Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relative Impact of Inadequate Primary and Secondary Prevention on Cardiovascular Mortality in the United States

Background and Purpose— We developed a model to estimate the costs incurred by ineffective primary and secondary prevention in terms of excess cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in a nationally representative sample of the US population. Methods— Cox proportional hazards analyses were used to examine the effect of inadequate risk factor control on the incidence of fatal stroke and myocardial infarction (MI) during a follow-up period of 13.4±3.6 years after adjusting for differences in age, gender, and ethnicity in a national cohort of 9252 adults who participated in the Second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Mortality Follow-up Study. Inadequate risk factor modification was defined by presence of either blood pressure >140/90 mm Hg, serum cholesterol >200 mg/dL, or active cigarette smoking. Using the data from 4115 adults screened in the NHANES 1999 to 2000, population attributable risk (PAR) percent and associated cost incurred (expressed as proportion of total 1-year cost incurred for CVD mortality in year 2001) was estimated. Results— CVD mortality risk increased in a stepwise manner for persons with no previous MI or stroke and ≥2 inadequately controlled risk factors (2×); and previous history of MI and stroke and adequately controlled risk factors (2.6×), 1 inadequately controlled risk factor (4.3×), and ≥2 inadequately controlled risk factors (5.7×). The PAR was 14% (estimated cost incurred $13.2 billion) among persons with ≥2 inadequately controlled risk factors without previous MI or stroke (estimated 17% of total US population). Among persons with previous MI or stroke, the PAR was 7% (cost incurred $6.2 billion) and 8% (cost incurred $7.4 billion) for 1 inadequately controlled risk factor and ≥2 inadequately controlled risk factors, respectively. An excess of cost of $13.6 billion was spent on 4% of the total population (persons with inadequate secondary prevention). Conclusions— The model demonstrates the differential risk of mortality from inadequately controlled cardiovascular risk factors in primary and secondary prevention settings. The large financial cost incurred by inadequate primary and secondary prevention justifies intensive efforts directed toward detection and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors.
Backtesting value-at-risk : a GMM duration-based test

This paper proposes a new duration-based backtesting procedure for VaR forecasts. The GMM test framework proposed by Bontemps (2006) to test for the distributional assumption (i.e. the geometric distribution) is applied to the case of the VaR forecasts validity. Using simple J-statistic based on the moments defined by the orthonormal polynomials associated with the geometric distribution, this new approach tackles most of the drawbacks usually associated to duration based backtesting procedures. First, its implementation is extremely easy. Second, it allows for a separate test for unconditional coverage, independence and conditional coverage hypothesis (Christoffersen, 1998). Third, feasibility of the tests is improved. Fourth, Monte-Carlo simulations show that for realistic sample sizes, our GMM test outperforms traditional duration based test. An empirical application for Nasdaq returns confirms that using GMM test leads to major consequences for the ex-post evaluation of the risk by regulation authorities. Without any doubt, this paper provides a strong support for the empirical application of duration-based tests for VaR forecasts. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract w (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Genetic Drift of HIV Populations in Culture

Populations of Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) undergo a surprisingly large amount of genetic drift in infected patients despite very large population sizes, which are predicted to be mostly deterministic. Several models have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, but all of them implicitly assume that the process of virus replication itself does not contribute to genetic drift. We developed an assay to measure the amount of genetic drift for HIV populations replicating in cell culture. The assay relies on creation of HIV populations of known size and measurements of variation in frequency of a neutral allele. Using this assay, we show that HIV undergoes approximately ten times more genetic drift than would be expected from its population size, which we defined as the number of infected cells in the culture. We showed that a large portion of the increase in genetic drift is due to non-synchronous infection of target cells. When infections are synchronized, genetic drift for the virus is only 3-fold higher than expected from its population size. Thus, the stochastic nature of biological processes involved in viral replication contributes to increased genetic drift in HIV populations. We propose that appreciation of these effects will allow better understanding of the evolutionary forces acting on HIV in infected patients.
Creative Cities, Cultural Clusters and Local Economic Development

