Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
To what extent are Canadian second language policies evidence-based? Reflections on the intersections of research and policy

The paper addresses the intersections between research findings and Canadian educational policies focusing on four major areas: (a) core and immersion programs for the teaching of French to Anglophone students, (b) policies concerning the learning of English and French by students from immigrant backgrounds, (c) heritage language teaching, and (d) the education of Deaf and hard-of hearing students. With respect to the teaching of French, policy-makers have largely ignored the fact that most core French programs produce meager results for the vast majority of students. Only a small proportion of students (<10%) attend more effective alternatives (e.g., French immersion and Intensive French programs). With respect to immigrant-background students, a large majority of teachers and administrators have not had opportunities to access the knowledge base regarding effective instruction for these students nor have they had opportunities for pre-service or in-service professional development regarding effective instructional practices. Educational policies in most jurisdictions have also treated the linguistic resources that children bring to school with, at best, benign neglect. In some cases (e.g., Ontario) school systems have been explicitly prohibited from instituting enrichment bilingual programs that would promote students’ bilingualism and biliteracy. Finally, with respect to Deaf students, policy-makers have ignored overwhelming research on the positive relationship between academic success and the development of proficiency in natural sign languages, preferring instead to leave uncorrected the proposition that acquisition of languages such as American Sign Language by young children (with or without cochlear implants) will impede children’s language and academic development. The paper reviews the kinds of policies, programs, and practices that could be implemented (at no additional cost) if policy-makers and educators pursued evidence-based educational policies.
COCCUS: self-configured cost-based query services in the cloud

Recently, a large number of pay-as-you-go data services are offered over cloud infrastructures. Data service providers need appropriate and flexible query charging mechanisms and query optimization that take into consideration cloud operational expenses, pricing strategies and user preferences. Yet, existing solutions are static and non-configurable. We demonstrate COCCUS, a modular system for cost-aware query execution, adaptive query charge and optimization of cloud data services. The audience can set their queries along with their execution preferences and budget constraints, while COCCUS adaptively determines query charge and manages secondary data structures according to various economic policies. We demonstrate COCCUS's operation over centralized and shared nothing CloudDBMS architectures on top of public and private IaaS clouds. The audience is enabled to set economic policies and execute various workloads through a comprehensive GUI. COCCUS's adaptability is showcased using real-time graphs depicting a number of key performance metrics.
The modulatory effects of dopamine D1 and D2 receptor function on object working memory in humans

The role of dopamine D1 and D2 receptors in modulating object working memory in humans is poorly understood. The current study was designed to investigate the effects of D1 and D2 receptor modulation on object working memory. Twelve healthy subjects underwent testing under three conditions [0.05 mg pergolide (D1/D2 receptor agonist), 2.5 mg bromocriptine (D2 receptor agonist) and placebo] in a double-blind, placebo-controlled repeated measures design. Subjects performed the object working memory N-back task pre-drug and 1.5 h and 3 h post-drug administration. Neither pergolide nor bromocriptine had an effect on object working memory performance. These findings suggest that object working memory may not be modulated by D1 and D2 receptors in humans.
Daily sound recognition using a combination of GMM and SVM for home automation

Most elderly people monitoring systems include the detection of abnormal situations, in particular distress situations, as one of their main goals. In order to reach this objective, many solutions end up combining several modalities such as video tracking, fall detection and sound recognition, so as to increase the reliability of the system. In this work we focus on daily sound recognition as it is one of the most promising modalities. We make a comparison of two standard methods used for speaker recognition and verification: Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) and Support Vector Machines (SVM). Experimental results show the effectiveness of the combination of GMM and SVM in order to classify sound data sequences when compared to systems based on GMM.
Plenty to Worry About: Consent, Control, and Anxiety

