Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Association of Four Common Polymorphisms from Four Candidate Genes (COX-1, COX-2, ITGA2B, ITGA2) with Aspirin Insensitivity: A Meta-Analysis

Objective Evidence is mounting suggesting that a strong genetic component underlies aspirin insensitivity. To generate more information, we aimed to evaluate the association of four common polymorphisms (rs3842787, rs20417, rs201184269, rs1126643) from four candidate genes (COX-1, COX-2, ITGA2B, ITGA2) with aspirin insensitivity via a meta-analysis. Methods and Results In total, there were 4 (353/595), 6 (344/698), 10 (588/878) and 7 (209/676) articles (patients/controls) qualified for rs3842787, rs20417, rs20118426 and rs1126643, respectively. The data were extracted in duplicate and analyzed by STATA software (Version 11.2). The risk estimate was expressed as odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Analyses of the full data set indicated significant associations of rs20417 (OR; 95% CI; P: 1.86; 1.44–2.41; <0.0005) and rs1126643 (2.37; 1.44–3.89; 0.001) with aspirin insensitivity under allelic model. In subgroup analyses, the risk estimate for rs1126643 was greatly potentiated among patients with aspirin semi-resistance relative to those with aspirin resistance, especially under dominant model (aspirin semi-resistance: 5.44; 1.42–20.83; 0.013 versus aspirin resistance: 1.96; 1.07–3.6; 0.03). Further grouping articles by ethnicity observed a stronger prediction of all, but rs20417, examined polymorphisms for aspirin insensitivity in Chinese than in Caucasians. Finally, meta-regression analyses observed that the differences in percentage of coronary artery disease (P = 0.034) and averaged platelet numbers (P = 0.012) between two groups explained a large part of heterogeneity for rs20417 and rs1126643, respectively. Conclusion Our findings provide strong evidence that COX-2 and ITGA2 genetic defects might increase the risk of having aspirin insensitivity, especially for aspirin semi-resistance and in Chinese populations.
Image Restoration in Political Sex Scandals: What To Do (And What Not To Do) When You're Caught With Your Pants Down

This study sought to apply a Crisis Communications lens to the area of American political sex scandals. Applying William Benoit’s “Theory of Image Restoration” to 24 American sex scandals, ranging from 1987 to 2011 and all of which received significant national attention, this study examined each official’s public statements in response to allegations of sexual impropriety and coded them for their adherence to the five strategies outlined in Benoit’s work. The study found “Evading Responsibility” to be most frequently used, while “Denial” was the least utilized of his tactics. This study served to help answer the question of whether or not today’s politicians are held to a higher standard, and what this means for the future of political accountability.
Pricing Rules Comparison in the Context of Bandwidth Trade

In this paper we compare two pricing rules in the context of bandwidth trade. Allocation and pricing rules, together with a set of signals received from independent agents, constitute a market mechanism. In the paper we analyze two pricing rules: well known Vickrey-Clarke-Groves rule (VCG) and the parametric pricing rule (PPR). We apply these pricing rules to the allocation rule specified by the balancing communication bandwidth trade model (BCBT). Keywords—communication bandwidth trade, mechanism design, pricing rule.
HP2P: A Hybrid Hierarchical P2P Network

Unstructured and structured P2P are two typical distributed models for P2P networking. The unstructured P2P uses flooding method, and has poor scalability and low efficiency, while the structured P2P uses DHT (Distributed Hash Table) method, and has low stability. This paper proposes a two-layer hybrid P2P network - HP2P, which combines flooding and DHT methods: Chord is used for the upper layer and flooding for the lower layer. The general framework of HP2P is presented and its upper and lower layers are described. By analyzing the performance of HP2P, it shows that HP2P has well scalability, high efficiency, and good stability.
Adaptive Security Architecture based on EC-MQV Algorithm in Personal Network (PN)

Personal networks (PNs) have been focused on in order to support the user's business and private activities without jeopardizing privacy and security of the users and their data. In such a network, it is necessary to produce a proper key agreement method according to the feature of the network. One of the features of the network is that the personal devices have deferent capabilities such as computational ability, memory size, transmission power, processing speed and implementation cost. Therefore an adaptive security mechanism should be contrived for such a network of various device combinations based on user's location and device's capability. The paper proposes new adaptive security architecture with three levels of asymmetric key agreement scheme by using context-aware security manager (CASM) based on elliptic curve cryptosystem (EC-MQV).
Cool and Hot Components of a Coronal Bright Point

