Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of alar batten grafts for correction of nasal valve collapse.

OBJECTIVE To determine the efficacy of alar batten grafts for the correction of internal and external nasal valve collapse. DESIGN In this retrospective study, a questionnaire was used to ask patients to rate their nasal breathing before and after application of alar batten grafts. SETTING Private practice and academic tertiary referral medical center. PATIENTS The questionnaire was given to 63 patients who underwent application of alar batten grafts between 1980 and 1995. Forty-six patients (73%) responded and were included in the study. INTERVENTION Alar batten grafts were applied into a precise pocket via a limited endonasal incision or via the external rhinoplasty approach. The grafts consisted of curved septal cartilage or auricular cartilage and were applied to the site of maximal lateral nasal wall collapse. The convex surface of the cartilage was oriented laterally to allow maximal lateralization of the collapsed portion of the lateral nasal wall. In most cases, alar batten grafts were applied caudal to the existing lateral crura and extended from the lateral one third of the lateral crura to the piriform aperture. OUTCOME MEASURES The degree of nasal airway obstruction was determined by subjective scoring on a scale from 1 (no obstruction) to 5 (complete obstruction) before and after surgery. The patency of the internal airway was also assessed on physical examination. RESULTS The results of the study revealed that all but 1 of the 46 patients experienced an improvement in their nasal airway obstruction. The mean improvement in nasal airway obstruction was 2.5 on a scale of 5. Patients that had the least improvement had intranasal scarring in the region of the internal nasal valve, loss of vestibular skin, or excessive narrowing at the piriform aperture. Physical examination revealed a significant increase in the size of the aperture at the internal or external nasal valve after the application of the alar batten grafts. There was minimal postoperative fullness in the supraalar region, where the alar batten grafts were applied. With time, this fullness decreased, leaving little evidence of the graft and an overall improvement in the aesthetic result. CONCLUSIONS Alar batten grafts are effective for long-term correction of internal and external nasal valve collapse that is not complicated by intranasal scarring in the region of the nasal valve, loss of vestibular skin, or excessive narrowing at the piriform aperture.
A 200MS/s 14b 97mW DAC in 0.18/spl mu/m CMOS

A fully analog loop calibrates 32 MSB floating current sources in the background to achieve 14b accuracy. Operating at 200MS/s, the 97mW DAC achieves maximum SFDR of 85dB in NRZ mode, 76dB in RZ mode, and maintains -160dBm/Hz noise spectral density. Implemented in 0.18/spl mu/m CMOS, the core area is less than 1mm/sup 2/.
Instability of rRNA operons in Bacillus subtilis

Many laboratory strains of Bacillus subtilis contain 9 rather than 10 rRNA operons due to deletions occurring within the rrnJ-rrnW or rrnI-rrnH-rrnG gene cluster. These operons are members of two sets of closely spaced clusters located in the cysA-aroI region. Analysis of rescued DNA from integrants with insertions into rrnG and rrnH indicated that these tandemly arranged operons allowed frequent deletions of an rrn operon equivalent. These events may arise spontaneously by intrachromosomal recombination or by simultaneous double crossovers with a multimeric integrative plasmid.
A Look at the Third-Party Identity Management Landscape

Many websites act as relying parties (RPs) by allowing access to their services via third-party identity providers (IDPs), such as Facebook and Google. Using IDPs simplifies account creation, login activity, and information sharing across websites. However, different websites' use of IDPs can have significant security and privacy implications for users. This work overviews the current state of the third-party identity management landscape. Datasets collected using both manual identification and large-scale crawling are used to answer questions related to which sites act as RPs, which sites are the most successful IDPs, and how different classes of RPs select their IDPs. The authors also analyze and discuss longitudinal changes in the landscape.
Disclosure from In-laws and the Quality of In-law and Marital Relationships

