Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Public policies and rights of children and adolescents: The media's role in the citzenship expansion

Resumo: O artigo descreve os resultados de pesquisa que avaliou a qualidade da cobertura de assuntos ligados a preservacao dos direitos da infância e adolescencia nos oito principais jornais das maiores cidades da regiao administrativa de Bauru (SP), no periodo de agosto de 2008 a marco de 2009. Do total de 389 materias avaliadas, 66% noticiaram atos infracionais e de violencia com criancas e adolescentes como vitimas ou agentes, com enfoque fragmentado e superficial; 34% sao abordagens mais amplas sobre as politicas publicas destinadas a preservacao de direitos sociais. Os resultados indicam a ocorrencia de uma quantidade minoritaria — ainda que significativa — de materias que apresentaram abordagens mais completas e contextualizadas. De maneira geral, pode-se indicar que a contribuicao da midia como forma de vigilância sobre a execucao das politicas publicas do setor tem sido limitada, o que justifica a preocupacao de exigir, dos meios de comunicacao, medidas para que cumpram a funcao social a eles atribuida pelas democracias contemporâneas para a expansao da cidadania.
The disappearing boundary between development-time and run-time

Modern software systems are increasingly embedded in an open world that is constantly evolving, because of changes in the requirements, in the surrounding environment, and in the way people interact with them. The platform itself on which software runs may change over time, as we move towards cloud computing. These changes are difficult to predict and anticipate, and their occurrence is out of control of the application developers. Because of these changes, the applications themselves need to change. Often, changes in the applications cannot be handled off-line, but require the software to self-react by adapting its behavior dynamically, to continue to ensure the desired quality of service. The big challenge in front of us is how to achieve the necessary degrees of flexibility and dynamism required by software without compromising the necessary dependability. This paper advocates that future software engineering research should focus on providing intelligent support to software at run-time, breaking today's rigid boundary between development-time and run-time. Models need to continue to live at run-time and evolve as changes occur while the software is running. To ensure dependability, analysis that the updated system models continue to satisfy the goals must be performed by continuous verification. If verification fails, suitable adjustment policies, supported by model-driven re-derivation of parts of the system, must be activated to keep the system aligned with its expected requirements. The paper presents the background that motivates this research focus, the main existing research directions, and an agenda for future work.
Performance evaluation and characterization of scalable data mining algorithms

Data mining has become one of the most essential tools in diverse fields. The increases in data sizes and algorithmic complexities require the computational power of chip to increase even further. In this paper, we present detailed characteristics from the hardware and software perspectives for a set of representative data mining programs. We first design MineBench, a benchmarking suite containing representative data mining applications from multiple categories including two classification, two association rule mining, and four clustering applications. We evaluate the MineBench applications on an 8-way Shared Memory Parallel (SMP) machine and analyze their important performance characteristics. During the evaluation, the input datasets and the number of processors used are varied to measure the scalability of the applications in our benchmark suite. We present the results based on characteristics such as scalability, I/O complexity, fraction of time spent in the OS mode, and communication/synchronization overheads. This information can aid designers of future systems as well as programmers of new data mining algorithms to achieve better system and algorithmic performance.
Correlation of tumor size and survival in patients with stage IA non-small cell lung cancer.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between tumor size and survival in patients with stage IA non-small cell lung cancer (non-small cell lung cancer; ie, lesions < 3 cm). METHOD Five hundred ten patients with pathologic stage IA (T1N0M0) non-small cell lung cancer were identified from our tumor registry over an 18-year period (from 1981 to 1999). There were 285 men and 225 women, with a mean age of 63 years (range, 31 to 90 years). The Cox proportional model was used to examine the effect on survival. Tumor size was incorporated into the model as a linear effect and as categorical variables. The Kaplan-Meier product limit estimator was used to graphically display the relationship between the tumor size and survival. RESULTS The Cox proportional hazards model did not show a statistically significant relationship between tumor size and survival (p = 0.701) as a linear effect. Tumor size was then categorized into quartiles, and again there was no statistically significant difference in survival between groups (p = 0.597). Tumor size was also categorized into deciles, and there was no statistical relationship between tumor size and survival (p = 0.674). CONCLUSIONS This study confirms stratifying patients with stage IA non-small cell lung cancer in the same TNM classification, given no apparent difference in survival. Unfortunately, these data caution that improved small nodule detection with screening CT may not significantly improve lung cancer mortality. The appropriate prospective randomized trial appears warranted.
On recombination and optimal mutation rates

