Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Co-designing online privacy-related games and stories with children

Children ages 8--12 spend nearly six hours per day with digital content, but they receive little formal instruction related to managing privacy online. In this study, we explore how games and storytelling can inform the development of resources to help children learn about privacy online. We present results from three co-design sessions with a university-based intergenerational design team that included eight children ages 8--11. During these sessions, we reviewed existing privacy resources with children and elicited design ideas for new resources. Our findings yield several recommendations for designers. Specifically, online privacy-focused educational resources should: (1) include relatable elements such as familiar characters and easily understandable storylines, (2) go beyond instructing children through "dos and don'ts" and equip children to make privacy-related decisions, and (3) expose children to a range of privacy consequences, highlighting the positive and negative outcomes that can result from disclosing and managing information online.
Household Food Insecurity as a Predictor of Stunted Children and Overweight/Obese Mothers (SCOWT) in Urban Indonesia

(1) Background: The double burden of malnutrition has been increasing in countries experiencing the nutrition transition. This study aimed to determine the relationship between household food insecurity and the double burden of malnutrition, defined as within-household stunted child and an overweight/obese mother (SCOWT). (2) Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in the urban city of Surabaya, Indonesia in April and May 2015. (3) Results: The prevalence of child stunting in urban Surabaya was 36.4%, maternal overweight/obesity was 70.2%, and SCOWT was 24.7%. Although many households were food secure (42%), there were high proportions of mild (22.9%), moderate (15.3%) and severe (19.7%) food insecurity. In a multivariate logistic regression, the household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS) category significantly correlated with child stunting and SCOWT. Compared to food secure households, mildly food insecure households had the greatest odds of SCOWT (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.789; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.540–5.083), followed by moderately food insecure (aOR = 2.530; 95% CI = 1.286–4.980) and severely food insecure households (aOR = 2.045; 95% CI = 1.087–3.848). (4) Conclusions: These results support the hypothesis that the double burden of malnutrition is related to food insecurity, and the HFIAS category is a predictor of SCOWT.
Effect of routine repeat transurethral resection for superficial bladder cancer: a long-term observational study.

PURPOSE We determined the long-term outcome in patients with superficial bladder cancer (Ta and T1) undergoing routine second transurethral bladder tumor resection (ReTURB) in regard to recurrence and progression. MATERIALS AND METHODS We performed an inception cohort study of 124 consecutive patients with superficial bladder cancer undergoing transurethral resection and routine ReTURB (83) between November 1993 and October 1995 at a German university hospital. Immediately after transurethral resection all lesions were documented on a designed bladder map. ReTURB of the scar from initial resection and other suspicious lesions was performed at a mean of 7 weeks. Patients were followed until recurrence or death, or a minimum of 5 years. RESULTS Residual tumor was found in 33% of all ReTURB cases, including 27% of Ta and 53% of T1 disease, and in 81% at the initial resection site. Five of the 83 patients underwent radical cystectomy due to ReTURB findings. The estimated risk of recurrence after years 1 to 3 was 18%, 29% and 32%, respectively. After 5 years 63% of the patients undergoing ReTURB were still disease-free (mean recurrence-free survival 62 months, median 87). Progression to muscle invasive disease was observed in only 2 patients (3%) after a mean observation of 61 months. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest a favorable outcome regarding recurrence and progression in patients with superficial bladder cancer who undergo ReTURB. ReTURB is suggested at least in those at high risk when bladder preservation is intended.
The RNA-Binding Protein TIA-1 Is a Novel Mammalian Splicing Regulator Acting through Intron Sequences Adjacent to a 5′ Splice Site

ABSTRACT Splicing of the K-SAM alternative exon of the fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 gene is heavily dependent on the U-rich sequence IAS1 lying immediately downstream from its 5′ splice site. We show that IAS1 can activate the use of several heterologous 5′ splice sites in vitro. Addition of the RNA-binding protein TIA-1 to splicing extracts preferentially enhances the use of 5′ splice sites linked to IAS1. TIA-1 can provoke a switch to use of such sites on pre-mRNAs with competing 5′ splice sites, only one of which is adjacent to IAS1. Using a combination of UV cross-linking and specific immunoprecipitation steps, we show that TIA-1 binds to IAS1 in cell extracts. This binding is stronger if IAS1 is adjacent to a 5′ splice site and is U1 snRNP dependent. Overexpression of TIA-1 in cultured cells activates K-SAM exon splicing in an IAS1-dependent manner. If IAS1 is replaced with a bacteriophage MS2 operator, splicing of the K-SAM exon can no longer be activated by TIA-1. Splicing can, however, be activated by a TIA-1–MS2 coat protein fusion, provided that the operator is close to the 5′ splice site. Our results identify TIA-1 as a novel splicing regulator, which acts by binding to intron sequences immediately downstream from a 5′ splice site in a U1 snRNP-dependent fashion. TIA-1 is distantly related to the yeast U1 snRNP protein Nam8p, and the functional similarities between the two proteins are discussed.
The Beck Cognitive Insight Scale in Outpatients with Psychotic Disorders: Further Evidence from a French-Speaking Sample

