Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recommending teams promotes prosocial lending in online microfinance

Significance With three billion people subsisting on the equivalent of $2.50 per day, alleviating poverty is one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today. One solution to this problem has been to encourage the growth of small enterprises through microlending. A successful innovation is represented by Kiva.org, which matches citizen lenders with low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. To increase prosocial lending, we use a large-scale field experiment and machine-learning methods to recommend lending teams to lenders. We find that lenders who join a team contribute significantly more compared with those who do not. Our results suggest team recommendation can be an effective and low-cost behavioral mechanism to increase charitable contributions. This paper reports the results of a large-scale field experiment designed to test the hypothesis that group membership can increase participation and prosocial lending for an online crowdlending community, Kiva. The experiment uses variations on a simple email manipulation to encourage Kiva members to join a lending team, testing which types of team recommendation emails are most likely to get members to join teams as well as the subsequent impact on lending. We find that emails do increase the likelihood that a lender joins a team, and that joining a team increases lending in a short window (1 wk) following our intervention. The impact on lending is large relative to median lender lifetime loans. We also find that lenders are more likely to join teams recommended based on location similarity rather than team status. Our results suggest team recommendation can be an effective behavioral mechanism to increase prosocial lending.
Adaptive Finance and Control: Combining Lean, Agile, and Beyond Budgeting for Financial and Organizational Flexibility

Enterprises that approach uncertainty and risk in software development based on lean and agile methods [1] often do experience financial planning of projects as a restriction. Traditional budgeting and cost reporting is a system based on rigid frames, and it -- along with the process of project cost accounting -- burdens the lean and agile enterprise with unnecessary and counterproductive overhead and friction. The traditional system provides, at best, a false sense of cost control to any enterprise. In this paper we share insights related to how project-based cost accounting can be transformed to a structure based on agile and lean finance and control. Our insights and examples are intended to remove a key impediment to transforming the finance function of your enterprise to something measurably more lean and agile. This work is based both on an actual case completed with our employer and on our knowledge of financial processes at major Finnish companies.
Biological therapy targeting the IL-23/IL-17 axis in inflammatory bowel disease

ABSTRACT Introduction: As many inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients do not benefit from long-term anti-tumour necrosis factor treatment, new anti-inflammatories are urgently needed. After the discovery of the interleukin (IL) 23/17 axis being pivotal in IBD pathogenesis, many different compounds were developed, targeting different components within this pathway. Areas covered: A literature search to March 2016 was performed to identify the most relevant reports on the role of the IL-23/IL-17 axis in IBD and on the different molecules targeting this pathway. First, the authors briefly summarize the immunology of the IL-23/IL-17 pathway to elucidate the mode of action of all different agents. Second, they describe all different molecules targeting this pathway. Besides discussing efficacy and safety data, they also explore immunogenicity, exposure during pregnancy and pharmacokinetics. Expert opinion: A new era in IBD treatment has recently been initiated: besides immunomodulators and TNF-antagonists, anti-adhesion molecules and monoclonal antibodies targeting the IL-23/IL-17 pathway have been developed. Biomarkers for personalized medicine are urgently needed. This therapeutic (r)evolution will further improve disease-related and patient-reported outcome, though a lot of questions should still be addressed in future years.
Optimal Resource Allocation for Competitive Spreading Processes on Bilayer Networks

We consider a competitive epidemic process in a bilayer network, and develop a framework to find an optimal allocation of control resources to eliminate one of the epidemics. We consider the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S I_1 S I_2 S$</tex-math></inline-formula> model, a recent generalization of the popular <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$SIS$</tex-math></inline-formula> model to the case of two competitive epidemics. We start our analysis by extending the standard <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S I_1 S I_2 S$ </tex-math></inline-formula> formulation with homogeneous parameters to a heterogeneous setting with edge-dependent infection rates, and node-dependent recovery rates. We then find necessary and sufficient conditions under which the mean-field approximation of a chosen epidemic process stabilizes to extinction exponentially quickly. Leveraging this result, we develop a framework for the solution of two optimization problems. In the first, we find an optimal allocation of control resources in order to eradicate the chosen epidemic at a minimum cost. In the second, we are given a fixed budget and propose a method which provably attains the extinction condition when sufficient capital is available, and otherwise mitigates the spread of the unwanted epidemic as much as possible. We explore the efficacy of our methods through extensive simulation.
Mobility Increases Localizability

