Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of induction characteristics and hypnotic potency of isoflurane and sevoflurane in healthy dogs.

OBJECTIVE To determine induction characteristics and the minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) at which consciousness returned (MACawake) in dogs anesthetized with isoflurane or sevoflurane. ANIMALS 20 sexually intact male Beagles. PROCEDURES In experiment 1, 20 dogs were randomly assigned to have anesthesia induced and maintained with isoflurane or sevoflurane. The MAC at which each dog awoke in response to auditory stimulation (MACawake-noise) was determined by decreasing the end-tidal concentration by 0.1 volume (vol %) every 15 minutes and delivering a standard audible stimulus at each concentration until the dog awoke. In experiment 2, 12 dogs received the same anesthetic agent they were administered in experiment 1. After duplicate MAC determination, the end-tidal concentration was continually decreased by 10% every 15 minutes until the dog awoke from anesthesia (MACawake). RESULTS Mean induction time was significantly greater for isoflurane-anesthetized dogs (212 seconds), compared with the sevoflurane-anesthetized dogs (154 seconds). Mean+/-SD MACawake-noise was 1.1+/-0.1 vol % for isoflurane and 2.0+/-0.2 vol % for sevoflurane. Mean MAC was 1.3+/-0.2 vol % for isoflurane and 2.1+/-0.6 vol % for sevoflurane, and mean MACawake was 1.0+/-0.1 vol % for isoflurane and 1.3+/-0.3 vol % for sevoflurane. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Sevoflurane resulted in a more rapid induction than did isoflurane. The MACawake for dogs was higher than values reported for both agents in humans. Care should be taken to ensure that dogs are at an appropriate anesthetic depth to prevent consciousness, particularly when single-agent inhalant anesthesia is used.
Desarrollo de una escala para la evaluación multifactorial de la identidad de género en población mexicana

Resumen Basándonos en la necesidad empírica y teórica de contar con una medida sensible de Identidad de Género, congruente con la propuesta de Spence, (1993), se desarrollaron cuatro escalas en español para medir: estereotipos de género, actitudes, roles de género y rasgos de masculinidad—feminidad de la población mexicana. Se realizaron dos estudios, el primero de ellos se llevo a cabo con la finalidad de construir y validar las escalas (el total de participantes fue de 454 hombres y 727 mujeres) y el segundo con el propósito de conocer cómo se relacionan entre sí los cuatro componentes de la identidad (el total de participantes fue de 221 hombres y 294 mujeres). Se desarrollaron los análisis psicométricos para cada escala mostrando una consistencia estadística y conceptual robusta. Los resultados muestran la relevancia teórica y empírica de los diferentes componentes para comprender la identidad de género de una persona.
Power of redundancy: Designing partial replication for multi-tier applications

Replicating redundant requests has been shown to be an effective mechanism to defend application performance from high capacity variability — the common pitfall in the cloud. While the prior art centers on single-tier systems, it still remains an open question how to design replication strategies for distributed multi-tier systems, where interference from neighboring workloads is entangled with complex tier interdependency. In this paper, we design a first of its kind PArtial REplication system, sPARE, that replicates and dispatches read-only workloads for multi-tier web applications, determining replication factors per tier. The two key components of sPARE are (i) the variability-aware replicator that coordinates the replication levels on all tiers via an iterative searching algorithm, and (ii) the replication-aware arbiter that uses a novel token-based arbitration algorithm (TAD) to dispatch requests in each tier. We evaluate sPARE on web serving and web searching applications, i.e., MediaWiki and Solr, deployed on our private cloud testbed. Our results based on various interference patterns and traffic loads show that sPARE is able to improve the tail latency of MediaWiki and Solr by a factor of almost 2.7x and 2.9x, respectively.
Semantic Competition as The Basis of Stroop Interference: Evidence From Color-Word Matching Tasks

