Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Essential Role of Negotiation in the Communicative Classroom

This paper reviews theory and research on the role of negotiation in second language (L2) learning, with application to the communicative classroom. What is shown with respect to L2 learning is that when learners and interlocutors engage in negotiation to resolve impasses in their communication, they signal and respond in ways that enhance their comprehension of input, provide them with feedback on form and meaning, assist their production of modified output, and thereby facilitate the process of L2 learning. *~~. m=rt~~~K~~~~. ~~~ K~~~~~~. ~H~. ffm~~. ~~~ =~~~~~~~-~~m~. w~ ~o~~. ~~~~m. ~~~~= ~-~3~~ff8 Jtn~ ~ ~trI»JT~i'tal)';:~i'J)~ff? lf#. -1 ~'1''Y I-~JmIW~{lli1H" •• ,*~75~f;:I11~~ 7 ~ - ~". y -7 nq:~m ~ n. ~f! ~ir~1"? I- '1' 'Y I- ~~J! ~llIJ.t '6 J: ? ~~" ~ ~i ~~ff:b n. *ti* ~ L""(. m=rtifA~~! '8'n~i1! tt~lt\? :: ~;O;~~n~o
Impaired Granuloma Formation in Sepsis: Impact of Monocytopenia

Granulomas are a collection of immune cells considered to be protective in infectious diseases. The in vitro generation of granulomas is an interesting substitution to invasive approaches of granuloma study. The monitoring of immune response through the determination of in vitro granuloma formation in patients with severe sepsis may be critical to individualize treatments. We compared the in vitro generation of granulomas by co-culturing circulating mononuclear cells from 19 patients with severe sepsis, 9 patients cured from Q fever and 12 healthy subjects as controls, and Sepharose beads coated either with BCG or Coxiella burnetii extracts to analyze both immune and innate granulomas, respectively. We showed that the great majority of patients with severe sepsis were unable to form granulomas in response to BCG and C. burnetii extracts whereas more than 80% of healthy controls and patients cured from Q fever formed granulomas. We also found that monocytopenia and defective production of tumor necrosis factor were associated with reduced formation of granulomas in patients with severe sepsis even if TNF did not seem to be involved in the defective granuloma formation. Taken together, these results suggest that the deficiency of granuloma formation may be a measurement of altered recruitment and activation of monocytes and lymphocytes in patients with severe sepsis.
It Bends But Would It Break? Topological Analysis of BGP Infrastructures in Europe

The Internet is often thought to be a model of resilience, due to a decentralised, organically-grown architecture. This paper puts this perception into perspective through the results of a security analysis of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing infrastructure. BGP is a fundamental Internet protocol and its intrinsic fragilities have been highlighted extensively in the literature. A seldom studied aspect is how robust the BGP infrastructure actually is as a result of nearly three decades of perpetual growth. Although global black-outs seem unlikely, local security events raise growing concerns on the robustness of the backbone. In order to better protect this critical infrastructure, it is crucial to understand its topology in the context of the weaknesses of BGP and to identify possible security scenarios. Firstly, we establish a comprehensive threat model that classifies main attack vectors, including but non limited to BGP vulnerabilities. We then construct maps of the European BGP backbone based on publicly available routing data. We analyse the topology of the backbone and establish several disruption scenarios that highlight the possible consequences of different types of attacks, for different attack capabilities. We also discuss existing mitigation and recovery strategies, and we propose improvements to enhance the robustness and resilience of the backbone. To our knowledge, this study is the first to combine a comprehensive threat analysis of BGP infrastructures withadvanced network topology considerations. We find that the BGP infrastructure is at higher risk than already understood, due to topologies that remain vulnerable to certain targeted attacks as a result of organic deployment over the years. Significant parts of the system are still uncharted territory, which warrants further investigation in this direction.
A mobility prediction architecture based on contextual knowledge and spatial conceptual maps

User Mobility prediction represents a key component in assisting handoff management, resource reservation, and service preconfiguration. However, most of the existing approaches presume that the user travels in an a priori known pattern with some regularity; an assumption that may not always hold. This paper presents a novel framework for user mobility prediction that can accurately predict the traveling trajectory and destination using knowledge of user's preferences, goals, and analyzed spatial information without imposing any assumptions about the availability of users' movements history. This framework thus incorporates the notion of combining user context and spatial conceptual maps in the prediction process. The main objective of this notion is to circumvent the difficulties that arise in predicting the user's future location when adequate knowledge about the history of user's traveling patterns is not available. Using concepts of evidential reasoning of Dempster-Shafer's theory, the user's navigation behavior is captured by gathering pieces of evidence concerning different groups of candidate future locations. These groups are then refined to predict the user's future location when evidence accumulates using the Dempster rule of combination. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed framework.
Application of the Spectral Structure Parameterization technique: retrieval of total water vapor columns from GOME

