Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Paired-associate learning in institutionalized and noninstitutionalized old people: an analysis of interference and context effects.

Groups of old people were impaired, relative to young adults, on a test of negative transfer involving lists of paired-associate words. Susceptibility to interference effects were greater in old people living in institutions than in old people living in their own homes. The effects of varying contextual cues on performance on this task were also assessed. All participants, regardless of age, benefitted from manipulations that were intrinsic to the task (e.g., relatedness of paired associates), but only the institutionalized aged responded to extrinsic contextual manipulations (e.g., environmental changes). In general, the performance of institutionalized old people resembled that of brain-damaged amnesic patients tested under similar conditions; old people living at home generally behaved more like normal, young people. The results were discussed in terms of specific age differences in cognitive function, declining brain function, and possible selective effects of institutionalization.
Enhancing Information Usefulness by Line Managers’ Involvement in Cross-Unit Activities

Organization and management scholars have long advocated that efficient use of information is critical for firms to compete successfully in the modern marketplace. This study examines whether the use of managerial cross-unit involvement in an organization enhances managers’ propensity to use useful information provided by a functionally related unit in the organization. Senior line managers in a major global bank participated in our study in which they provided information related to their information processing and assessments of the usefulness of corporate audit information. We analyse the effect of line managers’ prior involvement with Corporate Audit using Throughput Modeling. This model allows us to understand how line managers’ cross-unit involvement influenced the way they process information received from Corporate Audit. Our results show that managers’ cross-unit involvement positively influences their assessment of information from Corporate Audit in a way that influences their propensity to use information from that unit. The results indicate that cross-unit involvement is more than an effective means of transmitting information — it can also be used as a means of building boundary-spanning capabilities in managers.
Vascular comorbidity is associated with more rapid disability progression in multiple sclerosis

Background: Vascular comorbidity adversely influences health outcomes in several chronic conditions. Vascular comorbidities are common in multiple sclerosis (MS), but their impact on disease severity is unknown. Vascular comorbidities may contribute to the poorly understood heterogeneity in MS disease severity. Treatment of vascular comorbidities may represent an avenue for treating MS. Methods: A total of 8,983 patients with MS enrolled in the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis Registry participated in this cohort study. Time from symptom onset or diagnosis until ambulatory disability was compared for patients with or without vascular comorbidities to determine their impact on MS severity. Multivariable proportional hazards models were adjusted for sex, race, age at symptom onset, year of symptom onset, socioeconomic status, and region of residence. Results: Participants reporting one or more vascular comorbidities at diagnosis had an increased risk of ambulatory disability, and risk increased with the number of vascular conditions reported (hazard ratio [HR]/condition for early gait disability 1.51; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.41–1.61). Vascular comorbidity at any time during the disease course also increased the risk of ambulatory disability (adjusted HR for unilateral walking assistance 1.54; 95% CI 1.44–1.65). The median time between diagnosis and need for ambulatory assistance was 18.8 years in patients without and 12.8 years in patients with vascular comorbidities. Conclusions: Vascular comorbidity, whether present at symptom onset, diagnosis, or later in the disease course, is associated with a substantially increased risk of disability progression in multiple sclerosis. The impact of treating vascular comorbidities on disease progression deserves investigation.
An Epidemic Model of Bit Torrent with Control

Despite its existing incentives for leecher cooperation, BitTorrent file sharing fundamentally relies on the presence of seeder peers. Seeder peers essentially operate outside the BitTorrent incentives, with two caveats: slow downlinks lead to increased numbers of ``temporary" seeders (who left their console, but will terminate their seeder role when they return), and the copyright liability boon that file segmentation offers for permanent seeders. Using a simple epidemic model for a two-segment BitTorrent swarm, we focus on the BitTorrent rule to disseminate the (locally) rarest segments first. With our model, we show that the rarest-segment first rule minimizes transition time to seeder (complete file acquisition) and equalizes the segment populations in steady-state. We discuss how alternative dissemination rules may {\em beneficially increase} file acquisition times causing leechers to remain in the system longer (particularly as temporary seeders). The result is that leechers are further enticed to cooperate. This eliminates the threat of extinction of rare segments which is prevented by the needed presence of permanent seeders. Our model allows us to study the corresponding trade-offs between performance improvement, load on permanent seeders, and content availability, which we leave for future work.
The development of reasoning skills during compulsory 16 to 18 mathematics education

