Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decomposing Bjurek Productivity Indexes into Explanatory Factors June

Caves, Christensen, Diewert introduced Malmquist output, input and productivity indexes into production theory in a systematic way. This paper revisits the debate on how to decompose Bjurek’s concept of a Malmquist productivity index into explanatory factors, with a focus on extracting technical progress, technical efficiency change, and returns to scale components. In order to define these components, a reference technology is required. The paper does not make any convexity assumptions on the reference technology but instead follows the example of Tulkens and his coauthors in assuming that the reference technology satisfies free disposability assumptions. The existence and properties of the underlying distance functions of the productivity decomposition are proven under relatively unrestrictive assumptions. The paper provides for the first time a theoretical justification for the geometric average form of the Bjurek productivity index. Journal of Economic Literature Numbers
Carbon isotopic fractionation in heterotrophic microbial metabolism

Differences in the natural-abundance carbon stable isotopic compositions between products from aerobic cultures of Escherichia coli K-12 were measured. Respired CO2 was 3.4% depleted in 13C relative to the glucose used as the carbon source, whereas the acetate was 12.3% enriched in 13C. The acetate 13C enrichment was solely in the carboxyl group. Even though the total cellular carbon was only 0.6% depleted in 13C, intracellular components exhibited a significant isotopic heterogeneity. The protein and lipid fractions were -1.1 and -2.7%, respectively. Aspartic and glutamic acids were -1.6 and +2.7%, respectively, yet citrate was isotopically identical to the glucose. Probable sites of carbon isotopic fractionation include the enzyme, phosphotransacetylase, and the Krebs cycle.
Joint multipoint linkage analysis of multivariate qualitative and quantitative traits. I. Likelihood formulation and simulation results.

We describe a variance-components method for multipoint linkage analysis that allows joint consideration of a discrete trait and a correlated continuous biological marker (e.g., a disease precursor or associated risk factor) in pedigrees of arbitrary size and complexity. The continuous trait is assumed to be multivariate normally distributed within pedigrees, and the discrete trait is modeled by a threshold process acting on an underlying multivariate normal liability distribution. The liability is allowed to be correlated with the quantitative trait, and the liability and quantitative phenotype may each include covariate effects. Bivariate discrete-continuous observations will be common, but the method easily accommodates qualitative and quantitative phenotypes that are themselves multivariate. Formal likelihood-based tests are described for coincident linkage (i.e., linkage of the traits to distinct quantitative-trait loci [QTLs] that happen to be linked) and pleiotropy (i.e., the same QTL influences both discrete-trait status and the correlated continuous phenotype). The properties of the method are demonstrated by use of simulated data from Genetic Analysis Workshop 10. In a companion paper, the method is applied to data from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism, in a bivariate linkage analysis of alcoholism diagnoses and P300 amplitude of event-related brain potentials.
The Role of Index of Valvular-Arterial Impedance and Systemic Arterial Compliance after Aortic Valve Replacement

Mechanical valvular obstruction and reduced arterial compliance combine to increase left ventricular afterload in patinets with aortic stenosis (AS). As a result of the recognition that valvular and arterial abnormalities both play important roles in determining the overall impedance to left ventricular ejection in AS, it is now clear that standard methods of quantifying valvular stenosis, which focus entirely on the valve itself do not adequately characterize the severity, predict the onset, progression, and magnitude of symptoms, or identify the incidence of subsequent adverse event. The valvuloarterial impedance (Zva) provides an estimate of the global left ventricle (LV) hemodynamic load that results from the summation of the valvular and vascular loads, and the concept is very useful because it incorporates stenosis severity, volume flow rate, body size, and systemic vascular resistance. Moreover, Zva can easily be calculated using Doppler echocardiography from 3 simple measurements, that is, the systemic arterial compliance (SAC) in the LV outflow tract, the transvalvular mean gradient, and systolic arterial pressure, it is superior to the standard indexes of AS severity in predicting LV dysfunction. Zva is the best-suited and most relevant parameter to clinically quantify this “global or total” increase in LV hemodynamic load. There is few data regarding effects of surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) on Zva and SAC. In patients with AS undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), acute declines in Zva were reported. Reductions in Zva observed 1 month after TAVI also were shown to persist during a 2-year follow-up, suggesting that pISSN 1975-4612/ eISSN 2005-9655 Copyright © 2016 Korean Society of Echocardiography www.kse-jcu.org http://dx.doi. org/10.4250/jcu.2016. 24.3. 191
Effectiveness of vagus nerve stimulation in epilepsy patients

A retrospective review of the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in 48 patients with intractable partial epilepsy was performed. Side effects were few and mild to moderate. Mean seizure frequency decreased by 26% after 1 year, 30% after 5 years, and 52% after 12 years with VNS treatment.
A New Transmission Protocol for Cooperative Communications