We present empirical evidence, from a wide range of problem characteristics, suggesting that the value of optimal mutation rates in GAs differs according to whether recombination is used or not. Without recombination, a regime that starts with a high mutation rate, decreasing it towards the end of the run, appears to be optimal. With recombination, however, the optimal strategy proves to be a constant, sufficiently low mutation rate. Moreover, when recombination is used, the choice of an excessively high mutation rate might degrade the algorithm's performance considerably. These results are supported by recent knowledge from the field of molecular evolution about the effect of recombination on the so called error thresholds. We conclude by proposing a novel argument favoring the use of recombination in GAs. This argument, which we call the dual-role of recombination, sheds new light on the role of this operator in genetic search.
Towards an Empirical Study Design for Concurrent Software Testing

High Performance Computing (HPC) applications consist of concurrent programs with multi-process and/or multithreaded models with varying degree of parallelism. Although these applications are similar to the sequential ones in terms of design patterns, models and principles, they present nondeterministic behavior making the testing activity more complex. Trying to solve this issue a variety of concurrent software testing techniques has been proposed for concurrent programs. However, the problem of the technique selection to a specific context remains. The comparison among techniques to provide an effective selection is difficult because there is not a guideline to build empirical studies and obtain relevant and comparable information in this area. This work proposes a preliminary design for empirical studies based on a literature survey in concurrent software testing context. The purpose is improving the conduction and comparison of empirical studies and, hence, supporting the construction of a body of evidence.
Why does Speech Understanding in Noise Decline with Age? The Contribuition of Age-related Differences in Auditory Priming, Stream Segregation, and Listening in Fluctuating Maskers

Competing speech seems to pose a greater challenge to spoken language comprehension than does competing noise, especially for older adults. The difficulties of older adults may be due to declines in auditory and cognitive processing. However, evidence suggests that the use of top-down information processing to overcome this interference may be preserved in aging. This research investigated the effect of speechand noise masking on language comprehension, as well as age-related differences in the use of top-down processing to overcome masking. Topic I examined whether younger and older adults gain the same release from masking given a partial preview of a target sentence in quiet (auditory prime) prior to hearing the full sentence in noise, and investigated the auditory factors contributing to the advantage provided by the primes. Results showed that despite age-related declines in overall performance, younger and older listeners benefited similarly from priming. This benefit was not attributable to
Reactome: a knowledgebase of biological pathways

Reactome, located at http://www.reactome. org is a curated, peer-reviewed resource of human biological processes. Given the genetic makeup of an organism, the complete set of possible reactions constitutes its reactome. The basic unit of the Reactome database is a reaction; reactions are then grouped into causal chains to form pathways. The Reactome data model allows us to represent many diverse processes in the human system, including the pathways of intermediary metabolism, regulatory pathways, and signal transduction, and high-level processes, such as the cell cycle. Reactome provides a qualitative framework, on which quantitative data can be superimposed. Tools have been developed to facilitate custom data entry and annotation by expert biologists, and to allow visualization and exploration of the finished dataset as an interactive process map. Although our primary curational domain is pathways from Homo sapiens, we regularly create electronic projections of human pathways onto other organisms via putative orthologs, thus making Reactome relevant to model organism research communities. The database is publicly available under open source terms, which allows both its content and its software infrastructure to be freely used and redistributed.
Analysis of the information needs of an autonomous hauler in a quarry site

Autonomous and intelligent construction equipment is an emergent area of research, which shares many characteristics with on-road autonomous vehicles, but also have fundamental differences. Construction vehicles usually perform repetitive tasks in confined sites, such as quarries, and cooperate with other vehicles to complete common missions. A quarry can be viewed as a system-of-systems and the vehicles are individual systems within the site system. Therefore it is important to analyze the site system, i.e. included vehicles, surrounding systems, and system context, before the introduction of autonomous vehicles. It is necessary to map the needed infrastructure, and the needed input information from on-board sensors and off-board information suppliers, before designing the vehicle electronics system. This paper describes how we identified sensory and input signal needs for an autonomous articulated hauler in a scenario at a quarry site. Different architectural alternatives are evaluated and a set-up for a quarry site is suggested.
The Effects of Altered Sodium Balance and Adrenergic Blockade on Renin Release Induced in Rats by Angiotensin Antagonism

