Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Data Publishing with Clustering Preservation

The emergence of cloud-based storage services is opening up new avenues in data exchange and data dissemination. This has amplified the interest in right-protection mechanisms to establish ownership in the event of data leakage. Current right-protection technologies, however, rarely provide strong guarantees on dataset utility after the protection process. This work presents techniques that explicitly address this topic and provably preserve the outcome of certain mining operations. In particular, we take special care to guarantee that the outcome of hierarchical clustering operations remains the same before and after right protection. Our approach considers all prevalent hierarchical clustering variants: single-, complete-, and average-linkage. We imprint the ownership in a dataset using watermarking principles, and we derive tight bounds on the expansion/contraction of distances incurred by the process. We leverage our analysis to design fast algorithms for right protection without exhaustively searching the vast design space. Finally, because the right-protection process introduces a user-tunable distortion on the dataset, we explore the possibility of using this mechanism for data obfuscation. We quantify the tradeoff between obfuscation and utility for spatiotemporal datasets and discover very favorable characteristics of the process. An additional advantage is that when one is interested in both right-protecting and obfuscating the original data values, the proposed mechanism can accomplish both tasks simultaneously.
Programming effects of short prenatal exposure to cortisol

Recent studies have linked fetal exposure to a suboptimal intrauterine environment with adult hypertension. The aims of this study were twofold: 1) to see whether cortisol treatment administered to the ewe for 2 days at 27 days of gestation (term ~150 days) resulted in high blood pressure in offspring; 2) to study the effect of the same treatment on gene expression in the brain at 130 days of gestation and in lambs at 2 months of age. Mean arterial pressure was significantly higher in the adult female and male offspring of sheep treated with cortisol than in the control group (females: 89±2 mmHg vs. 81±2; P<0.05 and males: 102±4 mmHg vs. 91±3; P<0.05). Prenatal cortisol treatment led to up‐regulation of angiotensinogen, AT1, MR, and GR mRNA in the hippocampus in fetuses at 130 days of gestation but not in the animals at 2 months of age. This is the first evidence that short prenatal exposure to cortisol programmed high blood pressure in the adult female and male offspring of sheep. Altered gene expression in the hippocampus could have a significant effect on the development of the hippocampus, and on postnatal behavior. —Dodic, M. , Hantzis, V. , Duncan, J., Rees, S. , Koukoulas, I. , Johnson, K. , Wintour, E. M. , Moritz, K. Programming effects of short prenatal exposure to cortisol. FASEB J. 16, 1017–1026 (2002)
Facial Nerve Paralysis due to Chronic Otitis Media: Prognosis in Restoration of Facial Function after Surgical Intervention

Purpose Facial paralysis is an uncommon but significant complication of chronic otitis media (COM). Surgical eradication of the disease is the most viable way to overcome facial paralysis therefrom. In an effort to guide treatment of this rare complication, we analyzed the prognosis of facial function after surgical treatment. Materials and Methods A total of 3435 patients with COM, who underwent various otologic surgeries throughout a period of 20 years, were analyzed retrospectively. Forty six patients (1.33%) had facial nerve paralysis caused by COM. We analyzed prognostic factors including delay of surgery, the extent of disease, presence or absence of cholesteatoma and the type of surgery affecting surgical outcomes. Results Surgical intervention had a good effect on the restoration of facial function in cases of shorter duration of onset of facial paralysis to surgery and cases of sudden onset, without cholesteatoma. No previous ear surgery and healthy bony labyrinth indicated a good postoperative prognosis. Conclusion COM causing facial paralysis is most frequently due to cholesteatoma and the presence of cholesteatoma decreased the effectiveness of surgical treatment and indicated a poor prognosis after surgery. In our experience, early surgical intervention can be crucial to recovery of facial function. To prevent recurrent cholesteatoma, which leads to local destruction of the facial nerve, complete eradication of the disease in one procedure cannot be overemphasized for the treatment of patients with COM.
DRACON: QoS Management for Large-Scale Distributed Real-Time Databases