Starting from the early 1990s, spatial economic sciences shifted focus towards the role of culture in urban and regional development. Embedded in societal changes (like increasing welfare levels, the increasing opportunities for interaction due to information and communication technologies, and the increasing networking of people, information, goods and services), this ‘cultural turn’ questions previously robust interpretations and commonalities concerning agglomeration and urban development. It suggests that firms and employees are becoming more footloose (Thrift 2000). Still, a remarkable number of societal and economic activities continue to cluster in cities. However, it no longer seems to be predefined who and what exactly the relevant actors and institutions are, whether workers are still the same as employees, whether entrepreneurs are hardworking independent labourers making a small-scale living, whether profits determine chances of survival in markets and whether economic development is completely determined by investments in labour, capital and technology. The new glue in postmodern geography is apparently culture: creative knowledge workers choose cultureand amenity-rich environments to reside and work, to network globally and act locally, leading regional and urban economies to grow and become competitive (Catsells 2000; Florida 2002). Important concepts related to this discussion are: social aspects of economics; the institutional complexity of markets; image as a factor determining location; the shift from production to consumption in organizational theory; intelligent technologies; cooperation in research and development; informal circuits; time–space dependency; and evolutionary and institutional spatial-economic frameworks (Thrift and Olds 1996). Just putting these concepts together (which was done in the early 1990s) reads like a manifesto that, although firmly embedded in the geographic epistemic community, encounters thorough criticisms (RodriguezPose 2001; Barnett 1998). How new is the concept of culture in explaining urban
High-Q, low impedance polysilicon resonators with 10 nm air gaps

This paper presents a fabrication process to manufacture air-gap capacitively-transduced RF MEMS resonators. 2-port measurements show motional impedance (Rx) ≪ 1. 3kΩ and quality factor (Q) ≫ 65,000 at 223MHz in vacuum. The fabrication process involves depositing a dual-layer spacer of 10nm of SiO2 and 90nm of hafnia via atomic layer deposition (ALD) followed by oxide release. Nanometer air gaps are achieved, while the hafnia provides reliability against shorting of resonator and electrode. Consistent performance was achieved across multiple devices, demonstrating the robustness of the process.
Phishing Detection Plug-In Toolbar Using Intelligent Fuzzy-Classification Mining Techniques

Detecting phishing website is a complex task which requires significant expert knowledge and experience. So far, various solutions have been proposed and developed to address these problems. Most of these approaches are not able to make a decision dynamically on whether the site is in fact phished, giving rise to a large number of false positives. In this paper we have investigated and developed the application of an open source intelligent fuzzy-based classification system for e- banking phishing website detection. The main goal of the proposed system is to provide protection to users from phishers deception schemes, giving them the ability to detect the legitimacy of the websites. The proposed intelligent phishing detection system employed Fuzzy Logic (FL) model with classification mining algorithms. The approach combined the capabilities of fuzzy reasoning in measuring imprecise and dynamic phishing features, with the capability to classify the phishing fuzzy rules. The proposed intelligent phishing website detection system was developed, tested and validated by incorporating the scheme as a web based plug-in phishing toolbar. The results obtained are promising and showed that our intelligent fuzzy based classification detection system can provide an effective help for real-time phishing website detection. The toolbar successfully recognized and detected approximately 86% of the phishing websites selected from our test data set, avoiding many miss-classified websites and false phishing alarms.
Do Men and Women-Economists Choose the Same Research Fields? Evidence from Top-50 Departments

This paper describes the gender distribution of research fields chosen by the faculty members in the top fifty Economics departments, according to the rankings available on the Econphd.net website. We document that women are unevenly distributed across fields and test some behavioral implications from theories underlying such disparities. Our main findings are that the probability that a woman chooses a given field is positively related to the share of women in that field (path-dependence), and that the share of women in a field at a given department increases with the sizes of the department and field, while it decreases with their average quality. However, these patterns seem to be changing for younger female faculty members. Further, by using Ph.D. cohorts, we document how gender segregation across fields has evolved over the last four decades.
Analysis of physiologically-motivated signal processing for robust speech recognition

This paper discusses the relative impact that different stages of a popular auditory model have on improving the accuracy of automatic speech recognition in the presence of additive noise. Recognition accuracy is measured using the CMU SPHINX-III speech recognition system, and the DARPA Resource Management speech corpus for training and testing. It is shown that feature extraction based on auditory processing provides better performance in the presence of additive background noise than traditional MFCC processing and it is argued that an expansive nonlinearity in the auditory model contributes the most to noise robustness.
Developing formally verified Ada programs

