Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deterrence, Poverty, and Type of Homicide

The assumption that homicide is a unidimensional phenomenon has rarely been questioned in empirical research. Using newly available data, this analysis classifies homicide into two types, primary and nonprimary, based on the victim/offender relationship. Two models that have appeared in the literature are replicated, utilizing this classificatory scheme. State primary-homicide rates are found to be related to poverty and to the percentage of the population aged 20-34, while nonprimary homicide rates are significantly related only to the percentage of the state living in urban areas. Replication of the original models demonstrates that the failure to classify homicides in this manner results in the incorrect assessment of the relative size and importance of the various predictors of homicide included in these models.
Article in press-uncorrected proof Placental transfer of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids ( LC-PUFA )

Considerable evidence exists for marked beneficial effects of omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) during pregnancy. The omega-3 LCPUFA docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is incorporated in large amounts in fetal brain and other tissues during the second half of pregnancy, and several studies have provided evidence for a link between early DHA status of the mother and visual and cognitive development of her child after birth. Moreover, the supplementation of omega-3 LC-PUFA during pregnancy increases slightly infant size at birth, and significantly reduces early preterm birth before 34 weeks of gestation by 31%. In our studies using stable isotope methodology in vivo, we demonstrated active and preferential materno-fetal transfer of DHA across the human placenta and found the expression of human placental fatty acid binding and transport proteins. From the correlation of DHA values with placental fatty acid transport protein 4 (FATP 4), we conclude that this protein is of key importance in mediating DHA transport across the human placenta. Given the great importance of placental DHA transport for infant outcome, further studies are needed to fully appreciate the effects and optimal strategies of omega-3 fatty acid interventions in pregnancy, dose response relationships, and the potential differences between subgroups of subjects such as women with gestational diabetes or other gestational pathology. Such studies should contribute to optimize substrate intake during pregnancy and lactation that may improve pregnancy outcome as well as fetal growth and development. *Corresponding author: Berthold Koletzko, MD Professor of Pediatrics Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich Lindwurmstr. 4, D-80337 Muenchen, Germany Tel. : q49-89-5160-3967 Fax: q49-89-5160-3336 E-mail: Berthold.Koletzko@med.uni-muenchen.de
Projecting the need for hip replacement over the next three decades: influence of changing demography and threshold for surgery

OBJECTIVES To estimate the requirement for total hip replacement in the United Kingdom over the next three decades METHODS Projection of age and sex specific hip replacements in the UK over 10 year intervals taking account of demographic change and the extrapolation of arthroplasty rates from Sweden; a country with recently introduced guidelines. RESULTS Assuming no change in the age and sex specific arthroplasty rates, the estimated number of hip replacements will increase by 40% over the next 30 year period because of demographic change alone. The proportionate change will be substantially higher in men (51%) than women (33%), with a doubling of the number of male hip replacements in those aged over 85. Changes in the threshold for surgery may increase this further—up to double the current number. CONCLUSION A sharp rise in hip replacements will be needed to satisfy needs in the UK population over the next 30 years.
Optimal Rescheduling of Generators for Congestion Management Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

Power system congestion is a major problem that the system operator (SO) would face in the post-deregulated era. Therefore, investigation of techniques for congestion-free wheeling of power is of paramount interest. One of the most practiced and an obvious technique of congestion management is rescheduling the power outputs of generators in the system. However, all generators in the system need not take part in congestion management. Development of sound formulation and appropriate solution technique for this problem is aimed in this paper. Contributions made in the present paper are twofold. Firstly a technique for optimum selection of participating generators has been introduced using generator sensitivities to the power flow on congested lines. Secondly this paper proposes an algorithm based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) which minimizes the deviations of rescheduled values of generator power outputs from scheduled levels. The PSO algorithm, reported in this paper, handles the binding constraints by a technique different from the traditional penalty function method. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology has been analyzed on IEEE 30-bus and 118-bus systems and the 39 -bus New England system.
The Effectiveness of the Manchester Even Start Program in Improving Literacy Outcomes for Preschool Latino Students

Abstract Although widely implemented, the effectiveness of the Even Start program and other programs involving home-visiting and bilingual education in improving preschool literacy outcomes, particularly among Latino students, is uncertain. This study used a non-equivalent groups design to compare preschool literacy outcomes (measured by the PALS-PreK assessment) of 4-year-old Latino preschool students enrolled in the Manchester Even Start program to a comparison group consisting of low-income and ethnically diverse 4-year-old students enrolled in Manchester's Title I preschool program. The primary differences between the Even Start and Title I preschool programs were the presence of a bilingual teacher in the Even Start class and the participation of the Even Start students and their families in home visits, parent and child interactive literacy activities, and adult ESOL classes. Multiple regression analysis, controlling for pretest scores, indicated that 4-year-old students' participation in the Even Start program (N=12) was associated with posttest scores that were 14.51 points higher (p<.05) than those of 4-year-old Title I students (N=25). While the ability to generalize these findings is limited due to the non-randomized study design and the small sample size, the results provide evidence of the short-term effectiveness of the Manchester Even Start program.
Motivational Factors Affecting Sports Consumption Behavior of K-league and J-league Spectators

