Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulating Behavior in Online Communities

In thriving communities, a rough consensus eventually emerges about the range of behaviors the managers and most members consider acceptable, what we will call normative behaviors, and another range of behaviors that are beyond the pale. A Rape In Cyberspace, the newspaper report by Julian Dibbell (1993), describes a classic example of unacceptable behavior in LamdaMoo, an early virtual environment. Mr. Bungle, an avatar in the online community, wrote a program that forced two avatars controlled by other participants to have virtual sex with him and with each other, and to do brutal things to their own bodies. In describing the event online the next day, one of the victims begged “"I am requesting that Mr. Bungle be toaded for raping Starsinger and I [stet],” where “toad” is the command that would turn Bungle’s avatar into a toad, annihilating the character’s original description and attributes. Within 24 hours, 50 other characters also called for his toading. Three days later the community had a real-time discussion of the issue. An system administrator who observed this discussion eventually ran the toad command to eliminate the Mr. Bungle character. Although LamdaMoo did not have a policy against cyberrape, when one occurred in its midst, this action instigated widespread discussion and crystallized a view among many inhabitants of what were correct and incorrect types of behavior in this community.
M. tuberculosis Sliding β-Clamp Does Not Interact Directly with the NAD+ -Dependent DNA Ligase

The sliding β-clamp, an important component of the DNA replication and repair machinery, is drawing increasing attention as a therapeutic target. We report the crystal structure of the M. tuberculosis β-clamp (Mtbβ-clamp) to 3.0 Å resolution. The protein crystallized in the space group C2221 with cell-dimensions a = 72.7, b = 234.9 & c = 125.1 Å respectively. Mtbβ-clamp is a dimer, and exhibits head-to-tail association similar to other bacterial clamps. Each monomer folds into three domains with similar structures respectively and associates with its dimeric partner through 6 salt-bridges and about 21 polar interactions. Affinity experiments involving a blunt DNA duplex, primed-DNA and nicked DNA respectively show that Mtbβ-clamp binds specifically to primed DNA about 1.8 times stronger compared to the other two substrates and with an apparent Kd of 300 nM. In bacteria like E. coli, the β-clamp is known to interact with subunits of the clamp loader, NAD+ -dependent DNA ligase (LigA) and other partners. We tested the interactions of the Mtbβ-clamp with MtbLigA and the γ-clamp loader subunit through radioactive gel shift assays, size exclusion chromatography, yeast-two hybrid experiments and also functionally. Intriguingly while Mtbβ-clamp interacts in vitro with the γ-clamp loader, it does not interact with MtbLigA unlike in bacteria like E. coli where it does. Modeling studies involving earlier peptide complexes reveal that the peptide-binding site is largely conserved despite lower sequence identity between bacterial clamps. Overall the results suggest that other as-yet-unidentified factors may mediate interactions between the clamp, LigA and DNA in mycobacteria.
Concerted GABAergic Actions of Aplysia Feeding Interneurons in Motor Program Specification

GABAergic inhibitory interneurons regulate the activity of diverse types of neural networks, but the specific roles of these interneurons in motor control are poorly understood. In the Aplysia feeding motor network, three interneurons, cerebral–buccal interneuron-3 (CBI-3) and buccal interneurons B40 and B34, are GABA-immunoreactive and evoke fast IPSPs in their postsynaptic followers. Using a combination of pharmacological experiments with GABA antagonists, agonists, and uptake inhibitors, we found that these fast IPSPs are likely mediated by GABA. Functionally, these fast IPSPs specify two parameters for ingestive motor programs elicited by the command-like interneuron CBI-2: (1) the appropriate phasing of activity of the radula closer motor neuron B8 relative to protraction–retraction, and (2) protraction duration. First, in ingestive programs, B8 activity is phased such that it fires minimally during protraction. CBI-3 and B40 exert fast inhibition to minimize B8 activity during protraction, by either acting directly on B8 (B40) or indirectly on B8 (CBI-3). Second, these ingestive programs are characterized by long protraction duration, which is promoted by B40 and B34 because hyperpolarization of either cell shortens protraction. Such effects of B40 and B34 are attributable, at least partly, to their inhibitory effects on the retraction-phase interneuron B64 whose activation terminates protraction. Consistent with a GABAergic contribution to both B8 phasing and protraction duration, blockade of GABAergic inhibition by picrotoxin increases B8 activity during protraction and shortens protraction, without disrupting the integrity of motor programs. Thus, the concerted actions of GABAergic inhibition from three Aplysia feeding interneurons contribute to the specification of multiple features that define the motor program as an ingestive one.
Feasibility of asteroid detection using pulsar FSR-network

