Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Keeping the Game Close: "Fair Play" Among Men's College Basketball Referees

As a cross-cultural universal, sports are frequently examined by anthropologists in terms of how sporting behavior embodies and expresses the cultural logic of societal norms and expectations. In contemporary Western society, sports are often premised on cultural precepts of “fair play” expressed through gaming rules that ostensibly control factors that allow for the expression and comparison of competing skills. We examine the behavior of men’s college basketball referees as choreographers of staged fair play and suspense versus objective enforcers of rules. To this end, we test the hypothesis that when games are televised o n national television, referees in men’s Division I college basketball call a disproportionate number of fouls against teams that are ahead in the score of their respective games, resulting in more competitive games which maintain an edge of suspense for viewers. We suspect this to be true even though trailing teams typically exhibit more aggressive play to remain competitive or get back in the game. We observed the behavior of referees involved in a total of 2,441 foul call events in 67 randomly selecte d Division I college basketball games during the 2000 basketball season. Results demonstrate that college basketball referees cal l a significantly higher number of fouls against a team that is leading a game when the game is televised on national television. This pattern does not hold when games are televised regionally. We suspect that “fair play” behavior on the part of referees helps promote dramatic suspense to attract and maintain television viewers.
Changes in Serotonin, Serotonin Transporter Expression and Serotonin Denervation Supersensitivity: Involvement in Chronic Central Pain after Spinal Hemisection in the Rat

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in abnormal locomotor and pain syndromes in humans. In a rodent SCI model, T13 unilateral spinal hemisection results in bilateral mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia, partly by interruption of tonic descending serotonin (5-HT) inhibition. In the current study, we examined changes in density and distribution of 5-HT and 5-HT(T) in cervical (C8) and lumbar (L5) enlargements after T13 spinal hemisection and studied the effects of intrathecally delivered 5-HT (10, 21, and 63 microg), 5-HT antagonist methysergide (125 microg/kg), and 5-HT reuptake inhibitor fluvoxamine (75 microg/kg) on pain-related behaviors. Thirty-day-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were spinally hemisected and sacrificed at 3 (n = 20) and 28 (n = 20) days postsurgery for immunohistochemistry, Western blot, and ELISA analysis and compared against sham-operated animals (n = 10). At day 3, C8 5-HT levels were not significantly changed but at L5 there was a significant decrease in ipsilateral 5-HT in laminae I-II followed by incomplete recovery at 28 days postinjury. At both 3 and 28 days postinjury, C8 5-HT(T) levels were not significantly changed, but at L5 there was significant ipsilateral up-regulation of 5-HT(T) in laminae I-II. A second group of animals (n = 30) was hemisected and, starting at 28 days postinjury, behaviorally tested with intrathecal compounds. Increasing doses of 5-HT attenuated both fore- and hindlimb mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia, and effects of endogenous 5-HT were attenuated by methysergide and enhanced with fluvoxamine, all without locomotor alterations. Sham controls (n = 10) were unaffected. Thus, permanent changes occur in 5-HT and 5-HT(T) after SCI, denervation 5-HT supersensitivity develops, and modulation of 5-HT attenuates pain-related behaviors. Insight gained by these studies may aid in the understanding of dynamic 5-HT systems which will be useful in treating chronic central pain after SCI.
Detection of Salmonella enterica Serovar Montevideo and Newport in Free‐ranging Sea Turtles and Beach Sand in the Caribbean and Persistence in Sand and Seawater Microcosms

Salmonellae are Gram‐negative zoonotic bacteria that are frequently part of the normal reptilian gastrointestinal flora. The main objective of this project was to estimate the prevalence of non‐typhoidal Salmonella enterica in the nesting and foraging populations of sea turtles on St. Kitts and in sand from known nesting beaches. Results suggest a higher prevalence of Salmonella in nesting leatherback sea turtles compared with foraging green and hawksbill sea turtles. Salmonella was cultured from 2/9 and identified by molecular diagnostic methods in 3/9 leatherback sea turtle samples. Salmonella DNA was detected in one hawksbill turtle, but viable isolates were not recovered from any hawksbill sea turtles. No Salmonella was detected in green sea turtles. In samples collected from nesting beaches, Salmonella was only recovered from a single dry sand sample. All recovered isolates were positive for the wzx gene, consistent with the O:7 serogroup. Further serotyping characterized serovars Montevideo and Newport present in cloacal and sand samples. Repetitive‐element palindromic PCR (rep‐PCR) fingerprint analysis and pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis of the 2014 isolates from turtles and sand as well as archived Salmonella isolates recovered from leatherback sea turtles in 2012 and 2013, identified two distinct genotypes and four different pulsotypes, respectively. The genotyping and serotyping were directly correlated. To determine the persistence of representative strains of each serotype/genotype in these environments, laboratory‐controlled microcosm studies were performed in water and sand (dry and wet) incubated at 25 or 35°C. Isolates persisted for at least 32 days in most microcosms, although there were significant decreases in culturable bacteria in several microcosms, with the greatest reduction in dry sand incubated at 35°C. This information provides a better understanding of the epizootiology of Salmonella in free‐ranging marine reptiles and the potential public health risks associated with human interactions with these animals in the Caribbean.
Socially Anxious and Confident Men Interact with a Forward Virtual Woman: An Experimental Study

