Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seeing through Deception: A Computational Approach to Deceit Detection in Written Communication

The present paper addresses the question of the nature of deception language. Specifically, the main aim of this piece of research is the exploration of deceit in Spanish written communication. We have designed an automatic classifier based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) for the identification of deception in an ad hoc opinion corpus. In order to test the effectiveness of the LIWC2001 categories in Spanish, we have drawn a comparison with a Bag-of-Words (BoW) model. The results indicate that the classification of the texts is more successful by means of our initial set of variables than with the latter system. These findings are potentially applicable to areas such as forensic linguistics and opinion mining, where extensive research on languages other than English is needed.
H 2 Regulation Performance Limitations for SIMO Linear Time-invariant Feedback Control Systems : A Unified Approach

In this paper, we investigate the regulation properties pertaining to single-input multiple-output (SIMO) linear time-invariant (LTI) systems, in which the objective function of regulated response is minimized jointly with the control effort. We provide analytical closed-form expressions of the best achievable H2 optimal regulation performances against impulsive disturbance inputs for unstable/non-minimum phase continuous-time and discrete-time systems. We also modify the latter results by means the delta operator and show the continuity property, i.e., we show that the continuous-time solution can be completely recovered when the sampling period tends to zero in the delta-domain solution. We then apply the results to a magnetic bearing system and discuss relations between the sensor selection and the best achievable H2 performances.
Promoting Learning Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education: Factors of Success

This article presents results of a study on factors that contribute to successful learning outcomes assessment practices. This qualitative study uses the case study method to analyze factors of success in higher education programs. Interviews of faculty members reveal that factors such as communication, implementing assessment as a change initiative, and using a learning community approach are identified by study participants as the main facilitators of success.
Selecting a Reading Intervention Program for Struggling Readers: A Case Study of an Urban District

Reading intervention programs provide the foundation for the educational success of students, especially those who are considered struggling readers. States across the country recently implemented legislation related to reading achievement, in which districts are required to provide specific literacy interventions to struggling readers in order to prevent retention. The choice in reading instructional programs has long-term impact on the future of students, as it is these programs that determine the need for retention in response to this legislation. This research study examines the factors that affect the decision of an urban district in selecting a reading intervention program to support struggling readers. The primary data sources include interviews and observations of two teachers who have chosen different reading intervention programs within the district. This study provides insights into schools currently affected by this policy and how they are choosing to respond to the new demands. The research question is: What factors influence an urban school district's decision about specific reading instruction programs for struggling readers in response to state legislation requirements?
How Foreign Participation and Market Concentration Impact Bank Spreads: Evidence from Latin America

Increasing foreign participation and high concentration levels characterize the recent evolution of banking sectors' market structures in developing countries. We analyze the impact of these factors on Latin American bank spreads during the late 1990s. Our results suggest that foreign banks were able to charge lower spreads relative to domestic banks. This was more so for de novo foreign banks than for those that entered through acquisitions.The overall level of foreign bank participation seemed to influence spreads indirectly, primarily through its effect on administrative costs. Bank concentration was positively and directly related to both higher spreads and costs.
TIME-FREQUENCY AVERAGING OF NOISE COMPENSATION FILTERS FOR ASR

In this paper we show that time-frequency averaging of noise compensation filters, estimated using well-known techniques such as spectral subtraction, Wiener filtering and Ephraim-Malah approach, improves the performance of automatic speech recognition system in non-stationary noisy environments. The experiments were conducted on a multilingual isolated word recognition task in signal to noise ratio ranging from 5dB to 20dB and clean conditions.
The relationship between diversification and firm's performance. Is there really a causal relationships?

