Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated Information in Discrete Dynamical Systems: Motivation and Theoretical Framework

This paper introduces a time- and state-dependent measure of integrated information, φ, which captures the repertoire of causal states available to a system as a whole. Specifically, φ quantifies how much information is generated (uncertainty is reduced) when a system enters a particular state through causal interactions among its elements, above and beyond the information generated independently by its parts. Such mathematical characterization is motivated by the observation that integrated information captures two key phenomenological properties of consciousness: (i) there is a large repertoire of conscious experiences so that, when one particular experience occurs, it generates a large amount of information by ruling out all the others; and (ii) this information is integrated, in that each experience appears as a whole that cannot be decomposed into independent parts. This paper extends previous work on stationary systems and applies integrated information to discrete networks as a function of their dynamics and causal architecture. An analysis of basic examples indicates the following: (i) φ varies depending on the state entered by a network, being higher if active and inactive elements are balanced and lower if the network is inactive or hyperactive. (ii) φ varies for systems with identical or similar surface dynamics depending on the underlying causal architecture, being low for systems that merely copy or replay activity states. (iii) φ varies as a function of network architecture. High φ values can be obtained by architectures that conjoin functional specialization with functional integration. Strictly modular and homogeneous systems cannot generate high φ because the former lack integration, whereas the latter lack information. Feedforward and lattice architectures are capable of generating high φ but are inefficient. (iv) In Hopfield networks, φ is low for attractor states and neutral states, but increases if the networks are optimized to achieve tension between local and global interactions. These basic examples appear to match well against neurobiological evidence concerning the neural substrates of consciousness. More generally, φ appears to be a useful metric to characterize the capacity of any physical system to integrate information.
How HDL protects LDL against atherogenic modification: paraoxonase 1 and other dramatis personae

Purpose of review To summarize the current evidence about how HDL impedes the oxidative and glycative atherogenic modification of LDL. Recent findings Paraoxonase 1 (PON1) is located on HDL. Meta-analysis of clinical epidemiological investigations reveals a substantial association of low serum PON1 activity with coronary heart disease incidence independent of other risk factors including HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein AI (apoAI). Transgenic animal models also indicate an antiatherosclerotic role for PON1. However, highly purified and recombinant PON1 do not retain their antioxidant properties. Summary The therapeutic potential of PON1 should be recognized in preventing atherosclerosis and combating infection and organophosphate toxicity. In unleashing this potential, it is important to consider that both highly purified and recombinant PON1 are dissociated from the lipid phase and other components of HDL, such as apoAI and apoM, all of which may be required for HDL (through its PON1 component) to hydrolyze more lipophilic substrates.
Seeking and measuring the essential behaviors of servant leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of how servant leadership is established and transmitted among members of an organization. The second goal was to identify and evaluate the unique actions by a leader essential to establishing servant leadership. The authors’ efforts resulted in identification and validation of ten leader behaviors that seem to be essential to servant leadership. Design/methodology/approach – The authors’ methodology consisted of two stages. In the first stage, The authors developed an item pool of 116 items drawn from previously developed operationalizations of servant leadership. The authors then engaged a panel of 23 researchers attending a conference focused exclusively on the study of servant leadership to evaluate the. Each participant was asked to independently rate each item using a four-point scale where 1=not useful in describing servant leaders and 4=contributes greatly to describing servant leaders. The authors retained only the most highly rated ite.
Construction of an Integrated and Extensible Software Architecture Modelling Environment

Constructing complex software engineering tools and integrating them with other tools to form an effective development environment is a very challenging task. Difficulties are exacerbated when the tool under construction needs to be extensible, flexible and enhanceable by end users. We describe the construction of SoftArch, a novel software architecture modelling and analysis tool, which needs to support an extensible set of architecture abstractions and processes, a flexible modelling notation and editing tools, a user-controllable and extensible set of analysis agents and integration with OOA/D CASE tools and programming environments. We developed solutions to these problems using an extensible meta-model, user-tailorable notation editors, event-driven analysis agents, and component-based integration with process support, OOA/D, code generation and reverse engineering tools.
BLINKS, SACCADES, AND FIXATION PAUSES DURING VIGILANCE TASK PERFORMANCE: I. TIME ON TASK

