Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A social partnership for peace building in Mexico: examples from the states of Nuevo León and Sonora

The context of terror that has resulted from the Mexican fight against organized crime since 2006 has led to the suspension of some citizens’ rights and freedoms. A re-appropriation of those rights is being engineered by social actors in different states of Mexico, demanding safety, a trust-worthy administration, and access to justice. Among the peace-building initiatives in Mexico driven by organized civil society are those emerging from social entrepreneurs in the state of Nuevo León, who are working at forging a new civic culture in northern Mexico. The case studies presented are the Monterrey-based organizations that constitute the Frente de Paz (Peace Front) and the successful implementation of the Crime Traffic Light in the states of Sonora and Nuevo León. The peace-building approach proposed includes participatory governance and a new role for the Mexican state as a partner in social development.
Does toe clipping for genotyping interfere with later-in-life nociception in mice?

Abstract Introduction: Genetically modified mice are widely used in studies on human and animal physiology and pharmacology, including pain research. The experimental design usually includes comparisons of genetically modified mice with wild-type littermates, requiring biopsy material for genotyping and methods for unequivocal identification of individual mice. Ethical standards and, in some countries, legislation require that both needs are reached with a single procedure. Clipping of the most distal phalanx of up to two toes per paw (toe clipping) is the favored procedure in most research fields, but it may be problematic in sensory physiology and pain research. Objectives: To systematically investigate whether toe-clipping influences later-in-life nociceptive sensitivity or the susceptibility to neuropathic or inflammatory hyperalgesia. Methods: We tested in male mice whether the clipping of 2 toes of a hind paw influences nociceptive sensitivities to noxious heat or cold, or to mechanical stimulation under baseline conditions, after peripheral nerve injury (chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve) or during peripheral inflammation induced by subcutaneous zymosan A injection. We tested not only for the presence of significant differences but also specifically addressed bioequivalence using the 2 one-sided t test procedure. We chose a threshold of 25% variation of the control value for nonequivalence, which is usually taken as a threshold for biological relevance in pain tests. Results: Using this value, we found that for all conditions (non-neuropathic and non-inflamed, neuropathic and inflamed), nociceptive sensitivities significantly fell within the equivalence bounds of the non–toe-clipped control mice. Conclusions: These results suggest that toe clipping does not have long-term effects on nociceptive sensitivities and does not alter the susceptibility of male mice to neuropathic or inflammatory hyperalgesia.
Performance Improvement of a Multi-State Coherent System using Component Importance Measure

SYNOPTIC ABSTRACT In system engineering, numerous efforts have been made for achieving improvement in system performance under a binary set up, where each component, as well as the entire system, has any one of two states; namely, perfect functioning and complete failure. However, there are systems which perform their tasks at various performance levels rather than functioning at only the above two performance levels. These systems are multi-state systems. In these systems, there can be some partially working states or performance levels before the system comes to the state of complete failure. Hence, the need has been felt to develop the procedures for improving the performance of multi-state systems consisting of multi-state components. This article resolves such an issue for a multi-state system using a multi-state component importance measure. The measure developed here is used to assess the impact of individual components on the improvement of system performance. Some basic theory to deal with a homogeneous multi-state coherent system has been developed, and finally, a rule has been derived to improve system performance using the importance measure. The applications of the results have been illustrated through a real-life example.
Molecular Determinants of Ion Permeation and Selectivity in Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate Receptor Ca2+ Channels*

We tested the hypothesis that key residues in a putative intraluminal loop contribute to determination of ion permeation through the intracellular Ca2+ release channel (inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs)) that is gated by the second messenger inositol 1,4,5-trisphophate (IP3). To accomplish this, we mutated residues within the putative pore forming region of the channel and analyzed the functional properties of mutant channels using a45Ca2+ flux assay and single channel electrophysiological analyses. Two IP3R mutations, V2548I and D2550E, retained the ability to release45Ca2+ in response to IP3. When analyzed at the single channel level; both recombinant channels had IP3-dependent open probabilities similar to those observed in wild-type channels. The mutation V2548I resulted in channels that exhibited a larger K+ conductance (489 ± 13 picosiemens (pS) for V2548I versus 364 ± 5 pS for wild-type), but retained a Ca2+ selectivity similar to wild-type channels (P Ca2+ :P K+ ∼ 4:1). Conversely, D2550E channels were nonselective for Ca2+ over K+(P Ca2+ :P K+ ∼ 0.6:1), while the K+ conductance was effectively unchanged (391 ± 4 pS). These results suggest that amino acid residues Val2548 and Asp2550 contribute to the ion conduction pathway. We propose that the pore of IP3R channels has two distinct sites that control monovalent cation permeation (Val2548) and Ca2+ selectivity (Asp2550).
Scalable and parameterized dynamic time warping architecture for efficient vehicle re-identification

