Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond Metaphysics and Theory Consumerism: A comment to Rose, Jones, and Truex "Socio-Theoretic Accounts of IS: The Problem of Agency"

Rose, Jones, and Truex (RJT) start out by making the statement that a “longstanding debate in the IS literature concerns the relationships between technology and organization. ” I think they could make a stronger statement. This relationship is indeed the very core issue of IS. At the same time—and in spite of the long-standing debate—the understanding of this issue within the field is very poor. This sad fact was perfectly demonstrated by Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) in their survey of ten volumes of ISR searching for theoretical conceptions of IT—without finding it! What they argue should be the core of the IS discipline—a theoretical understanding of the key object (if not the constituting object) of our field is virtually nonexistent. Based on this finding they conclude that research aiming at developing such theories is “desperately” needed. The concept of agency, and the degree or kind of agency attributed to humans, organizations, and technologies has to be central to such an understanding of the IT artifact. Accordingly, I very much welcome the contribution of RJT and the fact that the SJIS organizes a broader debate around this
The null result of a search for pulsational variations of the surface magnetic field in the roAp star γ Equulei

We describe an analysis of the time-resolved measurements of the surface magnetic field in the roAp star y Equ. We have obtained a high-resolution and high signal-to-noise (S/N) spectroscopic time series, and the magnetic field was determined using Zeeman-resolved profiles of the Fe II 6149.25 A and Fe I 6173.34 A lines. Contrary to recent reports, we do not find any evidence of magnetic variability with pulsation phase, and derive an upper limit of 5-10 G for pulsational modulation of the surface magnetic field in y Equ.
Bridging weak supervision and privacy aware learning via sufficient statistics

We present a first attempt in connecting two areas of statistical learning that have not shared much common ground: weakly supervised learning and privacy aware learning. In the former, we aim to learn models of labeled data, when full information of the labels is not available; the latter concerns the design of algorithms with privacy guarantees for the protection of the data, while trading off utility for learning. We focus on classification with linear separators. There exists a sufficient statistic that summarizes all information from the label variable, the mean operator. The fact is known for a broad set of loss functions. Learning algorithms have exploited this property and overcome the lack of label knowledge, learning with label proportions only. We extend the result with almost no structural assumptions on loss functions and regularizers, and show how the approach is potentially viable for any weakly supervised task. Further, we consider the label as the only sensitive variable to protect, while the rest of the data is of public domain. In this scenario, we propose a simple method based on the Laplacian mechanism that obfuscates the mean operator and feed it to a learning algorithm which (a) enjoys α-label differential privacy, (b) is characterized by a generalization bound under almost no structural assumptions and (c) can be integrated into a secure data-sharing protocol for learning. Remarkably, some known results are recovered with simplified proofs.
Chitosan Oligosaccharides Attenuates Oxidative-Stress Related Retinal Degeneration in Rats

This study investigated the therapeutic potential and mechanisms of chitosan oligosaccharides (COS) for oxidative stress-induced retinal diseases. Retinal oxidative damage was induced in Sprague-Dawley rats by intravitreal injection of paraquat (PQ). Low-dose (5 mg/kg) or high-dose (10 mg/kg) COS or PBS was intragastrically given for 14 days after PQ injection. Electroretinograms were performed to determine the functionality of the retinas. The surviving neurons in the retinal ganglion cell layer and retinal apoptosis were determined by counting Neu N-positive cells in whole-mounted retinas and TUNEL staining, respectively. The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was determined by lucigenin- and luminol-enhanced chemiluminescence. Retinal oxidative damages were assessed by staining with nitrotyrosine, acrolein, and 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG). Immunohistochemical studies were used to demonstrate the expression of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) p65 in retinas. An in vitro study using RGC-5 cells was performed to verify the results. We demonstrated COS significantly enhanced the recovery of retinal function, preserved inner retinal thickness, and decreased retinal neurons loss in a dose-dependent manner. COS administration demonstrated anti-oxidative effects by reducing luminol- and lucigenin-dependent chemiluminenscense levels and activating superoxide dismutase and catalase, leading to decreased retinal apoptosis. COS markedly reduced retinal NF-κB p65. An in vitro study demonstrated COS increased IκB expression, attenuated the increase of p65 and thus decreased NF-κB/DNA binding activity in PQ-stimulated RGC-5 cells. In conclusion, COS attenuates oxidative stress-induced retinal damages, probably by decreasing free radicals, maintaining the activities of anti-oxidative enzymes, and inhibiting the activation of NF-κB.
Mechanisms of Toxicity of Ag Nanoparticles in Comparison to Bulk and Ionic Ag on Mussel Hemocytes and Gill Cells

Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are increasingly used in many products and are expected to end up in the aquatic environment. Mussels have been proposed as marine model species to evaluate NP toxicity in vitro. The objective of this work was to assess the mechanisms of toxicity of Ag NPs on mussel hemocytes and gill cells, in comparison to ionic and bulk Ag. Firstly, cytotoxicity of commercial and maltose stabilized Ag NPs was screened in parallel with the ionic and bulk forms at a wide range of concentrations in isolated mussel cells using cell viability assays. Toxicity of maltose alone was also tested. LC50 values were calculated and the most toxic Ag NPs tested were selected for a second step where sublethal concentrations of each Ag form were tested using a wide array of mechanistic tests in both cell types. Maltose-stabilized Ag NPs showed size-dependent cytotoxicity, smaller (20 nm) NPs being more toxic than larger (40 and 100 nm) NPs. Maltose alone provoked minor effects on cell viability. Ionic Ag was the most cytotoxic Ag form tested whereas bulk Ag showed similar cytotoxicity to the commercial Ag NPs. Main mechanisms of action of Ag NPs involved oxidative stress and genotoxicity in the two cell types, activation of lysosomal AcP activity, disruption of actin cytoskeleton and stimulation of phagocytosis in hemocytes and increase of MXR transport activity and inhibition of Na-K-ATPase in gill cells. Similar effects were observed after exposure to ionic and bulk Ag in the two cell types, although generally effects were more marked for the ionic form. In conclusion, results suggest that most observed responses were due at least in part to dissolved Ag.
Gender, paid work, and symptoms of emotional distress in rheumatoid arthritis patients.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relative contribution of gender-related work conditions, gender-related socialization practices, and disease characteristics to the explanation of emotional distress in men and women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Three hundred sixty-nine RA patients who were employed outside the home were recruited from a national randomized sample of rheumatology practices. Data on paid work and disease characteristics were obtained by telephone interview. Emotional distress was measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Hierarchical ordinary least-squares regression was used to assess the relationship of sex, class, work characteristics, and disease characteristics to both the CES-D summary scale and the CES-D factor structure. RESULTS Differences in emotional distress were explained best by functional ability and pain and secondarily by the characteristics of paid work, with no independent effect for sex. Distress increased with decreasing functional ability, increasing pain, and exposure to such work characteristics as low autonomy, low income, and high demands. No sex differences in any of the CES-D subscales remained after controlling for disease and work variables. CONCLUSION Among employed RA patients with high levels of functional disability and exposure to stressful work characteristics, men and women are at equal risk of experiencing emotional distress.
Genes That Escape X-Inactivation in Humans Have High Intraspecific Variability in Expression, Are Associated with Mental Impairment but Are Not Slow Evolving