Circulating angiotensin II is said to inhibit renin release by a direct, intrarenal action. This effect of angiotensin was studied indirectly using the selective angiotensin II antagonist saralasin (l-Sar-8-Ala-angiotensin II) in conscious normal, sodium-depleted, and sodium-loaded rats. Saralasin caused a dose-related increase in plasma renin concentration (PRC) in normal and sodium-depleted rats, but had no effect on PRC in sodium-loaded animals. However, saralasin was 300 times more active in sodium-depleted rats than in normal rats. Saralasin caused hypotension and tachycardia in sodium-depleted rats, but not in normals. Propranolol inhibited saralasin-induced renin release by 99% in normal rats and by 75% in sodium-depleted rats but did not alter the hypotensive effect of saralasin in the latter. Saralasin potentiated phentolamine-induced renin release, hypotension, and tachycardia in normal rats, and this potentiated renin release was blocked by propranolol. We conclude that a portion of saralasin-elicited renin release in sodium-depleted rats is mediated by hypotensive activation of the carotid baroreceptor reflex which increases sympathetic nervous activity in the kidney. However, in sodium-depleted rats saralasin induced a 42-fold increase in PRC, whereas an equipotent hypotensive dose of the vasodilator hydralazine caused only a 3.5-fold increase in PRC. Thus, we find that saralasin appears to have a selective effect on renin release over and above its hypotensive effect, which suggests an angiotensin-mediated, feedback mechanism inhibitory to renin release. Thus, we have come to the conclusion that for part of saralasin-induced renin release appears to be caused by disinhibition of angiotensin suppression of renin secretion. This "short-loop" feedback mechanism is closely associated with intrarenal β-adrenergic receptors, since propranolol impaired saralasin-induced renin release under all circumstances in our experiments.
Consistent Video Quality Control in Scalable Video Coding Using Dependent Distortion Quantization Model

Consistent video quality control is an important and practical issue for video streaming applications. Several algorithms have been developed in the literature that aims to maintain consistent quality through the entire video sequence, whereas most of them focus on non-scalable video coding. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for consistent quality control for H.264/AVC based scalable video coding (SVC), relying on a dependent distortion-quantization (D-Q) model. Such a dependent D-Q model is developed to capture the distortion behavior of frames at enhancement layers (ELs) by exploring the correlation between two successive layers. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model can accurately estimate the distortion of each frame at different layers in the quality, temporal, and spatial scalability. The proposed model is applied in SVC where the quantization parameter of each frame at EL is carefully selected to achieve consistent video quality given the distortion constraint. Meanwhile, model parameters are initialized using the content features extracted from the underlying video sequences, and updated using the encoded data at the frame level. Simulations show that the proposed scheme enables more stable video quality with the PSNR keeping close to the target value (i.e., small PSNR variation).
Estrogenic Effects of Several BPA Analogs in the Developing Zebrafish Brain

Important set of studies have demonstrated the endocrine disrupting activity of Bisphenol A (BPA). The present work aimed at defining estrogenic-like activity of several BPA structural analogs, including BPS, BPF, BPAF, and BPAP, on 4- or 7-day post-fertilization (dpf) zebrafish larva as an in vivo model. We measured the induction level of the estrogen-sensitive marker cyp19a1b gene (Aromatase B), expressed in the brain, using three different in situ/in vivo strategies: (1) Quantification of cyp19a1b transcripts using RT-qPCR in wild type 7-dpf larva brains exposed to bisphenols; (2) Detection and distribution of cyp19a1b transcripts using in situ hybridization on 7-dpf brain sections (hypothalamus); and (3) Quantification of the cyp19a1b promoter activity in live cyp19a1b-GFP transgenic zebrafish (EASZY assay) at 4-dpf larval stage. These three different experimental approaches demonstrated that BPS, BPF, or BPAF exposure, similarly to BPA, significantly activates the expression of the estrogenic marker in the brain of developing zebrafish. In vitro experiments using both reporter gene assay in a glial cell context and competitive ligand binding assays strongly suggested that up-regulation of cyp19a1b is largely mediated by the zebrafish estrogen nuclear receptor alpha (zfERα). Importantly, and in contrast to other tested bisphenol A analogs, the bisphenol AP (BPAP) did not show estrogenic activity in our model.
Complement: Substitution of the Terminal Component in Immune Hemolysis by 1,10-Phenanthroline

The participation of metal ions in the terminal step of immune cytolysis was investigated with chelating agents. 1,10-Phenanthroline induced lysis of sensitized sheep erythrocytes which had reacted with the first eight components of human complement. Hemolysis caused by 1,10-phenanthroline resembled lysis produced by the ninth component of complement in dependence on cell-bound eighth component and on temperature and in inhibition by 0.09M ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. Bivalent metal ions reduced the hemolytic capacity of 1,10-phenanthroline, and Fe++ inhibited the activity of the ninth component. Since trivalent iron had no such effects, it is postulated that the hemolytic activity of 1,10-phenanthroline and the ninth component of complement is a function of their affinity for Fe++.
Plasma Level of Endogenous Secretory RAGE Is Associated With Components of the Metabolic Syndrome and Atherosclerosis