Vehicle Re-identification is an effective way for calculation of travel time and origin-destination matrices, which is critical for traffic modeling and optimization. Recently, dynamic time warping (DTW) with magnetic signature has been a popular method for vehicle re-identification. However, with the increasing number of vehicles and the real-time requirement for travel time estimation, the calculation of DTW needs further acceleration. In this paper, we propose a scalable and parameterized architecture on reconfigurable fabrics for efficient vehicle re-identification. Parameterization is adopted to support various lengths of magnetic sequences. The experimental results with magnetic signature indicate that compared to the multi-core CPU-based implementation, our approach demonstrates over one order of magnitude on speedup and three orders of magnitude on energy-efficiency.
Combinatorial Approaches to the Prevention and Treatment of HIV-1 Infection

ABSTRACT The discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in 1982 soon led to the identification and development of antiviral compounds to be used in treatment strategies for infected patients. Early in the epidemic, drug monotherapies frequently led to treatment failures because the virus quickly developed resistance to the single drug. Following the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1995, dramatic improvements in HIV-1-infected patient health and survival were realized as more refined combination therapies resulted in reductions in viral loads and increases in CD4+ T-cell counts. In the absence of an effective vaccine, prevention of HIV-1 infection has also gained traction as an approach to curbing the pandemic. The development of compounds as safe and effective microbicides has intensified and has focused on blocking the transmission of HIV-1 during all forms of sexual intercourse. Initial preclinical investigations and clinical trials of microbicides focused on single compounds effective against HIV-1. However, the remarkable successes achieved using combination therapy to treat systemic HIV-1 infection have subsequently stimulated the study and development of combination microbicides that will simultaneously inhibit multiple aspects of the HIV-1 transmission process by targeting incoming viral particles, virus-infected cells, and cells susceptible to HIV-1 infection. This review focuses on existing and developing combination therapies, covering preclinical development, in vitro and in vivo efficacy studies, and subsequent clinical trials. The shift in focus within the microbicide development field from single compounds to combination approaches is also explored.
Neural correlates of human-robot handshaking

Handshaking represents a complex motor and cognitive task that poses several challenges from both engineering and neuroscientific viewpoints. In particular, it is an intriguing application which can be profitably studied in the field of Human Robot Interaction (HRI). In this work an experimental paradigm is proposed to investigate the neural correlates of handshaking between humans and between humans and robots using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. More specifically the role of visual and haptic components during handshaking interaction will be studied. A wearable sensing glove will be used to monitor hand finger position and movement. Preliminary results will be reported and discussed.
Real‐world experience with daclatasvir plus sofosbuvir ± ribavirin for post‐liver transplant HCV recurrence and severe liver disease

Optimizing therapy of post‐transplant HCV recurrence remains important, especially in advanced liver disease. We evaluated daclatasvir (DCV) plus sofosbuvir (SOF), with or without ribavirin (RBV), in patients with post‐liver transplant recurrence in a real‐world European cohort at high risk of decompensation or death within 12 months. Recommended treatment was DCV 60 mg plus SOF 400 mg once daily for 24 weeks; RBV use/shorter treatment duration was at physicians’ discretion. Patients (N = 87) were 70% male, 93% white, and mostly infected with HCV genotypes 1b (48%), 1a (32%), or 3 (9%); 37 (43%) had cirrhosis (16 decompensated), five had fibrosing cholestatic hepatitis. Sustained virologic response at post‐treatment week 12 (SVR12) was 94% (80/85) in a modified intention‐to‐treat analysis: 95% (58/61) without RBV and 92% (22/24) with RBV, with no virologic failures. SVR12 was 100% (80/80) in an as‐observed analysis excluding five nonvirologic failures. Four patients (5%) discontinued therapy for adverse events (AEs); 16 (18%) experienced serious AEs. One patient died on treatment and five during follow‐up. Most AEs were associated with advanced liver disease and unrelated to therapy. No clinically significant drug–drug interactions were observed. DCV + SOF ± RBV was well tolerated and achieved high SVR12 (94%) in patients with post‐transplant HCV recurrence, including patients with severe liver disease.
UpaH Is a Newly Identified Autotransporter Protein That Contributes to Biofilm Formation and Bladder Colonization by Uropathogenic Escherichia coli CFT073