Wireless indoor positioning has been extensively studied for the past 2 decades and continuously attracted growing research efforts in mobile computing context. As the integration of multiple inertial sensors (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer) to nowadays smartphones in recent years, human-centric mobility sensing is emerging and coming into vogue. Mobility information, as a new dimension in addition to wireless signals, can benefit localization in a number of ways, since location and mobility are by nature related in the physical world. In this article, we survey this new trend of mobility enhancing smartphone-based indoor localization. Specifically, we first study how to measure human mobility: what types of sensors we can use and what types of mobility information we can acquire. Next, we discuss how mobility assists localization with respect to enhancing location accuracy, decreasing deployment cost, and enriching location context. Moreover, considering the quality and cost of smartphone built-in sensors, handling measurement errors is essential and accordingly investigated. Combining existing work and our own working experiences, we emphasize the principles and conduct comparative study of the mainstream technologies. Finally, we conclude this survey by addressing future research directions and opportunities in this new and largely open area.
Improving Bitcoin's Resilience to Churn

Efficient and reliable block propagation on the Bitcoin network is vital for ensuring the scalability of this peer-to-peer network. To this end, several schemes have been proposed over the last few years to speed up the block propagation, most notably the compact block protocol (BIP 152). Despite this, we show experimental evidence that nodes that have recently joined the network may need about ten days until this protocol becomes 90% effective. This problem is endemic for nodes that do not have persistent network connectivity. We propose to mitigate this ineffectiveness by maintaining mempool synchronization among Bitcoin nodes. For this purpose, we design and implement into Bitcoin a new prioritized data synchronization protocol, called FalafelSync. Our experiments show that FalafelSync helps intermittently connected nodes to maintain better consistency with more stable nodes, thereby showing promise for improving block propagation in the broader network. In the process, we have also developed an effective logging mechanism for bitcoin nodes we release for public use.
Toll-like receptor 2-mediated intestinal injury and enteric tumor necrosis factor receptor I contribute to liver fibrosis in mice.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Progression of liver fibrosis in experimental models depends on gut-derived bacterial products, but little is known about mechanisms of disruption of the mucosal barrier or translocation. We used a mouse model of cholestatic liver disease to investigate mechanisms of intestinal barrier disruption following liver injury. METHODS Liver fibrosis and bacterial translocation were assessed in Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2)-deficient and tumor necrosis factor receptor I (TNFRI)-deficient mice subjected to bile duct ligation. Epithelial and lamina propria cells were isolated and analyzed by immunoblot analyses and flow cytometry. We analyzed bone marrow chimeras and mice with a conditional gain-of-function allele for the TNFRI receptor. By crossing TNFRI(flxneo/flxneo) mice with mice that expressed the VillinCre transgene specifically in intestinal epithelial cells, we created mice that express functional TNFRI specifically on intestinal epithelial cells (VillinCreTNFRI(flxneo/flxneo) mice). RESULTS Following bile duct ligation, TLR2-deficient mice had less liver fibrosis and intestinal translocation of bacteria and bacterial products than wild-type mice. Mice with hematopoietic cells that did not express TLR2 also had reduced bacterial translocation, indicating that TLR2 expression by hematopoietic cells regulates intestinal barrier function. The number of TLR2(+) monocytes that produce tumor necrosis factor α increased in the intestinal lamina propria of wild-type mice following bile duct ligation; bacterial translocation was facilitated by TNFRI-mediated signals on intestinal epithelial cells. CONCLUSIONS Intestinal inflammation and bacterial translocation contribute to liver fibrosis via TLR2 signaling on monocytes in the lamina propria and TNFRI signaling on intestinal epithelial cells in mice. Therefore, enteric TNFRI is an important mediator of cholestatic liver fibrosis.
ER stress causes widespread protein aggregation and prion formation

Disturbances in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) homeostasis create a condition termed ER stress. This activates the unfolded protein response (UPR), which alters the expression of many genes involved in ER quality control. We show here that ER stress causes the aggregation of proteins, most of which are not ER or secretory pathway proteins. Proteomic analysis of the aggregated proteins revealed enrichment for intrinsically aggregation-prone proteins rather than proteins which are affected in a stress-specific manner. Aggregation does not arise because of overwhelming proteasome-mediated degradation but because of a general disruption of cellular protein homeostasis. We further show that overexpression of certain chaperones abrogates protein aggregation and protects a UPR mutant against ER stress conditions. The onset of ER stress is known to correlate with various disease processes, and our data indicate that widespread amorphous and amyloid protein aggregation is an unanticipated outcome of such stress.
Cognitive predictors of balance in Parkinson’s disease

