Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship between Renal Function Tests and the Levels of MDA , Zinc , and Cadmium among Painters in Sulaimani Zheen

Kidney damage in workers within environments of highly expected exposure to toxin, including heavy metals, could be a primary marker to expect hazards in population exposed to low levels of many environmental pollutants. The present study was designed to evaluate the possible effect of environmental exposure to cadmium and zinc on renal function among painters in Sulaimani city. Cross sectional study was performed on 37 male painting workers in Sulaimani city. Each worker was interviewed using structured questionnaire. Twenty five non-exposed healthy subjects were included as control group. Venous blood samples (10 ml) were obtained by vein puncture from both subjects and utilized for estimation of serum urea, creatinine levels, serum levels of cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn), and for the estimation of malondialdehyde. The results show that serum urea levels were significantly elevated in painters; meanwhile, no significant difference was reported in serum creatinine levels. The results indicated that both serum levels of (Cd) and (Zn) were not significantly elevated in painting workers; however, MDA levels were significantly elevated in painters compared to control group. In conclusion, the association of cadmium and zinc levels with the disturbance in renal function is not clear in painters working in Sulaimani city.
TLR3 serves as a novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarker and is closely correlated with immune microenvironment in three types of cancer

Background: Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) plays an important role in both innate and adaptive immunity, but the prognostic value of TLR3 in heterogeneous tumors and the correlations between TLR3 expression and immune infiltration of heterogeneous tumors remain unclear. Methods: We investigated the expression of TLR3 in a variety of tumors and focused on the diagnostic and prognostic values of TLR3 in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) and brain lower grade glioma (LGG) by GEPIA, DriverDBv3, UALCAN, TIMER, LinkedOmics, STRING, GeneMANIA and FunRich, as well as the possible mechanisms of TLR3 affecting tumor prognosis were discussed. Additionally, real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to validate TLR3 expression in early KIRC. We also compared the expression of TLR3 in the plasma of early KIRC patients and normal controls by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results: TLR3 expression was significantly different in multiple tumors compared with paracancerous nontumor tissues. Elevated expression of TLR3 contributed to the prolonged survival outcome in KIRC patients. Suppressed expression of TLR3 contributed to the prolonged survival outcome in LGG and PAAD patients. Moreover, TLR3 was significantly elevated in stage1, grade1 and N0 of KIRC. The expression and function of TLR3 in KIRC, LGG and PAAD were closely related to tumor immune microenvironment. TRAF6 was a key gene in the interactions between TLR3 and its interacting genes. Finally, the results of RT-qPCR and ELISA indicated that TLR3 expression levels were significantly raised in renal tissue and plasma of early KIRC patients. Conclusion: TLR3 has the potential to be a diagnostic biomarker of KIRC, LGG and PAAD as well as a biomarker for evaluating the prognosis of KIRC, LGG and PAAD, particularly for the early diagnosis of KIRC. TLR3 affects tumors mainly by acting on the immune microenvironment of KIRC, LGG and PAAD. These findings could lead to new insights into the immunotherapeutic targets for KIRC, LGG, and PAAD.
ul 2 01 9 Finding Minimum Spanning Forests in a Graph

We introduce a graph partitioning problem motivated by computational topology and propose two algorithms that produce approximate solutions. Specifically, given a weighted, undirected graph G and a positive integer k, we desire to find k disjoint trees within G such that each vertex of G is contained in one of the trees and the weight of the largest tree is as small as possible. We are unable to find this problem in the graph partitioning literature, but we show that the problem is NP-complete. We then propose two approximation algorithms, one that uses a spectral clustering approach and another that employs a dynamic programming strategy, which produce near-optimal partitions on a family of test graphs. We describe these algorithms and analyze their empirical performance.
Simulation and Validation of Three Dimension Functionally Graded Materials by Material

The goal of this work is to validate the material models for parts created with a Material Jetting 3-dimensional printer through the comparison of Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulations and physical tests. The strain maps generated by a video extensometer for multi-material samples are compared to the FEA results based on our material models. Two base materials (ABS-like and rubber-like) and their composites are co-printed in the graded tensile test samples. The graded islands are embedded in the rubber-like test specimens. The simulations were conducted AC CE PT ED M AN US CR IP T utilizing previously fitted material models, a two-parameter Mooney-Rivlin model for the elastic materials (Tango Black+, DM95, and DM60) and a bilinear model for the rigid material (Vero White+). The results show that the simulation results based on our material models can predict the deformation behaviors of the multi-material samples during a uniaxial tensile test. Our simulation results are able to predict the maximum strain in the matrix material (TB+) within 5% error. Both global deformation pattern and local strain level confirm the validity of the simulated material models.
Experiments in Detection of Implicit

