Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Proteins Released by Neoplastic Prostate Epithelium

Prostate cancer is unusual among neoplasms in that it may be diagnosed at a curable stage through detection of a protein in serum, the serine protease prostate-specific antigen (PSA). PSA is secreted by both normal and neoplastic prostate epithelial cells in response to androgenic hormones and has found widespread use in cancer screening. Because PSA screening is controversial due to sensitivity and specificity issues, efforts continue to focus on the identification and characterization of additional markers that may be used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. In this study, we report the application of quantitative proteomic techniques that incorporate isotope coded affinity tag reagents and tandem mass spectrometry to comprehensively identify secreted and cell surface proteins from neoplastic prostate epithelium. LNCaP cells, a prostate tumor-derived cell line that secretes PSA in response to androgen exposure, were grown in a low protein-defined media under androgen-stimulated (A+) and -starved (A-) conditions. Proteomic analysis of the media identified in excess of 600 proteins, 524 of which could be quantified. Nine percent of the proteins had A+/A- ratios > 2.0, including PSA, and 2.5% had ratios < 0.5. A subset of these androgen-regulated proteins appeared to be expressed in abundance. Of these, selected mass spectrometry observations were confirmed by Western analysis. The findings suggest that androgen-mediated release of proteins may occur through the activation of proteolytic enzymes rather than exclusively through transcriptional or translational control mechanisms. On the basis of their known functional roles, several of the abundant androgen-regulated proteins may participate in the progression of neoplastic epithelial cell growth and should be considered as potential serum markers of neoplastic prostate diseases.
Effective Management of Irritable Bowel syndrome—the Manchester Model

Abstract Over the years, researchers have shown that hypnotherapy can be exceptionally helpful in the management of refractory irritable bowel syndrome. However, it is a labor-intensive modality with a finite success rate and is not suitable for everyone. It is therefore best incorporated into a program of graduated care that has a contingency plan for dealing with individuals who do not respond to this particular form of treatment. This paper describes how hypnotherapy has been successfully integrated into the functional gastroenterology service in Manchester.
Situated Plan Attribution for Intelligent Tutoring

Plan recognition techniques frequently make rigid assumptions about the student's plans, and invest substantial effort to infer unobservable properties of the student. The pedagogical benefits of plan recognition analysis are not always obvious. We claim that these difficulties can be overcome if greater attention is paid to the situational context of the student's activity and the pedagogical tasks which plan recognition is intended to support. This paper describes an approach to plan recognition called situated plan attribution that takes these factors into account. It devotes varying amounts of effort to the interpretation process, focusing the greatest effort on interpreting impasse points, i.e., points where the student encounters some difficulty completing the task. This approach has been implemented and evaluated in the context of the REACT tutor, a trainer for Operators of deep space communications stations.
Institute for Quantum Information Quantum Algorithms and Quantum Complexity

Quantum information science is an exciting emerging field that addresses how fundamental physical laws can be harnessed to dramatically improve the acquisition, transmission, and processing of information. The primary goal of the Institute for Quantum Information (IQI) is to carry out and facilitate research in quantum information science. Our research covers six broad areas: (1) Quantum algorithms that achieve speedups relative to classical algorithms, and limits on such algorithms. (2) Quantum cryptographic protocols, and other types of communication using quantum states. (3) Quantum entanglement and the theory of transformations among quantum states. (4) Protection of quantum information using quantum error correcting codes, fault tolerant protocols for quantum information processing, and control of quantum systems. (5) Theory and practice regarding physical implementations of quantum information processing. (6) Connections between quantum information science and other aspects of fundamental physics. Since our last annual report in May 2008, IQI participants have produced 37 publications, which we summarize here. Quantum Algorithms using the curvelet transform. The curvelet transform is a directional wavelet transform over R n. In [1], postdoc Yi-Kai Liu constructed an efficient implementation of a quantum curvelet transform, together with two applications to quantum algorithms: a single-shot measurement procedure for approximately finding the center of a ball in R n , given a single quantum sample over the ball, and a quantum algorithm for finding the center of a radial function over R n , given oracle access to the function. These algorithms are conjectured to succeed with constant probability, using one quantum sample and O(1) oracle queries, respectively, independent of the dimension n. In contrast, the best classical algorithm for approximately finding the center of a ball succeeds with probability exponentially small in n, and a classical algorithm for finding the center of a radial function requires Ω(n) queries. The conjectures are supported by rigorous proofs showing that the algorithms work in an idealized continuous model. Quantum and classical complexity of translationally-invariant tiling and Hamil-tonian problems. Long-term visitor Sandy Irani, with Gottesman, studied the computational 1
LONG TERM CONSISTENT GLOBAL GEOV1 AVHRR BIOPHYSICAL PRODUCTS

