Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Civil War and Refugees in Post-Cold War Africa†

One inevitable by-product of large-scale civil conflict is the displacement of individuals, either voluntarily or by force. That fact has been a cornerstone of the international community's involvement in civil conflicts, which has increased markedly since the end of the Cold War. Yet few studies have investigated empirically the connection between such conflicts and the occurrence and extent of forced migrations, and none have evaluated whether the ongoing international response has been effective in breaking the link between civil war and forced migration. We thus begin with the goal of assessing whether and the extent to which the effect of civil wars on volumes of refugees has declined since the end of the Cold War, chiefly due to international efforts to mitigate the conditions that facilitate civil conflict or enhance its detrimental effects. We present a model of refugee flows that accounts for the influence of spatial, domestic, and international factors on those movements, and which allows for the possibility of both temporal variation in the influence of civil wars on those flows and prospective and retrospective temporal dependence in those flows. We go on to evaluate our expectations empirically, using data on refugee movements in Africa during the period from 1992 to 2000. Our findings suggest that the effect of civil wars on forced migration has been steadily declining during those years, a result consistent with the greater levels of international intervention in those conflicts during the period.
Evolutionary Implications and Physicochemical Analyses of Selected Proteins of Type III Polyketide Synthase Family

Type III polyketide synthases have a substantial role in the biosynthesis of various polyketides in plants and microorganisms. Comparative proteomic analysis of type III polyketide synthases showed evolutionarily and structurally related positions in a compilation of amino acid sequences from different families. Bacterial and fungal type III polyketide synthase proteins showed <50% similarity but in higher plants, it exhibited >80% among chalcone synthases and >70% in the case of non-chalcone synthases. In a consensus phylogenetic tree based on 1000 replicates; bacterial, fungal and plant proteins were clustered in separate groups. Proteins from bryophytes and pteridophytes grouped immediately near to the fungal cluster, demonstrated how evolutionary lineage has occurred among type III polyketide synthase proteins. Upon physicochemical analysis, it was observed that the proteins localized in the cytoplasm and were hydrophobic in nature. Molecular structural analysis revealed comparatively stable structure comprising of alpha helices and random coils as major structural components. It was found that there was a decline in the structural stability with active site mutation as prophesied by the in silico mutation studies.
Multi-View Local Learning

The idea of local learning, i.e., classifying a particular example based on its neighbors, has been successfully applied to many semi-supervised and clustering problems recently. However, the local learning methods developed so far are all devised for single-view problems. In fact, in many real-world applications, examples are represented by multiple sets of features. In this paper, we extend the idea of local learning to multi-view problem, design a multi-view local model for each example, and propose a Multi-View Local Learning Regularization (MVLL-Reg) matrix. Both its linear and kernel version are given. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over several state-of-the-art ones.
Automatic Generation of 3 D Building Models with General Shaped Roofs by Straight Skeleton Computation

3D city models are important in several fields, such as urban planning and gaming industries. However, enormous time and labor has to be consumed to create these 3D models, using a 3D modeling software such as 3ds Max or SketchUp. In order to automate laborious steps, we are proposing a GIS and CG integrated system for automatically generating 3D building models, based on building polygons (building footprints) on digital maps. Digital maps shows most building polygons' edges meet at right angles (orthogonal polygon). In the digital map, however, not all building polygons are orthogonal. In either orthogonal or non-orthogonal polygons, we propose the new system for automatically generating 3D building models with general shaped roofs by straight skeleton computation defined by a continuous shrinking process. In this paper, the algorithm for shrinking a polygon and forming a straight skeleton are clarified and we propose the new methodology for constructing roof models by assuming the third event and, at the end of the shrinking process, some polygons are converged to a line. 2 CUPUM 2013 conference papers
Effective shutdown in the expression of celiac disease-related wheat gliadin T-cell epitopes by RNA interference