Patients frequently experience nocebo effects when taking active medications. These are side effects produced by negative expectations, rather than by specific pharmacological characteristics of the drug. Nonetheless, they add to the burden of illness and often motivate reassurance-seeking behavior that increases the costs of care. Studies show that nocebo effects can be induced by what doctors tell patients about a medication, and they are more likely to occur when facts about nonspecific side effects—for example, dizziness, nausea, and drowsiness—are disclosed to patients with high levels of somatization and anxiety. In order to reduce the likelihood of these harms occurring, Wells and Kaptchuk (2012) argue that the disclosure portion of the informed consent process should be modified in clinical care. They urge doctors to consider “the possible side effects, the patient being treated, the particular diagnosis involved to provide information tailored in a way that reduces expectancy induced side effects while still respecting patient autonomy” (22). In what follows, I argue that their proposal threatens to violate patients’ autonomy rights, and may even negatively affect the very patients that it is designed to benefit. Wells and Kaptchuk claim that “the chief motivation behind informed consent is the protection of patients” (22). If they are right, then their proposal allows doctors “to balance informed consent and nonmaleficence” (22). After all, the anxious patient’s medical well-being seems to be protected when nocebo-inducing information is withheld. But the standard view tells us that the primary purpose of informed consent is the protection of patients’ autonomy (Berg et al. 2001), and a cursory discussion of autonomy rights reveals a problem with the authors’ approach. Morally competent adults have autonomy rights. That is to say, they have rights to control certain aspects of their lives, and these impose duties on others not to usurp that control. If you visit your doctor with a suspected case of gout and she injects cortisone into your inflamed joint without your permission, she violates one of your autonomy rights—namely, your right to bodily integrity—by trespassing on your body without your permission. But when you grant another person consent, you exercise a right, thereby permitting that person to perform an action that would otherwise be impermissible. No rights violation occurs if you authorize the doctor’s action after she diagnoses your condition, explains that in her professional opinion a steroid injection will ameliorate your pain, and adequately outlines the procedure, risks, and alternatives.
Osteoblast attachment to a textured surface in the absence of exogenous adhesion proteins

The present study investigated whether osteoblasts could attach to a culture substratum through a surface texture-dependent mechanism. Four test groups were used: (A) untextured, and three texture groups with maximum feature sizes of (B) <0.5 /spl mu/m, (C) 2 /spl mu/m, and (D) 4 /spl mu/m, respectively. All surfaces were coated with the nonadhesive protein bovine serum albumin (BSA). Osteoblasts were allowed to adhere in serum-free medium for either 1 or 4 h, at which time nonadherent cells were removed. At 4 h, untextured surface A exhibited no cell attachment, while textured surfaces B, C, and D exhibited 9%, 32%, and 16% cell adhesion, respectively. At 16 h of incubation, adherent osteoblasts on textured surface C exhibited focal adhesion contacts and microfilament stress-fiber bundles. These results indicate that microtextured surfaces in the absence of exogenous adhesive proteins can facilitate osteoblast adhesion.
Complement Activation by Merozoite Antigens of Plasmodium falciparum

Background Complement (C) is a crucial part of the innate immune system and becomes over activated during malaria, resulting in depletion of C components, especially those for lectin pathway (LP), thereby compromising the host's innate defense. In this study, involvement of P. falciparum antigens in C activation was investigated. Methods A highly synchronous culture of the Dd2 clone of P. falciparum was established in a serum free medium. Supernatants harvested from rings, trophozoites and schizonts at various parasite densities were tested for ability to activate C by quantifying amount of C3b deposited on erythrocytes (E). Uninfected sham culture was used as control. Remnants of each C pathway were determined using Wieslab complement System Screenkit (Euro-diagnostica, Sweden). To identify MBL binding antigens of LP, culture supernatants were added to MBL sepharose columns and trapped antigens eluted with increasing concentrations of EDTA (10 mM, 50 mM and 100 mM) and then desalted before being tested for ability to activate C. The EDTA eluate with highest activity was run on a polyacrylamide gel and silver stained proteins analyzed by mass spectroscopy. Results Antigens released by P. falciparum growing in culture activated C leading to C3b deposition on E. Maximal activation at 7% parasitemia was associated with schizont stage (36.7%) compared to 22% for rings, 21% for trophozoites and 3% for sham culture. All the three pathways of C were activated, with highest activation being for the alternative pathway (only 6% of C activation potential remained), 65% for classiical and 43% for the LP. Seven MBL binding merozoite proteins were identified by mass spectrometry in the 50 mM EDTA eluate. Conclusions MBL binding merozoite adhesins with ability to activate C pathway were identified. The survival advantage for such pronounced C activation is unclear, but opsonisation could facilitate recognition and invasion of E.
Regulation of Gene Expression in Autoimmune Disease Loci and the Genetic Basis of Proliferation in CD4[superscript +] Effector Memory T Cells

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and subsequent dense-genotyping of associated loci identified over a hundred single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variants associated with the risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), type 1 diabetes (T1D), and celiac disease (CeD). Immunological and genetic studies suggest a role for CD4-positive effector memory T (CD + T EM ) cells in the pathogenesis of these diseases. To elucidate mechanisms of autoimmune disease alleles, we investigated molecular phenotypes in CD4 + effector memory T cells potentially affected by these variants. In a cohort of genotyped healthy individuals, we isolated high purity CD4 + T EM cells from peripheral blood, then assayed relative abundance, proliferation upon T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation, and the transcription of 215 genes within disease loci before and after stimulation. We identified 46 genes regulated by cis -acting expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), the majority of which we detected in stimulated cells. Eleven of the 46 genes with eQTLs were previously undetected in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Of 96 risk alleles of RA, T1D, and/or CeD in densely genotyped loci, eleven overlapped cis -eQTLs, of which five alleles completely explained the respective signals. A non-coding variant, rs389862 A , increased proliferative response ( p =4.75 6 10 2 8 ). In addition, baseline expression of seventeen genes in resting cells reliably predicted proliferative response after TCR stimulation. Strikingly, however, there was no evidence that risk alleles modulated CD4 + T EM abundance or proliferation. Our study underscores the power of examining molecular phenotypes in relevant cells and conditions for understanding pathogenic mechanisms of disease variants.
A special class of orthonormal wavelets: theory, implementations, and applications

