Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems ( PACIS ) 2010 Examining Effects of Technology-Assisted Learning on Learning Effectiveness and Satisfaction : A Quasi-Experimental Study

Examining students’ learning effectiveness and satisfaction is critical to the ultimate success of technology-assisted learning that has been deployed at a fast-growing pace. The accumulated results from prior research are mostly equivocal. Based on how technologyassisted learning may influence students’ learning process, we analyze technology-assisted learning and synthesize relevant prior research, and propose a factor model that explains learning effectiveness and satisfaction. We empirically test that model with a quasiexperiment that involves 212 university students, observing their learning of Adobe Photoshop. We test the hypothesized effects of technology-assisted learning and its moderating role in influencing students’ learning effectiveness and satisfaction. According to our results, the use of technology-assisted learning adversely affects student engagement. This, in turn, negatively influences their learning effectiveness and satisfaction. Student engagement in learning activities appears to mediate the impact of technology-assisted learning on learning effectiveness. Furthermore, the influence of technology-assisted learning on learning satisfaction is mediated by both student engagement and learning effectiveness. Technology-assisted learning shows no significant moderating effects on learning effectiveness or satisfaction. Our empirical results have several important implications for technology-assisted learning research and practice.
Characterization of a Gene Coding for the Complement System Component FB from Loxosceles laeta Spider Venom Glands

The human complement system is composed of more than 30 proteins and many of these have conserved domains that allow tracing the phylogenetic evolution. The complement system seems to be initiated with the appearance of C3 and factor B (FB), the only components found in some protostomes and cnidarians, suggesting that the alternative pathway is the most ancient. Here, we present the characterization of an arachnid homologue of the human complement component FB from the spider Loxosceles laeta. This homologue, named Lox-FB, was identified from a total RNA L. laeta spider venom gland library and was amplified using RACE-PCR techniques and specific primers. Analysis of the deduced amino acid sequence and the domain structure showed significant similarity to the vertebrate and invertebrate FB/C2 family proteins. Lox-FB has a classical domain organization composed of a control complement protein domain (CCP), a von Willebrand Factor domain (vWFA), and a serine protease domain (SP). The amino acids involved in Mg2+ metal ion dependent adhesion site (MIDAS) found in the vWFA domain in the vertebrate C2/FB proteins are well conserved; however, the classic catalytic triad present in the serine protease domain is not conserved in Lox-FB. Similarity and phylogenetic analyses indicated that Lox-FB shares a major identity (43%) and has a close evolutionary relationship with the third isoform of FB-like protein (FB-3) from the jumping spider Hasarius adansoni belonging to the Family Salcitidae.
Space-time invariants for recognizing 3D motions from arbitrary viewpoints under perspective projection

The visual motions are very important for understanding dynamic actions and for extracting dynamic events from video sequences. Recently, it was shown that some invariants on motions can be extracted from sequential images and these can be applied for recognizing motions from images viewed from arbitrary viewpoints. Unfortunately, invariants were limited for planar motions viewed from affine cameras. In this paper, we propose a method for computing invariants on non-planar motions viewed from perspective cameras. The extracted invariants are applied for distinguishing D motions from video sequences viewed from arbitrary viewpoints.
SmartTrace: Finding similar trajectories in smartphone networks without disclosing the traces

In this demonstration paper, we present a powerful distributed framework for finding similar trajectories in a smartphone network, without disclosing the traces of participating users. Our framework, exploits opportunistic and participatory sensing in order to quickly answer queries of the form: “Report objects (i.e., trajectories) that follow a similar spatio-temporal motion to Q, where Q is some query trajectory. ” SmartTrace, relies on an in-situ data storage model, where geo-location data is recorded locally on smartphones for both performance and privacy reasons. SmartTrace then deploys an efficient top-K query processing algorithm that exploits distributed trajectory similarity measures, resilient to spatial and temporal noise, in order to derive the most relevant answers to Q quickly and efficiently. Our demonstration shows how the SmartTrace algorithmics are ported on a network of Android-based smartphone devices with impressive query response times. To demonstrate the capabilities of SmartTrace during the conference, we will allow the attendees to query local smartphone networks in the following two modes: i) Interactive Mode, where devices will be handed out to participants aiming to identify who is moving similar to the querying node; and ii) Trace-driven Mode, where a large-scale deployment can be launched in order to show how the K most similar trajectories can be identified quickly and efficiently. The conference attendees will be able to appreciate how interesting spatio-temporal search applications can be implemented efficiently (for performance reasons) and without disclosing the complete user traces to the query processor (for privacy reasons)1. For instance, an attendee might be able to determine other attendees that have participated in common sessions, in order to initiate new discussions and collaborations, without knowing their trajectory or revealing his/her own trajectory either.
${{\mathcal L}_1}$ Adaptive Control of Vehicle Lateral Dynamics

