Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Party Identification and Public Spending Priorities in the American Electorate

In a study published in 1980, Alan Lewis found that members of the British mass public tend to have clearly defined preferences on spending in specific policy areas and that these preferences are closely related to party identification. This paper examines Lewis's conclusion in the American setting. Data on eleven spending policies from the 1973 and 1980 General Social Survey are examined via factor analysis and multiple classification analysis. While some change is observed between 1973 and 1980, the preferences of the American public on public expenditures appear to be quite stable and, contrary to Lewis's findings these preferences are unrelated to party identification.
Efficacy of a cognitive training programme for mild cognitive impairment: Results of a randomised controlled study

This study aimed to determine the efficacy of cognitive training in a 10-week randomised controlled study involving 22 individuals presenting with mild cognitive impairment of the amnestic type (MCI-A). Participants in the experimental group (n = 11) learned face–name associations using a paradigm combining errorless (EL) learning and spaced retrieval (SR) whereas participants in the control group (n = 11) were trained using an errorful (EF) learning paradigm. Psycho-educational sessions on memory were also provided to all participants. After neuropsychological screening and baseline evaluations, the cognitive training took place in 6 sessions over a 3-week period. The post-training and follow-up evaluations, at one and four weeks respectively, were performed by research assistants blind to the participant's study group. The results showed that regardless of the training condition, all participants improved their capacity to learn face–name associations. A significant amelioration was also observed in participant satisfaction regarding their memory functioning and in the frequency with which the participants used strategies to support memory functions in daily life. The absence of difference between groups on all variables might be partly explained by the high variability of scores within the experimental group. Other studies are needed in order to verify the efficacy of EL learning and SR over EF in MCI-A.
X-type attenuator in CMOS with novel control linearization, very low phase variations and automatic matching

In this article a fully differential CMOS attenuator with automatic matching and control linearization is presented. The circuit was measured from 100 MHz to 10 GHz and exhibits a phase variation of only 4° within an attenuation control range of 30 dB. The maximum gain control range is almost 50 dB. The control circuitry draws less than 500 μA from a 1.8 V supply. The circuit was fabricated in 0.18 μm CMOS requiring only 0.044 mm2 of chip area.
Predictors of reading among Herero–English bilingual Namibian school children

Predictions derived from the central processing and script dependent hypotheses were assessed by measuring the reading ability of 116 Grade 2–5 Herero–English bilingual children in Namibia ranging in age from 7 to 12 and investigating possible predictors of word reading among measures of cognitive/linguistic processes. Tasks included measures of word reading, decoding, phonological awareness, verbal and spatial memory, rapid naming, semantic fluency, sound discrimination, listening comprehension and non-verbal reasoning. Faster rates of improvement in literacy within the more transparent language (Herero) supported the predictions of the script dependent hypothesis. However, the central processing hypothesis was also supported by evidence indicating that common underlying cognitive-linguistic processing skills predicted literacy levels across the two languages. The results argue for the importance of phonological processing skills for the development of literacy skills across languages/scripts and show that phonological skills in the L2 can be reliable predictors of literacy in the L1.
Hypothesis Evaluation Based on Ubicomp Sensing: Moving from Researchers to Users

Emerging pervasive sensing technology provides new ways to create persuasive systems that can help people improve their health. Much persuasive computing research has involved the exploration of re- searchers 'h ypotheses about the ways that such ubicomp sensing can improve health. Our work aims to enable individual users to test their personal hypotheses about how their actions, as tracked by ubicomp sensors, and the interface tools that they elect to use, actually impact their health goals. This paper defines the notion of personal hypothesis evaluation. It then outlines a ubicomp architecture for the infrastructure and interfaces needed to enable a person to formulate a personal health hypothesis and then test it over a long time period, weeks, months or even years. Our key contribution is the definition of a new approach to creating a new class of user-controlled ubicomp persuasive system.
Entity Profile Based Approach in Automatic Knowledge Finding

Abstract : We focus on the problem of profile building in this year s KBA track and proposed two methods. The first method is a baseline, which selects the stream items that has exact string match with the query entity. All the matched documents are assigned with the same relevance score. In the second method, we propose to use the related entities to help us identify the information related to the query entity. In particular, we retrieve the wikipedia pages for the query entities and extract the anchor text in all the internal links within the wikipedia page. These anchor text are treated as the related entities of the query entity and they are used to build the profile of the query entity. Given a stream item (i.e., a document), the relevance score is estimated by integrating the match with the query entity and the match with the related entities. Results on the training data show that the second method is more effective.
Chicana Identity Construction: Pushing the Boundaries

