Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the Role of Language/culture in Group Work through Qualitative Interviewing

The second language student experience of group work at university is not often transparent in survey evaluations, although the multicultural nature of the student population in Australasia would suggest that culture and language should be on the research agenda. Culture and language, notwithstanding, is used in the higher education literature to position the Asian learner as “different” and problematic, although such cultural models and stereotypes have been the subject of some criticism in recent years. Through semistructured qualitative interviewing in focus group interviews with nineteen South East Asian students, I explore the ways students account for their experiences of group work in their representation of teaching and learning reality through language and the discourses they take up. I find that student perceptions regarding the benefits and challenges of group work appear to be similar to their native speaking counterparts but that language/culture also appears to play a diverse and sometime unexpected role in their experience.
Cell cycle regulation of glucocorticoid receptor function.

Glucocorticoid receptor (GR) nuclear translocation, transactivation and phosphorylation were examined during the cell cycle in mouse L cell fibroblasts. Glucocorticoid‐dependent transactivation of the mouse mammary tumor virus promoter was observed in G0 and S phase synchronized L cells, but not in G2 synchronized cells. G2 effects were selective on the glucocorticoid hormone signal transduction pathway, since glucocorticoid but not heavy metal induction of the endogenous Metallothionein‐1 gene was also impaired in G2 synchronized cells. GRs that translocate to the nucleus of G2 synchronized cells in response to dexamethasone treatment were not efficiently retained there and redistributed to the cytoplasmic compartment. In contrast, GRs bound by the glucocorticoid antagonist RU486 were efficiently retained within nuclei of G2 synchronized cells. Inefficient nuclear retention was observed for both dexamethasone‐ and RU486‐bound GRs in L cells that actively progress through G2 following release from an S phase arrest. Finally, site‐specific alterations in GR phosphorylation were observed in G2 synchronized cells suggesting that cell cycle regulation of specific protein kinases and phosphatases could influence nuclear retention, recycling and transactivation activity of the GR.
Static and dynamic components of esophageal and central venous pressure during intra-abdominal hypertension*

Objective:To investigate the effects of intra-abdominal hypertension on esophageal and central venous pressure considering values obtained at end-expiration (i.e., in static conditions) and during tidal volume delivery (i.e., in dynamic conditions). Design:Retrospective (pigs) and prospective, randomized, controlled (rats) trial. Setting:Animal laboratory of a university hospital. Subjects:Six female pigs and 15 Sprague Dawley male rats. Interventions:During anesthesia and paralysis, animals’ abdomens were inflated with helium. Measurements and Main Results:Abdominal pressure was measured by intraperitoneal catheter. In pigs, esophageal pressure and central venous pressure were continuously measured while inflating the abdomen together with hemodynamic assessment. In rats, the abdomen was inflated after the random application of three levels of positive end-expiratory pressure. Data are shown as mean ± sd. At end-expiration, esophageal pressures were similar before and after abdominal inflation (p = .177). In contrast, the dynamic component significantly rose after intra-abdominal hypertension, from 3.2 ± 0.7 cm H2O to 10.0 ± 2.3 cm H2O (p < .001), and was correlated with peritoneal pressure (linear regression, R2 = .708, p < .001). Positive end-expiratory pressure significantly influenced static esophageal pressure during intra-abdominal hypertension (p = .002) but not dynamic pressures.Static central venous pressure rose with intra-abdominal hypertension from 4.1 ± 1.5 cm H2O to 6.7 ± 1.8 cm H2O (p = .043), more so the dynamic component (from 2.9 ± 0.8 cm H2O to 9.3 ± 3.1 cm H2O, p = .02). Dynamic changes of esophageal pressures correlated with dynamic changes of central venous pressure (linear regression, R2 = .679, p < .001). Mean values of central venous pressure significantly increased with intra-abdominal hypertension from 7.7 ± 1.5 cm H2O to 12.7 ± 2.6 cm H2O (p = .006), whereas transmural central venous pressure and intrathoracic blood volume did not change significantly. Conclusions:Dynamic changes of esophageal pressure occurred during intra-abdominal hypertension, whereas end-expiratory pressure was affected by high positive end-expiratory pressure levels. Provided that central venous pressure changes reflect esophageal pressure, central venous pressure itself cannot be relied on to guide resuscitation in patients with intra-abdominal hypertension, particularly when abdominal pressures are changing over short periods of time.
Vector register design for polycyclic vector scheduling