Objective: The Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS) evaluates patients' self-report of their ability to detect and correct misinterpretation. Our study aims to confirm the factor structure and the convergent validity of the original scale in a French-speaking environment. Method: Outpatients (n = 158) suffering from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders fulfilled the BCIS. The 51 patients in Montpellier were equally assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) by a psychiatrist who was blind of the BCIS scores. Results: The fit indices of the confirmatory factor analysis validated the 2-factor solution reported by the developers of the scale with inpatients, and in another study with middle-aged and older outpatients. The BCIS composite index was significantly negatively correlated with the clinical insight item of the PANSS. Conclusions: The French translation of the BCIS appears to have acceptable psychometric proprieties and gives additional support to the scale, as well as cross-cultural validity for its use with outpatients suffering from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders. The correlation between clinical and composite index of cognitive insight underlines the multidimensional nature of clinical insight. Cognitive insight does not recover clinical insight but is a potential target for developing psychological treatments that will improve clinical insight.
A novel blind code synchronization scheme for DS-CDMA systems in multipath fading channels

We present a blind code synchronization scheme, referred to as the Capon algorithm, for DS (direct sequence) CDMA (code division multiple access) systems. The only required knowledge of the proposed scheme is the spreading code of the desired user, so that it is appealing for a decentralized implementation. The Capon algorithm can be used in frequency-flat or frequency-selective, time-invariant or time-varying fading channels; it is able to deal with colored channel noise and unknown interference of various origins, such as inter-cell interference and interference in cellular overlay systems. The Capon algorithm can be readily implemented using standard adaptive schemes, making it amenable to not only acquisition but tracking as well. An additional advantage enjoyed by Capon is that it does not need to know the number of active transmissions, a knowledge usually indispensable for some blind algorithms to function properly. Numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed Capon scheme.
Phenotypic Correlates of HIV-1 Macrophage Tropism

ABSTRACT HIV-1 is typically CCR5 using (R5) and T cell tropic (T-tropic), targeting memory CD4+ T cells throughout acute and chronic infections. However, viruses can expand into alternative cells types. Macrophage-tropic (M-tropic) HIV-1 variants have evolved to infect macrophages, which have only low levels of surface CD4. Most M-tropic variants have been isolated from the central nervous system during late-stage chronic infection. We used the HIV-1 env genes of well-defined, subject-matched M-tropic and T-tropic viruses to characterize the phenotypic features of the M-tropic Env protein. We found that, compared to T-tropic viruses, M-tropic viruses infect monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) on average 28-fold more efficiently, use low-density CD4 more efficiently, have increased sensitivity to soluble CD4 (sCD4), and show trends toward sensitivity to some CD4 binding site antibodies but no difference in sensitivity to antibodies targeting the CD4-bound conformation. M-tropic viruses also displayed a trend toward resistance to neutralization by monoclonal antibodies targeting the V1/V2 region of Env, suggesting subtle changes in Env protein conformation. The paired M- and T-tropic viruses did not differ in autologous serum neutralization, temperature sensitivity, entry kinetics, intrinsic infectivity, or Env protein incorporation. We also examined viruses with modestly increased CD4 usage. These variants have significant sensitivity to sCD4 and may represent evolutionary intermediates. CD4 usage is strongly correlated with infectivity of MDMs over a wide range of CD4 entry phenotypes. These data suggest that emergence of M-tropic HIV-1 includes multiple steps in which a phenotype of increased sensitivity to sCD4 and enhanced CD4 usage accompany subtle changes in Env conformation. IMPORTANCE HIV-1 typically replicates in CD4+ T cells. However, HIV-1 can evolve to infect macrophages, especially within the brain. Understanding how CCR5-using macrophage-tropic viruses evolve and differ from CCR5-using T cell-tropic viruses may provide insights into viral evolution and pathogenesis within the central nervous system. We characterized the HIV-1 env viral entry gene from subject-matched macrophage-tropic and T cell-tropic viruses to identify entry features of macrophage-tropic viruses. We observed several differences between T cell-tropic and macrophage-tropic Env proteins, including functional differences with host CD4 receptor engagement and possible changes in the CD4 binding site and V1/V2 region. We also identified viruses with phenotypes between that of “true” macrophage-tropic and T cell-tropic viruses, which may represent evolutionary intermediates in a multistep process to macrophage tropism.
Blood Thiols and Malondialdehyde Levels in Psoriasis