The identification of explicit and implicit citations to a given reference paper is important for numerous scientific text mining activities such as citation purpose identification, scientific opinion mining, and scientific summarization. This paper presents experiments on the identification of implicit citations in scientific papers. As in previous work, and relying on an annotated dataset of explicit and implicit citation sentences, we cast the problem as classification, evaluating several machine learning algorithms trained on a set of task-motivated features. We compare our work with the state of the art on the annotated dataset obtaining improved performance. We also annotate a new dataset which we make publicly available to validate our approach. The results on the new dataset confirm our set of features outperforms previously published research.
Typing Video frames after person detection Pose Tube 2 D Deconv Score fusion RGB action recognition Pose action recognition Pose estimation

Existing methods in video action recognition mostly do not distinguish human body from the environment and easily overfit the scenes and objects. In this work, we present a conceptually simple, general and high-performance framework for action recognition in trimmed videos, aiming at person-centric modeling. The method, called Action Machine, takes as inputs the videos cropped by person bounding boxes. It extends the Inflated 3D ConvNet (I3D) by adding a branch for human pose estimation and a 2D CNN for pose-based action recognition, being fast to train and test. Action Machine can benefit from the multi-task training of action recognition and pose estimation, the fusion of predictions from RGB images and poses. On NTU RGBD, Action Machine achieves the state-of-the-art performance with top-1 accuracies of 97.2% and 94.3% on crossview and cross-subject respectively. Action Machine also achieves competitive performance on another three smaller action recognition datasets: Northwestern UCLA Multiview Action3D, MSR Daily Activity3D and UTD-MHAD. Code will be made available.
The long run health consequences of rural-urban migration

Rural-urban migration is an integral part of the structural transformation as societies move from a traditional agricultural economy to a modern economy. This process has many potential consequences for migrants. Our study focuses on the lifetime health effects of the large mid-20th century migration out of rural U.S. Northern Great Plains states, primarily to urban locations in the West and Midwest. An analysis of marginal treatment effects (MTEs) shows that (a) migrants are positively selected, and (b) the causal impact of migration is decreased longevity. Our evidence suggests that elevated mortality among migrants is linked to increased smoking and alcohol consumption.
Agency Problems , Product Market Competition and Dividend Policies in Japan 1

This study investigates whether product market competition reduces agency problems between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders in Japan. In particular, we examine firms’ dividend policies in competitive versus concentrated industries. In a large sample of Japanese firms we find that firms in more competitive industries pay more dividends, are more likely to increase dividends, and are less likely to omit dividends. Furthermore, the impact of firm-level agency problems on dividend payouts is weaker in highly competitive industries. The results suggest that product market competition can be an effective industry-level governance mechanism that can force managers to disgorge cash to outside investors.
Modeling Scatter in Composite Media

A theoretical model of optical scattering in materials consisting of densely packed spherical particles is developed that can be used to predict its optical properties given its physical characteristics. The inputs to this model are the waveband of interest, the complex refractive indices and particle size distribution of the materials that comprise the media (including any contaminants), the density and sizes of any contaminants in the media, and the dimensions of the media slab. The outputs of this model are the specular transmittance and emissivity vs. wavelength of the media, and it’s Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function (BSDF) vs. scatter angle vs. wavelength. The results of this model are compared to measured transmittance and BSDF data from optical ceramics comprised of densified nanopowders (nanocomposite optical ceramics).
Psychological and sleep disturbances among first-line, second-line, and at home medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic in Shanghai, China

Objectives Medical workers are prone to psychological and sleep disturbances during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Little is known about the varying degrees of influence among vaccinated medical staff working in different positions. The current study is aimed to evaluate and compare depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances among first-line, second-line and at home vaccinated medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic in Shanghai, China. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in May 2022. In addition to demographic data, levels of depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and insomnia were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS). Results A total of 236 vaccinated medical workers completed the questionnaires, including 85 first-line medical staff (FMS), 82 second-line medical staff (SMS) and 69 at home medical staff (HMS). The proportions of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, poor sleep quality, and insomnia were 52.1, 44.1, 55.9, and 49.2%, respectively. Compared with HMS, medical staff at work (FMS and SMS) got significantly higher frequency of poor sleep quality (both p < 0.001), insomnia (both p < 0.001), depressive (p < 0.001 and p = 0.003, respectively) and anxiety symptoms (p < 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). Compared with SMS, FMS were more likely to have poor sleep quality (p = 0.020). Besides, nurses got significantly higher percentage of poor sleep quality (OR = 1.352, p = 0.016) and insomnia (OR = 1.243, p = 0.041) than doctors. Whereas, the proportion of anxiety symptoms was increased in females than in males (OR = 2.772, p = 0.008). Conclusions Psychological and sleep disturbances are common among medical staff at work during the COVID-19 pandemic. More psychological intervention should be administrated for FMS, especially for nurses.
Title Evaluating the Relative Performance of Neighbourhood-Based Recommender Systems

