful/wishful thinking. Females were more likely to feel distressed and overwhelmed than males. Strategies to manage concerns included acceptance/"making do," desire to postpone concerns, and reliance on assisted reproductive technology. CONCLUSIONS Most AYAs in our study reported a number of reproductive concerns and fertility-related distress after treatment, which may affect other areas of psychosocial functioning. Females may be more at-risk for distress than males, particularly in situations of uncertainty and limited knowledge. Future work should explore how to best incorporate fertility-related informational and support services more fully into survivorship care. Implications for survivorship care are discussed.
Audience Satisfaction Among Tivo and Replaytv Users

ABSTRACT This study explores how early adopters of DVRs are using them as functional replacements for VCRs and as tools for enhanced viewing of live television. Two national samples totaling 198 users completed an online survey that measured TV uses and gratifications, viewing satisfaction, and attitudes toward DVR functions. DVR owners reported watching television, live and recorded, with more enjoyment and greater control. TiVo owners in the second sample noted a higher degree of satisfaction than in the first sample.
Robust Speech Perception Hashing Authentication Algorithm Based on Spectral Subtraction and Multi-feature Tensor

In order to make the speech perception hashing authentication algorithm has strong robustness and discrimination to content preserving operations and speech communication under the common background noise, a new robust speech perceptual hashing authentication algorithm based on spectral subtraction and multi-feature tensor was proposed. The proposed algorithm uses spectral subtraction method to denoise the speech which processed by applying pre-processing. Then, the algorithm acquires each speech component wavelet packet decomposition, MFCC and LPCC feature of each speech component are extracted to constitute the speech feature tensor. The feature tensor is decomposed tensor decomposition to reduce the complexity. Finally, speech authentication is done by generating the hashing values which use mid-value. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can denoise the speech eﬀectively, and have good robustness and discrimination to content preserving operations, as well as able to resist the attack of the background noise, which is commonly heard during the communication.
Do They Want More?: An Analysis of NCAA Senior Woman Administrators' Participation in Financial Decision Making

Abstract The Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) position was created by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in part to ensure involvement of women in the decision making processes at their respective institutions. Previous research has indicated the importance of experience with financial decisions and budgets for SWAs to advance in their intercollegiate athletics careers. This study sought to explore the actual versus desired levels of participative decision making among SWAs (N=269) in various financial areas. In each of the decision areas (operations, budgeting, capital outlay, salary considerations, media broadcast contracts, and sponsorship advertising), a significant main effect was found in which SWAs indicated a desire for greater participation in decision making. Results are discussed in light of the role of the SWA in today's intercollegiate athletic environment.
A portable parallel manipulator for search and rescue at large-scale urban earthquakes and an identification algorithm for the installation in unstructured environments

Essential points in robotic facilities for search and rescue at large-scale urban earthquakes were investigated. A parallel robot driven by multiple cables is proposed for transfer of debris. It is portable and is assembled rapidly in destroyed houses. An identification algorithm of mechanism parameters peculiar to this portable robot was studied. On the basis of identification error analysis, optimal number of measurement points and the size of an identification reference frame were obtained.
Choosing an n-Pack of Substitutable Products September 14 , 2016

We develop a framework to model the shopping and consumption decisions of forward-looking consumers. Assuming that the consumer's future utility for each product alternative can be characterized by a standard random utility model, we use dynamic programming to determine the optimal consumption policy and the maximum expected value of consuming any n substitutable products selected while shopping (an n-pack). We propose two models. In the rst (canonical) model, we assume that an alternative is consumed on each successive consumption occasion and obtain a closedform optimal policy and a closed-form value function. Given a consumer's preferences for the product alternatives in an assortment, we then show how to identify that consumer's optimal n-pack using a simple swapping algorithm that converges in at most n swaps. In the second (generalized) model, we introduce an outside option so that a product alternative need not be consumed on each consumption occasion. We obtain a closed-form value function for the generalized model and show that its optimal n-pack is related to that of the canonical model using a special type of majorization. Additional structural properties and implications of each model are explored, as are other applications. To whom correspondence should be addressed
An Efficient Algorithm for Discovering Motifs in Large DNA Data Sets

