Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Application of a Communications Audit Methodology to a Systems Development Project

Systems development is a complex endeavour. Despite advances in the discipline of software engineering, this reality is unlikely to change. The software community has responded well over the years to the technical complexity of software systems, and provided tools and techniques that simplify the development process. However, there is another dimension to complexity, one that is often sidelined and relegated to an issue of minor importance as the systems development life-cycle unfolds. This is the interaction of users and developers, and the intense process of human communication that is essential to ensure successful implementations. This paper shows how the application of a methodology confirms the important role human communication plays in the systems development process.
Another diametric theorem in Hamming spaces: optimal group anticodes

In the last century together with Levon Khachatrian we established a diametric theorem in Hamming space H<sup>n</sup>=(X<sup>n</sup>,d<inf>H</inf>). Now we contribute a diametric theorem for such spaces, if they are endowed with the group structure G<sup>n</sup>=<sup>n</sup>Σ<inf>1</inf>G, the direct sum of a group G on X={0,1,. ,q-1}, and as candidates are considered subgroups of G<sup>n</sup>. For all finite groups G, every permitted distance d, and all n≥d subgroups of G<sup>n</sup>with diameter d have maximal cardinality q<sup>d</sup>. Other extremal problems can also be studied in this setting.
Factors Associated With Peripartum Hysterectomy.

OBJECTIVE: To identify factors associated with peripartum hysterectomy performed within 30 days postpartum. METHODS: This was a population-based case–control study using Washington State birth certificate registry (1987–2006) linked to the Comprehensive Hospital Abstract Reporting System. Cases underwent hysterectomy within 30 days postpartum. Controls were frequency matched 4:1. Exposures included factors related to hemorrhage, delivery method, multiple gestations, and infection. Incidence rates of peripartum hysterectomy and maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality were assessed. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) by maternal age, parity, gestational age, year of birth, and mode of delivery and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed. RESULTS: There were 896 hysterectomies. Incidence rates ranged from 0.25 in 1987 to 0.82 per 1,000 deliveries in 2006 ( (cid:1) 2 for trend, P < . 001). Factors related to hemorrhage were strongly related to peripartum hysterectomy. Placenta previa (192 cases compared with 23 controls; aOR 7.9, 95% CI 4.1–15.0), abruptio placenta (71 compared with 55; aOR 3.2, 95% CI 1.8–5.8), and retained placenta (214 compared with 28; aOR 43.0, 95% CI 19.0–97.7) increased the risk of hysterectomy, as did uterine atony, uterine rupture, and thrombocytopenia. Having multiple gestations did not. As compared with vaginal delivery, vaginal delivery after cesarean (27 cases compared with 105 controls; aOR 1.9, 95% CI 1.2–3.0), primary cesarean (270 compared with 504; aOR 4.6,
Brand Congruence in Interpersonal Relations: A Social Network Analysis

Previous studies dealing with the notion of brand congruence suffer from questionable methods of group determination, suspect demonstrations of brand congruence effects, and inadequate attention paid to types of social relation. To overcome these shortcomings, the present study uses graph-theoretic social network techniques to examine interpersonal relationships and brand choice behavior in natural environments. The brand choices of individuals in a social relationship were compared to those of unrelated individuals across various products, types of social relation, and types of basic sociological structure (dyad, clique, and 2-plex). While significant brand congruence effects were obtained, they were clustered in a few products mediated by types of social relation. Conspicuousness of the product, as traditionally defined, was found to be insufficient to account for these findings.
Chronic Stimulation of D1 Dopamine Receptors in Human SK-N-MC Neuroblastoma Cells Induces Nitric-oxide Synthase Activation and Cytotoxicity*