A color-word matching task was used to investigate the basis of Stroop interference. Subjects were shown a pair of stimuli: an ink color (e.g., a red bar) and a colored word (e.g., RED printed in red or blue) and decided whether the two items had the same meaning (meaning decisions) or whether they had the same surface color (visual decisions). In Experiment 1, the two stimuli were shown simultaneously, and conflicting visual information of the word (e.g., RED printed in blue, against a red bar) led to interference in meaning decisions, whereas conflicting verbal information (e.g., BLUE printed in red, against a red bar) produced no interference in visual decisions. In Experiment 2, as an increasing time interval was imposed between presentation of the color bar and the colored word, interference in meaning decisions diminished, whereas interference in visual decisions was established. These results suggest that semantic competition, not response competition, is the major source of Stroop and Stroop-like interference.
Increased numbers of mononuclear cells from blood and CSF expressing interferon‐gamma mRNA in multiple sclerosis are from both the CD4+ and the CD8+ subsets

Activated, cytokine‐producing lymphocytes may regulate central nervous system (CNS) inflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS). We utilize a novel combination of in situ hybridization (ISH) and immunocytochemical staining of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) to identify spontaneously interferon‐gamma (IFNγ) mRNA expressing cells as CD4+ or CD8+. A major proportion of the IFNγ mRNA expressing lymphocytes belonged to the CD4+ lineage, which concords with the cellular composition of MS brain lesions, findings in experimental models and the HLA class II haplotype association in MS. There were also significantly more CD8+ IFNγ mRNA expressing lymphocytes in the MS patients compared with healthy controls, further suggesting the contribution of activated cells from this lineage in the inflammatory response in MS. Both CD4+ and CD8+ IFNγ mRNA expressing cells were enriched in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) as compared with the peripheral blood of the MS patients. Combined with emerging genetic data on HLA class I influences, our data argues for a joint role of activated CD8+ and CD4+ cells in the pathogenesis of MS.
A Hybrid Symbolic-Connectionist Approach to Modeling Emotions

This paper describes a framework for modeling emotions in an interactive, decision-making agent. In tune with modern theories of emotions (e.g., Damasio, 1995; LeDoux, 1992), we regard emotions essentially as subconscious signals and evaluations that inform, modify, and receive feedback from a variety of sources including higher cognitive processes and the sensorimotor system. Thus, our work explicitly distinguishes the subconscious processes (in a connectionist implementation) and the decision making that is subject to emotional influences (in
Testing for Cross-Situational-Consistency: A Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach

Numerous procedures have been suggested for investigating behaviors across situations for consistency versus situational specificity. It is proposed here that Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) may provide an useful addition to these procedures. To illustrate the process, a CFA model based on simulated data is presented and tested. The results of this simulation are employed to make recommendations for conducting CFA to test for cross-situational consistency.
Dental Evidence for the Diet of Australopithecus

Explaining human structure in functional and adaptive terms and constructing a picture of behavioral changes in the course of human evolution are among the goals of evolutionary studies. Over the years many attempts have been made to interpret the behavior and ecology of Australopithecus, the earliest undoubted member of the human family. Such attempts have used information about environments offossil deposition, the nature of the death assemblages, cultural associations, and the animals and plants with which australopithecines are found. One of the most important sources of information about australopithe­ cine diets has been the anatomy of the animals themselves, especially the teeth . It is this last source that is examined critically here. The basis for most reconstruction of the behavior of extinct animals is the analogical argument. We observe a pattern of behavior in a living species and note that such behavior is associated with an anatomical specialization. When a similar specialization is observed in an extinct species, that animal is inferred to have behaved in a similar way. By building up a catalog of such behavioral inferences, the broad patterns of behavior and ecology of a paleospecies emerge. Of course, this commonsense approach has difficulties, many of which are reviewed and debated in recent literature (3, 31, 58) . Many theories have been advanced about the dietary adaptations of Australo­ pithecus and early Homo. Some of these theories have utilized the evidence of australopithecine dental structure. J . T. Robinson (46) proposed that diets differed in the two species of Australopithecus then known. The larger species, A. robustus. was primarily a vegetarian whereas the smaller species, A . africanus. ate meat as well as vegetable foods. Largely in agreement with Robinson, Jolly (25) envisioned primitive Australopithecus. as exemplified by
Treatment effect heterogeneity for univariate subgroups in clinical trials: Shrinkage, standardization, or else