This study sought to determine how in-laws' disclosure about the family's “operating instructions” (i.e., relational trouble, historical identity, and acceptance) relates to the spouses' satisfaction with the in-laws and with their marriage. Married couples (N = 129) completed questionnaires, and a dyadic analysis was performed using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Results indicated that family in-group status partially mediated the relationship between in-laws' disclosure and in-law satisfaction, and in-law satisfaction mediated the relationship between family in-group status and marital satisfaction. This study provides further evidence for the claim that disclosure from in-laws is positively related to marital quality.
European Models of Bilingual Education

Bilingual education in Wales, Colin Baker Catalan and Basque immersion programmes, Josep Maria Artigal bilingual or bicultural education and the case of the German minority in Denmark, Michael Byram the problem of pedagogy versus ideology - the case of a Danish-German bilingual school type, Bent Sondergaard the bicultural programmes in the Dutch-language school system in Brussels, John Leman trilingual education in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Nathalie Lebrun and Hugo Baetens Beardsmore the European school model, Hugo Baetens Beardsmore the German model of bilingual education - an administrator's perspective, Nando Masch bilingual geography - a teacher's perspective, Irene Drexel-Andrieu bilingualism and information technology - the Welsh experience, Dafydd Price and Colin Baker.
Involvement of phage ϕ29 DNA polymerase and terminal protein subdomains in conferring specificity during initiation of protein-primed DNA replication

To initiate ϕ29 DNA replication, the DNA polymerase has to form a complex with the homologous primer terminal protein (TP) that further recognizes the replication origins of the homologous TP-DNA placed at both ends of the linear genome. By means of chimerical proteins, constructed by swapping the priming domain of the related ϕ29 and GA-1 TPs, we show that DNA polymerase can form catalytically active heterodimers exclusively with that chimerical TP containing the N-terminal part of the homologous TP, suggesting that the interaction between the polymerase TPR-1 subdomain and the TP N-terminal part is the one mainly responsible for the specificity between both proteins. We also show that the TP N-terminal part assists the proper binding of the priming domain at the polymerase active site. Additionally, a chimerical ϕ29 DNA polymerase containing the GA-1 TPR-1 subdomain could use GA-1 TP, but only in the presence of ϕ29 TP-DNA as template, indicating that parental TP recognition is mainly accomplished by the DNA polymerase. The sequential events occurring during initiation of bacteriophage protein-primed DNA replication are proposed.
Historical trade-offs of livestock’s environmental impacts

Human demand for animal products has risen markedly over the past 50 years with important environmental impacts. Dairy and cattle production have disproportionately contributed to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and land use, while crop demands of more intensive systems have increased fertilizer use and competition for available crop calories. At the same time, chicken and pig production has grown more rapidly than for ruminants, indicating a change in the environmental burden per animal calorie (EBC) with time. How EBCs have changed and to what extent resource use efficiency (RUE), the composition of animal production and the trade of feed have played a role in these changes have not been examined to date. We employ a calorie-based perspective, distinguishing animal calorie production between calories produced from feedcrop sources—directly competing with humans for available calories—and those from non-feed sources—plant biomass unavailable for direct human consumption. Combining this information with data on agricultural resource use, we calculate EBCs in terms of land, GHG emissions and nitrogen. We find that EBCs have changed substantially for land (−62%), GHGs (−46%) and nitrogen (+188%). Changes in RUE (e.g., selective breeding, increased grain-feeding) have been the primary contributor to these EBC trends, but shifts in the composition of livestock production were responsible for 12%–41% of the total EBC changes. In addition, the virtual trade of land for feed has more than tripled in the past 25 years with 77% of countries currently relying on virtual land imports to support domestic livestock production. Our findings indicate that important tradeoffs have occurred as a result of livestock intensification, with more efficient land use and emission rates exchanged for greater nitrogen use and increased competition between feed and food. This study provides an integrated evaluation of livestock’s impact on food security and the environment.
On Invariance and Selectivity in Representation Learning

