Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Entropy-Based Privacy against Profiling of User Mobility

Location-based services (LBSs) flood mobile phones nowadays, but their use poses an evident privacy risk. The locations accompanying the LBS queries can be exploited by the LBS provider to build the user profile of visited locations, which might disclose sensitive data, such as work or home locations. The classic concept of entropy is widely used to evaluate privacy in these scenarios, where the information is represented as a sequence of independent samples of categorized data. However, since the LBS queries might be sent very frequently, location profiles can be improved by adding temporal dependencies, thus becoming mobility profiles, where location samples are not independent anymore and might disclose the user’s mobility patterns. Since the time dimension is factored in, the classic entropy concept falls short of evaluating the real privacy level, which depends also on the time component. Therefore, we propose to extend the entropy-based privacy metric to the use of the entropy rate to evaluate mobility profiles. Then, two perturbative mechanisms are considered to preserve locations and mobility profiles under gradual utility constraints. We further use the proposed privacy metric and compare it to classic ones to evaluate both synthetic and real mobility profiles when the perturbative methods proposed are applied. The results prove the usefulness of the proposed metric for mobility profiles and the need for tailoring the perturbative methods to the features of mobility profiles in order to improve privacy without completely loosing utility.
The School-Wide Evaluation Tool (SET)

Schools throughout the country are now encouraged to implement school-wide positive behavior support (PBS) procedures as a way to improve their behavioral climate, safety, and social culture. Research is needed to determine (a) the extent to which schools already use school-wide PBS, (b) if training and technical assistance efforts result in change in the use of school-wide PBS procedures, and (c) if use of these procedures is related to valued change in safety, social culture, and behavior within schools. To address these questions, researchers need a metric for assessing implementation of school-wide PBS practices. The School-Wide Evaluation Tool (SET; Sugai, Lewis-Palmer, Todd, & Horner, 2001) was created to provide a rigorous measure of primary prevention practices within school-wide behavior support. In this article, the authors describe the SET and document its psychometric characteristics. The results of their study suggest that the SET is a valid, reliable measure that can be used to assess the impact of school-wide training and technical assistance efforts. The SET should also be useful in formal analyses of the relationship between use of school-wide PBS and changes in social and academic outcomes.
Cholesteryl nitrolinoleate, a nitrated lipid present in human blood plasma and lipoproteins Published, JLR Papers in Press, July 1, 2003. DOI 10.1194/jlr.M200467-JLR200

Nitric oxide (•NO) and •NO-derived reactive species (e.g., peroxynitrite anion, nitrogen dioxide radical) react with lipids containing unsaturated fatty acids to generate nitrated species. In the present work, we synthesized, characterized, and detected a nitrated derivative of cholesteryl linoleate (Ch18:2) in human blood plasma and lipoproteins using a high-pressure liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry method. It was synthesized by a reaction of Ch18:2 with nitronium tetrafluoroborate, yielding a species with m/z 711, which is characteristic of the cholesteryl nitrolinoleate (Ch18:2NO2) ammonium adduct. The presence of the nitro group was confirmed by using [15N]nitrite, which gave a product with m/z 712, with the same chromatographic and spectrometric characteristics of those of m/z 711. Furthermore, a C-NO2 structure was also demonstrated in Ch18:2NO2 by infrared analysis (Vmax 1549, 1374 cm−1). A stable product with m/z of 711, showing the same chromatographic characteristics and fragmentation pattern as those of synthesized standard, was found in human blood plasma and lipoproteins of normolipidemic subjects. The presence of this novel nitrogen-containing lipid product in human plasma and lipoproteins could represent a potential indicator of the oxidative/nitrative roles that •NO or its metabolites play during in vivo lipid oxidation, generating a compensatory mechanism of protection in vascular disease.
Exploring Domain-General and Domain-Specific Linguistic Knowledge in the Assessment of Academic English Language Proficiency

This study examined the role of domain-general and domain-specific linguistic knowledge in the assessment of academic English language proficiency using a latent variable modeling approach. The goal of the study was to examine if modeling of domain-specific variance results in improved model fit and well-defined latent factors. Analyses were carried out on data from the ACCESS for ELLs® test battery, which comprises multiple test forms targeting different grade and proficiency levels. The results of the study provide empirical evidence in support of the conceptual distinction of domain-specific and domain-general linguistic knowledge. Domain-specific factors tended to become more salient with increasing language proficiency, whereas the salience of domain-general factors tended to decrease. However, overall domain-general factors remained stronger than the domain-specific factors. In one test form targeting high levels of proficiency, this factor pattern was reversed, suggesting some degree of fluidity in the relationship between domain-general and domain-specific linguistic knowledge.
“We’re Not a Korean American Church Any More”: Dilemmas in Constructing a Multi-Racial Church Identity

