Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Employees Care About Their Relative Income Position? Behavioral Evidence Focusing on Performance in Professional Team Sport†

Objective Do employees care about their relative (economic) position in comparison to their co-workers in an organization? And if so, does it raise or lower their performance? While the topic is widely discussed in the literature, behavioral evidence on these important questions is relatively rare. Methods This article explores the pay-performance relationship using a sports data set. The strength of analyzing such data is that sports tournaments take place in a very controlled environment that helps to isolate a relative income effect. Results Using two large unique data sets that cover 26 seasons in basketball and eight seasons in soccer (Bundesliga), we find considerable support for the idea that a relative income disadvantage is correlated with a decrease in individual performance. In addition, there does not seem to be any tolerance for income disparity based on the hope that such differences may signal that better times are ahead. Conclusions This suggests the need to consider the impact of the relative income position when designing pay-for-performance mechanisms within firms and teams.
Concurrency Control and Security issues of Distributed Databases

This paper reviews the coverage of concurrency control and security in distributed Network. more popular, the need for improvement in distributed database management systems becomes even more important. most important of these factors of distributed database are single level and multilevel access controls, protection against inference, and maintenance of integrity. The review shows that many concurrency issues and paper we survey, consolidate , and present the state of the art in distributed database concurrency control. The heart of our analysts is a different factor of concurrency control and security. This paper will examine the underlying features of the distributed database Management syst em. Learning the task of distributed database management system will lead us to a successful design. The design will improve scalability, accessibility and flexibility while accessing various types of data. further propose solutions for some of the secu
Provider-initiated HIV testing in health care settings: Should it include client-centered counselling?

To increase access to HIV testing, the WHO and CDC have recommended implementing provider-initiated HIV testing (PITC). To address the resource limitations of the PITC setting, WHO and CDC suggest that patient-provider interactions during PITC may need to focus on providing information and referrals, instead of engaging patients in client-centered counselling, as is recommended during client-initiated HIV testing. Providing HIV prevention information has been shown to be less effective than client-centered counselling in reducing HIV-risk behaviour and STI incidence. Therefore, concerns exist about the efficacy of PITC as an HIV prevention approach. However, reductions in HIV incidence may be greater if more people know their HIV status through expanded availability of PITC, even if PITC is a less effective prevention intervention than is client-initiated HIV testing for individual patients. In the absence of an answer to this public health question, adaptation of effective brief client-centered counselling approaches to PITC should be explored along with research assessing the efficacy of PITC.
Techniques for noise removal from EEG, EOG, and airflow signals in sleep patients

Noise is present in the wide variety of signals obtained from sleep patients. This noise comes from a number of sources, from presence of extraneous signals to adjustments in signal amplification and shot noise in the circuits used for data collection. The noise needs to be removed in order to maximize the information gained about the patient using both manual and automatic analysis of the signals. Here we evaluate a number of new techniques for removal of that noise, and the associated problem of separating the original signal sources.
Alday-Maldacena duality and AdS Plateau problem

A short summary of approximate approach to the study of minimal surfaces in AdS, based on solving Nambu-Goto equations iteratively. Today, after partial denunciation of the BDS conjecture, this looks like the only constructive approach to understanding the ways of its possible modification and thus to saving the Alday-Maldacena duality. Numerous open technical problems are explicitly formulated throughout the text.
Repetitive transkranielle Magnetstimulation bei Schizophrenie