Most vector compilers use a scheduling technique known as simple uect or scheduling (SVS). With SVS, all instructions of one loop iteration are issued before any succeeding iteration begins. Long vector registers is the primary mechanism for increasing pipeline utilization. Some vector compilers use a newer technique, polycyclic vector scheduling (PVS), that executes multiple loop iterations concurrently. Furthermore, chaining is not required for optimal performance using PVS. While PVS code schedules typically perform as well as or better than SVS schedules, they also tend to require more vector registers. This limits the applicability of PVS for current vector machines. This paper studies how the register requirements of PVS code are related to machine architecture. An architecture similar to the Cray-2 has been used for a series of scheduling experiments that cover a wide range of vector register lengths and memory latencies. The results of these experiments indicate that the critical machine parameter for a PVS compiler is the number of available vector registers. Little advantage has been found for using a vector register length of more than sixteen elements. This work was supported in part by NSF grant ASC. 8808980 and by a grant from the University of Michi.
Satellite Images for Monitoring Mangrove Cover Changes in a Fast Growing Economic Region in Southern Peninsular Malaysia

Effective monitoring is necessary to conserve mangroves from further loss in Malaysia. In this context, remote sensing is capable of providing information on mangrove status and changes over a large spatial extent and in a continuous manner. In this study we used Landsat satellite images to analyze the changes over a period of 25 years of mangrove areas in Iskandar Malaysia (IM), the fastest growing national special economic region located in southern Johor, Malaysia. We tested the use of two widely used digital classification techniques to classify mangrove areas. The Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) technique provided significantly higher user, producer and overall accuracies and less “salt and pepper effects” compared to the Support Vector Machine (SVM) technique. The classified satellite images using the MLC technique showed that IM lost 6740 ha of mangrove areas from 1989 to 2014. Nevertheless, a gain of 710 ha of mangroves was observed in this region, resulting in a net loss of 6030 ha or 33%. The loss of about 241 ha per year of mangroves was associated with a steady increase in urban land use (1225 ha per year) from 1989 until 2014. Action is necessary to protect the existing mangrove cover from further loss. Gazetting of the remaining mangrove sites as protected areas or forest reserves and introducing tourism activities in mangrove areas can ensure the continued survival of mangroves in IM.
Outcome of Kidney Transplantation From Living Donors With Multiple Renal Arteries Versus Single Renal Artery.

INTRODUCTION Receiving a kidney transplant from donors with multiple renal arteries (MRAs) is suggested to be associated with higher risk of vascular and urologic complications and poor allograft outcomes compared to the donors with single renal artery (SRA). We evaluated survival rates in the recipients from donors with MRAs compared to those from donors with SRA. MATERIALS AND METHODS In a retrospective study on 115 kidney allograft recipients, demographic characteristics and the outcomes of kidney transplantation were compared between the recipients from donors with MRAs compared to those from donors with SRA. These included acute tubular necrosis, acute allograft rejection, hypertension, vascular complications, urologic complications, kidney function indicators, and allograft survival at 1 year. RESULTS There was no significant difference in the recipients' age, sex distribution, and weight, donors' age, donor-recipient familial relation, urologic complications, and duration of hospitalization between the two groups. However, MRA was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of right-side kidney donation, longer warm and cold ischemia times, and lower glomerular filtration rate and higher serum creatinine concentrations at discharge and 12 months after transplantation, as compared to SRA transplants. No significant difference was seen in late complications including hypertension and renal artery stenosis. One-year graft survival was slightly poorer in the MRA group than the SRA group. CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate that kidney allografts with MRAs are associated with risks but have acceptable outcomes during the 1st year after transplantation, as compared to SRA kidney allografts.
Active Visual SLAM with Exploration for Autonomous Underwater Navigation