Treatment effect heterogeneity is a well‐recognized phenomenon in randomized controlled clinical trials. In this paper, we discuss subgroup analyses with prespecified subgroups of clinical or biological importance. We explore various alternatives to the naive (the traditional univariate) subgroup analyses to address the issues of multiplicity and confounding. Specifically, we consider a model‐based Bayesian shrinkage (Bayes‐DS) and a nonparametric, empirical Bayes shrinkage approach (Emp‐Bayes) to temper the optimism of traditional univariate subgroup analyses; a standardization approach (standardization) that accounts for correlation between baseline covariates; and a model‐based maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) approach. The Bayes‐DS and Emp‐Bayes methods model the variation in subgroup‐specific treatment effect rather than testing the null hypothesis of no difference between subgroups. The standardization approach addresses the issue of confounding in subgroup analyses. The MLE approach is considered only for comparison in simulation studies as the “truth” since the data were generated from the same model. Using the characteristics of a hypothetical large outcome trial, we perform simulation studies and articulate the utilities and potential limitations of these estimators. Simulation results indicate that Bayes‐DS and Emp‐Bayes can protect against optimism present in the naïve approach. Due to its simplicity, the naïve approach should be the reference for reporting univariate subgroup‐specific treatment effect estimates from exploratory subgroup analyses. Standardization, although it tends to have a larger variance, is suggested when it is important to address the confounding of univariate subgroup effects due to correlation between baseline covariates. The Bayes‐DS approach is available as an R package (DSBayes).
Consistent estimation and order selection for nonstationary autoregressive processes with stable innovations

Abstract. A possibly nonstationary autoregressive process, of unknown finite order, with possibly infinite‐variance innovations is studied. The ordinary least squares autoregressive parameter estimates are shown to be consistent, and their rate of convergence, which depends on the index of stability, α, is established. We also establish consistency of lag‐order selection criteria in the nonstationary case. A small experiment illustrates the relative performance of different lag‐length selection criteria in finite samples.
A message transmission system for opportunistic networks

An opportunistic network is a type of challenged networks, which has not any stable end-to-end delivery path between source nodes and destination nodes, and the messages are transmitted by the “store-carry-and-forward” paradigm when message-carrying nodes encounter other nodes until they reach the destination nodes. In this paper, we design a message transmission system-BlueChat-for opportunistic networks by Bluetooth protocol, which includes a routing protocol and a message queue management strategy. Performance of this system is tested and it could meet the message transmission needs of opportunistic networks.
Characterization of Campylobacter lanienae from pig feces.

To isolate Campylobacter spp. , the feces of healthy cattle, pigs, and broilers were examined between June 1999 and January 2000. Campylobacter lanienae strains were isolated from the feces of healthy pigs, but not from the feces of cattle or broilers. In six C. lanienae isolates, there was only 21-38% DNA-DNA homology to Campylobacter hyointestinalis subsp. lawsonii strain NCTC 12901. Thus, the primary host of C. lanienae is likely to be the pig and C. lanienae appears to be a species distinct from C. hyointestinalis subsp. lawsonii. In addition, an intervening sequence of 226 bp in the 16S rRNA gene was found in four isolates.
Choices of Degree or Degrees of Choice? Class, `Race' and the Higher Education Choice Process

This paper draws on data from an on-going ESRC project on choice of higher education. It focuses primarily on the experiences of non-traditional applicants to higher education. Although these students are not typical of the entire university entry cohort, their narratives raise important issues in relation to race, class and higher education choice processes. These `success stories' reveal important causes for concern as well as reasons for celebration. In particular, their experiences of the choice process are qualitatively different from those of their more privileged middle-class counterparts, highlighting key class and racial differences and inequalities.
p110δ PI3 kinase pathway: emerging roles in cancer

