Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring tapping with thumb input for flexible tablets

Flexible displays offer new interaction techniques, such as bend gestures, but a little work has been done to support touch input, the most common input for handheld displays. In this paper, we explore touch input using the thumb of the holding hand, and compare it for different tapping tasks, between a flexible and a rigid tablet. We present initial design guidelines to use touch input with thumb in flexible devices. Our result suggests that users can perform tapping interaction using thumb input in both rigid and flexible devices with similar accuracy, and they prefer holding the display on the side or the bottom corner over the bottom center.
An interpretive review of selective sweep studies in Bos taurus cattle populations: identification of unique and shared selection signals across breeds

This review compiles the results of 21 genomic studies of European Bos taurus breeds and thus provides a general picture of the selection signatures in taurine cattle identified by genome-wide selection-mapping scans. By performing a comprehensive summary of the results reported in the literature, we compiled a list of 1049 selection sweeps described across 37 cattle breeds (17 beef breeds, 14 dairy breeds, and 6 dual-purpose breeds), and four different beef-vs.-dairy comparisons, which we subsequently grouped into core selective sweep (CSS) regions, defined as consecutive signals within 1 Mb of each other. We defined a total of 409 CSSs across the 29 bovine autosomes, 232 (57%) of which were associated with a single-breed (Single-breed CSSs), 134 CSSs (33%) were associated with a limited number of breeds (Two-to-Four-breed CSSs) and 39 CSSs (9%) were associated with five or more breeds (Multi-breed CSSs). For each CSS, we performed a candidate gene survey that identified 291 genes within the CSS intervals (from the total list of 5183 BioMart-extracted genes) linked to dairy and meat production, stature, and coat color traits. A complementary functional enrichment analysis of the CSS positional candidates highlighted other genes related to pathways underlying behavior, immune response, and reproductive traits. The Single-breed CSSs revealed an over-representation of genes related to dairy and beef production, this was further supported by over-representation of production-related pathway terms in these regions based on a functional enrichment analysis. Overall, this review provides a comparative map of the selection sweeps reported in European cattle breeds and presents for the first time a characterization of the selection sweeps that are found in individual breeds. Based on their uniqueness, these breed-specific signals could be considered as “divergence signals,” which may be useful in characterizing and protecting livestock genetic diversity.
The Development of Science-Based Products: Managing by Design Spaces

The design of science-based products (SBP) combines three main issues: exploring a functional space, producing scientific knowledge about key phenomena related to the concept and ensuring manageability of the project. Literature on the subject generally considers the three issues to be irreconcilable, on the grounds that a project involving functional exploration and phenomenological exploration is unmanageable. However, based on two SBP cases, we show that this apparent unmanageability is mainly a result of the lack of a relevant managerial model for the interpretation of the observations. We introduce the notion of ‘design space’ as a collective working place where designers can act to learn about what they want to learn (for their overall design process). We show that the design of an SBP is managed as a sequence of design spaces.
The Neural Basis of Temporal Order Processing in Past and Future Thought

Although growing evidence has shown that remembering the past and imagining the future recruit a common core network of frontal-parietal-temporal regions, the extent to which these regions contribute to the temporal dimension of autobiographical thought remains unclear. In this fMRI study, we focused on the event-sequencing aspect of time and examined whether ordering past and future events involve common neural substrates. Participants had to determine which of two past (or future) events occurred (or would occur) before the other, and these order judgments were compared with a task requiring to think about the content of the same past or future events. For both past and future events, we found that the left posterior hippocampus was more activated when establishing the order of events, whereas the anterior hippocampus was more activated when representing their content. Aside from the hippocampus, most of the brain regions that were activated when thinking about temporal order (notably the intraparietal sulcus, dorsolateral pFC, dorsal anterior cingulate, and visual cortex) lied outside the core network and may reflect the involvement of controlled processes and visuospatial imagery to locate events in time. Collectively, these findings suggest (a) that the same processing operations are engaged for ordering past events and planned future events in time, (b) that anterior and posterior portions of the hippocampus are involved in processing different aspects of autobiographical thought, and (c) that temporal order is not necessarily an intrinsic property of memory or future thought but instead requires additional, controlled processes.
Physiological responses and match analysis of Muay Thai fighting