Abstract Postural instability is one of the most incapacitating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and appears to be related to cognitive deficits. This study aims to determine the cognitive factors that can predict deficits in static and dynamic balance in individuals with PD. A sociodemographic questionnaire characterized 52 individuals with PD for this work. The Trail Making Test, Rule Shift Cards Test, and Digit Span Test assessed the executive functions. The static balance was assessed using a plantar pressure platform, and dynamic balance was based on the Timed Up and Go Test. The results were statistically analysed using SPSS Statistics software through linear regression analysis. The results show that a statistically significant model based on cognitive outcomes was able to explain the variance of motor variables. Also, the explanatory value of the model tended to increase with the addition of individual and clinical variables, although the resulting model was not statistically significant The model explained 25–29% of the variability of the Timed Up and Go Test, while for the anteroposterior displacement it was 23–34%, and for the mediolateral displacement it was 24–39%. From the findings, we conclude that the cognitive performance, especially the executive functions, is a predictor of balance deficit in individuals with PD.
A new robust damping and tracking controller for high speed nanopositioning

This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel control architecture with a resonant controller, an integral controller, and a velocity feedback controller to improve the high speed imaging performance of a nanopositioning stage, piezoelectric tube scanner (PTS) used in most of the commercial atomic force microscopes (AFMs). The design of the controller is done by considering the lateral and longitudinal axes of the PTS as an independent single-input single-output (SISO) system. The controller proposed in this paper is able to achieve a bandwidth close to the first resonance frequency of the PTS and the controller is robust against the changes in resonance frequency of the scanner due to the load change on the scanner. The performance of the proposed controller is illustrated by comparing with an integral controller and it is shown that the bandwidth increased by the proposed controller is five times greater than the bandwidth that can be achieved by using the integral controller in a commercial scanner. Experimental images with the open-loop, closed-loop and built-in AFM proportional integral controller are presented at scanning rates of 15.62 Hz, 31.25 Hz, 62.5 Hz, and 125 Hz to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed controller.
Synergistic effects of glyphosate formulation and parasite infection on fish malformations and survival.

Summary 1. Anthropogenic pollution and disease can cause both lethal and sub-lethal effects in aquatic species but our understanding of how these stressors interact is often not known. Contaminants can reduce host resistance to disease, but whether hosts are impacted at environmentally relevant concentrations is poorly understood. 2. We investigated the independent and combined effects of exposure to the common herbicide glyphosate and the trematode parasite Telogaster opisthorchis on survival and the development of spinal malformations in juvenile Galaxias anomalus, a New Zealand freshwater fish. We then investigated how exposure to a glyphosate concentration gradient (0AE36, 3AE6, 36 mg active ingredient (a.i.) L )1 ) affected the production and release of the infective cercarial stage of the parasite by its snail intermediate host Potamopyrgus antipodarum. 3. Survival of juvenile fish was unaffected by exposure to glyphosate alone (at an environmentally relevant concentration; 0AE36 mg a.i. L )1 ) or by T. opisthorchis infection alone. However, simultaneous exposure to infection and glyphosate significantly reduced fish survival. 4. Juvenile fish developed spinal malformations when exposed either to infections alone or to infections and glyphosate, with a trend towards greater severity of spinal malformation after exposure to both stressors. 5. All snails exposed to the highest glyphosate concentration (36 mg a.i. L )1 ) died within 24 h. Snails exposed to a moderate concentration (3AE6 mg a.i. L )1 ) produced significantly more T. opisthorchis cercariae than snails in the control group or the low concentration group (0AE36 mg a.i. L )1 ; the same concentration as in the fish experiment). 6. Synthesis and applications. This is the first study to show that parasites and glyphosate can act synergistically on aquatic vertebrates at environmentally relevant concentrations, and that glyphosate might increase the risk of disease in fish. Our results have important implications when identifying risks to aquatic communities and suggest that threshold levels of glyphosate currently set by regulatory authorities do not adequately protect freshwater systems.
From Mixtures to Binders

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the inverse problem of obtaining asphalt binder properties from asphalt mixture properties. First, the forward problem of predicting the mixture properties from binder properties is investigated using several micromechanical and phenomenological models and asphalt binder and mixture creep stiffness data obtained with the Bending Beam Rheometer. Next, Hirsch model was selected as most promising and its capability in providing the binder properties from the mixture properties was evaluated. Digital Image Processing techniques are also used to obtain additional information on the microstructure of the mixture and to improve the performance of the models.
Efficacy and safety of different interventions in castration resistant prostate cancer progressing after docetaxel-based chemotherapy: Bayesian network analysis of randomized controlled trials