Firm's boundaries have been one of the central questions in several research domains, but it is possible to affirm that a definitive consensus has not been reached to determine the relationship between diversification and firm's performance. We study this relationship according to the main empirical finding in strategy and finance but controlling for the persistence of abnormal returns. Through longitudinal studies, using both accounting and market indicators, we conclude that this relationship is not causal but attributable to factors other than the degree of relatedness among business units and the degree of efficiency of the internal capital market. The persistence of abnormal returns has a grater explanatory power: we find that some diversified firms persistently create shareholder value, beat the market index and have lower market volatility, while others persistently reach opposite results. Moreover, we find that higher performance is associated with an unrelated portfolio of business segments.
In Vivo, Villin Is Required for Ca2+-Dependent F-Actin Disruption in Intestinal Brush Borders

Villin is an actin-binding protein localized in intestinal and kidney brush borders. In vitro, villin has been demonstrated to bundle and sever F-actin in a Ca2+-dependent manner. We generated knockout mice to study the role of villin in vivo. In villin-null mice, no noticeable changes were observed in the ultrastructure of the microvilli or in the localization and expression of the actin-binding and membrane proteins of the intestine. Interestingly, the response to elevated intracellular Ca2+ differed significantly between mutant and normal mice. In wild-type animals, isolated brush borders were disrupted by the addition of Ca2+, whereas Ca2+ had no effect in villin-null isolates. Moreover, increase in intracellular Ca2+ by serosal carbachol or mucosal Ca2+ ionophore A23187 application abolished the F-actin labeling only in the brush border of wild-type animals. This F-actin disruption was also observed in physiological fasting/refeeding experiments. Oral administration of dextran sulfate sodium, an agent that causes colonic epithelial injury, induced large mucosal lesions resulting in a higher death probability in mice lacking villin, 36 ± 9.6%, compared with wild-type mice, 70 ± 8.8%, at day 13. These results suggest that in vivo, villin is not necessary for the bundling of F-actin microfilaments, whereas it is necessary for the reorganization elicited by various signals. We postulate that this property might be involved in cellular plasticity related to cell injury.
Optimal planning strategy among various arc arrangements for prostate stereotactic body radiotherapy with volumetric modulated arc therapy technique

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to determine the optimal strategy among various arc arrangements in prostate plans of stereotactic body radiotherapy with volumetric modulated arc therapy (SBRT-VMAT). Patients and methods To investigate how arc arrangements affect dosimetric and biological metrics, SBRT-VMAT plans for eighteen patients were generated with arrangements of single-full arc (1FA), single-partial arc (1PA), double-full arc (2FA), and double-partial arc (2PA). All plans were calculated by the Acuros XB calculation algorithm. Dosimetric and radiobiological metrics for target volumes and organs at risk (OARs) were evaluated from dosevolume histograms. Results All plans were highly conformal (CI<1.05, CN=0.91) and homogeneous (HI=0.09-0.12) for target volumes. For OARs, there was no difference in the bladder dose, while there was a significant difference in the rectum and both femoral head doses. Plans using 1PA and 2PA showed a strong reduction to the mean rectum dose compared to plans using 1FA and 2FA. Contrastively, the D2% and mean dose in both femoral heads were always lower in plans using 1FA and 2FA. The average tumor control probability and normal tissue complication probability were comparable in plans using all arc arrangements. Conclusions The use of 1PA had a more effective delivery time and produced equivalent target coverage with better rectal sparing, although all plans using four arc arrangements showed generally similar for dosimetric and biological metrics. However, the D2% and mean dose in femoral heads increased slightly and remained within the tolerance. Therefore, this study suggests that the use of 1PA is an attractive choice for delivering prostate SBRT-VMAT.
After a Long March: the Results of Two Decades of Rural Restructuring in Hungary

