Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heart rate as a predictor of development of sustained hypertension in subjects screened for stage 1 hypertension: the HARVEST Study

Objective Whether heart rate predicts the development of sustained hypertension in individuals with hypertension is not well known. We carried out a prospective study to investigate whether clinic and ambulatory heart rates assessed at baseline and changes in clinic heart rate during 6 months of follow-up were independent predictors of subsequent blood pressure (BP). Methods The study was conducted in a cohort of 1103 white, stage 1 hypertensive individuals from the HARVEST study, never treated for hypertension and followed-up for an average of 6.4 years. Data were adjusted for baseline BP, age, sex, body fatness, physical activity habits, parental hypertension, duration of hypertension, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and change of body weight from baseline. Results Clinic heart rate and heart rate changes during the first 6 months of follow-up were independent predictors of subsequent systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) regardless of initial BP and other confounders (all P < 0.01). A significant interaction was found between sex (male) and baseline resting heart rate on final SBP (P = 0.017) and DBP (P < 0.001). The ambulatory heart rate and the heart rate white-coat effect did not add prognostic information to that provided by the clinic heart rate. Patients whose heart rate was persistently elevated during the study had a doubled fully adjusted risk (95% confidence interval 1.4–2.9) of developing sustained hypertension in comparison with subjects with a normal heart rate. Conclusions Baseline clinic heart rate and heart rate changes during the first few months of follow-up are independent predictors of the development of sustained hypertension in young persons screened for stage 1 hypertension.
The Impact of Issue Preferences on Voting Choices in the Swiss Federal Elections, 1999

This Note presents a study of the impact of issue positions of political parties on electoral choice. Together with economic performance and the popularity of leaders and candidates, issue-specific considerations are the main ‘short-term’ forces influencing the voting choices of individual voters. Issue voting has been shown to matter in a large number of studies. Most recently, Alvarez et al. have demonstrated the power of issues in British general elections, which have long been known as an important case of class voting. They argue that one should no longer debate whether issues (and the economy) matter in British elections: ‘Instead, the focus should shift from whether to how much and to how their influence in particular elections compares to their influence on other British elections, and to elections in other nations. ’
Mechanisms of Sublingual Immunotherapy

Allergen-specific sublingual immunotherapy is now recognized to be an efficacious and well-tolerated treatment for allergic rhinitis. Emerging treatment strategies are also aimed at the primary treatment of allergic asthma, particularly allergy to house dust mites. Knowledge of the exact mechanisms of action of sublingual immunotherapy is at a basic level, although there appear to be similarities to the immunological changes seen in subcutaneous immunotherapy. An improved understanding should allow the development of more effective treatment programs and widen the potential use of this form of immunotherapy. This review discusses the possible mechanism of action of sublingual immunotherapy, including data from animal and clinical studies, while comparing this with the current understanding of subcutaneous immunotherapy.
Some problems of portfolio optimization and hedging in a Lévy market via fictitious completions

The classical Merton’s problem of utility maximization was recently solved in [2] in a market consisting of a bond with constant interest rate, a stock that follows a geometric Lévy model, and certain “fictitious” stocks called powerjump assets. Using their previous work [3] on the completeness of such a market and the martingale method, it was proved there that for certain utility functions, it is possible to choose the fictitious stocks so that they are not needed to replicate the optimal final wealth. In this paper, we study other properties of these fictitious completions of the Lévy market. Problems that are considered here include optimal portfolios that maximize state-dependent utilities, or as a particular case, that minimize the “shortfall risk” in replicating a contingent claim. Also, we analyze conditions for replicating a contingent claim, possessing a discounted payoff of X̃, with an initial endowment w = supQ E [ X̃ ] , where the supremum is only taken over equivalent martingale measures associated to fictitious completions of the market, and not over all equivalent martingale measures as the fundamental theorem of supereplication establish.
A Cognitive Behavior Modification Approach Marie Louise De Bronac-Meade Mental Health Services, Mariposa County, CA Kings View Corporation

