Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The high-velocity clouds and the Magellanic Clouds

From an analysis of the sky and velocity distributions of the high-velocity clouds (HVCs) we show that the majority of the HVCs has a common origin. We conclude that the HVCs surround the Galaxy, forming a metacloud of ∼300 kpc in size and with a mass of ∼3 × 10 9 M� , and that they are the product of a powerful "superwind" (about 10 58 ergs), which occurred in the Magellanic Clouds about 570 Myr ago as a consequence of the interaction of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The HVCs might be magnetic bubbles of semi-ionized gas, blown from the Magellanic Clouds around 570 Myr ago, that circulate largely through the halo of the Galaxy as a stream or flow of gas. On the basis of the connection found between the HVCs and the Magellanic Clouds, we have constructed a theoretical model with the purpose of computing the orbits of a sample of test particles representing the HVCs, under the gravitational action of the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds. The orbits of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds have been traced backwards in time to estimate the position and velocity of the Clouds at the time of the collision between the two Clouds, and to infer the initial conditions of the HVCs. The model can reproduce the main features of position and velocity distributions of the HVCs, like the overall structure and kinematics of the Magellanic Stream. The initial velocities of the HVCs were the result of velocities of expansion that permitted the escape of the HVCs from the Magellanic Clouds plus the systemic velocity of the Magellanic Clouds at the time of the collision. With these initial conditions, the Galactic gravitational potential induced differential rotations or shearing motions that elongated the cloud of HVCs in the orbital direction, forming the rear and front parts of the Magellanic stream. The population of HVCs is centered around the Magellanic Clouds. The eccentric position of the Sun within the cloud of HVCs explains the asymmetries between the sky distributions of the HVCs of the northern Galactic hemisphere and those of the southern Galactic hemisphere. In the light of the model we analyze the effects that the passage of the HVC flow through the Galactic disk has produced on the interstellar medium. The effects of the HVC flow can account for many observational details such as the Galactic warp, HI shells and supershells in the gaseous layer of the outer parts of the Milky Way. The Galactic disk was target of numerous impacts of HVCs in the course of the last 400 Myr, accumulating mass at the average rate of approximately 0.6 Mper year. The events of this period may be regarded as landmarks in the evolutionary history of the Milky Way.
Conversational Errors and Common Ground Activities in Psychotherapy—Insights from Conversation Analysis

Many patients leave psychotherapy although in need. What can professional practitioners and researchers assume what happened? Trying to receive a response from these patients we too often are left without an answer. In this paper I introduce to psychotherapy discourse some concepts taken from linguistics and Conversation Analysis (CA). The reason is that what psychotherapists of every kind do is “talk-in-interaction”. During such talk Typical Problematic Situations (TPS) appear which are well known in a macro-analytic perspective (if a patient comes late to the session, does not talk or blackmails the therapist with suicide threat). However, there are many TPS that can be detected by a micro-analytic perspective only. CA is a tool helping to idenfity this type of TPS. One relevant CA-concept is Common Ground, a psychological and linguistic concept which requires special activity from both participants in an interaction. Conversational “errors” that risk to tear the Common Ground often go unnoticed. Presenting segments of transcribed therapy sessions I want to direct attention to the details of how ‘errors’ in Common Ground activity happen, how they are noticed and dealt with by skillfull therapists or how they can become repaired. Among others I use transcription details of two suicidal patients. The transcripts are from the CEMPP-Project (Conversation analysis of Empathy in psychotherapy process), conducted at IPU, Berlin. Thanks to a grant by Kohler-Stiftung, Germany.
Bilingual Visual Word Recognition and Lexical Access.

