Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diffractive Nonlinear Geometric Optics for Short Pulses

This paper considers the behavior of pulse-like solutions of length e 1 to semi- linear systems of hyperbolic partial differential equations on the time scale t = O(1/e) of diffractive geometric optics. The amplitude is chosen so that nonlinear effects influence the leading term in the asymptotics. For pulses of larger amplitude so that the nonlinear effects are pertinent for times t = O(1), accurate asymptotic solutions lead to transport equations similar to those valid in the case of wave trains (see (D. Alterman and J. Rauch, J. Differential Equations, 178 (2002), pp. 437-465)). The opposite is true here. The profile equation for pulses for t = O(1/e) is different from the corresponding equation for wave trains. Formal asymptotics leads to equations for a leading term in the expansion and for correctors. The equations for the correctors are in general not solvable, being plagued by small divisor problems in the continuous spectrum. This makes the construction of accurate approximations subtle. We use low-frequency cutoffs depending on e to avoid the small divisors.
The AIDS-related activities of religious leaders in Malawi

Abstract The AIDS-related activities of religious leaders in Africa extend far beyond preaching about sexual mortality. This study aims to quantify the involvement of religious leaders in the fight against AIDS and to identify key predictors of the types of prevention strategies they promote. Using data from a random sample of Christian and Muslim leaders in Malawi, I use logistic regression to predict six types of AIDS activities, which correspond to three distinct types: formal messages (i.e., preaching), pragmatic interventions (monitoring the sexual behaviour of members and advising divorce to avoid infection) and the promotion of biomedical prevention strategies (promoting condom use and testing for HIV). Preaching about AIDS is the most common prevention activity and promoting condom use is the least; sizable proportions of clergy promote testing and engage in pragmatic interventions. Denominational patterns in the type of engagement are weak and inconsistent. However, inquiries into the motivation for leaders' activities show that discussions with members about AIDS are the most consistent predictor, suggesting that religious leaders' engagement with HIV prevention is primarily a demand-driven phenomenon.
Pupil Assessment Perceptions and Practices of Secondary Teachers.

Noting that current research has revealed a substantial gap between pupil assessment theory and the practices of secondary teachers, this study examined not only what teachers are doing, but also why they select and use certain practices. Assessment was observed in at least three classes for each of 13 selected secondary teachers, and descriptions of specific assessment practices were obtained through formal and informal interviews. School documents and teacher-developed assessment instruments were also examined in order to add depth to descriptions. The bulk of the data consisted of field notes from interviews and observations, which were analyzed qualitatively. Frequency indices were also prepared to allow easier viewing of patterns in the data. Ninety specific assessment practices were identified. Of the 90 total instances, 16% were preassessment, 30% were formative assessment, and 54% were summative assessment. Analysis of emergent themes indicated that teachers’ assessment practices were influenced b.
In vitro capacity and in vivo antioxidant potency of sedimental extract of Tinospora cordifolia in streptozotocin induced type 2 diabetes

Objective: The role of herbs against the free radicals have been put forth recently in combating many diseases. The aim of this study was to elucidate the in vitro capacity and in vivo antioxidant properties of sedimental extract of Tinospora cordifolia (SETc). Materials and Methods: SETc was subjected to in vitro chemical analysis such as 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide, and superoxide anion radicals scavenging respectively and finally drugs reductive ability in order to elucidate the antioxidant capacity of the test drug before introducing it into the biological membrane. The resulting capacity was evaluated in vivo by analyzing enzymic (SOD, CAT) and non-enzymic (vitamin C & E) antioxidant levels in the homogenized samples of major organs isolated from streptozotocin induced type 2 diabetic rats after 30th day of SETc (1000 mg/kg/p.o.) treatment. Finally, the histopathological evaluation was done using cut portion of the respective organs prone to free radical mediated cell destruction with STZ in order to study their micro anatomical changes. Results: Chemical analysis with SETc in vitro for its IC50 proves a key evident for its total antioxidant capacity of around 2046 times, in 1000 mg/kg of fixed dose per oral for in vivo analysis. In contrast to the above, the lipid peroxide levels and in vivo enzymic and non-enzymic antioxidant levels were found to possess most significant difference (p<0.001) and moderate difference (p<0.01) with diabetic non-treated animals which was an supporting contribution for those in vitro parameters studied and have proved that SETc (1000 mg/kg/p.o.) was a potent drug to elevate the antioxidants levels and further healing of damaged organs as compared with that of diabetic and standard drug treated groups. Conclusions: Finally, it was concluded that, the presence of antioxidant potentials in SETc was about 2046 time as an effective scavenger of free radicals in vitro and as a potent healer in ameliorating many signs of tissue damages in vivo in long term complicated diseases such as diabetes.
The transmembrane signaling pathway involved in directed movements of Chlamydomonas flagellar membrane glycoproteins involves the dephosphorylation of a 60-kD phosphoprotein that binds to the major flagellar membrane glycoprotein