Many studies have cited the debilitating effect of math-related anxiety on achievement and vocational choice. To investigate the efficacy of cognitive behavior modification in the treatment of mathematics anxiety, 44 subjects were recruited from a high school and 2 colleges. The students were divided into two groups, a cognitive behavior modification treatment group and a waiting . control group. As expected, the treatment group showed a significant decrease in mathematics anxiety. Their monitoring of negative self-statements and relaxation apparently was successful, although adolescent boys had difficulty relating . to the relaxation and imagery process. The results also suggested a profile of the typical math-anxious person, i.e.,. a female with less parental encouragement to study mathematics and a less-educated mother. The findings indicate that programs designed to deal with the problem of mathematics anxiety, however, need to be addressed to both sexes. (Author/JAC) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** Reduction of Mathematics Anxiety: A Cognitive Behavior Modification Approach Marie Louise De Bronac-Meade Mental Health Services, Mariposa County, CA Kings View Corporation Ric Brown School of Education and Human Development California State University, Fresno American Educatlim Research Association March, 1982 New York City US. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EOUCAT.ONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) X'This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points of crew or opinions stated in this docu merit do not necessarily represent official NIE position or policy
What Makes The Prefrontal Cortex So Appealing in the Era of Brain Imaging? A Network Analytical Perspective

It is thought that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves cognitive control processes by coordinating the flow of information in the cerebral cortex. In the network of cortical areas the central position of the PFC makes difficult to dissociate processing and the cognitive function mapped to this region, especially when using whole brain imaging techniques, which can detect frequently activated regions. Accordingly, the present study showed particularly high rate of increase of published studies citing the PFC and imaging as compared to other fields of the neurosciences on the PubMed. Network measures used to characterize the role of the areas in signal flow indicated specialization of the different regions of the PFC in cortical processing. Notably, areas of the dorsolateral PFC and the anterior cingulate cortex, which received the highest number of citations, were identified as global convergence points in the network. These prefrontal regions also had central position in the dominant cluster consisted exclusively by the associational areas of the cortex. We also present findings relevant to models suggesting that control processes of the PFC are depended on serial processing, which results in bottleneck effects. The findings suggest that PFC is best understood via its role in cortical information processing.
ECONOMIC CONCEPTUALIZATION OF NEGATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL EXTERNALITIES

In response to various pressures of society, economic agents polluting behaviors began to report externally on its environmental policy and performance. The importance of such an external report depends on the degree of change required in management culture and systems, in how new environmental protection measures influence management decisions. "Internalization of externalities" implies a reassessment of how to identify and measure the relevant costs of processes and products (such as a "total cost assessment") and to design mechanisms for stimulating innovation. Following these changes, management decisions and behavior could be reoriented, aimed at the establishment of sustainable development, for example by applying a viable industrial ecology.
Bacteria Use Type IV Pili to Walk Upright and Detach from Surfaces

A searchable database of images allows detailed analysis of bacterial motility. Bacterial biofilms are structured multicellular communities involved in a broad range of infections. Knowing how free-swimming bacteria adapt their motility mechanisms near surfaces is crucial for understanding the transition between planktonic and biofilm phenotypes. By translating microscopy movies into searchable databases of bacterial behavior, we identified fundamental type IV pili–driven mechanisms for Pseudomonas aeruginosa surface motility involved in distinct foraging strategies. Bacteria stood upright and “walked” with trajectories optimized for two-dimensional surface exploration. Vertical orientation facilitated surface detachment and could influence biofilm morphology.
Chapter 5 Paper 3 : Automated Non-Gaussian Clustering of Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar Images 53

This paper presents an automatic image segmentation method for Polarimetric SAR data. It utilises the full polarimetric information and incorporates texture by modelling with a non-Gaussian distribution for the complex scattering coefficients. The modelling is based upon the well known product model, with a Gamma distributed texture parameter, leading to the K-Wishart model for the covariance matrix. The automatic clustering is achieved through a finite mixture model estimated with a modified Expectation Maximisation algorithm. We include an additional goodness-of-fit test stage that allows for splitting and merging of clusters. This not only improves the model fit of the clusters, but also dynamically selects the appropriate number of clusters. The resulting image segmentation depicts the statistically significant clusters within the image. A key feature is that the degree of sub-sampling of the input image will affect the detail level of the clustering, revealing only the major classes, or a variable level of detail. Real world examples are shown to demonstrate the technique.
Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, and the question of species in paleoanthropology