The demand for real-time data services is increasing in many large-scale distributed real-time applications including advanced traffic control, global environment control, and the nation-wide electric power grid control. However, providing quality-of-service (QoS) for data services in such large-scale and geographically distributed environment is a challenging task. In particular, both unpredictable communicational delays and computational workloads of large-scale distributed systems can lead to large number of deadline misses. We have designed a distributed real-time database architecture called DRACON (Decentralized data Replication And CONtrol), which enables QoS guarantees for large-scale distributed real-time applications. DRACON couples cluster-based replica-sharing and a decentralized control structure to address communication and computational unpredictability, simultaneously. The cluster-based replica-sharing mechanism not only enables scalable and bounded-delay access to remote data with high probability, but also decouples clusters to have less interaction, allowing a decentralized, thus scalable, QoS control structure. The simulation study demonstrates that DRACON’s decentralized QoS control structure combined with a decentralized replica-sharing structure provides robust and predictable QoS guarantees in a highly scalable manner.
Global Morbidity and Mortality of Leptospirosis: A Systematic Review

Background Leptospirosis, a spirochaetal zoonosis, occurs in diverse epidemiological settings and affects vulnerable populations, such as rural subsistence farmers and urban slum dwellers. Although leptospirosis is a life-threatening disease and recognized as an important cause of pulmonary haemorrhage syndrome, the lack of global estimates for morbidity and mortality has contributed to its neglected disease status. Methodology/Principal Findings We conducted a systematic review of published morbidity and mortality studies and databases to extract information on disease incidence and case fatality ratios. Linear regression and Monte Carlo modelling were used to obtain age and gender-adjusted estimates of disease morbidity for countries and Global Burden of Disease (GBD) and WHO regions. We estimated mortality using models that incorporated age and gender-adjusted disease morbidity and case fatality ratios. The review identified 80 studies on disease incidence from 34 countries that met quality criteria. In certain regions, such as Africa, few quality assured studies were identified. The regression model, which incorporated country-specific variables of population structure, life expectancy at birth, distance from the equator, tropical island, and urbanization, accounted for a significant proportion (R2 = 0.60) of the variation in observed disease incidence. We estimate that there were annually 1.03 million cases (95% CI 434,000–1,750,000) and 58,900 deaths (95% CI 23,800–95,900) due to leptospirosis worldwide. A large proportion of cases (48%, 95% CI 40–61%) and deaths (42%, 95% CI 34–53%) were estimated to occur in adult males with age of 20–49 years. Highest estimates of disease morbidity and mortality were observed in GBD regions of South and Southeast Asia, Oceania, Caribbean, Andean, Central, and Tropical Latin America, and East Sub-Saharan Africa. Conclusions/Significance Leptospirosis is among the leading zoonotic causes of morbidity worldwide and accounts for numbers of deaths, which approach or exceed those for other causes of haemorrhagic fever. Highest morbidity and mortality were estimated to occur in resource-poor countries, which include regions where the burden of leptospirosis has been underappreciated.
Who Consults? Expert Groups in the European Union

The EU is frequently understood as a special kind of governance system characterized by its strong degree of interpenetration of different levels of government and a plethora of interactions between EU institutions, administrations from national and subnational levels, as well as organized non-state interests. Nowhere is this kind of multi-level governance as evident as in the committees system of the EU. This article examines and explains a crucial property of this system, the committees and experts groups organised by the European Commission. Based on new data we answer some basic questions related to this aspect of the EU multi-level system. What is the extent of the expert consultative system? What is the distribution of expert groups? Are these groups best understood as loose networks or do they constitute a stable, well-established consultative system? We observe a proliferation over time and across sectors of this mode of governance. The use of Expert group has developed into a routinized practice of the European Commission and a great share of the Expert groups has become permanent and lasting properties of the governance system. Our data also shows that Expert groups are remarkably unevenly distributed among different policy domains and areas. The high degree of sectoral differentiation is accentuated by the fact that we observe weak horizontal coordinating structures between the Directorates-General (DGs) in their use of Expert groups. We argue that the heterogeneity in modes governance across policy fields is partly a result of deliberate design attempts and differences in policy tasks, but also to a large extent the result of different institutional and organizational factors, such as legal and administrative capabilities, as well as the gradual development of different routines and norms among the DGs for connecting to their environment. A later version of this article has been published in West European Politics, Vol. 31, No. 4, July 2008, pp. 725-750
Shape Retrieval Based on Distance Ratio Distribution