Neighbourhood-based recommender systems are a class of collaborative filtering algorithms, which rely on finding like-minded users to generate recommendations, automating what is usually known as word-of-mouth. These systems attempt to solve the information overload problem by presenting the user with relevant items. However, there is evidence showing that these algorithms may contribute to the filter bubble problem, making it harder for the user to find interesting items which are non-popular. In this paper we propose a novel evaluation of the performance and biases of the two most common neighbourhood-based approaches: user k-nearest neighbour collaborative filtering (UKNN ), and item k-nearest neighbour collaborative filtering (IKNN). We propose an evaluation which considers the size of the neighbourhood, finding that optimising for accuracy in UKNN algorithms leads to a poor performance in terms of diversity, a higher bias towards popularity, and less unique recommendations, when compared to the IKNN approach.
Short Report : The Effect of Preservation Methods on Predicting Mosquito Age by Near Infrared Spectroscopy

Determining mosquito age is important to evaluate vector control programs because the ability to transmit diseases is age dependent. Current age-grading techniques require dissection or RNA extraction. Near infrared spectroscopy has been used to rapidly and nondestructively determine the age of fresh mosquitoes and specimens stored in RNA later , but other preservation techniques have not been examined. Thus, in this study, we investigate whether age can be predicted from insects preserved by various common methods. Results from this study show that age can be pre- dicted from mosquitoes preserved with desiccants, ethanol, Carnoy, RNA later , or refrigeration with confidence intervals < 1.4 days. The best results were generally obtained from mosquitoes stored using desiccants, RNA later , or refrigeration.
35.1 MODELLING OF AN AUTONOMOUS MUAV AT THE SHIP DYNAMIC INTERFACE WITHIN A MULTINATIONAL SIMULATION FRAMEWORK

The NATO/PfP Interoperability and Re-use Study, NIREUS, was a twelve-nation project to apply the High Level Architecture (HLA) to investigate multinational distributed simulation for system design and acquisition. The NIREUS test case was focused on the distributed simulation of Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) air vehicles landing on ships, initially focusing on the automated recovery of Maritime Unmanned Air Vehicles (MUAVs). The test case aimed to demonstrate the interoperability of different nations’ simulations and domain experts and assesses the interoperability of the platforms and systems they represent. Amongst the many simulation elements required to achieve the objectives of the NIREUS programme, were models of the air vehicle, the air wake environment above the ship’s deck and their interaction. Additionally, as the simulation was not intended to involve any “pilot-in-the-loop” activity, the simulated air vehicle had to exhibit a high level of autonomy. This paper discusses the development of the MUAV model and the design and implementation of its flight and approach control systems, including the subsystems required to detect, and react to, landing abort situations. Also discussed is the structure of the airwake model and the manner in which this provided disturbances to the air vehicle simulation. Details of the multinational simulation framework in which the air vehicle and air wake models were expected to operate are given along with a summary of the development process and integration tools employed. The outcome of the work was successfully demonstrated to the NATO/PfP in October 200
Meta-analysis assessing the effectiveness of SGLT2i+GLP1RA combination therapy versus monotherapy on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular outcomes in diabetic patients

Relevant meta-analyses have confirmed the cardiovascular and renal benefits of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP1RA) among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and/or cardiorenal disease. However, it is not established whether the combination therapy of SGLT2i and GLP1RA will yield an additive benefit on cardiorenal endpoints. Lopez and colleagues recently did a cohort study (Lopez et al., Am. J. Cardiol., 2022, 181, 87–93) and aimed to address this issue. However, their findings are not consistent with those of previous studies. To confirm Lopez et al.’s findings (Lopez et al., Am. J. Cardiol., 2022, 181, 87–93) and address the aforementioned inconsistencies, we conducted a meta-analysis based on relevant studies. Our meta-analysis identified that SGLT2i + GLP1RA combination therapy was significantly associated with the reduced risks of cardiovascular/cerebrovascular atherosclerotic, heart failure-associated, and death outcomes compared with SGLT2i/GLP1RA monotherapy. These might support this combination therapy used for better reducing cardiovascular and death events in T2D patients, especially in those with high or very high cardiovascular risk. This is a commentary on a previous article (Lopez et al.’s study (Lopez et al., Am. J. Cardiol., 2022, 181, 87–93)) published outside of Frontiers. Therefore, we submitted this manuscript as an Opinion article, as suggested in the Author Guidelines.
O'Regan, HJ, Wilkinson, DM and marston, CG Hominin home ranges and habitat variability: exploring modern African analogues using remote sensing