The feasibility of asteroid detection using the Forward Scatter Radar Network that exploits three pulsars as transmitters is examined. We provide a power budget estimate for asteroid detection using such a FSR-network with the radio telescope used as a receiver. The numerical results are obtained for two known radio telescopes in the Netherland and three known pulsars.
Learning Label Specific Features for Multi-label Classification

Binary relevance (BR) is a well-known framework for multi-label classification. It decomposes multi-label classification into binary (one-vs-rest) classification subproblems, one for each label. The BR approach is a simple and straightforward way for multi-label classification, but it still has several drawbacks. First, it does not consider label correlations. Second, each binary classifier may suffer from the issue of class-imbalance. Third, it can become computationally unaffordable for data sets with many labels. Several remedies have been proposed to solve these problems by exploiting label correlations between labels and performing label space dimension reduction. Meanwhile, inconsistency, another potential drawback of BR, is often ignored by researchers when they construct multi-label classification models. Inconsistency refers to the phenomenon that if an example belongs to more than one class label, then during the binary training stage, it can be considered as both positive and negative example simultaneously. This will mislead binary classifiers to learn suboptimal decision boundaries. In this paper, we seek to solve this problem by learning label specific features for each label. We assume that each label is only associated with a subset of features from the original feature set, and any two strongly correlated class labels can share more features with each other than two uncorrelated or weakly correlated ones. The proposed method can be applied as a feature selection method for multi-label learning and a general strategy to improve multi-label classification algorithms comprising a number of binary classifiers. Comparison with the state-of-the-art approaches manifests competitive performance of our proposed method.
Arabidopsis disrupted in SQD2 encoding sulfolipid synthase is impaired in phosphate-limited growth

The sulfolipid sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol is one of the three nonphosphorous glycolipids that provide the bulk of the structural lipids in photosynthetic membranes of seed plants. Unlike the galactolipids, sulfolipid is anionic at physiological pH because of its 6-deoxy-6-sulfonate-glucose (sulfoquinovose) head group. The biosynthesis of this lipid proceeds in two steps: first, the assembly of UDP-sulfoquinovose from UDP-glucose and sulfite, and second, the transfer of the sulfoquinovose moiety from UDP-sulfoquinovose to diacylglycerol. The first reaction is catalyzed by the SQD1 protein in Arabidopsis. Here we describe the identification of the SQD2 gene of Arabidopsis. We propose that this gene encodes the sulfoquinovosyltransferase catalyzing the second step of sulfolipid biosynthesis. Expression of SQD1 and SQD2 in Escherichia coli reconstituted plant sulfolipid biosynthesis in this bacterium. Insertion of a transfer DNA into this gene in Arabidopsis led to complete lack of sulfolipid in the respective sqd2 mutant. This mutant showed reduced growth under phosphate-limited growth conditions. The results support the hypothesis that sulfolipid can function as a substitute of anionic phospholipids under phosphate-limited growth conditions. Along with phosphatidylglycerol, sulfolipid contributes to maintaining a negatively charged lipid–water interface, which presumably is required for proper function of photosynthetic membranes.
Experimental study of the process dependence of Mo, Cr, Ti, and W silicon Schottky diodes and contact resistance

This paper reports on the process dependence and electrical characterization of Schottky diodes and ohmic contacts fabricated on p- and n-type silicon wafers. Four metals are systematically studied using identical test structures and characterization methods: Mo, Ti, W, and Cr. The choice of these metals is motivated by their midgap barriers and compatibility with an integrated circuit technology. For these, a thorough investigation of the variation in Schottky-barrier height and contact resistance is carried out for the following process parameters: 1) predeposition wafer preparation, 2) deposition method (sputtering and e-beam evaporation), 3) deposition temperature for the sputtered samples, and 4) annealing. It is found that RF etching previous to metal deposition increases the contact resistance and the barrier height for diodes on p-type silicon. This is of great importance, since RF etching is a very common in situ cleaning process in microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems technologies. Annealing can be used to restore the values of barrier height and contact resistance on wafers exposed to the RF etching.
The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT): a literature review

– The purpose of this paper is to perform a systematic review of articles that have used the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). , – The results produced in this research are based on the literature analysis of 174 existing articles on the UTAUT model. This has been performed by collecting data including demographic details, methodological details, limitations, and significance of relationships between the constructs from the available articles based on the UTAUT. , – The findings indicated that general purpose systems and specialized business systems were examined in the majority of the articles using the UTAUT. The analysis also indicated that cross-sectional approach, survey methods, and structural equation modelling analysis techniques were the most explored research methodologies whereas SPSS was found to be the largely used analysis tools. Moreover, the weight analysis of independent variables indicates that variables such as performance expectancy and behavioural intention qualified for the best predictor category. Moreover, the analysis also suggested that single subject or biased sample as the most explored limitation across all studies. , – The search activities were centered on occurrences of keywords to avoid tracing a large number of publications where these keywords might have been used as casual words in the main text. However, we acknowledge that there may be a number of studies, which lack keywords in the title, but still focus upon UTAUT in some form. , – This is the first research of its type which has extensively examined the literature on the UTAUT and provided the researchers with the accumulative knowledge about the model.
Mechanical Stress‐induced DNA damage and rac‐p38MAPK Signal Pathways Mediate p53‐dependent Apoptosis in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