In female mammals most X-linked genes are subject to X-inactivation. However, in humans some X-linked genes escape silencing, these escapees being candidates for the phenotypic aberrations seen in polyX karyotypes. These escape genes have been reported to be under stronger purifying selection than other X-linked genes. Although it is known that escape from X-inactivation is much more common in humans than in mice, systematic assays of escape in humans have to date employed only interspecies somatic cell hybrids. Here we provide the first systematic next-generation sequencing analysis of escape in a human cell line. We analyzed RNA and genotype sequencing data obtained from B lymphocyte cell lines derived from Europeans (CEU) and Yorubans (YRI). By replicated detection of heterozygosis in the transcriptome, we identified 114 escaping genes, including 76 not previously known to be escapees. The newly described escape genes cluster on the X chromosome in the same chromosomal regions as the previously known escapees. There is an excess of escaping genes associated with mental retardation, consistent with this being a common phenotype of polyX phenotypes. We find both differences between populations and between individuals in the propensity to escape. Indeed, we provide the first evidence for there being both hyper- and hypo-escapee females in the human population, consistent with the highly variable phenotypic presentation of polyX karyotypes. Considering also prior data, we reclassify genes as being always, never, and sometimes escape genes. We fail to replicate the prior claim that genes that escape X-inactivation are under stronger purifying selection than others.
Expectancy for Locus of Control of Reinforcement and Perception of Orderliness

In order to determine the generality of the conception of causality measured by Rotter's I-E scale, it was administered individually to 48 Ss with four experimental tasks designed to measure their tendency to perceive orderliness between nonpersonal events. The I-E scale did not correlate with any of the experimental measures but these measures correlated consistently and significantly with each other. This was interpreted to mean that conceptions of causality vary independently from one domain of events to another and that at least two such domains may be said to exist. The theoretical and research implications of these findings were discussed.
Age of acquisition predicts naming and lexical-decision performance above and beyond 22 other predictor variables: An analysis of 2,342 words

Age of acquisition (AoA) ratings were obtained and were used in hierarchical regression analyses to predict naming and lexical-decision performance for 2,342 words (from Balota, Cortese, Sergent-Marshall, Spieler, & Yap, 2004). In the analyses, AoA was included in addition to the set of predictors used by Balota et al. (2004). AoA significantly predicted latency performance on both tasks above and beyond the standard predictor set. However, AoA was more strongly related to lexical-decision performance than to naming performance. Finally, the previously reported effect of imageability on naming latencies by Balota et al. was not significant with AoA included as a factor. These results are consistent with the idea either that AoA has a semantic/lexical locus or that AoA effects emerge primarily in situations in which the input–output mapping is arbitrary.
Optimization of Cryopreservation Process Using Response Surface Methodology for Chlorella saccharophila and Chlorella zofingiensis

The preservation of microalgae in a stable state is a fundamental requirement in pharmaceutical, agricultural, environmental sciences and different industries. Cryopreservation is widely stabilized for achieving long-term storage and has been applied to an increasingly diverse range of microalgae and cell cultures. The continuous storage of actively growing microalgae strains by routine serial subculture is relatively time-consuming and this technique has possible contamination risks. In this study, the optimization of cryopreservation process was carried out for two different Chlorella strains using response surface methodology (RSM) with three factors (cryoprotectant concentration, incubation time and cryopreservation time) including 19 runs. The optimal cell viability of C. zofingiensis was found at the dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) concentration of 12.89% at the incubation time of 8.14 min and with the cryopreservation time of 93.45 day, while C. saccharophila was found at the DMSO concentration of 12.86 % at the incubation time of 7.99 min and at cryopreservation time of 95.17 day.
Hypothalamic Blood Flow Correlates Positively With Stress-Induced Cortisol Levels in Subjects With Social Anxiety Disorder