Cross-linking of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii flagellar membrane glycoproteins results in the directed movements of these glycoproteins within the plane of the flagellar membrane. Three carbohydrate-binding reagents (FMG-1 monoclonal antibody, FMG-3 monoclonal antibody, concanvalin A) that induce flagellar membrane glycoprotein crosslinking and redistribution also induce the specific dephosphorylation of a 60- kD (pI 4.8-5.0) flagellar phosphoprotein (pp60) that is phosphorylated in vivo on serine. Ethanol treatment of live cells induces a similar specific dephosphorylation of pp60. Affinity adsorption of flagellar 32P-labeled membrane-matrix extracts with the FMG-1 monoclonal antibody and concanavalin A demonstrates that pp60 binds to the 350-kD class of flagellar membrane glycoproteins recognized by the FMG-1 monoclonal antibody. In vitro, protein phosphatase 2B (calcineurin) removes 60% of the 32P from pp60; this correlates well with previous observations that directed flagellar glycoprotein movements are dependent on micromolar calcium in the medium and are inhibited by calcium channel blockers and calmodulin antagonists. The data reported here are consistent with the dephosphorylation of pp60 being a step in the signaling pathway that couples flagellar membrane glycoprotein cross-linking to the directed movements of flagellar membrane glycoproteins.
Development of a passive impedance network for modeling electric vehicle traction batteries for EMI measurements

Due to the powertrain electrification in electric- and hybrid vehicles enormous challenges arise considering the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of the vehicles. The power electronic components used produce high broadband interferences possibly affecting vehicle components located in the 12V system. In order to meet these challenges the traction system is built up thoroughly shielded and isolated from the vehicle body. Considering the field of standardization all actual vehicle standards are revised in order to integrate these new powertrain components. On component level the actual version of CISPR 25 includes an annex where the powertrain components, new measurement setups and revised limits are addressed. For nearly all setups described, a DC power supply is needed to supply the DUT inside the shielded chamber. As every component like e.g. drive inverter, on-board charger or electric air conditioning systems are supplied by the traction battery in the vehicle, this source in needed for the test setup. Beside the power supply an essential feature of the source should be its impedance compared to the impedance of the real traction battery, in order to produce realistic results. As using the real traction battery for the tests is not practicable because of the limited capacity a grid feed power source has to be used. In this work a passive impedance network, modelling the impedance of traction batteries is developed. Therefore, in a first step the impedance of a 360V hybrid battery pack is measured. Based on these measurements an equivalent circuit representing the battery impedance with its characteristic values and resonances is presented. Using this equivalent circuit the passive impedance network is designed for EMI testing of the HV traction system components. In the last step, this passive network is verified using traction system components integrated in a Hardware in the Loop setup on an electric vehicle traction system.
Blocking Blog Spam with Language Model Disagreement

We present an approach for detecting link spam common in blog comments by comparing the language models used in the blog post, the comment, and pages linked by the comments. In contrast to other link spam filtering approaches, our method requires no training, no hard-coded rule sets, and no knowledge of complete-web connectivity. Preliminary experiments with identification of typical blog spam show promising results.
The Influence of Multicultural Educational Practices on Student Outcomes and Intergroup Relations

Background How best to serve a racially and ethnically diverse student body has been a topic of intensive theory development for the past 30 or 40 years. We have strong theoretical models regarding the need for and practice of multicultural education, the goals of which include both increased educational achievement for students of color and improved inter-group relations. Nevertheless, there are few places where one can find a broad examination of the empirical support for the influence of multicultural educational practice on either student outcomes or intergroup relations. Purpose In this article, I use James A. Banks's widely used conceptualization of the five components of multicultural educational practice—content integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogies, and empowering school cultures—to examine the empirical evidence for the influence of each of these five different components on the academic outcomes of students of color and intergroup relations in schools. Conclusions The empirical research reveals that all five components of multicultural educational practice outlined by Banks to have a strong, positive impact on the educational outcomes of students of color and to improved intergroup relations, although research has been stronger in some areas (e.g., prejudice reduction and some equity pedagogies such as cooperative learning) than others (e.g., the specific effects of content integration and knowledge construction). The evidence suggests several additional conclusions: (1) Multicultural educational practice has benefit for the academic outcomes of all students, not just students of color. (2) Multicultural educational practice is most effective when implemented with careful attention to issues of race and power. (3) The academic and intergroup relations outcomes are linked, such that efforts designed to improve one improve the other. Implications for future research on the effects of multicultural educational practice on students, as well as teacher and administrator education programs, are discussed.
Test-Driven Assessment of Access Control in Legacy Applications

