Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of a new computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacture orthosis in the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis

To report on the initial experience with the Los Angeles brace, a new computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacture brace used in the treatment of idiopathic scoliosis. This was a retrospective review of 40 idiopathic scoliosis patients who completed treatment with this new computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacture brace. In-brace correction averaged 51% for the primary curves, with corrections of 53 and 22% for girls and boys, respectively. Only six patients (15%) had curve progression at brace completion. This preliminary study suggests that the new Los Angeles brace is effective in the treatment of scoliosis in girls, while avoiding some obstacles involved in traditional bracing.
Network Topology and Communication-Computation Tradeoffs in Decentralized Optimization

In decentralized optimization, nodes cooperate to minimize an overall objective function that is the sum (or average) of per-node private objective functions. Algorithms interleave local computations with communication among all or a subset of the nodes. Motivated by a variety of applications.decentralized estimation in sensor networks, fitting models to massive data sets, and decentralized control of multirobot systems, to name a few.significant advances have been made toward the development of robust, practical algorithms with theoretical performance guarantees. This paper presents an overview of recent work in this area. In general, rates of convergence depend not only on the number of nodes involved and the desired level of accuracy, but also on the structure and nature of the network over which nodes communicate (e.g., whether links are directed or undirected, static or time varying). We survey the state-of-theart algorithms and their analyses tailored to these different scenarios, highlighting the role of the network topology.
The Rocky Road to Headship

This article considers career decision making in relation to headship/principalship. It explores the career options open to experienced and promoted teachers. Changes in the role of the headteacher and perceptions of the role of the head held by potential and recently appointed headteachers are reviewed. Findings on acting headship are used to illuminate headship itself and recruitment issues. Headship is analysed in terms of factors at four levels: the system, headship itself, the school and the individual. The outcome of a recent major inquiry into teachers' pay and conditions in Scotland and changes subsequently agreed is analysed for its likely impact on the nature of and recruitment to headship. The article concludes with some thoughts on the need for sufficient but not excessive numbers of good applicants for headship, for effective human resource management of teachers and potential heads and for shared realism about the role of school leaders.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Digital weight watching : reconstruction of scanned documents

A web portal providing access to over 250.000 scanned and OCRed cultural heritage documents is analyzed. The collection consists of the complete Dutch Hansard from 1917 to 1995. Each document consists of facsimile images of the original pages plus hidden OCRed text. The inclusion of images yields large file sizes of which less than 2% is the actual text. The search user interface of the portal provides poor ranking and not very informative document summaries (snippets). Thus, users are instrumental in weeding out non-relevant results. For that, they must assess the complete documents. This is a time-consuming and frustrating process because of long download and processing times of the large files. Instead of using the scanned images for relevance assessment, we propose to use a reconstruction of the original document from a purely semantic representation. Evaluation on the Dutch dataset shows that these reconstructions become two orders of magnitude smaller and still resemble the original to a high degree. In addition, they are easier to speed-read and evaluate for relevance, due to added hyperlinks and a presentation optimized for reading from a terminal. We describe the reconstruction process and evaluate the costs, the benefits, and the quality.
Lunar influences on human aggression.

League records of all hockey games ( N = 426) played during a season provided data for tests of a lunar-aggression hypothesis. Despite the use of multiple measures of lunar phase and interpersonal aggression, support for lunar influence was not forthcoming. Inasmuch as the results were generally consistent with previous investigations, discussion centred on a rationale for the few "positive" findings that have occasionally occurred. Supplemental data revealed that beliefs in lunar influence are fairly common - 45% among a university population - and are more prevalent among older women.
Deletion of a Disease Resistance Nucleotide-Binding-Site Leucine-Rich- Repeat-like Sequence Is Associated With the Loss of the Phytophthora Resistance Gene Rps4 in Soybean

