Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of social setting on player experience of digital games

Recent studies have indicated that playing games against other people is more fun and more exciting than playing alone. The current study aims to further explore the influence of social setting on player experience in digital games; in particular, it sets out to test the level of social presence of the co-player as a determinant of player experience. Dependent variables include a comprehensive self-report measure of player experience (the GEQ) and state aggression. The first results demonstrate significant differences in playing against a computer, a mediated other, or a co-located other on player experience in terms of positive affect, competence, tension and hostility.
Isolation and Characterization of Toluene-Sensitive Mutants from the Toluene-Resistant Bacterium Pseudomonas putida GM73

ABSTRACT To understand the mechanism underlying toluene resistance of a toluene-tolerant bacterium, Pseudomonas putida GM73, we carried out Tn5 mutagenesis and isolated eight toluene-sensitive mutants. None of the mutants grew in the presence of 20% (vol/vol) toluene in growth medium but exhibited differential sensitivity to toluene. When wild-type cells were treated with toluene (1% [vol/vol]) for 5 min, about 2% of the cells could form colonies. In the mutants Ttg1, Ttg2, Ttg3, and Ttg8, the same treatment killed more than 99.9999% of cells (survival rate, <10−6). In Ttg4, Ttg5, Ttg6, and Ttg7, about 0.02% of cells formed colonies. We cloned the Tn5-inserted genes, and the DNA sequence flanking Tn5 was determined. From comparison with a sequence database, putative protein products encoded by ttg genes were identified as follows. Ttg1 and Ttg2 are ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporter homologs; Ttg3 is a periplasmic linker protein of a toluene efflux pump; both Ttg4 and Ttg7 are pyruvate dehydrogenase; Ttg5 is a dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase; and Ttg7 is the negative regulator of the phosphate regulon. The sequences deduced from ttg8 did not show a significant similarity to any DNA or proteins in sequence databases. Characterization of these mutants and identification of mutant genes suggested that active efflux mechanism and efficient repair of damaged membranes were important in toluene resistance.
Efficient backprojection-based synthetic aperture radar computation with many-core processors

Tackling computationally challenging problems with high efficiency often requires the combination of algorithmic innovation, advanced architecture, and thorough exploitation of parallelism. We demonstrate this synergy through synthetic aperture radar (SAR) via backprojection, an image reconstruction method that can require hundreds of TFLOPS. Computation cost is significantly reduced by our new algorithm of approximate strength reduction; data movement cost is economized by software locality optimizations facilitated by advanced architecture support; parallelism is fully harnessed in various patterns and granularities. We deliver over 35 billion backprojections per second throughput per compute node on an Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2670-based cluster, equipped with Intel® Xeon Phi coprocessors. This corresponds to processing a 3K×3K image within a second using a single node. Our study can be extended to other settings: backprojection is applicable elsewhere including medical imaging, approximate strength reduction is a general code transformation technique, and many-core processors are emerging as a solution to energy-efficient computing.
Novel post-synthetic generation, isomeric resolution, and characterization of Fapy-dG within oligodeoxynucleotides: differential anomeric impacts on DNA duplex properties

Accumulation of damaged guanine nucleobases within genomic DNA, including the imidazole ring opened N6-(2-Deoxy-α,β-D-erythro-pentafuranosyl)-2,6-diamino-4-hydroxy-5-formylamidopyrimidine (Fapy-dG), is associated with progression of age-related diseases and cancer. To evaluate the impact of this mutagenic lesion on DNA structure and energetics, we have developed a novel synthetic strategy to incorporate cognate Fapy-dG site-specifically within any oligodeoxynucleotide sequence. The scheme involves the synthesis of an oligonucleotide precursor containing a 5-nitropyrimidine moiety at the desired lesion site via standard solid-phase procedures. Following deprotection and isolation, the Fapy-dG lesion is generated by catalytic hydrogenation and subsequent formylation. NMR assignment of the Fapy-dG lesion (X) embedded within a TXT trimer reveals the presence of rotameric and anomeric species. The latter have been characterized by synthesizing the tridecamer oligodeoxynucleotide d(GCGTACXCATGCG) harboring Fapy-dG as the central residue and developing a protocol to resolve the isomeric components. Hybridization of the chromatographically isolated fractions with their complementary d(CGCATGCGTACGC) counterpart yields two Fapy-dG·C duplexes that are differentially destabilized relative to the canonical G·C parent. The resultant duplexes exhibit distinct thermal and thermodynamic profiles that are characteristic of α- and β-anomers, the former more destabilizing than the latter. These anomer-specific impacts are discussed in terms of differential repair enzyme recognition, processing and translesion synthesis.
Detecting large-scale system problems by mining console logs

