Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolving flexible beta basis function neural tree for nonlinear systems

In this paper, a new evolving artificial neural network using evolutionary computation is introduced. Based on the pre-defined Beta operator sets, this model called Flexible Beta Basis Function Neural Tree (FBBFNT), can be created and learned. The structure is developed using the Extended Immune Programming (EIP). The Beta parameters and connected weights are optimized using the Hybrid Bacterial Foraging Optimization algorithm. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated for nonlinear systems and compared with those of related methods.
Incorporation of Decanethiol-Passivated Gold Nanoparticles into Cross-Linked Poly(Dimethylsiloxane) Films

Cross-linking degree of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) film was controlled, and the incorporation of hydrophobic decanethiol-passivated gold (Au) nanoparticles into the film was investigated. FT-IR spectra indicated that the hydrosilylation reaction between a vinyl group and a hydrosilyl group occurred with the cross-linking. The swelling degree of the film in toluene changed with a cross-linker concentration, indicating the control of the cross-linking degree of PDMS film. By EDX analysis, the amount of incorporated Au nanoparticles increased with decreasing a cross-linker concentration, indicating the enlarged free volume of the film. The Au nanoparticle-PDMS composite film containing a cross-linker at 6 wt% showed brown color attributed to plasmon resonance of Au nanoparticles, suggesting the Au nanoparticles in the film at monodispersion state. The UV-visible absorbance of the composite film decreased without spectralshift by swelling with toluene, and the changes were reversible. The aggregation among Au nanoparticles in the composite film after calcination also depended on the cross-linking degree. Thus, the control of cross-linking degree of PDMS film successfully leaded to a simple way of fabricating the Au nanoparticle-PDMS composite film at the mono-dispersion state.
Dynamin phosphorylation controls optimization of endocytosis for brief action potential bursts

Modulation of synaptic vesicle retrieval is considered to be potentially important in steady-state synaptic performance. Here we show that at physiological temperature endocytosis kinetics at hippocampal and cortical nerve terminals show a bi-phasic dependence on electrical activity. Endocytosis accelerates for the first 15–25 APs during bursts of action potential firing, after which it slows with increasing burst length creating an optimum stimulus for this kinetic parameter. We show that activity-dependent acceleration is only prominent at physiological temperature and that the mechanism of this modulation is based on the dephosphorylation of dynamin 1. Nerve terminals in which dynamin 1 and 3 have been replaced with dynamin 1 harboring dephospho- or phospho-mimetic mutations in the proline-rich domain eliminate the acceleration phase by either setting endocytosis at an accelerated state or a decelerated state, respectively. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.00845. 001
What Did Structural Adjustment Adjust? The Association of Policies and Growth with Repeated IMF and World Bank Adjustment Loans

One feature of adjustment loans that has been often overlooked in their evaluation is their frequent repetition to the same country, with such extremes as the 30 IMF and World Bank adjustment loans to Argentina over 1980-99 or the 26 adjustment loans to Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. The rate of repetition remains high and non-decreasing as cumulative adjustment loans increases. Repetition changes the nature of the selection problem, with the possible implication that new loans had to be given because earlier loans were not effective. Seventeen out of the eighteen countries that were IDA in 1980 and were in the top half of adjustment loans received became eligible for HIPC debt relief, compared to less than 50 percent of the IDA countries in the bottom half of adjustment lending -- again suggesting that previous loans were not effective at generating the growth necessary to service the debt. There were relative successes and failures, but none of the top 20 recipients of adjustment lending over 1980-99 were able to achieve reasonable growth and contain all policy distortions. Policies improved unevenly as adjustment loans accumulated, and even those policies that improved show a nonlinear satiation point after a certain number of adjustment loans is reached. An overall indicator of severe macroeconomic policy distortion does not improve as the number of adjustment loans increases in the overall sample, with about half the adjustment loan recipients showing severe distortions regardless of the number of cumulative adjustment loans. An instrumental variables regression for estimating the causal effect of repeated adjustment lending on policies shows a significant but small improvement for some macro policies, but none for others. None of the techniques in the paper is able to identify a growth effect, positive or negative, of repeated adjustment lending. The findings of this paper are in line with the foreign aid literature that shows that aid does not discriminate between good and bad policies. There's a big difference between structural adjustment lending and structural adjustment policies.
The prevalence of occult gastrointestinal bleeding in celiac sprue.