Resistance of soybean against the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora sojae is conferred by a series of Rps genes. We have characterized a disease resistance gene-like sequence NBSRps4/6 that was introgressed into soybean lines along with Rps4 or Rps6. High-resolution genetic mapping established that NBSRps4/6 cosegregates with Rps4. Two mutants, M1 and M2, showing rearrangements in the NBSRps4/6 region were identified from analyses of 82 F1's and 201 selfed HARO4272 plants containing Rps4. Fingerprints of these mutants are identical to those of HARO4272 for 176 SSR markers representing the whole genome except the NBSRps4/6 region. Both mutants showed a gain of race specificities, distinct from the one encoded by Rps4. To investigate the possible mechanism of gain of Phytophthora resistance in M1, the novel race specificity was mapped. Surprisingly, the gene encoding this resistance mapped to the Rps3 region, indicating that this gene could be either allelic or linked to Rps3. Recombinant analyses have shown that deletion of NBSRps4/6 in M1 is associated with the loss of Rps4 function. The NBSRps4/6 sequence is highly transcribed in etiolated hypocotyls expressing the Phytophthora resistance. It is most likely that a copy of the NBSRps4/6 sequence is the Rps4 gene. Possible mechanisms of the deletion in the NBSRps4/6 region and introgression of two unlinked Rps genes into Harosoy are discussed.
Asymptotic Distributions of Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Estimators for Spatial Econometric Models II : Mixed Regressive , Spatial Autoregressive Models by Lung -

Asymptotic properties of MLEs and QMLEs of mixed regressive, spatial autoregressive models are investigated. The stochastic rates of convergence of the MLE and QMLE for such models may be less than the √ n-rate under some circumstances even though its limiting distribution is asymptotically normal. When spatially varying regressors are relevant, the MLE and QMLE of the mixed regressive, autoregressive model may not have this problem and they can converge at the √ n-rate. If the spatially varying regressors are irrelevant, estimates of various components of unknown parameters may possess different rates of convergence.
Flesh Peddlers and Warm Bodies: The Temporary Help Industry and Its Workers

Several recent books have touted the benefits of working as a temporary employee, but now Parker, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and onetime temp himself, portrays a dark side to the temporary-help industry. In spite of its title, this book is a scholarly look at what Parker calls "contingent work. " He identifies the major companies in the industry, profiles who become temps, and describes where temporary workers are most heavily utilized. While acknowledging advantages for some workers, he also describes negative aspects of such work: low pay, few fringe benefits and usually no health coverage, irregular hours, underutilization of skills, hazardous working conditions, circumvention of equal opportunity programs, etc. Parker also claims a major reason companies use temps is to undermine labor-organizing efforts. Because temporary workers may actually make up one-third of this nation's workforce, Parker's book will be an important addition to business and labor collections
Development and in vitro evaluation of mucoadhesive microsphere carriers for intranasal delivery of betahistine dihydrochloride.

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The aim of the present work was to formulate and evaluate betahistine-loaded chitosan microspheres intended for nasal delivery with focus on their mucoadhesive properties. Betahistine-loaded chitosan microspheres were obtained via W/O emulsion solvent evaporation technique and were characterized for particle size, surphace morfology and entrapment efficiency. FTIR spectroscopy was carried out to evaluate drug-polymer interaction and powder X-ray diffractometry was applied to investigate crystallinity transformations. Tensile studies were carried out using sheep nasal mucosa to evaluate in vitro mucoadhesion. Drug release into phosphate buffer saline pH 7.4 was performed and dissolution profiles of the formulations were obtained. The results showed that the microspheres were spherical in shape having smooth surface and mean particle size of 3.82 µ m to 7.69 µ m which is appropriate for optimum deposition in the nasal cavity. The mean particle size increased when chitosan solutions with higher viscosity were used. In vitro mucoadhesion studies indicated that chitosan microspheres had good mucoadhesive properties and could adequately adhere to nasal mucosa. It was observed that polymer concentration enhancement led to increased mucoadhesive strength. Betahistine release studies from the microspheres showed similar and slightly icreasing dissolution profiles. Acording to the obtained results, betahistine-loaded chitosan microspheres prepared by solvent evaporation method proved to be capable of sustained release and could be used via nasal route as an alternative to oral administration.
Environmental Inequalities: Literature Review and Proposals for New Directions in Research and Theory

The first battles that led to the formation of the Environmental Justice movement also produced the first studies of race and exposure to toxins. Subsequently, demographers, geographers, sociologists, political scientists, historians and legal scholars have all contributed to an ever-expanding body of studies. We review the most important works that have been published in the 1990s, focusing especially on studies of waste sites, studies of toxic industrial emissions and, finally, on local histories that have begun to show in detail how environmental inequalities develop over time. We explore the ways that the close association between movement and research produced both gains and losses for that research. The political power and moral force of the movement gave the research effort great impetus, but it also defined the research agenda in ways that steered inquiry away from certain potentially important topics or themes. We end the paper with brief discussions of two of these neglected topics: first, investigating where economic elites and their exclusive residential communities are situated geographically in relation to toxic hazards; second, setting environmental inequality in global and historical contexts and theorizing it as one facet or moment of the larger social inequalities that have characterized modern society from its inception.
Combining Text and Heuristics for Cost-Sensitive Spam Filtering

