Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships support and serve life’s journey

When I reflect back, it has been relationships and mentors who have encouraged and supported me in my journey through life thus far. I have always believed that adversity in one’s life is character building, and people would not be who they are without those often character-building opportunities. My openness to change and the willingness to travel through the transitional process has brought feelings of discomfort, insecurity and fear, but enthusiasm for life has always remained. As I have journeyed through degrees, certifications, teaching experiences, counseling, and administration, I have been very fortunate in the relationships that have developed along the way. These relationships have mentored, motivated and inspired me to improve and achieve my best. This network has been a valuable support system in this journey through life.
INFLUÊNCIA DO INCENTIVO AO CONSERVADORISMO NAS ESCOLHAS CONTÁBEIS RELACIONADAS AO RECONHECIMENTO DE PROVISÃO DE CONTINGÊNCIAS PASSIVAS * INFLUENCE OF CONSERVATISM INCENTIVE IN ACCOUNTING CHOICES RELATED TO THE RECOGNITION OF LIABILITIES CONTINGENCIES PROVISION

This research examines the accounting choices related to the recognition of contingencies provision in situations of adverse selection. The adverse selection occurs at the precontractual moment (AKERLOF, 1970), when there is an informational asymmetry between main and agent (JENSEN, 2003). By using the subjects addressed in the CVM Deliberation 489/2005, the authors try to discuss whether accountants manage or not, in real situations, not to be influenced by the surrounding in which they are. Thus, an experiment is conducted (LIBBY; BLOOMFIELD; NELSON, 2002; SPINKLE, 2003) involving 343 graduation and post-graduation students of Accounting Sciences , divided into two groups , being the surrounding in one of the groups altered by the use of a decoy (ARIELY, 2008). The scenarios were controlled by age, gender, experience level, scholarity and degree of certainty, and the results revealed a less conservative profile among the men, the inexperienced and the younger ones, which varied between doubtful and confident. In the case of the women, the most experienced ones were more conservative regarding all the proposals of the experiment, not suffering any influence from the decoy. Among the individuals who showed extreme profiles (more conservative or less) the results were relevant among the adult men and the senior ones, emphasizing the previous analyses which showed that an effective influence of the decoy occurred in the case of the men. It is verified, therefore, that the presence of a decoy can affect the decisions , and that the influence may vary according to the individual’s profile, suggesting that men have a more aggressive profile and are self-directed to results management.
The relation between serum erythropoietin level and severity of disease and mortality in patients with chronic heart failure

Objective — We evaluated the relation between serum erithropoietin level and the severity of disease and mortality in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). Methods — We enrolled 96 CHF patients and 50 age- and sex-matched control subjects. Haemoglobin, haemotocrit, N terminal pro-B type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and erythropoietin levels and echocardiographic parameters were measured. The patients were contacted 1 year after the evaluations to determine survival. Results — The patients had lower haemoglobin and haematocrit but higher serum erythropoietin and NT-proBNP levels than the control subjects. Serum erythropoietin and NT-proBNP levels increased with worsening functional class.The serum erythropoietin level correlated negatively with left ventricular ejection fraction (r = –0.404, P < 0.001), haemoglobin (r = –0.530, P < 0.001) and haematocrit (r = –0.496, P < 0.001) levels. The patients who died (n = 17) had lower haemoglobin and haematocrit levels and significantly higher erythropoietin and NT-proBNP levels. However, multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that only NT-proBNP level was an independent predictor of mortality (P = 0.002). Conclusion — Anaemia and resistance to erythropoietin develop proportionately to disease severity and left ventricular systolic dysfunction in patients with CHF.Although serum erythropoietin level seems related with mortality, this observation needs to be confirmed by studies with more patients and longer follow-up.
Simulation Research of the Influence of the Users’ Download Behavior in Social Applications

With the rapid development of smartphones and tablet computers, increasing number of applications appear in the market, forming a unique innovative trend of this emerging industry. One of the major features shared by many applications, especially social applications, is the social function. However, not all application service providers offer social applications that can obtain the user's preference. Therefore, the question of how to attract potential users becomes the first-and-foremost issue for application providers to consider. Based on simulation principle, the current study applied NetLogo modeling tools to simulating the potential user and social applications as "agents" on a set of simple rules and made the "agency" simulate the potential user, social features of applications in the market, and the user's decision-making process. Focused on the influence of download on the potential user's decision-making process, the current study aimed to help application providers better promote their social applications.
Integrating security mechanisms into embedded systems by domain-specific modelling

