Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mental Stress Induces Prolonged Endothelial Dysfunction via Endothelin-A Receptors

Background—Mental stress is a risk factor for atherosclerosis and may precipitate myocardial ischemia and infarction. Because endothelial dysfunction is an early manifestation of atherosclerosis, we investigated the impact of mental stress on endothelial function. Methods and Results—The effects of a 3-minute mental stress task on endothelium-dependent vasodilation were studied in healthy subjects without cardiovascular risk factors. Flow-mediated (FMD) and nitroglycerin (0.4 mg sublingual)-induced vasodilation were studied before and after mental stress by high-resolution ultrasound of the radial artery. Additionally, FMD was assessed before and 10 to 45 minutes after mental stress during intraarterial infusion of a selective endothelin A receptor antagonist (BQ-123, 1 nmol/min) or saline, respectively. Endothelium-dependent vasodilation was reduced by half for about 45 minutes (8.0±1.1% versus 4.1±1.0%;P <0.002), whereas endothelium-independent vasodilation to nitroglycerin remained unaffected (15.6±1.6 versus 14.3±1.3%; NS). Intraarterial infusion of BQ-123, a selective endothelin-A receptor antagonist, but not saline prevented the impairment of endothelium-dependent vasodilation (8.6±1.2 versus 9.4±1.3%; NS). In contrast, intraarterial infusion of norepinephrine of similar duration as mental stress did not inhibit FMD. Conclusions—Mental stress induces prolonged endothelial dysfunction, which is prevented by selective endothelin-A receptor antagonism. This represents a novel and important link between mental stress and atherosclerotic vascular disease.
Crystal structures of a pantothenate synthetase from M. tuberculosis and its complexes with substrates and a reaction intermediate

Pantothenate biosynthesis is essential for the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and this pathway thus presents potential drug targets against tuberculosis. We determined the crystal structure of pantothenate synthetase (PS) from M. tuberculosis, and its complexes with AMPCPP, pantoate, and a reaction intermediate, pantoyl adenylate, with resolutions from 1.6 to 2 Å. PS catalyzes the ATP‐dependent condensation of pantoate and β‐alanine to form pantothenate. Its structure reveals a dimer, and each subunit has two domains with tight association between domains. The active‐site cavity is on the N‐terminal domain, partially covered by the C‐terminal domain. One wall of the active site cavity is flexible, which allows the bulky AMPCPP to diffuse into the active site to nearly full occupancy when crystals are soaked in solutions containing AMPCPP. Crystal structures of the complexes with AMPCPP and pantoate indicate that the enzyme binds ATP and pantoate tightly in the active site, and brings the carboxyl oxygen of pantoate near the α‐phosphorus atom of ATP for an in‐line nucleophilic attack. When crystals were soaked with, or grown in the presence of, both ATP and pantoate, a reaction intermediate, pantoyl adenylate, is found in the active site. The flexible wall of the active site cavity becomes ordered when the intermediate is in the active site, thus protecting it from being hydrolyzed. Binding of β‐alanine can occur only after pantoyl adenylate is formed inside the active site cavity. The tight binding of the intermediate pantoyl adenylate suggests that nonreactive analogs of pantoyl adenylate may be inhibitors of the PS enzyme with high affinity and specificity.
Uncovering collusive spammers in Chinese review websites

As the rapid development of China's e-commerce in recent years and the underlying evolution of adversarial spamming tactics, more sophisticated spamming activities may carry out in Chinese review websites. Empirical analysis, on recently crawled product reviews from a popular Chinese e-commerce website, reveals the failure of many state-of-the-art spam indicators on detecting collusive spammers. Two novel methods are then proposed: 1) a KNN-based method that considers the pairwise similarity of two reviewers based on their group-level relational information and selects k most similar reviewers for voting; 2) a more general graph-based classification method that jointly classifies a set of reviewers based on their pairwise transaction correlations. Experimental results show that both our methods promisingly outperform the indicator-only classifiers in various settings.
Preparing Teachers and Students for Democracy: Teacher and Student Learning and Authentic Intellectual Work