Class IA PI3Ks consists of three isoforms of the p110 catalytic subunit designated p110α, p110β, and p110δ which are encoded by three separate genes. Gain-of-function mutations on PIK3CA gene encoding for p110α isoform have been detected in a wide variety of human cancers whereas no somatic mutations of genes encoding for p110β or p110δ have been reported. Unlike p110α and p110β which are ubiquitously expressed, p110δ is highly enriched in leukocytes and thus the p110δ PI3K pathway has attracted more attention for its involvement in immune disorders. However, findings have been accumulated showing that the p110δ PI3K plays a seminal role in the development and progression of some hematologic malignancies. A wealth of knowledge has come from studies showing the central role of p110δ PI3K in B-cell functions and B-cell malignancies. Further data have documented that wild-type p110δ becomes oncogenic when overexpressed in cell culture models and that p110δ is the predominant isoform expressed in some human solid tumor cells playing a prominent role in these cells. Genetic inactivation of p110δ in mice models and highly-selective inhibitors of p110δ have demonstrated an important role of this isoform in differentiation, growth, survival, motility, and morphology with the inositol phosphatase PTEN to play a critical role in p110δ signaling. In this review, we summarize our understanding of the p110δ PI3K signaling pathway in hematopoietic cells and malignancies, we highlight the evidence showing the oncogenic potential of p110δ in cells of non-hematopoietic origin and we discuss perspectives for potential novel roles of p110δ PI3K in cancer.
Weighted Neural Bag-of-n-grams Model: New Baselines for Text Classification

NBSVM is one of the most popular methods for text classification and has been widely used as baselines for various text representation approaches. It uses Naive Bayes (NB) feature to weight sparse bag-of-n-grams representation. N-gram captures word order in short context and NB feature assigns more weights to those important words. However, NBSVM suffers from sparsity problem and is reported to be exceeded by newly proposed distributed (dense) text representations learned by neural networks. In this paper, we transfer the n-grams and NB weighting to neural models. We train n-gram embeddings and use NB weighting to guide the neural models to focus on important words. In fact, our methods can be viewed as distributed (dense) counterparts of sparse bag-of-n-grams in NBSVM. We discover that n-grams and NB weighting are also effective in distributed representations. As a result, our models achieve new strong baselines on 9 text classification datasets, e.g. on IMDB dataset, we reach performance of 93.5% accuracy, which exceeds previous state-of-the-art results obtained by deep neural models. All source codes are publicly available at https://github.com/zhezhaoa/neural_BOW_toolkit.
Patterns of Flavour Violation in the RSc Model, the LHT Model and Supersymmetric Flavour Models

We summarize the results on patterns of flavour violation in a Randall-Sundrum model with custodial protection (RSc) and compare them with those identifi ed in the Littlest Higgs Model with T‐parity (LHT) and in a number of SUSY Flavour Models. While K decays play in this presentation a prominent role, the inclusion of B physics and lepton flavour violation is crucial in the distinction between these three popular extensions of t he Standard Model (SM) by means of flavour physics.
Autonomous Wearable Sensor Nodes With Flexible Energy Harvesting

Distributed wearable wireless sensors are widely employed in wireless body sensor network for various physiological monitoring purposes like health or performance related monitoring applications. The real challenges in employing these wearable wireless sensors on human subjects include: 1) bulky and rigid system design thus, it is difficult to conform to human body contour and 2) limited operational lifespan of batteries with finite energy supply. In this paper, an autonomous body-worn wireless sensor node with flexible energy harvesting (FEH) mechanism, able to conform to body contour, is proposed for biometric monitoring. To be totally sustainable and compact, the FEH mechanism is equipped with an ultralow power management circuit (PMC) specially designed on a flexible PCB. The flexible PMC is able to transfer near maximum electrical power from the input solar energy source to store in the supercapacitor for powering the wireless sensor node. The power consumption of the flexible PMC is only 32.86 μW. Experimental results show that under indoor condition, typical average lighting intensity of 320 lux, the wearable sensor node is able to continuously monitor the temperature of the wearer, read, and transmit back to the base node in a wireless manner, without the need of any battery. In addition, the designed FEH sensor node flexed onto the wearer body contour at an angle of 30° generates 56 μW of electrical power, sufficient to sustain its operation for >15h.
Fifty-kDa Hyaluronic Acid Upregulates Some Epidermal Genes without Changing TNF-α Expression in Reconstituted Epidermis