Embedded devices are crucial enablers of the Internet of Things and become increasingly common in our daily life. They store, manipulate and transmit sensitive information and, therefore, must be protected against security threats. Due to the security and also resource constraint concerns, designing secure networked embedded systems is a difficult task. Model-based development (MBD) is promoted to address complexity and ease the design of software intensive systems. We leverage MBD and domain-specific modelling to characterise common issues related to security and embedded systems that are specific to a given application domain. Security-specific knowledge relevant for a certain application domain is represented in the form of an adapted information security ontology. Further, the elements of the ontology are associated with security building blocks modelled with the MBD method SPACE. The selection of relevant security building blocks is based on (i) assets automatically elicited from the functional models, (ii) domain security knowledge captured by the security expert and (iii) the platform adopted by the embedded system engineer. A tool is developed to support the steps supporting this methodology and help to bridge between the security and embedded systems domains. We illustrate our approach with a case study from the smart metering domain. © 2013 The Authors. Security and Communication Networks published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Typologie d’alliances stratégiques en très petite entreprise

Resume Si les alliances strategiques ont fait l’objet de nombreuses recherches en management strategique, la connaissance de ce phenomene en contexte de tres petite entreprise (TPE) est relativement vierge. L’objet de cet article est de montrer que l’alliance revet des dimensions specifiques des lors qu’elle met en relation des toutes petites organisations. A partir de l’etude de 20 cas d’alliances entre entreprises francaises de multiples secteurs d’activites, et une analyse de discours thematique, l’auteur propose une typologie d’alliances de TPE, et met en evidence l’importance de la logique sous-jacente au partenariat : egocentree ou de codeveloppement. Ainsi, apres avoir explicite les motivations qui peuvent conduire les TPE a s’allier, il s’agit de presenter les differentes configurations d’alliances : forme, objet, relations entre les dirigeants. Puis, l’auteur analyse les modes de coordination de ces differentes configurations et met en evidence un certain nombre d’elements specifiques aux alliances de TPE : refus du contrat, confiance, confiance contrainte notamment. Finalement, l’auteur s’interroge sur l’apport que peut representer le recours a l’alliance strategique pour le developpement des toutes petites structures.
An Affine Motion Model for Removing Rolling Shutter Distortions

Rolling shutter distortions degrade the quality of videos captured by hand-held cameras. This letter proposes an affine motion model for removing rolling shutter distortions. The model represents the image motion during image capture as a sequence of affine transformations and computes the composition of these affine transformations precisely. Because an affine transformation can be represented by a neural network with one layer of linear neurons, the motion model can be represented by a multilayer neural network of linear neurons. Thus, the backpropagation algorithm can be used to improve the efficiency of the optimization process that estimates the model parameters. The proposed model is calibration-free. It is more general than other rolling shutter motion models because it only assumes that the velocity of the image during image acquisition is piecewise constant. Experimental results demonstrate that the model is more accurate than two state-of-the-art models and that the model parameters can be estimated efficiently.
Complex Adoption and Assisted Reproductive Technology: A Developmental Approach to Clinical Practice

I. New Family Narratives: An Approach to Practice 1. A Conceptual Framework for Practice 2. Developmental Perspectives and Clinical Issues in Complex Adoption II. Complex Adoption 3. Th Adoption of Children Following Foster Placement 4. The Impact of Delayed Adoption: A Case Study 5. International Adoption and Family Formation 6. Skipped-Generation Kinship Care: Grandparents and Their Grandchildren 7. Open Adoption: Family Attachments and Identity Formation III. Assisted Reproductive Technology and Family Formation 8. Social and Scientific Changes in the Formation of Families 9. Family Identity and Emerging Psychological Issues 10. Single, Gay, and Lesbian Parents: New Family Perspectives IV. Implications for Practice, Training, and Research 11. A Clinical Look at Knowing and Telling: Secrets, Lies, and Disillusionments, (Marsha H. Levy-Warren) 12. New Forms of Parentage: Implications for Practice, Training, and Research
A Novel Study on Design to Reduce PAPR and ISI in Multi-Carrier OFDM System

This paper provides a review on a new scheme for PAPR reduction in OFDM System. OFDM system mainly used to provide orthogonality of OFDM signals. This system used Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) for modulation and inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) for demodulation purposes. In this paper, we will discuss the overview of OFDM system which consist OFDM system model and notation, OFDM transmitter and its receiver structure, concepts of orthogonality. It also describes inter-symbol interference problem, high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) problem and generate a taxonomy of the available solutions to mitigate the problem. The high PAPR will cause the degradation of performance of system and hence high order filter will be implemented in system using MATLAB tool.
Macronutrients, diet quality, and frailty in older men.