Cooperative wireless communication is a hot research area for attaining diversity through virtual antenna array that is formed by sharing resources among different users.Different strategies of resource utilization such as amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) already exist in cooperative networks.Although the implementation of these strategies is simple, their utilization of the channel state information (CSI) is generally poor.In this paper a new strategy, based on the previously existing ones, called CSI directed estimate and forward (CDEF) with estimate domain reduction is proposed.A closed form solution for the optimal signal estimation at the relay using minimum mean square error (MMSE) as well as a possible set reduction of the estimation domain is given. We will show that this new strategy attains better symbol error rate (SER) and outage performance than AF and DF.
A Role for the Integrin a v b 8 in the Negative Regulation of Epithelial Cell Growth 1

The control of cell growth is regulated through coordinated responses to growth factors and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions. Integrins, the major family of cell-ECM receptors, are vital to these coordinated responses. Although much is known of the role of integrins in growth promotion, specific examples of integrin-mediated cell growth inhibition are few. On the basis of our findings that the integrin b8 subunit is expressed in airway epithelial cells and is absent in lung cancers, we investigated the role and mechanism of the integrinavb8 in mediating growth inhibition. When introduced into either a lung or colon carcinoma cell line, b8 inhibited cell growth without inducing apoptosis. Ligation of avb8 also induced cell rounding, inhibited focal contact formation, and initiated an inhibitory signaling pathway as demonstrated by increased expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 . The cytoplasmic domain of b8 was capable of both growth inhibition and causing cell shape changes as shown by the use of a chimeric integrin construct consisting of theb8-cytoplasmic domain coupled to theb6-extracellular domain. Finally, when testedin vivo, b8 potently inhibited tumor growth in nude mice. Together, these results implicateavb8 as a novel growthregulatory molecule of epithelial cells.
Pro-ISIS fanboys network analysis and attack detection through Twitter data

Terrorism becomes more severe these days, especially the attacks sponsored by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Daesh. They are experts of using social network for propaganda and recruitment, thus predicting their activities through big social network data will help to predict and avoid more serious attacks. In this paper, we analyze over 17k Twitter records of pro-ISIS fanboys over a year. Based on those tweets, we want to dig out: 1. Who is the most important and active member in the social network? 2. What are the hashtags they frequently used for propaganda? 3. According to the twitting peak time and information on-hand, will it be able to predict the next attack? Our results reveal the leader in this propaganda network, and achieve a satisfactory attack prediction via time-series neural network through very limited attack history.
A New Approach for Solving Type-2 Fuzzy Shortest Path Problem

Abstract. In a network the arc lengths may represent time or cost. In practical situations, it is reasonable to assume that each arc length is a type-2 discrete fuzzy set. We called it the type-2 discrete fuzzy shortest path problem. In this paper we proposed an algorithm for finding shortest path and shortest path length from source node to destination node using type reduction method. We have compared our result with other measures like Hamming, Normalized Hamming, Exponential type distance measure also. An illustrative example also included to demonstrate our proposed approach.
Arm Movement Control: Differences between Children with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine performance differences in arm movement control (programming vs. “on-line” control) between children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Twenty children (10 with ADHD and 10 without ADHD) from the ages of 8 to 13 years participated in the study. On the surface of a digitizer, each participant completed three types of aiming arm movements (10 trials for each) and 10 baseline trials (without accuracy requirement). Multivariate analyses of variance with repeated measures were used to analyze the variables of reaction time, movement time, normalized jerk, intersegment-interval (ISI), and movement timing. Children with ADHD appeared to use “on-line” monitoring during the arm movement and did not perform the entire movement sequence as a functional unit. They executed the arm movements more slowly, had greater variability in movement timing, and demonstrated longer ISIs than their counterparts. Children with ADHD had multiple peaks in the velocity profiles. Children without ADHD, however, appeared to program their entire arm movements and execute the sequence as a unit. Their velocity profiles were symmetrical with a single peak, and the movement segments were temporally coordinated. These findings suggested that cognitive functions are important resources for controlling rapid aiming arm movements. Children with ADHD might rely more on visual feedback during the movements, which resulted in slower and more variant movement outcomes than children who did not have ADHD.
Evolutionary Hypergraph Partitioning

The hypergraph partitioning problem has many applications like processor load balance or VLSI design. For most applications solution quality is crucial. Since the problem is NP-hard, heuristics and meta heuristics are used in practice to solve the problem. In this thesis we combine the commonly used multilevel heuristic with an evolutionary algorithm. Experimental results show that our new algorithm improves solution quality by 2.2% on average. Moreover, it computes the best solutions on 597 out of 630 instances.
Challenges and Potentials for Writing Centres in South African Tertiary Institutions.