Background Male volunteers entered an immersive virtual reality that depicted a party, where they were approached by a lone virtual woman who initiated a conversation. The goal was to study how socially anxious and socially confident men would react to this event. Interest focused on whether the socially anxious participants would exhibit sustained anxiety during the conversation or whether this would diminish over time, and differ from the responses of the more socially confident men. Methodology The scenario was a party with five virtual characters, four sitting at a distance from the participant and talking amongst themselves and one lone woman standing closer. The woman approached the participant, introduced herself and initiated a conversation that was first about mundane matters and then became more personal and intimate. Participants were men who were either relatively socially confident (18) or socially anxious in their relationships with women (18). A second experimental factor was whether or not the other four characters occasionally looked towards the participant. There was a post-trial questionnaire about social anxiety in relation to the experience, and skin conductance and ECG physiological measures were recorded. Our expectation was that the socially anxious participants would show greater anxiety throughout. Conclusions Compared to baseline readings both socially confident and socially anxious groups on average showed signs of significantly increased stress at the initial approach of the virtual woman. The stress then diminished once the conversation entered into the mundane phase and then did not significantly change. Comparing pre- and post-questionnaire anxiety scores there was no change for the more confident participants but a significant decrease in average score amongst the anxious group. The methodology of placing socially anxious participants in a virtual reality where they can gain experience of how to act in a stressful situation promises a novel way forward for treating social anxiety.
Automatic Milled Rice Quality Analysis

This paper proposes an automatic quality evaluation framework for milled rice kernels. Shape descriptors determine the quantity of headrice, broken kernels, and brewers in rice samples using six geometric features. Color histograms of rice kernels in RGB and Cielab color channels are used to extract 24 color features. A probabilistic neural network (PNN) classifier is used to categorize kernels according to rice defectives. The accuracy of the classifier is 94%. Linear regression model is also developed for estimating individual kernel weight given a blob area. Promising result was obtained with a coefficient of determination R2 of 0.991. The linear regression model provided excellent weight estimate when the blob area is greater than 1.0 mm2.
Introduction – Measurement Methods and Limitations

This chapter provides an overview of commonly used forest hydrology measurements, focussing on the limitations of both the variables measured and the measurement methods. The various section authors provide an overview of different measurement methods and common limitations and cautions for the application/interpretation of collected data (e.g., statistical, common mistakes). For each variable, a short introduction is provided but related physical processes and hydrological linkages are detailed in other chapters. The objective is to increase the reader’s knowledge of the different measures available and potential issues with each measure that might lead to application errors. Each section also highlights several key publications for further information. Watershed Measurement Methods and Data Limitations Chapter 7
Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks

A theoretical model is presented to estimate the energy requirements of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems when used in wireless sensor networks (WSN) assuming clustered channel modeling, with Rician distribution and cochannel interference. The effect of different propagation environments is simulated. Simulation results show that the single-input single-output (SISO) can only be useful with short range systems (less than 20 m). The MIMO system with channel state information has the best performance for applications that require a range more than 20 m and under different propagation conditions. The results presented in this paper indicate that increasing the number of antennas for MIMO systems has a negative effect on the performance under free space propagation, whereas it has a positive effect, especially for MIMO with channel state information (CSI), under "severe" conditions.
A Putative Transcription Factor pcs1 Positively Regulates Both Conidiation and Sexual Reproduction in the Cereal Pathogen Fusarium graminearum

The plant pathogen Fusarium graminearum causes Fusarium head blight in cereal crops and produces mycotoxins that are harmful to animals and humans. For the initiation and spread of disease, asexual and sexual reproduction is required. Therefore, studies on fungal reproduction contribute to the development of new methods to control and maintain the fungal population. Screening a previously generated transcription factor mutant collection, we identified one putative C2H2 zinc-finger transcription factor, pcs1, which is required for both sexual and asexual reproduction. Deleting pcs1 in F. graminearum resulted in a dramatic reduction in conidial production and a complete loss of sexual reproduction. The pathways and gene ontology of pcs1-dependent genes from microarray experiments showed that several G-protein related pathways, oxidase activity, ribosome biogenesis, and RNA binding and processing were highly enriched, suggesting that pcs1 is involved in several different biological processes. Further, overexpression of pcs1 increased conidial production and resulted in earlier maturation of ascospores compared to the wild-type strain. Additionally, the vegetative growth of the overexpression mutants was decreased in nutrient-rich conditions but was not different from the wild-type strain in nutrient-poor conditions. Overall, we discovered that the pcs1 transcription factor positively regulates both conidiation and sexual reproduction and confers nutrient condition-dependent vegetative growth.
Hypotheses, evidence and relationships: The HypER approach for representing scientific knowledge claims

