Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intergenerational Redistribution, Health Care, and Politics

Publicly provided health care implies considerable intergenerational redistribution. The possibility of accumulating a fund or debt will affect the degree of redistribution as well as how efficient the financing of health care is. In a voting model we study how governments inability to make binding long-term policy commitments will affect the accumulation of a fund or debt. Today's government will base its policy decisions on expectations about future governments behavior and simply follow suit, which results in strong political inertia. Either a fund or debt may therefore be upheld in political equilibrium. But no mechanism ensure that it is at its optimal level. If there is fund in steady state, the more political clout the old have the smaller will the fund be, i.e saving decrease. If there is debt, however, a politically stronger old generation may imply a smaller debt, i.e. savings increase.
Stakeholders Analysis and Communication for Utility Relocation in Construction Projects

Construction projects often involve complex underground utility networks that need to be relocated before the construction commences. It is often difficult to recognize the key stakeholders and manage the expectations, or even prioritize resource allocation among the stakeholders during such project. Therefore, practical investigation and interviews with experts are conducted to define the 25 key stakeholders, who are then evaluated based on their significance using six attributes - power, interest, influence, impact, legitimacy and urgency with two- round Delphi method. The 25 stakeholders are classified into 3 groups - Intensive, Intermediate, and Standard using k-means clustering technique. During the study, common communication issues associated with utility relocation are compiled. Their significance is compared through questionnaires and their relationship to Groups Intensive, Intermediate and Standard are also analyzed. The result can provide practical references for communication and coordination during utility relocation projects.
Expandable Bayesian Networks for 3D Object Description from Multiple Views and Multiple Mode Inputs

Computing 3D object descriptions from images is an important goal of computer vision. A key problem here is the evaluation of a hypothesis based on evidence that is uncertain. There have been few efforts on applying formal reasoning methods to this problem. In multiview and multimode object description problems, reasoning is required on evidence features extracted from multiple images and nonintensity data. One challenge here is that the number of the evidence features varies at runtime because the number of images being used is not fixed and some modalities may not always be available. We introduce an augmented Bayesian network, the expandable Bayesian network (EBN), which instantiates its structure at runtime according to the structure of input. We introduce the use of hidden variables to handle correlation of evidence features across images. We show an application of an EBN to a multiview building description system. Experimental results show that the proposed method gives significant and consistent performance improvement to others.
Evidence for strength imbalances as a significant contributor to abnormal synergies in hemiparetic subjects

Abnormal synergies in the paretic shoulder and elbow of hemiparetic subjects were quantified during maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) in 27 subjects with a history of stroke and 8 age‐matched control subjects. A six‐axis load cell allowed simultaneous measurement of the primary torque the subject was attempting to maximize and the secondary torques at other joint actions. For example, during MVC of shoulder flexion, shoulder flexion is the primary torque and the secondary torques are internal/external rotation, abduction/adduction, and elbow flexion/extension. In general, the stroke subjects had increased secondary torques compared to controls, resulting in abnormal joint torque coupling within the set consisting of elbow flexion, internal rotation, adduction, shoulder flexion. Unlike previous studies, abnormal secondary torques in several cases were due to strength imbalances, which occur when the strength deficit for a particular joint action is greater than the strength deficit in the opposite joint action. This hypothesis was supported by electromyographic recordings and by the finding that subjects with larger strength imbalances tended to produce larger secondary torques. Possible mechanisms and consequences for rehabilitative treatments are discussed. Muscle Nerve 27: 211–221, 2003
Algorithms as fetish: Faith and possibility in algorithmic work

Algorithms are powerful because we invest in them the power to do things. With such promise, they can transform the ordinary, say snapshots along a robotic vacuum cleaner’s route, into something much more, such as a clean home. Echoing David Graeber’s revision of fetishism, we argue that this easy slip from technical capabilities to broader claims betrays not the “magic” of algorithms but rather the dynamics of their exchange. Fetishes are not indicators of false thinking, but social contracts in material form. They mediate emerging distributions of power often too nascent, too slippery or too disconcerting to directly acknowledge. Drawing primarily on 2016 ethnographic research with computer vision professionals, we show how faith in what algorithms can do shapes the social encounters and exchanges of their production. By analyzing algorithms through the lens of fetishism, we can see the social and economic investment in some people’s labor over others. We also see everyday opportunities for social creativity and change. We conclude that what is problematic about algorithms is not their fetishization but instead their stabilization into full-fledged gods and demons – the more deserving objects of critique.
The iconicity advantage in sign production: The case of bimodal bilinguals