In spite of the intuition of many bilinguals, a review of empirical studies indicates that during reading under many circumstances, possible words from different languages temporarily become active. Such evidence for "language non-selective lexical access" is found using stimulus materials of various kinds: interlingual homographs (words that are identical in orthography between languages, such as the English-Dutch word BRAND, meaning "fire" in Dutch), cognates (words that have an orthography and a meaning that are similar or identical across languages, such as TOMATO in English and TOMAAT in Dutch), and interlingual neighbors (words from two languages that differ in only one letter position, such as STEAK and STERK, meaning "strong" in Dutch). However, although there is parallel lexical activation in both languages during bilingual word recognition, the actually observed result patterns also appear to be task-dependent. A distinction must therefore be made between factors affecting the word identification system directly (such as sentence context) and factors affecting the task/decision system (non-linguistic context and task demands). Recent models of bilingual word recognition are discussed with respect to these two types of factors.
Is cyclophilin involved in the immunosuppressive and nephrotoxic mechanism of action of cyclosporin A?

In this report we have approached two questions relating to the mechanism of action of cyclosporin A (CsA). First, we address whether the major cytosolic protein for CsA, cyclophilin, is directly involved in mediating the immunosuppressive activity of this drug, and, in particular, whether inhibition of this protein's peptidyl-prolyl cis- trans isomerase (PPIase) activity results in inhibition of murine T cell activation. Second, we ask whether the nephrotoxicity observed with CsA is related to inhibition of PPIase-dependent pathways in cells other than lymphocytes. Using a series of 61 cyclosporin analogues, we generally found a good correlation between cyclophilin binding and immunosuppressive activity for the majority of analogues analyzed. However, a number of compounds of distinct structural classes were found that could interact with cyclophilin but were much less immunosuppressive than expected. The inability of these analogues to inhibit lymphocyte activation could not be explained by their failure to enter the cell and bind to cyclophilin under the conditions used in the cellular assays. Surprisingly, a nonimmunosuppressive analogue, MeAla-6, which bound well to cyclophilin and was active as a PPIase inhibitor, did not induce renal pathology in vivo. Furthermore, another analogue, MeBm2t, which was immunosuppressive in vitro, possessed little or no activity as a PPIase inhibitor. These findings pose serious questions concerning a direct role of cyclosporin in mediating CsA's immunosuppressive and nephrotoxic activities. In addition, they raise doubts about whether PPIase has a direct function in lymphocyte signal transduction.
Guitar Tablature Creation with Neural Networks and Distributed Genetic Search

This paper describes a system for converting music to guitar tablature. At run time, the system employs a distributed genetic algorithm (DGA) to create tablature and a neural network to assign fingers to each note. Three additional genetic algorithms are used to optimize the fitness function of the DGA, the operating parameters of the DGA, and the learning environment of the Neural Network. These steps are taken in the hope of maximizing the consistency of our algorithm with human experts. The results have been encouraging.
A Qualitative Investigation of Gamification: Motivational Factors in Online Gamified Services and Applications

Gamification is commonly employed in designing interactive systems to enhance user engagement and motivations, or to trigger behavior change processes. Although some quantitative studies have been recently conducted aiming at measuring the effects of gamification on users' behaviors and motivations, there is a shortage of qualitative studies able to capture the subjective experiences of users, when using gamified systems. The authors propose to investigate how users are engaged by the most common gamification techniques, by conducting a diary study followed by a series of six focus groups. From the findings gathered, they conclude the paper identifying some implications for the design of interactive systems that aim at supporting intrinsic motivations to engage their users.
Fulminant acute disseminated encephalomyelitis in renal transplant patient treated by decompressive craniectomy: a case report

Background: Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) is a rare demyelinating disease of the central nervous system that most commonly afflicts children and young adults and may be rarely seen in renal transplant patients. Most cases resolve with medical management; however, in some instances, the initial episode may evolve into a fulminant illness with malignant cerebral edema and elevated intracranial pressure that can result in a herniation syndrome with possible fatal consequences. Immediate relief of intracranial pressure is a priority and medical therapies alone may not suffice or may be precluded by compromised renal function. Case description: A case is presented of fulminant ADEM in a pediatric renal transplant patient associated with intracranial hypertension and an acute herniation syndrome with rapid neurological decline that was effectively treated with a decompressive craniectomy. The procedure was life-saving and resulted in a favorable outcome without inflicting any additional morbidity. Conclusion: Decompressive craniectomy is an effective way to rapidly reduce intracranial pressure in patients with malignant cerebral edema associated with fulminant ADEM and rapid neurological decline.
Staggered Time Integrators for Wave Equations