This paper introduces a novel class of length-4N orthonormal scalar wavelets, and presents the theory, implementational issues, and their applications to image compression. We first give the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of this class. The parameterized representation of filters with different lengths are then given. Next, we derive new and efficient decomposition and reconstruction algorithms specifically tailored to this class of wavelets. We show that the proposed discrete wavelet transformations are orthogonal and have lower computational complexity than conventional octave-bandwidth transforms using Daubechies' (1989) orthogonal filters of equal length. In addition, we also verify that symmetric boundary extensions can be applied. Finally, our image compression results further confirm that improved performance can be achieved with lower computational cost.
Functional alterations of liver innate immunity of mice with aging in response to CpG‐oligodeoxynucleotide

Immune functions of liver natural killer T (NKT) cells induced by the synthetic ligand α‐galactosylceramide enhanced age‐dependently; hepatic injury and multiorgan dysfunction syndrome (MODS) induced by ligand‐activated NKT cells were also enhanced. This study investigated how aging affects liver innate immunity after common bacteria DNA stimulation. Young (6 weeks) and old (50‐60 weeks) C57BL/6 mice were injected with CpG oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG‐ODN), and the functions of liver leukocytes were assessed. A CpG‐ODN injection into the old mice remarkably increased tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production in Kupffer cells, and MODS and lethal shock were induced, both of which are rarely seen in young mice. Old Kupffer cells showed increased Toll‐like receptor‐9 expression, and CpG‐ODN challenge augmented TNF receptor and Fas‐L expression in liver NKT cells. Experiments using mice depleted of natural killer (NK) cells by anti‐asialoGM1 antibody (Ab), perforin knockout mice, and mice pretreated with neutralizing interferon (IFN)‐γ Ab demonstrated the important role of liver NK cells in antitumor immunity. The production capacities of old mice for IFN‐γ, IFN‐α, and perforin were much lower than those of young mice, and the CpG‐induced antitumor cytotoxicity of liver NK cells lessened. Lethal shock and MODS greatly decreased in old mice depleted/deficient in TNF, FasL, or NKT cells. However, depletion of NK cells also decreased serum TNF levels and FasL expression of NKT cells, which resulted in improved hepatic injury and survival, suggesting that NK cells are indirectly involved in MODS/lethal shock induced by NKT cells. Neutralization of TNF did not reduce the CpG‐induced antitumor effect in the liver. Conclusion: Hepatic injury and MODS mediated by NKT cells via the TNF and FasL‐mediated pathway after CpG injection increased, but the antitumor activity of liver NK cells decreased with aging. (HEPATOLOGY 2008.)
Flexible and Robust Patterning by Centralized Gene Networks

We consider networks with two types of nodes. The v-nodes, called centers, are hyperconnected and interact one to another via many u-nodes, called satellites. This centralized architecture, widespread in gene networks, realize a bow-tie scheme and possesses interesting properties. Namely, this organization creates feedback loops that are capable to generate any prescribed patterning dynamics, chaotic or periodic, and create a number of equilibrium states. We show that activation or silencing of a node can sharply switch the network attractor, even if the activated or silenced node is weakly connected. We distinguish between two dynamically different situations, "power of center" (PC) when satellite response is fast and "satellite power" (SP) when center response is fast. Using a simple network example we show that a centralized network is more robust with respect to time dependent perturbations, in the PC relative to the SP case. In theoretical molecular biology, this class of models can be used to reveal a non-trivial relation between the architecture of protein-DNA and protein-protein interaction networks and controllability of space-time dynamics of cellular processes.
Extraction of Simple Sentences from Mixed Sentences for Building Korean Case Frames

A large number of simple sentences are needed to construct practical Case frames automatically. Until now, most studies have assumed that there are already extensive training data (especially here simple sentences) and linguistic information for their work. However, this is not true at least of Korean. Furthermore, Korean syntactic structures are significantly different from those of English. So, this paper first of all, compares Korean with English in relation to extracting simple sentences from mixed ones. Second, we suggest fundamental and detailed principles. For convenience and practicality, however, we deliberately exclude some linguistic phenomena. Finally, we attempt to develop a reliable algorithm to extract simple sentences with the ultimate goal of building Case frames.
Developmental stages until hatching of the Lake Victoria cichlid Haplochromis piceatus (Teleostei: Cichlidae)