Elevated synaptic levels of dopamine may induce striatal neurodegeneration in l-DOPA-unresponsive parkinsonism subtype of multiple system atrophy (MSA-P subtype), multiple system atrophy, and methamphetamine addiction. We examined the participation of dopamine and D1 dopamine receptors in the genesis of postsynaptic neurodegeneration. Chronic treatment of human SK-N-MC neuroblastoma cells with dopamine or H2O2 increased NO production and accelerated cytotoxicity, as indexed by enhanced nitrite levels and cell death. The antioxidant sodium metabisulfite or SCH 23390, a D1 dopamine receptor-selective antagonist, partially blocked dopamine effects but together ablated dopamine-mediated cytotoxicity, indicating the participation of both autoxidation and D1 receptor stimulation. Direct activation of D1 dopamine receptors with SKF R-38393 caused cytotoxicity, which was refractory to sodium metabisulfite. Dopamine and SKF R-38393 induced overexpression of the nitric-oxide synthase (NOS) isoforms neuronal NOS, inducible NOS (iNOS), and endothelial NOS in a protein kinase A-dependent manner. Functional studies showed that ∼60% of total NOS activity was due to activation of iNOS. The NOS inhibitor N(G)-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester and genistein, wortmannin, or NF-κB SN50, inhibitors of protein tyrosine kinases phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and NF-κB, respectively, reduced nitrite production by dopamine and SKF R-38393 but were less effective in attenuating H2O2-mediated effects. In rat striatal neurons, dopamine and SKF R-38393, but not H2O2, accelerated cell death through increased expression of neuronal NOS and iNOS but not endothelial NOS. These data demonstrate a novel pathway of dopamine-mediated postsynaptic oxidative stress and cell death through direct activation of NOS enzymes by D1 dopamine receptors and its associated signaling pathways.
Exploring the experiences of international students in UK higher education: possibilities and limits of interculturality in university life

This article is based on a two‐year multi‐method research project, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, investigating the experiences of international undergraduate students in UK higher education. In investigating the influences on their experiences and the strategies that students employ, the study has also revealed something of the possibilities and limits of interculturality in the context of these universities. The paper uses contact theory as a framework to analyse that nature of their experiences, questioning how far the university environment nurtures interculturality for international students.
Personality traits and frontal lobe dementia

The diagnosis of frontal lobe dementia (FLD) involves the assessment of affect. Three affective states predominate in FLD: apathy, elation and emotionalism. Nineteen FLD patients were investigated for a relationship between affective changes and premorbid personality traits. The negative results support the hypothesis that mood changes in FLD have a neurological basis and are important in early diagnosis.
A Data Mining Approach for the Diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus using Random Forest Classifier

Diabetes mellitus is an interminable disease that forces excessively high human, social and financial expenses for a nation. Additionally, minimizing its commonness rate and in addition its excessive and risky confusions requires viable administration. Diabetes administration depends on close participation between the patient and health awareness experts. Data mining gives a diversity of methods to investigate large data keeping in mind the end goal to find hidden knowledge. This study is an effort to plan and execute a descriptive data mining approach and to devise association standards to envisage diabetes behaviour in arrangement with particular life style parameters, including physical activity and emotional states, especially in elderly diabetics. Proposed methodology is based on Random Forest Classifier. General Terms Medical Data mining, Classification using Random Forest Classifier.
Umbilical Cord Serum Interleukin-6, C-Reactive Protein, and Myeloperoxidase Concentrations at Birth and Association with Neonatal Morbidities and Long-Term Neurodevelopmental Outcomes