Abstract : One of the major challenges in the field of underwater robotics is the opacity of the water medium to radio frequency transmission modes, which precludes the use of a global positioning system (GPS) and high speed radio communication in underwater navigation and mapping applications. One approach to underwater robotics that overcomes this limitation is vision-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), a framework that enables a robot to localize itself, while simultaneously building a map of an unknown environment. The SLAM algorithm provides a probabilistic map that contains the estimated state of the system, including a map of the environment and the pose of the robot. Because the quality of vision-based navigation varies spatially within the environment the performance of visual SLAM strongly depends on the path and motion that the robot follows. While traditionally treated as two separate problems, SLAM and path planning are indeed interrelated: the performance of SLAM depends significantly on the environment and motion; however, control of the robot motion fully depends on the information from SLAM. Therefore, an integrated SLAM control scheme is needed? one that can direct motion for better localization and mapping, and thereby provide more accurate state information back to the controller. This thesis develops perception-driven control, an integrated SLAM and path planning framework that improves the performance of visual SLAM in an informative and efficient way by jointly considering the reward predicted by a candidate camera measurement, along with its likelihood of success based upon visual saliency. The proposed control architecture identifies highly informative candidate locations for SLAM loop-closure that are also visually distinctive, such that a camera-derived pose-constraint is probable. Results are shown for autonomous underwater hull inspection experiments using the Bluefin Robotics Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (HAUV).
An Emerging Paradigm in Atherosclerosis: Focus on Subclinical Disease

Abstract Atherosclerosis is a generally asymptomatic process that begins early in life and eventually leads to clinically overt coronary heart disease (CHD), with the age of onset determined by genetics, environment, and associated interactive factors. Early diagnosis and treatment of subclinical atherosclerosis in asymptomatic patients who are at risk of developing clinically evident atherosclerosis may help prevent CHD and future coronary events. New understanding of the role of atherosclerotic plaque burden in predicting risk for CHD and the development of new technologies for evaluating coronary plaque have improved our ability to assess risk in asymptomatic patients who may have subclinical disease. Assessment technologies including coronary angiography, intravascular ultrasound, B-mode ultrasound, and electron-beam computed tomography have been used widely in clinical studies of statin treatment in patients with and without CHD. Results from these studies show that statins not only lower lipids but inhibit progression and, in some instances, lead to regression of coronary plaques. The unique combination of benefits provided by statin therapy may have an application in treating subclinical atherosclerotic disease.
Density-dependent selection closes an eco-evolutionary feedback loop in the stick insect Timema cristinae

Empirical demonstrations of feedbacks between ecology and evolution are rare. Here, we used a field experiment to test the hypothesis that avian predators impose density-dependent selection (DDS) on Timema cristinae stick insects. We transplanted wild-caught T. cristinae to wild bushes at 50 : 50 cryptic : conspicuous morph ratio and manipulated density by transplanting either 24 or 48 individuals. The frequency of the conspicuous morph was reduced by 73% in the low-density treatment, but only by 50% in the high-density treatment, supporting a hypothesis of negative DDS. Coupled with previous studies on T. cristinae, which demonstrate that maladaptive gene flow reduces population density, we support an eco-evolutionary feedback loop in this system. Furthermore, our results support the hypothesis that predator satiation is the mechanism driving DDS. We found no effects of T. cristinae density on the abundance or species richness of other arthropods. Eco-evolutionary feedbacks, driven by processes like DDS, can have implications for adaptive divergence and speciation.
Activation of Prefrontal Cortex in Children during a Nonspatial Working Memory Task with Functional MRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the pattern of activity of prefrontal cortex in prepubertal children during performance of a nonspatial working memory task. The children observed sequences of letters and responded whenever a letter repeated with exactly one nonidentical letter intervening. In a comparison task, subjects monitored similar sequences of letters for any occurrence of a single, prespecified target letter. Location of activation closely approximated that observed in a recent fMRI study with adults using exactly the same task. Activation of the inferior and middle frontal gyri was reliably observed within individual subjects during performance of the working memory task relative to the comparison task. Activation increased and decreased with a time course that was highly consistent with the task manipulations and correlated with behavioral performance. To our knowledge, this study is one of the first to demonstrate the applicability of fMRI to a normative developmental population. Issues of age dependence of the hemodynamic responses of fMRI are discussed.
Fault diagnosis for an automotive suspension using particle filters

To diagnose faults in automotive suspension systems a particle filters based approach was evaluated. The look-ahead Rao-Blackwell Particle Filter was tested to online monitor different oil leaks in a magneto-rheological shock absorber. The non-linear semi-active suspension was modelled through the Jump Markov Linear Gaussian framework. The feasibility of this approach has been analyzed in a simulation environment using different road profiles. Early results with high precision and low variance are promised; however, the computing time is a hard constraint for an online application.
Twisted Torus Topologies for Enhanced Interconnection Networks