The purpose of this study was to examine motivational factors affecting consumption behavior of K-league and J-league spectators, and their predictability to explain it. We found that 10 motivational factors significantly, but not sufficiently explained the current attendance frequency of the K-league spectators, whereas these factors well predicted their future consumption behavior. It was considered that there is great potential in the K-league spectator market. The results of the J-league spectators indicated that team identification and vicarious achievement were strong predictors to explain the variance in the game attendance frequency of the J-league spectators, and these results were consistent with the results of Mahony, et al., (2002). However, we found a new predictor (social interaction) to explain this variance. Also, we found that escape was a new positive predictor to explain the intention to attend future games of the K-league and J-league spectators, and escape, player, and team identification were related to the future merchandise consumption of both the K-league and J-league spectators.
A Genome Scale Location Analysis of Human Staf/ZNF143-binding Sites Suggests a Widespread Role for Human Staf/ZNF143 in Mammalian Promoters*

Staf was originally identified as the transcriptional activator of Xenopus tRNASec and small nuclear (sn) RNA-type genes. Recently, transcription of seven human (h) protein coding genes was reported to be activated by the human ortholog hStaf/ZNF143. Here we have used a combined in silico and biochemical approach to identify 1175 conserved hStaf/ZNF143-binding sites (SBS) distributed in 938 promoters of four mammalian genomes. The SBS shows a significant positional preference and occurs mostly within 200 bp upstream of the transcription start site. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays with 295 of the promoters established that 90% contain bona fide SBS. By extrapolating the values of this mapping to the full sizes of the mammalian genomes, we can infer the existence of at least 2500 SBS distributed in 2000 promoters. This unexpected large number strongly suggests that SBS constitutes one of the most widespread transcription factor-binding sites in mammalian promoters. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the presence of the SBS alone is sufficient to direct expression of a luciferase reporter gene, suggesting that hStaf/ZNF143 can recruit per se the transcription machinery.
Radial stretch reveals distinct populations of mechanosensitive mammalian somatosensory neurons

Primary afferent somatosensory neurons mediate our sense of touch in response to changes in ambient pressure. Molecules that detect and transduce thermal stimuli have been recently identified, but mechanisms underlying mechanosensation, particularly in vertebrate organisms, remain enigmatic. Traditionally, mechanically evoked responses in somatosensory neurons have been assessed one cell at a time by recording membrane currents in response to application of focal pressure, suction, or osmotic challenge. Here, we used radial stretch in combination with live-cell calcium imaging to gain a broad overview of mechanosensitive neuronal subpopulations. We found that different stretch intensities activate distinct subsets of sensory neurons as defined by size, molecular markers, or pharmacological attributes. In all subsets, stretch-evoked responses required extracellular calcium, indicating that mechanical force triggers calcium influx. This approach extends the repertoire of stimulus paradigms that can be used to examine mechanotransduction in mammalian sensory neurons, facilitating future physiological and pharmacological studies.
Ligand-regulated Chimeric Receptor Approach Reveals Distinctive Subcellular Localization and Signaling Properties of the Toll-like Receptors*

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are sensors for the detection of invading infectious agents and can initiate innate immune responses. Because the innate immune system induces an appropriate defense against different pathogens, different TLR signaling domains may have unique properties that are responsible for eliciting distinctive responses to different types of pathogens. To test this hypothesis, we created ligand-regulated TLR chimeric receptors composed of the extracellular region of TLR4 and the transmembrane and cytoplasmic regions of other TLRs and expressed these chimeras in macrophages lacking endogenous TLR4. Interestingly, the chimeras between TLR4 and either TLR3, TLR7, or TLR9 were localized completely intracellularly whereas other chimeras were expressed on the cell surface. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a ligand for these chimeras, induced the activation of nuclear factor κB and mitogen-activated protein kinases and the subsequent production of pro-inflammatory cytokines in macrophages expressing TLR4, TLR4/TLR5, or TLR4/TLR8 chimeras but not in macrophages expressing TLR4/TLR1, TLR4/TLR2, or TLR4/TLR6 chimeras. Co-expression of unresponsive chimeras in some combinations (chimeras with TLR1+TLR2 or TLR2+TLR6 but not TLR1+TLR6) resulted in LPS responsiveness, indicating functional complementarity. Furthermore, the pair of TLR2+TLR6 chimera required approximately 10-fold less LPS to induce the same responses compared with the TLR1+TLR2 pair. Finally, LPS induced effective interferon-β production and subsequent Stat1 phosphorylation in macrophages expressing full-length TLR4 but not other cell surface TLR chimeras. These results suggest that the functions of TLRs are diversified not only in their extracellular regions for ligand recognition but also in their transmembrane and cytoplasmic regions for subcellular localization and signaling properties.
'Til Death Do Us Part: Marital Disruption and Mortality