AbstractWe discuss data representation which can be learned automaticallyfrom data, are invariant to transformations, and at the same time selec-tive, in the sense that two points have the same representation only if theyare one the transformation of the other. The mathematical results heresharpen some of the key claims of i-theory { a recent theory of feedforwardprocessing in sensory cortex. [3, 4, 5]. Keywords:Invariance, Machine LearningThe paper is submitted to Information and Inference Journal. 1 Introduction This paper considers the problem of learning "good" data representation whichcan lower the need of labeled data (sample complexity) in machine learning(ML). Indeed, while current ML systems have achieved impressive results in avariety of tasks, an obvious bottleneck appears to be the huge amount of labeleddata needed. This paper builds on the idea that data representation, which arelearned in an unsupervised manner, can be key to solve the problem. Classicalstatistical learning theory focuses on supervised learning and postulates that asuitable hypothesis space is given. In turn, under very general conditions, thelatter can be seen to be equivalent to a data representation. In other words,data representation and how to select and learn it, is classically not consideredto be part of the learning problem, but rather as a prior information. In practicead hoc solutions are often empirically found for each problem.The study in this paper is a step towards developing a theory of learningdata representation. Our starting point is the intuition that, since many learning
Advances in High-Frequency Active Sonars for Countering Asymmetric Threats in Littoral Waters

Sea mines and fast in-shore attack craft pose threats to maritime force vessels operating in littoral waters. Three advances in high-frequency (HF) active sonars that can be used to counter these threats are reviewed. First, a tomographic sonar is able to reconstruct the acoustic image of a sea mine by processing multi-aspect projection data acquired with a wideband monostatic sonar circumnavigating the mine at a safe standoff distance. Second, a single-snapshot adaptive beamforming algorithm can be applied to a wideband, small-aperture sector-scan sonar to enhance its azimuthal resolution, which improves the detection and localization of mines and underwater obstacles. Third, a HF active sonar is able to detect, localize and track automatically a small fast surface craft in a shallow water cluttered environment based on the evolution of the craft wake observed in the sonar image sequence
Predictors of response to an attention modification program in generalized social phobia.

OBJECTIVE At least 3 randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind studies have supported the efficacy of computerized attention modification programs (AMPs) in reducing symptoms of anxiety in patients diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. In this study we examined patient characteristics that predicted response to AMP in a large sample of individuals diagnosed with generalized social phobia. METHOD The sample comprised 112 individuals seeking treatment for generalized social phobia who completed a randomized clinical trial comparing AMP (n = 55) with a placebo condition (i.e., attention control condition; n = 57). We examined the following domains of baseline predictors of treatment response: (a) demographic characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity, years of education); (b) clinical characteristics (Axis I comorbidity, trait anxiety, depression); and (c) cognitive disturbance factors (attentional bias for social threat, social interpretation bias). RESULTS Results revealed that ethnicity predicted treatment response across both conditions: Participants who self-identified as non-Caucasian displayed better overall response than did Caucasians. The only prescriptive variable to emerge was attentional bias for social threat at preassessment. Participants in the AMP group who exhibited larger attentional bias scores displayed significantly greater reductions in clinician-rated social anxiety symptoms than did their counterparts in the attention control condition. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that AMP may be targeted to individuals most likely to benefit from these programs.
The moderating impact of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on the relationship between organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviours: a study in Pakistani work context

The relationships among employee’s work related variables, cultural variables and OCBs are investigated in Pakistani work setting. The study sought to extend the literature by investigating whether individual differences in employees’ cultural value orientations effect the organisational justice-OCB relationships. Based on Hofstede’s (1980) cultural values framework the dimensions of individualism/collectivism and power distance were hypothesised as moderators of social exchange relationship between employee’s perception of organisational justice and OCB. Results demonstrate that organisational justice (distributive and interactional) is strongly related to citizenship behaviour for employees who endorse individualistic orientations. The moderating influence of power distance orientation was not found for the relationship between justice and citizenship behaviour. Findings of the study are discussed in terms of generalisability of citizenship behaviour and its relation to organisational justice and cultural context.
Natural course of hypovascular nodules detected on gadoxetic acid-enhanced MR imaging: presence of fat is a risk factor for hypervascularization.