Operators of complex equipment increasingly are spending more time monitoring computer controlled devices rather than having hands-on control. The operator intervenes in system operation under unusual conditions or when there is a computer malfunction. The operator's task thus becomes a "vigilance" task, one requiring attention to monitoring equipment with little need for action. An individual's ability to maintain vigilance is easily compromised, with time-on-task (TOT) a major detractor of performance. This research asks if gaze control measures can be used to reflect and predict periods of impaired vigilance. The results of this study clearly demonstrate that a number of aspects of eye movements and eye blinks show significant TOT effects. These effects are more likely to be associated with short periods of attentional lapses or "microsleep" than with more tonic changes in alertness level. The literature dealing with indicants of fatigue and time-on-task effects is reviewed. The study evaluated aspects of blinking and eye movements in subjects performing an air traffic control simulation task. Subjects performed the task for a 2-hour period on 3 separate occasions. Significant increases in blink frequency, blink closing duration, blink flurries, eye closures and fixation pause were obtained as well as similar effects for derivative measures. Though the current data was collected through electrodes attached to the participant, much of the information can be acquired with remote monitoring technologies. This makes possible the application of such measures in a field setting where subjects are required to work on a display terminal.
High-fat, sucrose diet impairs geometrical and mechanical properties of cortical bone in mice

Exposure to diets high in fat and sucrose can induce hyperinsulinaemia, affect Ca and Mg metabolism, and alter bone mineralisation and mechanical properties. The present study assessed morphological and mechanical changes in a murine model exposed to a high-fat/sucrose (HFS) diet, as well as corresponding molecular and endocrine markers of bone turnover. Female C57BL/6 mice (aged 9 weeks) consumed either a low-fat, complex carbohydrate diet or an HFS diet for 10 weeks. At the end of the 10 weeks, serum was collected for biochemical analysis. Tibiae from half the mice (n 15) were randomly selected to be micro-computed tomography scanned and tested to failure in cantilever bending, while the remaining half were prepared for real-time PCR analysis. Serum tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase was significantly elevated in HFS mice, while osteocalcin remained unchanged. Both body mass and percentage body fat were greater in mice fed HFS diet. After adjusting for body mass, tibial structural and morphological properties were adversely affected in the HFS cohort. Cortical thickness, cross-sectional area, and load at maximum were all significantly lower in mice fed HFS diet. Receptor activator of nuclear factor κβ ligand (RANKL) mRNA was significantly upregulated in HFS mice, but osteoprotegerin/RANKL mRNA ratio remained unchanged between cohorts. Moreover, cyclo-oxygenase-2 mRNA tended to be increased in HFS. Thus, ingestion of an HFS diet had a significant adverse effect on mouse bone morphology and mechanics, and these effects were likely due to elevated osteoclast activity associated with the inflammatory state of obesity, and not necessarily osteoclast recruitment/proliferation.
Context-Guided Diffusion for Label Propagation on Graphs

Existing approaches for diffusion on graphs, e.g., for label propagation, are mainly focused on isotropic diffusion, which is induced by the commonly-used graph Laplacian regularizer. Inspired by the success of diffusivity tensors for anisotropic diffusion in image processing, we presents anisotropic diffusion on graphs and the corresponding label propagation algorithm. We develop positive definite diffusivity operators on the vector bundles of Riemannian manifolds, and discretize them to diffusivity operators on graphs. This enables us to easily define new robust diffusivity operators which significantly improve semi-supervised learning performance over existing diffusion algorithms.
AhR-Mediated Effects of Dioxin on Neuronal Acetylcholinesterase Expression in Vitro