This study was devised to measure certain physiological variables related to the energy requirement together with a match analysis during real Muay Thai matches. Twenty skilled male fighters were recruited and performed a laboratory incremental preliminary test to assess their maximum oxygen uptake and anaerobic threshold. They were then involved in real Muay Thai competitions. During matches heart rate (HR) and blood lactate (BLa) values were collected. Moreover, matches were filmed and analysed for subsequent determination of the techniques used. Differences between winners and losers were assessed. During matches HR was on average 178.9±0.3 bpm (i.e. close to the maximum level reached during the preliminary test), while BLa was 9.72±0.6 mmol•L-1. There was no difference in HR and BLa responses between winners and losers. Winners and losers used a similar number of techniques. However, the effectiveness of attacks was higher in winners. This investigation provides evidence that during Muay Thai the lactic anaerobic system is widely recruited and that the cardiovascular apparatus is highly stressed with no difference between winners and losers. Moreover, successful athletes use the same number of techniques as losers, although with greater effectiveness, thus indicating that the training strategy should aim at developing high technical skills.
Stability of blow-up profile and lower bounds for blow-up rate for the critical generalized KdV equation

The generalized Korteweg-de Vries equations are a class of Hamiltonian systems in infinite dimension derived from the KdV equation where the quadratic term is replaced by a higher order power term. These equations have two conservation laws in the energy space H 1 (L 2 norm and energy). We consider in this paper the critical generalized KdV equation, which corresponds to the smallest power of the nonlinearity such that the two conservation laws do not imply a bound in H 1 uniform in time for all H 1 solutions (and thus global existence). From [15], there do exist for this equation solutions u(t) such that |u(t)| H1 → +∞ as t ↑ T, where T < +∞ (we call them blow-up solutions). The question is to describe, in a qualitative way, how blow up occurs. For solutions with L 2 mass close to the minimal mass allowing blow up and with decay in L 2 at the right, we prove after rescaling and translation which leave invariant the L 2 norm that the solution converges to a universal profile locally in space at the blow-up time T. From the nature of this profile, we improve the standard lower bound on the blow-up rate for finite time blow-up solutions.
Towards Taming Privilege-Escalation Attacks on Android

Android's security framework has been an appealing subject of research in the last few years. Android has been shown to be vulnerable to application-level privilege escalation attacks, such as confused deputy attacks, and more recently, attacks by colluding applications. While most of the proposed approaches aim at solving confused deputy attacks, there is still no solution that simultaneously addresses collusion attacks. In this paper, we investigate the problem of designing and implementing a practical security framework for Android to protect against confused deputy and collusion attacks. We realize that defeating collusion attacks calls for a rather system-centric solution as opposed to application-dependent policy enforcement. To support our design decisions, we conduct a heuristic analysis of Android's system behavior (with popular apps) to identify attack patterns, classify different adversary models, and point out the challenges to be tackled. Then we propose a solution for a system-centric and policy-driven runtime monitoring of communication channels between applications at multiple layers: 1) at the middleware we control IPCs between applications and indirect communication via Android system components. Moreover, inspired by the approach in QUIRE, we establish semantic links between IPCs and enable the reference monitor to verify the call-chain; 2) at the kernel level we realize mandatory access control on the file system (including Unix domain sockets) and local Internet sockets. To allow for runtime, dynamic low-level policy enforcement, we provide a callback channel between the kernel and the middleware. Finally, we evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of our framework on known confused deputy and collusion attacks, and discuss future directions.
NUTRIENT ENHANCEMENT INCREASES PERFORMANCE OF A MARINE HERBIVORE VIA QUALITY OF ITS FOOD ALGA

Herbivore performance and reproductive output are expected to covary with qualitative changes in the host plant. The availability of nutrients may be especially important for the quality of algae as food through its effect on both primary and secondary metabolism and within-plant variation. We evaluated the effect of the nutrient enrichment of the brown alga Fucus vesiculosus on the fecundity, mass gain, intermolt duration, and food consumption of females of the herbivorous isopod Idotea baltica. We reared the isopods on algae grown either under enhanced nutrient conditions or as controls for the entire duration of the intermolt preceding mating and oviposition. The herbivores fed on nutrient-treated algae achieved higher growth rates, consumed more food, and laid more and larger eggs than the controls. The nutrient treatment increased the amount of insoluble sugars and reduced both the total carbon content in the alga and the physical toughness of the thallus. On the other hand, the treatment had no effect on the amount of total nitrogen or phlorotannins in the algal tissue. This implies that the clear increase in herbivore performance and fecundity may be due to quantitative changes in the carbohydrate metabolism rather than to the lower content of feeding deterrents in the tissue of F. vesiculosus. We suggest that eutrophication may potentially improve the quality of F. vesiculosus for herbivores. The reproductive success, growth, and food consumption of I. baltica increase on algae maintained in a nutrient-rich environment; this is likely to be reflected in herbivore density and grazing pressure. This in turn may have potential ecological consequences for the maintenance of viable F. vesiculosus belts, thereby contributing to the structure of littoral algal assemblages in marine ecosystems.
Circadian clock characteristics are altered in human thyroid malignant nodules.