PURPOSE Hypovascular nodules that exhibit hypointensity in hepatocyte-phase images of gadoxetic acid-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging are frequently encountered in clinical practice. We investigated risk factors for the development of these nodules into hypervascular hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS We retrospectively reviewed our institutional database and identified 302 patients who underwent gadoxetic acid-enhanced MR imaging for suspected or confirmed HCC from February 1, 2008 to January 30, 2011. We excluded patients who were examined for metastasis of other malignancies or for other hepatic tumors, such as focal nodular hyperplasia. We identified hypovascular nodules that were hypointense in hepatocyte-phase images, recorded their characteristics, and calculated the cumulative hypervascularization rate for nodules that were followed up. RESULTS Of the 302 patients, 82 had hypovascular nodules (178 nodules; mean size, 9.3 mm). Sixty nodules were followed up for over 6 months, and eight progressed to hypervascular HCC. Hypervascularization occurred more frequently in nodules with fat than those without (P<0.01). The cumulative hypervascularization rate was 5.1% over a year. CONCLUSION The presence of intralesional fat was found to be a risk factor for hypervascularization of hypovascular nodules that exhibited hypointensity in the hepatocyte-phase images of gadoxetic acid-enhanced MR imaging.
Optimized decision-feedback equalization for convolutional coding with reduced delay

Error propagation is a significant problem with the decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) at low-to-moderate signal-to-noise ratios. In particular, when a DFE is concatenated with a convolutional code, the burst errors associated with error propagation can severely degrade performance, since the convolutional code is optimized for the additive white Gaussian noise channel. In this paper, we explore the compensation of error propagation in the DFE so as to break up error bursts and improve performance with convolutional codes, without incurring larger overall decoding delay. We propose certain stationary error models and derive a modified DFE (MDFE) based on these models which can compensate for the error propagation. The MDFE differs from the conventional DFE only in its tap values. The incorporation of the bias into the model and the removal of the bias during the design process is discussed. Simulations explore the performance of the MDFE for both uncoded and convolutionally coded systems. With coding, the MDFE can significantly improve on the conventional DFE in terms of bit-error rate, and the MDFE without interleaving can improve on the conventional DFE with interleaving in terms of decision delay.
Effect of Vanadium on TLR4 and TLR7 mRNA Expression in the Lymphoid Organs of Broilers

TLRs are important innate immune receptors. It has been found that vanadium can affect the immune function in broilers. However, vanadium action in the regulation of TLRs is unknown. A total of 420 one-day-old avian broilers were divided into six groups, and fed on a corn-soybean basal diet as control diet (vanadium 0.073 mg/kg) or the same diet supplemented with vanadium at the doses of 5, 15, 30, 45 and 60 mg/kg in the form of ammonium metavanadate. TLR4 and TLR7 mRNA expression in lymphoid organs of each group were studied by real time RT-PCR form. The results indicated that the TLR4 and TLR7 mRNA expression in thymus and TLR4 mRNA expression in bursa were down-regulated in the 60 mg/kg group. The TLR7 mRNA expression in bursa was down-regulated in 30 mg/kg, 45 mg/kg and 60 mg/kg groups, and up-regulated in the 5 mg/kg group. Also, the TLR4 and TLR7 mRNA expression in spleen was down-regulated in the 45 mg/kg and 60 mg/kg groups, and up-regulated in the 5 mg/kg group. The abovementioned results showed that dietary vanadium in excess of 30 mg/kg could down-regulate the TLR4 and TLR7 mRNA expression in lymphoid organs, which finally impaired innate immunity in broilers.
Women's Work Conditions and Marital Adjustment in Two-Earner Couples: A Structural Model.