In this paper, we present an application of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${{\mathcal L}_1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> adaptive control for the vehicle lateral control problem. The main objective is to design a controller that ensures the vehicle follows the reference trajectory (center of the lane) with robustness to uncertain parameters of the vehicle lateral dynamics. The designed <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> ${{\mathcal L}_1}$</tex-math></inline-formula> adaptive control signal compensates the uncertainties and variations in model parameters in the presence of disturbances. A bicycle model for vehicle lateral dynamics is considered. We will demonstrate the desirable performance of the proposed adaptive controller at steady-state as well as the transient response. The simulation results confirm that the controller significantly improves the transient response of the vehicle lateral controller in the presence of wind gusts, road bank angle, icy or slippery road conditions, and other parameter uncertainties and unknown disturbances.
Complete genome sequence of Haliangium ochraceum type strain (SMP-2T)

Haliangium ochraceum Fudou et al. 2002 is the type species of the genus Haliangium in the myxococcal family ‘Haliangiaceae’. Members of the genus Haliangium are the first halophilic myxobacterial taxa described. The cells of the species follow a multicellular lifestyle in highly organized biofilms, called swarms, they decompose bacterial and yeast cells as most myxobacteria do. The fruiting bodies contain particularly small coccoid myxospores. H. ochraceum encodes the first actin homologue identified in a bacterial genome. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence, and annotation. This is the first complete genome sequence of a member of the myxococcal suborder Nannocystineae, and the 9,446,314 bp long single replicon genome with its 6,898 protein-coding and 53 RNA genes is part of the GenomicEncyclopedia ofBacteria andArchaea project.
An Architectural Framework of a Personalized Web Crawler based on User Interests

The World Wide Web (WWW) is overwhelmed with information which c an not be assimilated by the normal users without the use of search tools. The tradi tional search returns thousands of results for a single search query making the search and surfing experi ence cumbersome. This drawback has triggered the need for implementing personalized search to ols. In this paper, a novel architecture is proposed to gather pages that are relevant to a particular user o r group of users. The system consists of three modules: input, crawling and feedback. The input module is i ntegrated with topic suggestion component extracting search query terms and representative document s from different sources. The crawling module is realized with intelligent multi-agent system for priori tiz ng the download of appropriate URLs. The relevance of the documents is computed based on interests of the users. While rendering the results, the user gives feedback and the system is compared to different c awler implementations. The empirical results clearly suggest the advantage of using topic suggesti on component and computation of personalized relevance score in terms of harvest ratio and coverage.
Urban growth modelling using Cellular Automata coupled with land cover indices for Kolkata Metropolitan region

Urbanization is at a rapid pace in India since past two decades with severe increase in population and demand in the infrastructure service of the city along with environment degradation. This paper examines the urban growth pattern of Kolkata metropolitan area that includes Kolkata city for three consecutive decades. Urban pattern analysis is carried out along with modelling future developmental pockets using specific growth pattern of the city. Results indicate urban growth from 4.1% in 1990 to 11.58% in 2017 and mainly sprawling outward in the buffer region. Modelling using CA-Markov pointed out that urban growth may increase by 14.94% by 2025. The notable observation of our study is that urban growth would have an infill growth in the city completely and then starts sprawling outward and emphasises need for policy planners and urban managers to provide immediate interventions for infrastructure development necessary for sustainable growth of Indian urban agglomerations.
Classification and Verification of Handwritten Signatures with Time Causal Information Theory Quantifiers

We present a new approach for handwritten signature classification and verification based on descriptors stemming from time causal information theory. The proposal uses the Shannon entropy, the statistical complexity, and the Fisher information evaluated over the Bandt and Pompe symbolization of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of signatures. These six features are easy and fast to compute, and they are the input to an One-Class Support Vector Machine classifier. The results are better than state-of-the-art online techniques that employ higher-dimensional feature spaces which often require specialized software and hardware. We assess the consistency of our proposal with respect to the size of the training sample, and we also use it to classify the signatures into meaningful groups.
“The Bitter Laughter”. When Parody Is a Moral and Affective Priming in Political Persuasion