Background: Most patients receiving docetaxel-based chemotherapy for castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) will eventually progress, and the optimal interventions for these patients are controversial. The objective of our study is to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of pharmacological interventions for CRPC patients progressing after docetaxel-based chemotherapy. Methods: A systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis of the literature was carried out according to standard methods. Major electronic databases including PubMed, Web of Science and Embase were searched until Jan 2017. Hazard ratios (HRs) and odds ratios (ORs) with corresponding 95% credible intervals (CrIs) were used to estimate the association. Results: 17 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) comprising 14 different interventions with 12347 patients were enrolled. Compared with control arms, Abiraterone Acetate (HR: 0.70, 95%CrI: 0.63-0.79), Cabazitaxel (HR: 0.70, 95%CrI: 0.51-0.95) and Enzalutamide (HR: 0.63, 95%CrI: 0.53-0.75) presented similar benefits in term of OS. Enzalutamide showed superiority over PFS and PSA response with a highest probability to rank 1. Moreover, sensitivity analysis showed that Abiraterone Acetate (HR: 0.71, 95%CrI: 0.63-0.78) exhibited the most efficacious intervention of being rank 1 in term of OS compared with control arms, followed by Cabazitaxel and Cetuximab. On the other hand, Abiraterone Acetate (OR: 0.86, 95%CrI: 0.35-2.03) presented no significant toxicities compared with control arms. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that Abiraterone Acetate might be the optimal intervention for CRPC patients after docetaxel failure with acceptable tolerability. Future well-designed RCTs and systematic reviews are needed to validate these findings.
Supervised Hashing with Pseudo Labels for Scalable Multimedia Retrieval

There is an increasing interest in using hash codes for efficient multimedia retrieval and data storage. The hash functions are learned in such a way that the hash codes can preserve essential properties of the original space or the label information. Then the Hamming distance of the hash codes can approximate the data similarity. Existing works have demonstrated the success of many supervised hashing models. However, labeling data is time and labor consuming, especially for scalable datasets. In order to utilize the supervised hashing models to improve the discriminative power of hash codes, we propose a Supervised Hashing with Pseudo Labels (SHPL) which uses the cluster centers of the training data to generate pseudo labels, based on which the hash codes can be generated using the criteria of supervised hashing. More specifically, we utilize linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with trace ratio criterion as a showcase for hash functions learning and during the optimization, we prove that the pseudo labels and the hash codes can be jointly learned and iteratively updated in an unified framework. The learned hash functions can harness the discriminant power of trace ratio criterion, and thus can achieve better performance. Experimental results on three large-scale unlabeled datasets (i.e., SIFT1M, GIST1M, and SIFT1B) demonstrate the superior performance of our SHPL over existing hashing methods.
Study of Electrophysical Characteristics of pHEMT Heterostructures by the Methods of Impedance Spectroscopy

The methods of impedance spectroscopy of (Al, In, Ga)As-based pHEMT heterostructures are developed using an LCR meter in the frequency range 0.1–2000 kHz and a vector network analyzer at higher frequencies of 0.01–3 GHz. These methods determine all the main parameters of the pHEMT heterostructures, including the threshold voltage, the channel resistance, the sheet density of electrons, and their mobility at operating biases.
The Olfactory Bulb in Newborn Piglet Is a Reservoir of Neural Stem and Progenitor Cells

The olfactory bulb (OB) periventricular zone is an extension of the forebrain subventricular zone (SVZ) and thus is a source of neuroprogenitor cells and neural stem cells. While considerable information is available on the SVZ-OB neural stem cell (NSC)/neuroprogenitor cell (NPC) niche in rodents, less work has been done on this system in large animals. The newborn piglet is used as a preclinical translational model of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage, but information about the endogenous sources of NSCs/NPCs in piglet is needed to implement endogenous or autologous cell-based therapies in this model. We characterized NSC/NPC niches in piglet forebrain and OB-SVZ using western blotting, histological, and cell culture methods. Immunoblotting revealed nestin, a NSC/NPC marker, in forebrain-SVZ and OB-SVZ in newborn piglet. Several progenitor or newborn neuron markers, including Dlx2, musashi, doublecortin, and polysialated neural cell adhesion molecule were also detected in OB-SVZ by immunoblotting. Immunohistochemistry confirmed the presence of nestin, musashi, and doublecortin in forebrain-SVZ and OB-SVZ. Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling showed that the forebrain-SVZ and OB-SVZ accumulate newly replicated cells. BrdU-positive cells were immunolabeled for astroglial, oligodendroglial, and neuronal markers. A lateral migratory pathway for newly born neuron migration to primary olfactory cortex was revealed by BrdU labeling and co-labeling for doublecortin and class III β tubulin. Isolated and cultured forebrain-SVZ and OB-SVZ cells from newborn piglet had the capacity to generate numerous neurospheres. Single cell clonal analysis of neurospheres revealed the capacity for self-renewal and multipotency. Neurosphere-derived cells differentiated into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes and were amenable to permanent genetic tagging with lentivirus encoding green fluorescent protein. We conclude that the piglet OB-SVZ is a reservoir of NSCs and NPCs suitable to use in autologous cell therapy in preclinical models of neonatal/pediatric brain injury.