BACKGROUND Frailty, a phenotype of multisystem impairment and expanding vulnerability, is associated with higher risk of adverse health outcomes not entirely explained by advancing age. We investigated associations of macronutrients, dietary fiber, and overall diet quality with frailty status in older community-dwelling men. METHODS Participants were 5,925 men aged ≥ 65 years enrolled in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) study at six U.S. centers. Diet was assessed at baseline with a food frequency questionnaire. We assessed frailty status (robust, intermediate, or frail) at baseline and at a second clinic visit (a mean of 4.6 years later) using a slightly modified Cardiovascular Health Study frailty index. We used multinomial logistic regression to assess associations between macronutrient intake, dietary fiber, and the Diet Quality Index Revised with frailty status at baseline and at the second clinic visit. RESULTS At baseline, 2,748 (46.4%) participants were robust, 2,681 (45.2%) were intermediate, and 496 (8.4%) were frail. Carbohydrate, fat, protein, and dietary fiber showed no consistent associations with frailty status. Overall diet quality exhibited fairly consistent associations with frailty status. The Diet Quality Index Revised was inversely associated with frail status relative to robust status at the baseline visit (odds ratio for Q5 vs Q1 = 0.44, 95% confidence interval: 0.30, 0.63; p for trend < .0001) and at the second clinic visit (odds ratio for Q5 vs Q1 = 0.18, 95% confidence interval: 0.03, 0.97; p for trend = .0180). CONCLUSIONS Overall diet quality was inversely associated with prevalent and future frailty status in this cohort of older men.
Assessing bias in osteoarthritis trials included in Cochrane reviews: protocol for a meta-epidemiological study

Introduction The validity of systematic reviews and meta-analysis depends on methodological quality and unbiased dissemination of trials. Our objective is to evaluate the association of estimates of treatment effects with different bias-related study characteristics in meta-analyses of interventions used for treating pain in osteoarthritis (OA). From the findings, we hope to consolidate guidance on interpreting OA trials in systematic reviews based on empirical evidence from Cochrane reviews. Methods and analysis Only systematic reviews that compare experimental interventions with sham, placebo or no intervention control will be considered eligible. Bias will be assessed with the risk of bias tool, used according to the Cochrane Collaboration’s recommendations. Furthermore, center status, trial size and funding will be assessed. The primary outcome (pain) will be abstracted from the first appearing forest plot for overall pain in the Cochrane review. Treatment effect sizes will be expressed as standardised mean differences (SMDs), where the difference in mean values available from the forest plots is divided by the pooled SD. To empirically assess the risk of bias in treatment benefits, we will perform stratified analyses of the trials from the included meta-analyses and assess the interaction between trial characteristics and treatment effect. A relevant study-level covariate is defined as one that decreases the between-study variance (τ2, estimated as Tau-squared) as a consequence of inclusion in the mixed effects statistical model. Ethics and dissemination Meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials provide the most reliable basis for treatment of patients with OA, but the actual impact of bias is unclear. This study will systematically examine the methodological quality in OA Cochrane reviews and explore the effect estimates behind possible bias. Since our study does not collect primary data, no formal ethical assessment and informed consent are required. Trial registration number PROSPERO (CRD42013006924).
Reducing Uncertainty in Visual Search through the Priming of Visual-Relatedness and the Manipulation of Observer Expectancy

We examined two means of reducing uncertainty in visual search: 1) visual-relatedness of a prime to a target and 2) expectancy (based on the proportion of validly primed trials). The two processes were decoupled using a short and a long inter-stimulus interval to examine their respective time courses in visual search. Twelve participants engaged in a discrimination task and a visual search task. The obtained results suggest that visual-relatedness affects search performance early, but its effects rapidly decay. They also suggest that expectancy requires time to accrue before it can affect visual search performance, but its effects are more long lasting than visual-relatedness. These results offer guidance for designing visual displays. In tasks that require split-second decisions designers should be encouraged to prime visual-relatedness. Moreover if the onset of the display and the required decision are separated by a longer interval, displays should inform users of likely outcomes (i.e. manipulate user's expectations).
Information and Energy Cooperation in OFDM Relaying: Protocols and Optimization

Integrating power transfer into wireless communications to support simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is a promising technique in energy-constrained wireless networks. While most existing work on SWIPT focuses on capacity-energy characterization, the benefits of cooperative transmission for SWIPT have been investigated far less. In this paper, we consider SWIPT in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) relaying system, where a source node transfers information and a fraction of power simultaneously to a relay node, and the relay node uses the harvested power from the source node to forward the source information to the destination. To support the simultaneous information and energy cooperation, we first propose a transmission protocol, assuming that the direct link between the source and destination does not exist, i.e., power-splitting (PS) relaying protocol, where the relay node splits the received signal power in the first hop into two separate parts: one for information decoding and the other for energy harvesting. Then, we consider the case that the direct link between the source and destination is available, and the transmission mode adaptation (TMA) protocol is proposed, where transmission can be completed by cooperative mode and direct mode simultaneously (over different subcarriers). In the direct mode, when the source transmits signal to the destination, the destination receives the signal as information, and the relay node concurrently receives the signal for energy harvesting. Joint resource-allocation problems are formulated to maximize the system throughput. By using the Lagrangian dual method, we develop efficient algorithms to solve the nonconvex optimization problems.
HAM: a general purpose hypertext abstract machine