If access control policy decision points are not neatly separated from the business logic of a system, the evolution of a security policy likely leads to the necessity of changing the system's code base. This is often the case with legacy systems. We present a test- driven methodology to assess the flexibility of a system, a property that describes the degree of coupling between the access control logic and the business logic of a system. A low flexibility indicates that a modification of the policy will lead to substantial changes of the code. In this paper, we analyze the notion of flexibility which is related to the presence of hidden and implicit security mechanisms in the business logic. We detail how testing can be used for detecting such mechanisms and how it may drive the incremental evolution of a security policy. We use several case studies to illustrate and validate the methodology.
Verification of Infinite-State Systems

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Verification of Infinite-State Systems Stéphane Demri, Denis Poitrenaud
Acquired Epileptiform Aphasia: A Dimensional View of Landau-Kleffner Syndrome and the Relation to Regressive Autistic Spectrum Disorders

Acquired epileptiform aphasia (AEA) is characterized by deterioration in language in childhood associated with seizures or epileptiform electroencephalographic abnormalities. Despite an extensive literature, discrepancies and contradictions surround its definition and nosological boundaries. This paper reviews current conceptions of AEA and highlights variations in the aphasic disturbance, age of onset, epileptiform EEG abnormalities, temporal course, and long-term outcome. We suggest that AEA, rather than being a discrete entity, is comprised of multiple variants that have in common the features of language regression and epileptiform changes on EEG. Viewed this way, we argue that AEA can be conceptualized on a spectrum with other epileptiform neurocognitive disorders that may share pathophysiological features. The implications of this viewpoint are discussed, with emphasis on parallels between the AEA variants and regressive autistic spectrum disorders.
Generalized LDPC code with single-parity-check product constraints at super check nodes

Due to the more complex constraints, generalized low-density parity-check (GLDPC) codes can achieve better error performance but require much higher decoding complexities compared with the standard LDPC codes. In this paper, single-parity-check product-codes (SPC-PCs) are considered as the constituent codes in the super check nodes of a GLDPC code. Moreover, turbo iterations are used in decoding the SPC-PCs. The error performance and the decoder complexity of the proposed GLDPC code are compared with other LDPC code and GLDPC code.
Temperature Exerts Control of Bacillus cereus Emetic Toxin Production on Post-transcriptional Levels

In recent years, the emetic toxin cereulide, produced by Bacillus cereus, has gained high relevance in food production and food safety. Cereulide is synthesized non-ribosomal by the multi-enzyme complex Ces-NRPS, which is encoded on a megaplasmid that shares its backbone with the Bacillus anthracis pX01 toxin plasmid. Due to its resistance against heat, proteolysis and extreme pH conditions, the formation of this highly potent depsipeptide toxin is of serious concern in food processing procedures including slow cooling procedures and/or storage of intermediate products at ambient temperatures. So far, systematic data on the effect of extrinsic factors on cereulide synthesis has been lacking. Thus, we investigated the influence of temperature, a central extrinsic parameter in food processing, on the regulation of cereulide synthesis on transcriptional, translational and post-translational levels over the growth temperature range of emetic B. cereus. Bacteria were grown in 3°C interval steps from 12 to 46°C and cereulide synthesis was followed from ces gene transcription to cereulide toxin production. This systematic study revealed that temperature is a cardinal parameter, which primarily impacts cereulide synthesis on post-transcriptional levels, thereby altering the composition of cereulide isoforms. Our work also highlights that the risk of cereulide production could not be predicted from growth parameters or sole cell numbers. Furthermore, for the first time we could show that the formation of the recently identified cereulide isoforms is highly temperature dependent, which may have great importance in terms of food safety and predictive microbiology. Notably the production of isocereulide A, which is about 10-fold more cytotoxic than cereulide, was specifically supported at low temperatures.
Constraint Propagation Algorithms for Temporal Reasoning

This paper considers computational aspects of several temporal representation languages. It investigates an interval-based representation, and a point-based one. Computing the consequences of temporal assertions is shown to be computationally intractable in the interval-based representation, but not in the point-based one. However, a fragment of the interval language can be expressed using the point language and benefits from the tractability of the latter.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Center for Applied Financial Economics (CAFE) Comparing Predictive Accuracy, Twenty Years Later: A Personal Perspective on the Use and Abuse of Diebold-Mariano Tests

The Diebold-Mariano (DM) test was intended for comparing forecasts; it has been, and remains, useful in that regard. The DM test was not intended for comparing models. Unfortunately, however, much of the large subsequent literature uses DM -type tests for comparing models, in (pseudo-) out-of-sample environments. In that case, much simpler yet more compelling full-sample model comparison procedures exist; they have been, and should continue to be, widely used. The hunch that (pseudo-) out-of-sample analysis is somehow the “only,” or “best,” or even a “good” way to provide insurance against insample over-fitting in model comparisons proves largely false. On the other hand, (pseudo-) out-of-sample analysis may be useful for learning about comparative historical predictive performance.
Elucidation of the Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide Pharmacophore for VPAC2 Receptors in Human and Rat and Comparison to the Pharmacophore for VPAC1 Receptors