Abstract This paper aims to show the main processes of rural restructuring of Hungary after the change of political system and EU integration. It describes the changes of agricultural land-use, new dynamics of urban rural relations and rural development of the last 25 years. In the paper, we argue that the most dynamic changes happened in the era of post-communism, ended by EU-accession and the era of consolidation. A characteristic phenomenon of these changes was the urban demand for providing facilities related to rural landscape and culture. Therefore, permanent and temporary migrations into rural areas have become the most important element of development for rural places in the last decades. The introduction of a new Europeanised rural development system has shaped these processes and reconfigured local power relations, economic and social networks. These turbulent changes occurred at the same time with the collapse of the socialist-type co-operative and state farm system, along with the restitution and reprivatisation of land, resulting in the concentration of land use and agricultural production. The paper aims at analysing these processes by discussing the dynamics of urban-rural relationships and the new rural development system, while the final part focuses on land-use changes and its impacts on rural society.
Draft Genome Sequence of Virulent Strain AUSTRAL-005 of Piscirickettsia salmonis, the Etiological Agent of Piscirickettsiosis

ABSTRACT We report here the draft genome sequence of a lethal pathogen of farmed salmonids, Piscirickettsia salmonis strain AUSTRAL-005. This virulent strain was isolated in 2008 from Oncorhynchus mykiss farms, and multiple genes involved in pathogenicity, environmental adaptation, and metabolic pathways were identified.
Biased Estimations of Variance and Skewness

Nonlinear combinations of direct observables are often used to estimate quantities of theoretical interest. Without sufficient caution, this could lead to biased estimations. An example of great interest is the skewness S3 of the galaxy distribution, defined as the ratio of the third moment ξ̄3 and the variance squared ξ̄22 smoothed at some scale R. Suppose one is given unbiased estimators for ξ̄3 and ξ̄22 , respectively; taking a ratio of the two does not necessarily result in an unbiased estimator of S3. Exactly such an estimation bias (distinguished from the galaxy bias) affects most existing measurements of S3 from galaxy surveys. Furthermore, common estimators for ξ̄3 and ξ̄2 suffer also from this kind of estimation bias themselves because of a division by the estimated mean counts in cell. In the case of ξ̄2, the bias is equivalent to what is commonly known as the integral constraint. We present a unifying treatment allowing all these estimation biases to be calculated analytically. These estimation biases are in general negative, and decrease in significance as the survey volume increases, for a given smoothing scale. We present a preliminary reanalysis of some existing measurements of the variance and skewness (from the APM, CfA, SSRS, and IRAS) and show that most of the well-known systematic discrepancies between surveys with similar selection criteria, but different sizes, can be attributed to the volume-dependent estimation biases. This affects the inference of the galaxy bias(es) from these surveys. Our methodology can be adapted to measurements of the variance and skewness of, for instance, the transmission distribution in quasar spectra and the convergence distribution in weak-lensing maps. We discuss generalizations to N > 3, suggest methods to reduce the estimation bias, and point out other examples in large-scale structure studies that might suffer from this type of a nonlinear estimation bias.
Additive interactions of unrelated viruses in mixed infections of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp)

This study was carried out to determine the effects of single infections and co-infections of three unrelated viruses on three cowpea cultivars (one commercial cowpea cultivar “White” and 2 IITA lines; IT81D-985 and TVu 76). The plants were inoculated with Cowpea aphid-borne mosaic virus (CABMV), genus Potyvirus, Cowpea mottle virus (CMeV), genus Carmovirus and Southern bean mosaic virus (SBMV), genus Sobemovirus singly and in mixture (double and triple) at 10, 20, and 30 days after planting (DAP). The treated plants were assessed for susceptibility to the viruses, growth, and yield. In all cases of infection, early inoculation resulted in higher disease severity compared with late infection. The virus treated cowpea plants were relatively shorter than buffer inoculated control plants except the IT81D-985 plants that were taller and produced more foliage. Single infections by CABMV, CMeV, and SBMV led to a complete loss of seeds in the three cowpea cultivars at 10 DAP; only cultivar White produced some seeds at 30 DAP. Double and triple virus infections led to a total loss of seeds in all three cowpea cultivars. None of the virus infected IITA lines produced any seeds except IT81D-985 plants co-infected with CABMV and SBMV at 30 DAP with a reduction of 80%. Overall, the commercial cultivar “White” was the least susceptible to the virus treatments and produced the most yield (flowers, pods, and seeds). CABMV was the most aggressive of these viruses and early single inoculations with this virus resulted in the premature death of some of the seedlings. The presence of the Potyvirus, CABMV in the double virus infections did not appear to increase disease severity or yield loss. There was no strong evidence for synergistic interactions between the viruses in the double virus mixtures.
Retrieval Processes Supporting Judgments of Recency

