Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural Complexity and Decay in FLOSS Systems: An Inter-repository Study

Past software engineering literature has firmly established that software architectures and the associated code decay over time. Architectural decay is, potentially, a major issue in Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects,since developers sporadically joining FLOSS projects do not always have a clear understanding of the underlying architecture, and may break the overall conceptual structure by several small changes to the code base.This paper investigates whether the structure of a FLOSS system and its decay can also be influenced by the repository in which it is retained: specifically,two FLOSS repositories are studied to understand whether the complexity of the software structure in the sampled projects is comparable, or one repository hosts more complex systems than the other. It is also studied whether the effort to counteract this complexity is dependent on the repository, and the governance it gives to the hosted projects.The results of the paper are two-fold: on one side, it is shown that the repository hosting larger and more active projects presents more complex structures. On the other side, these larger and more complex systems benefit from more anti-regressive work to reduce this complexity.
Foreword to the Special Issue on Learning to Read: Early Latency Language ERPs

While cognitive models of language comprehension vary widely, they all agree on depicting it as being a very complex process, although some attribute its chief complexities to the serial interactions of a large set of discrete modules and others to parallel interactions within one of a few widely distributed modules. Hemodynamic studies (such as functional magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography) of language comprehension have confirmed the complexity of the language areas but are largely blind to their temporal ordering. As such, the hemodynamic literature has had a tendency to emphasize the parallel view of the reading process. Leading examples of both the serial and parallel views, the Dual-Route Cascaded Model (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001) and the Triangle Model (Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989) agree that aside from semantics one can distinguish between an orthographic level of processing (based on visual word form) and a phonological level of processing (based on conversion to an auditory code). However, the ordering of interactions even at this simplified level remains contentious, with some views envisioning largely parallel resonance feedback patterns (Van Orden & Goldinger, 1994) rather than a serial information pathway. The importance of examining earlier event-related potential (ERP) components is especially clear when studying the language process in the developmental context. In a serial view of language processing, it would be almost mandatory for the lower levels to develop before they could begin to pass on useable information to the higher levels of language. Conversely, in a parallel view of language processing, especially one involving resonant interactions between different domains of representation, one might expect development to progress in parallel within the different levels. A methodology that has the potential to clarify to what extent language processing can be understood as being a serial information processing flow is ERPs, which, unlike hemodynamic measures, have millisecond time resolution. Thus far, the current language ERP literature is dominated by studies of the N400, a response peaking at 400 msec that has proven to be a robust and illuminating index of semantic processing and to also be responsive to manipulations of at least some pre-semantic parameters. While the N400 has yielded many insights and advances, it seems likely that deeper insights into the serial aspects of language comprehension would require greater attention to earlier ERP components to determine if any evidence for sequential stages of processDEVELOPMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 35(4), 353–356 Copyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 8756-5641 print / 1532-6942 online DOI: 10.1080/875656412010480910
Preferential Lineage-Specific Differentiation of Osteoblast-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells into Osteoprogenitors

While induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great clinical promise, one hurdle that remains is the existence of a parental germ-layer memory in reprogrammed cells leading to preferential differentiation fates. While it is problematic for generating cells vastly different from the reprogrammed cells' origins, it could be advantageous for the reliable generation of germ-layer specific cell types for future therapeutic use. Here we use human osteoblast-derived iPSCs (hOB-iPSCs) to generate induced osteoprogenitors (iOPs). Osteoblasts were successfully reprogrammed and demonstrated by endogenous upregulation of Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, TRA-1-81, TRA-16-1, SSEA3, and confirmatory hPSC Scorecard Algorithmic Assessment. The hOB-iPSCs formed embryoid bodies with cells of ectoderm and mesoderm but have low capacity to form endodermal cells. Differentiation into osteoprogenitors occurred within only 2–6 days, with a population doubling rate of less than 24 hrs; however, hOB-iPSC derived osteoprogenitors were only able to form osteogenic and chondrogenic cells but not adipogenic cells. Consistent with this, hOB-iOPs were found to have higher methylation of PPARγ but similar levels of methylation on the RUNX2 promoter. These data demonstrate that iPSCs can be generated from human osteoblasts, but variant methylation patterns affect their differentiation capacities. Therefore, epigenetic memory can be exploited for efficient generation of clinically relevant quantities of osteoprogenitor cells.
Left Ventricular Filling Pressure as Assessed by the E/e' Ratio Is a Determinant of Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence after Cardioversion