Summary - Species boundaries in the fossil record are frustratingly elusive to recognize, largely because of the untidy way in which biological diversity is “packaged”. Accepting that species are most fundamentally “individuals,” with origins, births, and extinctions, rather than essentialist collections of traits, means also accepting that neither qualitative nor quantitative assessments of morphology will provide an infallible guide to species status. Beyond a certain level of diff erentiation the problem ceases, however, and this level is comfortably exceeded by Homo neanderthalensis. What is more, the Neanderthals appear not simply to constitute a separate species lineage, but to form part of a larger endemic European clade to which such distinctive forms as the Sima de los Huesos and Steinheim fossils also belong. Th is clade has a contemporary occurrence in Europe with the larger and more cosmopolitan species Homo heidelbergensis (exemplifi ed by specimens such as those from Arago, Petralona, Kabwe, and Bodo, and probably also Dali and Jinniushan), showing that hominid history in this region is more complex than simply that of a sincle lineage evolving toward the terminal species Homo neanderthalensis.
LEARNING TO DETECT PHISHING URLs

Phishing attacks have been on the rise and performing certain actions such as mouse hovering, clicking, etc. on malicious URLs may cause unsuspecting Internet users to fall victims of identity theft or other scams. In this paper, we study the anatomy of phishing URLs that are created with the specific intent of impersonating a trusted third party to trick users into divulging personal data. Unlike previous work in this area, we only use a number of publicly available features on URL alone; in addition, we compare performance of different machine learning techniques and evaluate the efficacy of real-time application of our method. Applying it on real-world data sets, we demonstrate that the proposed approach is highly effective in detecting phishing URLs with an error rate of 0.3%, false positive rate of 0.2% and false negative rate of about 0.5%, thereby improving previous results on the important problem of phishing detection.
FDI inflows, transfer of knowledge, and absorptive capacity: The case of Mozambique

The literature has discussed the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on host economies, but has overlooked the case of the least-developed countries (LDCs) and, in particular, the transfer of knowledge to these economies. Drawing on different streams of the literature (FDI impact, knowledge transfer, and absorption capacity), this paper analyzes how a country’s absorptive capacity may moderate the transfer of knowledge. By collecting and analyzing secondary data of FDI inflows and education, we examine the case of Mozambique. Data show that a country’s low educational level, and thus low absorptive capacity, may prevent effective knowledge transfer. We argue that policies that are aimed at expatriation, emigration, and tertiary education can help to increase the potential impact of FDI inflows. The main contribution of this paper to the literature is to examine how absorptive capacity and transfer of knowledge inter-relate within LDCs. Key words: FDI inflows, transfer of knowledge, absorptive capacity, education.
Venture Investments in Israel—a Regional Perspective

Abstract This paper analyses the geographic distribution of venture investments in start-ups in Israel, using data for the period 1995–2004. The findings show that their location behaviour differs from that of high-tech activities: they show a pattern of “dispersed concentration” (as compared with a pattern of “concentrated concentration” of high-tech activity), with high levels of concentration in focal places, but at a commuting distance from the main metropolis. This is explained by the fact that venture investors also play the role of entrepreneurs and managers. The comparison between different types of venture investors shows that local venture capital funds lead to the heaviest concentration in the metropolis, in comparison with foreign venture investors. This heavy concentration of venture investments implies increasing regional gaps, with a minimal participation of peripheral regions, even those that enjoy some high-tech activity.
MYOPIC MISERY: MATERNAL DEPRESSION, CHILD INVESTMENTS, AND THE NEUROBIOLOGICAL POVERTY TRAP

In this paper, I explore in an overlapping generations framework, a mechanism motivating a neurobiological poverty trap. Poverty causes stress and depression in individuals susceptible to depression. Poor and depressed individuals discount the future at a higher rate and invest less in the human capital of their children than mentally healthy or rich individuals. This gene–environment interaction generates a vicious cycle in which poor individuals inherit not only susceptibility to depression, but also stress and poverty. I show that a successful one-time intervention has the power to permanently eliminate the neurobiological poverty trap.
Reduction of miR-1323 p contributes to gastric cancer proliferation mainly by targeting MUC 13

Abnormal expression of EGFR signaling and miRNAs has been widely seen in gastric cancer. This study mainly focuses on the miRNAs that regulate HER activation through MUC13. The expression of MUC13 was explored using western blot assay or immunohistochemistry. Bioinformatic predictions were conducted using TargetScan. Luciferase reporter assay and western blot were performed to determine whether miRs target MUC13. MiR mimics or inhibitors were used to enhance or inhibit miRNA expression. The effect of miRs or MUC13 on cell proliferation, colony formation and migration were analyzed. The protein level of MUC13 was significantly increased in gastric cancer tissues compared with normal tissues. TargetScan predictions indicated that MiR-212-3p and miR-132-3p may bind to the 3’-untranslated region of MUC13. Further study revealed that miR-132-3p was significantly decreased in gastric cancer tissues, while miR-212-3p showed no obvious changes. Luciferase assay and western blot validated that MUC13 was a target gene of miR-132-3p. Inhibition of miR-132-3p enhanced gastric cancer cell proliferation, colony formation and migration through activation of HER2, ERK and Akt, which was similar with the effect of MUC13 overexpression. Inhibition of MUC13 could reverse miR-132-3p inhibition-induced effects. In summary, reduction of miR-132-3p contributes to gastric cancer proliferation mainly by targeting MUC13.
Semiparametric Analysis of Zero‐Inflated Count Data