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli is the primary cause of urinary tract infection (UTI) in the developed world. The major factors associated with virulence of uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) are fimbrial adhesins, which mediate specific attachment to host receptors and trigger innate host responses. Another group of adhesins is represented by the autotransporter (AT) subgroup of proteins. In this study, we identified a new AT-encoding gene, termed upaH, present in a 6.5-kb unannotated intergenic region in the genome of the prototypic UPEC strain CFT073. Cloning and sequencing of the upaH gene from CFT073 revealed an intact 8.535-kb coding region, contrary to the published genome sequence. The upaH gene was widely distributed among a large collection of UPEC isolates as well as the E. coli Reference (ECOR) strain collection. Bioinformatic analyses suggest β-helix as the predominant structure in the large N-terminal passenger (α) domain and a 12-strand β-barrel for the C-terminal β-domain of UpaH. We demonstrated that UpaH is expressed at the cell surface of CFT073 and promotes biofilm formation. In the mouse UTI model, deletion of the upaH gene in CFT073 and in two other UPEC strains did not significantly affect colonization of the bladder in single-challenge experiments. However, in competitive colonization experiments, CFT073 significantly outcompeted its upaH isogenic mutant strain in urine and the bladder.
Synthesis and analysis of steganography hidden information by tomographic methods

The widest application of the Radon transform and its various modifications is digital image processing. The article deals with the experimental algorithm of steganographic embedding and extraction of hidden messages using tomographic methods. In the course of the research, an analysis was made of known methods of steganographic embedding and extraction of hidden messages. It is necessary to investigate and analyze real containers to determine the presence of internal information, as well as a computational experiment to determine the parameters necessary for the operation of the algorithm. The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility of implementing tomographic techniques in steganography.
Using the Feminist Critique of Mediation to Explore 'the Good, the Bad and the Ugly' Implications for Women of the Introduction of Mandatory Family Dispute Resolution in Australia

In this article, aspects of the feminist critique are used to analyse issues arising for women as a result of the introduction in Australia in 2006 of, what is in effect, mandatory family dispute resolution in children’s disputes. The article argues that whilst family dispute resolution can be a positive process for women, it can also be an environment in which women face significant disadvantages. These potential disadvantages mean that mandating family dispute resolution, as a process of first resort in children’s disputes, will potentially create great post-separation injustice for women, and consequently for many children (an important consideration given the heavy emphasis on the best-interests of the children that dominates rhetoric about the Bill).
Towards a Unifying Attribute Based Access Control Approach for NoSQL Datastores

NoSQL datastores allow the efficient management of high volumes of heterogeneous and unstructured data, meeting the requirements of a variety of today ICT applications. However, most of these systems poorly support data security, and recent surveys show that their simplistic support for data protection is considered as a reason not to use them.1 In recent years, Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) is getting more and more popularity, for its ability to provide highly flexible and customized forms of data protection at different granularity levels. In the current work, with the aim to raise users' confidence in the protection of data managed by NoSQL systems, we define a general approach to enforce ABAC within NoSQL systems. Our approach relies on SQL++[20], a unifying query language for NoSQL platforms. In particular, we develop a novel SQL++ query rewriting mechanism able to enforce heterogeneous types of ABAC policies specified up to cell level. Experimental results show an overhead which is not negligible for policies covering high percentage of the fields characterizing the protected documents, but which is far more contained when field level policies are more sparsely specified.
The general amino acid control regulates MET4, which encodes a methionine‐pathway‐specific transcriptional activator of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A met4 mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was unable to transcribe a number of genes encoding enzymes of the methionine biosynthetic pathway. The sequence of the cloned MET4 gene allowed the previously sequenced flanking LEU4 and POL1 genes to be linked to MET4 into a 10 327 bp contiguous region of chromosome XIV. From the sequence and mapping of the transcriptional start points, MET4 is predicted to encode a protein of 634 amino acids (as opposed to 666 amino acids published by others) with a leucine zipper domain at the C‐terminus, preceded by both acidic and basic regions. Thus, MET4 belongs to the family of basic leucine zipper trans‐activator proteins. Disruption of MET4 resulted in methionine auxotrophy with no other phenotype. Transcriptional studies showed that MET4 was regulated by the general amino acid control and hence by another bZIP protein encoded by GCN4. GCN4 binding sequences are present between the divergently transcribed MET4 and LEU4 genes. Over‐expression of MET4 resulted in leaky expression from the otherwise tightly regulated MET3 promoter under its control. The presence of consensus sequences for other potential regulatory elements in the MET4 promoter suggests a complex regulation of this gene.
Online Discussion Boards for Technical Support: The Effect of Token Recognition on Customer Contributions