We consider variations of the Adams--Bashforth, backward differentiation, and Runge--Kutta families of time integrators to solve systems of linear wave equations on uniform, time-staggered grids. These methods are found to have smaller local truncation errors and to allow larger stable time steps than traditional nonstaggered versions of equivalent orders. We investigate the accuracy and stability of these methods analytically, experimentally, and through the use of a novel root portrait technique.
Quantitative Assessment of Eye Phenotypes for Functional Genetic Studies Using Drosophila melanogaster

About two-thirds of the vital genes in the Drosophila genome are involved in eye development, making the fly eye an excellent genetic system to study cellular function and development, neurodevelopment/degeneration, and complex diseases such as cancer and diabetes. We developed a novel computational method, implemented as Flynotyper software (http://flynotyper.sourceforge.net), to quantitatively assess the morphological defects in the Drosophila eye resulting from genetic alterations affecting basic cellular and developmental processes. Flynotyper utilizes a series of image processing operations to automatically detect the fly eye and the individual ommatidium, and calculates a phenotypic score as a measure of the disorderliness of ommatidial arrangement in the fly eye. As a proof of principle, we tested our method by analyzing the defects due to eye-specific knockdown of Drosophila orthologs of 12 neurodevelopmental genes to accurately document differential sensitivities of these genes to dosage alteration. We also evaluated eye images from six independent studies assessing the effect of overexpression of repeats, candidates from peptide library screens, and modifiers of neurotoxicity and developmental processes on eye morphology, and show strong concordance with the original assessment. We further demonstrate the utility of this method by analyzing 16 modifiers of sine oculis obtained from two genome-wide deficiency screens of Drosophila and accurately quantifying the effect of its enhancers and suppressors during eye development. Our method will complement existing assays for eye phenotypes, and increase the accuracy of studies that use fly eyes for functional evaluation of genes and genetic interactions.
A toolchain for model-based design and testing of access control systems

In access control systems, aimed at regulating the accesses to protected data and resources, a critical component is the Policy Decision Point (PDP), which grants or denies the access according to the defined policies. Due to the complexity of the standard languag-e, it is recommended to rely on model-driven approaches which allow to overcome difficulties in the XACML policy definition. We provide in this paper a toolchain that involves a model-driven approach to specify and generate XACML policies and also enables automated testing of the PDP component. We use XACML-based testing strategies for generating appropriate test cases which are able to validate the functional aspects, constraints, permissions and prohibitions of the PDP. An experimental assessment of the toolchain and its use on a realistic case study are also presented.
Genetics, Cytogenetics, and Epigenetics of Colorectal Cancer

Most of the colorectal cancer (CRC) cases are sporadic, only 25% of the patients have a family history of the disease, and major genes causing syndromes predisposing to CRC only account for 5-6% of the total cases. The following subtypes can be recognized: MIN (microsatellite instability), CIN (chromosomal instability), and CIMP (CpG island methylator phenotype). CIN occurs in 80–85% of CRC. Chromosomal instability proceeds through two major mechanisms, missegregation that results in aneuploidy through the gain or loss of whole chromosomes, and unbalanced structural rearrangements that lead to the loss and/or gain of chromosomal regions. The loss of heterozygosity that occur in the first phases of the CRC cancerogenesis (in particular for the genes on 18q) as well as the alteration of methylation pattern of multiple key genes can drive the development of colorectal cancer by facilitating the acquisition of multiple tumor-associated mutations and the instability phenotype.
Feedforward Controller With Inverse Rate-Dependent Model for Piezoelectric Actuators in Trajectory-Tracking Applications