Summary Medical and public health research often involve the analysis of count data that exhibit a substantially large proportion of zeros, such as the number of heart attacks and the number of days of missed primary activities in a given period. A zero‐inflated Poisson regression model, which hypothesizes a two‐point heterogeneity in the population characterized by a binary random effect, is generally used to model such data. Subjects are broadly categorized into the low‐risk group leading to structural zero counts and high‐risk (or normal) group so that the counts can be modeled by a Poisson regression model. The main aim is to identify the explanatory variables that have significant effects on (i) the probability that the subject is from the low‐risk group by means of a logistic regression formulation; and (ii) the magnitude of the counts, given that the subject is from the high‐risk group by means of a Poisson regression where the effects of the covariates are assumed to be linearly related to the natural logarithm of the mean of the counts. In this article we consider a semiparametric zero‐inflated Poisson regression model that postulates a possibly nonlinear relationship between the natural logarithm of the mean of the counts and a particular covariate. A sieve maximum likelihood estimation method is proposed. Asymptotic properties of the proposed sieve maximum likelihood estimators are discussed. Under some mild conditions, the estimators are shown to be asymptotically efficient and normally distributed. Simulation studies were carried out to investigate the performance of the proposed method. For illustration purpose, the method is applied to a data set from a public health survey conducted in Indonesia where the variable of interest is the number of days of missed primary activities due to illness in a 4‐week period.
Running title : Liver sinusoidal endothelial injury in NAFLD

Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) are involved in the transport of nutrients, lipids, and lipoproteins, and LSEC injury occurs in various liver diseases including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the association between LSEC injury and NAFLD progression remains elusive. Accordingly, in this study, we aimed to elucidate the precise role of LSEC in the pathophysiology of NAFLD using two different mouse models, namely the choline-deficient, L-amino acid-defined (CDAA) and high fat diet (HFD) models. Administrations of these diets resulted in liver metabolic dysregulation mimicking human NAFLD, such as steatosis, ballooning, lobular inflammation, and fibrosis, as well as central obesity, insulin resistance, and hyperlipidemia. LSEC injury appeared from the simple steatosis phase, and preceded the appearance of activated Kupffer cells and hepatic stellate cells. These results indicate that LSEC injury may play a “gatekeeper” role in the progression from simple steatosis to the early nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) stage, and LSEC injury may be necessary for the activation of Kupffer cells and hepatic stellate cells, which in turn results in the development and perpetuation of chronic liver injuries. Taken together, our data provide new insights into the role of LSEC injury in NAFLD/NASH pathogenesis.
Formulation Of A Voice Problem Self Assessment Scale (VPSS) As A Patient Based Tool For Egyptian Dysphonic Population

Introduction: The perceptions of a disability regarding its effect on work, social, and daily activities of an individual in the population of less-developed countries may be different from those of highly developed countries. Aim of the study was: (1) To develop voice problem self assessment tool suitable to the Egyptian population, that is clear with minimal bias, reliable and covering functional, social and emotional and voice symptoms (2) to establish the reliability and validity of the developed tool. Methods: The questionnaire was formulated and was labeled Voice Problem Self Assessment Scale (VPSS). It is five points scaled and constitute of four clusters (Functional, Physical, Emotional and Phonasthenic). A hundred and fifteen individuals (75 dysphonic patients and 40 subjects having no dysphonia) were asked to fulfill the questionnaire. The reliability was revealed by test retest (Cronbach’s alpha of .712-.922). Validation studies revealed significant difference between patient and control and showed good correlation between total VPSS and its clusters. After application of the VPSS it was revised and a shorter form of 20 question emerged. This short form was further subjected to studies of reliability (Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .754-.942) and validation. Conclusion: The short version of voice problem self-assessment scale (VPSS) was proven to be valid and reliable and more suitable for clinical practice. Key words: Voice Disorders Dysphonia, Questionnaire, Self Assessment Scale, Voice Symptoms