We performed a systematic study of the Doppler shifts and electron densities measured in an EUV bright point (hereafter BP) observed in more than 10 EUV lines with formation temperatures from log (T/K) = 4.5 to 6.3. Those parts of a BP seen in transition region and coronal lines are defined as its cool and hot components, respectively. We find that the transition from cool to hot occurs at a temperature around log (T/K) = 5.7. The two components of the BP reveal a totally different orientation and Doppler-shift pattern, which might result from a twist of the associated magnetic loop system. The analysis of magnetic field evolution and topology seems to favor a two-stage heating process, in which magnetic cancellation and separator reconnection are powering, respectively, the cool and hot components of the BP. We also found that the electron densities of both components of the BP are higher than those of the surrounding quiet Sun, and comparable to or smaller than active region densities.
Reaching Outside the Smart Space: The Memory Jog Gateway

Pervasive computing comes to provide human-centric services, facilitating user interaction. These services are essentially context-aware which require complex, heterogeneous infrastructures containing numerous sensors and actuators configured for in-door environments, called 'smart spaces'. One challenge in expanding such services is the complexity of these environments, requiring a significant amount of time to set-up and configure. In this paper we introduce an approach for providing assistance to remote users who can interface with the smart space either by using mobile devices, or by using a cut-down version of the 'smart space' with only a few simple but essential sensors. Furthermore we describe how this approach has been incorporated in a prototype non-intrusive human-centric application, providing assistance in the case of meetings, lectures and presentations called 'Memory Jog'
GNSS Spoofing Detection using High-Frequency Antenna Motion and Carrier-Phase Data

A method is developed that processes Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) beat carrier phase measurements from a single moving antenna in order to determine whether the GNSS signals are being spoofed. This technique allows a specially equipped GNSS receiver to detect sophisticated spoofing that cannot be detected using receiver autonomous integrity monitoring techniques. It works for both encrypted military signals and for unencrypted civilian signals. It does not require changes to the signal structure of unencrypted civilian GNSS signals. The method uses a short segment of beat carrier-phase time histories that are collected while the receiver's single antenna is undergoing a known, highfrequency motion profile, typically one pre-programmed into an antenna articulation system. The antenna also can be moving in an unknown way at lower frequencies, as might be the case if it were mounted on a ground vehicle, a ship, an airplane, or a spacecraft. The spoofing detection algorithm correlates high-pass-filtered versions of the known motion component with high-pass-filtered versions of the carrier phase variations. True signals produce a specific correlation pattern, and spoofed signals produce a recognizably different correlation pattern if the spoofer transmits its false signals from a single antenna. The most pronounced difference is that non-spoofed signals display variations between the beat carrier phase responses of multiple signals, but all signals' responses are identical in the spoofed case. These differing correlation characteristics are used to develop a hypothesis test in order to detect a spoofing attack or the lack thereof. For moving-base receivers, there is no need for prior knowledge of the vehicle's attitude. Instead, the detection calculations also provide a rough attitude measurement. Several versions of this spoofing detection system have been designed and tested. Some have been tested only with truth-model data, but one has been tested with actual live-signal data from the Global Positioning System (GPS) C/A code on the L1 frequency. The livedata tests correctly identified spoofing attacks in the 4 cases out of 8 trials that had actual attacks. These detections used worst-case false-alarm probabilities of 10 6 , and their worst-case probabilities of missed detection
CCL2-CCR2 axis promotes metastasis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by activating ERK1/2-MMP2/9 pathway

Distant metastasis remains the major failure of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). In this study, the roles of chemokine C-C motif ligand 2 (CCL2), and its receptor chemokine C-C motif receptor type 2 (CCR2) on NPC metastasis were investigated. Serum CCL2 and CCL2/CCR2 expression level were remarkably increased in NPC patients compared to non-tumor patients by ELISA and IHC analyses. High expressions of CCL2/CCR2 were significantly associated with NPC metastasis and poor overall survival (OS). High expression of CCR2 is an independent adverse prognostic factor of OS and distant metastasis free survival (DMFS). Overexpressions of CCL2 and CCR2 were detected in high-metastatic NPC cell lines. Upregulating CCL2 and CCR2 respectively in low-metastatic NPC cell lines could promote cell migration and invasion, and exogenous CCL2 enhanced the motility in CCR2-overexpressing cells. On the other hand, downregulating CCL2 and CCR2 respectively in high-metastatic NPC cell lines by shRNA could decrease cell migration and invasion. However, exogenous CCL2 could not rescue the weaken ability of motility of CCR2-silencing cells. In nude mouse model, distant metastasis was significantly facilitated in either CCL2-overexpressing or CCR2-overexpressing groups, which was more obvious in CCR2-overexpressing group. Also, distant metastasis was considerably inhibited in either CCL2-silencing or CCR2-silencing groups. Dual overexpression of CCL2/CCR2 could activate extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2) signaling pathway, which sequentially induced matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 2 and 9 upregulations in the downstream. In conclusion, CCL2-CCR2 axis could promote NPC metastasis by activating ERK1/2-MMP2/9 pathway. This study helps to develop novel therapeutic targets for distant metastasis in NPC.
Synchronous Appearance of a High-Grade Neuroendocrine Carcinoma of the Ampulla Vater and Sigmoid Colon Adenocarcinoma