Both men and women appear to benefit from being married. This article uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the extent to which three key factors-financial well-being, living arrangements, and marital history-account for this relationship. The authors model mortality using a flexible hazard model and find that both married men and women show substantially lower risks of dying than those who are not married. The study's results suggest that-for women but not for men-the improved financial well-being that often accompanies marriage accounts for much of its beneficial effect. For both husbands and wives the benefits from marriage appear to cumulate as the length of the union increases.
Cytokeratin 8 immunostaining pattern and E-cadherin expression distinguish lobular from ductal breast carcinoma.

Immunohistochemistry using antibodies to cytokeratin 8 can serve as a valuable diagnostic tool for the differentiation of lobular from ductal carcinomas of the breast. In contrast with ductal carcinomas, which exhibit a peripheral-predominant immunostaining pattern, adjacent tumor cells "molding" to each other, lobular carcinomas exhibit a ring-like perinuclear immunostaining pattern, creating a "bag of marbles" appearance with neighboring tumor cells. This immunostaining pattern is stable even in the tumors that otherwise do not exhibit characteristic histomorphologic features (i.e., solid or pleomorphic type of a lobular carcinoma) and tumors that mimic growth patterns characteristic of the respective other tumor type (i.e., targetoid or single-file growth pattern in a ductal carcinoma). Furthermore, we demonstrate that ductal carcinomas express E-cadherin in a similar peripheral-predominant immunostaining pattern (33/33 cases), while all 15 lobular carcinomas were negative for E-cadherin, suggesting a role for E-cadherin in the architectural organization of the cytoskeletal scaffolding within the tumor cells.
Background subtraction based on phase and distance transform under sudden illumination change

Effective foreground detection under sudden illumination change is an active research topic. However, most existing background subtraction approaches, which are intensity based, fail to handle this situation. In this paper, we propose a novel background modeling method that overcomes this limitation by relying on statistical models which use pixel phase instead of intensities. We first extract the phase feature of the pixel using Gabor filters. Then, a phase based background subtraction approach is proposed. In this approach, each phase feature is modeled independently by a mixture of Gaussian models and updated with a novel scheme. Since foreground pixels are scattered in the preliminary detection result, distance transform is implemented on the binary image which transforms the image into a distance map. We segment the distance image with a threshold and get the final result. Experiments on two challenging sequences demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our method.
Panphonen: a spatial enhanced audio interface for blind users

In this paper we describe the model and the prototype of an auditory and haptic interface for blind users, based on human capabilities to memorize and retrieve positions in a 3D auditory space; the proposal takes advantage of recent development in hardware and software in a prototype system to test different paradigms for interaction suitable for wide application by a large number of users.
A Longitudinal Study of Conflict in Early Marriage

Thirty-three couples were assessed in terms of their communication and relationship satisfaction, just before marriage and twice during the first 2 years, using questionnaire and interaction-based methods. There were few changes over time, except that couples lower in relationship satisfaction temporarily decreased their use of negative strategies and increased their use of positive strategies after 1 year. Spouses high in satisfaction after 2 years of marriage were less likely to manipulate the partner, to avoid dealing with conflict, to behave coercively and to engage in destructive patterns such as demand-withdraw. There were moderately strong effects of communication behaviours on concurrent relationship satisfaction. Communication behaviours predicted later satisfaction for wives only. Relationship satisfaction also predicted later communication behaviours for both husbands and wives, indicating a reciprocal relationship between these variables.
Revisiting the Database State Machine Approach

The Database State Machine (DBSM) is a replication mechanism for clusters of database servers. Read-only and update transactions are executed locally, but during commit, update transactions execution outcome is broadcast to all the servers for certification. The main DBSM’s weakness lies in its dependency on transaction readsets, needed for certification. This paper presents a technique to bypass the extraction and propagation of readsets. Our approach does not incur any communication overhead and still guarantees that transactions are serializable.
Does it Take a Village to Make a Marriage? Exploring the Relationship between Community and Marital Satisfaction