BACKGROUND Iron deficiency complicating celiac sprue is usually attributed to the malabsorption of dietary iron or the loss of iron from the intestinal mucosa. There has been little investigation of the role of intestinal loss of blood in patients with this condition. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of occult gastrointestinal bleeding in patients with celiac sprue. METHODS We tested one 48- or 72-hour stool collection from each of 8 patients with partial villous atrophy and 28 patients with total villous atrophy using a guaiac-impregnated card (Hemoccult). Serving as controls were 18 normal subjects, each studied before and during laxative-induced diarrhea; 17 patients with idiopathic chronic diarrhea; 63 patients with microscopic colitis; 23 patients with pancreatic steatorrhea; and 7 patients with treated celiac sprue who had normal intestinal histologic features. All the patients underwent a diagnostic workup that included esophagogastroduodenoscopy, colonoscopy, and barium radiography of the small bowel. RESULTS Positive Hemoccult tests were infrequent in each of the control groups, occurring in 0 to 8 percent of the subjects, whereas 2 of the 8 patients with partial villous atrophy (25 percent) and 15 of the 28 patients with total villous atrophy (54 percent) had positive tests. When the patients with total villous atrophy were classified according to their subsequent responses to a gluten-free diet, 7 of the 17 who were responsive to gluten withdrawal (41 percent) were Hemoccult-positive, as compared with with 8 of the 11 who did not respond to the diet (73 percent). CONCLUSIONS Occult gastrointestinal bleeding can be detected in about half of patients with celiac sprue and should be added to the list of factors that can contribute to iron deficiency in patients with this disorder.
Microcystin Biosynthesis in Planktothrix: Genes, Evolution, and Manipulation

ABSTRACT Microcystins represent an extraordinarily large family of cyclic heptapeptide toxins that are nonribosomally synthesized by various cyanobacteria. Microcystins specifically inhibit the eukaryotic protein phosphatases 1 and 2A. Their outstanding variability makes them particularly useful for studies on the evolution of structure-function relationships in peptide synthetases and their genes. Analyses of microcystin synthetase genes provide valuable clues for the potential and limits of combinatorial biosynthesis. We have sequenced and analyzed 55.6 kb of the potential microcystin synthetase gene (mcy) cluster from the filamentous cyanobacterium Planktothrix agardhii CYA 126. The cluster contains genes for peptide synthetases (mcyABC), polyketide synthases (PKSs; mcyD), chimeric enzymes composed of peptide synthetase and PKS modules (mcyEG), a putative thioesterase (mcyT), a putative ABC transporter (mcyH), and a putative peptide-modifying enzyme (mcyJ). The gene content and arrangement and the sequence of specific domains in the gene products differ from those of the mcy cluster in Microcystis, a unicellular cyanobacterium. The data suggest an evolution of mcy clusters from, rather than to, genes for nodularin (a related pentapeptide) biosynthesis. Our data do not support the idea of horizontal gene transfer of complete mcy gene clusters between the genera. We have established a protocol for stable genetic transformation of Planktothrix, a genus that is characterized by multicellular filaments exhibiting continuous motility. Targeted mutation of mcyJ revealed its function as a gene coding for a O-methyltransferase. The mutant cells produce a novel microcystin variant exhibiting reduced inhibitory activity toward protein phosphatases.
Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine Professional ethical competence in nursing: the role of nursing instructors

Teaching ethics to nurses leads to their involvement in providing high quality care, enable them to duly encounter ethical issues. One of the key elements of educational systems is nursing instructors. Even though lots of studies show the role of instructors in students’ learning, their role in promotion of professional ethics has been attended to less. The objective of this study is surveying the experience of nursing students with respect to the role of instructors in promotion of professional ethics. This qualitative study enrolled 15 undergraduate nursing students from three nursing schools in Teheran whom depth interview was performed. The interview was semistructured with open ended questions. The analysis was accomplished by use of qualitative content-analysis method. Data analysis demonstrated 2 main themes and 7 subcategories in regard to the role of instructors in promotion of professional ethics in nursing students including: 1) the effective professional role model 2) facilitating creative learning. The effective professional role model encompasses individual characteristics and beliefs, clinical skills and professional commitment of role model. Creative learning facilitates by encouraging critical thinking and decision-making, Providing supportive learning conditions, providing proper space for sharing knowledge followed by evaluation and creative feedback. The findings of this study provides a background for strengthening the role of instructors in promotion of professional ethics with more emphasis on research which increase capability of instructors at nursing education centers.
Hardware-Assisted Software Clock Synchronization for Homogeneous Distributed Systems