Preparing Teachers and Students for Democracy: Teacher and Student Learning and Authentic Intellectual Work By Ann Marie Gleeson Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Ph.D., Chair Preparing students to participate in a democratic society means cultivating citizens who are capable of making informed, rational decisions about complex issues related to the common good. In order to do this, teachers need to provide students learning opportunities that promote critical thinking and involve in-depth examination of meaningful content. Drawing on Gutmann’s (1987) theory of democratic education, this dissertation examines how beginning teachers who were prepared in a teacher education program that emphasized social justice and democratic practices think about and engage their students in this type of work. Specifically, using Newmann’s (1996) framework of “authentic intellectual work” as an indicator of knowledge consistent with democratic education, this dissertation examines the extent to which the learning opportunities teachers create and the work that students produce demonstrate authentic intellectual work and examines the degree to which teachers’ understandings of student learning align with authentic intellectual work. This qualitatively-oriented mixed methods study (Creswell, Plano Clark, Gutmann, & Hanson, 2003; Morse & Niehaus, 2009) used quantitative and qualitative methods concurrently to examine 11 beginning teachers’ experiences during the preservice period and first two years of teaching. Using the Teacher Assessment/Pupil Learning protocol, this study draws upon quantitative methods to evaluate teachers’ assessments/assignments (n=53) and students’ work (n=481) on these assignments and qualitative methods to analyze interviews (n=54). Findings suggest that these beginning teachers and their students engaged in “moderate” levels of authentic intellectual work, although this varied widely. The quality of assessments was positively correlated to the quality of student learning. The degree to which teachers fostered authentic learning opportunities is complicated by teachers’ beliefs about assessment and student learning and particular contextual factors such as time, accountability frameworks, classroom management, student ability, and content area. Teachers whose goals for learning aligned with authentic intellectual work were more likely to construct more authentic learning opportunities. This dissertation argues that evaluations of teacher performance and student learning must account for the quality of learning and utilize multiple measures of evaluation.
Illegal immigration and media exposure: evidence on individual attitudes

Illegal immigration has been the focus of much debate in receiving countries, but little is known about the drivers of individual attitudes towards illegal immigrants. To study this question, we use the CCES survey, which was carried out in 2006 in the USA. We find evidence that—in addition to standard labor market and welfare state considerations—media exposure is significantly correlated with public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for education, income, ideology, and other socio-demographic characteristics, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely than CBS viewers to oppose the legalization of undocumented immigrants. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers, whereas individuals watching PBS are instead more likely to support legalization. Ideological self-selection into different news programs plays an important role, but cannot entirely explain the correlation between media exposure and attitudes about illegal immigration.
Effects of Olive Mill Wastewater on Soil Nutrients Availability.

Olive mill wastewater (OMW) is one of complex wastewater generated by the olive oil extraction process. It is characterized by high values of COD, BOD and phytotoxic levels of polyphenols, but also by a high amount of organic compounds and plant mineral nutrients. Therefore, OMW field spreading may represent a low cost contribution to soil amendment. Olive mill wastewater (O MW) spraying effects onto soil physico-chemicals characteristics were investigated. Three OMW doses 50, 100 and 200 m 3 ha -1 year -1 were applied for ten successive years on sandy soil. The findings showed that t he pH of the soil, electrical conductivity and organic matter, total nitrogen, phosphorus, sodium, and potassium s oil contents increased with increased OMW supply. While, no variations were recorded in calcium and magnesium on soil contents.
Music Generation with Deep Learning

The use of deep learning to solve problems in literary arts has been a recent trend that has gained a lot of attention and automated generation of music has been an active area. This project deals with the generation of music using raw audio files in the frequency domain relying on various LSTM architectures. Fully connected and convolutional layers are used along with LSTM's to capture rich features in the frequency domain and increase the quality of music generated. The work is focused on unconstrained music generation and uses no information about musical structure(notes or chords) to aid learning.The music generated from various architectures are compared using blind fold tests. Using the raw audio to train models is the direction to tapping the enormous amount of mp3 files that exist over the internet without requiring the manual effort to make structured MIDI files. Moreover, not all audio files can be represented with MIDI files making the study of these models an interesting prospect to the future of such models.
Network synthesis for database processing units

We explore on-chip network topologies for the Q100, an analytic query accelerator for relational databases. In such data-centric accelerators, interconnects play a critical role by moving large volumes of data. In this paper we show that various interconnect topologies can trade a factor of 2.5× in performance for 3.3× area. Moreover, standard topologies (e.g., ring or mesh) are not optimal. Significant prior work on network topology specialization augments generic topologies with additional dedicated links. In this paper, we present a network specialization algorithm that builds a specialized network first then introduces a generic network as a fallback. We find our algorithm produces networks that are 1.24× slower than the highest-performance generic topology considered (a fat tree), and 18% smaller than the least expensive (a double ring). Moreover, our method produces topologies that outperform those produced by others by 1.21× while being 25% smaller.
Essays on the determinants of prosocial behavior in Singapore