Forty patients with psoriasis and forty healthy controls were enrolled to study the levels of total blood thiols (an important part of the body's antioxidant defence system) and plasma malondialdehyde (a lipid peroxidation product). The levels of total blood thiols in psoriatic patients in the acute phase were significantly lower than those in controls, but total blood thiol levels in psoriatic patients in the remission phase were not significantly different from those in controls. There was a significant difference between levels of total blood thiols of patients in the acute phase and in remission. The levels of plasma MDA were significantly raised in psoriatic patients in the acute phase as compared to those in controls and in patients in remission. The differences in levels of plasma MDA were not significant between control subjects and patients in remission. These findings suggest a role of oxidative stress in the etiopathogenesis of psoriasis.
Participants’ experiences of music, mindful music, and audiobook listening interventions for people recovering from stroke

Existing research evidence suggests that both music listening and mindfulness interventions may have beneficial effects on mood and cognition poststroke. This mixed‐methods study, nested within a pilot randomized controlled trial investigating the feasibility and acceptability of combining music listening and brief mindfulness training poststroke, explored study participants’ experiences of engaging in the interventions. Fifty‐six stroke survivors who were randomized to receive an 8‐week intervention of mindful music listening (n = 15), music listening (n = 21), or audiobook listening (n = 20, control) using self‐selected material participated in a postintervention individual semistructured interview with a researcher not involved in their intervention delivery. Interview questions focused on affective, cognitive, and physical experiences. Data were coded and analyzed using thematic analysis. Across groups, listening was associated with positive distraction from thoughts and worries. Mindful music listening was most strongly associated with relaxation and concentration, improved attentional control, and emotion regulation, as well as enjoyment. Music listening was most strongly associated with increased activity, memory reminiscence, and improved mood. In addition, participants provided valuable feedback on intervention feasibility and acceptability. The findings suggest that the interventions were feasible and enjoyable for people recovering from stroke.
cdc2 Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Binds and Phosphorylates Herpes Simplex Virus 1 UL42 DNA Synthesis Processivity Factor

ABSTRACT Earlier studies have shown that cdc2 kinase is activated during herpes simplex virus 1 infection and that its activity is enhanced late in infection even though the levels of cyclin A and B are decreased below levels of detection. Furthermore, activation of cdc2 requires the presence of infected cell protein no. 22 and the UL13 protein kinase, the same gene products required for optimal expression of a subset of late genes exemplified by US11, UL38, and UL41. The possibility that the activation of cdc2 and expression of this subset may be connected emerged from the observation that dominant negative cdc2 specifically blocked the expression of US11 protein in cells infected and expressing dominant negative cdc2. Here we report that in the course of searching for a putative cognate partner for cdc2 that may have replaced cyclins A and B, we noted that the DNA polymerase processivity factor encoded by the UL42 gene contains a degenerate cyclin box and has been reported to be structurally related to proliferating cell nuclear antigen, which also binds cdk2. Consistent with this finding, we report that (i) UL42 is able to physically interact with cdc2 at both the amino-terminal and carboxyl-terminal domains, (ii) the carboxyl-terminal domain of UL42 can be phosphorylated by cdc2, (iii) immunoprecipitates obtained with anti UL42 antibody contained a roscovitine-sensitive kinase activity, (iv) kinase activity associated with UL42 could be immunodepleted by antibody to cdc2, and (v) UL42 transfected into cells associates with a nocodazole-enhanced kinase. We conclude that UL42 can associate with cdc2 and that the kinase activity has the characteristic traits of cdc2 kinase.
Massively Parallel Nanorobotics for Lithography and Data Storage

Nanometer-scale structures and devices can be constructed by using the tip of a scanning probe microscope (SPM) as a robot. The tip manipulates nanocomponents to build assemblies, or induces material deposition to form patterns on a substrate. Fabrication by SPM methods has severe throughput problems, which can be solved by using arrays of tips built by MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) technology, in conjunction with the strategies and algorithms presented in this paper. Massively parallel methods are described here for writing and reading nanometer-scale patterns of lines or dots, or for manipulating nanoparticles with arrays of SPM tips. The tip array moves as a whole in the x, y plane of the substrate, and does not require individual x, y drives and controllers for the individual tips. Applications to nanolithography are discussed, as well as a microelectromechanical storage device, analogous to a compact disc (CD) on a chip, and called an editable nanoCD. NanoCDs can be read and edited by the tip-array methods presented here, and have bit densities and reading speeds that are several orders of magnitude higher than those of current CDs.
Bacillaene and Sporulation Protect Bacillus subtilis from Predation by Myxococcus xanthus