Objective—Advanced glycation endproducts, AGEs, and its specific receptor, RAGE, are involved in diabetic vascular complications. Endogenous secretory RAGE, esRAGE, has been identified as an alternatively spliced form of RAGE, and shown to act as a decoy receptor for AGE. Here, we measured plasma esRAGE level with a recently developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and examined its association with atherosclerosis in age- and gender-matched 203 type 2 diabetic and 134 nondiabetic subjects. Methods and Results—Plasma esRAGE was inversely associated with carotid or femoral atherosclerosis, as quantitatively measured as intimal-medial thickness (IMT) by arterial ultrasound. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that plasma esRAGE was the third strongest and independent factor associated with carotid IMT, following age and systolic blood pressure. Plasma esRAGE was significantly lower in diabetic patients (0.176±0.092 ng/mL) than nondiabetic controls (0.253±0.111). Of note, in all, diabetic or nondiabetic group, plasma esRAGE was significantly and inversely correlated with components of the metabolic syndrome including body mass index, blood pressure, triglyceride, HbA1c, or an insulin resistance index. Stepwise regression analyses showed that body mass index or insulin resistance index was the major factor determining plasma esRAGE in all, nondiabetic or diabetic population. Conclusions—esRAGE is a novel and potential protective factor for the metabolic syndrome and atherosclerosis.
An Efficient Authenticated Key Exchange Protocol with a Tight Security Reduction

In this paper, we present a new authenticated key exchange(AKE) protocol, called NETS, and prove its security in the extended Canetti-Krawczyk model under the random oracle assumption and the gap Diffie-Hellman(GDH) assumption. Our protocol enjoys a simple and tight security reduction compared to those of HMQV and CMQV without using the Forking Lemma. Each session of the NETS protocol requires only three exponentiations per party, which is comparable to the efficiency of MQV, HMQV and CMQV.
Bayesian non‐response models for categorical data from small areas: an application to BMD and age

We provide a Bayesian analysis of data categorized into two levels of age (younger than 50 years, at least 50 years) and three levels of bone mineral density (normal, osteopenia, osteoporosis) for white females at least 20 years old in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. For the sample, the age of each individual is known, but some individuals did not have their BMD measured. We use two types of models: In the ignorable non‐response models the propensity to respond does not depend on BMD and age of an individual, while in the non‐ignorable non‐response models it does. These are the baseline models which are used to derive all models for testing. Our non‐ignorable non‐response models are ‘close’ to the ignorable non‐response models, thereby reducing the effects of the assumptions about non‐respondents that cannot be tested in non‐response models. We have data from 35 counties, small areas, and therefore our models are hierarchical, a feature that allows a ‘borrowing of strength’ across the counties, and they provide a substantial reduction in variation. The non‐ignorable non‐response models are generalizations of the ignorable non‐response models, and therefore, the non‐ignorable non‐response models allow broader inference. The joint posterior density of the parameters for each model is complex, and therefore, we fit each model using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to obtain samples which are used to make inference about BMD and age. For each county we can estimate the proportion of individuals in each BMD and age cell of the categorical table, and we can assess the relation between BMD and age using the Bayes factor. A sensitivity analysis shows that there are differences (typically small) in inference that permits different levels of association between BMD and age. A simulation study shows that there is not much difference between the baseline ignorable and non‐ignorable non‐response models. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Solitary Hepatic Nodule Adjacent to the Right Portal Vein: A Common Finding of Alagille Syndrome?

Background: Hepatic lesions have been described in Alagille syndrome (ALGS) in isolated case reports, and most of these have been reported to be hepatocellular carcinoma. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to determine the frequency, imaging, and histopathologic characteristics of hepatic lesions in children with ALGS. Methods: Available abdominal imaging of children with ALGS was retrospectively reviewed to note the presence of any focal liver lesion, its location, and imaging characteristics. Other findings including signs of portal hypertension, portal lymph nodes, and splenic and renal abnormalities were also noted. Findings were correlated with pathology in available cases and with clinical follow-up. Results: Of 55 children with clinically and/or genetically confirmed ALGS followed in the liver clinic, 39 (19 boys, 20 girls; mean age 8.9 years) with imaging available on picture archival and communication system were included in the study. Focal hepatic lesions were seen in 12 of the 39 (30%) children, solitary in 11 and multiple in 1. Ten of these children had a large nodule adjacent to the right portal vein. The median diameter of the lesions was 8.1 cm (range 5.6–9.8 cm). Magnetic resonance imaging features and pathology in available cases were suggestive of a regenerative nodule. &agr;-fetoprotein levels were normal in all except 1 child who had mild elevation. Conclusions: Combining our series and previous case reports, the presence of a large nodule adjacent to the right portal vein appears to be a common finding in ALGS. The typical location, normal &agr;-fetoprotein levels, and magnetic resonance imaging features with vessels coursing through the lesion can reliably differentiate this benign nodule from hepatocellular carcinoma.