Previous research has sought to explain why people engage in prosocial behavior and undertake activities that are costly to themselves and mostly benefit others, such as volunteering and donating. My dissertation comprises three essays that collectively explore the determinants of prosocial behavior and leverages insights from behavioral economics to design interventions to nudge people to behave more prosocially. The first essay is an observational study that examines how rapid demographic changes reduced informal volunteering but not formal volunteering in Singapore. The findings suggest that structural factors such as racial diversification and the availability of institutions that promote inclusiveness could be more important than individual-level characteristics in explaining prosocial behavior. The second essay is a field experiment that explores how tailoring messages to resonate with peoples’ underlying motivations for volunteering can increase their likelihood of actually volunteering. The third essay examines how behavioral modifications to public engagement campaigns can increase their e↵ectiveness in changing behaviors. Overall, the second and third essays suggest that actual volunteering behavior is the realization of interactions between innate propensities to volunteer and situational factors. For example, non-volunteers might have a lower predisposition for volunteering compared to current volunteers, but they can still be nudged to volunteer if exposed to the appropriate type of messaging. Similarly, individuals with high prosocial tendencies might never get around to volunteering because they procrastinate or possess time-inconsistent preferences. We therefore have to account for situational factors in order to develop a complete understanding of why people behave prosocially.
Apolipoprotein e polymorphism in ischemic stroke patients with different pathogenetic origins.

BACKGROUND The association of apolipoprotein E (apoE) polymorphism with interindividual variability of serum lipid concentrations and the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis is inconclusive. This study was performed to explore the associations of apoE with lipid concentrations and ischemic stroke in patients with large artery atherosclerosis (LAA) subgroup or without atherosclerotic vascular lesions (small artery occlusion, SAO) subgroup through a case-control study among the Korean population. METHODS The ischemic stroke group (n=194) was subdivided into an LAA subgroup (n=112) and a SAO without atherosclerotic lesion subgroup (n=82). An age-matched healthy control group (n=168) was recruited. Serum lipid concentrations were measured and apoE genotypes were determined by real-time PCR and melting curve analysis with the LightCycler (Roche Diagnostics). RESULTS The frequency of the epsilon4 carriers was significantly higher in the ischemic stroke group (22.7%) than in the control group (11.9%) (P=0.01). However, the frequency of epsilon4 carriers showed no difference between the LAA and SAO subgroups (22.3% vs 23.2%, P=0.89). The adjusted low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLc) concentration was significantly higher in ischemic stroke group than in control group (P=0.04), but showed no significant differences in all lipid concentrations between the LAA and SAO subgroups. LDLc concentrations were lower in epsilon2 carriers than in epsilon3 and epsilon4 alleles, but showed no difference between the epsilon4 carriers and epsilon3 allele. CONCLUSIONS Although there was an association between the epsilon4 allele and ischemic stroke and between the LDLc concentration and ischemic stroke, there was no significant difference in the lipid concentrations and distribution of apoE genotypes between the LAA and SAO subgroups. Therefore, the epsilon4 allele may have different effects on the ischemic stroke that are independent of the atherosclerotic mechanism by high LDLc concentration.
Mba1, a Novel Component of the Mitochondrial Protein Export Machinery of the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The biogenesis of mitochondria requires the integration of many proteins into the inner membrane from the matrix side. The inner membrane protein Oxa1 plays an important role in this process. We identified Mba1 as a second mitochondrial component that is required for efficient protein insertion. Like Oxa1, Mba1 specifically interacts both with mitochondrial translation products and with conservatively sorted, nuclear-encoded proteins during their integration into the inner membrane. Oxa1 and Mba1 overlap in function and substrate specificity, but both can act independently of each other. We conclude that Mba1 is part of the mitochondrial protein export machinery and represents the first component of a novel Oxa1-independent insertion pathway into the mitochondrial inner membrane.
An exploratory study of student affairs professionals' conceptualization of adulthood