CONTEXT The circadian clock represents the body's molecular time-keeping system. Recent findings revealed strong changes of clock gene expression in various types of human cancers. OBJECTIVE Due to emerging evidence on the connection between the circadian oscillator, cell cycle, and oncogenic transformation, we aimed to characterize the circadian clockwork in human benign and malignant thyroid nodules. DESIGN Clock transcript levels were assessed by quantitative RT-PCR in thyroid tissues. To provide molecular characteristics of human thyroid clockwork, primary thyrocytes established from normal or nodular thyroid tissue biopsies were subjected to in vitro synchronization with subsequent clock gene expression analysis by circadian bioluminescence reporter assay and by quantitative RT-PCR. RESULTS The expression levels of the Bmal1 were up-regulated in tissue samples of follicular thyroid carcinoma (FTC), and in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), as compared with normal thyroid and benign nodules, whereas Cry2 was down-regulated in FTC and PTC. Human thyrocytes derived from normal thyroid tissue exhibited high-amplitude circadian oscillations of Bmal1-luciferase reporter expression and endogenous clock transcripts. Thyrocytes established from FTC and PTC exhibited clock transcript oscillations similar to those of normal thyroid tissue and benign nodules (except for Per2 altered in PTC), whereas cells derived from poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma exhibited altered circadian oscillations. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study demonstrating a molecular makeup of the human thyroid circadian clock. Characterization of the thyroid clock machinery alterations upon thyroid nodule malignant transformation contributes to understanding the connections between circadian clocks and oncogenic transformation. Moreover, it might help in improving the thyroid nodule preoperative diagnostics.
Phosphate control over nitrogen metabolism in Streptomyces coelicolor: direct and indirect negative control of glnR, glnA, glnII and amtB expression by the response regulator PhoP

Bacterial growth requires equilibrated concentration of C, N and P sources. This work shows a phosphate control over the nitrogen metabolism in the model actinomycete Streptomyces coelicolor. Phosphate control of metabolism in Streptomyces is exerted by the two component system PhoR-PhoP. The response regulator PhoP binds to well-known PHO boxes composed of direct repeat units (DRus). PhoP binds to the glnR promoter, encoding the major nitrogen regulator as shown by EMSA studies, but not to the glnRII promoter under identical experimental conditions. PhoP also binds to the promoters of glnA and glnII encoding two glutamine synthetases, and to the promoter of the amtB-glnK-glnD operon, encoding an ammonium transporter and two putative nitrogen sensing/regulatory proteins. Footprinting analyses revealed that the PhoP-binding sequence overlaps the GlnR boxes in both glnA and glnII. ‘Information theory’ quantitative analyses of base conservation allowed us to establish the structure of the PhoP-binding regions in the glnR, glnA, glnII and amtB genes. Expression studies using luxAB as reporter showed that PhoP represses the above mentioned nitrogen metabolism genes. A mutant deleted in PhoP showed increased expression of the nitrogen metabolism genes. The possible conservation of phosphate control over nitrogen metabolism in other microorganisms is discussed.
The construction of human rights actorhood: Findings from the Korean General Social Survey

ABSTRACT This article investigates the sources of human rights “actorhood”—the extent to which people understand, support and implement human rights—by examining a novel human rights survey that was embedded in the 2011 Korean General Social Survey. My research uses ordinary-least-squares regression analyses to explore the factors that lead to individual differences in awareness and engagement. I employ four broad theoretical frameworks to explain the determinants of human rights orientations: realism, cultural factors, psychology, and world polity. My results suggest that multiple theoretical frameworks collectively contribute to a better grasp of what shapes human rights actorhood in South Korea. In particular, global polity and psychological elements have strong effects on awareness and engagement, while human rights education, religion, and socioeconomic factors have less of an effect than we might assume. This article emphasizes the importance of human agency, suggesting that the analysis of individual human rights orientations can help to bolster both awareness of and engagement in the global human rights movement.
Does Mood Change How We Organize Digital Files

Author(s): Massey, Charlotte | Advisor(s): Whittaker, Stephen J | Abstract: Retrieving files from one’s computer is done daily and is an essential part of completing most tasks at work, yet surprisingly little research has examined the ways that people structure and organize their files. Management of personal digital information is a challenging task that users approach idiosyncratically. Large individual differences have been observed in the types of hierarchies people generate to organize their digital files, and our understanding of these differences is still extremely limited. This thesis presents two studies testing whether some of these organizational differences can be attributed to changes in mood. Positive moods are associated with flexible and creative thinking styles, and negative mood with systematic and analytical processing. Throughout the day most individuals will experience a variety of emotions and fluctuations in mood. We predicted that these mood differences will modify how people organize their personal digital information. We explored this relationship between information management and mood by asking participants to complete an in-lab digital filing simulation after experiencing an emotionally charged stimulus. As predicted, sad participants made significantly more folders than happy participants, and there is a trending relationship between sad mood and deeper folder depth. However, we found no evidence to suggest that retrieval success was affected by either the mood induced during the initial file organization, the mood induced in the file retrieval task, or the relationship between organization and retrieval moods. In a follow up study, we explored the relationship between trait emotional tendencies and real world PIM strategies. We found no evidence that participants’ trait emotional tendencies were related to their average number folders or folder depth in their personal computer.
Catastrophic alpha quenching alleviated by helicity flux and shear