Objective: The adrenal excretion of cortisol in animals is dependent on the production of corticotropin-releasing factor in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. The a priori hypothesis of this study was that hypothalamic regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) would correlate positively with salivary cortisol levels in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) during anxiety provocation. Another objective was to evaluate whether salivary cortisol levels correlated with rCBF in other brain areas. Method: Regional CBF was measured with oxygen-15-labeled water and positron emission tomography during a public speaking task before and after placebo treatment in 12 subjects with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition-defined SAD. Cortisol concentrations in saliva were measured 15 minutes after the task. The a priori hypothesis of a salivary cortisol-dependent activation of the hypothalamus was studied with region-of-interest analysis. In addition, the covariation between rCBF and salivary cortisol was studied in the whole brain using the general linear model. Results: The region-of-interest analysis revealed a positive correlation between salivary cortisol and hypothalamic rCBF. In the whole brain analysis, a positive covariation between rCBF and salivary cortisol levels was found in a midbrain cluster encompassing the hypothalamus with its statistical maximum in the mamillary bodies. Negative covariations were observed in the medial prefrontal cortex as well as in the motor and premotor cortices. Conclusion: Like in animals, stress-induced cortisol excretion in humans may be inhibited by activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and enhanced by activity in the hypothalamus. ACC = anterior cingulate cortex; ACTH = adrenocorticotropic hormone; BA = Brodmann area; CRF = corticotropin-releasing factor; fMRI = functional magnetic resonance imaging; MNI = Montreal Neurological Institute; MTL = medial temporal lobe; PET = positron emission tomography; PTSD = posttraumatic stress disorder; PVN = paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus; rCBF = regional cerebral blood flow; ROI = region of interest; SAD = social anxiety disorder.
Flexible and Fine-grained Mandatory Access Control on Android for Diverse Security and Privacy Policies

In this paper we tackle the challenge of providing a generic security architecture for the Android OS that can serve as a flexible and effective ecosystem to instantiate different security solutions. In contrast to prior work our security architecture, termed FlaskDroid, provides mandatory access control simultaneously on both Android's middleware and kernel layers. The alignment of policy enforcement on these two layers is non-trivial due to their completely different semantics. We present an efficient policy language (inspired by SELinux) tailored to the specifics of Android's middleware semantics. We show the flexibility of our architecture by policy-driven instantiations of selected security models such as the existing work Saint as well as a new privacy-protecting, user-defined and fine-grained per-app access control model. Other possible instantiations include phone booth mode, or dual persona phone. Finally we evaluate our implementation on SE Android 4.0. 4 illustrating its efficiency and effectiveness.
Apoptotic Membrane Blebbing Is Regulated by Myosin Light Chain Phosphorylation

The evolutionarily conserved execution phase of apoptosis is defined by characteristic changes occurring during the final stages of death; specifically cell shrinkage, dynamic membrane blebbing, condensation of chromatin, and DNA fragmentation. Mechanisms underlying these hallmark features of apoptosis have previously been elusive, largely because the execution phase is a rapid event whose onset is asynchronous across a population of cells. In the present study, a model system is described for using the caspase inhibitor, z-VAD-FMK, to block apoptosis and generate a synchronous population of cells actively extruding and retracting membrane blebs. This model system allowed us to determine signaling mechanisms underlying this characteristic feature of apoptosis. A screen of kinase inhibitors performed on synchronized blebbing cells indicated that only myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) inhibitors decreased blebbing. Immunoprecipitation of myosin II demonstrated that myosin regulatory light chain (MLC) phosphorylation was increased in blebbing cells and that MLC phosphorylation was prevented by inhibitors of MLCK. MLC phosphorylation is also mediated by the small G protein, Rho. C3 transferase inhibited apoptotic membrane blebbing, supporting a role for a Rho family member in this process. Finally, blebbing was also inhibited by disruption of the actin cytoskeleton. Based on these results, a working model is proposed for how actin/myosin II interactions cause cell contraction and membrane blebbing. Our results provide the first evidence that MLC phosphorylation is critical for apoptotic membrane blebbing and also implicate Rho signaling in these active morphological changes. The model system described here should facilitate future studies of MLCK, Rho, and other signal transduction pathways activated during the execution phase of apoptosis.
Functional coupling between nitric oxide synthesis and VIP release within enteric nerve terminals of the rat: involvement of protein kinase G and phosphodiesterase 5