Recent evidence demonstrates that pictures corresponding to iconic signs are named faster than pictures corresponding to non-iconic signs. The present study investigates the locus of the iconicity advantage in hearing bimodal bilinguals. A naming experiment with iconic and non-iconic pictures in Italian Sign Language (LIS) was conducted. Bimodal bilinguals named the pictures either using a noun construction that involved the production of the sign corresponding to the picture or using a marked demonstrative pronoun construction replacing the picture sign. In this last condition, the pictures were colored and participants were instructed to name the pronoun together with the color. The iconicity advantage was reliable in the noun utterance but not in the marked demonstrative pronoun utterance. In a third condition, the colored pictures were presented as distractor stimuli and participants required to name the color. In this last condition, distractor pictures with iconic signs elicited faster naming latencies than non-iconic signs. The results suggest that the advantage of iconic signs in production arises at the level of semantic-to-phonological links. In addition, we conclude that bimodal bilinguals and native signers do not differ in terms of the activation flow within the sign production system.
Progression of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: lessons from asymmetrical disease

Background In idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) the distribution and spatial-temporal progression of fibrotic changes may be influenced by general or locoregional conditions. From this perspective, patients with asymmetrical disease (AIPF) may be unique. Methods This retrospective study included 32 patients (26 men, mean±SD age 69±7 years) with AIPF, as defined by an asymmetry ratio (most affected – least affected fibrosis score)/(most affected + least affected fibrosis score) >0.2. The global fibrosis score was the average of the right and left scores. Patients with AIPF were compared with 64 matched controls with symmetrical IPF. Results Patients with AIPF did not differ from controls in global fibrosis score and forced vital capacity, but carbon monoxide transfer factor was less decreased (52±19% vs 43±13%, p=0.009). The rate of gastro-oesophageal reflux and acute exacerbations was significantly higher in patients with AIPF (62.5% vs 31.3%, p=0.006 and 46.9% vs 17.2%, p=0.004, respectively). In patients with AIPF the right side was more likely to be involved (62.5%); the median asymmetry ratio was 0.5 (range 0.24–1). Although the global fibrosis score worsened significantly in all 23 patients with AIPF with serial high-resolution CT scans (p<0.0001), pulmonary fibrosis remained asymmetrical in all except three. During follow-up, 15 patients with AIPF experienced 18 acute exacerbations. The first episode was virtually unilateral, occurring in the most affected lung in 10 patients (66.7%). Survival was similar between patients with AIPF and controls. Conclusion AIPF may be related to locoregional factors including gastro-oesophageal reflux which may be responsible for both disease expansion and the occurrence of acute exacerbations.
Microblog Orientation Analysis Based on Connnectives

At present, a larger number of researchers analyzed Micro-blog orientation and they concentrated their energy on emotional words, adverb and negative words without considering the impact of other emotional factors, such as the coordinative relation, progressive relation and adversative relation. So a method studying the sentiment polarity of associated words was proposed. The structure characteristics of associated words were analyzed sufficiently, and a turning words dictionary, a Chinese emotion dictionary and a negative words dictionary were founded based on the existing dictionary. This paper considers the combination laws of negative words, adversative words and conjunctions into Micro-blog. In the experiments, we verify this method can analyze the sentiment polarity of transition sentences efficiently and also has higher classification accuracy.
Power vs money: alternative approaches to reducing child marriage in Bangladesh a randomized control trial.

A clustered randomized trial in Bangladesh examines alternative strategies to reduce child marriage and teenage childbearing and increase girls education. Communities were randomized into three treatment and one control group in a 2:1:1:2 ratio. From 2008 girls in treatment communities received either i) a six-month empowerment program ii) a financial incentive to delay marriage or iii) empowerment plus incentive. Data from 15739 girls 4.5 years after program completion show that girls eligible for the incentive for at least two years were 25% (-9.2ppts p<0.01) less likely to be married under 18 16% (-5.0ppts p<0.01) less likely to have given birth under 20 and 24% (6.8ppts p<0.01) more likely to be in school at age 22. Unlike other incentive programs that are conditional on girls staying in school an incentive conditional on marriage alone has the potential to bene_t out-of-school girls. We find insignificantly different effects for girls in and out of school at baseline. The empowerment program did not decrease child marriage or teenage childbearing. However girls eligible for the empowerment program were 10% (2.9ppts p<0.10) more likely to be in-school.
Massively parallel structures of specialized re-configurable cellular processors for fast symbolic computations

A large class of problems of modern engineering and scientific computations can be expressed and solved by operations of the Multiple-Valued Cube Calculus (MVCC). However, the standard processors are inefficient for the MVCC operations. We developed therefore a special reconfigurable processor that efficiently implements the MVCC operations. For execution of a certain algorithm, an appropriate massively parallel structure of such processors is used and the processors are programmed only for the MVCC operations actually used in the algorithm. The processor's versatile and scalable design enables a lot of various massively parallel structures. To our knowledge it is the first processor specialized in fast symbolic computations.
Age differences in recall and predicting recall of action events and words.