As firms in the information technology (IT) industry create increasingly complex products and face escalating service demands, they resort to customer peer-based solutions such as discussion boards to contain service costs. In discussion boards, customers post questions about products and receive answers from their peers. The sustainability of discussion boards depends on attracting volunteers who are willing to contribute answers to posted questions. Many IT firms use token recognition, such as titles, profiles, or lists of top 10 contributors, to motivate customer contribution. However, little is known about the effects of such incentives. By studying half a million postings collectively from the technical support discussion boards of four different IT companies, we find that some incentives can cannibalize socially based processes and reduce customer contribution. Our findings have implications for service firms as they strive to increase customer knowledge coproduction in service activities. Keyword: Customer self-service, online community, probit model, service strategy
Local Feature Based Person Reidentification in Infrared Image Sequences

In this paper, we address the task of appearance basedperson reidentification in infrared image sequences. Whilecommon approaches for appearance based person reidentificationin the visible spectrum acquire color histograms ofa person, this technique is not applicable in infrared for obviousreasons. To tackle the more difficult problem of personreidentification in infrared, we introduce an approachthat relies on local image features only and thus is completelyindependent of sensor specific features which mightbe available only in the visible spectrum. Our approachfits into an Implicit Shape Model (ISM) based person detectionand tracking strategy described in previous work.Local features collected during tracking are employed forperson reidentification while the generalizing appearancecodebook used for person detection serves as structuringelement to generate person signatures. By this, we gain anintegrated approach that allows for fast online model generation,a compact representation, and fast model matching.Since the model allows for a joined representation ofappearance and spatial information, no complex representationmodels like graph structures are needed. We evaluateour person reidentification approach on a subset of the CASIAinfrared dataset.
Promoting Paternal Participation in Maternal and Child Health Services

ABSTRACT Social service organizations face significant challenges involving fathers. This study presents the findings of a project between a maternal and child health program and a school of social work aimed at enhancing the organization’s capacity for engaging fathers in services. Results revealed that staff expressed a willingness to engage fathers but felt unprepared to do so. In detailing their experiences with the organization, fathers discussed the ways in which they had been engaged and their recommendations for improving those efforts. We conclude by advocating for the adoption of a bottom-up philosophy with regard to fatherhood program development and service delivery.
Muscle metaboreflex and autonomic regulation of heart rate in humans

• Heart rate increases during exercise due to withdrawal of cardiac parasympathetic tone and increased cardiac sympathetic nerve activity. • We investigated the autonomic mechanisms whereby heart rate is regulated by the activation of metabolically sensitive skeletal muscle afferents (muscle metaboreflex). • Heart rate responses elicited by partial flow restriction during leg cycling (enhanced metaboreflex activation) and post‐exercise muscle ischemia following leg cycling and handgrip (isolated metaboreflex activation) were evaluated under control (no drug), β‐adrenergic blockade and parasympathetic blockade conditions. • We show that the muscle metaboreflex principally elevates heart rate by increasing cardiac sympathetic activity, and only following dynamic exercise with a large muscle mass (post‐exercise muscle ischemia following leg cycling) does the partial withdrawal of cardiac parasympathetic tone make a contribution to this heart rate response. • These findings may have implications for patient populations in which alterations in skeletal muscle afferent sensitivity have been identified.
Women's experiences of cognitive changes or 'chemobrain' following treatment for breast cancer: a role for occupational therapy?

BACKGROUND/AIM Changes to functioning and cognition are commonly reported following chemotherapy. These changes are highly individual, and may not be fully recognised or understood. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women worldwide, yet little is known about the impact of cognitive changes for these women following treatment and many do not benefit from occupational therapy services. The aim was to describe changes in cognitive function experienced by women who had undergone chemotherapy, and the strategies used to overcome the associated challenges. METHOD This was a qualitative phenomenological study conducted with nine women, aged between 39 and 67 years, from New South Wales. Participants were breast cancer survivors who had received chemotherapy treatment, and self-reported chemobrain symptoms. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth telephone and face-to-face interviews. Data were transcribed, coded and thematically analysed. RESULTS Six themes described the chemobrain experience for these women. They were: uncertainty about the origin of the chemobrain experience; persistent but inconsistent impacts on function; simple function turned complex; losing functional independence in family life; strategies to maintain function; and the need for recognition of the subjective experience of cancer treatment. CONCLUSION The experiences of cognitive and functional changes following chemotherapy for those reporting chemobrain symptoms are highly individual, and include the need for adaptive strategies. Some similarities in the types of impairments were experienced. As breast cancer survivorship rates continue to rise, there is a need for occupational therapy services to assist women in returning to daily occupations during or following their cancer treatment.