Background: Due to its strong water binding potential, hyaluronic acid (HA) is a well-known active ingredient for cosmetic applications. However, based on its varying molecular size, skin penetration of HA may be limited. Recent studies have demonstrated that low-molecular-weight HA (LMW HA) may show a certain proinflammatory activity. We thus aimed to characterize an LMW-sized HA molecule that combines strong anti-aging abilities with efficient skin penetration but lacks potential proinflammatory effects. Methods: Total RNA and total protein were isolated from reconstituted human epidermis following incubation with HAs of various molecular weights (20, 50, 130, 300, 800 and 1,500 kDa). Tumor necrosis factor-α expression was determined using quantitative PCR. Genomic and proteomic expression of various junctional proteins was determined using Affymetrix and common Western blotting techniques. Results: LMWHA of approximately 50 kDa did not significantly alter tumor necrosis factor-α expression compared to 20-kDa HA, but revealed significantly higher skin penetration rates than larger sized HA associated with increased expression of genes and proteins known to be involved in tight junction formation and keratinocyte cohesion. Conclusion: LMW HA of approximately 50 kDa shows better penetration abilities than larger-sized HA. In addition, LMW HA influences the expression of various genes including those contributing to keratinocyte differentiation and formation of intercellular tight junction complexes without showing proinflammatory activity. These observations contribute to current knowledge on the effects of LMW HA on keratinocyte biology and cutaneous physiology.
A Meta-Analysis of Corrections-Based Education, Vocation, and Work Programs for Adult Offenders

Corrections-based education, vocation, and work programs are a major rehabilitative component of our correctional system. Recent reviews of the research literature raise doubt about the effectiveness of these programs in reducing recidivism. This study meta-analyzed the recidivism outcomes of 33 independent experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of education, vocation, and work programs and found that program participants recidivate at a lower rate than nonparticipants. The generally weak methodological character of these studies, however, prevents attributing this observed effect on criminal behavior to the activities of the programs. Future evaluative research in this area could be strengthened through the incorporation of theoretical links between the program activities and future criminal involvement and through designs that control for self-selection bias beyond basic demographic differences.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH MBA RANKING SURVEYS?

The ranking of business schools has been a controversial subject for a number of years. It is only recently, however, that they have become popular and generally accepted. The Carter Report, the Ladd & Lipset Survey, and the survey of now defunct MBA Magazine all appeared in 1977. Carter used a measurement of the frequency with which the faculty published in academic journals as his basis to rank the schools, Ladd & Lipset questioned business school faculty about which schools they thought were best, and MBA Magazine had the deans of the business schools vote on the best programmes. Although those who were knowledgeable about business schools at the time were skeptical of the procedure, the results were not generally available to the public and, therefore, made little difference to the schools. In recent years, however, ranking of all colleges has become popular with the press, and has been highly publicised. As a matter of fact, one of the principal reasons for the rankings has been the ability of the articles to boost the circulation of the magazines.
Exploring evolutionary dynamics in a class of structured populations

It is well known that the selection of fixation probability is the fundamental problem for the evolutionary dynamics in structured populations. This paper aims to introduce a general approach for investigating the evolutionary dynamics in a class of structured populations. It includes the evolutionary game dynamics and constant selection dynamics with different asynchronous updating rules, such as ‘birth-death’, ‘voter model’, ‘death-birth’, and ‘imitation’. It should be pointed out that the proposed method provides an effective way to resolve the evolutionary dynamics on general graphs. In particular, it introduces a useful calculating tool to analyze various evolutionary dynamics on small order graphs.