Age differences in recall and prediction of recall were examined with different memory tasks. We asked 36 younger (19-28 yrs) and 36 older (60-81 yrs) women to provide both global and item-by-item predictions of their recall, and then to recall either (a) Subject Performance Tasks (SPTs), (b) verb-noun word-pairs memorized in list-like fashion (Word-Pairs), or (c) nonsense verb-noun word-pairs (Nonsense-Pairs) over three experimental trials. Based on previous research, we hypothesized that these tasks would vary in relative difficulty and flexibility of encoding. The results indicated that (a) age differences in global predictions (task specific self-efficacy) and recall performance across trials were minimized with SPT as compared with verbal materials, (b) global predictions were higher and more accurate for SPT as compared to verbal materials, and (c) item-by-item predictions were most accurate for materials encoded with the most flexibility (Nonsense Pairs). The results suggest that SPTs may provide some level of environmental support to reduce age differences in performance and task-specific self-efficacy, but that memory monitoring may depend on specific characteristics of the stimuli (i.e., flexibility of encoding) rather than their verbal or nonverbal nature.
A Linguistically Based Semantic Bias for Theory Revision

We present a new approach to theory revision that uses a linguistically based semantics to help detect and correct errors in classification rules. The idea is that preferring linguistically cohesive revisions will enhance the comprehensibility and ultimately the accuracy of rules. We explain how to associate terms in the rules with elements in a lexical class hierarchy and use distance within the hierarchy to estimate linguistic cohesiveness. We evaluate the utility of this approach empirically using two relational domains.
Fatty acids as regulators of hippocampal neurogenesis: the case of GPR40

The hippocampus of adult mammals including humans continues to generate neurons throughout life. The neural stem/progenitor cells, the cellular phenotype responsible for this regenerative capacity, are a subject of intensive research focused on the mechanisms of their regulation. Intriguing recent data implicate an unexpected molecular player in this regulation: free fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) such as docosahexaenoic and arachidonic acids were identified to act on the pancreas via a novel receptor, named G-protein coupled receptor 40 (GPR40). However, the pancreas appears not to be the single target organ of PUFA/GPR40 actions. Very recent findings have discovered GPR40 expression in the hippocampal dentate gyrus, including its progenitor cell niche responsible for neuronal renewal throughout life. These data open a possibility that PUFA may regulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis and thus become a therapeutic tool to treat neurological disorders in humans. Biomedical Reviews 2007; 18: 69-73.
Collaborative filtering with user ratings and tags

User ratings and tags are becoming largely available on Internet. While people usually exploit user ratings for developing recommender systems, the use of tag information in recommender systems remains under-explored. In particular, it is not clear how to use both user ratings and user tags in a complementary way to maximize the performances of recommender systems. To this end, we propose a novel collaborative filtering model based on probabilistic matrix factorization to predict users' interests to items by simultaneously utilizing both tag and rating information. Specifically, we first perform low-rank approximation for three matrices at the same time to learn the low-dimensional latent features of users, items and tags. Then, we predict one user's preference to an item as the product of the user and item latent features. Finally, experimental results on real-world data show that the proposed model can significantly outperform benchmark methods.
Comparative Analyses of Phenotypic and Genotypic Methods for Detection of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli Toxins and Colonization Factors

ABSTRACT Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is one of the main causes of childhood diarrhea in developing countries and in travelers. However, this pathogen has often not been reported in surveys of diarrheal pathogens, due to lack of simple standardized methods to detect ETEC in many laboratories. ETEC expresses one or both of two different enterotoxin subtypes: heat-stable toxins, a heat-labile toxin (LT), and more than 22 different colonization factors (CFs) that mediate adherence to the intestinal cell wall. Here we compare established phenotypic and genotypic detection methods and newly developed PCR detection methods with respect to sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and ease of performance. The methods include GM1-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and dot blot techniques using specific monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) for phenotypic detection of the toxins and CFs, respectively, as well as different PCR and DNA/DNA hybridization techniques, including new PCR assays, for genotypic identification of the toxin and CF genes, respectively. We found very good general agreement in results derived from genotypic and phenotypic methods. In a few strains, LT and CFs were identified genetically but not phenotypically. Based on our analyses, we recommend initial screening for ETEC in clinical samples by multiplex toxin gene PCR. Toxin-positive strains may then be analyzed by dot blot tests for detection of the CFs expressed on the bacterial surface and by PCR for determination of additional CFs for which MAbs are currently lacking as well as for strains that harbor silent CF genes.
Multifractal properties of the heart rate dynamics during acute myocardial ischemia