English Ministry churches, which serve second-generation Korean Americans, plan on becoming multi-racial in order to grow. This raises questions of how organizations change identities generally, and, in particular, how the churches plan to keep both current and new members comfortable within a multi-racial space. Pastors and members define their racial status in terms of their cultural differences, rather than inter-racial inequalities, from whites. Their interpretation of race shapes their plan for drawing in a multi-racial congregation. Pastors hope to create multicultural congregations that welcome diversity. Yet implementing this model while satisfying Korean Americans and non-Korean Americans is proving difficult. Churches strategically use distinct backstage and front-stage activities to appeal to all groups, thereby creating a potential dilemma in their long-term church identity. They may also impede membership from other minority racial groups through their approach to race.
How Well Do Young Offenders with Asperger Syndrome Cope in Custody?: Two Prison Case Studies.

Accessible summary • Many people with Asperger syndrome face life being misunderstood and having their intentions misinterpreted. • For people who have Asperger syndrome in prison this position is compounded. • This article is based on a research paper that sought to make explicit the type of problems encountered by prisoners with Asperger syndrome. • The findings in this paper reflected limited resources are available for prisoners with autistic spectrum disorders and suggest further research is required for this position to be addressed. Summary This article is based on a study undertaken in 2005. It was conducted under the supervision of Professor Carolyn Kagan and with the approval of an ethics committee from the department of psychology and speech pathology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Case examples are explored of two male young offender prisoners who have Asperger syndrome (AS). Their perception of prison life and issues related to them are discussed and the types of problems they encounter in prison that are attributable to their developmental differences are highlighted. Potential areas for future research that became apparent during the study are noted at the conclusion of this article.
Prevalence of cerebral white matter lesions in elderly people: a population based magnetic resonance imaging study: the Rotterdam Scan Study

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In Vitro Cross-Resistance to Daptomycin and Host Defense Cationic Antimicrobial Peptides in Clinical Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates

ABSTRACT We investigated the hypothesis that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates developing reduced susceptibilities to daptomycin (DAP; a calcium-dependent molecule acting as a cationic antimicrobial peptide [CAP]) may also coevolve reduced in vitro susceptibilities to host defense cationic antimicrobial peptides (HDPs). Ten isogenic pairs of clinical MRSA DAP-susceptible/DAP-resistant (DAPs/DAPr) strains were tested against two distinct HDPs differing in structure, mechanism of action, and origin (thrombin-induced platelet microbicidal proteins [tPMPs] and human neutrophil peptide-1 [hNP-1]) and one bacterium-derived CAP, polymyxin B (PMB). Seven of 10 DAPr strains had point mutations in the mprF locus (with or without yyc operon mutations), while three DAPr strains had neither mutation. Several phenotypic parameters previously associated with DAPr were also examined: cell membrane order (fluidity), surface charge, and cell wall thickness profiles. Compared to the 10 DAPs parental strains, their respective DAPr strains exhibited (i) significantly reduced susceptibility to killing by all three peptides (P < 0.05), (ii) increased cell membrane fluidity, and (iii) significantly thicker cell walls (P < 0.0001). There was no consistent pattern of surface charge profiles distinguishing DAPs and DAPr strain pairs. Reduced in vitro susceptibility to two HDPs and one bacterium-derived CAP tracked closely with DAPr in these 10 recent MRSA clinical isolates. These results suggest that adaptive mechanisms involved in the evolution of DAPr also provide MRSA with enhanced survivability against HDPs. Such adaptations appear to correlate with MRSA variations in cell membrane order and cell wall structure. DAPr strains with or without mutations in the mprF locus demonstrated significant cross-resistance profiles to these unrelated CAPs.
Occupancy Classification of Position Weight Matrix-Inferred Transcription Factor Binding Sites