Surprisingly, console logs rarely help operators detect problems in large-scale datacenter services, for they often consist of the voluminous intermixing of messages from many software components written by independent developers. We propose a general methodology to mine this rich source of information to automatically detect system runtime problems. We first parse console logs by combining source code analysis with information retrieval to create composite features. We then analyze these features using machine learning to detect operational problems. We show that our method enables analyses that are impossible with previous methods because of its superior ability to create sophisticated features. We also show how to distill the results of our analysis to an operator-friendly one-page decision tree showing the critical messages associated with the detected problems. We validate our approach using the Darkstar online game server and the Hadoop File System, where we detect numerous real problems with high accuracy and few false positives. In the Hadoop case, we are able to analyze 24 million lines of console logs in 3 minutes. Our methodology works on textual console logs of any size and requires no changes to the service software, no human input, and no knowledge of the software's internals.
Genome-Wide Identification of Histone Modifiers and Their Expression Patterns during Fruit Abscission in Litchi

Modifications to histones, including acetylation and methylation processes, play crucial roles in the regulation of gene expression in plant development as well as in stress responses. However, limited information on the enzymes catalyzing histone acetylation and methylation in non-model plants is currently available. In this study, several histone modifier (HM) types, including six histone acetyltransferases (HATs), 11 histone deacetylases (HDACs), 48 histone methyltransferases (HMTs), and 22 histone demethylases (HDMs), are identified in litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn. cv. Feizixiao) based on similarities in their sequences to homologs in Arabidopsis (A. thaliana), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), and rice (Oryza sativa). Phylogenetic analyses reveal that HM enzymes can be grouped into four HAT, two HDAC, two HMT, and two HDM subfamilies, respectively, while further expression profile analyses demonstrate that 17 HMs were significantly altered during fruit abscission in two field treatments. Analyses reveal that these genes exhibit four distinct patterns of expression in response to fruit abscission, while an in vitro assay was used to confirm the HDAC activity of LcHDA2, LcHDA6, and LcSRT2. Our findings are the first in-depth analysis of HMs in the litchi genome, and imply that some are likely to play important roles in fruit abscission in this commercially important plant.
Mesenchymal stem cells ameliorate inflammatory cytokine-induced impairment of AT-II cells through a keratinocyte growth factor-dependent PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway

Lung epithelium restoration subsequent to injury is of concern in association with the outcomes of diverse inflammatory lung diseases. Previous studies have demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) may promote epithelial repair subsequent to inflammatory injury, however the mechanism that mediates this effect remains unclear. The current study examined the role of MSCs in alveolar type II epithelial cell (AT-II cell) restoration subsequent to an inflammatory insult. AT-II cells were firstly exposed to inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-1β, then were co-cultured with MSCs in Transwell for 72 h. Cell proliferation, expression of surfactant protein A (SP-A) and expression of the α1 subunit were evaluated respectively by the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, western blotting and semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) small interfering RNA (siRNA) was applied to knockdown the main cytoprotective factors in the MSCs. Subsequent to an inflammatory insult, AT-II cells were observed to be impaired, exhibiting the characteristics of injured cell morphology, reduced cell proliferation and reduced expression of SP-A and the α1 subunit. Co-culture with MSCs significantly ameliorated these cell impairments, while these benefits were weakened by the application of KGF siRNA. Simultaneously, expression levels of phosphorylated (p-) protein kinase B (AKT) and p-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) in AT-II cells were upregulated by MSCs, suggesting activation of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway. These data demonstrate that administration of MSCs to the inflammation-insulted AT-II cells may ameliorate the impairments through a KGF-dependent PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.
Contactin-2 Expression in the Cardiac Purkinje Fiber Network

Background—Purkinje cells (PCs) comprise the most distal component of the cardiac conduction system, and their unique electrophysiological properties and the anatomic complexity of the Purkinje fiber network may account for the prominent role these cells play in the genesis of various arrhythmic syndromes. Methods and Results—Differential transcriptional profiling of murine Purkinje fibers and working ventricular myocytes was performed to identify novel genes expressed in PCs. The most highly enriched transcript in Purkinje fibers encoded Contactin-2 (Cntn2), a cell adhesion molecule critical for neuronal patterning and ion channel clustering. Endogenous expression of Cntn2 in the murine ventricle was restricted to a subendocardial network of myocytes that also express &bgr;-galactosidase in CCS-lacZ transgenic mice and the connexin40 gap junction protein. Both Cntn2-lacZ knockin mice and Cntn2-EGFP BAC transgenic reporter mice confirmed expression of Cntn2 in the Purkinje fiber network, as did immunohistochemical staining of single canine Purkinje fibers. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings and measurements of Ca2+ transients in Cntn2-EGFP+ cells revealed electrophysiological properties indicative of PCs and distinctive from those of cardiac myocytes, including prolonged action potentials and frequent afterdepolarizations. Conclusions—Cntn2 is a novel marker of the specialized cardiac conduction system. Endogenous expression of Cntn2 as well as Cntn2-dependent transcriptional reporters provides a new tool through which Purkinje cell biology and pathophysiology can now more readily be deciphered. Expression of a contactin family member within the CCS may provide a mechanistic basis for patterning of the conduction system network and the organization of ion channels within Purkinje cells.
A group-theoretic approach to the WSSUS pulse design problem