Identity concepts that Chicana feminists have described as central to their developmental experience are not reflected in the traditional views of identity, feminist accounts of women’s identity, or ethnic identity theory. Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa initially postulated that in the straddling of two cultures, a hybrid or mestiza identity is created. Recent research efforts conducted by Chicanas identify attitudes and behaviors characteristic of mestizas, yielding new details and information on Chicana identity formation.
Electro‐fermentation triggering population selection in mixed‐culture glycerol fermentation

Electro‐fermentation is a new technique that could be used to influence the global metabolism in mixed‐culture fermentation. In this study, a mixed‐culture cathodic electro‐fermentation of glycerol was investigated. Both microbial community structure and metabolic patterns were altered when compared to standard fermentation. This microbial population shift was more significant when the working electrodes were pre‐colonized by Geobacter sulfurreducens, before electro‐fermentation. The electro‐fermenting microbial community was more efficient for producing 1,3‐propanediol with an improved yield of 10% when compared with fermentation controls. Such improvement did not require high energy and total electron input represented < 1% of the total electron equivalents provided only by glycerol. A linear model was developed to estimate the individual metabolic pattern of each operational taxonomic unit. Application of this model compared to the experimental results suggests that the changes in global metabolism were supported by bacterial population selection rather than individual metabolism shift. This study shows for the first time that both fermentation pattern and bacterial community composition can be influenced by electro‐fermentation conditions.
Risk of Stroke or Systemic Embolism in Atrial Fibrillation Patients Treated With Warfarin: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background and Purpose— Although oral anticoagulants (OACs) are highly effective in reducing stroke risk in atrial fibrillation, some patients still sustain stroke despite being on an OAC. Our aim was to identify the risk factors that contribute to stroke risk in atrial fibrillation, although patients were taking OACs in a clinical trial setting. Methods— We identified contemporary clinical trials that investigated OACs in patients with atrial fibrillation. Event rates per year from each study and pooled event rates and relative risks, all with a 95% confidence interval, were calculated. Statistical heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 test. Results— Six trials were included in the meta-analysis, with a total of 58 883 patients randomized. Characteristics associated with a higher relative risk of stroke while on an OAC included age ≥75 years (relative risk, 1.46 [95% confidence interval, 1.25–1.69]), female sex (1.30 [1.15–1.49]), previous stroke/transient ischemic attack (1.85 [1.32–2.60]), vitamin K-antagonist naive status (for vitamin K antagonist experienced, 0.85 [0.74–0.97]), moderate and severe renal impairment (1.54 [1.30–1.81] and 2.22 [1.85–2.66], respectively, compared with normal renal function), previous aspirin use (1.19 [1.04–1.37]), Asian race (1.70 [1.42–2.03]), and a CHADS2 score of ≥3 (1.64 [1.18–2.27]). Conclusions— Stroke rates are higher on OACs with some patient clinical characteristics, that is, older age, female sex, previous stroke/transient ischemic attack, vitamin K-antagonist naive status, renal impairment, previous aspirin use, and higher CHADS2 score. The identified risk factors for stroke while on an OAC could potentially be used to consider a risk assessment tool to flag up high-risk patients while on an OAC (in this case, warfarin). Whether these risk factors apply to novel OACs is uncertain.
In Vitro Activities of Posaconazole, Fluconazole, Itraconazole, Voriconazole, and Amphotericin B against a Large Collection of Clinically Important Molds and Yeasts

ABSTRACT The in vitro activity of the novel triazole antifungal agent posaconazole (Noxafil; SCH 56592) was assessed in 45 laboratories against approximately 19,000 clinically important strains of yeasts and molds. The activity of posaconazole was compared with those of itraconazole, fluconazole, voriconazole, and amphotericin B against subsets of the isolates. Strains were tested utilizing Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute broth microdilution methods using RPMI 1640 medium (except for amphotericin B, which was frequently tested in antibiotic medium 3). MICs were determined at the recommended endpoints and time intervals. Against all fungi in the database (22,850 MICs), the MIC50 and MIC90 values for posaconazole were 0.063 μg/ml and 1 μg/ml, respectively. MIC90 values against all yeasts (18,351 MICs) and molds (4,499 MICs) were both 1 μg/ml. In comparative studies against subsets of the isolates, posaconazole was more active than, or within 1 dilution of, the comparator drugs itraconazole, fluconazole, voriconazole, and amphotericin B against approximately 7,000 isolates of Candida and Cryptococcus spp. Against all molds (1,702 MICs, including 1,423 MICs for Aspergillus isolates), posaconazole was more active than or equal to the comparator drugs in almost every category. Posaconazole was active against isolates of Candida and Aspergillus spp. that exhibit resistance to fluconazole, voriconazole, and amphotericin B and was much more active than the other triazoles against zygomycetes. Posaconazole exhibited potent antifungal activity against a wide variety of clinically important fungal pathogens and was frequently more active than other azoles and amphotericin B.
Intimacy in Phone Conversations: Anxiety Reduction for Danish Seniors with Hugvie

There is a lack of physical contact in current telecommunications such as text messaging and Internet access. To challenge the limitation and re-embody telecommunication, researchers have attempted to introduce tactile stimulation to media and developed huggable devices. Previous experiments in Japan showed that a huggable communication technology, i.e., Hugvie decreased stress level of its female users. In the present experiment in Denmark, we aim to investigate (i) whether Hugvie can decrease stress cross-culturally, i.e., Japanese vs. Danish participants (ii), investigate whether gender plays a role in this psychological effect (stress reduction) and (iii) if there is a preference of this type of communication technology (Hugvie vs. a regular telephone). Twenty-nine healthy elderly participated (15 female and 14 male, M = 64.52 years, SD = 5.67) in Jutland, Denmark. The participants filled out questionnaires including State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), and Becks Depression Inventory, had a 15 min conversation via phone or Hugvie and were interviewed afterward. They spoke with an unknown person of opposite gender during the conversation; the same two conversation partners were used during the experiment and the Phone and Hugvie groups were equally balanced. There was no baseline difference between the Hugvie and Phone groups on age or anxiety or depression scores. In the Hugvie group, there was a statistically significant reduction on state anxiety after meeting Hugvie (p = 0.013). The change in state anxiety for the Hugvie group was positively correlated with openness (r = 0.532, p = 0.041) as measured by the NEO-FFI. This indicates that openness to experiences may increase the chances of having an anxiety reduction from being with Hugvie. Based on the results, we see that personality may affect the participants’ engagement and benefits from Hugvie. We discuss the implications of the results and further elaborations.
Deficits in egocentric-updating and spatial context memory in a case of developmental amnesia

Patients with developmental amnesia usually suffer from both episodic and spatial memory deficits. DM, a developmental amnesic, was impaired in her ability to process self-motion (i.e., idiothetic) information while her ability to process external stable landmarks (i.e., allothetic) was preserved when no self-motion processing was required. On a naturalistic and incidental episodic task, DM was severely and predictably impaired on both free and cued recall tasks. Interestingly, when cued, she was more impaired at recalling spatial context than factual or temporal information. Theoretical implications of that co-occurrence of deficits and those dissociations are discussed and testable cerebral hypothesis are proposed.
Personal Attributes Extraction in Chinese Text Bakeoff in CLP 2014: Overview

This paper presents the overview of Personal Attributes Extraction in Chinese Text Bakeoff in CLP 2014. Personal attribute extraction plays an important role in information extraction, event tracking, entity disambiguation and other related research areas. This task is designed to evaluate the techniques for extracting person specific attributes from unstructured Chinese texts, which is similar to slot filling, but focuses on person attributes. This task brings some challenges issues because Chinese language contains some common words and lacks of capital clues as in English. The task organizer manually constructs the query names and corresponding documents. The value/presence of the texts corresponding 25 pre-defined attributes are annotated to construct the training and testing dataset. The bakeoff results achieved by the participators show the good progress in this field.
Functional differentiation of white and brown adipocytes

Adipose tissue plays an important role in mammalian energy equilibrium not only as a lipid‐dissipating, i.e. energy‐storing, tissue (white adipose tissue), but also as an energy‐dissipating one (brown adipose tissue). Brown adipocytes have the ability of facultative heat production due to a unique mitochondrial protein, the uncoupling protein (UCP). Differentiation of white and (to a lesser extent) brown adipocytes has been studied in different cell culture systems, which has led to the identification of external inducers, second messenger pathways and transcription factors involved in adipocyte differentiation. Functional differentiation of white adipocytes implies adipose conversion, whereas in brown adipocytes it insinuates additionally the development of a thermogenic function. This review discusses recent advances in the elucidation of the pathways responsible for, and the molecular bases of, adipose conversion on the one hand and development of the thermogenic properties of brown adipocytes on the other.
Secret images sharing scheme using two-variable one-way functions

In this paper a method for realizing (t, n) secret images sharing scheme has been proposed. The proposed algorithm for secret images sharing is realized by applying multi-secret sharing schemes based on two-variable one-way functions and Shamir's secret sharing schemes. In the proposed scheme participants only need to pool their pseudo-shares instead of disclosing their secret shares when recovering secret images. Thus, each participant can share many secret images by holding only one secret share. Moreover, the size of each share does not depend on the size of the secret image and this is an important property for the further process of the image shares. The proposed method is a multi-use scheme that can be used in different secret sharing sessions without redistributing participants' secret shares. Compared with other image secret sharing techniques another main advantage of the proposed method is that it does not generate share images which are difficult to manage.
Special Issue on Modeling, Simulation, and Computational Methods for Privacy and Healthcare Information

1 Variable Interaction Networks in Medical Data Stephan M. Winkler, Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory, Bioinformatics Research Group, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg, Austria Gabriel Kronberger, Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory, Bioinformatics Research Group, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg, Austria Michael Affenzeller, Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory, Bioinformatics Research Group, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg, Austria Herbert Stekel, Central Laboratory, General Hospital Linz, Linz, Austria
Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance

The essay reviews the notion of "civic science" in global environmental governance and how it is articulated in international relations, science studies, democratic theory and sustainability science. Civic science is used interchangeably with participatory, citizen, stakeholder and democratic science, which are all catch words that signify various attempts to increase public participation in the production and use of scientific knowledge. Three rationales for civic science are identified: restoring public trust in science, re-orienting science towards coping with the complexity of environmental problems and installing democratic governance of science. A central proposition is that the promotion of civic science needs to be coupled with a theoretical understanding of its institutional, normative and epistemological challenges. The science-politics interface needs to be reframed to include the triangular interaction between scientific experts, policy-makers and citizens. Copyright (c) 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MRI-Based Liver Iron Content Predicts for Nonrelapse Mortality in MDS and AML Patients Undergoing Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation

Purpose: Retrospective, surrogate marker–based studies have found inconsistent associations between systemic iron overload (SIO) and adverse outcome in patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT). As a consequence, the impact of SIO in this context remains under debate. The aim of this study was to test whether the objective pretransplant quantification of liver-iron content (LIC) by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could circumvent these limitations and conclusively define the prognostic relevance of SIO. Experimental Design: The correlation between pretransplant LIC and surrogate parameters as well as the impact of SIO on posttransplant outcome was assessed within an observational study of patients (n = 88) with either myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML) undergoing allo-SCT. Results: Ferritin levels of 1,000 ng/mL or more provided only poor specificity (31.8%) for predicting elevated LIC (≥125 μmol/g) and even higher thresholds (≥2,500 ng/mL) lacked an association with nonrelapse mortality (NRM). In contrast, LIC 125 μmol/g or more was a significant risk factor for NRM in uni- and multivariate analysis (HR = 2.98; P = 0.016). Multivariate Cox-regression further showed that LIC 125 μmol/g or more was associated with a decreased overall survival (HR = 2.24, P = 0.038), whereas ferritin or transfusion burden were not. Conclusions: SIO reflected by LIC is an independent negative prognostic factor for posttransplant outcome in patients with AML and MDS undergoing allo-SCT. Therefore, MRI-based LIC, and not interference-prone serum markers such as ferritin, should be preferred for pretransplant risk stratification and patient selection in future clinical trials. Clin Cancer Res; 18(23); 6460–8. ©2012 AACR.
Efficient Generation of Myostatin Knock-Out Sheep Using CRISPR/Cas9 Technology and Microinjection into Zygotes

While CRISPR/Cas9 technology has proven to be a valuable system to generate gene-targeted modified animals in several species, this tool has been scarcely reported in farm animals. Myostatin is encoded by MSTN gene involved in the inhibition of muscle differentiation and growth. We determined the efficiency of the CRISPR/Cas9 system to edit MSTN in sheep and generate knock-out (KO) animals with the aim to promote muscle development and body growth. We generated CRISPR/Cas9 mRNAs specific for ovine MSTN and microinjected them into the cytoplasm of ovine zygotes. When embryo development of CRISPR/Cas9 microinjected zygotes (n = 216) was compared with buffer injected embryos (n = 183) and non microinjected embryos (n = 173), cleavage rate was lower for both microinjected groups (P<0.05) and neither was affected by CRISPR/Cas9 content in the injected medium. Embryo development to blastocyst was not affected by microinjection and was similar among the experimental groups. From 20 embryos analyzed by Sanger sequencing, ten were mutant (heterozygous or mosaic; 50% efficiency). To obtain live MSTN KO lambs, 53 blastocysts produced after zygote CRISPR/Cas9 microinjection were transferred to 29 recipient females resulting in 65.5% (19/29) of pregnant ewes and 41.5% (22/53) of newborns. From 22 born lambs analyzed by T7EI and Sanger sequencing, ten showed indel mutations at MSTN gene. Eight showed mutations in both alleles and five of them were homozygous for indels generating out-of frame mutations that resulted in premature stop codons. Western blot analysis of homozygous KO founders confirmed the absence of myostatin, showing heavier body weight than wild type counterparts. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that CRISPR/Cas9 system was a very efficient tool to generate gene KO sheep. This technology is quick and easy to perform and less expensive than previous techniques, and can be applied to obtain genetically modified animal models of interest for biomedicine and livestock.