Zusammenfassung Während zur antidepressiven Wirkung der repetitiven transkraniellen Magnetstimulation (rTMS) eine große Zahl an Studien vorliegt, ist der Einsatz dieser Methode in der Behandlung der Schizophrenie bisher wenig untersucht. Es finden sich jedoch zunehmend Hinweise für die Wirksamkeit der rTMS bei Schizophrenie. Besonders beeindruckend ist dabei, dass die Negativsymptomatik durch rTMS beeinflussbar scheint. In diesem Zusammenhang ist zum Verständnis der rTMS-Wirkung bei Schizophrenie die Differenzierung zwischen Negativsymptomatik und depressiver Symptomatik von besonderer Bedeutung. Unter Verwendung eines plazebokontrollierten Paralleldesigns wurden 10 Patienten mit Schizophrenie in die Studie eingeschlossen. Die Stimulation erfolgte hochfrequent (10 Hz) über dem linken dorsolateralen praefrontalen Kortex (DLPFC) an 10 Tagen. Bei der Evaluation der rTMS-Wirkung wurde durch Auswahl geeigneter Ratingskalen auf die Diskriminierung von Negativ- und depressiver Symptomatik Wert gelegt. Es zeigte sich, dass die aktive hochfrequente rTMS verglichen mit Plazebostimulation zu einer grenzwertig signifikanten Verminderung der Negativsymptomatik führt. Weiter fand sich ein Trend bezüglich der Verminderung depressiver Symptomatik. Die selektive Modulation mesolimbischer und mesostriataler dopaminerger Systeme, die in mehreren Untersuchungen im Zusammenhang mit hochfrequenter rTMS demonstriert wurde, könnte die therapeutischen Effekte auf Negativsymptomatik und depressive Symptomatik erklären.
Regeneration of Cryoinjury Induced Necrotic Heart Lesions in Zebrafish Is Associated with Epicardial Activation and Cardiomyocyte Proliferation

In mammals, myocardial cell death due to infarction results in scar formation and little regenerative response. In contrast, zebrafish have a high capacity to regenerate the heart after surgical resection of myocardial tissue. However, whether zebrafish can also regenerate lesions caused by cell death has not been tested. Here, we present a simple method for induction of necrotic lesions in the adult zebrafish heart based on cryoinjury. Despite widespread tissue death and loss of cardiomyocytes caused by these lesions, zebrafish display a robust regenerative response, which results in substantial clearing of the necrotic tissue and little scar formation. The cellular mechanisms underlying regeneration appear to be similar to those activated in response to ventricular resection. In particular, the epicardium activates a developmental gene program, proliferates and covers the lesion. Concomitantly, mature uninjured cardiomyocytes become proliferative and invade the lesion. Our injury model will be a useful tool to study the molecular mechanisms of natural heart regeneration in response to necrotic cell death.
Computational Psychometrics for the Measurement of Collaborative Problem Solving Skills

This paper describes a psychometrically-based approach to the measurement of collaborative problem solving skills, by mining and classifying behavioral data both in real-time and in post-game analyses. The data were collected from a sample of middle school children who interacted with a game-like, online simulation of collaborative problem solving tasks. In this simulation, a user is required to collaborate with a virtual agent to solve a series of tasks within a first-person maze environment. The tasks were developed following the psychometric principles of Evidence Centered Design (ECD) and are aligned with the Holistic Framework developed by ACT. The analyses presented in this paper are an application of an emerging discipline called computational psychometrics which is growing out of traditional psychometrics and incorporates techniques from educational data mining, machine learning and other computer/cognitive science fields. In the real-time analysis, our aim was to start with limited knowledge of skill mastery, and then demonstrate a form of continuous Bayesian evidence tracing that updates sub-skill level probabilities as new conversation flow event evidence is presented. This is performed using Bayes' rule and conversation item conditional probability tables. The items are polytomous and each response option has been tagged with a skill at a performance level. In our post-game analysis, our goal was to discover unique gameplay profiles by performing a cluster analysis of user's sub-skill performance scores based on their patterns of selected dialog responses.
2.4/5.5GHz LNA switch designs based on high resistive substrate 0.35um SiGe BiCMOS

In this paper, we present 2.4/5.5 GHz LNAs with SPDT Switch for WiFi Front-End Modulate Integrated Circuit (FEM IC) based on high resistivity substrate 0.35um SiGe BiCMOS process. For the 2.4GHz LNA, the bias circuit's effect on the nonlinearity is analyzed and measured, and then a new bias circuit is proposed. With 2.7V supply, it consumes 4.2mA current. The measured Gain is about 14.6dB with input and output return loss better than -10dB. The Noise Figure (NF) is 1.16dB, output 1dB compression point is ~8dBm, and OIP3 is about 20dBm. For the 5.5GHz LNA with proposed new bias circuit and SPDT switch operating at 7.3mA current with 2.7V power supply, 2.1dB NF and 19dBm OIP3 are achieved in the post layout simulation.
Chromosomal Breakpoint Reuse in Genome Sequence Rearrangement