s must be postmarked by January 29, 1993. For submission guidelines and conference details, contact Dr. Faith Parker, Project Director, NCJW Center for the Child, 53 West 23rd Street, New York, NY, 10010, (212) 645-4048. This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.114 on Thu, 26 May 2016 06:17:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms
A vowel based approach for acted emotion recognition

This paper is devoted to the description of a new approach for emotion recognition. Our contribution is based on both the extraction and the characterization of phonemic units such as vowels and consonants, which are provided by a pseudophonetic speech segmentation phase combined with a vowel detector. Concerning the emotion recognition task, we explore acoustic and prosodic features from these pseudo-phonetic segments (vowels and consonants), and we compare this approach with traditional voiced and unvoiced segments. The classification is realized by the well-known k-nn classifier (k nearest neighbors) from two different emotional speech databases: Berlin (German) and Aholab (Basque).
Collective Action, Rival Incentives, and the Emergence of Antisocial Norms

Centralized sanctions (selective incentives) and informal norms have been advanced as distinct solutions to collective action problems. This article investigates their interaction, modeling the emergence of norms in the presence of incentives to contribute to collective goods. Computational experiments show how collective action depends on a three-way interaction among the value of incentives, the rivalness of incentives (ranging from independence to zero-sum competition), and group cohesiveness (effectiveness of peer influence). This investigation shows a broad range of conditions in which social norms promote the collective good and thus peer influence complements a centralized regime of selective incentives. It also shows conditions in which the two systems clash because incentives lead to antisocial norms that discourage contributions to collective goods. In these conditions, social scientists must reconsider the widely predicted relationships of collective action to selective incentives, group cohesiveness, and second-order free riding.
Immunoglobulin subclass distribution of specific antibodies in allergic patients

The IgG and IgA subclass distribution of specific antibodies against a variety of protein and polysaccharide antigens was determined in sera from individuals with high levels of IgE. No shift of the antibody pattern could be observed, suggesting that the aberrant regulation of responses against allergens noted in these patients is limited, encompassing selected antigens only. Antibodies against protein antigens are mainly of the IgG1 subclass. In addition, low levels of specific IgG3 or IgG4 antibodies may be formed. Our data suggest that a given antigen induces either IgG3 or IgG4 and that potential allergens, in addition to IgG1 and IgE, elicit a response restricted to IgG4.
A Reconciliation of Market Competition, Decentralization, Size, and Financial Performance Results: An Extension Testing Moderating Effects

The paper reports a study conducted in New Zealand that further examines contingency propositions that have been the subject of study in India, Mexico, and Wales and for which the results remain equivocal. Specifically, the relationship between structural dimensions and financial performance are examined while acknowledging the moderating effects of market competition and firm size. Responses from senior executives of New Zealand public-listed companies along with published financial performance results indicate that under high market competition conditions a decentralized authority structure is positively related to financial performance. Under low market competition centralized authority structure and financial performance are positively related. Implications of these findings for control strategy are tendered.
Controls in studies of magnetism

The appropriateness of controls is often neglected in systematic reviews of complementary therapies. In their systematic review and meta-analysis of static magnets for reducing pain, Max Pittler and colleagues correctly used the appropriateness of a trial’s control as a criterion for including the trial in their analysis. However, for trials that used a weak magnet as their control, Pittler and colleagues failed to specify the maximal strength of the magnetic field that they felt was appropriate for controls, and they did not justify their choice with references to the published literature. They mentioned that it is assumed that magnets must have a strength of 30 mT or greater for therapeutic benefit, but this value was cited from one of the reviewers’ own articles and did not appear to be specific to the present study. Such information could be very useful for future studies in this area, especially given the authors’ conclusion that “the ideal magnet strength and treatment duration are unclear. ” Assessing the trials the reviewers had excluded on the basis of the relative strengths of the placebo and test magnets might have had an impact on the outcomes reported.