There are many challenges involved in developing and running Writing Centres in tertiary contexts in South Africa. These challenges include recognizing the role Writing Centres need to play in the redress of basic academic literacies. They also involve emphasizing writing as a mode of learning where higher cognitive functions such as analysis and synthesis are developed through spoken and written language. Academic discourse takes a distinct written form, comprising often unspoken conventions which dictate appropriate uses of lexicogrammatical structures. Each discipline also has its own particular 'dialect'. Acquiring these 'foreign' methods of communication poses a challenge to many students, not only English Additional Language students. One of the main challenges for Writing Centres is to provide access to academic and disciplinary discourses through making explicit how texts work in a critical manner, whilst at the same time inducting students into these discourses. This article examines some key tensions in Writing Centre practices in the South African context, including debates about decontextualization, skills versus practices, process versus genre approaches to writing, the challenges and opportunities of the one-to-one. It explores how the Writing Centre at the University of Cape Town tries to address some of these challenges, and looks at the potentials for Writing Centres in tertiary institutions.
The role and effectiveness of computer-assisted learning in physical therapy education: A systematic review

Physical therapy educators seek teaching methodologies to efficiently educate students. The purpose of this article was to perform a systematic review of the literature pertaining to the use and effectiveness of computer-assisted learning (CAL) in physical therapy education. Criteria were established for article selection. Articles related to use included those reporting at least a 30% survey response return and a sample of at least 50. Articles regarding effectiveness included only randomized control studies related to use in physical therapy and physical therapy assistant education. Six articles related to the use and 17 articles related to the effectiveness were identified. Early published investigations were focused in the area of anatomy. The survey studies related to use indicated that educators highly valued CAL, but they reported initial use to be low due to cost. Expanding software development has resulted in higher contemporary use. CAL can effectively convey content material compared to traditional methods of instruction. CAL is largely underresearched in the field of physical therapy compared to other health professions. Recommendations for future research include larger studies, broader representation of the practice field, and development of interactive programming.
Biotransformation of Dimethylarsinic Acid 1

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Engineering Issue Papers (EIPs) are a series of documents that summarize the available information on specific contaminants, selected treatment and site remediation technologies, and related issues. This EIP is intended to provide remedial project managers (RPMs), on-scene coordinators (OSCs), contractors, and other state or private remediation managers with an overview regarding the biotransformation of dimethylarsinic acid (DMA[V]). The (V) suffix in DMA(V) denotes the +5 oxidation state of arsenic.
Cytomegalovirus and Epstein–Barr virus coinfection in three toddlers with prolonged illnesses

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) usually cause primary and latent infections during childhood; thus, coinfection with these viruses occurs occasionally in children. However, its clinical impact has not been established, and may be underestimated. Three cases of coinfection involving these two viruses in toddlers are described: a 14‐month‐old male with infectious mononucleosis, an 18‐month‐old female with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, and a 13‐month‐old female with acute hepatitis. All three patients had prolonged illnesses. Serial serological testing and quantitation of viral DNA for CMV and EBV using peripheral blood from the patients suggested primary infections with both viruses. In all three cases, the viral load of EBV and CMV in the early stage of disease exceeded 6.4 × 103 and 8.8 × 102 copies/ml of whole blood, respectively, suggesting that the viruses were associated with the clinical condition. Recognizing that coinfection with these viruses may modulate the clinical course of disease is important. J. Med. Virol. 81:1399–1402, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Rejection of organic micro-pollutants from water by a tubular, hydrophilic pervaporative membrane designed for irrigation applications

ABSTRACT The links between chemical properties, including those relating to molecular size, solubility, hydrophobicity and vapour pressure, and rejection of model aromatic micro-pollutants by a tubular, hydrophilic polymer pervaporation membrane designed for irrigation applications were investigated. Open air experiments were conducted at room temperature for individual solutions of fluorene, naphthalene, phenol, 1,2-dichlorobenzene, 1,2-diethylbenzene and 2-phenoxyethanol. Percentage rejection generally increased with increased molecular size for the model micro-pollutants (47–86%). Molecular weight and log Kow had the strongest positive relationships with rejection, as demonstrated by respective correlation coefficients of r = 0.898 and 0.824. Rejection was also strongly negatively correlated with aqueous solubility and H-bond δ. However, properties which relate to vapour phase concentrations of the micro-pollutants were not well correlated with rejection. Thus, physicochemical separation processes, rather than vapour pressure, drive removal of aromatic contaminants by the investigated pervaporation tube. This expanded knowledge could be utilized in considering practical applications of pervaporative irrigation systems for treating organic-contaminated waters such as oilfield-produced waters.
Nonlinear and Quantitative Software Engineering Method Based on Complexity Science