In order to apply gene-order rearrangement algorithms to the comparison of genome sequences, Pevzner and Tesler bypass gene finding and ortholog identification and use the order of homologous blocks of unannotated sequence as input. The method excludes blocks shorter than a threshold length. Here we investigate possible biases introduced by eliminating short blocks, focusing on the notion of breakpoint reuse introduced by these authors. Analytic and simulation methods show that reuse is very sensitive to the proportion of blocks excluded. As is pertinent to the comparison of mammalian genomes, this exclusion risks randomizing the comparison partially or entirely.
Permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus due to KCNJ11 mutation in a Portuguese family: transition from insulin to oral sulfonylureas

Abstract Permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus (PNDM) is a rare form of diabetes diagnosed within the first 6 months of life. Heterozygous activation mutations in KCNJ11, encoding the Kir6.2 subunit of the ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channel, which acts as a key role in insulin secretion regulation, account for about half of the cases of PNDM. The majority of the patients represent isolated cases resulting from de novo mutations. Approximately 20% have associated neurologic features: the most severe form, which includes epilepsy and developmental delay, is called developmental delay, epilepsy, and neonatal diabetes (DEND) syndrome and the milder form, with less severe developmental delay and without epilepsy, is designated intermediate DEND syndrome. Individuals with KCNJ11 mutations have been successfully transitioned from insulin to sulfonylurea (SU) therapy. Furthermore, there have been cases reported with variable improvement in neurological function following a successful switching. We describe a 12-year-old Portuguese girl with PNDM due to the previously reported R201C mutation in the KCNJ11 gene. Her medical history includes prematurity and moderate developmental delay. The mutation was inherited from her mother who has isolated PNDM. The patient was successfully transferred from insulin to SU, whereas her mother showed SU resistance. Despite good glycemic control, no improvements in the cognitive performance were verified. We present our experience in switching treatment from insulin to oral SUs in this family, and also discuss whether or not the girl’s developmental delay is related with the Kir6.2 mutation. To our knowledge, this is the first Portuguese patient reported with successful transition to SU treatment.
Anatomical and pharmacological relationship between acetylcholine and nitric oxide in the prepositus hypoglossi nucleus of the cat: Functional implications for eye‐movement control

The prepositus hypoglossi (PH) nucleus has been proposed as a pivotal structure for horizontal eye‐position generation in the oculomotor system. Recent studies have revealed that acetylcholine (ACh) in the PH nucleus could mediate the persistent activity necessary for this process, although the origin of this ACh remains unknown. It is also known that nitric oxide (NO) in the PH nucleus plays an important role in the control of velocity balance, being involved in a negative feedback control of tonic signals arriving at the PH nucleus. As it could be expected that neurons taking part in eye‐position generation must control their tonic background inputs, the existence of a relationship between nitrergic and cholinergic neurons is hypothesized. In the present study we analyzed the distribution, size, and morphology of choline acetyltransferase‐positive neurons, and their relationship with neuronal nitric oxide synthase in the PH nucleus of the cat. As presumed, some 96% of cholinergic neurons were also nitrergic in the PH nucleus, suggesting that NO is regulating the level of ACh released by cholinergic PH neurons. Furthermore, we studied the alterations induced by muscarinic‐receptor agonists and antagonists on spontaneous and vestibularly induced eye movements in the alert cat and compared them with those induced in previous studies by modification of NO levels in the same animal preparation. The results suggest that ACh is necessary for the generation of saccadic and vestibular eye‐position signals, whereas the NO is stabilizing the eye‐position generator by controlling background activity reaching cholinergic neurons in the PH nucleus. J. Comp. Neurol. 503:407–420, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Photoreceptor protection by adeno-associated virus-mediated LEDGF expression in the RCS rat model of retinal degeneration: probing the mechanism.