ABSTRACT Myxococcus xanthus and Bacillus subtilis are common soil-dwelling bacteria that produce a wide range of secondary metabolites and sporulate under nutrient-limiting conditions. Both organisms affect the composition and dynamics of microbial communities in the soil. However, M. xanthus is known to be a predator, while B. subtilis is not. A screen of various prey led to the finding that M. xanthus is capable of consuming laboratory strains of B. subtilis, while the ancestral strain, NCIB3610, was resistant to predation. Based in part on recent characterization of several strains of B. subtilis, we were able to determine that the pks gene cluster, which is required for production of bacillaene, is the major factor allowing B. subtilis NCIB3610 cells to resist predation by M. xanthus. Furthermore, purified bacillaene was added exogenously to domesticated strains, resulting in resistance to predation. Lastly, we found that M. xanthus is incapable of consuming B. subtilis spores even from laboratory strains, indicating the evolutionary fitness of sporulation as a survival strategy. Together, the results suggest that bacillaene inhibits M. xanthus predation, allowing sufficient time for development of B. subtilis spores.
Deep Differential Coding for High-Resolution Remote Sensing Scene Classification

Scene classification is one of critical tasks in the interpretation of high-resolution remote sensing (HRRS) imagery. Most of the existing methods focus on learning efficient feature representations. Recently, deep convolutional neural network (CNN) shows its effectiveness in extracting feature of images, which is widely used in remote sensing. In this paper, we propose a novel feature representation method which called deep differential coding (DDC) for remote sensing scene classification. Firstly, we get convolutional feature maps from image using the pre-trained CNN model. Then, the dense features are encoded through our proposed differential coding (DC). Finally, features are obtained by max-pooling and sum-pooling. We extract features from the whole remote sensing image and object region of every image by our proposed DDC and the final global feature is the combination of two kinds of features. We have performed extensive experiments on two public datasets and the results demonstrate that our proposed method has an excellent performance compared with state-of-the-art methods.
How to end password reuse on the web

We present a framework by which websites can coordinate to make it difficult for users to set similar passwords at these websites, in an effort to break the culture of password reuse on the web today. Though the design of such a framework is fraught with risks to users' security and privacy, we show that these risks can be effectively mitigated through careful scoping of the goals for such a framework and through principled design. At the core of our framework is a private set-membership-test protocol that enables one website to determine, upon a user setting a password for use at it, whether that user has already set a similar password at another website, but with neither side disclosing to the other the password(s) it employs in the protocol. Our framework then layers over this protocol a collection of techniques to mitigate the leakage necessitated by such a test. These mechanisms are consistent with common user experience today, and so our framework should be unobtrusive to users who do not reuse similar passwords across websites (e.g., due to having adopted a password manager). Through a working implementation of our framework and optimization of its parameters based on insights of how passwords tend to be reused, we show that our design can meet the scalability challenges facing such a service.
Distinguishing the Roles of Dorsolateral and Anterior PFC in Visual Metacognition

Visual metacognition depends on regions within the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Two areas in particular have been implicated repeatedly: the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and the anterior PFC (aPFC). However, it is still unclear what the function of each of these areas is and how they differ from each other. To establish the specific roles of DLPFC and aPFC in metacognition, we used online transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to interfere causally with their functioning during confidence generation. Human subjects from both sexes performed a perceptual decision making and provided confidence ratings. We found a clear dissociation between the two areas: DLPFC TMS lowered confidence ratings, whereas aPFC TMS increased metacognitive ability, but only for the second half of the experimental blocks. These results support a functional architecture in which DLPFC reads out the strength of the sensory evidence and relays it to aPFC, which makes the confidence judgment by potentially incorporating additional, nonperceptual information. Indeed, simulations from a model that incorporates these putative DLPFC and aPFC functions reproduced our behavioral results. These findings establish DLPFC and aPFC as distinct nodes in a metacognitive network and suggest specific contributions from each of these regions to confidence generation. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to be critical for metacognition. Two of its subregions, the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and the anterior PFC (aPFC), have been specifically implicated in confidence generation. However, it is unclear whether these regions have distinct functions related to the underlying metacognitive computation. Using a causal intervention with transcranial magnetic stimulation, we demonstrate that DLPFC and aPFC have dissociable contributions: targeting DLPFC decreased average confidence ratings, whereas targeting aPFC affected metacognitive scores specifically. Based on these results, we postulated specific functions for DLPFC and aPFC in metacognitive computation and corroborated them using a computational model that reproduced our results. Our causal results reveal the existence of a specialized modular organization in PFC for confidence generation.