The belief that studying mathematics improves reasoning skills, known as the Theory of Formal Discipline (TFD), has been held since the time of Plato. Research evidence supports this idea, at least in the context of students who had chosen to study post-compulsory mathematics. Here we examined the development of reasoning skills in 16- to 18-year-old Cypriot students, who are required to study mathematics until age 18. One hundred and eighty-eight students, studying high- or low-intensity mathematics, completed the abstract Conditional Inference Task and the contextual Belief Bias Syllogisms task at ages 16, 17 and 18. While the high-intensity group improved on the conditional inference task and showed a reduction in belief bias, the low-intensity group did not change on either measure. This is promising for the TFD, but suggests that a certain level of mathematical study may be necessary for students' general reasoning skills to develop.
Ephemeral Estimation of the Value of Art

We investigated whether the sale price of artworks can be estimated, a priori, based on objective key factors, and whether the estimation prices by auction houses are representative of the final hammer price. The hypothesis that the price of works of art can be explained exclusively by a number of pre-established variables is rejected. A positive correlation is observed between estimated and final prices, but the latter is usually underestimated. Financial models are not always fully effective in assessing prices, since products are often represented by “unique pieces” and their markets work differently than the standard markets represented in the financial model. The research suggests that non-financial factors such as aesthetics can prevail over economic factors in forecasting the prices of artworks.
IMAGE DENOISING USING FRAMELET TRANSFORM

Images are created to record or display useful information or details . Due to demerits in the imaging and capturing process or transmission process, the recorded image always represents noisy version of the original image. These imperfections is critical to many of the successive image processing tasks. The visual quality of images plays an important role inmedical imaging, satellite and areal image processing, robot vision, industrial vision systems, micro vision systems, space exploring etc. There are two typical ways for noise reduction in the image processing. One way is that acquiring the data several times and averages them. However this processes is time consuming. Another way for denoise the images by post processing methods. For this purpose construction of efficient, less time consuming and high Quality technique need to be introduce. This paper describe the difference between image denoising using DWT and Framelet transform. Framelet transform provide shift invariance property. So using Framelet transform which is nearly similar to wavelet transform only with the difference is that framelet transform contains two or more high frequency filter bank which is used to produce more subband in decomposition.
An Adaptive Image Enhancement using Wiener Filtering with Compression and Segmentation

Today information technology plays an eminent role in every fields of human survival. Due to the rapid development in the information processing system, and the huge data base become a challenging tasks. Due to the various issues in the text processing, image processing has been emerged to provide a solution to such issues using various stages viz., image acquisition, image enhancement and image retrieval. In this paper a method for preprocessing of images and compression of filtered images with lossy and lossless compression is and segmentation is presented. Finally, this paper shows a compact image processing and the result of compared to evaluate the performance of the methods.
CS 764 Project Report : Adventures in Moodle Performance Analysis

The Computer Aided Engineering center at the College of Engineering of UW-Madison manages a platform of web, database, storage, and other related servers for a campus wide Moodle service, an online learning management system. Due to the large scope and supported user base of this web application, it encounters some interesting systems and database related problems. The main focus of this project was to evaluate and analyze some of the different database and related (e.g. NoSQL) configurations for application cache and user session data that Moodle currently supports (or can be made to) with respect to their impact on scalability, reliability, security, and performance. We found that systems with relaxed durability, something we call “degrees of durability”, can perform as well as systems with no durability as the cost of network communication tends to outweigh the possible cost of background disk activity. Along the way we found some ways to help reduce the network costs and also found a number of general systems performance anomalies and optimizations which we discuss.
Laboratory abnormalities in former blood donors seropositive for human T-lymphotropic virus types 1 and 2: a prospective analysis.

CONTEXT The human T-lymphotropic viruses types 1 and 2 (HTLV-1 and HTLV-2) are highly prevalent among injection drug users in the United States. However, the clinical course of infection has not been well characterized. OBJECTIVE To understand HTLV-1-and HTLV-2-associated laboratory abnormalities, which may provide insights into their underlying pathophysiology. DESIGN Cohort study. SETTING Five US blood centers. PARTICIPANTS A total of 133 HTLV-1-and 332 HTLV-2-seropositive former blood donors and 717 HTLV-seronegative donors followed up prospectively since 1991. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Selected serum chemistry tests and complete blood cell counts were analyzed at enrollment and approximately 2 years later in participants. Repeated-measures analyses were conducted to evaluate the effect of HTLV infection on laboratory measures. RESULTS Compared with seronegative subjects, HTLV-1-seropositive subjects had 13% higher creatine kinase (P =.02) and slightly elevated lactate dehydrogenase (P =.03) levels at follow-up. The HTLV-2-seropositive participants had 11% higher absolute lymphocyte counts than seronegative subjects (P =.0001). Infection with HTLV-2 also appeared to be associated with slightly higher hemoglobin levels (P =.03) and hematocrit (P =.03) and with lower albumin levels (P =.01). CONCLUSIONS These results further our understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying HTLV and suggest that HTLV-associated laboratory changes are unlikely to alter clinical evaluation or counseling of otherwise healthy HTLV-infected subjects.
Hypertensive retinopathy: comparing the Keith–Wagener–Barker to a simplified classification