PURPOSE Lens epithelium-derived growth factor (LEDGF) is upregulated in response to stress and enhances the survival of neurons in the retina and optic nerve, as well as a wide range of other cells, such as fibroblasts and keratinocytes. Photoreceptor protection was investigated in the RCS rat retinal degeneration model after Ledgf delivery with an adeno-associated virus (AAV) and the mechanism of protection explored. METHODS Thirty-six RCS and nine P23H rats had bilateral subretinal injections of AAV-Ledgf in one eye and buffer in the contralateral eye as the control. Retinal function was evaluated 8 weeks later by the electroretinogram and compared with photoreceptor cell layer count. LEDGF mRNA and protein levels and mRNA levels of known stress-related factors were compared in treated and control retinas to explore the mechanism of LEDGF protection. Nine RCS rats were treated with adenovirus-heat shock protein 27 (Ad-HSP27) and examined for protection. RESULTS Significant photoreceptor protection was evident functionally and morphologically in 65% to 100% of the RCS rats treated at early ages of up to 7 weeks. Cell protection was more prominent in the superior retinal hemisphere which has a slower natural degeneration rate in untreated eyes. Although many of the heat shock proteins and other stress-related genes showed significant elevation in the AAV-Ledgf-treated eyes, all increases were approximately twofold or less. Transduction of retinal cells with Ad-HSP27 also resulted in photoreceptor protection. AAV-Ledgf elicited no photoreceptor functional protection in P23H rhodopsin transgenic rat retina. CONCLUSIONS Chronic LEDGF treatment via AAV-Ledgf administration gave successful protection of photoreceptors in the RCS rat retina and retarded cell death by about 2 weeks. Induction of heat shock proteins also gave photoreceptor protection. However, compelling evidence was not found that LEDGF protection was associated with upregulation of heat shock proteins.
High accuracy information extraction of medication information from clinical notes: 2009 i2b2 medication extraction challenge

OBJECTIVE Medication information comprises a most valuable source of data in clinical records. This paper describes use of a cascade of machine learners that automatically extract medication information from clinical records. DESIGN Authors developed a novel supervised learning model that incorporates two machine learning algorithms and several rule-based engines. MEASUREMENTS Evaluation of each step included precision, recall and F-measure metrics. The final outputs of the system were scored using the i2b2 workshop evaluation metrics, including strict and relaxed matching with a gold standard. RESULTS Evaluation results showed greater than 90% accuracy on five out of seven entities in the name entity recognition task, and an F-measure greater than 95% on the relationship classification task. The strict micro averaged F-measure for the system output achieved best submitted performance of the competition, at 85.65%. LIMITATIONS Clinical staff will only use practical processing systems if they have confidence in their reliability. Authors estimate that an acceptable accuracy for a such a working system should be approximately 95%. This leaves a significant performance gap of 5 to 10% from the current processing capabilities. CONCLUSION A multistage method with mixed computational strategies using a combination of rule-based classifiers and statistical classifiers seems to provide a near-optimal strategy for automated extraction of medication information from clinical records.
American Journal of Epidemiology Original Contribution Association between Housing Affordability and Mental Health: a Longitudinal Analysis of a Nationally Representative Household Survey in Australia

