Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-time conformational transitions of alanine dipeptide in aqueous solution: Continuous and discrete-state kinetic models

We present an analysis of the thermodynamics, conformational dynamics, and kinetics of the solvated alanine dipeptide molecule. Solvation was treated in the framework of the OPLS/analytic generalized born with nonpolar interactions effective potential model. The effective free energy map was generated in a series of multiwindow umbrella sampling all-atom simulations using the weighted histogram analysis method. A Brownian dynamics approach was used to examine the room-temperature dynamics of the dipeptide. To emulate the realistic dynamics of conformational interconversions of the alanine dipeptide in water, the parameters that govern the time evolution of the reduced model were chosen to mimic the intermediate-time dynamics of a model which treats both the solute and the solvent explicitly. The characteristic time (mean first passage time) for the “fast” C7eq → αR transition was found to be around 249 ps in good agreement with the results of previously reported studies. From an ensemble of microsecond Br.
The Neural Substrates of In-Group Bias

Classic minimal-group studies found that people arbitrarily assigned to a novel group quickly display a range of perceptual, affective, and behavioral in-group biases. We randomly assigned participants to a mixed-race team and used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain regions involved in processing novel in-group and out-group members independently of preexisting attitudes, stereotypes, or familiarity. Whereas previous research on intergroup perception found amygdala activity—typically interpreted as negativity—in response to stigmatized social groups, we found greater activity in the amygdala, fusiform gyri, orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsal striatum when participants viewed novel in-group faces than when they viewed novel out-group faces. Moreover, activity in orbitofrontal cortex mediated the in-group bias in self-reported liking for the faces. These in-group biases in neural activity were not moderated by race or by whether participants explicitly attended to team membership or race, a finding suggesting that they may occur automatically. This study helps clarify the role of neural substrates involved in perceptual and affective in-group biases.
Role-Related Participation in Product Design Teams

Organizations often delegate decision-making tasks to groups and teams. At issue is the extent to which participation during discussion reflects both individual-level characteristics and emergent (i.e., group-level) processes. Drawing upon Hewes’s socio-egocentric model and team meeting literature, we used a multilevel approach to examine participation in product-design teams across a series of tasks. Findings indicate that participation consists of both intra- and group-level processes. Team members who were talkative initially continued to participate frequently during the later tasks, and, as predicted, project managers also spoke more often than team members in any other role. In addition, group-level trends became stronger over time, as evidenced by behavioral convergence. Discussion addresses implications for a “middle ground” approach to modeling communicative behavior in groups.
Increased serum uric acid – a marker of non‐gouty widespread pain?

Objective: To study the relationship between reported chronic pain and the level of serum urate (SU) among women with various diagnoses of the musculoskeletal system. Methods: Consecutive female patients (aged 20–70 years, n = 124), at rheumatology and rehabilitation practices, with chronic musculoskeletal pain of different origins were followed for 1 year after an initial survey of pain, lifestyle, quality of life, and disability. Repeated blood samples (including urate, creatinine, cholesterol, and glucose) were analysed. Multiple regression analysis was performed to explain initial variations in SU level in relation to pain and confounding factors. Results: The level of SU was increased among individuals with widespread pain (>5 locations) independent of underlying diagnoses compared to those with fewer pain sites (270.5 vs. 241.2 µmol/L). Serum creatinine, body mass index (BMI), the number of pain locations, and sleep disturbances independently contributed to the SU level and explained 43% of the variation in SU. Individual variation in SU during 4 months was low. Conclusions: Epidemiological data on the relationship between the extent of body pain and SU were confirmed in a clinical setting. Besides known factors such as impaired renal function and obesity, widespread pain and sleep disturbances were related to an increase in SU. Medication and alcohol intake could not explain the findings. Longitudinal studies are necessary to elucidate whether the level of SU has any implications for the prognosis of chronic pain.
Speech Analysis and Synthesis by Linear Prediction of the Speech Wave

We describe a procedure for efficient encoding of the speech wave by representing it in terms of time-varying parameters related to the transfer function of the vocal tract and the characteristics of the excitation. The speech wave, sampled at 10 kHz, is analyzed by predicting the present speech sample as a linear combination of the 12 previous samples. The 12 predictor coe&ients are determined by minimiaing the mean-squared error between the actual and the predicted values of the speech samples. Fifteen parametek-namely, the 12 predictor coethcienta, the pitch period, a binary parameter indicating whether the speech is voiced or unvoiced, and the rms value of the speech samples-are derived by analysis of the speech wave, encoded and transmitted to the synthesizer. The speech wave is synthesized as the output of a linear recursive filter excited by either a sequence of quasiperiodic pulses or a wbite-noise source. Application of this method for efficient transmission and storage of speech signals as well as procedures for determining other speech characteristics, such as formant frequencies and bandwidths, the spectral envelope, and the autocorrelation function, are discussed.
A Central-Difference Scheme for a Pure Stream Function Formulation of Incompressible Viscous Flow