Recently, we demonstrated that biomechanical stress induces apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) (Mayr et al., FASEB J. 2000; 15:261.270). In this article we investigated the molecular mechanisms of mechanical stress‐induced apoptosis. When SMCs were subjected to cyclic strain, tumor‐suppressor p53 was activated as evidenced by gel mobility shift assays and Western blot analyses. p53 activation was largely attenuated if SMCs were pretreated with SB202190, a specific p38MAPK inhibitor, or were stably transfected with dominant negative rac, an upstream signal transducer of p38MAPK pathways. Kinase assays provided direct evidence that p38MAPKs phosphorylated p53 within 30 min of cyclic strain. Additionally, mechanical stress resulted in oxidative DNA damage as detected by the presence of 8‐oxoguanine. Treatment with the antioxidant U‐74389G abrogated p53 activation. p53 activation was followed by expression and mitochondrial translocation of the proapoptotic protein Bax. Likewise, mechanical stress resulted in up‐regulation of anti‐apoptotic Bcl‐2 proteins, including Bcl‐2 and Bcl‐xL. However, a marked loss of mitochondrial membrane potential occurred in wild‐type, but not in p53−/−, SMCs. The latter lost their ability to express Bax and showed no apoptosis in response to cyclic strain. Taken together, our data provide the first evidence that SMC apoptosis induced by mechanical stress is p53‐dependent.
FinFET SCR: Design challenges and novel fin SCR approaches for on-chip ESD protection

For the first time, physical insights into the missing SCR action in planar equivalent Fin SCR devices with the help of TCAD are presented, which has leveraged exploring challenges and fundamental roadblock in designing Fin SCRs. Key role of contact silicidation in Fin technology is discovered. The new understanding has allowed engineering conventional designs to resume SCR action. Finally, a novel Fin SCR design is disclosed, which offers an area efficient current conduction beside device scalability.
Sperm DNA integrity assessment in prediction of assisted reproduction technology outcome.

BACKGROUND The sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) has been suggested as a predictor of fertility in vivo as well as in vitro. The available data however, have been based on limited numbers of treatments. We aimed to define the clinical role of SCSA in assisted reproduction. METHODS A total of 998 cycles [387 intrauterine insemination (IUI), 388 IVF and 223 ICSI] from 637 couples were included. SCSA results were expressed as DNA fragmentation index (DFI) and high DNA stainable (HDS) cell fractions. Outcome parameters were biochemical pregnancy (BP), clinical pregnancy (CP) and delivery (D). RESULTS For IUI, the odds ratios (ORs) for BP, CP and D were significantly lower for couples with DFI >30% as compared with those with DFI < or =30%. No statistical difference between the outcomes of ICSI versus IVF in the group with DFI < or =30% was seen. In the DFI >30% group, the results of ICSI were significantly better than those of IVF. CONCLUSIONS DFI can be used as an independent predictor of fertility in couples undergoing IUI. As a result, we propose that all infertile men should be tested with SCSA as a supplement to the standard semen analysis. When DFI exceeds 30%, ICSI should be the method of choice.
Assessment of Decision‐making Competence in Preadolescence

Recent research using late adolescent (18–19 years) and adult samples suggests that within-subject performance on a variety of standard, controlled laboratory tasks reflects a higher-order positive manifold of decision-making competence. The present paper extends this important work by testing whether preadolescent children (10- to 11-year-olds, n = 101) exhibit a similar structural pattern characterizing their decision-making performance. Performance on “child-friendly” versions of framing problems, decision matrices, consistency in risk perceptions, and calibration of confidence conformed to a one-factor solution, comparable with that previously found with older populations. Further, individual differences in effortful control, a temperament dimension related to self-regulative executive function, was significantly associated with decision-making competence. Importantly, these measures were predictive of both positive (e.g., completing set goals) and negative behaviors (e.g., missing homework assignments). Results are discussed in terms of the existence of early stable patterns of decision making and rationality and the emergence of systematic individual difference factors in decision making. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Image Inpainting Based on Local Optimisation