The circumstances under which different retrieval processes can support judgments about how long ago events occurred remain a matter of debate, as do the ways in which retrieved information can be employed in support of such judgments. In order to contribute to an understanding of the nature and number of distinct retrieval processes that support time judgments, event-related potentials (ERPs) were acquired during a continuous verbal memory task, where the lag between presentation and re-presentation of words was varied. Participants made judgments of recency (JORs), indicating the number of words that had intervened between presentation and re-presentation. Two spatially and temporally separable ERP effects predicted JORs, and the two effects bore correspondences with ERP modulations that have been linked to the processes of recollection and familiarity, suggesting that both of these processes contributed to JORs. The two effects predicting recency judgments also did so in the same way, with larger effects uniformly predicting shorter lag judgments. In so far as the sizes of the effects index memory strength, these findings are consistent with theoretical accounts of JORs where strength is employed heuristically: The more information recovered, the more recently the event occurred.
A novel far-red fluorescent xenograft model of ovarian carcinoma for preclinical evaluation of HER2-targeted immunotoxins

We have created a novel fluorescent model of a human ovarian carcinoma xenograft overexpressing receptor HER2, a promising molecular target of solid tumors. The model is based on a newly generated SKOV-kat cell line stably expressing far-red fluorescent protein Katushka. Katushka is most suitable for the in vivo imaging due to an optimal combination of high brightness and emission in the “window of tissue transparency”. The relevance of the fluorescent model for the in vivo monitoring of tumor growth and response to treatment was demonstrated using a newly created HER2-targeted recombinant immunotoxin based on the 4D5scFv antibody and a fragment of the Pseudomonas exotoxin A.
Trk signaling regulates neural precursor cell proliferation and differentiation during cortical development

Increasing evidence indicates that development of embryonic central nervous system precursors is tightly regulated by extrinsic cues located in the local environment. Here, we asked whether neurotrophin-mediated signaling through Trk tyrosine kinase receptors is important for embryonic cortical precursor cell development. These studies demonstrate that inhibition of TrkB (Ntrk2) and/or TrkC (Ntrk3) signaling using dominant-negative Trk receptors, or genetic knockdown of TrkB using shRNA, caused a decrease in embryonic precursor cell proliferation both in culture and in vivo. Inhibition of TrkB/C also caused a delay in the generation of neurons, but not astrocytes, and ultimately perturbed the postnatal localization of cortical neurons in vivo. Conversely, overexpression of BDNF in cortical precursors in vivo promoted proliferation and enhanced neurogenesis. Together, these results indicate that neurotrophin-mediated Trk signaling plays an essential, cell-autonomous role in regulating the proliferation and differentiation of embryonic cortical precursors and thus controls cortical development at earlier stages than previously thought.
Athabascan brainstem dysgenesis syndrome

We report a new disorder with diverse neurological problems resulting from abnormal brainstem function. Consistent features of this disorder, which we propose should be called the Atabascan brainstem dysgenesis syndrome, include horizontal gaze palsy, sensorineural deafness, central hypoventilation, and developmental delay. Other features seen in some patients include swallowing dysfunction, vocal cord paralysis, facial paresis, seizures, and cardiac outflow tract anomalies. All affected children described are of Athabascan Indian heritage, with eight children from the Navajo tribe and two patients who are of Apache background. The disorder can be distinguished from the Moebius syndrome by the pattern of central nervous system findings, especially the sensorineural deafness, horizontal gaze palsy, and central hypoventilation. Recognition of children with some features of Athabascan brainstem dysgenesis syndrome should prompt investigation for other related abnormalities. Published 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Neuronal Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptor Upregulation in Heart Failure: Activation of Activator Protein 1 and Jun N-Terminal Kinase