Spam filtering is a text categorization task that shows especial features that make it interesting and difficult. First, the task has been performed traditionally using heuristics from the domain. Second, a cost model is required to avoid misclassification of legitimate messages. We present a comparative evaluation of several machine learning algorithms applied to spam filtering, considering the text of the messages and a set of heuristics for the task. Cost-oriented biasing and evaluation is performed.
Validity of self reports in a cohort of Swedish adolescent smokers and smokeless tobacco (snus) users

Objective: To validate self reports of cigarette and smokeless tobacco (snus) use in a prospective cohort of adolescents. Design: A cross sectional analysis of a cohort sub-sample. Setting: County of Stockholm, Sweden. Subjects: 520 adolescents in the final grade of junior high school (mean age 15.0 years). Main outcome measure: Concordance between self reported tobacco use and saliva cotinine concentration. Results: Using a cut point of 5 ng/ml saliva cotinine to discriminate active tobacco use, there was a 98% concordance between self reported non-use in the past month and cotinine concentration. The sensitivity of the questionnaire compared to the saliva cotinine test, used as the gold standard, was 90% and the specificity 93%. One hundred and fifteen out of 520 subjects (22%) reported monthly tobacco use. Among these, 67% (46/69) of the exclusive cigarette smokers, 82% (23/28) of exclusive snus users, and 94% (15/16) of mixed users (cigarettes + snus) had cotinine concentrations above 5 ng/ml. Among subjects reporting daily use 96% (64/67) had saliva cotinine concentrations above the cut point. Exclusive current cigarette users were more likely to be classified discordantly by questionnaire and cotinine test compared to snus users (odds ratio 3.2, 95% confidence interval 1.2 to 8.6). Conclusion: This study confirms the reliability of adolescents’ self reported tobacco use. In a context of low exposure to environmental tobacco smoke a cut off for saliva cotinine of 5 ng/ml reliably discriminated tobacco users from non-users. Irregular use of tobacco in this age group probably explains the discrepancy between self reported use and cotinine concentrations.
Organization and metamorphosis of glia in the Drosophila visual system

The visual system of Drosophila is an excellent model for determining the interactions that direct the differentiation of the nervous system's many unique cell types. Glia are essential not only in the development of the nervous system, but also in the function of those neurons with which they become associated in the adult. Given their role in visual system development and adult function we need to both accurately and reliably identify the different subtypes of glia, and to relate the glial subtypes in the larval brain to those previously described for the adult. We viewed driver expression in subsets of larval eye disc glia through the earliest stages of pupal development to reveal the counterparts of these cells in the adult. Two populations of glia exist in the lamina, the first neuropil of the adult optic lobe: those that arise from precursors in the eye‐disc/optic stalk and those that arise from precursors in the brain. In both cases, a single larval source gives rise to at least three different types of adult glia. Furthermore, analysis of glial cell types in the second neuropil, the medulla, has identified at least four types of astrocyte‐like (reticular) glia. Our clarification of the lamina's adult glia and identification of their larval origins, particularly the respective eye disc and larval brain contributions, begin to define developmental interactions which establish the different subtypes of glia. J. Comp. Neurol. 520:2067–2085, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Differences in the escape response of a grapsid crab in the field and in the laboratory

ABSTRACT Escape behaviours of prey animals are frequently used to study the neural control of behaviour. Escape responses are robust and fast, and can be reliably evoked under both field and laboratory conditions. Many escape responses are not as simple as previously suggested, however, and are often modulated by a range of contextual factors. To date it has been unclear to what extent behaviours studied in controlled laboratory experiments are actually representative of the behaviours that occur under more natural conditions. Here, we have used the model species Neohelice granulata, a grapsid crab, to show that there are significant differences between the crabs' escape responses in the field compared with those previously documented in laboratory experiments. These differences are consistent with contextual adjustments such as the availability of a refuge and have clear consequences for understanding the crabs' neural control of behaviour. Furthermore, the methodology used in this study mirrors the methodology previously used in fiddler crab research, allowing us to show that the previously documented differences in escape responses between these grapsid species are real and substantial. Neohelice granulata's responses are delayed and more controlled. Overall, the results highlight the adaptability and flexibility of escape behaviours and provide further evidence that the neural control of behaviour needs to be addressed in both the laboratory and field context. Summary: Grapsid crabs show flexibility of predator avoidance behaviours; differences in these escape behaviours occur under natural versus laboratory conditions.
Frequency-Adaptive Join for Shared Nothing Machines