The planted (l,d) motif discovery has been successfully used to locate transcription factor binding sites in dozens of promoter sequences over the past decade. However, there has not been enough work done in identifying (l,d) motifs in the next-generation sequencing (ChIP-seq) data sets, which contain thousands of input sequences and thereby bring new challenge to make a good identification in reasonable time. To cater this need, we propose a new planted (l,d) motif discovery algorithm named MCES, which identifies motifs by mining and combining emerging substrings. Specially, to handle larger data sets, we design a MapReduce-based strategy to mine emerging substrings distributedly. Experimental results on the simulated data show that i) MCES is able to identify (l,d) motifs efficiently and effectively in thousands to millions of input sequences, and runs faster than the state-of-the-art (l,d) motif discovery algorithms, such as F-motif and TraverStringsR; ii) MCES is able to identify motifs without known lengths, and has a better identification accuracy than the competing algorithm CisFinder. Also, the validity of MCES is tested on real data sets. MCES is freely available at http://sites.google. com/site/feqond/mces.
Exploring loyal qualities: assessing survey‐based loyalty measures

Purpose – This paper sets out to provide a step towards simplifying and shortening loyalty surveys for marketers and to summarise and to categorise more than 30 survey‐based loyalty measures administered in previous academic surveys.Design/methodology/approach – This research took a step back from theory to re‐define the concept of loyalty. An exploratory perspective using two service markets was taken to examine a broad range of survey‐based loyalty measures.Findings – The results of this research provide support for the more recent view that there are different ways in which customers can be loyal. The results of this research suggest that attitudinal loyalty could be the most important dimension for marketers to monitor. The exploratory method selected in this research suggests that dimensions of loyalty may include propensity to be loyal, behavioural intentions, complaining behaviour, resistance to competing offers, attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty.Practical implications – There are importa.
Assessing the Innovativeness of Organizations and its Antecedents:Project Innovstrat

Presents research which: introduces a new multidimensional concept of the innovativeness of organizations; develops an approach for its measurement involving a cross‐section of innovations adopted by multiple organizations in multiple industries; identifies different economic, organizational/managerial, industry specific and governmental/legislation and infrastructure factors which influence the various dimensions of the innovativeness of organizations; and suggests how this alternative approach can be used for the better understanding of the concept of the innovativeness of organizations and its applied context within the marketing discipline.
Building a Decision Support System with a Knowledge Modeling Tool

Knowledge modeling tools are software tools that follow a modelling approach to help developers in building a knowledge-based system. The purpose of this article is to show the advantages of using this type of tools in the development of complex knowledge-based decision support systems. In order to do so, the article describes the development of a system called SAIDA in the domain of hydrology with the help of the KSM modeling tool. SAIDA operates on real-time receiving data recorded by sensors (rainfall, water levels, flows, etc.). It follows a multi-agent architecture to interpret the data, predict the future behavior and recommend control actions. The system includes an advanced knowledge based architecture with multiple symbolic representation. KSM was especially useful to design and implement the complex knowledge based architecture in an efficient way.
Privacy Engineering in Dynamic Settings

Modern distributed software platforms are linking smart objects such as smartphones, cars and health devices to the internet. A frequent challenge in the design of such platforms is determining the appropriate information disclosure protocol to use when one object interacts with another. For example, how can a software architect verify that when the platform constrains the sender to obtain consent from the subject before disclosure or notifying the subject after disclosure, then the privacy needs of the subject are addressed? To this end, this research presents an analysis framework for privacy engineering. We demonstrate how the framework's outputs can help software architects achieve privacy-by-design of software platforms for smart objects.
Solving a Nonlinear Multi-Order Fractional Differential Equation Using Legendre Pseudo-Spectral Method

In this paper, we apply the Legendre spectral-collocation method to obtain approximate solutions of nonlinear multi-order fractional differential equations (M-FDEs). The fractional derivative is described in the Caputo sense. The study is conducted through illustrative example to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the presented method. The results reveal that the proposed method is very effective and simple. Moreover, only a small number of shifted Legendre polynomials are needed to obtain a satisfactory result.
Cross-National Evaluation and Benchmarking of Manufacturing Smes Using an Expert System Based Assessment Tool (Quickview)