We present a numerical scheme for incompressible viscous flow, formulated as an equation for the stream function. The pure stream function formulation obviates the difficulty associated with vorticity boundary conditions. The resulting biharmonic equation is discretized with a compact scheme and solved with an algebraic multigrid solver. The advection of vorticity is implemented with a high-resolution central scheme that remains stable and accurate in the presence of large gradients. The accuracy and robustness of the method are demonstrated for high Reynolds number flows in a lid-driven cavity.
Functional Conjugacy in Parametric Bayesian Models

We address a basic question in Bayesian analysis: Can updates of the posterior under observations be represented as a closed-form mapping from the data to the posterior parameters? The question is closely related to the concept of a conjugate prior, but we do not assume that prior and posterior belong to the same model class. We refer to models for which a closed-form mapping exists as functionally conjugate, and ask which observation models admit such functionally conjugate priors. For finite-dimensional, dominated models, the answer is almost disappointingly restrictive: Under mild regularity assumptions, such a mapping can only exist if the likelihood is an exponential family model. This is a consequence of a more general result: In dominated models with strictly positive prior densities, existence of a mapping to the posterior parameters of the Bayesian model implies the existence of a sufficient statistic for the sampling model.
Object detection in surveillance video from dense trajectories

Detecting objects such as humans or vehicles is a central problem in video surveillance. Myriad standard approaches exist for this problem. At their core, approaches consider either the appearance of people, patterns of their motion, or differences from the background. In this paper we build on dense trajectories, a state-of-the-art approach for describing spatio-temporal patterns in video sequences. We demonstrate an application of dense trajectories to object detection in surveillance video, showing that they can be used to both regress estimates of object locations and accurately classify objects.
Relative Positioning by Fusing Signal Strength and Range Information in a Probabilistic Framework

In a wireless sensor network, positioning of the sensor nodes is essential to provide many pervasive applications and services. By equipping a node with a ranging unit, e.g. ultra-wideband (UWB), it is possible to achieve accurate relative positioning by trilateration-based approaches. However, due to the limitation of the ranging, this approach often suffers ambiguities, which may result in a deterioration of positioning accuracy in the whole sensor network. In this paper, we propose an approach to combine RSS and range measurement for relative positioning between multiple users without training and knowledge of the infrastructure. In particular, we show that our combined solution can solve the location ambiguity problem. We utilize the sequence-based approach to incorporate the RSS measurement into our probabilistic-based framework. Our approach neither needs any laborious site survey phase to collect the measurements nor requires any mathematical or analytical model to characterize the propagation of the radio signals. Extensive experiments in a real environment are conducted to show the benefits of incorporating the RSS and range measurements.
Clustering WWW Image Search Results Using Color Histogram and Textual Information

We consider the problem of how to present web image retrieval results to users. When a user submits an image query to search engines such as Google or Yahoo, the image results are returned in a list of thumbnails. If a query has multiple meanings, the user would have to sift through the long list in order to find the intended ones. The IR community has explored the topic of document clustering in great detail and materialized it in several clustering search engines. However, the ability to do semantic image clustering has been lacking in these engines. In this paper, we propose a clustering method that utilizes both of the visual and textual information to group thumbnail results. For each thumbnail, the visual information is its quantized color histogram, and the textual information contains the relevant snippets of the text that best describes the image. Our experiment results show that this feature level fusion of color histograms and text snippets gives a better performance than using either feature alone.
Identifying Types of Physical Activity With a Single Accelerometer: Evaluating Laboratory-trained Algorithms in Daily Life

Accurate identification of physical activity types has been achieved in laboratory conditions using single-site accelerometers and classification algorithms. This methodology is then applied to free-living subjects to determine activity behavior. This study is aimed at analyzing the reproducibility of the accuracy of laboratory-trained classification algorithms in free-living subjects during daily life. A support vector machine (SVM), a feed-forward neural network (NN), and a decision tree (DT) were trained with data collected by a waist-mounted accelerometer during a laboratory trial. The reproducibility of the classification performance was tested on data collected in daily life using a multiple-site accelerometer augmented with an activity diary for 20 healthy subjects (age: 30 ± 9; BMI: 23.0 ± 2.6 kg/m2). Leave-one-subject-out cross validation of the training data showed accuracies of 95.1 ± 4.3%, 91.4 ± 6.7%, and 92.2 ± 6.6% for the SVM, NN, and DT, respectively. All algorithms showed a significantly decreased accuracy in daily life as compared to the reference truth represented by the IDEEA and diary classifications (75.6 ± 10.4%, 74.8 ± 9.7%, and 72.2 ± 10.3 %; p <; 0.05). In conclusion, cross validation of training data overestimates the accuracy of the classification algorithms in daily life.
A Dynamic Programming Optimization Approach for Budget Allocation to Early Right-of-Way Acquisitions