Celiac disease (CD) is an enteropathy triggered by the ingestion of gluten proteins from wheat and similar proteins from barley and rye. The inflammatory reaction is controlled by T cells that recognize gluten peptides in the context of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) DQ2 or HLA-DQ8 molecules. The only available treatment for the disease is a lifelong gluten-exclusion diet. We have used RNAi to down-regulate the expression of gliadins in bread wheat. A set of hairpin constructs were designed and expressed in the endosperm of bread wheat. The expression of gliadins was strongly down-regulated in the transgenic lines. Total gluten protein was extracted from transgenic lines and tested for ability to stimulate four different T-cell clones derived from the intestinal lesion of CD patients and specific for the DQ2-α-II, DQ2-γ-VII, DQ8-α-I, and DQ8-γ-I epitopes. For five of the transgenic lines, there was a 1.5–2 log reduction in the amount of the DQ2-α-II and DQ2-γ-VII epitopes and at least 1 log reduction in the amount of the DQ8-α-I and DQ8-γ-I epitopes. Furthermore, transgenic lines were also tested with two T-cell lines that are reactive with ω-gliadin epitopes. The total gluten extracts were unable to elicit T-cell responses for three of the transgenic wheat lines, and there were reduced responses for six of the transgenic lines. This work shows that the down-regulation of gliadins by RNAi can be used to obtain wheat lines with very low levels of toxicity for CD patients.
Pain perception is altered by a nucleotide polymorphism in SCN9A

The gene SCN9A is responsible for three human pain disorders. Nonsense mutations cause a complete absence of pain, whereas activating mutations cause severe episodic pain in paroxysmal extreme pain disorder and primary erythermalgia. This led us to investigate whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in SCN9A were associated with differing pain perception in the general population. We first genotyped 27 SCN9A SNPs in 578 individuals with a radiographic diagnosis of osteoarthritis and a pain score assessment. A significant association was found between pain score and SNP rs6746030; the rarer A allele was associated with increased pain scores compared to the commoner G allele (P = 0.016). This SNP was then further genotyped in 195 pain-assessed people with sciatica, 100 amputees with phantom pain, 179 individuals after lumbar discectomy, and 205 individuals with pancreatitis. The combined P value for increased A allele pain was 0.0001 in the five cohorts tested (1277 people in total). The two alleles of the SNP rs6746030 alter the coding sequence of the sodium channel Nav1.7. Each was separately transfected into HEK293 cells and electrophysiologically assessed by patch-clamping. The two alleles showed a difference in the voltage-dependent slow inactivation (P = 0.042) where the A allele would be predicted to increase Nav1.7 activity. Finally, we genotyped 186 healthy females characterized by their responses to a diverse set of noxious stimuli. The A allele of rs6746030 was associated with an altered pain threshold and the effect mediated through C-fiber activation. We conclude that individuals experience differing amounts of pain, per nociceptive stimulus, on the basis of their SCN9A rs6746030 genotype.
Secret Shoppers Find Access To Providers And Network Accuracy Lacking For Those In Marketplace And Commercial Plans.

The adequacy of provider networks for plans sold through insurance Marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act has received much scrutiny recently. Various studies have established that networks are generally narrow. To learn more about network adequacy and access to care, we investigated two questions. First, no matter the nominal size of a network, can patients gain access to primary care services from providers of their choice in a timely manner? Second, how does access compare to plans sold outside insurance Marketplaces? We conducted a "secret shopper" survey of 743 primary care providers from five of California's nineteen insurance Marketplace pricing regions in the summer of 2015. Our findings indicate that obtaining access to primary care providers was generally equally challenging both inside and outside insurance Marketplaces. In less than 30 percent of cases were consumers able to schedule an appointment with an initially selected physician provider. Information about provider networks was often inaccurate. Problems accessing services for patients with acute conditions were particularly troubling. Effectively addressing issues of network adequacy requires more accurate provider information.
Intervention-Elicited Reactance and Its Implications