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a leading cause of mortality in developed countries. Angiotensin II (Ang II) plays an important role in the development and progression of CHF. Many of the important functions of Ang II are mediated by the Ang II type 1 receptor (AT1R), including the increase in sympathetic nerve activity in CHF. However, the central regulation of the AT1R in the setting of CHF is not well understood. This study investigated the AT1R in the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM) of rabbits with CHF, its downstream pathway, and its gene regulation by the transcription factor activator protein 1 (AP-1). Studies were performed in 5 groups of rabbits: sham (n=5), pacing-induced (3 to 4 weeks) CHF (n=5), CHF with intracerebroventricular (ICV) losartan treatment (n=5), normal with ICV Ang II treatment (n=5), and normal with ICV Ang II plus losartan treatment (n=5). AT1R mRNA and protein expressions, plasma Ang II, and AP-1–DNA binding activity were significantly higher in RVLM of CHF compared with Sham rabbits (240.4±30.2%, P<0.01; 206.6±25.8%, P<0.01; 280±36.5%, P<0.05; 207±16.4%, P<0.01, respectively). Analysis of the stress-activated protein kinase/Jun N-terminal kinase (SAPK/JNK) pathway showed that phosphorylated c-Jun proteins, phosphorylated JNK proteins, and JNK activity increased significantly in RVLM of CHF compared with sham (262.9±48.1%, 213.8±27.7%, 148.2±10.1% of control, respectively). Importantly, ICV losartan in CHF rabbits attenuated these increases. ICV Ang II in normal rabbits simulated the molecular changes seen in CHF. This effect was blocked by concomitant ICV losartan. In addition, Ang II–induced AT1R expression was blocked by losartan and a JNK inhibitor, but not by extracellular signal-regulated kinase or p38 MAP kinase inhibitors in a neuronal cell culture. These data suggest that central Ang II activates the AT1R, SAPK/JNK pathway. AP-1 may further regulate gene expression in RVLM in the CHF state.
Protein Backbone Reconstruction with Tool Preference Classification for Standard and Nonstandard Proteins

Given a protein sequence and the Cα coordinates on its backbone, the all-atom protein backbone reconstruction problem (PBRP) is to reconstruct the backbone by its 3D coordinates of N, C and O atoms. In the past few decades, many methods have been proposed for solving PBRP. Related research reveals that if proper prediction tools are selected to build the 3D coordinates of the desired atoms, the RMSD may be improved. In this paper, we propose a method for solving PBRP, performing tool preference classification on each atom of the residue, where the classification model is generated by support vector machine (SVM). We rebuild the backbone by combining the prediction results of all atoms in all residues. The data sets used in our experiments are CASP7, CASP8, and CASP9, which contain 65, 52, and 63 proteins, respectively. These data sets contain nonstandard amino acids along with standard ones. The RMSDs we achieve are 0.3496 in CASP7, 0.3084 in CASP8, and 0.3286 in CASP9. This research was partially supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan under contract NSC 100-2221E-242-003. This research was also partially supported by the “Project Digital Convergence Service Open Platform” of the Institute for Information Industry which is subsidized by the Ministry of Economy Affairs of the Republic of China. Corresponding author. E-mail: cbyang@cse.nsysu. edu.tw (Chang-Biau Yang).
Empirical Indoor-to-Outdoor Propagation Model for Residential Areas at 0.9–3.5 GHz

This letter introduces analytical expressions for the modeling of path loss and shadow fading in residential indoor-to-outdoor scenarios. The formulas have been calibrated using channel power measurements at the radio frequencies of common cellular systems and are thus suitable for channel modeling in femtocell networks. The expressions presented here can be used as a simple propagation model in system-level simulators (SLS), as well as for comparison to other models. Furthermore, its compact formulation simplifies its use for theoretical studies of two-tier networks, while its empirical nature strengthens its validity.