The purpose of this study was to assess the dynamics of the heart rate during myocardial ischemia produced by long PTCA procedures using multifractal signal properties. We found significant complex reactions due to the effects of coronary occlusion on the autonomic control of the cardiac rhythm which suggests that the multifractal indices may be a promising non-linear technique to evaluate the autonomous nervous system response in presence of transient myocardial ischemia.
Topology and Shape Constraints on Parametric Active Contours

In recent years, the field of active contour based image segmentation has seen the emergence of two competing approaches. The first and oldest approach represents active contours in an explicit (or parametric) manner corresponding to the Lagrangian formulation. The second approach represents active contours in an implicit manner corresponding to the Eulerian framework. After comparing these two approaches, we describe several new topological and geometrical constraints applied to parametric active contours in order to combine the advantages of these two contour representations. This paper proposes a framework for handling parametric active contours shape and topology in a more intuitive manner. More precisely, the following three algorithms are introduced: - Metric and Shape Control : a new internal force expression allows to regularize both vertex spacing and vertex smoothness. The smoothness constraint is enforced without producing any shrinkage. - Contour Resolution Control : the total number of contour vertices is periodically updated in order to constrain the distance between vertices. This approach is more efficient than performing any global reparameterization. - Topology Control : the connected components of a contour are automatically created or merged based on the detection of edge intersections. Our algorithm can handle opened and closed contours.
Gender- and smoking-related bladder cancer risk.

BACKGROUND There is growing evidence that, when smoking habits are comparable, women incur a higher risk of lung cancer than men. Because smokers are also at risk for bladder cancer, we investigated possible sex differences in the susceptibility to bladder cancer among smokers. METHODS A population-based, case--control study was conducted in Los Angeles, CA, involving 1514 case patients with bladder cancer and 1514 individually matched population control subjects. Information on tobacco use was collected through in-person interviews. Peripheral blood was collected from study participants to measure 3- and 4-aminobiphenyl (ABP)-hemoglobin adducts, a marker of arylamine exposure. Data were analyzed to determine whether the risk of bladder cancer differs between male and female smokers and whether female smokers exhibit higher levels of ABP-hemoglobin adducts than male smokers with comparable smoking habits. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS Cigarette smokers had a statistically significant 2.5-fold higher risk (95% confidence interval = 2.1 to 3.0) of bladder cancer than never smokers. Use of filtered versus nonfiltered cigarettes, low-tar versus higher tar cigarettes, or the pattern of inhalation did not modify the risk. The risk of bladder cancer in women who smoked was statistically significantly higher than that in men who smoked comparable numbers of cigarettes (P =.016 for sex-lifetime smoking interaction). Consistent with the sex difference in smoking-related bladder cancer risk, the slopes of the linear regression lines of the 3- and 4-ABP--hemoglobin adducts by cigarettes per day were statistically significantly steeper in women than in men (P values for sex differences <.001 and.006, respectively). CONCLUSION The risk of bladder cancer may be higher in women than in men who smoked comparable amounts of cigarettes.
Discrete wavelet packet transform based multiresolution spectrum sensing using cyclostationary feature detector

The demand for wireless communication has grown remarkably in the last year, consequently raising the problem of spectrum scarcity. In this context, cognitive radio is an emerging technology that aims to overcome that scarcity, which is one of the most challenging problems in modern wireless communication. Among its fundamental function, the most important is the spectrum sensing which require precise accuracy and low complexity. Thus, various signal detection methods have been proposed for multiresolution spectrum sensing (MRSS) for cognitive radio. None of these techniques have been used in wavelet based cyclostationary feature detector. To achieve that we suggest a discrete wavelet packet transform based MRSS using cyclostationary feature detector in the context of IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) for cognitive radio to classify and identify the primary signal either Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) or wireless microphone signal and locate a hole which can be used by unlicensed or cognitive radio user. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated in comparison with energy detector. The evaluation result clearly shows that the performance of the proposed scheme is superior to energy detector performance especially in the case of noise uncertainty.
Using Pi-Calculus to Formalize Grid Workflow Parallel Computing Patterns

The article analyzed the significance of formalizing grid workflow patterns and the advantage of using the Pi calculus to formalize. After that, it used the Pi calculus to formalize the grid workflow patterns. On the foundation of lucubrating basic framework characteristics of grid workflow patterns and Pi calculus theory, the paper proposed a rule of formalizing method. This method compared practicably with former ways in describing grid workflow, we can directly make use of the fruit of this paper with mature pi-tools to verify grid workflow system.