Purpose - To determine whether: QuickView, that is aprimary assessment and business planning tool that was designed in the USA inthe 1990s, could be usable out of USA; and manufacturing SMEs outside of the UScould be evaluated against the 3,400 US SMEs on the QuickView database. Design/methodology/approach - The project consists of a survey of a sampleof SMEs in different overseas regions, Northern Spain being one of them: reviseand translate questionnaire to local language; train local agents; conduct asurvey of a sample of 50 SMEs using the local agents; and review the resultsand draw conclusions as to the applicability of the model. Findings - We think that we have demonstrated that QuickView is a valid toolto use on non-US SMEs to help build local databases containing local companies.What is not so evident is how to establish direct comparisons between the twodatabases. To make this, the USA database should be partitioned by year ofsurvey or by industry sector. We can draw some initial conclusions about theSpanish sample. Research limitations/implications - The USA database should be partitionedby year of survey or by industry sector, to make direct comparisons. A furthercontinuation of this project is, obviously, an in-depth analysis of the Spanishsample. Another issue is whether an open structure can be developed forQuickView that would allow it to be modified into specialized questionnairesfor service companies, for example, or a questionnaire dedicated to the SMEs ina particular country. Practical implications - To create a database of Spanish companies based onQuickView methodology to serve as a reference of management practices. Originality/value - There are currently several projects trying to developstandard European benchmarking tools and databases. Our project presents anadaptation of another different tool already in use in the USA and proves itsvalidity in an European context. This tool should be useful either forcompanies trying to evaluate themselves and compare with a local, though stillsmall, database or for external agents trying to compare one particular companyagainst the database. (Publication abstract)
Selling Citigroup: A Simulation of the U.S. Treasury’s $37 Billion TARP Share Sale

On April 26, 2010, the U.S. Treasury had 163 trading days to sell a $37 billion dollar stake of 7.7 billion shares in Citigroup. Citigroup’s stock price on April 23, 2010, was well above the U.S. Treasury’s “break even” price of $3.25. The U.S. Treasury announced that it planned an at-the-market sale over about six months. This paper uses Monte Carlo simulations to argue that the U.S. Treasury bore a 17 percent chance of not completing the sale if it refused to sell its shares at a loss and sold no more than 50 million shares per day. The author argues the government could have had less downside and idiosyncratic risk by selling a significant fraction of its holdings in an underwritten offering early in the selling period.
Dissociation between respiratory burst activity and deoxyglucose uptake in human neutrophil granulocytes: implications for interpretation of (18)F-FDG PET images.

UNLABELLED Neutrophil granulocytes play a key role in the pathogenesis of a wide variety of pulmonary diseases. In many such conditions, the injury observed reflects the activation status rather than the total number of inflammatory cells present. The metabolic activity of neutrophils can now be assessed noninvasively using PET to measure the regional uptake of (18)F-FDG after intravenous injection. METHODS To understand the mechanism responsible for the increased (18)F-FDG signal, we have measured the uptake of tritiated deoxyglucose (DG) in neutrophils isolated from human peripheral blood and sought to determine which aspects of neutrophil function correlate with an increase in DG uptake. RESULTS Our results show that formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP)-stimulated respiratory burst activity and (3)H-DG uptake are temporally dissociated, that neutrophil-priming agents such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha) cause an identical increase in (3)H-DG uptake compared with fMLP without affecting respiratory burst activity, and that fMLP stimulation of TNFalpha-primed cells causes major upregulation of superoxide anion generation (O(2)(-)) yet no incremental increase in (3)H-DG uptake. Furthermore, direct activation of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase activity with the ester phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate resulted in a concentration-dependent loss of cell-associated (3)H-DG, and preincubation of neutrophils with the phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitor wortmannin, which abolished both agonist-stimulated superoxide anion generation and degranulation, had no effect on TNFalpha- or fMLP-stimulated (3)H-DG uptake. In contrast, the fMLP-stimulated change in neutrophil shape was not influenced by priming or wortmannin, and of the functional responses examined, this appeared to correlate most closely with (3)H-DG uptake. CONCLUSION DG uptake occurs in both primed and activated neutrophils. It does not correlate with respiratory burst or secretory activity but may reflect the polarization and migrational status of these cells. These data have important implications for the analysis of (18)F-FDG signals in vivo.
A Phase I trial of h‐ras antisense oligonucleotide ISIS 2503 administered as a continuous intravenous infusion in patients with advanced carcinoma

Abnormal expression of Ras proteins frequently is found with oncogenic transformation making ras a promising therapeutic target. ISIS 2503 is a 20‐base antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxyribonucleotide that specifically downregulates H‐ras expression and inhibits tumor cell growth in preclinical studies. Here, the authors report an initial clinical study of the safety and tolerability of an intravenous infusion of ISIS 2503 in patients with advanced cancer.
Loss Distribution Approach for the Operational Risk Economic Capital