Research on socially aware systems requires fine-grained knowledge of the mechanisms of persuasion in order to promote civic knowledge and aware political participation. Within humor studies, political parody is generally considered a simple pleasant weapon for political evaluation, currently explained by referring to the so called “just a joke effect” (Nabi et al., 2007). Indeed the funny side of parody can induce positive emotions, but it also includes a discrediting act that sometimes produces a “bitter laughter. ” The present study aims to understand the role played by negative and moral emotions aroused by parody. A parody is defined as a communicative behavior (a discourse, text, body movement, song) that imitates a communicative behavior or trait displayed by some Target by reproducing it in a distorted way, with the aim of making fun of the Target. Based on a socio-cognitive approach, a distinction is made between “surface” and “deep” parody (Poggi and D’Errico, 2013), with the former simply imitating behaviors actually displayed by the Target, and the latter implying a (humorous) re-categorization of the Target. The paper studies the effect of these two different types of parody on persuasion processes. Results show that the deep parody, as opposed to surface parody, triggers more negative emotions, and in particular indignation, that in turn lead to more negative evaluations of the Target. Moreover, the moral priming of parody is influenced by the Target politician’s gender.
Cdc42 is a key regulator of B cell differentiation and is required for antiviral humoral immunity

Burbage et al. use a mouse model of B-cell specific deficiency of Cdc42 to uncover an essential role of this Rho GTPase in B cells. They find that loss of Cdc42 results in aberrant B cell development, plasma cell differentiation, antigen presentation, and cellular interactions between B and T lymphocytes in vivo. All these defects led to notable functional defects in antiviral humoral immunity.
Incremental Visual Behaviour Modelling

We develop a novel visual behaviour modelling approach that performs incremental and adaptive behaviour model learning for online abnormality detection. Three key features make our approach advantageous over previous ones: (1) unsupervised learning, (2) online and incrementa l model construction, and (3) model adaptation to changes in visual context. In particular, we formulate an incremental EM algorithm with added model adaptation capacity for online behaviour model learning. These features are not only desirable but also necessary for processing large volume of unlabelled surveillance video data with changes of visual context over time. It has been demonstrated by our experiments that our incrementally learned behaviour models are superior to those learned in batch mode in terms of both performance in abnormality detection and computational efficiency.
Efficiently Indexing High-Dimensional Data Spaces (Abstract)

An electric shaver of a reciprocating drive type having a trimmer blade comprises a housing and an outer blade frame detachably mounted onto the upper portion of the housing. A trimmer blade assembly is mounted to the housing so as to be protrusile outward of the housing. A switch plate is provided on the housing so that three stop positions may be selectively assumed, in which the third position is allotted to enable the trimmer blade assembly to be protruded in cooperation with a trimmer lever, while a driving force is afforded to both the main blade and the trimmer blade assembly. A cleaning operation portion is further provided on the housing so that the same may be operated independently of the switch plate. The cleaning operation portion acts on the trimmer lever to enable the trimmer blade assembly to be protruded outward, with the same in an intact state of not being driven by a motor. The outer blade frame can be removed from the housing at the same time in response to the operation of the cleaning operation portion.
Functional Phenotypic Rescue of Caenorhabditis elegans Neuroligin-Deficient Mutants by the Human and Rat NLGN1 Genes

Neuroligins are cell adhesion proteins that interact with neurexins at the synapse. This interaction may contribute to differentiation, plasticity and specificity of synapses. In humans, single mutations in neuroligin encoding genes lead to autism spectrum disorder and/or mental retardation. Caenorhabditis elegans mutants deficient in nlg-1, an orthologue of human neuroligin genes, have defects in different behaviors. Here we show that the expression of human NLGN1 or rat Nlgn1 cDNAs in C. elegans nlg-1 mutants rescues the fructose osmotic strength avoidance and gentle touch response phenotypes. Two specific point mutations in NLGN3 and NLGN4 genes, involved in autistic spectrum disorder, were further characterized in this experimental system. The R451C allele described in NLGN3, was analyzed with both human NLGN1 (R453C) and worm NLG-1 (R437C) proteins, and both were not functional in rescuing the osmotic avoidance behavior and the gentle touch response phenotype. The D396X allele described in NLGN4, which produces a truncated protein, was studied with human NLGN1 (D432X) and they did not rescue any of the behavioral phenotypes analyzed. In addition, RNAi feeding experiments measuring gentle touch response in wild type strain and worms expressing SID-1 in neurons (which increases the response to dsRNA), both fed with bacteria expressing dsRNA for nlg-1, provided evidence for a postsynaptic in vivo function of neuroligins both in muscle cells and neurons, equivalent to that proposed in mammals. This finding was further confirmed generating transgenic nlg-1 deficient mutants expressing NLG-1 under pan-neuronal (nrx-1) or pan-muscular (myo-3) specific promoters. All these results suggest that the nematode could be used as an in vivo model for studying particular synaptic mechanisms with proteins orthologues of humans involved in pervasive developmental disorders.
AN IMPLEMENTATION OF WEB CONTENT EXTRACTION USING MINING TECHNIQUES