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) functions as a neurotransmitter involved in a number of physiological and pathological conditions. The actions of VIP are mediated through VPAC1 and VPAC2. In contrast to VPAC1, which has been extensively studied, little is known about the pharmacology of VPAC2. In this study we investigated the VIP pharmacophore for VPAC2 by using alanine and d-amino acid scanning. We found significant species differences, and the human VPAC2 (hVPAC2) expressed in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, which have been used in previous studies, differed significantly from the native hVPAC2 in Sup T1cells and hVPAC2 expressed in PANC1 cells. There was a close agreement between binding affinities and potencies for VPAC2 activation. The amino acids whose backbone or side chain orientations were most important for high affinity potency are Asp3, Phe6, Thr7, Tyr10, Arg12, Tyr22, and Leu23, whereas the side chains of Ser2, Asp8, Asn9, Gln16, Val19, Lys20, Lys21, Asn24, and Ser25 are not essential. Comparison of the VIP pharmacophore between hVPAC1 and hVPAC2 demonstrated that the side chains of Thr7, Tyr10, Thr11, and Tyr22 were much more critical for high affinity for the hVPAC2 than the hVPAC1. In contrast, the orientation of the side chain of Asn24 was more important for high affinity for the hVPAC1. This study shows that in assessing the pharmacophore of VIP analogs for the VPAC2, important species differences need to be considered as well as the expression system used. These results of our study should be useful for designing VPAC subtype-selective analogs, simplified analogs, and possibly metabolically stable analogs.
Prophylactic antiemetic effect of dexamethasone in women undergoing ambulatory laparoscopic surgery.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prophylactic antiemetic effect of i.v. dexamethasone in women undergoing ambulatory laparoscopic tubal ligation. Ninety patients requiring general anaesthesia for laparoscopic tubal ligation were enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Forty-five patients received dexamethasone 10 mg i.v. and 45 received saline 2 ml i.v. at the induction of anaesthesia. We found that 27% of patients in the dexamethasone group, compared with 63% of patients in the saline group, reported nausea and vomiting within 4 h after surgery (P < 0.01). Seven per cent of patients in the dexamethasone group, compared with 28% of patients in the saline group, received a rescue antiemetic (P < 0.05). During the 24-h postoperative observation period, 34% of patients in the dexamethasone group, compared with 73% of patients in the saline group, reported nausea and vomiting (P < 0.001). We conclude that dexamethasone 10 mg significantly decreases the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting in women undergoing ambulatory laparoscopic tubal ligation.
Unequal Incentives and Perceived Fairness in Groups

Incentives shape how much people contribute to the welfare of a group. These incentives do not restrict the opportunities but they change the costs of contributions. This paper studies how the random assignment of such incentives affects perceived distributive justice among group members. Do people consider differences in incentives similar to unequal opportunities, that is, situations in which some people have a lower chance to make a high contribution? The results from a real effort experiment show that the economic framing of incentives matters in this context. If some people do not work for the common good because of rather large private costs, they appreciate these ‘negative incentives’ similarly to unequal opportunities. They do not do so, and become less egalitarian, if lower effort for the group increases the chance for private gains (‘positive incentives’). Interestingly, participants reward group members who do not limit their expected contributions to the group despite adverse incentives.
Effect of Chilling and Freezing on Fish Muscle

Muscle samples of Mystus seenghala were stored at two different low temperatures, i.e at 4±1C (chilled) and at -12±2C (frozen) for 21 days. Weekly analysis was conducted to measure protein, lipid, ash, moisture, free fatty acid, pH and total plate count. The result clearly reveals that during storage, both the samples showed a highly significant (p<0.01) decreasing trend in protein, lipid, ash and moisture content. After 21 days, the percentage decrease was 54.35% and 22.70% for protein and 82.64% and 56.68% for lipid, 10.96% and 4.89% for moisture and 38.92% and 37.88% for ash content in chilled and frozen sample respectively. However, the free fatty acid and pH showed highly significant (p<0.01) increasing trend in both the samples. Similarly, the bacteriological studies revealed that the total plate count (TPC) in chilled and frozen samples also showed an increasing trend. It was found within acceptable limits (TPC=6.04±0.11 log cfu/g) in chilled sample upto 10 day and up to 14th day (TPC=5.78±0.2 log cfu/g) in frozen sample. Thereafter, the microbial quality further deteriorates and became inedible for human consumption. (