The HAM is a transaction-based server for a hyper text storage system. The server is designed to handle multiple users in a networked environment. The storage system consists of a collection of contexts, nodes, links, and attributes that make up a hypertext graph. The versatility of the HAM can be illustrated by showing how Guide buttons, intermedia webs, and NoteCard FileBoxes can be implemented using its storage model.
Deterministic maximum likelihood direction of arrival estimation using GSA

Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation is an important problem in the field of array signal processing. There are many spectral and eigen structure algorithms for estimating direction of narrow band sources. Maximum Likelihood (ML) method is an efficient DOA estimation technique compared to other eigen structure based methods mainly due to its superior statistical performance. In this paper, we use Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) to find deterministic ML solution by optimizing a complex nonlinear multimodal function over a high dimensional space in linear arrays. Simulation results show that GSA algorithm gives better performance at lower SNR compared to other heuristic approaches like Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and conventional methods like Capon, MUSIC and ESPRIT. The performance of the algorithms are judged in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and probability of resolution.
Developmental neurocircuitry of motivation in adolescence: a critical period of addiction vulnerability.

OBJECTIVE Epidemiological studies indicate that experimentation with addictive drugs and onset of addictive disorders is primarily concentrated in adolescence and young adulthood. The authors describe basic and clinical data supporting adolescent neurodevelopment as a biologically critical period of greater vulnerability for experimentation with substances and acquisition of substance use disorders. METHOD The authors reviewed recent literature regarding neurocircuitry underlying motivation, impulsivity, and addiction, with a focus on studies investigating adolescent neurodevelopment. RESULTS Adolescent neurodevelopment occurs in brain regions associated with motivation, impulsivity, and addiction. Adolescent impulsivity and/or novelty seeking as a transitional trait behavior can be explained in part by maturational changes in frontal cortical and subcortical monoaminergic systems. These developmental processes may advantageously promote learning drives for adaptation to adult roles but may also confer greater vulnerability to the addictive actions of drugs. CONCLUSIONS An exploration of developmental changes in neurocircuitry involved in impulse control has significant implications for understanding adolescent behavior, addiction vulnerability, and the prevention of addiction in adolescence and adulthood.
Trauma in global contexts: Integrating local practices and socio-cultural meanings into new explanatory frameworks of trauma

Although Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is only one of the identifiable responses to trauma, it has become the main focus of trauma research, writing, and clinical interventions. The unquestioned use worldwide of PTSD, however, presents the risk of oversimplifying human responses to traumatic events. This article goes beyond critiques of the current trauma paradigm and intends to offer new theoretical tenets whereby multiple local contexts could be better incorporated into trauma discourse and practice. If a renewed trauma paradigm aims to have a role in the global health arena, it should be informed locally and globally.
In Vitro Suppression of Xenoimmune-Mediated Macrophage Activation by Human CD4+CD25+ Regulatory T Cells

Background. Macrophages are important effector cells in T cell-mediated xenograft rejection. The aim of this study was to determine whether CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) were capable of suppressing macrophage activation in vitro. Methods. Porcine cell or xenoantigen-primed human peripheral blood mononuclear cells, CD4+ T cell-depleted peripheral blood mononuclear cells, or CD14+ macrophages plus autologous CD4+CD25− T cells were cultured with or without expanded autologous Tregs. Transwell cultures were used to separate the various components to determine the need for cell-cell contact. Results. Pig cell primed CD14+ macrophages required the presence of CD4+CD25− T cells for activation and increased expression of CD40, interleukin-12, and tumor necrosis factor-&agr;. This up-regulated expression of macrophage activation markers was reduced substantially in the presence of autologous Tregs. Coculture with Tregs did not alter macrophage viability but reduced the capacity of macrophages to stimulate proliferation of responder T cells. Tregs required direct contact with CD4+CD25− T cells to inhibit macrophage activation but activated macrophage phenotype was not altered by separating the stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells or CD14+ macrophages from Tregs in a transwell system. Macrophages did not require direct cell contact with porcine stimulator cells for full activation by CD4+CD25− T cells. Conclusions. Human Tregs were able to suppress xenoantigen-primed and CD4+ T-cell-mediated macrophage activation and antigen-presenting cell function. However, Tregs had no direct effect on macrophages in vitro.
Penetration of clindamycin, cefoxitin, and metronidazole into pelvic peritoneal fluid of women undergoing diagnostic laparoscopy

A single dose of clindamycin, cefoxitin, or metronidazole was administered to each of 30 women. The mean concentration of cefoxitin in pelvic fluid at 1 h exceeded those of the other two drugs (P less than 0.007). Cefoxitin concentrations were inferior to those of the other drugs when compared with the published MIC for 90% of Bacteroides fragilis strains.