14 The palaeoanthropological literature contains numerous examples of putative home range sizes 15 associated with various hominin species. However, the resolution of the palaeoenvironmental 16 record seldom allows the quantitative analysis of the effects of different range sizes on access to 17 different habitat types and resources. Here we develop a novel approach of using remote sensing 18 data of modern African vegetation as an analogue for past hominin habitats, and examine the 19 effects of different range sizes on the access to habitat types. We show that when the location of the 20 ranges are chosen randomly then the number of habitat types within a range is surprisingly scale 21 invariant – that is increasing range size makes only a very modest difference to the number of 22 habitat types within an estimated hominin home range. However, when transects are placed 23 perpendicular to a water body (such as a lake or river bank) it is apparent that the greatest number 24 of habitats are seen near water bodies, and decline with distance. This suggests additional 25 advantages to living by freshwater other than the obvious one associated with access to drinking 26 water, and may indicate that the finding of hominins in fluvial and lacustrine deposits is not simply a 27 taphonomic issue. 28
Manipulating Belief Bias Across the Lifespan

In today’s political climate, when basic facts and reasoning are seemingly up for debate, it is increasingly important to be able to identify well-reasoned arguments, regardless of one’s political leanings, and to retain this skill throughout the lifespan. Research has shown, however, a persistent belief bias—a tendency to judge an argument’s validity based on its conclusion’s agreement with one’s beliefs, rather than its logical quality. Other findings suggest that belief bias can be reduced by instruction to avoid belief bias. The current project seeks to explore whether older adults, believed to be more prone to biased reasoning, respond differently to such instruction, as well as to identify other potential individual differences in belief bias. Participants (41 young adults, 33 older adults) completed an online survey in which they were asked to evaluate valid and invalid syllogisms about political topics, both before and after instruction to avoid belief bias. Contrary to the literature, there was no significant difference between the bias scale scores or correction post-manipulation based on age group; however, response to debiasing instructions was inversely related to political conservatism. Findings call into doubt the general statement that older adults are categorically more biased, and further research is suggested. BELIEF BIAS ACROSS THE LIFESPAN 3 Manipulating Belief Bias Across the Lifespan Which of the following categorical syllogisms is deductively valid? All A are B. No B are C. Therefore, no B are C. All tigers are mammals. No mammals can breathe air. Therefore, no tigers can breathe air. Everyone motivated to work seeks jobs feverishly. No welfare recipients seek jobs feverishly. Therefore, no welfare recipients are motivated to work. Because an argument is deductively valid if, assuming the truth of the premises, the conclusion must also be true, each of the arguments above is a valid argument; their internal logic is consistent. However, people have consistently struggled to solve such problems, especially when arguments concern topics about which they have strong opinions.
Diagnosing Intermittent Faults Using Maximum Likelihood Estimation

In fault diagnosis intermittent fault models are an important tool to adequately deal with realistic failure behavior. Current model-based diagnosis approaches account for the fact that a component cj may fail intermittently by introducing a parameter gj that expresses the probability the component exhibits correct behavior. This component parameter gj, in conjunction with a priori fault probability, is used in a Bayesian framework to compute the posterior fault candidate probabilities. Usually, information on gj is not known a priori. While proper estimation of gj can be critical to diagnostic accuracy, at present, only approximations have been proposed. We present a novel framework, coined Barinel, that computes estimations of the gj as integral part of the posterior candidate probability computation using a maximum likelihood estimation approach. Barinel’s diagnostic performance is evaluated for both synthetic systems, the Siemens software diagnosis benchmark, as well as for real-world programs. Our results show that our approach is superior to reasoning approaches based on classical persistent fault models, as well as previously proposed intermittent fault models.
ACO Based Task Scheduling Algorithm for Hybrid Cloud

373 Abstract— Cloud computing is a subscription-based service where a network storage space and computation resou rces can be obtained. IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service) has become an important paradigm in cloud computing, it achieves economy of scale by multiplexing and therefore faces the chall enge of scheduling task. The proposed scheduling approach, b ased on ACO (Ant Colony Optimization) schedules task from private cloud to external cloud when there is a peak demand . The system is modeled as a framework where a provider o utsources its tasks to external cloud (Ecs) to meet the unpre dictable situation in cloud environment. The approaches so f ar used rely on inter-cloud agreement that is required for the cloud federation. The proposed scheduler allocates the tas k to resource and adopts dynamic change in the cloud env ironment without any standardization also it provides optimi zed scheduling by which the factors of a good schedule r such as high throughput and reduced response time can be ac hieved and solves the issue of portability while migrating to different cloud. It was observed that the scheduling approach based on ACO yields better results and improves cloud provider’s profit by 0.26-11.58% compared with the existing methods.