Background Computational prediction of Transcription Factor Binding Sites (TFBS) from sequence data alone is difficult and error-prone. Machine learning techniques utilizing additional environmental information about a predicted binding site (such as distances from the site to particular chromatin features) to determine its occupancy/functionality class show promise as methods to achieve more accurate prediction of true TFBS in silico. We evaluate the Bayesian Network (BN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) machine learning techniques on four distinct TFBS data sets and analyze their performance. We describe the features that are most useful for classification and contrast and compare these feature sets between the factors. Results Our results demonstrate good performance of classifiers both on TFBS for transcription factors used for initial training and for TFBS for other factors in cross-classification experiments. We find that distances to chromatin modifications (specifically, histone modification islands) as well as distances between such modifications to be effective predictors of TFBS occupancy, though the impact of individual predictors is largely TF specific. In our experiments, Bayesian network classifiers outperform SVM classifiers. Conclusions Our results demonstrate good performance of machine learning techniques on the problem of occupancy classification, and demonstrate that effective classification can be achieved using distances to chromatin features. We additionally demonstrate that cross-classification of TFBS is possible, suggesting the possibility of constructing a generalizable occupancy classifier capable of handling TFBS for many different transcription factors.
Accessibility of Internet websites through time

Using Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a random sample of websites from 1997-2002 were retrospectively analyzed for effects that technology has on accessibility for persons with disabilities and compared to government websites. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's HSD were used to determine differences among years. Random websites become progressively inaccessible through the years (p<0.0001) [as shown by increasing Web Accessibility Barrier (WAB) scores], while complexity of the websites increased through the years (p<0.0001). Pearson's correlation (r) was performed to correlate accessibility and complexity: r=0.463 (p<0.01). Government websites remain accessible while increasing in complexity: r=0.14 (p<0.041). It is concluded that increasing complexity, oftentimes caused by adding new technology to a Web page, inadvertently contributes to increasing barriers to accessibility for persons with disabilities.
Cooperative Communications: A New Trend in the Wireless World

This Wireless channel while offering independence of movement also introduces un-reliability in the messages received at the destination. Various strategies have been introduced so far to mitigate the effects of the channel on the message received. In this paper, we give an introductory overview of cooperative communications, a new trend in this field of wireless Communications where the transmitting users help each other to overcome the Effects of wireless channel on the message received at the destination. We compare the new idea of cooperative communications with traditional direct or non- cooperative communications. In particular, we discuss the achievable rates and simulate the system to get the probability of outage performance of cooperative communications and compare it with direct or non- cooperative communications.
Energy-Efficient Stochastic Target Coverage in Sensor Surveillance Systems

In many sensor surveillance systems such as environment and habitat monitoring, sensors are deployed in an area to monitor several important locations where targets appear. As the sensor nodes are often powered by non-rechargeable batteries, it is crucial to extend the lifetime of sensor surveillance systems. How to cover multiple random targets and extend the system lifetime at the same time is a challenge. Previous studies show that data fusion improve coverage by exploiting the collaboration among sensors. However, they assume that targets deterministically appear at some specific locations and do not consider the randomness of the appearance of the targets. Considering both the high cost of the sensor surveillance system and various reliability requirements in practice, we explore the tradeoff between the system lifetime and the system reliability in this paper. We formulate the stochastic target coverage problem as probabilistic set covering. After showing its NP-Completeness, we design a PSC-based heuristic algorithm in the data fusion model. Extensive simulations show that the system lifetime can be extended dramatically with a small loss to the system reliability.
Getting More from Segmentation Evaluation

We introduce a new segmentation evaluation measure, WinPR, which resolves some of the limitations of WindowDiff. WinPR distinguishes between false positive and false negative errors; produces more intuitive measures, such as precision, recall, and F-measure; is insensitive to window size, which allows us to customize near miss sensitivity; and is based on counting errors not windows, but still provides partial reward for near misses.
Exploration of capacity gains by inter-cell interference coordination based on user distribution

The inter-cell interference problem is a key challenge for the planning of OFDMA-based cellular networks. This paper shows the possible gains that can be obtained by employing a static Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC) scheme in the downlink. A simplified simulation-based capacity analysis study is performed investigating the correlation between system capacity and the distributions of power limited frequency bands among the cells. The size of the ICIC area and the power level in the power limited frequency bands have been two of the key configuration parameters that have been studied. Overall, static ICIC mechanisms are effective in scenarios where the user distribution spatially across the network is uniform. To exploit the full potential of coordination we have investigated the system capacity gains taking the non-uniform user distribution into account. With appropriate configuration of power level settings and proper bandwidth allocation to the spatially clustered users, it was shown that there is a great potential for further capacity improvements.
The Evolution of Monetary Policy: From Money Targets to Inflation Targets