Abstract. The present research investigated whether an intervention designed to increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables (FVs) would elicit reactance and explored the consequences of reactance. Eighty-four students were randomized to one of two intervention groups or a control group. During the 1-week intervention, which was accompanied by a food diary, the 5aday-group had to eat 5 portions of FVs per day, the just1more group had to eat 1 more portion of FVs than usual, and the control group had to eat as usual. Both intervention groups reported higher reactance than the control group immediately after the intervention (T2) and still 1 week later (T3) with high effect sizes. Trait-reactance had no effect on any of the study variables. Intervention-elicited reactance was associated with a lower FV intake at follow-up (T4), and this association was mediated by a more negative attitude toward eating 5aday assessed 1 week after the intervention (T3).
A loss of status and a sense of defeat: an evolutionary perspective on professional burnout

This longitudinal study among Spanish teachers (N = 558) examined burnout from an evolutionary social rank perspective. The types of stress differed among various school levels, and a sense of defeat was highest among teachers in primary schools. A low status, a loss of status and a sense of defeat were independent cross‐sectional predictors of burnout. Longitudinally a sense of defeat predicted an increase in burnout over time, especially among males and teachers in high schools. The status related variables were in general more important predictors of burnout than stressors that are usually associated with burnout. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EFFICENCY OF RAMP METERING , SPEED MANAGEMENT BASED ON BRAESS-LIKE PARADOXES

The paper investigates the origin of the gains resulting from ramp metering and speed management. Similar to Braess's paradox, both traffic control methods reduce the nominal capacity in order to achieve gains. Ramp metering and speed control are shown to prevent capacity drops from which the system is unable to recover, due to hysteresis.
Permanent Uncertainty: on the Quantum Evaluation of the Determinant and the Permanent of a Matrix

We investigate the possibility of evaluating permanents and determinants of matrices by quantum computation. All current algorithms for the evaluation of the permanent of a real matrix have exponential time complexity and are known to be in the class P #P. Any method to evaluate or approximate the permanent is thus of fundamental interest to complexity theory. Permanents and determinants of matrices play a basic role in quantum statistical mechanics of identical bosons and fermions, as the only possible many particle states made of single particle wave functions. We study a novel many-particle quantum-computational model in which an observable operator can be constructed, in polynomial-time complexity, to yield the determinant or the permanent of an arbitrary matrix as its expectation value. Both quantities are estimated, in this model, by quantum mechanics systems in a polynomial time, using fermions and bosons respectively. It turns out that the variance of the measurements in a \noise-free case" is zero for the determinant and exponential (in the rank of the matrix) for the permanent. The intrinsic measurement variance is therefore the quantum mechanical correspondence to the computational complexity gap.
Positive Effect of an Autologous Platelet Concentrate in Lateral Epicondylitis in a Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has shown to be a general stimulation for repair. Purpose To determine the effectiveness of PRP compared with corticosteroid injections in patients with chronic lateral epicondylitis. Study Design Randomized controlled trial; Level of evidence, 1. Patients The trial was conducted in 2 teaching hospitals in the Netherlands. One hundred patients with chronic lateral epicondylitis were randomly assigned in the PRP group (n = 51) or the corticosteroid group (n = 49). A central computer system carried out randomization and allocation to the trial group. Patients were randomized to receive either a corticosteroid injection or an autologous platelet concentrate injection through a peppering technique. The primary analysis included visual analog scores and DASH Outcome Measure scores (DASH: Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand). Results Successful treatment was defined as more than a 25% reduction in visual analog score or DASH score without a reintervention after 1 year. The results showed that, according to the visual analog scores, 24 of the 49 patients (49%) in the corticosteroid group and 37 of the 51 patients (73%) in the PRP group were successful, which was significantly different (P < .001). Furthermore, according to the DASH scores, 25 of the 49 patients (51%) in the corticosteroid group and 37 of the 51 patients (73%) in the PRP group were successful, which was also significantly different (P = .005). The corticosteroid group was better initially and then declined, whereas the PRP group progressively improved. Conclusion Treatment of patients with chronic lateral epicondylitis with PRP reduces pain and significantly increases function, exceeding the effect of corticosteroid injection. Future decisions for application of the PRP for lateral epicondylitis should be confirmed by further follow-up from this trial and should take into account possible costs and harms as well as benefits.
Hardware Solution for Real-Time Face Recognition