Following the Basel II Capital Accord, with the increased focus on operational risk as a distinct theme from credit and market risk, quantification of the operational risk has been a major challenge for the financial institutions. In this study, we propose a loss distribution based approach consistent with Basel II guidelines, to estimate the Economic Capital for the Operational Risk at the firm level. This approach accounts for both firm specific and industry related (‘Financial Services’) components of the operational risk. To serve this purpose, inline with the guidelines, the method utilizes internal loss data for the institution itself and the external loss data for the ‘Financial Services’ industry. The results suggest that, after addressing the selection bias in external data as suggested by the previous studies; proposed LDA based approach provides Economic Capital estimate within the expected range. Model’s EC estimation over the past nine quarters suggests that, two components of the proposed model are consistent and comparable overtime.
Non-linear filtering based on observations from Gaussian processes

We consider a class of non-linear filtering problems, where the observation model is given by a Gaussian process rather than the common non-linear function of the state and measurement noise. The new observation model can be considered as a generalization of the standard one with correlated measurement noise in both time and space. We propose a particle filter based approach with a measurement update step that requires a memory of past observations which can be truncated using a moving window to obtain a finite-dimensional filter with arbitrarily good accuracy. The validity of the conceptual solution is proved via simulations on a one dimensional tracking problem and implementation issues are discussed.
Government debt holdings of non-residents – an analysis of the impact on selected emerging economies’ sovereign risk

This paper adds to the literature on the impact of non-residents’ activity in the markets for sovereign debt issued by emerging economies. The conducted study indicates that there exists a statistically significant long-run relationship between the amount of emerging countries’ debt held by foreign investors and the level of yields on that debt. An inflow of non-residents equivalent to a 1-percent increase of the value of their sovereign emerging countries’ debt portfolio induces a decline in yields on bonds issued by those countries by slightly more than 3 basis points. The cointegration analysis has been additionally performed separately for each of the following sub-categories of foreign investors: foreign official sector, foreign banks, and other foreign investors, taking advantage of the dataset made available by Arslanalp and Tsuda (2014). The obtained results indicate that the above mentioned relationship exists with respect to the latter two sub-categories only.
Hedonic Price Study on Urban Housing: The Case of Shijiazhuang City

Housing is a kind of heterogeneous product; every housing unit includes different characteristic aggregation. Hedonic price theory is an effective method to study the quantitative relation between housing characteristic and price. This paper applies hedonic price theory to the housing market in Shijiazhuang. After collecting and trimming 2075 housing price and characteristic samples in Shijiazhuang city, the paper selects housing structure, location and neighborhood characteristics as explanatory variables, and implements OLS regression to estimate the parameters of the model, then analysises main characteristics that affect residential housing price and attempts to explain the quantitative relationship between housing price and housing characteristics. Based on that, we establish the hedonic model of Shijiazhuang housing market and validate the applicability of hedonic price model.
A İ skender Tiryaki Introduction Plant hormones control a diverse array of plant responses affecting growth and development as well as protecting plants from biotic and abiotic stresses

Response of auxin resistant mutant, axr1-24, on salt stress in primary root growth was tested over a range of NaCl concentrations and results were compared with wild type. The axr1-24 was more resistant to the inhibitory effect of any salt concentrations tested than wild type, except 128 mM NaCl. Total inhibition of root elongation was 62% and 70% for axr1-24 and wild type, respectively, at 64 mM NaCl. Exogenous application of salicylic acid (SA) or 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid resulted in a significant increase in jasmonic acid (JA)-inducible allene oxide synthase (AOS) gene expression, while induction was severely reduced on axr1-24 seedlings treated with SA after 24 h. The results of this study provided a link between auxin and salt stress as well as SA and JA signaling through AXR1.
Fighting on the side of life: a special issue on suicide in bipolar disorder

‘A couple of semesters into medical school I visited a high school friend in the psychiatric hospital of my hometown. Sven, as I will call him here, had been the brightest of our class and had gone on to study physics. When I saw him he was severely depressed, but months before he was convinced that he had invented a perpetual motion machine and was so excited that he ran naked through a shopping mall. This landed him in the clinic’.