A clock synchronization scheme that strikes a balance between hardware and software solutions is proposed. The proposed scheme is a software algorithm that uses minimal additional hardware to achieve reasonably tight synchronization. Unlike other software solutions, the guaranteed worst-cast skews can be made insensitive to the maximum variation of message transit delay in the system. The scheme is particularly suitable for large partially connected distributed systems with topologies that support simple point-to-point broadcast algorithms. Examples of such topologies include the hypercube and the mesh interconnection structures. >
Depressiogenic Cognition and Insecure Attachment: A Motivational Hypothesis

A number of studies suggest that dysfunctional and depressiogenic cognitive styles have their origin in insecure attachment relationships between child and caregiver and may be further consolidated in unsupportive adult relationships. A cross-sectional study was conducted to identify potential associations among preoccupied and fearful attachment styles, recollections of parental caregiving, and three types of dysfunctional cognition. The findings confirmed the hypotheses that preoccupied and fearful attachment in adult relationships, as well as problematic caregiving in childhood, were associated with depressiogenic and other dysfunctional cognition, most notably generalisation. A motivational hypothesis of cognitive dysfunction is discussed: generalisation may constitute a sub-optimal mechanism of achieving stability in a precarious attachment representation at the cost of increasing vulnerability to depression.
Restoration or implant placement: a growing treatment planning quandary.

Each year endosseous dental implants gain greater acceptance among clinicians and patients. This has come about for several reasons, including excellent success rates published in long-term studies, improvements in fixture and abutment designs, more predictable surgical placement techniques, and increased consumer desire to have tooth replacement. Regardless of the implant system, the placement and functional success of endosseous implants is greater than 90% (1, 14, 40). Thoughtful decision-making is vitally important as patients seek professional advice on retaining their teeth or replacing them with implants. Is a tooth with a questionable prognosis restored or intervened with a dental implant? Answering such questions is a challenge for clinicians and patients alike. The restorative dentist and surgeon working together must consider many factors in treatment planning. While the predictability of implants has greatly improved, it is not 100%, making it difficult to recommend the extraction of a tooth with a less than optimal prognosis. Should a tooth with a large post and core restoration and a failing endodontic procedure be re-treated conventionally or should it be extracted? Is it better to replace such a tooth with an implant? If the implant fails to integrate or if the restoration is an esthetic failure, would it have been better to retain the tooth? The American Academy of Periodontology’s position paper on dental implants cites that all patients should be informed of the risk of failure and alternative treatments prior to implant placement and restoration. The greater than 98% implant success reported in some studies may be a dangerous benchmark if questionable teeth are too often extracted. This chapter discusses the clinical and economic
Poisson structures on the Teichmuller space of hyperbolic surfaces with conical points

In this paper two Poisson structures on the moduli space of hyper- bolic surfaces with conical points are compared: the Weil-Petersson one and thecoming from the representation variety. We show that they are multiple of each other, if the angles do not exceed 2�. Moreover, we exhibit an explicit formula forin terms of hyperbolic lengths of a suitable system of arcs.
A Study of Water Absorption and Mechanical Properties of Glass Fiber/Polyester Composite Pipes — Effects of Specimen Geometry and Preparation

Ring-shaped glass fiber/polyester composite specimens cut from composite pipes with various lengths and cut edge quality were immersed into deionized water, and their water absorption was noted regularly by registering their mass gain. Monotonic ring compression tests were performed to monitor the stiffness properties during the water absorption process. Effect of specimen length and cut edge sealing with the matrix material of the pipe on the water absorption process was analyzed. Water absorption curves were fitted to the experimental data with very high correlation coefficients. Specimen types with cut edge sealing were found to absorb significantly less water than the other types, and the absorbed water showed a nonlinear monotonic decreasing tendency with specimen length. Mechanical properties were found to be only slightly affected by moisture probably because of the small amount of absorbed water.
Effect of burden material size on blast furnace stockline profile of bell-less blast furnace

The position and profile of the burden stockline are important parameters for blast furnace (BF) control. Theoretical calculations currently determine the position without considering the influence of different sized materials. In order to clarify the effects of different sized materials on the position and compare experimental and theoretical calculated results, a 1/15 scale cold model consisting of an actual 2500 m3 shaft and a bell-less top charging system has been built. The results indicate that (i) the chute rotary speed strongly influences the stockline peak position with different sized materials (ii) the rotary inclined angle and position of stockline peaks are approximately linear. Model predictions of the stockline with material size are poorly related to actual trial results, particularly chute rotary speed.
Automatically Spotting Information-Rich Nodes in Graphs