Purpose Left ventricular (LV) filling pressure affects atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrence. We investigated the relationship between diastolic dysfunction and AF recurrence after cardioversion, and whether LV filling pressure was predictive of AF recurrence. Materials and Methods Sixty-six patients (mean 58±12 years) with newly diagnosed persistent AF were retrospectively enrolled. We excluded patients with left atrial (LA) diameters larger than 50 mm, thereby isolating the effect of LV filling pressure. We evaluated the differences between the patients with (group 1) and without AF recurrence (group 2). Results Group 1 showed increased LA volume index (LAVI) and E/e' compared to group 2 (p<0.05). During a mean follow-up period of 25±19 months, AF recurrence after cardioversion was 60.6% (40/66). The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of E/e' for AF recurrence was 0.780 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.657-0.903], and the optimal cut-off value of the E/e' was 9.15 with 75.0% of sensitivity and 73.1% of specificity. A Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that the cumulative recurrence-free survival rate was significantly lower in patients with higher LV filling pressure (E/e'>9.15) compared with patients with lower LV filling pressure (E/e'≤9.15) (log rank p=0.008). Cox regression analysis revealed that E/e' [hazards ratio (HR): 1.100, 95% CI: 1.017-1.190] and LAVI (HR: 1.042, 95% CI: 1.002-1.084) were independent predictors for AF recurrence after cardioversion. Conclusion LV filling pressure predicts the risk of AF recurrence in persistent AF patients after cardioversion.
Preliminary reliability and validity of the Spanish Generalized Expectancies for Negative Mood Regulation Scale.

OBJECTIVE This article introduces a Spanish version of the Generalized Expectancies for Negative Mood Regulation Scale (NMR-S) and tests the reliability and the validity of the new questionnaire. METHODS A sample of 360 students from Chile completed the NMR-S along with instruments measuring depressive symptoms, social desirability, coping, and emotion regulation. RESULTS A factor analysis indicated that the NMR-S has a one-dimensional structure. The reliability of the new instrument was α = 0.89. The concurrent validity of the NMR-S was supported by correlations with measures of coping, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the NMR-S predicted depressive symptoms when controlling for emotion regulation and coping. CONCLUSIONS The findings are the first evidence to support the reliability and validity of the NMR-S.
Exploring Methods and Resources for Discriminating Similar Languages

The Discriminating between Similar Languages (DSL) shared task at VarDial challenged participants to build an automatic language identification system to discriminate between 13 languages in 6 groups of highly-similar languages (or national varieties of the same language). In this paper, we describe the submissions made by team UniMelb-NLP, which took part in both the closed and open categories. We present the text representations and modeling techniques used, including cross-lingual POS tagging as well as fine-grained tags extracted from a deep grammar of English, and discuss additional data we collected for the open submissions, utilizing custombuilt web corpora based on top-level domains as well as existing corpora.
Statistical Methods for Detecting Differentially Abundant Features in Clinical Metagenomic Samples

Numerous studies are currently underway to characterize the microbial communities inhabiting our world. These studies aim to dramatically expand our understanding of the microbial biosphere and, more importantly, hope to reveal the secrets of the complex symbiotic relationship between us and our commensal bacterial microflora. An important prerequisite for such discoveries are computational tools that are able to rapidly and accurately compare large datasets generated from complex bacterial communities to identify features that distinguish them. We present a statistical method for comparing clinical metagenomic samples from two treatment populations on the basis of count data (e.g. as obtained through sequencing) to detect differentially abundant features. Our method, Metastats, employs the false discovery rate to improve specificity in high-complexity environments, and separately handles sparsely-sampled features using Fisher's exact test. Under a variety of simulations, we show that Metastats performs well compared to previously used methods, and significantly outperforms other methods for features with sparse counts. We demonstrate the utility of our method on several datasets including a 16S rRNA survey of obese and lean human gut microbiomes, COG functional profiles of infant and mature gut microbiomes, and bacterial and viral metabolic subsystem data inferred from random sequencing of 85 metagenomes. The application of our method to the obesity dataset reveals differences between obese and lean subjects not reported in the original study. For the COG and subsystem datasets, we provide the first statistically rigorous assessment of the differences between these populations. The methods described in this paper are the first to address clinical metagenomic datasets comprising samples from multiple subjects. Our methods are robust across datasets of varied complexity and sampling level. While designed for metagenomic applications, our software can also be applied to digital gene expression studies (e.g. SAGE). A web server implementation of our methods and freely available source code can be found at http://metastats.cbcb. umd.edu/.
A method for predicting the intelligibility of noisy and non-linearly enhanced binaural speech

We propose and evaluate a binaural speech intelligibility measure. The measure is a binaural extension of the Short-Time Objective Intelligibility (STOI) measure and focuses on predicting the intelligibility of noisy speech which has been enhanced by a speech processing algorithm (e.g. in a hearing aid). We show that the measure can accurately predict 1) the Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) for a frontal speaker masked by a point noise source in the horizontal plane, 2) the improvement in SRT obtained by independently processing the left and right ear signals with Ideal Time Frequency Segregation (ITFS), and 3) the intelligibility of speech in the presence of multiple interferers as well as the effect of processing the noisy signals with 2-microphone MVDR beamforming as used in hearing aids. Finally, we show that the computational demands associated with the measure are favourable in comparison with those of a previously proposed measure with similar properties.
Systems Strategies to Support Cancer Screening in U.S. Primary Care Practice

Background: Although systems strategies are effective in improving health care delivery, little is known about their use for cancer screening in U.S. primary care practice. Methods: We assessed primary care physicians' (N = 2,475) use of systems strategies for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer (CRC) screening in a national survey conducted in 2007. Systems strategies included patient and physician screening reminders, performance reports of screening rates, electronic medical records, implementation of in-practice guidelines, and use of nurse practitioners/physician assistants. We evaluated use of both patient and physician screening reminders with other strategies in separate models by screening type, adjusted for the effects of physician and practice characteristics with multivariate logistic regression. Results: Fewer than 10% of physicians used a comprehensive set of systems strategies to support cancer screening; use was greater for mammography and Pap testing than for CRC screening. In adjusted analyses, performance reports of cancer screening rates, medical record type, and in-practice guidelines were associated with use of both patient and physician screening reminders for mammography, Pap testing, and CRC screening (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Despite evidence supporting use of systems strategies in primary care, few physicians report using a comprehensive set of strategies to support cancer screening. Impact: Current health policy initiatives underscore the importance of increased implementation of systems strategies in primary care to improve the use and quality of cancer screening in the United States. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(12); 2471–9. ©2011 AACR.
Oleanolic Acid Initiates Apoptosis in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Cell Lines and Reduces Metastasis of a B16F10 Melanoma Model In Vivo

Background Drug resistance, a process mediated by multiple mechanisms, is a critical determinant for treating lung cancer. The aim of this study is to determine if oleanolic acid (OA), a pentacyclic triterpene present in several plants, is able to circumvent the mechanisms of drug resistance present in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines and to induce their death. Principal Findings OA decreased the cell viability of the NSCLC cell lines A459 and H460 despite the presence of active, multidrug-resistant (MDR) MRP1/ABCC1 proteins and the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and survivin. These effects are due to apoptosis, as evidenced by the capacity of OA to induce fragmentation of DNA and activate caspase 3. Induction of NSCLC cell death by OA cannot be explained by inhibition of the MDR proteins, since treatment with triterpene had little or no effect on the activity or expression of MRP1. Moreover, treatment with OA had no effect on the expression of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2, but increased the expression of the pro-apoptotic protein Bax, altering the Bcl-2/Bax balance towards a pro-apoptotic profile. OA also decreased the expression of the anti-apoptotic protein survivin. Furthermore, OA decreased the expression of the angiogenic vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and decreased the development of melanoma-induced lung metastasis. Conclusion Our data provide a significant insight into the antitumoral and antimetastatic activity of OA in NSCLC and suggest that including OA in the NSCLC regimens may help to decrease the number of relapses and reduce the development of metastases.
Preservation of high-energy phosphates by verapamil in reperfused myocardium.

To determine whether verapamil prevents depletion of adenine nucleotides during and after severe myocardial ischemia, dogs were subjected to 15 min occlusions of the left anterior descending coronary artery followed by 240 min of reperfusion. One hour before occlusion, dogs were randomly assigned to a treatment group (n = 10) to which an infusion of intravenous verapamil was given until the onset of reperfusion or to an untreated saline group (n = 9). Verapamil reduced mean aortic pressure and heart rate. After 15 min of ischemia, endocardial adenosine triphosphate (ATP) level, determined by needle biopsy, decreased in the untreated group from 34.7 +/- 2.0 to 24.4 +/- 2.7 nmol X mg protein-1 (p less than .005 vs preocclusion) and in the verapamil group from 32.8 +/- 1.5 to 30.3 +/- 1.5 nmol X mg protein-1 (NS vs preocclusion). Dogs receiving verapamil had significantly higher ATP levels than untreated animals after 90 and 240 min of reperfusion. In untreated animals the sum of inosine and hypoxanthine levels increased during occlusion from very low levels to 4.6 +/- 1.1 nmol X mg protein-1 in the epicardium and to 6.8 +/- 1.5 nmol X mg protein-1 in the endocardium (p less than .05 compared with preocclusion values). In verapamil-treated dogs inosine and hypoxanthine levels increased to only 1.2 +/- 0.3 (epicardium) and 1.9 +/- 0.6 nmol X mg protein-1 (endocardium) (both NS compared with preocclusion values). After 90 min of reperfusion the sum of ATP, adenosine diphosphate, adenosine monophosphate, inosine, and hypoxanthine levels was decreased in the endocardium by 10.2 nmol X mg protein-1 in the untreated group, but no change was observed in verapamil-treated animals. We conclude that breakdown of ATP to inosine and hypoxanthine during severe ischemia is reduced by verapamil, resulting in higher ATP concentrations during occlusion and reperfusion and decreased washout of the diffusible purines inosine and hypoxanthine during reperfusion.
Real-time anomaly detection and localization in crowded scenes

In this paper, we propose a method for real-time anomaly detection and localization in crowded scenes. Each video is defined as a set of non-overlapping cubic patches, and is described using two local and global descriptors. These descriptors capture the video properties from different aspects. By incorporating simple and cost-effective Gaussian classifiers, we can distinguish normal activities and anomalies in videos. The local and global features are based on structure similarity between adjacent patches and the features learned in an unsupervised way, using a sparse auto-encoder. Experimental results show that our algorithm is comparable to a state-of-the-art procedure on UCSD ped2 and UMN benchmarks, but even more time-efficient. The experiments confirm that our system can reliably detect and localize anomalies as soon as they happen in a video.
Is personalization of services always a good thing? Exploring the role of technology‐mediated personalization (TMP) in service relationships

Purpose – Despite the strong intuitive appeal of personalization (through employees or, increasingly, through the use of software applications), relatively little is known about its role in managing service relationships. This study aims to explore the burgeoning area of technology‐mediated personalization and its effects on customer commitment to service relationships.Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical perspective based on integrated reviews of service research and relationship marketing is developed and used to guide the exploration of personalization effects with qualitative data.Findings – Personalization is not always good enhancement to service: its effects have contingencies and vary across the categories. Continuity personalization seems to be a promising area for researchers and practitioners.Research limitations/implications – Personalization effects should be rigorously studied. Continuity personalization seems to offer a promising area for future research.Practical implications – The .
Parameter correlation and modeling of the power-law relationship in MOSFET hot-carrier degradation

Correlation between the parameters A and n in the empirical hot-carrier degradation formula, parametric shift=A*t/sup n/, is reported for both n- and p-channel MOSFETs fabricated with various submicrometer processing technologies. Analysis of data indicates that A increases with a decreasing value of n, satisfying a simple exponential relationship, A= alpha *exp(- beta n), within the stress conditions considered. A phenomenological model to explain this relation is provided. Implications for device lifetime prediction under different hot-carrier injection stress conditions are also indicated. <<ETX>>
Characterization of Binding of Human Lactoferrin to Pneumococcal Surface Protein A

ABSTRACT Human lactoferrin is an iron-binding glycoprotein that is particularly prominent in exocrine secretions and leukocytes and is also found in serum, especially during inflammation. It is able to sequester iron from microbes and has immunomodulatory functions, including inhibition of both complement activation and cytokine production. This study used mutants lacking pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) and PspC to demonstrate that the binding of human lactoferrin to the surface of Streptococcus pneumoniae was entirely dependent on PspA. Lactoferrin bound both family 1 and family 2 PspAs. Binding of lactoferrin to PspA was shown by surface colocalization with PspA and was verified by the lack of binding to PspA-negative mutants. Lactoferrin was expressed on the body of the cells but was largely absent from the poles. PspC showed exactly the same distribution on the pneumococcal surface as PspA but did not bind lactoferrin. PspA's binding site for lactoferrin was mapped using recombinant fragments of PspA of families 1 and 2. Binding of human lactoferrin was detected primarily in the C-terminal half of the α-helical domain of PspA (amino acids 167 to 288 of PspA/Rx1), with no binding to the N-terminal 115 amino acids in either strain. The interaction was highly specific. As observed previously, bovine lactoferrin bound poorly to PspA. Human transferrin did not bind PspA at all. The binding of lactoferrin to S. pneumoniae might provide a way for the bacteria to interfere with host immune functions or to aid in the acquisition of iron at the site of infection.