The Web has continued to grow up since its inceptio n in volume of information, in the complexity of it s topology, as well as in its diversity of content an d services. This phenomenon was transformed the web in spite of his young age to an obscure media to take useful information. Today, they are billions of HTM L documents, images and other media files on the Inte rne . Taking into account the wide variety of the web, th e extraction of interesting content has become a necessity. Web mining came as a rescue for the abov e problem. Web content mining is a subdivision unde r web mining, which is defined as “the process of ext racting useful information from the text, images an d other forms of content that make up the pages” by e liminating noisy information . This extraction proce ss can employ automatic techniques and hand-crafted ru l s. In this paper, we propose a method for web dat a extraction that uses hand-crafted rules developed i n Java.
Adaptive sequence evolution is driven by biotic stress in a pair of orchid species (Dactylorhiza) with distinct ecological optima

The orchid family is the largest in the angiosperms, but little is known about the molecular basis of the significant variation they exhibit. We investigate here the transcriptomic divergence between two European terrestrial orchids, Dactylorhiza incarnata and Dactylorhiza fuchsii, and integrate these results in the context of their distinct ecologies that we also document. Clear signals of lineage‐specific adaptive evolution of protein‐coding sequences are identified, notably targeting elements of biotic defence, including both physical and chemical adaptations in the context of divergent pools of pathogens and herbivores. In turn, a substantial regulatory divergence between the two species appears linked to adaptation/acclimation to abiotic conditions. Several of the pathways affected by differential expression are also targeted by deviating post‐transcriptional regulation via sRNAs. Finally, D. incarnata appears to suffer from insufficient sRNA control over the activity of RNA‐dependent DNA polymerase, resulting in increased activity of class I transposable elements and, over time, in larger genome size than that of D. fuchsii. The extensive molecular divergence between the two species suggests significant genomic and transcriptomic shock in their hybrids and offers insights into the difficulty of coexistence at the homoploid level. Altogether, biological response to selection, accumulated during the history of these orchids, appears governed by their microenvironmental context, in which biotic and abiotic pressures act synergistically to shape transcriptome structure, expression and regulation.
Functional disorder of primary immunity responding to respiratory syncytial virus infection in offspring mice exposed to a flame retardant, decabrominated diphenyl ether, perinatally

Perinatal exposure to a representative flame retardant, decabrominated diphenyl ether (DBDE), was shown previously to increase viral titers in the lungs of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)‐infected offspring on day 5 post‐infection, resulting in exacerbation of pneumonia. In this study, the significant increase of pulmonary viral titers was confirmed even on day 1 post‐infection and the effect on the primary immune response to RSV infection were examined to assess a mode of DBDE action on developmental immunotoxicity. On day 1 after infection, the secretion of both TNF‐α and IL‐6 decreased significantly in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid prepared from RSV‐infected offspring exposed to DBDE perinatally, but IL‐1β increased. However, in ex vivo lipopolysaccharide stimulation test, the productivity of TNF‐α in the bronchoalveolar lavage cells, which are mainly primary immune cells responding to RSV infection, prepared from offspring mice exposed to DBDE perinatally was not lower than that in the control. The primary immune cells retained normally the ability of cytokine production after the DBDE exposure. Gene expressions of innate pattern recognition receptors (Toll‐like receptor 3 and 4, melanoma differentiation‐associated gene‐5, and retinoic acid‐inducible gene I) in lung tissues were not affected by DBDE exposure. Because the levels of TNF‐α, IL‐6, and IL‐1β are known to be elevated in the lungs of RSV‐infected mice, these irregular productions due to perinatal DBDE exposure indicate a disorder of the primary immune response to RSV infection. Thus, perinatal exposure to DBDE was suggested to cause a functional disorder of primary immunity responding to RSV infection. J. Med. Virol. 82:1075–1082, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Spectral efficiency of ZF receivers over MIMO channels with out-of-cell interference

We present a new accurate analysis of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system employing linear zero-forcing (ZF) receivers in a multi-cell environment. New exact expressions are derived for the spectral efficiency of the uplink channel taking into account both small and large-scale fading. In contrast to the previous performance analysis of multi-cell MIMO systems, we present an accurate model for the co-channel interference where the number of users in each cell is random. The new analytical results are validated by Monte-Carlo simulation and used to shed light into the effects of the model parameters such as random number of users and shadow fading on the uplink spectral efficiency.