Maximizing potential savings when purchasing right-of-way within a limited budget is a challenge currently faced by state departments of transportation (DOTs) across the nation. Early right-ofway acquisitions promote smoother negotiations and are aimed to save money, time, and human resources. This paper describes an optimization approach based on dynamic programming developed for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to identify projects with candidate parcels for early right-of-way acquisition in order to achieve the highest potential savings. Each candidate parcel must be subjected to a preliminary environmental analysis to ensure that each comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) standards.
Evaluation of an immunochromatographic test for feline AB system blood typing.

OBJECTIVE To determine the accuracy of an immunochromatographic cartridge (IC) test for blood typing feline type A, B, and AB blood samples. DESIGN Prospective observational study. SETTING University teaching hospital. SAMPLES Fifty-one nonanemic and 19 anemic feline blood samples. INTERVENTIONS Samples were blood typed by both card agglutination (CA) and IC techniques. Discordant results were analyzed using a back-typing technique for the presence of alloantibodies. Repeatability and reproducibility of the IC method were evaluated. Accuracy of the IC method was determined for feline whole blood anticoagulated with EDTA and citrate phosphate dextrose adenine (CPDA1), for feline-packed RBCs with CPDA1 and saline adenine glucose-mannitol, and for autoagglutinated and hemolytic samples. Accuracy of IC testing was determined for feline blood after room temperature, 4 ± 2, -20, and -80°C storage following 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours, and after 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks of storage. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS In anemic and nonanemic samples the IC technique had a specificity, sensitivity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 100% in detecting feline blood types A, B, and AB, outperforming a CA test. Results were repeatable and reproducible. Using IC it was possible to blood type samples anticoagulated with EDTA and CPDA1, packed RBC samples with CPDA1 and saline adenine glucose-mannitol, autoagglutinated and hemolytic samples, and samples stored at 4 ± 2°C and at room temperature for up to 1 month. CONCLUSIONS The IC technique is an accurate assay for the identification of A, B, and AB blood types in anemic and nonanemic feline blood. It has a higher sensitivity and specificity than the CA test, and can be used in samples stored with common anticoagulants or preservative solutions used in feline transfusion medicine.
The New Outsiders: ADHD and Disadvantage

Abstract Recent research has pointed to the uneven distribution of diagnoses of Attention Deficit HyperactivityDisorder, with disproportionately high numbers in areas marked by poverty (Gifford Sawyer et al., 2004;Olfsen et al., 2003). This chapter examines this issue of ADHD and social and economic disadvantage.Drawing on research with youth professionals from some of the most disadvantaged communities inAustralia, the chapter puts forward the case that the ADHD phenomenon has highly problematic effects onthe lives of children and young people in these communities. The intent is to show how the ADHDphenomenon interacts with disadvantage, and suggest how certain schooling practices that lead to themedicalization of child behavior have significant effects on people living in poverty. Publication Details Harwood, V. (2010). The New Outsiders: ADHD and Disadvantage, Chapter 3, in Graham, L.J. (Ed). (De)Constructing ADHD: Critical guidance for teachers and teacher educators. New York: Peter Lang,119-142.
Effect of isoenergetic low- and high-carbohydrate diets on substrate kinetics and oxidation in healthy men