Background: Deficits in cognitive functioning have been reported in humans exposed to dioxins and dioxin-like compounds. Evidence suggests that dioxins induce cholinergic dysfunction mediated by hypothyroidism. However, little is known about direct effects of dioxins on the cholinergic system. Objectives: We investigated the action of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) on acetylcholinesterase (AChE), a key enzyme in cholinergic neurotransmission. Methods: We used SK-N-SH human-derived neuronal cells to evaluate the effect of dioxin exposure on AChE. Results: We consistently found a significant decrease in enzymatic activity of AChE in cultured neurons treated with TCDD. We also found that, unlike organophosphate pesticides that directly act on the catalytic center of AChE, the suppressive effect of dioxin was through transcriptional regulation. The addition of CH223191, an inhibitor of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR)-dependent pathway, counteracted the TCDD-induced suppression of AChE, suggesting involvement of the AhR-dependent pathway. The existence of putative dioxin-responsive element (DRE) consensus sequences in the human ACHE promoter region further supported this hypothesis. Consistent with the absence of DRE elements in mouse or rat ACHE promoter regions, suppression of AChE by TCDD did not occur in rat neuronal cells, indicating a potential species-specific effect. Conclusions: In SK-N-SH cells, dioxin suppressed the activity of neuronal AChE via AhR-mediated transcriptional down-regulation. This is the first study to report direct interference by dioxin with the cholinergic neurotransmission system.
Molecular Dissection of IA Channels in Cortical Pyramidal Neurons

The rapidly activating and inactivating voltage-gated K (Kv) current, IA, is broadly expressed in neurons and is a key regulator of action potential repolarization, repetitive firing, back propagation (into dendrites) of action potentials, and responses to synaptic inputs. Interestingly, results from previous studies on a number of neuronal cell types, including hippocampal, cortical and spinal neurons, suggest that macroscopic IA is composed of multiple components and that each component is likely encoded by distinct Kv channel α-subunits. The goals of the experiments presented here were to test this hypothesis and to determine the molecular identities of the Kv channel α-subunits that generate IA in cortical pyramidal neurons. Combining genetic disruption of individual Kv α-subunit genes with pharmacological approaches to block Kv currents selectively, the experiments here revealed that Kv1.4, Kv4.2 and Kv4.3 α-subunits encode distinct components of IA that together underlie the macroscopic IA in mouse (male and female) cortical pyramidal neurons. Recordings from neurons lacking both Kv4.2 and Kv4.3 (Kv4.2/Kv4.3) revealed that, although Kv1.4 encodes a minor component of IA, the Kv1.4-encoded current was found in all the Kv4.2/Kv4.3 cortical pyramidal neurons examined. Of the cortical pyramidal neurons lacking both Kv4.2 and Kv1.4, 90% expressed a Kv4.3-encoded IA larger in amplitude than the Kv1.4-encoded component. The experimental findings also demonstrate that the targeted deletion of the individual Kv α-subunits encoding components of IA results in electrical remodeling that is Kv αsubunit specific.
Speech-Background Classification by Using SVM Technique

This paper investigates a novel support vector machines (SVMs) based technique to segregate speech segments from the concurrent background. The goal of the speech segment extraction is to separate the acoustic events of interest in a continuously recorded signal from the other parts of the signal (background). Speech segment extraction is an essential step in many front-end processors in speech recognition and coding systems and it has a direct effect on their performances. The investigated technique is an on-line process that can classify the speech features on a frame basis. Our SVMs approach is compared with another successful technique based on the hidden Markov model and showed an advantage in detecting the intra-word silence as well the inter-word silence periods.
The evolution of resource‐advantage theory