In this paper, we tackle the problem of image in painting which aims at removing objects from an image or repairing damaged pictures by replacing the missing regions using the information in the rest of the scene. The image in painting method proposed here builds on an exemplar-based perspective so as to improve the local consistency of the in painted region. This is done by selecting the optimal patch which maximises the local consistency with respect to abutting candidate patches. The similarity computation generates weights based upon an edge prior and the structural differences between in painting exemplar candidates. This treatment permits the generation of an in painting sequence based on a list of factors. The experiments show that the proposed method delivers a margin of improvement as compared to alternative methods.
PSYCHIATRIC PROFILES IN MEDICAL-SURGICAL POPULATIONS : NEED FOR A FOCUSED APPROACH TO CONSULTATION-UAISON PSYCHIATRY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Aim To study the profile of psychiatric disorders in medical-surgical inpatients so that subpopulations with particular mental health care needs could be identified. Findings: a retrospective analysis of 1245 referrals seen over seven years showed that psychiatric profiles in referrals from different sub-populations divided according to age, gender, source of referral and medical-surgical diagnosis, were quite dissimilar. It was felt that non-recognition of specific needs of these client groups had led to low referral rates (0.65%), and to referral practices wherein the needs of the consultee (referral for disturbed behaviour) and the consultant (management by pharmacologic agents) and certain social biases (low referrals for suicide attempts) had taken precedence over the requirements of optimal management of the cases. Implications : Financial and manpower constraints limit the advocacy for a superspecialist orientation, as a policy in India. It is recommended that while continuing with the provision of general consultation services, psychiatrists should acquire expertise in areas of C-L work, which fit in with their area of interest in general psychiatry.
Random Number Generation Based on Ferroelectric Switching

Hafnium oxide-based ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) have a great potential for fast nonvolatile memory due to their high performance, fully CMOS compatible integration, and low-power operation. The aggressive scaling of these devices has revealed novel features, such as the multilevel storage capability and abrupt switching, which, however, appears to be a stochastic process. In this letter, we propose a path for true random number generation based on the statistical switching in a single FeFET device. It relies on an inherent randomness of the polarization reversal of ferroelectric domains in the gate stack. The bit sequence is generated by repeatedly programming an FeFET at a calibrated voltage and pulse width, and features random and equiprobable “ones” and “zeros,” which are separated by orders of magnitude in drain current. This simple yet reliable operation provides a compact one-transistor solution for the unbiased random number generation.
Special teaching for special children? Pedagogies for inclusion

This paper considers one of the most basic and perplexing questions in the education of learners with disabilities and difficulties: how specialised is the teaching of this group? This is a highly significant international question for the current context of education policy and practice. Centrally prescribed curricula in many countries are supposed to be inclusive of those with disabilities and difficulties. There has been a growing awareness of the need for universalising curricula; however, there have been few attempts to clarify the nature, rationale and evidence base for particular modifications. In this paper, we summarise the findings that have emerged from two successive strands of critique focused on our opening question: first, a review and conceptual analysis of relevant literature and second, a series of critical reviews across different special educational needs areas that built on the prior work by widening the scope of coverage. We argue that research-led understanding and explication of ‘special’ pedagogies need to integrate teacher knowledge (about learning processes and about the nature of disability), curriculum and pedagogic strategy.
The examination of factors affecting e-learning effectiveness

Technology information has increased dramatically in the last years and has contributed to the growth in technology delivered instruction as an important learning and education method. In this perspective, many academic researches considered the importance of e-learning effectiveness.Although the existing models of e-learning effectiveness has improved our understanding of how online training can support and enhance learning, most of published models do not take into account the importance of the relationship between social presence and interaction. Thus, this study develops preceding investigation by extending a model of e-learning effectiveness which adds social presence to other studied variables including computer self efficacy, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, interaction between trainer and trainees, and e-learning effectiveness. Moreover, the model includes the possible relationships between independent factors. In this case, the present research seek to identify the influence of computer self efficacy, ease of use, perceived usefulness, interaction, and social presence on e- learning effectiveness. Furthermore, this study considers the possible influences between individual characteristics, perceptual characteristics and environmental characteristics.Using data from 410 employees, the conceptual model was validated through a Tunisian context. Results indicate the importance of interaction, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and social presence on e-learning achievement. E-learning achievement, in turn, influences e-learning transfer.
The A+ programming language, a different APL

This paper introduces A+, which is an Array Oriented programming language derived from APL, and explains the motivations for creating such a language. After discussing of some problems of current APL system, like the lack of control structures, the usage of dynamic binding, and the difficulty of handling functions, we present how these problems are solved in A+. The most important feature of A+ is that it uses lexical binding rather than dynamic binding as APL does, which solves some old problems of APL while making it a safer language, and offers a new kind of programming style.