We consider the pulse design problem in multicarrier transmission where the pulse shapes are adapted to the second order statistics of the WSSUS channel. Even though the problem has been addressed by many authors analytical insights are rather limited. First we show that the problem is equivalent to the pure state channel fidelity in quantum information theory. Next we present a new approach where the original optimization functional is related to an eigenvalue problem for a pseudo differential operator by utilizing unitary representations of the Weyl-Heisenberg group. A local approximation of the operator for underspread channels is derived which implicitly covers the concepts of pulse scaling and optimal phase space displacement. The problem is reformulated as a differential equation and the optimal pulses occur as eigenstates of the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian. Furthermore this operator-algebraic approach is extended to provide exact solutions for different classes of scattering environments
The Centre for Market and Public Organisation Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from a Government Agency

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) is a leading research centre, combining expertise in economics, geography and law. Our objective is to study the intersection between the public and private sectors of the economy, and in particular to understand the right way to organise and deliver public services. The Centre aims to develop research, contribute to the public debate and inform policy-making. CMPO, now an ESRC Research Centre was established in 1998 with two large grants from The Leverhulme Trust. In 2004 we were awarded ESRC Research Centre status, and CMPO now combines core funding from both the ESRC and the Trust. Abstract This paper addresses a lack of evidence on the impact of performance pay in the public sector by evaluating a pilot scheme of incentives in a major government agency. The incentive scheme was based on teams and covered quantity and quality targets, measured with varying degrees of precision. We use data from the agency's performance management system and personnel records plus matched labour market data. We focus on three main issues: whether performance pay matters for public service worker productivity, what the team basis of the scheme implies, and the impact of the differential measurement precision. We show that the use of performance pay had no impact at the mean, but that there was significant heterogeneity of response. This heterogeneity was patterned as one would expect from a free rider versus peer monitoring perspective. We found that the incentive had a substantial positive effect in small teams, and a negative response in large teams. We found little impact of the scheme on quality measures, which we interpret as due to the differential measurement technology. We show that the scheme in small teams had non-trivial effects on output, and our estimates suggest that the use of incentive pay is much more cost effective than a general pay rise. Evidence-based Policy Fund and the Leverhulme Trust through CMPO. The views in the paper do not necessarily reflect those of these organisations. Thanks to individuals in the DWP for helping to secure the data for us,
Topical Implantation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Has Beneficial Effects on Healing of Experimental Colitis in Rats

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are attractive cell sources in regenerative medicine. We examined the effects of topical MSCs implantation on an experimental model of inflammatory bowel disease. Putative MSCs, isolated from bone marrow aspirates of male rats by dish adherence and expanded in vitro, were characterized by flow cytometry, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and differentiation assays. Experimental colitis was induced by intraluminal instillation of 2,4,6-trinitrobonzene sulfonic acid (TNBS) in the colons of male rats. The putative MSCs and unselected fresh bone marrow cells were injected into the colonic submucosa surrounding the area exposed to TNBS. The healing process of the injury was examined macroscopically and immunohistologically. Multipotent MSCs positive for CD29 and CD90, and negative for CD31 and CD34, were implanted into colon tissue surrounding the lesion; a majority of the engrafted cells were positive for vimentin. The implantation significantly accelerated healing of the damaged mucosa compared with vehicle-injected controls. The MSCs expressed vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 in vitro and after the implantation. In conclusion, we found that MSCs were successfully topically implanted in the colon and that they were associated with accelerated healing of TNBS-induced colitis. The beneficial effects of the MSCs might be mediated, at least in part, by their ability to differentiate into colonic interstitial cells and by their ability to provide VEGF and TGF-β1 to the injured area.
Gypsum Additions Reduce Ammonia Nitrogen Losses During Composting of Dairy Manure and Biosolids