Long term global terrestrial vegetation monitoring from satellite Earth Observation system is a critical issue within global climate and earth science modeling applications. This contribution describes the algorithm and a first validation of the global LAI, FAPAR and FCOVER products derived from AVHRR Long Term Data Record (LTDR) for the 1981-2000 period within geoland2 project. GEOV1_AVHRR algorithm aims to ensure robustness and consistency of the derived biophysical products with the ones developed in the recent years, and particularly with the GEOV1_VGT products derived from SPOT/VGT sensor. The approach is based on the use of neural networks and dedicated temporal smoothing and gap filing techniques. The comparison of GEOV1_AVHRR with GEOV1_VGT and with similar products derived from AVHRR GIMMS shows that GEOV1_AVHRR outperforms the current existing products in terms of smoothness and continuity (fraction of valid data of 99.7%). At the same time, GEOV1_AVHRR shows high consistency with GEOV1_VGT and a similar accuracy (RMSE=0.80) as evaluated with ground-based observations. Combination of GEOV1_AVHRR and GEOV1_VGT realizes thus the objective of producing continuous and consistent time series of global observations of LAI, FAPAR and FCOVER for the last three decades. In the next months GEOV1_AVHRR products will be freely accessible at geoland2 portal at 0.05o spatial resolution and 10 days temporal sampling frequency.
Validation of an UV inversion algorithm using satellite and surface measurements

Ultraviolet radiation in the spectral region between 280 and 315 nm (often referred to as UV-B) is harmful to living organisms. Satellite-based estimation of surface UV-B supplements the sparsely distributed ground-based UV-B monitoring networks. This study is concerned with validation of an inversion algorithm [Li et al., this issue] for retrieving spectrally integrated UV-B (no spectral weighting) and erythemal UV (EUV) (with spectral weighting) fluxes at the surface from satellite. The physical inversion algorithm contains a few analytical expressions and input parameters: the solar zenith angle, ozone amount, albedo at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), and aerosol variables. The algorithm is applied to satellite measurements of total ozone amount and 360 nm reflectance from Meteor 3/TOMS and visible reflectance from NOAA/AVHRR. The retrieved UV-B and EUV fluxes are compared with ground UV observations made at six Canadian UV observation stations with Brewer instruments from 1992 to 1994. Under allsky conditions the comparisons showed very small mean differences and relatively large standard deviations (s.d.): 0.033 W/m 2 (mean) and 0.287 W/m 2 (s.d.) for total UV-B and 3.02 mW/m 2 (mean) and 12.0 mW/m 2 (s.d.) for EUV radiation. The large standard deviations are attributed to the inhomogeneity in sky condition and mobility of cloudy scenes, which renders an inaccurate match between satellite and surface measurements. The comparisons under clear-sky conditions showed very small mean and standard differences. By means of a running average over a period of time, satellite inversion can track the variation of surface-observed UV-B and EUV very well.
Release Planning of Mobile Apps Based on User Reviews

Developers have to to constantly improve their apps by fixing critical bugs and implementing the most desired features in order to gain shares in the continuously increasing and competitive market of mobile apps. A precious source of information to plan such activities is represented by reviews left by users on the app store. However, in order to exploit such information developers need to manually analyze such reviews. This is something not doable if, as frequently happens, the app receives hundreds of reviews per day. In this paper we introduce CLAP (Crowd Listener for releAse Planning), a thorough solution to (i) categorize user reviews based on the information they carry out (e.g., bug reporting), (ii) cluster together related reviews (e.g., all reviews reporting the same bug), and (iii) automatically prioritize the clusters of reviews to be implemented when planning the subsequent app release. We evaluated all the steps behind CLAP, showing its high accuracy in categorizing and clustering reviews and the meaningfulness of the recommended prioritizations. Also, given the availability of CLAP as a working tool, we assessed its practical applicability in industrial environments.
Interaction techniques for automating collecting and organizing personal web content

The growth of the World Wide Web has led to a dramatic increase in accessible information. Today, people use the Web for a large variety of activities including travel planning, comparison shopping, entertainment, and research. However, the tools available for collecting, organizing, and sharing Web content have not kept pace with the rapid growth in information. Today people continue to use bookmarks, email, and printers for managing Web content. In this thesis, I present a set of semi-automatic interaction techniques for retrieving content from the Web using the structure of webpages, presentation principles based on layout templates for user-guided organization of content from any number of Web sources, and a new template-based search paradigm for the Web that transforms keyword search into a goal-oriented rich visual experience. To demonstrate the efficacy of these ideas I combined them into a working system and evaluated them through a three-month longitudinal user study. Finally, the ideas that I present in this thesis when popularized by an online Web community would allow average Web users to build a kind of machine-readable "Semantic Web" piece by piece as they go about accomplishing their personal tasks.
Joint estimation of motion parameters using Newton's method