Biological knowledge is increasingly represented as a collection of (entity-relationship-entity) triplets. These are queried, mined, appended to papers, and published. However, this representation ignores the argumentation contained within a paper and the relationships between hypotheses, claims and evidence put forth in the article. In this paper, we propose an alternate view of the research article as a network of 'hypotheses and evidence'. Our knowledge representation focuses on scientific discourse as a rhetorical activity, which leads to a different direction in the development of tools and processes for modeling this discourse. We propose to extract knowledge from the article to allow the construction of a system where a specific scientific claim is connected, through trails of meaningful relationships, to experimental evidence. We discuss some current efforts and future plans in this area.
Association of Serum Phosphorus Variability with Coronary Artery Calcification among Hemodialysis Patients

Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is associated with increased mortality in patients on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD), but the pathogenesis of this condition is not well understood. We evaluated the relationship of CAC score (CACs) and variability in serum phosphorus in MHD patients. Seventy-seven adults on MHD at Huashan Hospital (Shanghai) were enrolled in July, 2010. CAC of all the patients were measured by computed tomography and CACs was calculated by the Agatston method at the entry of enrollment. Patients were divided into three categories according to their CACs (0∼10, 11∼400, and >400). Blood chemistry was recorded every 3 months from January 2008 to July 2010. Phosphorus variation was defined by the standard deviation (SD) or coefficient of variation (CV) and it was calculated from the past records. The ordinal multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the predictors of CAC. The mean patient age (± SD) was 61.7 years (±11.3) and 51% of patients were men. The mean CACs was 609.6 (±1062.9), the median CACs was 168.5, and 78% of patients had CACs more than 0. Multivariate analysis indicated that female gender (OR = 0.20, 95% CI = 0.07–0.55), age (OR = 2.31, 95% CI = 1.32–4.04), serum fibroblast growth factor 23 (OR = 2.25, 95% CI = 1.31–3.85), SD-phosphorus calculated from the most recent 6 measurements (OR = 2.12; 95% CI = 1.23–3.63), and CV-phosphorus calculated from the most recent 6 measurements (OR = 1.90, 95% CI = 1.16–3.11) were significantly and independently associated with CACs. These associations persisted for phosphorus variation calculated from past 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 follow-up values. Variability of serum phosphorus may contribute significantly to CAC and keeping serum phosphorus stable may decrease coronary calcification and associated morbidity and mortality in MHD patients.
QoE-based resource reservation for unperceivable video quality fluctuation during Handover in LTE

Providing smooth Handover (HO) for video applications over wireless networks is often difficult due to the different amount of available resources from cell to cell. In this paper, we propose a QoE-based scheme that statically or dynamically reserves resources in order to maintain unperceivable quality fluctuation during HO for video delivery in LTE mobile networks. Through simulations, we show that reallocating the wireless resource in a cross-layer fashion is not enough to maintain the video quality within unperceivable range. Reserving fixed amount of resources solves the problem, however, it leads to inefficient resource utilization and overall service quality degradation. To reduce unnecessary resource reservation, we propose reserving the actual resource demand dynamically upon a prior knowledge of HOs. A comparison between our proposed schemes and a conventional QoE-based scheme is done by performing simulations using an OPNET LTE simulator. Results show that our proposed schemes lead to significant improvements of HO user-perceived quality.
LEPR gene Gln223Arg polymorphism and type 2 diabetes mellitus: a meta-analysis of 3,367 subjects

Background The Leptin receptor (LEPR) Gln223Arg gene polymorphism has been associated with an increased susceptibility to Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Results from various studies, however, are inconsistent. Objective and methods To better elucidate the association of LEPR Gln223Arg gene polymorphism with T2DM in the Chinese population, a meta-analysis of 3,367 subjects from seven independent studies was performed. The pooled odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were evaluated by the fixed-effects model. Results A significant relationship between LEPR Gln223Arg gene polymorphism and T2DM in the Chinese population was found under allele (OR: 1.432, 95% CI: 1.211-1.694, P=2.67×10-5), dominant (OR: 1.466, 95% CI: 1.215-1.769, P=6.33×10-5), recessive (OR: 0.539, 95% CI: 0.303-0.960, P=0.036), heterozygous (OR: 0.700, 95% CI: 0.577-0.849, P=3.06×10-4), and homozygous (OR: 0.472, 95% CI: 0.265-0.839, P=0.011) genetic models. Conclusions LEPR Gln223Arg gene polymorphism was associated with an increased risk of T2DM in the Chinese population. Therefore, Chinese carriers of the G allele of LEPR Gln223Arg gene polymorphism may be more susceptible to T2DM than the general population.
Correction: Discovery and Analysis of Evolutionarily Conserved Intronic Splicing Regulatory Elements