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a personal retrospective on six of the key events/experiences that influenced the development of the structure, foundational premises, and models of the resource‐advantage theory of competition.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a personal retrospective approach.Findings – The paper finds that six key events influenced the development of resource‐advantage theory: B.J. “Bud” LaLonde emphasizes the works of Alderson; Rob Morgan suggests an article on the resource‐based theory of the firm; Roy Howell suggests a presentation on R‐A theory; Randy Sparks shows a “socialist calculation” article; Kim Boal suggests the Journal of Management Inquiry as a publication outlet; and Bob Phillips discusses his work on “firm effects vs industry effects”. The paper then relates each of the six events to the paths, routes, or procedures that are often proposed as (or reported to be) likely to lead to the development of theories.Originality/value – By providing the.
Directly Deposited Quantum Dot Solids Using a Colloidally Stable Nanoparticle Ink

We develop a photovoltaic colloidal quantum dot ink that allows for lossless, single-step coating of large areas in a manufacturing-compatible process. Our materials strategy involves a solution-phase ligand exchange to transport compatible linkers that yield 1-thioglycerol-capped PbS quantum dots in dimethyl sulfoxide with a photoluminescence quantum yield of 24%. A proof-of-principle solar cell made from the ink exhibits 2.1% power conversion efficiency.
Sentiment Analysis of Multiple Implicit Features per Sentence in Consumer Review Data

textabstractWith the rise of e-commerce, online consumer reviews have become crucial for consumers' purchasing decisions. Most of the existing research focuses on the detection of explicit features and sentiments in such reviews, thereby ignoring all that is reviewed implicitly. This study builds, in extension of an existing implicit feature algorithm that can only assign one implicit feature to each sentence, a classifier that predicts the presence of multiple implicit features in sentences. The classifier makes its prediction based on a custom score function and a trained threshold. Only if this score exceeds the threshold, we allow for the detection of multiple implicit feature. In this way, we increase the recall while limiting the decrease in precision. In the more realistic scenario, the classifier-based approach improves the F1-score from 62.9% to 64.5% on a restaurant review data set. The precision of the computed sentiment associated with the detected features is 63.9%.
The IL-2 Receptor Promotes Lymphocyte Proliferation and Induction of the c-myc, bcl-2, and bcl-x Genes Through the trans-Activation Domain of Stat51

Studies assessing the role of Stat5 in the IL-2 proliferative signal have produced contradictory, and thus inconclusive, results. One factor confounding many of these studies is the ability of IL-2R to deliver redundant mitogenic signals from different cytoplasmic tyrosines on the IL-2R β-chain (IL-2Rβ). Therefore, to assess the role of Stat5 in mitogenic signaling independent of any redundant signals, all cytoplasmic tyrosines were deleted from IL-2Rβ except for Tyr510, the most potent Stat5-activating site. This deletion mutant retained the ability to induce Stat5 activation and proliferation in the T cell line CTLL-2 and the pro-B cell line BA/F3. A set of point mutations at or near Tyr510 that variably compromised Stat5 activation also compromised the proliferative signal and revealed a quantitative correlation between the magnitude of Stat5 activation and proliferation. Proliferative signaling by a receptor mutant with a weak Stat5 activating site could be rescued by overexpression of wt Stat5a or b. Additionally, the ability of this receptor mutant to induce c-myc, bcl-x, and bcl-2 was enhanced by overexpression of wt Stat5. By contrast, overexpression of a version of Stat5a lacking the C-terminal trans-activation domain inhibited the induction of these genes and cell proliferation. Thus, Stat5 is a critical component of the proliferative signal from Tyr510 of the IL-2R and regulates expression of both mitogenic and survival genes through its trans-activation domain.
Comparison of validity and reliability of the Migraine disability assessment (MIDAS) versus headache impact test (HIT) in an Iranian population