We propose a shape-matching algorithm based on distance ratio distribution, which is used to measure the regularity of the transformation between the shapes to be compared. The standard deviation is used to represent the distribution. Our algorithm is robust to translation, scaling and rotation. We illustrate the effectiveness of our algorithm in the retrieval of shapes by content using the subsets of the MPEG-7 standard database SQUID[31]. The experimental results show the competitiveness of our approach.
Education and Inequality

This article considers the interplay of education and inequality along two related dimensions. First, the extent to which education is unequally distributed through the population is discussed; with inequalities in education across family background, gender, race, and ethnicity outlined and quantified. The next section reviews the inequalities in earnings and employment probabilities that are associated with differences in education. They are shown to be substantial, indicating that educational opportunities have an important role in improving individuals' life chances. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Considering the security challenges in consumer-oriented eCommerce

Although proven security technologies are available to protect eCommerce transactions, consumers can still face significant challenges if they have low threat awareness or limited technology literacy. This paper considers such challenges, linked to the consumer's understanding and the usability of the security features placed before them. The need to ensure threat awareness is well illustrated by the problem of phishing - a threat that can specifically target eCommerce users, and which explicitly uses their lack of knowledge as a basis for exploitation. Having established a need for protection, the discussion proceeds to consider the barriers posed by security technologies themselves, identifying a range of issues that may specifically be encountered by end-users. Providing a solution to the problems is far from straightforward, but the paper proposes a number of directions in which useful contributions can be made
CGIHT: Conjugate Gradient Iterative Hard Thresholding for Compressed Sensing and Matrix Completion

We introduce the Conjugate Gradient Iterative Hard Thresholding (CGIHT) family of algorithms for the efficient solution of constrained underdetermined linear systems of equations arising in compressed sensing, row sparse approximation, and matrix completion. CGIHT is designed to balance the low per iteration complexity of simple hard thresholding algorithms with the fast asymptotic convergence rate of employing the conjugate gradient method. We establish provable recovery guarantees and stability to noise for variants of CGIHT with sufficient conditions in terms of the restricted isometry constants of the sensing operators. Extensive empirical performance comparisons establish significant computational advantages for CGIHT both in terms of the size of problems which can be accurately approximated and in terms of overall computation time.
Integrin alpha v beta 5 selectively promotes adenovirus mediated cell membrane permeabilization

Human adenovirus type 2 (Ad2) enters host cells by receptor-mediated endocytosis, an event mediated by the virus penton base binding to cell surface integrins alpha v beta 3 and alpha v beta 5. While both alpha v integrins promote virus internalization, alpha v beta 5 is involved in the subsequent event of membrane permeabilization. Cells transfected with the beta 5 or beta 3 subunit, expressing either alpha v beta 5 and alpha v beta 3, respectively, were capable of supporting Ad2 infection to varying degrees. In this case, cells expressing alpha v beta 5 were significantly more susceptible to Ad2-induced membrane permeabilization, as well as to Ad2 infection, than cells expressing alpha v beta 3. Adenovirus-mediated gene delivery was also more efficient in cells expressing alpha v beta 5. These results suggest that the interaction of alpha v beta 5 with Ad2 penton base facilitates the subsequent step of virus penetration into the cell. These studies provide evidence for the involvement of a cellular receptor in virus- mediated membrane permeabilization and suggest a novel biological role for integrin alpha v beta 5 in the infectious pathway of a human adenovirus.
A new detailed examination of white dwarfs in NGC 3532 and NGC 2287