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between community and marital satisfaction using evidence from Utah. To do so, we analyze the effects of three sets of independent variables on marital satisfaction: demographic variables (number of children, education, household income, age, and religious affiliation), neighborhood quality (neighborhood assessment and perceptions of informal helping at the neighborhood level), and community integration (use of community services, volunteer work, and length of community residence). Seemingly Unrelated Regression analyses of survey data from northern Utah demonstrate that religious affiliation (negative association) and perceptions of informal helping at the neighborhood level (positive association) are significantly associated with women's marital satisfaction. For men, neighborhood assessment and perceptions of informal helping at the neighborhood level are positively and significantly associated with marital satisfaction.
A new blind adaptive watermarking method based on singular value decomposition

A blind watermarking method on the basis of Singular Value Decomposition is proposed in this paper. Each bit of a watermark is being enclosed in 4×4 blocks. The method modifies the both left and right orthonormal matrices in order to embed a bit. A new embedding rule with adjustable parameters has been proposed for watermarking. The modification of orthonormal matrices is accomplished according to Van Elfrinkhof's rotational model. Distortions of watermark embedding are minimized. A criterion of watermarking performance has been proposed that combines robustness and transparency. An adaptation on the basis of the criterion has been employed. Popular attacks have been applied and experimental results have been represented. The proposed watermarking method demonstrates better robustness toward some attacks in comparison with other known blind watermarking methods.
Anxiety in undergraduate research methods courses: its nature and implications

The study reported in this article examines the nature of anxiety that undergraduate students experience in a research methods course and explores some of the factors that influence their anxiety levels. Two questionnaires measuring the attitudes towards research and the anxiety level were administered to 472 students enrolled in a research methods course at the University of Cyprus between the fall of 2002 and the spring of 2005. The results showed that students’ self‐perceptions seemed to influence the level of anxiety in such courses, while the grades that students were expecting to earn did not predict students’ anxiety. Another important finding was that students who considered research to be important for their profession had higher levels of anxiety. Finally, the implications of this study are discussed and teaching interventions are suggested to assist students deal with their anxiety.
AN ENZYMOLOGICAL STUDY ON BRAIN TISSUE OF SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS. CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM. PART I. GLUCOSE *

Along with the histological study of schizophrenia, much attempt has been made in this line of study on a biochemical basis in connection with endocrinology, analytic autoptical study of the cerebrum, and with body fluids such as blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and urine, all from a pathophysiological view-point. But a decisive conclusion has hardly been drawn, chiefly due to the insufficiency in the way of systematic attack. Rec-ntly, a new aspect of attack on the problem is being made, an attempt to explain mental disturbances in terms of anoxia, i. e. the insufficiency of metabolic substrate or disorder in the enzyme system, e t c (Hoskins, Bellak, Elliott, Himwich, Naka, Utena). We have planned since 1948 to proceed with our pathophysiological study on schizophrenia in this line as will be started in the following chapters. I t has been verified by Mitsuda’s11 work that schizophrenia represents a group of disturbances rooted in heredity. Recently a suggestion has been given to us in the light of relation established between the gene and enzymes in lower animals and further of the existence of oligophrenia phenylpyruvinurica, which we might reasonably introduce to enzym Aogical consideration in schizophrenia problems. A t least, we have been pmvided with material to susp,ect certain abnormalities in the enzymic activities in the brain and other organs, especially in the latter as the starter and controler of mental phenomena I t will be quite natural, then, that the attention should first be paid to the complicated enzyme group participating in sugar metabolism, as the principal generator of the major energy source, although the importance of both protein and amino acid should not be overlooked. Further, we took up the enzyme groups participating in acetylcholine metabolism, participant of energy metabolism in nervous transmission.
The impact of the spatial mismatch between parolee and employment locations on recidivism

Prior research has shown that employed parolees are less likely to recidivate. Yet, these studies often ignore the underlying employment context of the neighborhoods to which parolees return. Given that parolees often reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods, it is likely that few potential employment opportunities exist nearby, and those opportunities that do exist are of relatively poor quality. This study examines the influence of geographic access to employment opportunities on the likelihood of recidivism. We use a unique data set of parolees and jobs in Ohio to determine whether parolees living closer to a greater number of potential employers or higher-paying jobs are less likely to recidivate. Further, we examine if these relationships are conditioned by parolee race. More job opportunities and higher paying jobs closer to the parolees' homes increase recidivism, and the likelihood of recidivating is highest within smaller geographic distances. Because many parolees reside in the inner city, jobs located within close proximity of parolees are likely white-collar, reflecting the increased competition for low-skill jobs close to where the parolee lives. Our findings indicate that this may be particularly true for black parolees. This suggests policy changes that reduce competition for low-skill positions and facilitate parolees' ability to secure employment are needed.