Effective employment of piezoelectric actuators in microscale dynamic trajectory-tracking applications is limited by two factors: 1) the intrinsic hysteretic behavior of piezoelectric ceramic and 2) structural vibration as a result of the actuator's own mass, stiffness, and damping properties. While hysteresis is rate-independent, structural vibration increases as the piezoelectric actuator is driven closer to its resonant frequency. Instead of separately modeling the two interacting dynamic effects, this work treats their combined effect phenomenologically and proposes a rate-dependent modified Prandtl-Ishlinskii operator to account for the hysteretic nonlinearity of a piezoelectric actuator at varying actuation frequency. It is shown experimentally that the relationship between the slope of the hysteretic loading curve and the rate of control input can be modeled by a linear function up to a driving frequency of 40 Hz
Role of NF-κB and Myc Proteins in Apoptosis Induced by Hepatitis B Virus HBx Protein

ABSTRACT Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) promotes a high level of liver disease and cancer in humans. The HBV HBx gene encodes a small regulatory protein that is essential for viral replication and is suspected to play a role in viral pathogenesis. HBx stimulates cytoplasmic signal transduction pathways, moderately stimulates a number of transcription factors, including several nuclear factors, and in certain settings sensitizes cells to apoptosis by proapoptotic stimuli, including tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and etopocide. Paradoxically, HBx activates members of the NF-κB transcription factor family, some of which are antiapoptotic in function. HBx induces expression of Myc protein family members in certain settings, and Myc can sensitize cells to killing by TNF-α. We therefore examined the roles of NF-κB, c-Myc, and TNF-α in apoptotic killing of cells by HBx. RelA/NF-κB is shown to be induced by HBx and to suppress HBx-mediated apoptosis. HBx also induces c-Rel/NF-κB, which can promote apoptotic cell death in some contexts or block it in others. Induction of c-Rel by HBx was found to inhibit its ability to directly mediate apoptotic killing of cells. Thus, HBx induction of NF-κB family members masks its ability to directly mediate apoptosis, whereas ablation of NF-κB reveals it. Investigation of the role of Myc protein demonstrates that overexpression of Myc is essential for acute sensitization of cells to killing by HBx plus TNF-α. This study therefore defines a specific set of parameters which must be met for HBx to possibly contribute to HBV pathogenesis.
The XRCC 3 Thr 241 Met Polymorphism Influences Glioma RiskA Meta-analysis

Gliomas are the most common central nervous system tumors and account for approximately 80% of primary malignant brain tumors (Schwartzbaum et al., 2006; Jemal et al., 2009). Gliomas are tumors of the neoplastic glial cells, or neuroglia, and are further classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a strocytoma, mixed oliogoastrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, and ependymoma (Louis et al., 2007). Up to now, the etiology of glioma remains unknown. In spite of multiple epidemiologic risk factor studies that have been performed, there are few validated associations due to most studies that are limited by small sample sizes and the differences in tumor classification. Ionizing radiation is the only established environmental risk factor with strong evidence of an association with brain tumors (Bondy et al., 2008). It is widely accepted that the damaged DNA or lower DNA repair capacity contributes to the genetic instability and the development of cancer. DNA repair genes, which play a major role in repairing the damaged DNA, could prevent the activation of oncogenes or inactivation of tumor-suppressor genes (Abdel-Rahman et al., 2011). As a member of DNA repair genes, X-ray repair crosscomplementing group 3 (XRCC3) is involved in the process of homologous recombination repair for DNA double-strand breaks so as to maintain the stability of genome (Griffin et al., 2000). The most common
Acute Stress Exposure and Expression of Instrumentally Conditioned Financial Preferences: An fMRI Study