We present the results of a photometric and spectroscopic study of the white dwarf candidate members of the intermediate age open clusters NGC 3532 and NGC 2287. Of the nine objects investigated, it is determined that six are probable members of the clusters, four in NGC 3532 and two in NGC 2287. For these six white dwarfs, we use our estimates of their cooling times together with the cluster ages to constrain the lifetimes and masses of their progenitor stars. We examine the location of these objects in initial mass–final mass space and find that they now provide no evidence for substantial scatter in initial mass–final mass relation (IFMR) as suggested by previous investigations. Instead, we demonstrate that, when combined with current data from other solar metallicity open clusters and the Sirius binary system, they hint at an IFMR that is steeper in the initial mass range 3 M⊙ ≲ M init ≲ 4 M⊙ than at progenitor masses immediately lower and higher than this. This form is generally consistent with the predictions of stellar evolutionary models and can aid population synthesis models in reproducing the relatively sharp drop observed at the high mass end of the main peak in the mass distribution of white dwarfs.
IASL RITE System at NTCIR-10

We developed a knowledge-based textual inference recognition system for both BC and MC subtasks at NTCIR-9 RITE. Five different modules, which use named entities, subject-modifier word pairs, negative expressions, exclusive tokens and sentence length respectively, were implemented to determine the entailment relation of each sentence pair. Three decision making approaches were applied to integrate all the results from the recognition modules into one entailment result. The evaluation result showed that our system achieved 0.661 and 0.501 for traditional Chinese BC and MC subtasks respectively. For the simplified Chinese, the accuracy reached 0.715 and 0.565 for BC and MC respectively.
Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in the III-nitride wurtzite phase materials system: binaries and ternaries

We present a comprehensive study of the transport dynamics of electrons in the ternary compounds, Al/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/N and In/sub x/Ga/sub 1-x/N. Calculations are made using a nonparabolic effective mass energy band model. Monte Carlo simulation that includes all of the major scattering mechanisms. The band parameters used in the simulation are extracted from optimized pseudopotential band calculations to ensure excellent agreement with experimental information and ab initio band models. The effects of alloy scattering on the electron transport physics are examined. The steady state velocity field curves and low field mobilities are calculated for representative compositions of these alloys at different temperatures and ionized impurity concentrations. A field dependent mobility model is provided for both ternary compounds AlGaN and InGaN. The parameters for the low and high field mobility models for these ternary compounds are extracted and presented. The mobility models can be employed in simulations of devices that incorporate the ternary III-nitrides.
Monetarism Under Thatcher: Lessons for the Future

Part 1 History: a brief history of monetary policy since Radcliffe monetarism in the UK monetarism and the officials monetarism under Thatcher monetarism and the politicians summary and conclusions of Part 1. Part 2 Policy dilemmas: a type of supply-side control - control via the "counterparts" overfunding - a useful tool or a cosmetic device? asset-price inflation debt-deflation summary and conclusions of Part 2. Part 3 Policy solutions: monetary base control monetary base control versus funding policy a published target for the monetary base summary and conclusions of Part 3. Appendices: definitions of monetary aggregates the behaviour of broad money in 1980/1 UK versus US monetarism a monetary model for the UK demand-side or supply-side control - speed of response of demand and supply.
TBC1D9B functions as a GTPase-activating protein for Rab11a in polarized MDCK cells

Rab11a is a key modulator of vesicular trafficking processes, but there is limited information about the GEFs and GAPs that regulate its GTP-GDP cycle. TBC1D9B is identified as a Rab11a GAP in MDCK cells, where it regulates the Rab11a-dependent basolateral-to-apical transcytotic pathway.
Produtos Florestais Não-Madeiráveis (PFNMs) da Amazônia: uma visão autóctone da cadeia-rede da castanha-da-amazônia no estado de Rondônia.