The radar echo model used to estimate the motion parameters of a moving target is found to be inaccurate and biased. In order to improve the parameter estimation accuracy of high-speed targets, we extend the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method from slow-speed echo model to high-speed echo model and propose an MLE estimator based on Newton's method for high-speed targets. Newton's iteration formula and Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB) are derived in closed form for high-speed echo signal and the convergence region is briefly analyzed. The results of Monte Carlo simulation show the proposed approach achieves the CRLB and outperforms the existing estimators. The bias of the slow-speed echo model and the accuracy of the high-speed echo model are verified with the real radar data and simulation data.
FEASIBILITY AND ADOPTION OF MUSIC VOTING AS MOBILE SERVICE

A Web-based mobile service that relies on peer-to-peer technologies and a commercial virtual DJ system provides users an opportunity to vote for played music in public spaces such as cafeterias or nightclubs. The aim of this thesis was to clarify the feasibility and adoption possibilities of the service, using thematic interviews and a questionnaire survey as data collection methods. Usage incentives and user’s willingness to pay for the service were estimated for clarifying the feasibility. For investigating adoption, behavior intentions were measured by using the individual’s acceptance theories. Adoption was observed from the aspects of service’s usefulness, added value and the cultural context of Finland. Respondents had their experimentation with a prototype version of the system, which was in the middle of the development phase. The objective was to find new development ideas and to gather the desired features and arguments for the development work. Directional research results show that the adoption of the service depends on influence of the respondent’s friends and earlier adopted use habits of mobile services. Because of its entertaining nature, the service does not offer actual utility for the user; therefore why the respondents were not ready to pay for using the service as it is now. According to the results, adoption would be very probable, but the respondents wished the service would offer more features in the future. People are very accustomed to use Internet services and, while the network services are evolving, people wish to get the same features, when they are using mobile terminal devices. Finding a significant partnership, cooperative development work, service personalization, added content variation, utilization of community based information and increasing the service’s semantic usage would enhance the value added of the service experienced by the user. The service should be available in an environment, where music is already in a big role. A high growth rate of users would enable commercialization of the product. In order to speed up the penetration, the service should be offered to an existing customer group of a potential partner.
Partial indexation and inflation dynamics: what do the data say?

New evidence is provided on the fit of the hybrid Phillips curve based on indexation of prices to lagged inflation and trend inflation for the Euro area and the USA over the period 1970–2002. The GMM-West estimates suggest that (i) a full indexation scheme is not data consistent whereas a partial indexation scheme allows a good fit and (ii) forgetting trend inflation induces overestimating by approximately 3–4% of the probability to not change the price, for reasonable values of trend inflation.
Enhancing both fairness and performance using rate-aware dynamic storage cache partitioning

In this paper, we investigate the problem of fair storage cache allocation among multiply competing applications with diversified access rates. Commonly used cache replacement policies like LRU and most LRU variants are inherently unfair in cache allocation for heterogenous applications. They implicitly give more cache to the applications that has high access rate and less cache to the applications of slow access rate. However, applications of fast access rate do not always gain higher performance from the additional cache blocks. In contrast, the slow application suffer poor performance with a reduced cache size. It is beneficial in terms of both performance and fairness to allocate cache blocks by their utility. In this paper, we propose a partition-based cache management algorithm for a shared cache. The goal of our algorithm is to find an allocation such that all heterogenous applications can achieve a specified fairness degree, while maximizing the overall performance. To achieve this goal, we present an adaptive partition framework, which partitions the shared cache among competing applications and dynamic adjusts the partition size based on predicted utility on both fairness and performance. We implemented our algorithm in a storage simulator and evaluated the fairness and performance with various workloads. Experimental results show that, compared with LRU, our algorithm achieves large improvement in fairness and slightly in performance.
Spiritual Strength: The use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Muslim Clients

The Muslim population is increasing in the U.S., yet this population has been marginalized due to three main factors: Misinformation or disinformation by the media, the lack of factual understanding regarding Islamic spiritual and religious practice on the part of counseling professionals, and the acts of a very small number of radicals. Thus Muslims avoid being assertive in seeking and staying in counseling due to overt and unintentional discrimination. It is the counseling profession's responsibility to extent its knowledge base and understanding about the issues and concerns of the Muslim community, including the religious and spiritual tenets of Islam. The author has three main goals in this paper. The first one is to cultivate awareness of multicultural and spiritual aspects and their role in the counseling process for Muslim clients. The next one is to enumerate particular tenets of Islam to increase awareness of Muslim spiritual practices and to provide a basic framework for understanding Islam, thus enabling counselors to be culturally and religiously sensitive with their Muslim clients. The final goal of this thesis is to explain the basics of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and how it is congruent and effective with the tenets of Islam. It provides this information through a literature review and with two Muslim case studies from a spiritual strength and ACT perspective, thus enabling the reader to provide cultural/religious sensitive counseling services to Muslim clients.
Activity of and Development of Resistance to Corallopyronin A, an Inhibitor of RNA Polymerase