Background Migraine is one of the most common headaches that affect 11% or more adult population. Recently, researchers have designed two questionnaires, namely Headache Impact Test (HIT) and Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS), with the aim of improving migraine care. These two tests provide a standard measurement about migraine's effects on people's life style that divide patients into 4 groups (grades) based on headaches intensity. The aim of this study was to compare the validity and reliability of these two tests. Methods This study was designed as a multicenter, descriptive study to compare validity and reliability of Persian version of MIDAS and HIT questionnaires in 240 males and females with a migraine diagnosis according to criteria for headache and facial pain of the International Headache Society (IHS). The patients were enrolled in the study from 3 neurology clinics in Isfahan, Iran, between July 2004 and January 2005 and were evaluated at baseline (visit 1) and 4 weeks later (visit 2). Results According to our study, there was a high correlation between two tests (r = 0.94). This decreased their MIDAS grade in comparison to their grade HIT questionnaire. Conclusion These findings demonstrated that Persian version of HIT have the same validity and reliability as MIDAS. Replying to HIT questionnaire was easier than MIDAS for Iranian patients. Physicians can reliably use the Persian translation of both MIDAS and HIT questionnaires to define the severity of illness and its treatment strategy as a self-administered report by migraine patients. However, we recommend HIT for its simplicity in headache clinics.
An EMG-Based Robot Control Scheme Robust to Time-Varying EMG Signal Features

Human-robot control interfaces have received increased attention during the past decades. With the introduction of robots in everyday life, especially in providing services to people with special needs (i.e., elderly, people with impairments, or people with disabilities), there is a strong necessity for simple and natural control interfaces. In this paper, electromyographic (EMG) signals from muscles of the human upper limb are used as the control interface between the user and a robot arm. EMG signals are recorded using surface EMG electrodes placed on the user's skin, making the user's upper limb free of bulky interface sensors or machinery usually found in conventional human-controlled systems. The proposed interface allows the user to control in real time an anthropomorphic robot arm in 3-D space, using upper limb motion estimates based only on EMG recordings. Moreover, the proposed interface is robust to EMG changes with respect to time, mainly caused by muscle fatigue or adjustments of contraction level. The efficiency of the method is assessed through real-time experiments, including random arm motions in the 3-D space with variable hand speed profiles.
Phase I Study of GC1008 (Fresolimumab): A Human Anti-Transforming Growth Factor-Beta (TGFβ) Monoclonal Antibody in Patients with Advanced Malignant Melanoma or Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background In advanced cancers, transforming growth factor-beta (TGFβ) promotes tumor growth and metastases and suppresses host antitumor immunity. GC1008 is a human anti-TGFβ monoclonal antibody that neutralizes all isoforms of TGFβ. Here, the safety and activity of GC1008 was evaluated in patients with advanced malignant melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. Methods In this multi-center phase I trial, cohorts of patients with previously treated malignant melanoma or renal cell carcinoma received intravenous GC1008 at 0.1, 0.3, 1, 3, 10, or 15 mg/kg on days 0, 28, 42, and 56. Patients achieving at least stable disease were eligible to receive Extended Treatment consisting of 4 doses of GC1008 every 2 weeks for up to 2 additional courses. Pharmacokinetic and exploratory biomarker assessments were performed. Results Twenty-nine patients, 28 with malignant melanoma and 1 with renal cell carcinoma, were enrolled and treated, 22 in the dose-escalation part and 7 in a safety cohort expansion. No dose-limiting toxicity was observed, and the maximum dose, 15 mg/kg, was determined to be safe. The development of reversible cutaneous keratoacanthomas/squamous-cell carcinomas (4 patients) and hyperkeratosis was the major adverse event observed. One malignant melanoma patient achieved a partial response, and six had stable disease with a median progression-free survival of 24 weeks for these 7 patients (range, 16.4–44.4 weeks). Conclusions GC1008 had no dose-limiting toxicity up to 15 mg/kg. In patients with advanced malignant melanoma and renal cell carcinoma, multiple doses of GC1008 demonstrated acceptable safety and preliminary evidence of antitumor activity, warranting further studies of single agent and combination treatments. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00356460