Evidence about the mental health consequences of unaffordable housing is limited. The authors investigated whether people whose housing costs were more than 30% of their household income experienced a deterioration in their mental health (using the Short Form 36 Mental Component Summary), over and above other forms of financial stress. They hypothesized that associations would be limited to lower income households as high housing costs would reduce their capacity to purchase other essential nonhousing needs (e.g., food). Using fixed-effects longitudinal regression, the authors analyzed 38,610 responses of 10,047 individuals aged 25–64 years who participated in the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey (2001–2007). Respondents included those who remained in affordable housing over 2 consecutive waves (reference group) or had moved from affordable to unaffordable housing over 2 waves (comparison group). For individuals living in low-to-moderate income households, entering unaffordable housing was associated with a small decrease in their mental health score independent of changes in equivalized household income or having moved house (mean change ¼ À1.19, 95% confidence interval: À1.97, À0.41). The authors did not find evidence to support an association for higher income households. They found that entering unaffordable housing is detrimental to the mental health of individuals residing in low-to-moderate income households. Housing is the place where we spend the majority of our lives and one of the main settings that affect human health (1). Although a relation between housing and health is well established and housing is widely regarded as a key determinant of health (2), gaps remain in our understanding of the multiple potential pathways between housing and health (3–5). Existing evidence has focused mainly on more direct ''pathways'' (3) between physical dwelling characteristics, such as exposure to toxins (2), poor insulation (4), or dampness (6), and physical health outcomes, such as asthma (4, 7), skin infections (8), or cardiovascular disease (9). Less is known about how the social and economic aspects of housing relate to health, particularly mental health, a finding highlighted in recent reviews (10, 11). The relation between housing affordability and mental health has been established in a number of studies (6, 7, 12–14); affordability may influence health via the quality (12, 13), location (15), and tenure (14, 16, 17) of dwellings that households can access. Furthermore, in extreme cases, poor housing affordability can result in homelessness that is likely to be both a consequence and a determinant of poor …
A novel system for predicting liver histopathology in patients with chronic hepatitis B

Abstract There is currently a lack of reliable, reproducible, and easily applied methods for assessing changes in liver histology in patients in the gray zone phase of chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Therefore, we aimed to develop a novel predictive scoring system to detect significant liver histological changes in these patients. A total of 388 patients in the gray zone phase of CHB who underwent liver biopsy were divided into a training group and a validation group, and their clinical and routinely available laboratory parameters were analyzed using univariate analysis, Spearman correlation analysis, and logistic modeling. A novel scoring system, termed the Significant Histological Model (SHM), was constructed using logistic modeling. The diagnostic accuracy of our novel scoring system was evaluated by the receiving operating characteristic (ROC) method, sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values (NPVs). We established the novel SHM scoring system using serum aspartate transaminase (AST), platelet counts (PLTs), albumin (ALB), and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA (log10 IU/mL) levels. The area under the ROC curve of the SHM scoring system was 0.763 in the training group and 0.791 in the validation group. For patients with a score of −1.0 or less and no significant histological changes, the sensitivity was 78.9%, specificity was 51.5%, positive predictive value (PPV) was 46.4%, and NPV was 82.0%. In the validation set, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV were 80.0%, 66.6%, 56.3%, and 86.2%, respectively. This novel scoring system using AST, PLT, ALB, and HBV DNA (log10 IU/mL) levels identifies patients in the gray zone phase of CHB with and without histological changes with a high degree of accuracy. Here, we provide the experimental basis for the initiation of clinical antiviral treatment without the need for liver biopsy.
A Cool Scheduler for Multi-Core Systems Exploiting Program Phases

Rapid growth of cloud computing services have led to creation of large scale enterprise data centers which consume great amounts of energy. Data centers usually have an service level agreement (SLA) between the clients and the service providers, which specify the terms and quality of service to be provided. In this paper, we consider a situation in a data center where multiple user applications are executing on a multi-core system and each application may have a specified SLA requirement. We design a voltage and frequency scheduler (the “cool” scheduler) that can be used in enterprise data centers to provide CPU energy saving under the specified SLA requirement by exploiting the applications' run-time program phases. Our design greatly improves the computation efficiency compared to other recently published works. The scheduler is built into the Linux kernel and evaluated against SPEC CPU2006 and Phoronix Test Suite on a quad-core system. Experiment result demonstrates that our cool scheduler achieves 25.8% energy saving on average with 8.7% performance loss under the given SLA requirement (10% allowed performance loss). Our design achieves 35.8% and 31.6% more energy saving compared to two of the most advanced related works.