Because little is known about embryonic developmental stages in any haplochromine cichlid, we describe here a series of normal stages of the Lake Victoria cichlid Haplochromis piceatus. We collected 273 embryos and scored them for 47 morphological characters. The result was an illustrated series of 12 stages from embryonic shield until hatching based on live, fixed, and histological material. We defined each stage according to a single “key” character that applied to all embryos of that stage. Other characters forming part of the stage descriptions were not necessarily present in all embryos of a stage. We compare our findings with published studies of other freshwater teleosts and find wide variation in staging systems. Our data will form a baseline for further research on cichlid development. J. Morphol. 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Speech Enhancement Using Iterative Kalman Filter with Time and Frequency Mask in Different Noisy Environment

The main aim of the Speech Enhancement algorithms is to improve the Quality of speech. The Quality of speech is expressed in two parameters. One is clarity, and another is intelligibility. In this paper, we proposed a method to improve the quality of speech based on computationally efficient AR modeled Iterative Kalman Filter with time and frequency mask. This approach is based on reconstruction of noisy speech signals using Auto Regressive modeled Kalman filter and further to reduce artifact noise time and frequency mask is applied to the Kalman filter output. The results of the proposed method are found to be better compared to spectral subtraction, wiener filter and Kalman filter methods.
Impaired colour discrimination in Huntington's disease

Colour discrimination and visual contrast perception were investigated in 18 patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and in 18 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy volunteers using the Farnsworth‐Munsell 100 Hue test (FM) and stationary contrast targets. The mean total error score (MTES) and the partial scores for the “red‐green” and the “blue‐yellow” axes in the FM of the patients with HD were significantly elevated as compared to controls (MTES in HD: 113.0 ± 90.8; MTES in controls: 19.2 ± 8.8). The spatial contrast sensitivity in HD patients was normal. The colour perception dysfunction indicates that the visual system is affected in HD. The visual disorder may be related to an imbalance of certain neurotransmitters in the visual system of HD patients. Possible anatomical sites of the dysfunction responsible for colour discrimination abnormalities could be the retinal cone system and/or impaired parvocellular central visual pathways in HD.
IBC127: Video dataset for fine-grained bird classification

Beyond general object recognition whereby general categories such as dogs and cats are estimated from images, Fine-grained visual categorization (FGVC) is a new trend that goes beyond general object recognition - where general categories such as cats and dogs are estimated from images - to classify fine-grained categories of objects (or animals) such as poodles or bulldogs. It is difficult to distinguish between categories with similar appearance, e.g., sparrows and hummingbirds, using image features alone. Consequently, motion features extracted from videos are effective for classifying similar animals. In this paper, we demonstrate the effectiveness of motion features for FGVC of animals. We use our novel dataset that consists of videos of fine-grained categories of birds collected from the internet. Our dataset is publicly available for academics.
Fertilizing capacity of epididymal and testicular spermatozoa microinjected under the zona pellucida of the mouse oocyte

Mouse spermatozoa were obtained from the testis and caput, corpus, and cauda epididymis incubated for 2 h in capacitation medium and a single spermatozoon from the capacitated samples microinjected into the pervitelline space of mature mouse oocytes. Spermatozoa from the testis were unable to fertilize oocytes and few spermatozoa from the caput were capable of fertilization (0–7% depending on the method of preparation). Similar fertilization rates (30–45%) were obtained with spermatozoa with forward progressive motility from the proximal and distal corpus and the cauda epididymis, but those that were vibratory or with local circular motility had significantly reduced fertilizing capacity (6–10%). The capacity of spermatozoa from the different regions of the testis and epididymis to bind to zona‐free oocytes followed the same pattern as fertilization rate after microinjection. There was a progressive increase in acrosome reactions after 2 h incubation in capacitation medium in samples obtained from the testis to the cauda epididymis. Maturation of the capacity to bind to the perivitelline membrane and to develop forward progressive motility, rather than the capacity to acrosome react, appears to govern the fertilization of oocytes in which the zona has been bypassed by microinjection. These characteristics are obtained in the proximal segment of the corpus. However, there was evidence that the embryo developmental capacity of oocytes fertilized by spermatozoa from the higher segments of the epididymis is reduced, particularly in oocytes fertilized by caput spermatozoa. These observations suggest that sperm microinjection may have only a limited benefit for improving fertilization rates for men with high epididymal obstructive azoospermia.