Purpose: This study assessed the interobserver and intraobserver grading reliability of the Keith–Wagener–Barker (KWB) system to the proposed Mitchell–Wong ‘simplified’ three-grade classification for hypertensive retinopathy. Methods: Digital retinal images of normal and hypertensive human fundii (n = 50 per group) were randomly graded by an optometrist and an ophthalmologist using the two systems. Interobserver agreement was compared to a ‘gold standard’ research grader. Intraobserver agreement was assessed through a repeat grading after 6 months. Cohen's kappa coefficients were used to assess the degree of agreement. Results: Both clinicians demonstrated a good level of agreement with the KWB and simplified classification compared with a ‘gold standard’ grader; there was no significant difference in the level of agreement for either of the two classification methods for either observer. The simplified classification was found to be equally as efficacious as the KWB system with respect to interobserver and intraobserver agreement for both practitioners. Conclusion: These findings indicate that the simplified classification of hypertensive retinopathy is both reliable and repeatable. The advantage of the simplified method over the KWB system in correlating retinal microvascular signs to incident cardiovascular risk supports its adoption in clinical practice.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Title The electron-cloud instability in the arcs of the PEP-II positron ring Permalink

We have applied our simulation code “POSINST” to evaluate, in linear approximation, the contribution to the growth rate of the electron-cloud instability (ECI) from the pumping sections and the dipole bending magnets in the arcs of the PEP-II positron ring. A key ingredient in our model is a detailed description of the secondary emission process off the TiN-coated chambers. Another important element is the analytic computation of the electric field produced by the beam, including the effects from surface charges. Space-charge forces of the electron cloud upon itself are also included, although these forces are negligible under nominal conditions. Bunch-length effects are optionally included by slicing the bunch into several kicks. We conclude that the growth rate is dominated by the pumping sections and scales linearly with the photoelectric yield Y ′. For Y ′ = 1, our present estimate is in the range ∼ 1000− 1300 s−1, depending upon the value of the photon reflectivity R. This is in the range controllable by the transverse feedback system. The contributions to the growth rate from other magnets and from other sections of the ring remain to be evaluated.
Expression profile of IGF system during lung injury and recovery in rats exposed to hyperoxia: A possible role of IGF‐1 in alveolar epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation

Although several studies have shown that an induction of insulin‐like growth factor (IGF) components occurs during hyperoxia‐mediated lung injury, the role of these components in tissue repair is not well known. The present study aimed to elucidate the role of IGF system components in normal tissue remodeling. We used a rat model of lung injury and remodeling by exposing rats to > 95% oxygen for 48 h and allowing them to recover in room air for up to 7 days. The mRNA expression of IGF‐I, IGF‐II, and IGF‐1 receptor (IGF‐1R) increased during injury. However, the protein levels of these components remained elevated until day 3 of the recovery and were highly abundant in alveolar type II cells. Among IGF binding proteins (IGFBPs), IGFBP‐5 mRNA expression increased during injury and at all the recovery time points. IGFBP‐2 and ‐3 mRNA were also elevated during injury phase. In an in vitro model of cell differentiation, the expression of IGF‐I and IGF‐II increased during trans‐differentiation of alveolar epithelial type II cells into type‐I like cells. The addition of anti‐IGF‐1R and anti‐IGF‐I antibodies inhibited the cell proliferation and trans‐differentiation to some extent, as evident by cell morphology and the expression of type I and type II cell markers. These findings demonstrate that the IGF signaling pathway plays a critical role in proliferation and differentiation of alveolar epithelium during tissue remodeling. J. Cell. Biochem. 97: 984–998, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Physics, Technology, and Modeling of Complementary Asymmetric MOSFETs