Knowledge of the functional cis-regulatory elements that regulate constitutive and alternative pre-mRNA splicing is fundamental for biology and medicine. Here we undertook a genome-wide comparative genomics approach using available mammalian genomes to identify conserved intronic splicing regulatory elements (ISREs). Our approach yielded 314 ISREs, and insertions of ~70 ISREs between competing splice sites demonstrated that 84% of ISREs altered 5' and 94% altered 3' splice site choice in human cells. Consistent with our experiments, comparisons of ISREs to known splicing regulatory elements revealed that 40%-45% of ISREs might have dual roles as exonic splicing silencers. Supporting a role for ISREs in alternative splicing, we found that 30%-50% of ISREs were enriched near alternatively spliced (AS) exons, and included almost all known binding sites of tissue-specific alternative splicing factors. Further, we observed that genes harboring ISRE-proximal exons have biases for tissue expression and molecular functions that are ISRE-specific. Finally, we discovered that for Nova1, neuronal PTB, hnRNP C, and FOX1, the most frequently occurring ISRE proximal to an alternative conserved exon in the splicing factor strongly resembled its own known RNA binding site, suggesting a novel application of ISRE density and the propensity for splicing factors to auto-regulate to associate RNA binding sites to splicing factors. Our results demonstrate that ISREs are crucial building blocks in understanding general and tissue-specific AS regulation and the biological pathways and functions regulated by these AS events.
CS 189 / 289 Introduction to Machine Learning Fall 2022

• In your write-up, please copy the following statement and sign your signature underneath. If you are using LaTeX, you must type your full name underneath instead. We want to make it extra clear so that no one inadvertently cheats. “I certify that all solutions are entirely in my own words and that I have not looked at another student’s solutions. I have given credit to all external sources I consulted. ”
Differential Role of TLR- and RLR-Signaling in the Immune Responses to Influenza A Virus Infection and Vaccination

The innate immune system recognizes influenza A virus via TLR 7 or retinoic acid-inducible gene I in a cell-type specific manner in vitro, however, physiological function(s) of the MyD88- or interferon-β promoter stimulator 1 (IPS-1)-dependent signaling pathways in antiviral responses in vivo remain unclear. In this study, we show that although either MyD88- or IPS-1-signaling pathway was sufficient to control initial antiviral responses to intranasal influenza A virus infection, mice lacking both pathways failed to show antiviral responses, resulting in increased viral load in the lung. By contrast, induction of B cells or CD4 T cells specific to the dominant hemagglutinin or nuclear protein Ags respectively, was strictly dependent on MyD88 signaling, but not IPS-1 signaling, whereas induction of nuclear protein Ag-specific CD8 T cells was not impaired in the absence of either MyD88 or IPS-1. Moreover, vaccination of TLR7- and MyD88-deficient mice with inactivated virus failed to confer protection against a lethal live virus challenge. These results strongly suggest that either the MyD88 or IPS-1 signaling pathway is sufficient for initial antiviral responses, whereas the protective adaptive immune responses to influenza A virus are governed by the TLR7-MyD88 pathway.
Report of MIRACLE Team for Geographical IR in CLEF 2006

The main objective of the designed experiments is testing the effects of geographical information retrieval from documents that contain geographical tags. In the designed experiments we try to isolate geographical retrieval from textual retrieval replacing all geo-entity textual references from topics with associated tags and splitting the retrieval process in two phases: textual retrieval from the textual part of the topic without geo-entity references and geographical retrieval from the tagged text generated by the topic tagger. Textual and geographical results are combined applying different techniques: union, intersection, difference, and external join based.
Learning representations for discrete sensor networks using tensor decompositions

With the rising number of sensing devices installed in today's and future sensor networks, there is an increasing demand for machine learning solutions performing tasks like automatic behavior detection and decision making. In particular, to classify the state of the complete sensor network, machine learning models are needed, which are capable of fusing the information from multiple sensors. In this paper we examine the use of tensor models to describe the relationship between multiple discrete sensor outputs and attendant class labels describing the overall system state. Tensor decompositions can be considered as a form of representation learning and they have been used for a variety of tasks, e.g. knowledge graph modeling and EEG data analysis. We propose a new approach for multiclass classification using tensor decompositions. As the dimensions of the tensors used in the multi-sensor classification are much higher than in traditional tasks, not all standard decomposition approaches are applicable due to scaling problems. In our experiments on real data, we show that the PARAFAC and Tensor Train decompositions work well for discrete multi-sensor fusion tasks and outperform other state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms.