Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increasing prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) over time and by birth cohort: Kaiser Permanente of Colorado GDM Screening Program.

OBJECTIVE The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) varies in direct proportion with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in a given population or ethnic group. Given that the number of people with diabetes worldwide is expected to increase at record levels through 2030, we examined temporal trends in GDM among diverse ethnic groups. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Kaiser Permanente of Colorado (KPCO) has used a standard protocol to universally screen for GDM since 1994. This report is based on 36,403 KPCO singleton pregnancies occurring between 1994 and 2002 and examines trends in GDM prevalence among women with diverse ethnic backgrounds. RESULTS The prevalence of GDM among KPCO members doubled from 1994 to 2002 (2.1-4.1%, P < 0.001), with significant increases in all racial/ethnic groups. In logistic regression, year of diagnosis (odds ratio [OR] and 95% CI per 1 year = 1.12 [1.09-1.14]), mother's age (OR per 5 years = 1.7 [1.6-1.8]) and ethnicity other than non-Hispanic white (OR = 2.1 [1.9-2.4]) were all significantly associated with GDM. Birth year remained significant (OR = 1.06, P = 0.006), even after adjusting for prior GDM history. CONCLUSIONS This study shows that the prevalence of GDM is increasing in a universally screened multiethnic population. The increasing GDM prevalence suggests that the vicious cycle of diabetes in pregnancy initially described among Pima Indians may also be occurring among other U.S. ethnic groups.
Nitrogen economics of root foraging: Transitive closure of the nitrate–cytokinin relay and distinct systemic signaling for N supply vs. demand

As sessile organisms, root plasticity enables plants to forage for and acquire nutrients in a fluctuating underground environment. Here, we use genetic and genomic approaches in a “split-root” framework—in which physically isolated root systems of the same plant are challenged with different nitrogen (N) environments—to investigate how systemic signaling affects genome-wide reprogramming and root development. The integration of transcriptome and root phenotypes enables us to identify distinct mechanisms underlying “N economy” (i.e., N supply and demand) of plants as a system. Under nitrate-limited conditions, plant roots adopt an “active-foraging strategy”, characterized by lateral root outgrowth and a shared pattern of transcriptome reprogramming, in response to either local or distal nitrate deprivation. By contrast, in nitrate-replete conditions, plant roots adopt a “dormant strategy”, characterized by a repression of lateral root outgrowth and a shared pattern of transcriptome reprogramming, in response to either local or distal nitrate supply. Sentinel genes responding to systemic N signaling identified by genome-wide comparisons of heterogeneous vs. homogeneous split-root N treatments were used to probe systemic N responses in Arabidopsis mutants impaired in nitrate reduction and hormone synthesis and also in decapitated plants. This combined analysis identified genetically distinct systemic signaling underlying plant N economy: (i) N supply, corresponding to a long-distance systemic signaling triggered by nitrate sensing; and (ii) N demand, experimental support for the transitive closure of a previously inferred nitrate–cytokinin shoot–root relay system that reports the nitrate demand of the whole plant, promoting a compensatory root growth in nitrate-rich patches of heterogeneous soil.
REDUCING THE COSTS OF PURCHASED SERVICES What Strategies Are Available to Help Reduce the Costs of Purchased Services ?

Services spend is often considered a secondary target for cost reduction, yet studies suggest that services spend can account for 30 percent to 70 percent of an organization's total purchase dollars. Fearon and Bales (1995) state that " the opportunity to increase profits through more effective purchasing probably is greater in the buying of services than in the purchase of goods. " A logical step in overall cost reduction strategies is to focus on purchased services. A review of the available literature revealed a number of strategies that organizations can use to reduce the cost of purchased services, with each strategy producing varying results. Some potential strategies include: exploiting volume aggregation; committing to supplier development and relationship management; adopting integrated sourcing and procurement strategies that increase an organization's control of services purchases; recognizing the differences in complexity between purchasing materials and purchasing services to assign the most appropriate supply professionals to each category; exploring opportunities to participate in group/consortium buying; potentially outsourcing some or all of the responsibilities of purchasing services to a third party; and using reverse auctions. Each buying organization should carefully select the cost reduction strategies it will use based on its particular needs, strategic goals and competencies.
Singing-related neural activity distinguishes four classes of putative striatal neurons 4 in the songbird basal ganglia 5 6 7

27 The striatum—the primary input nucleus of the basal ganglia—plays a major role in 28 motor control and learning. Four main classes of striatal neuron are thought to be 29 essential for normal striatal function: (1) medium spiny neurons, (2) fast-spiking 30 interneurons, (3) cholinergic tonically active neurons, and (4) low threshold spiking 31 interneurons. However, the nature of the interaction of these neurons during behavior is 32 poorly understood. The songbird area X is a specialized striato-pallidal basal ganglia 33 nucleus that contains two pallidal cell types as well as the same four cell types found in 34 the mammalian striatum. We recorded 185 single units in Area X of singing juvenile 35 birds, and, based on singing-related firing patterns and spike waveforms, find six distinct 36 cell classes—two classes of putative pallidal neuron that exhibited a high spontaneous 37 firing rate (>60Hz), and four cell classes that exhibited low spontaneous firing rates 38 characteristic of striatal neurons. In this study we examine in detail the four putative 39 striatal cell classes. Type-1 neurons were the most frequently encountered and exhibited 40 sparse, temporally precise singing-related activity. Type-2 neurons were distinguished by 41 their narrow spike waveforms and exhibited brief, high frequency bursts during singing. 42 Type-3 neurons were tonically active and did not burst, while type-4 neurons were 43 inactive outside of singing and during singing generated long high frequency bursts that 44 could reach firing rates over one kilohertz. Based on comparison to the mammalian 45 literature, we suggest that these four putative striatal cell classes correspond, respectively, 46 to the medium spiny neurons, fast-spiking interneurons, tonically active neurons and low47 threshold spiking interneurons that are known to reside in area X. 48 49
The Theory of Interchange Fees: A Synthesis of Recent Contributions

We synthesize the results of the recent theoretical literature on the determination of interchange fees by payment card associations. We analyze in particular the conditions under which these interchange fees are excessively high, as compared with social optimum. These conditions involve several parameters: the intensity of competition between banks and between merchants; the elasticities of demand on both sides of the market, as well as the degrees of heterogeneity among merchants and among cardholders. A crucial element is the competitive edge that merchants can gain by accepting cards.
Differences in Electric Brain Responses to Melodies and Chords

The music we usually listen to in everyday life consists of either single melodies or harmonized melodies (i.e., of melodies “accompanied” by chords). However, differences in the neural mechanisms underlying melodic and harmonic processing have remained largely unknown. Using EEG, this study compared effects of music-syntactic processing between chords and melodies. In melody blocks, sequences consisted of five tones, the final tone being either regular or irregular (p = .5). Analogously, in chord blocks, sequences consisted of five chords, the final chord function being either regular or irregular. Melodies were derived from the top voice of chord sequences, allowing a proper comparison between melodic and harmonic processing. Music-syntactic incongruities elicited an early anterior negativity with a latency of approximately 125 msec in both the melody and the chord conditions. This effect was followed in the chord condition, but not in the melody condition, by an additional negative effect that was maximal at approximately 180 msec. Both effects were maximal at frontal electrodes, but the later effect was more broadly distributed over the scalp than the earlier effect. These findings indicate that melodic information (which is also contained in the top voice of chords) is processed earlier and with partly different neural mechanisms than harmonic information of chords.
Attitudes toward robots and factors influencing them

Attitudes toward robots, in particular, negative attitudes are important factors influencing human perception and behaviors toward robots. The chapter surveys the existing studies using the Negative Attitudes toward Robots Scale for measuring these attitudes, and then reports a current study based on a social research, showing influences of experiences of robots, educational backgrounds, and generations into negative attitudes toward robots. In particular, the results of the survey suggested that experiences of humanoid robots decreased negative attitudes toward interaction with the robots. Finally, the chapter discusses the future direction of the research on negative attitudes toward robots.
Alice, Greenfoot, and Scratch -- A Discussion

This article distills a discussion about the goals, mechanisms, and effects of three environments which aim to support the acquisition and development of computing concepts (problem solving and programming) in pre-University and non-technical students: Alice, Greenfoot, and Scratch. The conversation started in a special session on the topic at the 2010 ACM SIGCSE Symposium on Computer Science Education and continued during the creation of the resulting Special Issue of the ACM Transactions on Computing Education.
Identification of the main methods used in simulation projects

Discrete event simulation is a tool to support decision-making that has been increasingly used to study complex systems. Several simulation research methods are found in the literature, each one has its own characteristics, to guide analysts during the development of simulation projects. In view of this, the current work identified the main research methods used in simulation projects. For this, a literature review was carried out on some of the major discrete event simulation books and papers from the proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, which is considered the main international conference on simulation. From the analysis performed in this study, it was possible to identify the most comprehensive methods, as well as the simplest ones. The common activities among them were presented and those that are important to conduct a simulation project were also discussed.
A new device for assessing ankle dorsiflexion motion: reliability and validity.

STUDY DESIGN Clinical measurement. OBJECTIVE To determine the validity and reliability of measures obtained using a custom-made device for assessing ankle dorsiflexion motion and stiffness. BACKGROUND Limited dorsiflexion has been implicated in the evolution of foot pain in a number of clinical populations. Assessment of ankle dorsiflexion range of motion (ROM) is, therefore, commonly performed as part of a foot and ankle examination. Conventional goniometric assessment methods have demonstrated limited intertester reliability, while alternative methods of measurements are generally more difficult to use. The Iowa ankle range of motion (IAROM) device was designed in an attempt to develop a simple, clinically relevant, and time- and cost-effective tool to measure ankle dorsiflexion range of motion and stiffness. METHODS Validity and intertester reliability of dorsiflexion range-of-motion measures using the IAROM device were assessed at 10, 15, 20, and 25 Nm of passively applied dorsiflexion torque, with both the knee extended and flexed approximately 20°. Stiffness (change in torque/change in dorsiflexion angle) values were determined using the angular change obtained between the 15- and 25-Nm torque levels. Convergent validity (n = 12) was assessed through comparison of ankle dorsiflexion angles measured simultaneously with the IAROM device and an optoelectronic motion analysis system. Intertester reliability (n = 17) was assessed by 2 testers who took measurements within the same day. RESULTS Validity testing demonstrated excellent agreement (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] values ranging from 0.95 to 0.98). Reliability testing demonstrated good to excellent intertester agreement (ICC values ranging from 0.90 to 0.95). The ICCs for ankle joint dorsiflexion stiffness were . 71 and . 85 for the knee in an extended and flexed position, respectively. CONCLUSION The IAROM device provides valid and reliable measurement of ankle dorsiflexion ROM. The IAROM device also allows calculation of stiffness by measuring ROM at multiple torque levels, although the reliability of the measurement is not optimal.
Integrity constraints for XML

XML has become the de facto standard for representing and interchanging data in web-based applications. The wide use of XML has necessitated the XML document semantically richer. The integrity constraints for XML have been widely investigated over the past few years, with a focus on keys, foreign keys, functional dependencies (XFDs), multivalued dependencies (XMVDs) and inclusion dependencies (XINDs). XML Schema has the ability to define identity constraints, but there seems to be no consensus on how to specify other constraints. In this paper, we give an overview of previous work in defining XFDs, XMVDs and XINDs. Some significant problems for defining and checking these constraints are discussed. A set of requirements for a good definition and checking algorithm are proposed.
Performance limitations for linear feedback systems in the presence of plant uncertainty

The goal of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of fundamental performance limits for feedback control systems. In the literature to date on this topic, all available results assume that the designer has an exact model of the plant. Heuristically, however, one would expect that plant uncertainty should play a significant role in determining the best achievable performance. The goal of this paper is to investigate performance limitations for linear feedback control systems in the presence of plant uncertainty. We formulate the problem by utilizing stochastic embedding of the uncertainty. The results allow one to evaluate the best average performance in the presence of uncertainty. They also allow one to judge whether uncertainty or other properties, e.g., nonminimum phase behavior, are dominant limiting factors.
Learning with Heterogenous Data Sets by Weighted Multiple Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis

A new formulation of weighted multiple kernel based canonical correlation analysis(WMKCCA) is proposed in this paper. Computational issues are also considered in the proposed method to make it feasible on large data sets. This method uses incomplete Cholesky decomposition(ICD) and singular value decomposition(S VD) to approximate the original eigenvalue problem for low rank. For the weighted extension, an incremental eigenvalue decomposition method is proposed to avoid recalculating eigenvalue each time weights are changed. Based on WMKCCA we proposed, a machine learning framework to extract common information among heterogeneous data sets is purposed and experimental results on two UCI data sets are reported.
Strategies for Coping with Stress among Gymnasts

The question of a gymnast's resistance to stress has been widely discussed in general scientific publications and in sport-themed ones. This study records the research on the strategies for coping with stress among artistic gymnasts. Its objective was the investigation into anti-stress strategies used by gymnasts and finding a co-relation between their results and those of the control group. The comparison was made between two groups of record-seeking sportsmen who were randomly selected from those aged between 17 and 30 years. The study group was a group of sports gymnasts (N=30), aged 16-33 years, all from the first and champion classes. The control group (N=30) were the contestants from other sport disciplines, professional swimmers and judokas, whose level of mastery and the length of their sport practice corresponded to the group of gymnasts. The strategies of coping with stress were checked using the Polish adaptation by Wrzesniewski of the COPE questionnaire (by Carver, Scheier and Weintraub). The tests indicated that sport gymnasts were less prone to apply this strategy than their friends from the control group. We conclude it is only the case of the strategy of the focus on a problem that we note a significant difference in the behaviour of individuals applying strategies in question. The strategies of denial and acceptance do not indicate much difference between the statistical means.
Histopathological Diagnostic Support Technology Using Higher-Order Local Autocorrelation Features

This paper proposes a technology for histopathological diagnostic support that utilizes the correlation-based features of histopathological tissues. In histopathological diagnosis, a clinical pathologist conducts a diagnosis of normal tissues and cancerous tissues. However, recently, the shortage of clinical pathologists is posing increasing burdens to meet the demands for such diagnoses, and this is causing serious social problems. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a technology of histopathological diagnostic support that uses higher-order local autocorrelation (HLAC) features. The proposed method can automatically screen tissue that is believed to be normal tissue to detect cancerous tissue as well as tissue that is suspected of being cancerous to detect abnormalities. Consequently, we can reduce the burden on clinical pathologists, allowing them to concentrate on diagnosing cancer.
Scalable software libraries

Many software libraries (e.g., the Booch C++ Components, libg++, NIHCL, COOL) provide components (classes) that implement data structures. Each component is written by hand and represents a unique combination of features (e.g. concurrency, data structure, memory allocation algorithms) that distinguishes it from other components.We argue that this way of building data structure component libraries is inherently unscalable. Libraries should not enumerate complex components with numerous features; rather, libraries should take a minimalist approach: they should provide only primitive building blocks and be accompanied by generators that can combine these blocks to yield complex custom data structures.In this paper, we describe a prototype data structure generator and the building blocks that populate its library. We also present preliminary experimental results which suggest that this approach does not compromise programmer productivity nor the run-time performance of generated data structures.
Ieee Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 1 Image-based Stained Glass

— We present a method of re-styling an image so that it approximates the visual appearance of a work of stained glass. To this end, we develop a novel approach which involves image warping, segmentation, querying, and colorization along with texture synthesis. In our method, a given input image is first segmented. Each segment is subsequently transformed to match real segments of stained glass queried from a database of image exemplars. By using real sources of stained glass, our method produces high quality results in this nascent area of non-photorealistic rendering. The generation of the stained glass requires only modest amounts of user interaction. This interaction is facilitated with a unique region-merging tool.
Evolving board-game players with genetic programming

We present the application of genetic programming (GP) to zero-sum, deterministic, full-knowledge board games. Our work expands previous results in evolving board-state evaluation functions for Lose Checkers to a 10x10 variant of Checkers, as well as Reversi. Our system implements strongly typed GP trees, explicitly defined introns, and a selective directional crossover method.
Stock-Flow Adjustments and Fiscal Transparency: A Cross-Country Comparison

Over the past three decades, large and persistent discrepancies between the annual change in public debt and the budget deficit, so-called stock-flow adjustments, were a prominent feature of debt dynamics in many economies. The aim of this paper is to investigate the underlying determinants of such discrepancies and their relationship with fiscal transparency using data for 163 countries. Results show that such discrepancies can only be partly explained by balance sheet effects and the realization of contingent liabilities and that significant differences exist in average stock-flow adjustments across countries reflecting country-specific factors. The more fiscally transparent the country, the smaller these tend to be. The contribution of stock-flow adjustments to increases in debt is likewise smaller in countries with above average fiscal transparency. This may not be coincidental, as a lack of fiscal transparency may make it easier for governments to engage in deceptive fiscal stratagems.
Real Exchange Rates and Relative Prices: An Empirical Investigation

This paper uncovers a striking empirical regularity: the consumer price of a good relative to a different good within a country tends to be much less variable than the price of that good relative to a similar good in another country. This fact seems to hold for all goods except very simple, homogeneous products. Models of real exchange rates are likely to have predictions regarding this relation, so this fact may provide a useful gauge for discriminating among models.
Long-term health correlates of timing of sexual debut: results from a national US study.

OBJECTIVES We explored long-term health consequences of age at sexual initiation and of abstinence until marriage to evaluate empirical support for the claim that postponing sexual initiation has beneficial health effects. METHODS We analyzed data from the 1996 National Sexual Health Survey, a cross-sectional study of the US adult population. We compared sexual health outcomes among individuals who had initiated sexual activity at an early or late age versus a normative age. We also compared individuals whose first sexual intercourse had occurred before versus after marriage. RESULTS Early initiation of sexual intercourse was associated with various sexual risk factors, including increased numbers of sexual partners and recent sexual intercourse under the influence of alcohol, whereas late initiation was associated with fewer risk factors. However, both early and late initiation were associated with sexual problems such as problems with arousal and orgasm, primarily among men. Relationship solidity and sexual relationship satisfaction were not associated with early or late initiation. CONCLUSIONS Early sexual debut is associated with certain long-term negative sexual health outcomes, including increased sexual risk behaviors and problems in sexual functioning. Late initiation was also associated with sexual problems, especially among men. Further research is needed to understand how sexual initiation patterns affect later health outcomes.