The physics, technology, and modeling of complementary asymmetric MOSFETs are reviewed and illustrated with statistically representative silicon data from a recent manufacturing implementation, in which the transistors for the secondary power supply voltage are offered in asymmetric and symmetric constructions. The in-depth analysis of the device physics of asymmetric transistors provides new insights into their physical operation and into the operation of transistors using halo implants in general. The variability, matching, and noise implications of using halo implants are also analyzed, concluding that both asymmetric and symmetric devices need to be offered for uncompromised circuit design. The challenges associated with the compact modeling the asymmetric transistors are also reviewed and illustrated. The preferred manufacturing implementation uses retrograde wells with no dopant fillers at the surface, while avoiding the drain-to-source punch-through by source-side-only halo implants. In addition to the known switching speed and maximum voltage gain advantages of the asymmetric transistors, this particular device architecture offers superior hot-carrier reliability and transistor design flexibility. The availability of retrograde wells enables construction of high-reliability complementary extended-drain MOSFETs for a third higher power supply voltage.
A principle-based hierarchical representation of LTAGs

Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars have proved useful for NLP. However, numerous redundancy problems face LTAGs developers, as highlighted by Vijay-shanker and Schabes (92). We present a compact hierarchical organization of syntactic descriptions, that is linguistically motivated and a tool that automatically generates the tree families of an LTAG. The tool starts from the syntactic hierarchy and principles of well-formedness and carries out all the relevant combinations of linguistic phenomena.
3D terrain reconstruction based on contours

In 3D terrain reconstruction, the differences of shape and topology among contours in adjacent sections cause a difficulty as the tiling problem of branching terrain. In this paper, we present a brief and pure geometrical algorithm to reconstruct 3D terrain based on contours. The merit of our method is that the tiling rules guarantee arbitrary branching terrain can be divided into correct topology.
An Impact of ZigBee Technology in Data Communication System

ZigBee is an IEEE 802.15. 4 standard for information interchanges with business and purchaser gadgets. It is composed around low-control utilization permitting batteries to keep going forever. The ZigBee standard gives system, security, and application bolster administrations working on top of the IEEE 802.15. 4 Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) remote standard. It utilizes a suite of innovations to empower adaptable, self-arranging, self-mending systems that can oversee different information movement designs. ZigBee is an ease, low-control, remote lattice organizing standard. The ease permits the innovation to be broadly sent in remote control and observing applications, the low power-use permits longer an existence with little batteries, and the cross-section systems administration gives high dependability and bigger range.ZigBee has been created to take care of the developing demand for able remote systems administration between various low power. In industry ZigBee is being utilized for cutting-edge robotized assembling, with little transmitters in each gadget on the floor, taking into consideration correspondence between devices to a focal PC. This new level of communication allows finely-tuned remote observing and control.
Powerful multi‐marker association tests: unifying genomic distance‐based regression and logistic regression

To detect genetic association with common and complex diseases, many statistical tests have been proposed for candidate gene or genome‐wide association studies with the case‐control design. Due to linkage disequilibrium (LD), multi‐marker association tests can gain power over single‐marker tests with a Bonferroni multiple testing adjustment. Among many existing multi‐marker association tests, most target to detect only one of many possible aspects in distributional differences between the genotypes of cases and controls, such as allele frequency differences, while a few new ones aim to target two or three aspects, all of which can be implemented in logistic regression. In contrast to logistic regression, a genomic distance‐based regression (GDBR) approach aims to detect some high‐order genotypic differences between cases and controls. A recent study has confirmed the high power of GDBR tests. At this moment, the popular logistic regression and the emerging GDBR approaches are completely unrelated; for example, one has to choose between the two. In this article, we reformulate GDBR as logistic regression, opening a venue to constructing other powerful tests while overcoming some limitations of GDBR. For example, asymptotic distributions can replace time‐consuming permutations for deriving P‐values and covariates, including gene‐gene interactions, can be easily incorporated. Importantly, this reformulation facilitates combining GDBR with other existing methods in a unified framework of logistic regression. In particular, we show that Fisher's P‐value combining method can boost statistical power by incorporating information from allele frequencies, Hardy–Weinberg disequilibrium, LD patterns, and other higher‐order interactions among multi‐markers as captured by GDBR. Genet. Epidemiol. 34:680–688, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Looking-Glass Self: Looking at Relationship as the Mechanism of Change in Case Management of Persons with Severe Mental Illness

Community mental health case management has been an important source of support for persons living with a severe mental illness (SMI) since the shift from hospital-based to community-based services, and it is considered to be a central component of the recovery-based model of care. Fostering a strong and positive relationship between case managers and consumers is important to good case management practice. The ascendance of recovery in the mental health paradigm has invigorated the need for collaborative relationships that open up space for consumers to move toward recovery. Using Cooley's metaphor of the looking-glass self, we examine the consumer-case manager relationship and how it helps create a new, recovery-oriented self in SMI consumers. Understanding this relationship as an important mechanism of change provides a useful model for understanding the impact of case managers on the lives of SMI consumers.