We have undertaken to build software that will help programmers apply the methods of formal development advocated by Gries and Dijkstra. The software is designed to lead to formal verification tools with three properties: Odyssey Research Associates has undertaken a study of the feasibility of developing formally verified Ada programs. We have designed a specification language for sequential Ada programs. It is a mcmber of the Larch family of specification languages. We have built a prototype program editor that is intended to help programmers develop programs and proofs from specifications, as advocated by Dijkstra and Crier [1,2]. It contains predicate transformers, which compute wp (an approximation to the weakest precondition of a program), and it generates verification conditions. The semantics of the specification language and the definition of the predicate transformers are derivable from a denotational definition of sequential Ada. The predicate transformers can be proved sound with respect to these definitions by structural induction on programs. The denotational-style definition of the predicate transformers is well suited to an implementation as an attribute grammar. The program editor is designed to be used on program fragments, not just complete programs. The next step in improving the prototype editor is to find ways to simplify the intermediate values of wp so they can be used to guide the development of fragments into
A Model for Customer Segmentation Based On Loyalty Using Data Mining Approach and Fuzzy Concept in Iranian Bank

Data mining is a new technique which can help researchers to discover data’s patterns and predict the future behaviors. Predicting customers’ loyalty, specifically bank customers, is a concept which has attracted more attentions recently. This study has proposed a new procedure using the indexes of RFM model with two new additional indexes joining k-means algorithm with k-optimum according to daviesbouldin index in order to estimate customers’ loyalty numbers and then classifying customers in for groups based on expanding the Dick- Basu model with using fuzzy concept. The proposed model is implemented in the card payment service of bank A. 287 number of card reader systems are surveyed and clustered in 22 clusters. Finally, for the identification and classification of customers loyalty, after determination of membership degree of each cluster the label of the clusters are determined, and customers are classified in four sets of loyal, disloyal, spurious loyalty and latent loyalty. The results indicate that when we combine behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty, we can obtain a better degree of loyalty. These features helped the bank A to retain the customers whom are going to churn by using creative and attractive strategies for each class of the customers.
Structural and biophysical characterization of Staphylococcus aureus SaMazF shows conservation of functional dynamics

The Staphylococcus aureus genome contains three toxin–antitoxin modules, including one mazEF module, SamazEF. Using an on-column separation protocol we are able to obtain large amounts of wild-type SaMazF toxin. The protein is well-folded and highly resistant against thermal unfolding but aggregates at elevated temperatures. Crystallographic and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) solution studies show a well-defined dimer. Differences in structure and dynamics between the X-ray and NMR structural ensembles are found in three loop regions, two of which undergo motions that are of functional relevance. The same segments also show functionally relevant dynamics in the distantly related CcdB family despite divergence of function. NMR chemical shift mapping and analysis of residue conservation in the MazF family suggests a conserved mode for the inhibition of MazF by MazE.
Upregulation of a T-Type Ca2+ Channel Causes a Long-Lasting Modification of Neuronal Firing Mode after Status Epilepticus

A single episode of status epilepticus (SE) causes numerous structural and functional changes in the brain that can lead to the development of a chronic epileptic condition. Most studies of this plasticity have focused on changes in excitatory and inhibitory synaptic properties. However, the intrinsic firing properties that shape the output of the neuron to a given synaptic input may also be persistently affected by SE. Thus, 54% of CA1 pyramidal cells, which normally fire in a regular mode, are persistently converted to a bursting mode after an episode of SE induced by the convulsant pilocarpine. In this model, intrinsic bursts evoked by threshold-straddling depolarizations, and their underlying spike afterdepolarizations (ADPs), were resistant to antagonists of N-, P/Q-, or L-type Ca2+ channels but were readily suppressed by low (30–100 μm) concentrations of Ni2+ known to block T- and R-type Ca2+ channels. The density of T-type Ca2+ currents, but not of other pharmacologically isolated Ca2+ current types, was upregulated in CA1 pyramidal neurons after SE. The augmented T-type currents were sensitive to Ni2+ in the same concentration range that blocked the novel intrinsic bursting in these neurons (IC50 = 27 μm). These data suggest that SE may persistently convert regular firing cells to intrinsic bursters by selectively increasing the density of a Ni2+-sensitive T-type Ca2+current. This nonsynaptic plasticity considerably amplifies the output of CA1 pyramidal neurons to synaptic inputs and most probably contributes to the development and expression of an epileptic condition after SE.
An active guarding technique for substrate noise suppression on LC-tank oscillators

An active guarding technique is demonstrated for substrate immunity improvement on LC-tank oscillators. Active components in the oscillator, which are sensitive to substrate noise and contribute to the output most, are guarded from the substrate perturbation by applying the active guarding circuit to decouple and also compensate the noise current. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed technique, noise signals of both single and multiple tones of various frequencies are injected to the substrate close to the guarded transistors and measure the sideband spurs by switching the active guarding circuit on/off respectively. Experimental results showed more than 11 dB noise suppression performances can be achieved in a wide frequency range from DC to 10 GHz. By applying the active guarding circuit to a LC-tank oscillator, more than 17 dB spur suppression performance is obtained in the frequency range of interest.
Congestion resistant routing algorithm for a congestion resistant ring road network on chip