ACUTE STRESS EXPOSURE AND EXPRESSION OF INSTRUMENTALLY CONDITIONED FINANCIAL PREFERENCES: AN FMRI STUDY William T. McCuddy, B.A. Marquette University, 2016 Recent research suggests acute stress exposure is associated with increased habitbased over goal-oriented decision making (e.g., Schwabe & Wolf, 2011). The current study examined whether acute stress promotes the expression of simple financial preferences “overtrained” to the point of habit in the face of a changing environment where said preferences were later rendered non-optimal. Over three days participants (N = 28) learned to discriminate between visual stimuli probabilistically associated with monetary gains or losses and made decisions between stimuli with real financial outcomes. On the fourth day after exposure to either an acute stressor or control procedure participants performed the same tasks during fMRI scanning, including a related task in which monetary values associated with the same stimuli were altered. Choice and fMRI data, psychophysiological measures and salivary cortisol were collected. Participants in both groups successfully made optimal decisions between stimuli on Days 1 to 3 (reaching asymptote on Day 2). During fMRI scanning after stimuli values were altered stressed participants made significantly more decisions consistent with original stimuli values, although these decisions were now financially detrimental, than did non-stressed participants. Thus, stressed participants made decisions more consistent with their overtrained (i.e., habitbased) preferences. In the control group, differential levels of BOLD activation, relative to stimulus valence, were observed in regions associated with goal-directed (i.e., caudate and prefrontal cortex) and habit-based (i.e., putamen) behaviors during both overtrained and novel stimulus-outcome pairings. In the acute stress group, similar differential BOLD activation was limited to the putamen and was only observed for overtrained pairings. During the decision-making portion of the task, increased BOLD activation was observed in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and insula for incorrect relative to correct responses in both groups. Further, alterations in dorsolateral prefrontal and entorhinal cortex suggest some stress-related impairment of executive control of memory. The current study adds to research that demonstrates a dual-process of decisionmaking and the propensity to resort to habitual behavior after exposure to acute stress. Further, these findings suggest stress-induced neural changes take place during both the learning and recall of reward-related information used in decision-making.
Psychologie vztahu k přírodě a životnímu prostředí

Cilem monografie je vyhledat, utřidit, definovat a doplnit terminy, jejichž prostřednictvim je možne pojmenovat hlavni rozdily mezi lidmi v jejich vztahu k přirodě a životnimu prostředi. Výsledkem je zastřesujici autorský koncept charakteristiky vztahu k přirodě a životnimu prostředi, který vystihuje osobitost vztahu jedince v pěti dimenzich: potřeba kontaktu s přirodou, adaptace na přirodni podminky, estetický postoj k přirodě, etický postoj k přirodě a environmentalni vědomi. Monografie popisuje tvorbu autorskeho konceptu, představuje pět zakladnich charakteristik vztahu k přirodě a životnimu prostředi a v zavěru srovnava charakteristiky vztahu k přirodě a životnimu prostředi s jinými terminy použivanými při studiu teto problematiky.
Security of Electronic Payment Systems: A Comprehensive Survey

This comprehensive survey deliberated over the security of electronic payment systems. In our research, we focused on either dominant systems or new attempts and innovations to improve the level of security of the electronic payment systems. This survey consists of the Card-present (CP) transactions and a review of its dominant system i.e. EMV including several researches at Cambridge university to designate variant types of attacks against this standard which demonstrates lack of a secure “offline” authentication method that is one of the main purpose of using the smart cards instead of magnetic stripe cards which are not able to participate in authentication process, the evaluation of the EMV migration from RSA cryptosystem to ECC based cryptosystem 3. The evaluation of the Card-not-present transactions approaches including 3D Secure, 3D SET, SET/EMV and EMV/CAP, the impact of concept of Tokenization and the role of Blind Signatures schemes in electronic cash and E-payment systems, use of quantum key distribution (QKD) in electronic payment systems to achieve unconditional security rather than only computational assurance of the security level by using traditional cryptography, the evaluation of Near Field Communication (NFC) and the contactless payment systems such as Google wallet, Android Pay and Apple Pay, the assessment of the electronic currency and peer to peer payment systems such as Bitcoin. The criterion of our survey for the measurement and the judgment about the quality of the security in electronic payment systems was this quote: “The security of a system is only as strong as its weakest link”