A new simulation set-up is proposed for studying mean field dynamo action. The model combines the computational advantages of local Cartesian geometry with the ability to include a shear profile that resembles the sun's differential rotation at low latitudes. It is shown that in a two-dimensional mean field model this geometry produces cyclic solutions with dynamo waves traveling away from the equator - as expected for a positive alpha effect in the northern hemisphere. In three dimensions with turbulence driven by a helical forcing function, an alpha effect is self-consistently generated in the presence of a finite imposed toroidal magnetic field. The results suggest that, due to a finite flux of current helicity out of the domain, alpha quenching appears to be non-catastrophic - at least for intermediate values of the magnetic Reynolds number. For larger values of the magnetic Reynolds number, however, there is evidence for a reversal of the trend and that α may decrease with increasing magnetic Reynolds number. Control experiments with closed boundaries confirm that in the absence of a current helicity flux, but with shear as before, alpha quenching is always catastrophic and alpha decreases inversely proportional to the magnetic Reynolds number. For solar parameters, our results suggest a current helicity flux of about 0.001 G 2 /s. This corresponds to a magnetic helicity flux, integrated over the northern hemisphere and over the 11 year solar cycle, of about 10 46 Mx 2 .
Reduced synthesis of the Ybt siderophore or production of aberrant Ybt-like molecules activates transcription of yersiniabactin genes in Yersinia pestis

Synthesis of the siderophore yersiniabactin (Ybt) proceeds by a mixed nonribosomal peptide synthetase/polyketide synthase mechanism. Transcription of ybt genes encoding biosynthetic and transport functions is repressed under excess iron conditions by Fur, but is also activated by Ybt via the transcriptional regulator YbtA. While mutations in most biosynthetic genes and ybtA negate transcription activation from the regulated promoters, three biosynthetic mutations do not reduce this transcriptional activation. Here we show that two of these mutants, one lacking the putative type II thioesterase (TE) YbtT and the other with a mutation in the TE domain of HMWP1, produce reduced levels of authentic Ybt that are capable of signalling activity. Alanine substitutions in two residues of YbtT that are essential for catalytic activity in other type II TEs reduced the ability of Yersinia pestis to grow under iron-chelated conditions. The third mutant, which lacks the salicylate synthase YbtS, did not make authentic Ybt but did produce a signalling molecule. Finally, a Δpgm strain of Y. pestis, which lacks essential Ybt biosynthetic genes, also produced a signalling molecule that can activate transcription of ybt genes. The non-Ybt signal molecules from these two mutants are likely separate compounds. While these compounds are not biologically relevant to normal Ybt regulation, a comparison of the structures of Ybt and other signalling molecules will help in determining the chemical structures recognized as a Ybt signal.
The T393C Polymorphism of the Gαs Gene (GNAS1) Is a Novel Prognostic Marker in Bladder Cancer

The G protein Gαs pathway is linked to proapoptotic signaling in cancer cell lines. To assess the role of the GNAS1 locus encoding Gαs as a genetic factor for disease progression of transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the bladder, we genotyped the synonymous T393C polymorphism in 254 patients with TCC (minor allele frequency: 0.43) to examine a potential association between genotypes and disease progression. Using Kaplan-Meier estimates to calculate 5-year probabilities of follow-up, we could show that progression-free survival, metastasis-free survival, and cancer-specific survival was significantly increased in TT genotypes (56%, 84%, 82%) compared with CC genotypes (35%, 53%, 58%). In multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis, the T393C polymorphism was an independent prognostic factor for clinical outcome. Homozygous CC patients were at highest risk for progression [odds ratio (OR), 1.94; P = 0.020], metastasis (OR, 3.49; P = 0.005), and tumor-related death (OR, 2.49; P = 0.031) compared with TT genotypes. Heterozygous patients had an intermediate risk compatible with a gene-dose effect. Real-time PCR analysis of urothelial tumor tissue as well as adipose and heart tissue revealed that Gαs mRNA expression was highest in TT genotypes, indicating a proapoptotic effect in these genotypes. In conclusion, the GNAS1 T393C status associated with differential Gαs mRNA expression is a novel independent prognostic marker for clinical outcome supporting a functional role of Gαs in bladder cancer progression.