The objective of this paper is to come up with a scalable modular hardware solution for real-time Face Recognition (FR) on large databases. Existing hardware solutions use algorithms with low recognition accuracy suitable for real-time response. In addition, database size for these solutions is limited by on-chip resources making them unsuitable for practical real-time applications. Due to high computational complexity we do not choose algorithms in literature with superior recognition accuracy. Instead, we come up with a combination of Weighted Modular Principle Component Analysis (WMPCA) and Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) which outperforms algorithms used in existing hardware solutions on highly illumination and pose variant face databases. We propose a hardware solution for real-time FR which uses parallel streams to perform independent modular computations. A salient feature of proposed hardware solution is that we store a major part of data on off-chip memory in a novel format, so that latencies experienced accessing off-chip memory does not impact performance. This enables us to work on databases of very large sizes. To test functional correctness, the proposed architecture is synthesized and tested on Virtex-6 LX550T FPGA. This emulated system is able to perform 450 recognitions per second on images of size 128 × 128 with 450 classes.
Effects of blood sugar level on rat transient focal brain ischemia consecutively observed by diffusion‐weighted EPI and 1H echo planar spectroscopic imaging

The effects of blood sugar level on transient focal brain ischemia were examined by consecutive diffusion‐weighted EPI and 1H echo planar spectroscopic imaging. A remote‐controlled rat intraluminal suture middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model was prepared. Animals were divided into three experimental groups: control, 1 g/kg, and 2 g/kg glucose groups (n = 6 for each). Saline or glucose was infused intraperitoneally 30 min prior to MCAO. The glucose‐loaded groups showed increased lactate accumulation and marked decreases in average diffusion coefficient in the ischemic region during 40‐min MCAO. These changes were correlated with blood sugar levels at the onset of MCAO. After reperfusion, all rats in the control and 1 g/kg groups recovered from the ischemic changes, but three rats with marked hyperglycemia in the 2 g/kg group showed irreversible changes. The adverse effects of hyperglycemia on transient focal brain ischemia were clearly demonstrated by sequential 2D images. Magn Reson Med 42:895–902, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Host-Feeding Habits of Culex pipiens and Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) Collected at the Urban and Suburban Residential Areas of Japan

ABSTRACT To evaluate the vectorial capacity of mosquitoes for viruses in Japan, the host-feeding habits of the mosquitoes were analyzed by sequencing polymerase chain reaction-amplified fragments of the cytochrome b and 16S ribosomal RNA regions of the mitochondrial DNA of 516 mosquitoes of 15 species from seven genera that were collected from residential areas during 2003–2006. Culex pipiens L. and Aedes albopictus Skuse were the most commonly collected species in urban and suburban residential areas. Anautogenous Culex pipiens pallens Coquillett was distinguished from the autogenous Cx. pipiens form molestus Forskal using a polymerase chain reaction-based identification method. Both Cx. p. pollens and Cx. p. form molestus exhibited similar host-feeding habits, broadly preferring avian (50.0 and 42.5% of avian, respectively) and mammalian (38.6 and 45.0% of avian, respectively) hosts, such as tree sparrows, ducks, and humans. Conversely, Ae. albopictus exhibited a highly mammalophilic and anthropophilic feeding pattern, with 84.2% feeding on mammalian hosts and 68.5% of these on humans. We concluded that in Japan, Cx. pipiens might play a significant role in the avian-to-mammal transmission of viruses, such as West Nile virus, whereas Ae. albopictus might play a role in the human-human transmission of dengue and Chikungunya viruses.
Changing Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes/Beliefs About Diversity