Although many skew-handling algorithms have been proposed for simple join operations, they remain generally inefficient in the case of θ-join and in the case of multi-join. A new method for self-balancing equi-join operations on shared-nothing (SN) machines is proposed here. It offers deterministic and near-perfect load balancing through flexible control of communications in intra-transaction parallelism. The new algorithm mixes a balanced data-distribution strategy with pure hash-join. Its predictably low join-product- and attribute-value skews make it suitable for repeated use in multi-join operations. Its tradeoff between balancing overhead and speedup is analyzed in the BSP (Bulk-synchronous parallel) computing model. The scalable model predicts a negligible join product skew and a near-linear speed-up in any combination of selectivity, skew and number of processors. This prediction is confirmed by a series of tests.
Characterizing Peer-to-Peer Streaming Flows

The fundamental advantage of peer-to-peer (P2P) multimedia streaming applications is to leverage peer upload capacities to minimize bandwidth costs on dedicated streaming servers. The available bandwidth among peers is of pivotal importance to P2P streaming applications, especially as the number of peers in the streaming session reaches a very large scale. In this paper, we utilize more than 230 GB of traces collected from a commercial P2P streaming system, UUSee, over a four-month period of time. With such traces, we seek to thoroughly understand and characterize the achievable bandwidth of streaming flows among peers in large-scale real-world P2P live streaming sessions, in order to derive useful insights towards the improvement of current-generation P2P streaming protocols, such as peer selection. Using continuous traces over a long period of time, we explore evolutionary properties of inter-peer bandwidth. Focusing on representative snapshots of the entire topology at specific times, we investigate distributions of inter-peer bandwidth in various peer ISP/area/type categories, and statistically test and model the deciding factors that cause the variance of such inter-peer bandwidth. Our original discoveries in this study include: (1) The ISPs that peers belong to are more correlated to inter-peer bandwidth than their geographic locations; (2) There exist excellent linear correlations between peer last-mile bandwidth availability and inter-peer bandwidth within the same ISP, and between a subset of ISPs as well; and (3) The evolution of inter-peer bandwidth between two ISPs exhibits daily variation patterns. Based on these insights, we design a throughput expectation index that facilitates high-bandwidth peer selection without performing any measurements.
You Can’t Always Do What You Want: Social Identity and Self-Presentational Determinants of the Choice to Work for a Low-Status Group

Group members’ choice to work on individual or on group status improvement was examined as a function of degree of ingroup identification (low, high) and accountability of responses (anonymous, accountable to the ingroup). In Experiment 1 (N = 73), in line with the authors’ predictions, accountability elicited progroup behavior among low identifiers, whereas individualistic behavior was displayed when participants were anonymous. No similar effect of accountability was observed for high identifiers, who always chose for group status improvement. Experiment 2(N = 118) replicated and extended these findings. Degree of identification with the ingroup was shown to determine which contextual cues are likely to influence group members’ responses. The integration of traditionally separate models of social influence (self-presentation and social identity) is proposed. It is suggested that degree of identification with a group functions as a moderator of which type of influence the group is able to exert.
The Structure of Electoral Political Participation

Research on electoral political participation frequently combines voting and campaing activity into a single scale and adopts the Michigan social-psychological perspective on political behavior. Using Canadian data, we find that (1) voting and campaing activity are qualitatively different forms of activity that need to be examined separately, and (2) the Michigan model, with its emphasis on individual interests and beliefs as the primary determinatn of political activities, applies to voting behavior but not to campaing activity. A "public-arena" model that distinguishes whether an individual was contacted to participate in campaign activities is suggested in its place. Results indicate hta, net of all else, being recruited to participate in campaing activity by 50%. Analyses suggest that an explanation of who is likely to be recruited should include both individual status and social network characteristics. Implications of the findings for a democratic polity are noted.