Ring Road NoC (R2NoC), which was motivated by smooth flow of traffic in interconnected ring roads, is the base for this paper. Router design and routing algorithm for R2NoC is much simpler. In this paper we have developed the R2NOC's algorithm of routing in two ways. One of them is finding the shortest way between source and destination (θ algorithm) and as the second improvement, when we have a congestion or a link is broken, the CR (Congestion Resistant) algorithm will find another way to send the packet and we maintain that this way is shortest safe way and because of that, our algorithm is congestion resistant.
Performance of natural ester as a transformer oil in moisture-rich environments

Interest has risen among utilities in using natural ester (NE) insulating oils in transformers as a substitute for conventional mineral oil. However, present understanding on aging behaviour of NE-paper composite insulation system and knowledge on application of existing condition monitoring tools for NE-based insulation are inadequate. This limits the cost effective and reliable field applications of NE insulating oil. To pave the way the application of NE-based insulation in transformers, a systematic study has been performed to compare the aging behaviour of transformer grade pressboard (PB) impregnated in NE and conventional mineral oil. Applicability of a number of chemical and physical parameters, including acidity value, dielectric dissipation factor (DDF), viscosity, and colour for assessing the quality of NE insulating oil is also discussed in this paper. Comparisons are made based on the limiting values provided in the related IEEE Standard and properties of mineral oil under similar aging conditions.
Cellular Pathways in Response to Ionizing Radiation and Their Targetability for Tumor Radiosensitization

During the last few decades, improvements in the planning and application of radiotherapy in combination with surgery and chemotherapy resulted in increased survival rates of tumor patients. However, the success of radiotherapy is impaired by two reasons: firstly, the radioresistance of tumor cells and, secondly, the radiation-induced damage of normal tissue cells located in the field of ionizing radiation. These limitations demand the development of drugs for either radiosensitization of tumor cells or radioprotection of normal tissue cells. In order to identify potential targets, a detailed understanding of the cellular pathways involved in radiation response is an absolute requirement. This review describes the most important pathways of radioresponse and several key target proteins for radiosensitization.
Warped Disks as a Possible Origin of Torque Reversals in Accretion-powered Pulsars

Enigmatic transitions between spin-up and spin-down have been observed in several X-ray pulsars accreting matter via an accretion disk. In these transitions, the torque changes sign but remains at nearly the same magnitude. It has been noted previously that alternating prograde and retrograde disk flows would explain many features of the torque reversals, although it has been unclear how a stable retrograde disk could be formed. We suggest that the reversals may be related to the disk at times being warped to such an extent that the inner region becomes tilted by more than 90°. This region would thus become retrograde, leading to a negative torque. Accretion disk models can show such behavior, if account is taken of a warping instability due to irradiation. The resulting "flip-overs" of the inner parts of the disk can reproduce most characteristics of the observations, although it remains unclear what sets the timescale on which the phenomenon occurs. If this model were correct, it would have a number of ramifications, for instance, that in the spin-down state, the X-ray source would mostly be observed through the accretion disk.
A Comprehensive Study of the Behavior of Different TCP Variants using Multistate Error Model in Cellular Mobile Environment

The widespread use of internet services over the wireless links is expeditiously grown in recent years. The reinforcement of portable computing platform and technological elevation of wireless communication evokes substantial prosperity in the design and development of integrated environment such as cellular mobile environments. The repercussion of packet losses due to corruption and mobility is the radical circumstances of deteriorating TCP performance in the wireless ambience. Uniform and Multistate error model are both used in wireless environment; Uniform error model provides packet losses at a constant rate which consequence an imprecise results during simulation as in wireless environment packet losses are arbitrary, bursty and time diversify in nature. However Multistate error model imitates the behavior of the wireless packet loss in real environment and produce infallible outcome. In this paper we constitute a realistic Cellular Mobile Environment by considering multistage error model in the design of wireless packet losses. Mobility in structure is also conceived to estimate the actual performance of TCP. Moreover the behavior of TCP Tahoe, Reno, New Reno, Sack and Vegas in Cellular Mobile network is simulated to perceive the impact of wireless link on the behavior of these TCP variants. Finally from the result of our simulation we conclude the best TCP variants for different circumstances.