This paper sets out a chronology of Australian monetary policy during the past decade or so. The events themselves are often important, but the main focus here is on the evolution of the monetary-policy framework. Australia began the 1980s with monetary policy based on money targeting, and by the early 1990s this had been replaced by an alternative framework – inflation targeting. This transition took time and reflected a response to the changing set of problems, to the evolving perceptions of the way the economy works, and to the constraints on policy – mainly in the form of conflicting objectives that legitimately were required to be taken into account. The policy framework was influenced by the academic literature, but the academic debate on monetary policy has not run parallel with the problems faced by practitioners, and has provided few relevant answers for them. Having a well-articulated monetary framework was not enough, in itself, to ensure price stability. While most OECD countries achieved price
Full Utilization of the Inverter in Split-Phase Drives by Means of a Dual Three-Phase Space Vector Classification Algorithm

A simple and effective space vector pulsewidth-modulation technique for six-phase voltage-source-inverter-fed split-phase induction motors is presented in this paper. The approach employs dual three-phase space vector modulators equipped with overmodulation schemes that compensate for the voltage gain reduction due to the use of two independently controlled three-phase inverters. It secures full control of the voltage gain up to the maximum achievable gain with negligible low-order harmonics and utilizes a simple classification algorithm for the implementation of the space vector modulation (SVM) in both linear and overmodulation modes. Experimental results are provided to verify the validity of the proposed SVM split-phase approach.
Characterization of Flavin-Based Fluorescent Proteins: An Emerging Class of Fluorescent Reporters

Fluorescent reporter proteins based on flavin-binding photosensors were recently developed as a new class of genetically encoded probes characterized by small size and oxygen-independent maturation of fluorescence. Flavin-based fluorescent proteins (FbFPs) address two major limitations associated with existing fluorescent reporters derived from the green fluorescent protein (GFP)–namely, the overall large size and oxygen-dependent maturation of fluorescence of GFP. However, FbFPs are at a nascent stage of development and have been utilized in only a handful of biological studies. Importantly, a full understanding of the performance and properties of FbFPs as a practical set of biological probes is lacking. In this work, we extensively characterize three FbFPs isolated from Pseudomonas putida, Bacillus subtilis, and Arabidopsis thaliana, using in vitro studies to assess probe brightness, oligomeric state, maturation time, fraction of fluorescent holoprotein, pH tolerance, redox sensitivity, and thermal stability. Furthermore, we validate FbFPs as stable molecular tags using in vivo studies by constructing a series of FbFP-based transcriptional constructs to probe promoter activity in Escherichia coli. Overall, FbFPs show key advantages as broad-spectrum biological reporters including robust pH tolerance (4–11), thermal stability (up to 60°C), and rapid maturation of fluorescence (<3 min.). In addition, the FbFP derived from Arabidopsis thaliana (iLOV) emerged as a stable and nonperturbative reporter of promoter activity in Escherichia coli. Our results demonstrate that FbFP-based reporters have the potential to address key limitations associated with the use of GFP, such as pH-sensitive fluorescence and slow kinetics of fluorescence maturation (10–40 minutes for half maximal fluorescence recovery). From this view, FbFPs represent a useful new addition to the fluorescent reporter protein palette, and our results constitute an important framework to enable researchers to implement and further engineer improved FbFP-based reporters with enhanced brightness and tighter flavin binding, which will maximize their potential benefits.
Detecting protein folding by thermal fluctuations of microcantilevers

The accurate characterization of proteins in both their native and denatured states is essential to effectively understand protein function, folding and stability. As a proof of concept, a micro rheological method is applied, based on the characterization of thermal fluctuations of a micro cantilever immersed in a bovine serum albumin solution, to assess changes in the viscosity associated with modifications in the protein’s structure under the denaturant effect of urea. Through modeling the power spectrum density of the cantilever’s fluctuations over a broad frequency band, it is possible to implement a fitting procedure to accurately determine the viscosity of the fluid, even at low volumes. Increases in viscosity during the denaturant process are identified using the assumption that the protein is a hard sphere, with a hydrodynamic radius that increases during unfolding. This is modeled accordingly through the Einstein-Batchelor formula. The Einstein-Batchelor formula estimates are verified through dynamic light scattering, which measures the hydrodynamic radius of proteins. Thus, this methodology is proven to be suitable for the study of protein folding in samples of small size at vanishing shear stresses.
Topic and duplicate detection in QA data

In this paper, we propose a system for topic and duplicate detection in QA data extracted from the web. The topic detection method is based on a customised Naive Bayes text classifier trained on Wikipedia data and a custom topic taxonomy. The duplicate detection method is based on three variations on the Jaccard similarity measure. We present evaluation measures and promising results that show that the proposed methods perform competitively when compared to human assessments.