The effect of diet composition on post-absorptive (15 h fast) fatty acid and glucose metabolism was investigated in five healthy men after 2 weeks on a low-carbohydrate (Low-CHO) diet (30% energy intake from carbohydrates, 55% from fat, 15% from protein) and after 2 weeks on a high-carbohydrate (High-CHO) diet (energy intake 75, 10 and 15% from carbohydrates, fat and protein respectively). The diets were isoenergetic and comprised real foods. Stable-isotope tracer methodology and indirect calorimetry were employed to measure glucose and fatty acid kinetics and oxidation. The relative contribution of carbohydrate to the total energy expenditure was significantly higher after the High-CHO diet. After the High-CHO diet, total and plasma fatty oxidation (2·4 (SE 0·7) and 2·1 (SE 0·4) μmol/kg per min respectively) were significantly lower than after the Low-CHO diet (4·8 (SE 0·5) and 4·6 (SE 0·8) μmol/kg per min for total and plasma fatty oxidation respectively). The rate of appearance (Ra) of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) in plasma and the arterial NEFA concentration were both significantly lower following the High-CHO than the Low-CHO diet. However, even after the High-CHO diet, NEFA Ra was threefold higher than plasma fatty acid oxidation. Thus, the decrease in fatty acid oxidation after consumption of a high-carbohydrate diet for 2 weeks in healthy men is unlikely to result from decreased fatty acid delivery to the tissues. Glucose Ra and arterial plasma glucose concentration were similar after the two diets. After the High-CHO diet, arterial lactate concentration was higher and total carbohydrate oxidation rate well exceeded glucose Ra in plasma. Therefore, alterations in intracellular mechanisms may limit fatty acid oxidation after high-carbohydrate diets.
A Secure and Efficient Key Exchange Protocol for Mobile Communications

This paper proposes a key exchange protocol with mutual authentication, which requires only 0.1 modular multiplications for online computations. This online computation is ten times faster than that of conventional protocols. The message size of the proposed protocol is about half (50%~66%) that of the previous protocols. In addition to its efficiency in online computation and bandwidth, the paper provides a formal proof to guarantee the security of the proposed protocol. Possessing of both secure and efficient properties makes the proposed protocol suitable for the low power mobile communications.
Physical Properties of LYSO Scintillator for NN-PET Detectors

Cerium doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate scintillators, such as LYSO, which possess high stopping power, high light output and fast decay time, are promising candidates for use in positron emission tomography. In this paper, the luminescence and nuclear spectroscopic properties of two LYSO samples, used in the NN-PET detectors, are studied. UV-excited emission spectra show that maximum emission spectral values are within the range of 400-425nm, which is well compatible with spectral response of PMT H7546B. The decay time, energy resolution, light output and energy spectra related to coincidence time window were investigated. The decay times of the two LYSO samples are 34.16±1.43ns, 34.26±1.95ns, respectively. The energy resolution and the light output, relative to NaI(Tl), are 10.25%±0.06%, 10.17%±0.10% and 75.3±5.7, 76.1±5.8 respectively when detected with PMT XP2262B. The energy spectra change obviously with coincidence time window and coincidence energy resolution is 14% when obtained using coincidence detector based on LYSO and H7546B. Keywords-LYSO;Decay time;Energy resolution;Light output; Energy spectra;
[Increase of oxygen free radicals and their derivatives in chemo- and radiation treated neoplasm patients].

BACKGROUND Radical oxygen species (ROS) are known to mediate cytotoxic anticancer activity by modifying the cellular homeostatic redox balance. The aim of the study is to evaluate whether cancer patients show more ROS after radio/chemotherapy. METHODS ROS were evaluated in 32 oncologic untreated patients. Blood samples were collected both before and after the end of radio/chemotherapy. Spectrophotometric detection of ROS was performed by using d-ROMs test (Diacron). RESULTS After therapy all patients showed a marked increase in ROS (378 +/- 35 U Carr) compared to values measured before therapy (269 +/- 62 U Carr, p < 0.0001). This result was more evident during the first course of therapy. No significant differences were observed between patients who received radio or chemotherapy. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion both radio and chemotherapy induce oxidative stress by increasing radical oxygen species, exceeding the antioxidative capacities of cancer patients. This is useful for therapeutic purposes but may enhance the cytotoxicity induced by therapy.
Feedback-basedWorm Containment

Most worm containment measures operate in two modes based on a threshold. Below the threshold, the containment measure assumes all traffic to be benign, whereas above it all anomalous traffic is considered to be malicious. We argue that such measures can lead to considerable damage before a response is triggered. Thus, we need measures that operate in a conservative manner from the time a worm is suspected until confirmation. We argue that such a measure will need to be feedback based. To design such a feedback measure, we first model worm propagation across a network connected to the Internet. Using this model we mathematically derive the conditions necessary to contain the spread of a worm in this network within certain bounds. Then we propose a feedback based algorithm that incorporates these conditions. Through simulation based study we validate the algorithm
Photon Mapping Parallel Based on Shared Memory System

By searching the basic tasks when photons are launched by photon mapping algorithm, this paper focuses on the implementation of photon mapping in parallel at low-end graphics workstation. It designs and implements multithreading of photon mapping under the shared memory even gets obvious acceleration ratio through a combination of OpenMP and Win32 threads library. Meanwhile, it further optimizes the parallel performance and, to some extent, improves the speed of rendering of photon mapping.