Abstract. We use a recently proposed spectral sampling technique for measurements of atmospheric transmissions called the Spectral Structure Parameterization (SSP) in order to retrieve total water vapor columns (WVC) from reflectivity spectra measured by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME). SSP provides a good compromise between efficiency and speed when performing retrievals on highly structured spectra of narrow-band absorbers like water vapor. We show that SSP can be implemented in a radiative transfer scheme which treats both direct-path absorption and absorption by singly-scattered light directly. For the retrieval we exploit a ro-vibrational overtone band of water vapor located in the visible around 590 nm. We compare our results to independent values given by the data assimilation model of ECMWF. In addition, results are compared to those obtained from the more accurate, but more computationally expensive, Optical Absorption Coefficient Spectroscopy (OACS).
A Test of Rensch’s Rule in Greater Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) with Female-Biased Sexual Size Dimorphism

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is widespread within the animal kingdom. Rensch’s rule describes a relationship between SSD and body size: SSD increases with body size when males are the larger sex, and decreases with body size when females are the larger sex. Rensch’s rule is well supported for taxa that exhibit male-biased SSD but patterns of allometry among taxa with female-biased size dimorphism are mixed, there is evidence both for and against the rule. Furthermore, most studies have investigated Rensch’s rule across a variety of taxa; but among-population studies supporting Rensch’s rule are lacking, especially in taxa that display only slight SSD. Here, we tested whether patterns of intraspecific variation in SSD in greater horseshoe bats conform to Rensch’s rule, and evaluated the contribution of latitude to Rensch’s rule. Our results showed SSD was consistently female-biased in greater horseshoe bats, although female body size was only slightly larger than male body size. The slope of major axis regression of log10 (male) on log10 (female) was significantly different from 1. Forearm length for both sexes of greater horseshoe bats was significantly negatively correlated with latitude, and males displayed a slightly but nonsignificant steeper latitudinal cline in body size than females. We suggest that variation in patterns of SSD among greater horseshoe bat populations is consistent with Rensch’s rule indicating that males were the more variable sex. Males did not have a steeper body size–latitude relationship than females suggesting that sex-specific latitudinal variation in body size may not be an important contributing factor to Rensch’s rule. Future research on greater horseshoe bats might best focus on more comprehensive mechanisms driving the pattern of female-biased SSD variation.
Hydraulic aspects of environmental flood management in boreal conditions

In environmental flood management, an essential task is to improve channel conveyance using environmentally preferable methods, which aim to preserve natural morphological and hydraulic characteristics of a river. This requires a reliable channel design method that accounts for complex hydraulics, i.e. two-stage channel or considerable bank vegetation. Hydraulic field measurements were carried out in two rivers to find out how different factors affected flow resistance. In one of the study reaches, the effects of bioengineering on channel hydraulics were investigated under boreal climatic conditions. The Darcy-Weisbach friction factor, the Manning coefficient and the roughness height were related to the characteristics of channel geometry and flow. Comparison between the field data and the investigated channel design methods gave accurate results only in reaches having simple hydraulic properties. In reaches with complex hydraulics the results were poor.
Real-time difference imaging analysis of moa galactic bulge observations during 2000

We describe observations carried out by the MOA group of the Galactic bulge during 2000 that were designed to detect efficiently gravitational microlensing of faint stars in which the magnification is high and/or of short duration. These events are particularly useful for studies of extrasolar planets and faint stars. Approximately 17 deg2 were monitored at a sampling rate of up to six times per night. The images were analysed in real time using a difference imaging technique. 20 microlensing candidates were detected, of which eight were alerted to the microlensing community whilst in progress. Approximately half of the candidates had high magnifications (≳10), at least one had very high magnification (≳50), and one exhibited a clear parallax effect. The details of these events are reported here, together with details of the on-line difference imaging technique. Some nova-like events were also observed and these are described, together with one asteroid.
Physical spaces, virtual places and social worlds: a study of work in the virtual

This case study explores the nature of work for one group of systems administrators. Their virtual work domain offered little support for collaboration and mechanisms in the physical domain were often used instead. However, the way that group members were able to make sense of their complex virtual work environment suggests a new interpretation of spatial metaphors for the design of collaborative systems. This is one based on ‘place’ or ‘locale’, and ‘centres’, taking into account the observation that people work in multiple social worlds simultaneously, that these social worlds provide a structuring over the work domain, and that the individual draws from this structure elements relevant to their tasks
Hidden Disease Susceptibility and Sexual Dimorphism in the Heterozygous Knockout of Cyp51 from Cholesterol Synthesis

We examined the genotype-phenotype interactions of Cyp51+/− mice carrying one functional allele of lanosterol 14α-demethylase from cholesterol biosynthesis. No distinct developmental or morphological abnormalities were observed by routine visual inspection of Cyp51+/− and Cyp51+/+ mice and fertility was similar. We further collected a large data-set from female and male Cyp51+/− mice and controls fed for 16 weeks with three diets and applied linear regression modeling. We used 3 predictor variables (genotype, sex, diet), and 39 response variables corresponding to the organ characteristics (7), plasma parameters (7), and hepatic gene expression (25). We observed significant differences between Cyp51+/− and wild-type mice in organ characteristics and blood lipid profile. Hepatomegaly was observed in Cyp51+/− males, together with elevated total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Cyp51+/− females fed high-fat, high-cholesterol diet were leaner and had elevated plasma corticosterone compared to controls. We observed elevated hepatocyte apoptosis, mitosis and lipid infiltration in heterozygous knockouts of both sexes. The Cyp51+/− females had a modified lipid storage homeostasis protecting them from weight-gain when fed high-fat high-cholesterol diet. Malfunction of one Cyp51 allele therefore initiates disease pathways towards cholesterol-linked liver pathologies and sex-dependent response to dietary challenge.
Distributed Multilevel Modeling

Multilevel modeling is a popular statistical technique for analyzing data in hierarchical format, and thus naturally fits within a distributed database framework. We consider the computational aspects of multilevel modeling across distributed databases. In addition, we consider these aspects under a generalization of the multilevel model where the distributed groups (or databases) are allowed to specify different models at both level-1 (individual) and level-2 (group). For a variety of scenarios, we develop the distributed computation algorithm for two-step least squares (LS) estimators and also for iterative MLE estimators of the parameters of interest; in particular, we determine the required data structure at each computing site, the necessary information (original data, cross-product matrices, coefficient vectors), and the order in which such information needs to be passed between sites. Finally, we discuss recursive updating, fault tolerance, and security issues.
Gatekeeping beyond geographical borders: Developing an analytical model of transnational journalism cultures

This study takes a theoretical approach of gatekeeping by assessing how transnational networks of news gathering indicate a shift in the conceptualization of journalism culture. Research on journalism culture, which has traditionally been conceptualized within a national system, is linked with the historical development of globalization to propose an analytical conceptualization of journalism culture in a transnational news-gathering environment. Based on empirical studies from the past six decades, the study presents three analytical levels of transnational journalism culture—evaluative, cognitive, and performative—that might provide a conceptual framework for empirical studies interested in news construction in a transnational space.
Virtu4D: a Real-time Virtualization of Reality

In video surveillance systems, when dealing with dynamic complex scenes, processing the information coming from multiple cameras and fusing them into a comprehensible environment is a challenging task. This work addresses the issue of providing a global and reliable representation of the monitored environment aiming at enhancing the perception and minimizing the operator's effort. The proposed system Virtu4D is based on 3D computer vision and virtual reality techniques and takes benefit from both the "real" and the "virtual" worlds offering a unique perception of the scene. This paper presents a short overview of the framework along with the different components of the design space: Video Model Layout, Video Processing and Immersive Model Generation. The final interface gathers the 2D information in the 3D context but also offers a complete 3D representation of the dynamic environment allowing a free intuitive 3D navigation.
Lesion of the Subfornical Organ attenuates Neuronal Activation of the Paraventricular Nucleus in response to Angiotensin II in normal rats.

INTRODUCTION/HYPOTHESIS The subfornical organ, one of the central circumventricular organs, has been shown to mediate many of the effects of circulating angiotensin II (AngII). Where these signals are processed downstream is not fully understood. The SFO does indeed project to prominent cardiovascular regulatory centers such as the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), of whose neurons are activated by central AngII. We reasoned that AngII sensed at the SFO would cause neuronal activation at downstream hypothalamic areas such as the median preoptic nucleus and paraventricular nucleus, and as such would be diminished in animals with lesions of the SFO. MATERIALS AND METHODS To test this hypothesis, groups of rats underwent either SFO lesion (SFOx) or sham operation. Five days later rats were instrumented with radiotelemetry transducers for monitoring of mean arterial pressure (MAP) and venous catheters for infusions. MAP and heart rate were measured continuously. After a 4 day control period, infusion of AngII (0.575 µg/kg/min) was begun for a period of 2 hours. Rats were then sacrificed and brains were processed for neuronal Fos expression. RESULTS AngII produced Fos expression in the SFO, MnPO and PVN of sham rats. Fos expression was greatly attenuated in the PVN of SFOx rats. CONCLUSION These results support our hypothesis, suggesting that AngII sensitive neurons of the SFO can mediate neuronal activation in the PVN.
A Comparison of Alternative Estimators of Linearly Aggregated Macro Models

Normal 0 false false false TR X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:. 0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language:TR; mso-fareast-language:TR;} This paper deals with the linear aggregation problem. For the true underlying micro relations, which explain the micro behavior of the individuals, no restrictive rank conditions are assumed. Thus the analysis is presented in a framework utilizing generalized inverses of singular matrices. We investigate several estimators for certain linear transformations of the systematic part of the corresponding macro relations. Homogeneity of micro parameters is discussed. Best linear unbiased estimation for micro parameters is described.
Redesigning an Object-Oriented Programming Course

Educational technology offers several potential benefits for programming education. Still, to facilitate the technology properly, integration into a course must be carefully designed. In this article, we present a redesign of an object-oriented university-level programming course. In the redesign, a collaborative education tool was utilized to enhance active learning, facilitate communication between students and teachers, and remodel the evaluation procedure by utilizing automatically assessed tasks. The redesign was based on the best practices found in our own earlier research and that of the research community, with a focus on facilitating active learning methods and student collaboration. The redesign was evaluated by comparing two instances of the redesigned course against two instances using the old methodology. The drop-out rate decreased statistically significantly in the redesigned course instances. Moreover, there was a trend toward higher grade averages in the redesigned instances. Based on the results, we can conclude that the utilization of educational technology has a highly positive effect on student performance. Still, making major changes to course methodology does not come without certain difficulties. Hence, we also present our experiences and suggestions for the course redesign to help other educators and researchers perform similar design changes.
Distributed Time Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks with Coupled Discrete-Time Oscillators

In wireless sensor networks, distributed timing synchronization based on pulse-coupled oscillators at the physical layer is currently being investigated as an interesting alternative to packet synchronization. In this paper, the convergence properties of such a system are studied through algebraic graph theory, by modeling the nodes as discrete-time clocks. A general scenario where clocks may have different free-oscillation frequencies is considered, and both time-invariant and time-variant network topologies (or fading channels) are discussed. Furthermore, it is shown that the system of oscillators can be studied as a set of coupled discrete-time PLLs. Based on this observation, a generalized system design is discussed, and it is proved that known results in the context of conventional PLLs for carrier acquisition have a counterpart in distributed systems. Finally, practical details of the implementation of the distributed synchronization algorithm over a bandlimited noisy channel are covered.
Ideal number of target lesions per organ to measure in metastatic colorectal cancer

The Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST 1.1) guideline states that the two largest lesions per organ should be measured as target lesions for assessment of the tumor response. This criterion is considered to be arbitrary and, to the best of our knowledge, has not been supported by any objective evidence. The present study hypothesized that measuring the single largest lesion in each organ into which the cancer had metastasized (termed the modified RECIST; mRECIST 1.1) may yield the same response classification as measuring the two target lesions per organ (as per the RECIST 1.1 guideline). The medical records of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC), who received first-line chemotherapy between January 2004 and June 2013 were reviewed. The tumor responses of the patients were compared according to the two criteria using computed tomography. A total of 38 patients were included in the present study, all of whom had at least two target lesions in any one organ according to the RECIST 1.1 guidelines. When adopting the mRECIST 1.1, rather than the RECIST 1.1, 18 patients (47.4%) demonstrated an increase in the rate of change of the sum of the tumor measurements. The overall response rates of chemotherapy were 39.4% and 34.2% according to the RECIST 1.1 and the mRECIST 1.1, respectively, and the difference between the two criteria was not identified to be significantly different (P=0.226). The tumor response showed near perfect agreement between the RECIST 1.1 and mRECIST 1.1 criteria (κ=0.905). Only two patients (5.3%) showed a disagreement with regard to the tumor responses between the two criteria. Therefore, it was identified that the mRECIST 1.1 showed a high level of concordance with the original RECIST 1.1 guidelines in the tumor response assessment of metastatic CRC patients to chemotherapy. The present results indicate that the mRECIST 1.1, with a decreased number of target lesions to be measured, may be more convenient in clinical practice for the assessment of tumor response.