Title of Document: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF STUDENT AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS‟ CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ADULTHOOD Jennifer Meyers Pickard, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Directed By: Professor Susan R. Komives, Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education This study used the conceptualization of emerging adulthood (a newly proposed phase in the lifespan that is attributed to demographic and societal shifts extending the time period in which young people feel as if they are in-between and neither adolescent nor adult) to examine student affairs professionals‟ perceptions of college student adulthood. Specifically, the research questions examined differences by generational status (Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial) on the importance of the 34 individual criteria that comprise adulthood (Arnett, 2001; Badger et al., 2006; Nelson et al., 2007) and the importance of these criteria when grouped into the five subscales of emerging adulthood: role transitions, norm compliance, biological/age-related factors, family capacities, and relational maturity. An online survey of student affairs professionals produced 654 respondents. Results from statistical analysis indicated that the most important criteria for student affairs professionals in determining whether or not a person has reached adulthood are accepting responsibility for the consequences of one's actions, developing greater consideration for others, becoming less self-oriented, being financially independent from parents/guardians, and establishing a relationship with parents as an equal adult. Overall, generational status did not result in dramatic differences in student affairs professionals‟ conceptualizations of adulthood. Regardless of their generational status, almost half (46%) of the student affairs professionals in this investigation did not believe that traditional undergraduates just entering college were adults but when these same students graduate, almost three-quarters (72%) of the student affairs professionals respondents believed that the traditional students were full-fledged adults. Findings confirmed that student affairs professionals‟ criteria for adulthood are similar to those of traditional college students and parents (Nelson et al., 2007), but also revealed a significant disconnect in the timeline that student affairs professionals deemed necessary for the achievement of adulthood as compared to traditional college students and their parents. These results have implications for both higher education research and professional practice as they highlight the conflicting expectations of students and parents as compared to student affairs professionals and higher education as a whole regarding the role that the college milieu plays in the achievement of adulthood. AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF STUDENT AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS‟ CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ADULTHOOD
Comparing Sound Localization Deficits in Bilateral Cochlear-Implant Users and Vocoder Simulations With Normal-Hearing Listeners

Bilateral cochlear-implant (BiCI) users are less accurate at localizing free-field (FF) sound sources than normal-hearing (NH) listeners. This performance gap is not well understood but is likely due to a combination of compromises in acoustic signal representation by the two independent speech processors and neural degradation of auditory pathways associated with a patient’s hearing loss. To exclusively investigate the effect of CI speech encoding on horizontal-plane sound localization, the present study measured sound localization performance in NH subjects listening to vocoder processed and nonvocoded virtual acoustic space (VAS) stimuli. Various aspects of BiCI stimulation such as independently functioning devices, variable across-ear channel selection, and pulsatile stimulation were simulated using uncorrelated noise (Nu), correlated noise (N0), or Gaussian-enveloped tone (GET) carriers during vocoder processing. Additionally, FF sound localization in BiCI users was measured in the same testing environment for comparison. Distinct response patterns across azimuthal locations were evident for both listener groups and were analyzed using a multilevel regression analysis. Simulated implant speech encoding, regardless of carrier, was detrimental to NH localization and the GET vocoder best simulated BiCI FF performance in NH listeners. Overall, the detrimental effect of vocoder processing on NH performance suggests that sound localization deficits may persist even for BiCI patients who have minimal neural degradation associated with their hearing loss and indicates that CI speech encoding plays a significant role in the sound localization deficits experienced by BiCI users.
A virtual environment with haptic feedback for better distance estimation

This demonstration will show how a small number of wearable tactors can improve the suitability of a multimodal system for engineering design. It is well reported in the scientific literature that depth perception in virtual reality is inaccurate, yet users of VR need a high-fidelity experience in several applications, including engineering, in this case so that decisions are made based on the true design intent. The tactors' vibration in this demonstration is reconfigurable to create various vibration effects, for example: frequency value ranging from 261.0 to 523.0Hz, delay (from 3830 to 1920 microseconds) and repeat effects. The avatar can be rescaled so that decision makers can experience the design from the perspective of different percentile users. We developed an integrated full-body and finger kinematics based on a combination of Microsoft Kinect and Leap Motion (LM). We explored the collider system and examined Oriented Bounding Box (OBB) and skin mesh-based colliders. We demonstrate the ways in which low-cost technologies can be appropriated to develop a wearable and usable system that offers improvements to engineering design.
The Role of Design Characteristics in Enhancing Social Presence

This paper reports on a study that examined the effects of two design characteristics on enhancing perceptions of an online virtual advisor’s social presence. Anchored in the media richness theory (Daft and Lengel, 1984), we hypothesized, and the results confirmed that the use of expressive speech acts by the virtual advisor significantly enhances perceptions of the advisor’s social presence. On the other hand, the effects of endowing the advisor with a humanoid representation and a human voice failed to reach statistical significance. The results of this study suggest that internal characteristics manifested by the advisor are more influential in affecting perceptions of its social presence.