Composting of N rich organic materials often leads to N loss via ammonia volatilization. Literature references from as early as 1922 have suggested gypsum can prevent N loss from manure. Millions of tons of high quality by-product gypsum are produced each year in the United States as a result of flue gas desul-furization (FGD) scrubbing of sulfur dioxide during combustion of coal. Our objective was to determine the impact of this gypsum on N release when mixed with dairy manure and biosolids during composting. A preliminary experiment was conducted involving 4-liter vessels containing 1.1 kg of dairy manure mixed with by-product gypsum at dry weight rates (w/w) of 0, 6%, 13% and 23% and composted for 18 days. The ammonia-N released in the off gas was trapped in 0.67 M boric acid solution. Loss of ammonia-N was essentially complete after seven days. When expressed as percent of initial N in the mixes, the amount of N lost ranged from 6.4% for the zero rate control to 2.6–2.8% for the gypsum treatments. Composting studies were also conducted in insulated 210-liter stainless steel vessels over a 28-day period using dairy manure and biosolids treated with or without 17% gypsum (dry weight, w/w). Results revealed the amount of N lost, as a percentage of that originally present in the compost mix, was 7.27% and 15.6% without gypsum for dairy manure and biosolids, respectively, and 3.62% and 13.6% with gypsum. The difference between the dairy manure and biosolids results is attributed primarily to a lower C:N ratio of the biosolids compared to the dairy manure. The final composts were found to contain significant amounts of plant nutrients while heavy metals were well below values considered to be harmful to surface water quality or for crop production. We conclude that combining organic waste streams, especially N-rich streams, with by-product gypsum produces a quality product while also decreasing the loss of N and reducing odors associated with the volatilization of ammonia during the composting process.
Modeling Human Eye-Movements for Military Simulations

Abstract : Models of eye movements of an observer searching for human targets are helpful in developing accurate models of target acquisition times and false positive detections. We develop a new model describing the distribution of gaze positions for an observer which includes both bottom-up (salience) and top-down (task dependent) factors. We validate the combined model against a bottom-up model from the literature and against the bottom up and top down parts alone using human performance data. The new model is shown to be significantly better. The new model requires a large amount of data about the terrain and target that is obtained directly from the 3D simulation through an automated process.
Are You Sure That This Happened? Assessing the Factuality Degree of Events in Text

Identifying the veracity, or factuality, of event mentions in text is fundamental for reasoning about eventualities in discourse. Inferences derived from events judged as not having happened, or as being only possible, are different from those derived from events evaluated as factual. Event factuality involves two separate levels of information. On the one hand, it deals with polarity, which distinguishes between positive and negative instantiations of events. On the other, it has to do with degrees of certainty (e.g., possible, probable), an information level generally subsumed under the category of epistemic modality. This article aims at contributing to a better understanding of how event factuality is articulated in natural language. For that purpose, we put forward a linguistic-oriented computational model which has at its core an algorithm articulating the effect of factuality relations across levels of syntactic embedding. As a proof of concept, this model has been implemented in De Facto, a factuality profiler for eventualities mentioned in text, and tested against a corpus built specifically for the task, yielding an F1 of 0.70 (macro-averaging) and 0.80 (micro-averaging). These two measures mutually compensate for an over-emphasis present in the other (either on the lesser or greater populated categories), and can therefore be interpreted as the lower and upper bounds of the De Facto's performance.
200 and 400 GHz Schottky diode multipliers fabricated with integrated air-dielectric (substrateless) circuitry

A novel semiconductor fabrication process has been developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for realizing millimeter and submillimeter-wave monolithic integrated circuits. The process enables integration of the active devices, Schottky diodes, with planar metallic transmission lines. To reduce the RF losses in the passive circuitry, the semiconductor substrate under the transmission lines is etched away, leaving the metal suspended in air and held only by its edges on a semiconductor frame. The frame also allows the circuit to be handled and mounted easily, and makes the whole structure more robust. Moreover, this technology allows for the diodes to be positioned precisely with respect to the circuitry and can be scaled for higher frequency applications. Metallic beam-leads are used extensively on the structure to provide mechanical ‘handles’ as well as current paths for both DC grounding and diode biasing. To demonstrate the utility of this technology, broadband balanced planar doublers based on the concepts in [1] have been designed in the 200 and 400 GHz range. Extensive simulations were performed to optimize the diodes and design the circuits around our existing device fabrication process. The 368-424 GHz circuits were measured and achieve 15% peak efficiency at 369 GHz. The 3-db bandwidth of the fix-tuned doubler is around 9%. The maximum output power measured is around 6 mW and drops down to 1mW at 424 GHz. This represents the highest frequency waveguide based planar doubler to date known to the authors.