Theophilo Alves de Souza Filho Doutor. Professor Programa de Pós-Graduação Mestrado em Administração (PPGMAD) da Universidade Federal de Rondônia. theophilo@unir.br Eugênio Ávila Pedroso Doutor. Professor do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração da UFRGS Mariluce Paes-de-Souza Doutora. Professora Programa de Pós-Graduação Mestrado em Administração (PPGMAD) da Universidade Federal de Rondônia. Coordenadora do CEDSA/UNIR
Rapid urinary antigen test for diagnosis of pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia in adults

Streptococcus pneumoniae is suspected to cause an important proportion of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) whose aetiology cannot be detected with conventional tests. In this study, the authors evaluated the diagnostic yield of a new immunochromatographic membrane test (ICT) for the detection of the S. pneumoniae antigen in the urine of patients admitted with diagnosed CAP. ICT was performed in unconcentrated and concentrated urine from all the patients. ICT was repeated 1 month after discharge in a group initially testing positive. The authors also studied the ICT in clinically stable human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV1)-infected patients. S. pneumoniae antigen was detected in all of the 68 (100%) patients tested with definitive pneumococcal pneumonia. In five of these cases ICT was only positive when it had been performed on the patients. The S. pneumoniae antigen was also detected in 36 (69.2%) of 52 patients with probable pneumococcal pneumonia and in 50 of 277 (18%) patients without pneumococcal pneumonia. ICT remained positive in 16 (69.5%) of 23 patients, 1 month after hospital discharge. Nasopharyngeal colonisation with S. pneumoniae was detected in 8 (12%) of 68 clinically stable HIV1 infected patients, but none tested ICT positive. The Binax NOW® immunochromatographic membrane test is a rapid, sensitive and specific test for detecting pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia in adults. The test may remain positive for several weeks after pneumococcal pneumonia.
FINE STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN PROPLASTIDS DURING PHOTODESTRUCTION OF PIGMENTS

Etiolated bean leaves supplied δ-amino-levulinic acid in the dark synthesize large amounts of protochlorophyllide which is not converted to chlorophyllide upon illumination of the leaves. The fine structure of the proplastids is not affected by the treatment. When leaves containing "inactive" protochlorophyllide are exposed to light of 700 ft-c for 3 hours, they lose practically all their green pigments. During this period large stacks of closed membrane structures are built up in the region of the prolamellar body. These lamellar structures remain even when no or only traces of pigment are left in the leaves. In untreated control leaves the pigment content remained constant during similar illumination and the structural changes in the plastids consisted of a rearrangement of the vesicles from the prolamellar bodies into strands dispersed through the stroma; lamellae and grana formation occurred later.
Integration of Wireless Sensor Networks to the Internet of Things Using a 6LoWPAN Gateway

The Internet of Things is a new paradigm where smart embedded devices and systems are connected to the Internet. In this context, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are becoming an important alternative for sensing and actuating critical applications like industrial automation, remote patient monitoring and domotics. The IEEE 802.15. 4 protocol has been adopted as a standard for WSN and the 6LoWPAN protocol has been proposed to overcome the challenges of integrating WSN and Internet protocols. In this paper, the mechanisms of header compression and fragmentation of IPv6 datagrams proposed in the 6LoWPAN standard were evaluated through field experiments using a gateway prototype and IEEE 802.15. 4 nodes.
Engel's Law and Growth with Directed Technical Change

This paper presents a tractable endogenous two-sector growth model with non-Gorman intra-temporal preferences and directed technical change. One of the two consumption goods is a necessity, whereas the other is a luxury. If the economy starts with a low initial knowledge stock, households are relatively poor and a high expenditure share is devoted to necessities. Therefore, in early phases of development, technical innovations are mainly directed toward the necessity sector. According to Engel’s law, growth in income increases the expenditure share of the luxury sector. Biased technical change constitutes another force that leads to shifts in expenditure shares. The resulting structural change is accompanied by increasing R&D investments in the luxury sector, whereas investments in the necessity sector become less attractive. The asymptotic equilibrium consists of a nonbalanced constant growth path along which the Kaldor facts hold, and growth is mainly driven by the luxury sector.