This study focused on determining whether there are particular factors that may be associated with the development of greater multicultural awareness and sensitivity in preservice teachers. The researcher conducted extensive interviews with one 22-year-old White female teacher candidate and identified six factors that appeared to play a critical role in her positive multicultural development. Three of the factors were dispositional and included openness to diversity, self-awareness/self-reflectiveness, and commitment to social justice. The other three factors were experiential and included intercultural experiences, support group experiences, and educational experiences. Several implications of the study are discussed.
How Productive is Infrastructure? A New Approach and Evidence from Rural India

There have been competing arguments about the effect of public infrastructure on productivity in the literature. Level-based regressions generally show a much higher return to public capital than private capital, while difference-based regressions tend to find insignificant or even negative effects. To help reconcile this debate, this paper proposes that researchers should first test for causality in their data to check for length of lagged relationships and the existence of reverse causality, as a critical step before specifying a final model and estimating procedure on the relationship between the stock of capital and productivity growth. A newly developed system GMM method of estimation is proposed for this purpose. Second, a new method of estimating the relationship between the capital stock and productivity in level form is proposed that controls for possible endogeneity problems arising from reverse causation. These methods are illustrated using a unique set of pooled time-series, cross-section data for India. It is shown that infrastructure development in India is productive with an estimated impact lying between those obtained from level-based and difference-based estimates.
Effects of cyclic intermittent etidronate therapy on coronary artery calcification in patients receiving long-term hemodialysis.

BACKGROUND Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is thought to be associated with greater cardiovascular mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease than in nonuremic persons. The purpose of the present study is to assess the effects of etidronate, a synthetic analogue of pyrophosphate, on progression of CAC score. METHODS The extent of CAC was evaluated by using multidetector spiral computed tomography. Repeated CAC score estimation was possible in 35 patients (29 men, 6 women). Bone mineral density (BMD) was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Serum osteoprotegerin (OPG) was measured by using enzyme-linked immunoassay. Serum etidronate was measured by means of the gas spectrometry technique using deuterium-labeled etidronate as internal standard. RESULTS Mean patient age was 63.2 +/- 8.2 (SD) years, and mean duration of dialysis therapy was 7.4 +/- 5.5 years. CAC score was estimated 3 times in each patient. After the second CAC score estimation, 35 patients were administered etidronate, 200 mg/d, for 14 days. This cycle was repeated 3 times every 90 days. CAC progression was significantly less pronounced during treatment with etidronate compared with the period before treatment was initiated. The median annualized absolute increase in calcified volume was 195.0 mm3 without treatment compared with -490.0 mm3 during treatment ( P < 0.01). Patients were divided into 2 groups based on changes in CAC score during etidronate treatment. Responders (n = 26) were patients whose CAC score decreased during therapy, and nonresponders (n = 9) were patients whose CAC score increased, even after etidronate therapy. Serum C-reactive protein values (0.18 +/- 0.13 mg/dL) in the responder group were greater than those (0.14 +/- 0.08 mg/dL) in the nonresponder group ( P = 0.013). Serum OPG levels decreased significantly during etidronate therapy (256.8 +/- 93.8 versus 245.0 +/- 83.0 pg/mL; P = 0.0161). Etidronate was well tolerated during the study. BMD values during etidronate therapy were not significantly changed from 0.941 +/- 0.125 to 0.968 +/- 0.246 g/cm2. CONCLUSION Results of the present study suggest that the extent of CAC may be suppressed by etidronate in association with a reduction in chronic inflammatory responses. They also suggest that a decrease in serum OPG concentrations by means of etidronate may be associated with changes in vascular calcification in dialysis patients.