Neuroendocrine carcinoma is a relatively rare tumor and its coexistence with other primary cancers is very exceptional. We present a case of a 63-year-old woman with biliary obstruction due to a high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma located in ampulla of Vater who was found to have a synchronous sigmoid colon adenocarcinoma while undergoing staging laparotomy and pancreas head resection. Medical history was significant only for basal cell skin cancer. Immunohistochemical examination revealed the concurrence of histologically proved neuroendocrine carcinoma (chromogranin A, synaptophysin, and CD56 were positive) and Stage II (T3, N0, and M0) according to the TNM staging classification of colorectal cancer. The coexistence of neuroendocrine tumors with either synchronous or metachronous unrelated cancer is increasingly recognized. The patients with neuroendocrine carcinoma should be evaluated for secondary primary malignancies.
Cache-Rings for Memory Efficient Isosurface Construction

Processor speeds continue to increase at faster rates than memory speeds. As this performance gap widens, it becomes increasingly important to develop “memory-conscious” algorithms – programs that still optimize instruction count and algorithmic complexity, but that also integrate optimizations for data locality and cache performance. In this paper we present a topological isosurface extraction algorithm which utilizes a “cache-ring” data structure to optimize memory performance. We compare our algorithm to an analogous edge-hashing algorithm which, though functionally equivalent, gives less priority to memory performance. While our algorithm actually executes more instructions during execution, we nonetheless see a speed-up over the traditional method, as we morethan-compensate for the extra instructions with superior memory performance.
What are the gender differences in spatial orientation and mental imaging when navigating a virtual environment with only auditory cues ?

This thesis analyses the gender differences in spatial orientation and mental imagery when navigating a virtual environment with only auditory cues. A prototype was developed for an iPod Touch device to evaluate possible gender difference in performance of orientation. A sketch map task was conducted to externalize the participants’ mental representation they achieved from the environment. Questionnaires were used to collect data on previous video game experience, spatial orientation self-assessment and spatial anxiety. A post-interview was conducted to gather qualitative information from the participants on how they experienced the experiment and to collect some background about them. In total, 30 participants (15 females, 15 males) with tertiary education participated in the experiment. The result indicates that there are gender differences in time to complete the tasks in the virtual environment. In the sketch map task, there were no gender differences in how well they sketch and externalize their mental representation of the environment. The postinterview showed tendencies that there are possible gender differences in vividness of mental imagery.
Fresnel Zones on the Screen

For λ real, we consider the pattern given by the value modulo 2 of the integer part of λ(X 2 + y 2, where (x, y) ∈ Z × Z. We study the periodicity and other geometric properties of this pattern, and show that it can provide, by visual inspection and an elementary computation, a diophantine approximation for λ. We conclude with similar results for other moduli.
Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia

1. A distinctive path 2. Democratization before renovation 3. Creeping reform: reconfiguring the political infrastructure 4. A game of inches 5. Anomalies, ironies, regularities, and surprises 6. The shape of the new system 7. Low-quality democracy and its discontents 8. Causes, consequence, and the consequences of consequences.
Improve Efficiency of Web Pattern Analysis Through Web Mining

In commercial and academic areas of Web usage mining techniques, the interest has been increased due to the information explosion in World Wide Web. Through web user navigation patterns, proposed a approach which predict users’ future request that provide valuable information for web designers which quickly respond to their individual needs for the efficient organization of the website by mining the weblog files using Web weblog Expert and Universal Extractor. The approach is based on the combined mining to discover knowledge from web server log files which derive user navigation profiles and the contents of the retrieved web pages. The proposed algorithm implemented, and the system achieves the bandwidth of nearly 80% and the efficiency of about 75% of extracted log files, which is about 20% higher than original log files by mining Web server logs. This approach has been carried out in order to validate and facilitate better web personalization and website organization.
Conceptual framework on price volatility and its impact on food and nutrition security in the short term

This paper establishes a conceptual framework that links short-term price changes with food and nutrition security. We first provide an overview on the causes of commodity price volatility and approaches to measure volatility. Next, different concepts to measure food security impacts are elaborated and discussed. In contrast to consumption, utility or perception based indicators, anthropometric indicators provide the most direct measure of nutritional impacts. An extensive literature review emphasizes that anthropometric indicators can respond significantly within few months to shocks like droughts, seasonality or economic crises. As there is few research on the impact of price shocks to nutritional status, the developed conceptual framework elaborates different channels how price changes and price risks affect households and food security. The paper concludes with implications for further research to analyze the impact of price volatility on food security empirically.
A collaborative fuzzy-neural approach for internal due date assignment in a wafer fabrication plant