ABSTRACT We explored the properties of corallopyronin A (CorA), a poorly characterized inhibitor of bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP). It displayed a 50% inhibitory concentration of 0.73 μM against RNAP, compared with 11.5 nM for rifampin. The antibacterial activity of CorA was also inferior to rifampin, and resistant mutants of Staphylococcus aureus were easily selected. The mutations conferring resistance resided in the rpoB and rpoC subunits of RNAP. We conclude that CorA is not a promising antibacterial drug candidate.
Social Media as Windows on the Social Life of the Mind

This is a programmatic paper, marking out two directions in which the study of social media can contribute to broader problems of social science: understanding cultural evolution and understanding collective cognition. Under the first heading, I discuss some difficulties with the usual, adaptationist explanations of cultural phenomena, alternative explanations involving network diffusion effects, and some ways these could be tested using social-media data. Under the second I describe some of the ways in which social media could be used to study how the social organization of an epistemic community supports its collective cognitive performance.
Secure wireless sensor networks with dynamic window for elliptic curve cryptography

Elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) was proposed by Miller [10] and Koblitz [9] which relies on the difficulty of elliptic curve discrete logarithmic problem (ECDLP). It is gaining wide acceptance as an alternative to the conventional public key cryptosystem such as RSA [24], DSA [25], DH [26]. The security of the WSN becomes one of the major concerns in its applications. It is well known that scalar multiplication operation in ECC accounts for about 80% of key calculation time on wireless sensor network motes. In this paper we present an optimized dynamic window based on our previous research works. The whole quality of service (QoS) has been improved under this algorism in particularly the power consuming is more efficiently. The simulation results showed that the average calculation time, due to fuzzy conditions decreased from previous 26 to current 9 as a whole the calculation time, decreased by approximately 18% in comparison to our previous algorithms in an ECC wireless sensor network [23].
Monochloramine Microelectrode for In-Situ Application Within Chloraminated Distribution System Biofilm

A monochloramine microelectrode with a tip size between 5 and 15 μm and using platinum wire was successfully designed, fabricated and characterized for in-situ monochloramine measurement within chloraminated distribution system biofilm. The monochloramine microelectrode showed sensitivity toward monochloramine concentrations (0.54 to 16.1 mg Cl2/L) at an applied potential of +550 mV (Ag/AgCl reference electrode) at pH 8.0 and 23°C. The monochloramine microelectrode has successfully measured monochloramine microprofiles with high spatial resolution (50 μm) without biofilm structure disruption during measurements. Ultimately, this research will lead to a better understanding of the monochloramine microelectrode for in situ application within a chloraminated drinking water system biofilm, and along with other microelectrodes (e.g., ammonia, pH, DO) under development, elucidate nitrification phenomena occurring in the biofilm. Introduction As a result of the implementation of the Stage 1 and Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproduct Rules, chloramine use as a secondary disinfectant in the United States is predicted to increase to 57% of all surface and 7% of all ground water treatment systems [1]. A recent survey suggests that an additional 12% of drinking water utilities are contemplating a switch to monochloramine in the future [2]. For utilities that use monochloramine or have source water ammonia, nitrification is an undesirable side effect that may result in water quality degradation, and subsequent non-compliance with existing regulations. In order to elucidate nitrification phenomena within distribution system biofilm, microelectrode techniques are under development to profile the chemical constituents that lead to nitrifier growth and inactivation. In the current research, monochloramine microelectrodes using platinum wire were fabricated and evaluated for use in in-vivo environmental analysis of monochloramine as the disinfectant within chloraminated water distribution system biofilm. Several researchers have reported the electrochemical behavior of monochloramine sensors using a platinum or gold disk (or electrode) with a flow injection technique [3, 4, 5]. However, these electrodes are too large to apply at the small scale (~10 μm), and there is currently no commercial or developed microelectrode for application to biological analyses, including direct measurement of biofilm monochloramine penetration. This study developed monochloramine microelectrodes and investigated their biological applicability, determining biofilm monochloramine profiles. The monochloramine microelectrode was fully examined using cyclic voltammetry, allowing determination of the appropriate applied potential for monochloramine measurement, and was evaluated for its application to various environmental conditions. Deleted: within