How to automatically spot the most interesting nodes in a large graph? Although graph mining has attracted lots of attention this question remains challenging for the following reasons: (1) It is not trivial to define what an interesting node is. In some cases, application-specific background knowledge may help but is not always available. Moreover, the notion of interestingness depends on the structure of the graph. In a sparse graph, a hub or a node at the center of a star-like or clique-like sub graph might be interesting. However, if the graph is densely connected, a remote node might be more interesting. (2) Most existing approaches to detect abnormal nodes involve parameters which are difficult to estimate. Our approach addresses both challenges by considering the problem from an information-theoretic perspective. An interesting node exhibits an outstanding link pattern which contributes much nonredundant information to the overall information content of the graph. Based on this basic idea, we define an intuitive similarity measure between nodes. Combined with metric embedding, this similarity measure allows spotting the most interesting nodes at first glance. Moreover, we propose Info-spot, a parameter free and efficient algorithm for fully automatic detection of interesting nodes. Guided by the objective of data compression, Info-spot greedily merges nodes exhibiting similar link patterns, while exceptional information-rich nodes naturally emerge. Extensive experiments demonstrate the benefits of our approach.
Mediator as a General Transcription Factor*

Others have shown that yeast strains bearing a ts mutation in the Srb4 subunit of Mediator cease transcription of all mRNA at the restrictive temperature, in a manner virtually indistinguishable from a strain bearing a ts mutation in the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II. We find that srb4ts Mediator is defective for the stimulation of basal RNA polymerase II transcription at the restrictive temperature in vitro. Taken together, these findings lead to the suggestion that Mediator is required for basal RNA polymerase II transcription in vivo. On this basis, Mediator is identified as a general transcription factor, comparable in importance to RNA polymerase II and other general factors for the initiation of transcription. The possibility that Mediator serves as an anti-inhibitor, opposing the effects of global negative regulators, is largely excluded.
Takeover Prediction Models and Portfolio Strategies: A Multinomial Approach

This paper uses a multinomial framework to develop several takeover prediction models. The motivation for this approach lies with Morck, Shleifer and Vishny (1988), who note that separate considerations are appropriate for predicting which firms are subject to hostile (disciplinary) and friendly (synergistic) takeovers in the USA. In a typical binomial setting, in which takeover targets are treated as belonging to one homogenous group, differences between hostile and friendly targets are ignored. This may result in biased takeover probabilities and poor predictive performance. Using UK data, the results from this paper show that the characteristics of hostile and friendly targets do differ, particularly in terms of firm size. The multinomial models also have higher significance and explanatory power when compared to the binomial models. Furthermore, when the models are tested in an investment portfolio setting, the results suggest that a strategy of predicting hostile targets only, beats a benchmark control portfolio of firms of a similar size and market-to-book.
Perturbations in the carbon budget of the tropics

The carbon budget of the tropics has been perturbed as a result of human influences. Here, we attempt to construct a ‘bottom‐up’ analysis of the biological components of the budget as they are affected by human activities. There are major uncertainties in the extent and carbon content of different vegetation types, the rates of land‐use change and forest degradation, but recent developments in satellite remote sensing have gone far towards reducing these uncertainties. Stocks of carbon as biomass in tropical forests and woodlands add up to 271 ± 16 Pg with an even greater quantity of carbon as soil organic matter. Carbon loss from deforestation, degradation, harvesting and peat fires is estimated as 2.01 ± 1.1 Pg annum−1; while carbon gain from forest and woodland growth is 1.85 ± 0.09 Pg annum−1. We conclude that tropical lands are on average a small carbon source to the atmosphere, a result that is consistent with the ‘top‐down’ result from measurements in the atmosphere. If they were to be conserved, they would be a substantial carbon sink. Release of carbon as carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning in the tropics is 0.74 Pg annum−1 or 0.57 MgC person−1 annum−1, much lower than the corresponding figures from developed regions of the world.
Evaluation of feature subsets for classification of cardiotocographic recordings

Electronic fetal monitoring - continuous recording of the cardiotocogram (CTG) - consisting of fetal heart rate (fHR) and tocographic signals, is a method used for intrapartal evaluation of the well being of the fetus. In this paper we evaluate several subsets of features for outcome classification of the pregnancy based on the CTG recording of the last 20 minutes preceding actual delivery. The features subsets are created based on PCA, information gain and Group of Adaptive Models Evolution (GAME) neural network feature selection algorithm. Our data set consisted of 104 intrapartum recordings including 18 pregnancies with acidemia reflected in umbilical artery pH<7.20. The results show that the best subset consisting of mix of time-domain and non-linear features performs consistently over the whole data set with sensitivity and specificity over 70%, which is well comparable to interobserver variations.