Though many of the previous studies have been devoted to internal due date assignment in a wafer fabrication factory (wafer fab), very few among them considered the allowance added to a completion time forecast. In this way, the probability of on-time delivery is only about 50%. Methods based on confidence intervals generate completion time forecasts with very wide ranges and are not practical. From a novel viewpoint, Chen and Wang (2010) incorporated the hybrid fuzzy c-means and back propagation network (FCM-BPN) approach with a nonlinear programming (NP) model for the same purpose. The FCM-BPN-NP approach is modified in this study with some innovative treatments. At first, the BPNs of all categories are applied to predict the completion time of a job. After predicting the completion time, the inclusion interval can be derived with the NPs of all categories. Subsequently, a two-stage aggregation procedure is applied to measure the consensus among the inclusion intervals that are then aggregated in a collaborative way. Parameters in the BPN will be modified twice to determine the upper and lower bounds. Finally, the consensus is fed into another BPN for refining the completion time forecast. According to experimental results, the proposed methodology outperformed many existing approaches in reducing the average allowance. The advantage over the FCM-BPN-NP approach was up to 17%. In addition, the proposed methodology also guarantees that all jobs can be finished before the established internal due dates, without adding too large a fudge factor, and without sacrificing the accuracy of the completion/cycle time forecasts.
An improved text similarity algorithm research for clinical decision support system

The paper presents an improved text similarity algorithm and applies to the Clinical Decision Support System. It can improve the efficiency of decision making. After analyzing the disadvantages of the conventional TF-IDF algorithm and Cosine Similarity calculation, we propose an improvement to the text similarity algorithm. The proposed algorithm takes into full consideration the impact of semantically-similar keywords and textually-similar keywords on text similarity, therefore achieves improved accuracy. The function of this Clinical Decision Support System is to search for relevant biomedical articles and locate solutions.
East Asia's counterweight strategy : asian financial cooperation and evolving international monetary order

This study seeks to explain the origin, process, and prospects of East Asia’s “counter¬weight” strategy in the arena of international finance, and its significant implications for global financial governance. Overall, this study addresses three key questions: (i) What motivated East Asia’s counterweight strategy and the emergence of Asian financial arrangements such as the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and the Asian Bond Fund Initiative (ABFI)? (ii) What are the nature and purpose of the CMI and the ABFI? (iii) What would determine the future trajectory of the Asian financial cooperation and East Asia’s counterweight strategy? The central argument of the present study is that East Asian countries search for counterweight strategies that will enable them to avoid over¬dependence and loss of autonomy by developing regional alternatives even as they maintain collaborative relations with the G-7-centred global financial institutions (e.g. the IMF). Policy makers in East Asia are thus hedging their economic bets about the uncertain prospects of both the creation of regional institutions and the reform of global institutions. My findings also suggest that four key factors, such as regional economic conditions, geopolitical rivalry, the IMF reforms, and the United States and EU reactions would possibly shape the future development of East Asia’s counterweight strategy and Asian financial cooperation.
Exchange Rates, Inflation and Disinflation: Latin American Experiences

This paper analyzes the relationship between exchange rates, inflation and disinflation in Latin America. The analysis concentrates on two central issues. First, the historical experience with fixed exchange rates in four Latin American countries is investigated. It is shown that even though these countries had the ability to undertake independent monetary policy, they chose to play by the "rules of the game". Until 1973, when the first oil shock took place, these countries strictly respected the constraints imposed by fixed exchange rates on their domestic credit policy. Between that date and the late 1980s, when the fixed rates were finally abandoned, they tried to ignore these constraints. This generated losses of reserves and increased inflation. The second issue addressed in the paper refers to the use of a nominal exchange rate anchor to reduce inflation. Data on Chile, Mexico and Venezuela are used to investigate the extent to which alternative exchange rate regimes affect inflationary inertia. It is found that fixing the exchange rate will not, on its own, reduce the degree of inertia.
Computing the Number of Real Roots of Polynomials through Neural Networks

Numerous problems in robotics, computer vision, computational geometry and signal processing, involve the solution of polynomial systems of equations. Recently, Artificial Feedforward Neural Networks (FNNs) have been applied to perform the factorization of polynomials [4, 5, 6] with considerable success. To the best of our knowledge the problem of computing the number of real roots of a polynomial has not been addressed using neural computation approaches. In the present work we propose Feedforward Neural Networks (FNNs) to tackle this problem.