Abstract Objective The aim of the study is to determine if umbilical cord serum concentrations of interleukin-6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein (CRP), and myeloperoxidase (MPO), in pregnancies at risk for preterm birth (PTB), are associated with neonatal morbidities and/or altered neurodevelopmental outcomes in the children. Study Design Umbilical cord serum samples were collected at birth from 400 newborns delivered within a multicenter randomized controlled trial of repeated versus single course of antenatal corticosteroids (ACs), in women at increased risk for PTB. Newborns were followed through discharge and were evaluated between 36 and 42 months corrected age with neurological examination and Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Umbilical cord serum concentrations of IL-6, CRP, and MPO were determined using enzyme-linked immunoassays. Multivariate logistic regression analyses explored the relationship between umbilical cord serum IL-6, CRP, and MPO levels, adverse newborn outcomes, and PTB < 32 weeks of gestational age (GA). Results Univariate analysis revealed that umbilical cord IL-6 above the 75th percentile was associated with increased respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and chronic lung disease (CLD), but not with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), or neonatal sepsis; however, this association was not significant after adjusting for GA at delivery and treatment group. No significant associations between CRP or MPO and RDS, CLD, NEC, sepsis, or IVH were evident. Regression analysis revealed that CRP above the 75th percentile was associated with a decreased risk of CLD (odds ratio, 0.10; 95% confidence interval, 0.02–0.41). No associations between umbilical cord IL-6, CRP, or MPO and MDI < 70 or PDI < 70 were evident. Umbilical cord serum concentrations of IL-6, CRP, and MPO, above the 75th percentile, were associated with more frequent PTB < 32 weeks of GA. Conclusion Elevated umbilical cord serum concentration of CRP is associated with reduced risk for CLD even after adjusting for GA at delivery. Occurrence of levels > 75th percentile of IL-6, CRP, and MPO in umbilical cord serum was associated with PTB < 32 weeks of GA. Elevated umbilical cord serum concentrations of IL-6, CRP, and MPO at birth were not associated with poor neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Smoking in pregnancy affects the fetal heart: possible links to future cardiovascular disease

Abstract Objectives: To investigate effects of maternal smoking on the fetal heart rate (FHR) in ambulatory patients using a portable fetal electrocardiogram recording device. Methods: A prospective cohort study of 43 pregnant smokers and 43 non-smoking gestation-matched controls with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies. Smokers were divided into light (1–10) and moderate (11–20 cigarettes/d). The FHR was recorded for 16 h with smokers smoking at will, using an event button to record when they lit a cigarette. Fifty recordings were made in the patients’ homes with 36 in ambulatory inpatients. Three consecutive 30-min epochs (before, during and after smoking) were compared with the controls. Results: Basal FHR was significantly lower before smoking in the foetuses of smokers compared with non-smokers (p = 0.048). During smoking, there was a significant dose-dependent fall in short-, long-term and true beat-to-beat variabilities (p = 0.004, p < 0.0001 and p = 0.024, respectively). Conclusion: Maternal smoking leads to reversible changes in FHR variability that mimic those associated with an increased incidence of adverse cardiovascular events in adults. As heart rate and variability reflect the autonomic control of the heart, our findings suggest that maternal smoking interferes with the autonomic control of the FHR.
Security Games with Limited Surveillance

Randomized first-mover strategies of Stackelberg games are used in several deployed applications to allocate limited resources for the protection of critical infrastructure. Stackelberg games model the fact that a strategic attacker can surveil and exploit the defender's strategy, and randomization guards against the worst effects by making the defender less predictable. In accordance with the standard game-theoretic model of Stackelberg games, past work has typically assumed that the attacker has perfect knowledge of the defender's randomized strategy and will react correspondingly. In light of the fact that surveillance is costly, risky, and delays an attack, this assumption is clearly simplistic: attackers will usually act on partial knowledge of the defender's strategies. The attacker's imperfect estimate could present opportunities and possibly also threats to a strategic defender.In this paper, we therefore begin a systematic study of security games with limited surveillance. We propose a natural model wherein an attacker forms or updates a belief based on observed actions, and chooses an optimal response. We investigate the model both theoretically and experimentally. In particular, we give mathematical programs to compute optimal attacker and defender strategies for a fixed observation duration, and show how to use them to estimate the attacker's observation durations. Our experimental results show that the defender can achieve significant improvement in expected utility by taking the attacker's limited surveillance into account, validating the motivation of our work.
Project specification: creativity and rhetoric in scientific research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify different types of project in relation to their degree of specification and the creative possibilities that more highly specified projects offer researchers. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the limitations of project management methods when managing research in relation to creativity. If projects are rigorously formulated and fulfill the requirements of project management, they may be compared to a mechanical task in which active decision making no longer applies. The conceptual framework develops the study of the spaces of creativity that research projects offer based on intentional action in which the notion of project is considered to be more flexible than that of more traditional approaches, and the notion of judgment is seen as a source of creativity. The empirical research presents the study of two scientific projects and compares their degree of the goal and task specification, the time required to specify them and how creativity .
Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy

The linguistic turn in the social sciences has been fruitful in directing attention towards the preconditions for action, as well as those actions understood as speech acts. However, to the extent that the linguistic turn comprises only textual approaches, it brackets out the study of other kinds of action, and so cannot account for social life understood as a whole. We should return to seminal theorists such as Wittgenstein and Foucault, who complemented a linguistic turn with a turn towards practices. Drawing on the work of ethnographers such as Michel de Certeau and sociologists such as Ann Swidler, in part one of this article I suggest that this may be done by using a simple model of culture as a mutually conditioned play between discourse and practices. In part two, I use this model to study changing Norwegian diplomatic practices in the High North in the aftermath of the Cold War. The claim is that capital-based diplomatic practices are being complemented by emerging local practices which may only be governed from the capital by indirect means. Diplomacy thus changes from being a centralised to being a multibased practice.
Stability Conditions For Topological D-branes: A Worldsheet Approach

We study conditions on the topological D-branes of types A and B obtained by requiring a proper matching of the spectral flow operators on the boundary. These conditions ensure space-time supersymmetry and stability of D-branes. In most cases, we reproduce the results of Marino-Minasian-Moore-Strominger, who studied the same problem using the supersymmetric Born-Infeld action. In some other cases, corresponding to coisotropic A-branes, our stability condition is new. Our results enable us to define an analogue of the Maslov class and grading for coisotropic A-branes. We expect that they play a role in a conjectural generalization of the Floer homology.
Highland Chontal Phrase Syntagmemes

relationship. There are three types of single-centered verb phrases: modal, auxiliary, and incorporated object. The nuclear3 elements of the modal phrase consist of modal and main tagmemes. The modal tagmeme is actualized by modal-like verbs: di? i? ma [Modal] it-is-able-to-do-it didalay? 6ma [Main] she-will-answer (she is able to answer); aymigwa [Modal] shedoes-not-say laga? no ([Subject] the-woman) mumufy6? [Main] not-she-gives-birth (the woman is not able to give birth);4 or by a negative particle: aOf [Modal] not malt6? ma [Main] not-me-eat (you will not eat me). The main tagmeme consists of a native verb, as in the above two examples, or a Spanish infinitive: di? i? ma [Modal] it-is-ableto-do-it afegl&r [Main] to-settle (it can be settled); or by a double-centered coordinate verb phrase: aymi? iya [Modal] it-can-not-doit gamaneyA [Main] not-I-marry maladenlgogoya not-me-mix (I cannot get married, it will not do for me). The nuclear elements of an auxiliary phrase consist of auxiliary and main tagmemes. The auxiliary is occupied by the verb ? e to-do: al? 6ba [Auxiliary] we-did-it kumplii [Main] to-complete (we completed it).
Error Compensation for a Parallel Robot Using Back Propagation Neural Networks

This paper presents an error compensation method for a novel 6 -DOF parallel robot using back propagation neural networks. The main error sources of the parallel robot are discussed. In order to improve the measuring accuracy, a specific target measured by a coordinate measuring machine is designed. The relationship of error map is established by the coordinate transformation. Experimental results showed that the pose accuracy of the parallel robot was improved by more than 60% after error compensation. A precise optical assembly was accomplished by the parallel robot after error compensation reliably and rapidly.
Detection and segmentation of the Left Ventricle in Cardiac MRI using Deep Learning