Many current parallel computers are built around a torus interconnection network. Machines from Cray, HP, and IBM, among others, make use of this topology. In terms of topological advantages, square (2D) or cubic (3D) tori would be the topologies of choice. However, for different practical reasons, 2D and 3D tori with different number of nodes per dimension have been used. These mixed-radix topologies are not edge symmetric, which translates into poor performance due to an unbalanced use of network resources. In this work, we analyze twisted 2D and 3D mixed-radix tori that remove the network bottlenecks present in nontwisted ones. Such topologies recover edge symmetry, and consequently, balance the utilization of their links. The distance-related properties of twisted tori together with a full characterization of their bisection bandwidth are described in this paper. A simulation-based performance evaluation has been carried out to assess the network performance under synthetic and trace-driven workloads. The obtained results show noticeable and consistent performance gains (up to an increase of 74 percent in accepted load). In addition, we propose scalable and practicable packet routing mechanisms and wiring layouts for these interconnection systems. The complexity of the architectural proposals is similar to the one exhibited by routing and folding mechanisms in standard tori.
In vitro activity of teichomycin and vancomycin alone and in combination with rifampin

The antibacterial activity of teichomycin, a glycopeptide antibiotic similar to vancomycin, has been evaluated in vitro and compared with that of vancomycin. Test strains included 130 staphylococci and 132 streptococci, with representatives of the major currently recognized species or groups, and lesser numbers of clostridia, propionibacteria, and group JK bacteria. Teichomycin was found to be more active than vancomycin. Its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was two- to fourfold lower than that of vancomycin with staphylococci and anaerobic bacteria, and two- to eightfold lower with streptococci. No significant differences were observed with group JK bacteria. For most strains tested, minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBCs) of both teichomycin and vancomycin either equalled or exceeded by twofold the respective MICs. Higher MBC-to-MIC ratios were obtained for enterococci and pneumococci with both antibiotics. Both teichomycin and vancomycin showed similar in vitro interactions with rifampin in combination tests. Neither antagonism nor (with very few exceptions) synergism occurred.
Strata: layered coding for scalable visual communication

Existing code designs for display-camera based visual communication all have an all-or-nothing behavior, i.e., they assume the entire code must be decoded. However, diverse operational conditions due to device hardware diversity (in camera resolution and frame rate) and distance range motivate more scalable designs. In this paper, we borrow the notion of hierarchical modulation from traditional RF communication, and design Strata, a layered coding scheme for visual communication. Strata can support a range of frame capture resolutions and rates, and deliver information rates correspondingly. Strata embeds information at multiple granularity into the same code area spatially or the same frame interval temporally. It ensures all layers are decodable independently, by controlling the amount of interference between adjacent layers. Further, our design is recursive and extends readily to generate more layers. Compared with existing codes, it significantly extends the operational range, though at the expense of less capacity than a single-layer code.
Towards An Integrative Theory Of Consciousness: Part 1 (Neurobiological And Cognitive Models)

The study of consciousness is poised today at interesting crossroads. There has been a surge of research into various neurobiological underpinnings of consciousness in the past decade. The present article looks at the theories regarding this complex phenomenon, especially the ones that neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology have to offer. We will first discuss the origin and etymology of word consciousness and its usage. Neurobiological correlates of consciousness are discussed with structures like the ascending reticular activating system, the amygdala, the cerebellum, the thalamus, the frontoparietal circuits, the prefrontal cortex and the precuneus. The cellular and microlevel theories of consciousness and cerebral activity at the neuronal level contributing to consciousness are highlighted, along with the various theories posited in this area. The role of neuronal assemblies and circuits along with firing patterns and their ramifications for the understanding of consciousness are discussed. A section on the role of anaesthesia and its links to consciousness is presented, along with details of split-brain studies in consciousness and altered states of awareness, including the vegetative states. The article finally discusses the progress cognitive psychology has made in identifying and theorising various perspectives of consciousness, perceptual awareness and conscious processing. Both recent and past researches are highlighted. The importance and salient features of each theory are discussed along with the pitfalls, if present. A need for integration of various theories to understand consciousness from a holistic perspective is stressed, to enable one to reach a theory that explains the ultimate neurobiology of consciousness.