This paper introduces a nonlinear and quantitative software engineering method (NSE-Method), which is the core part of the Nonlinear Software Engineering paradigm (NSE) based on complexity science. NSE-Method offers a nonlinear, holistic, global, and quantitative approach for software development. The objective of NSE-Method is to make it possible to help software development organizations double their productivity, halve their cost, and improve the quality of their software products by several orders of magnitude simultaneously. NSE-Method has been successfully implemented and supported by the NSE platform, Panorama++, integrated from many automated software engineering
Endocrine Disruption by Cadmium, a Common Environmental Toxicant with Paradoxical Effects on Reproduction

Cadmium (Cd2+) is a common environmental pollutant and a major constituent of tobacco smoke. Exposure to this heavy metal, which has no known beneficial physiological role, has been linked to a wide range of detrimental effects on mammalian reproduction. Intriguingly, depending on the identity of the steroidogenic tissue involved and the dosage used, it has been reported to either enhance or inhibit the biosynthesis of progesterone, a hormone that is inexorably linked to both normal ovarian cyclicity and the maintenance of pregnancy. Thus, Cd2+ has been shown to exert significant effects on ovarian and reproductive tract morphology, with extremely low dosages reported to stimulate ovarian luteal progesterone biosynthesis and high dosages inhibiting it. In addition, Cd2+ exposure during human pregnancy has been linked to decreased birth weights and premature birth, with the enhanced levels of placental Cd2+ resulting from maternal exposure to industrial wastes or tobacco smoke being associated with decreased progesterone biosynthesis by the placental trophoblast. The stimulatory effects of Cd2+ on ovarian progesterone synthesis, as revealed by the results of studies using stable porcine granulosa cells, appear centered on the enhanced conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone by the cytochrome P450 side chain cleavage (P450scc). However, in the placenta, the Cd2+-induced decline in progesterone synthesis is commensurate with a decrease in P450scc. Additionally, placental low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDL-R) mRNA declines in response to Cd2+ exposure, suggesting an inhibition in the pathway that provides cholesterol precursor from the maternal peripheral circulation. Potential mechanisms by which Cd2+ may affect steroidogenesis include interference with the DNA binding zinc (Zn2+)-finger motif through the substitution of Cd2+ for Zn2+ or by taking on the role of an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) that could mimic or inhibit the actions of endogenous estrogens. Divergent, tissue-specific (ovary vs. placenta) effects of Cd2+ also cannot be ruled out. Therefore, in consideration of the data currently available and in light of the potentially serious consequences of environmental Cd2+ exposure to human reproduction, we propose that priority should be given to studies dedicated to further elucidating the mechanisms involved.
SPON: A slotted long-reach PON architecture for supporting internetworking capability

Long-reach optical access technologies have emerged as a promising solution for combining access and metro backhaul networks in a cost-effective manner. This study develops a Slotted PON (SPON) architecture based upon an AWG for long-reach optical access networks. The AWG enables the SPON to achieve wavelength spatial-reuse and to provide an internetworking capability amongst ONUs located within different local access networks. In addition, a Slotted MAC (SMAC) protocol is proposed to arbitrate the access of the individual ONUs over the DWDM layer. The simulation results show that the SPON architecture integrated with SMAC protocol enhances the bandwidth utilization within the network, and therefore achieve a significant reduction in the average packet delay.
CLINICO-PATHOLOGIC CONFERENCE: PERSISTENT TACHYPNEA IN A 5-WEEK-OLD BOY

The patient was a 5-week-old male admitted with tachypnea and increased respiratory: distress. Mother noted increased cough and increased work of breathing. There was no fever, congestion, or nasal discharge. Prior to presenting to the emergency room, he was given a bronchodilator nebulizer treatment at home with no improvement. Two weeks prior to the current admission, he was hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit for approximately two weeks for similar complaints. Physical examination on the current admission was significant for minimal nasal flaring and mild subcostal retractions, with intermittent oxygen requirement. Infectious workup was negative.
Pulsatile Tinnitus and Spontaneous Cerebrospinal Fluid Rhinorrhea: Indicators of Benign Intracranial Hypertension Syndrome

Benign intracranial hypertension (BIH) syndrome occurs most frequently in young obese women. Pulsatile tinnitus and sensorineural hearing loss may be a patient s primary symptoms at presentation (1). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) rhinorrhea occasionally results from BIH syndrome and may be secondary to increased intracranial pressure (ICP) resulting from the high intraabdominal pressure of a morbidly obese individual (2). We report a case of pulsatile tinnitus and CSF rhinorrhea caused by BIH syndrome that resolved after surgery for morbid obesity. We urge the otolaryngologist to consider BIH syndrome as a possible diagnosis in patients presenting with pulsatile tinnitus and CSF rhinorrhea and encourage an evaluation for treatment of obesity as a primary therapeutic goal.