Manual segmentation of the Left Ventricle (LV) is a tedious and meticulous task that can vary depending on the patient, the Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) cuts and the experts. Still today, we consider manual delineation done by experts as being the ground truth for cardiac diagnosticians. Thus, we are reviewing the paper - written by Avendi and al. - who presents a combined approach with Convolutional Neural Networks, Stacked Auto-Encoders and Deformable Models, to try and automate the segmentation while performing more accurately. Furthermore, we have implemented parts of the paper (around three quarts) and experimented both the original method and slightly modified versions when changing the architecture and the parameters.
Rules-based Chinese Word Segmentation on MicroBlog for CIPS-SIGHAN on CLP2012

In this evaluation, we have taken part in the task of the Word Segmentation on Chinese MicroBlog. In this task, after analysing the feature of the MicroBlog and the result of our original Chinese word segmentation system, four Optimization Rules are proposed to optimize the segmentation algorithm for Chinese word segmentation on MicroBlog corpora. The optimized segmentation system is based on character-based and word-based Conditional Random Fields (CRFs). Experiments show that the optimized segmentation system can obviously improve the performance of CWS on MicroBlog corpora.
Alteration of serum bilirubin level in schizophrenia

Abstract Objective. Alteration of serum bilirubin level in acute episodes of psychosis in patients with schizophrenia has been reported but the pattern of this alteration is controversial. Methods. Patients diagnosed as schizophrenia (162, group S) or bipolar disorder (155, group B) entered the study. The control group consisted of 95 patients admitted to cardiac care unit who had no personal or family history of major psychiatric disorders. Pre- and post-admission levels of bilirubin were measured and compared within and between the groups. Patients were examined to exclude all other causes of hyperbilirubinemia. Group S and B participants were also evaluated using positive and negative syndrome subscale (PANSS) both at admission and discharge. Results. The mean admission bilirubin levels of all the groups were in the normal range (significantly higher in group S than groups B and C) and were affected by the score of general psychopathology subscale rather than the scores of positive symptoms subscale. Conclusions. Although bilirubin decreased in all three groups at discharge, the rate of decrease was significantly higher in group S. The reason for this is not clear and needs further study.
The evolutionary social psychology of religious beliefs

Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) are correct that religion is an evolutionary by-product, not an adaptation, but they do not go far enough. Once supernatural beliefs are enabled by processes they describe, numerous social-cognitive mechanisms related to attachment, social exchange, coalitional psychology, status and dominance, and kinship are crucial for explaining the specific forms religion takes and individual and cultural differences therein.
Determinants of mortality among Cameroonian children: are the effects of breastfeeding and pace of childbearing artifacts?

"We analyse a rich data source, the Yaounde round of surveys [conducted] by IFORD (Institut de Formation et de Recherche Demographiques) during the late seventies and early eighties in several African urban centers. We argue that despite important limitations, these surveys are potentially very useful as a source of verification of hypotheses that have been heretofore improperly tested with retrospective surveys. Using the Yaounde round we obtain fine-tuned estimates of the effects of lactation and timing of following conception on infant and child mortality. We are able to identify the role played by birthweight, types of breastfeeding, and antecedent illnesses and thus control for important variables that are not normally recorded in conventional demographic surveys. We show that potential biases associated with losses to follow-up and selection processes are of little significance. " (SUMMARY IN ITA AND FRE)
Safe human-robot-cooperation: image-based collision detection for industrial robots

This paper analyzes the problem of sensor-based collision detection for an industrial robotic manipulator. A method to perform collision tests based on images taken from several stationary cameras in the work cell is presented. The collision test works entirely based on the images, and does not construct a representation of the Cartesian space. It is shown how to perform a collision test for all possible robot configurations using only a single set of images taken simultaneously.