1 The subcellular mechanisms involved in the effect of nitric oxide (NO) on the release of vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) were examined in synaptosomes isolated from rat small intestine. 2 VIP release was stimulated by the NO donor SNAP (10−7‐10−4m) in an oxyhaemoglobin‐sensitive manner. The presence of the guanylate cyclase inhibitor ODQ (10−5m), or inhibition of protein kinase G (PKG) by KT 5823 (3 × 10−6m) or Rp‐8Br‐PET‐cGMPS (5 × 10−7m), antagonized the SNAP‐induced VIP release, suggesting a regulatory role of PKG, confirming previously published data from enteric ganglia. This finding was further supported by the fact that direct PKG activation by the stable cGMP analogue 8‐pCPT‐cGMP stimulated VIP secretion to the same extent as SNAP. 3 Basal VIP secretion was enhanced in the presence of zaprinast, an inhibitor of cGMP‐dependent phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE 5), suggesting a functional role of PDE 5 in NO‐cGMP signalling. Supportive evidence for this finding was obtained by demonstration of the presence of PDE 5 using RT‐PCR. 4 Stimulation of endogenous NO production by l‐arginine was also effective in releasing VIP. The effect was abolished in the presence of KT 5823, but was insensitive to oxyhaemoglobin (10−3m), suggesting that an interaction between NO and VIP is likely to occur within the same nerve terminal rather than between terminals. 5 NO synthesis was not affected by VIP (10−8‐10−5m), suggesting that there is no feedback regulation between the NO and the VIP pathways. 6 These findings support the notion that an anatomical and functional interrelationship exists between NO and VIP in enteric nerve terminals and that complex signalling mechanisms involving PKG and PDE 5 contribute to NO‐induced VIP release.
Automatic Classification for Vietnamese News

This paper proposes an automatic framework to classify Vietnamese news from news sites on the Internet. In this proposed framework, the extracted main content of Vietnamese news is performed automatically by applying the improved performance extraction method from [1]. This information will be classified by using two machine learning methods: Support vector machine and naive bayesian method. Our experiments implemented with Vietnamese news extracted from some sites showed that the proposed classification framework give acceptable results with a rather high accuracy, leading to applying it to real information systems.
Ocean Color Satellites Show Extensive Lines of Floating Sargassum in the Gulf of Mexico

We present satellite imagery that is interpreted as showing extensive lines of floating Sargassum in the western Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 2005. In spite of frequent reports of floating weed covering extended areas in different parts of the world's ocean, this appears to be the first observation of Sargassum from space. Satellite observations were made with the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) on the Envisat satellite launched by the European Space Agency, and subsequently with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) launched on both the Terra and Aqua satellites by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Both instruments cover wide swaths, providing near-daily images. Both have optical spectral bands in the range 670 to 750 nm, which detect the chlorophyll red-edge characteristic of land and marine vegetation, but only MERIS has a band at 709 nm, which was critical to the initial discovery. The combined satellite data from both sensors show the seasonal cycle of weed density in different areas of the Gulf. A wider ranging study is now needed to map its occurrence in other areas, including the Sargasso Sea (named for the weed, but not so far covered in our survey). The satellite observations suggest that Sargassum biomass is greater than previously estimated, and hence plays a more important part in oceanic productivity
Critical O(N) -vector nonlinear sigma-models: a resume of their field structure

Abstract: The classification of quasi - primary fields is outlined. It is proved that the only conserved quasi - primary currents are the energy - momentum tensor and the O(N)-Noether currents. Derivation of all quasi - primary fields and the resolution of degeneracy is sketched. Finally the limits d = 2 and d = 4 of the space dimension are discussed. Whereas the latter is trivial the former is only almost so. (To appear in the Proceedings of the XXII Conference on Differential Geometry Methods in Theoretical Physics, Ixtapa, Mexico, September 20-24, 1993)
Tumour necrosis factor‐α and its receptors in the beneficial effects of vagal stimulation after myocardial infarction in rats

1. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) often activates the sympathetic system and inhibits the vagal system. Long‐term vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) exerts several beneficial effects on the ischaemic heart, including an anti‐inflammatory effect. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether short‐term VNS during AMI could inhibit tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α expression and the effect of TNF receptor (TNFR), key components in inflammatory responses to AMI, in a rodent model.