Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acute and Chronic Dopamine Receptor Stimulation Modulates AMPA Receptor Trafficking in Nucleus Accumbens Neurons Cocultured with Prefrontal Cortex Neurons

Postsynaptic interactions between dopamine (DA) and glutamate receptors in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) are critical for addiction. To determine the effect of acute and repeated DA receptor stimulation on AMPA receptor (AMPAR) synaptic targeting in medium spiny NAc neurons, we developed a model system consisting of rat NAc neurons cocultured with prefrontal cortex neurons from enhanced green fluorescent protein-expressing mice. Cortical neurons restore excitatory input onto NAc neurons but are distinguishable based on fluorescence. First, we showed that brief D1-like agonist exposure increased AMPAR insertion onto extrasynaptic regions of NAc neuronal processes through a mechanism requiring protein kinase A. This facilitated the Ca2+/calmodulin dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII)-dependent synaptic incorporation of AMPARs in response to subsequent NMDA receptor (NMDAR) stimulation. Through this mechanism, DA may promote reward- and drug-related plasticity in the NAc. Then, to model effects of repeated in vivo cocaine exposure, we treated cocultures with DA (1 μm, 30 min) on days 7, 9, and 11 in culture. On day 15, NAc neurons exhibited increased synaptic AMPAR levels. This was associated with CaMKII activation and was blocked by the CaMKII inhibitor KN-93 (N-[2-[N-(4-chlorocinnamyl)-N-methylaminomethyl]phenyl]-N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-4-methoxybenzenesulfonamide phosphate salt). Furthermore, D1-like agonist exposure on day 15 no longer increased AMPAR surface expression. This refractoriness was associated with decreased D1 receptor surface expression. NMDAR surface expression was not altered by acute or repeated DA receptor stimulation. These results suggest that (1) after repeated DA treatment, NAc neurons are more responsive to glutamate inputs but D1-like receptor regulation of plasticity is impaired, and (2) NAc/prefrontal cortex cocultures are useful for studying dopamine-induced neuroadaptations.
Merging Developmental and Criminal Career Perspectives

Currently, a majority of actuarial risk-assessment tools for sexual recidivism contain static risk factors that measure various aspects of the offender’s prior criminal history in adulthood. The goal of the current study was to assess the utility of extending static risk factors, by using developmental and criminal career parameters of offending, in the actuarial assessment of risk of violent/sexual recidivism. The current study was based on a sample of 204 convicted sexual aggressors of women incarcerated in the province of Quebec, Canada between April 1994 and June 2000. Semistructured interviews were used to gather information on the offender’s antisocial history prior to adulthood, and police records were used to collect data on the criminal career of these offenders in adulthood. For an average follow-up period of approximately 4 years, the violent/sexual recidivism rate for the sample was 23.7%. The results provided support for the inclusion of both developmental and criminal career indicators for the prediction of violent/sexual recidivism. More specifically, recidivists were characterized by an early onset antisocial trajectory and a pattern of escalation of antisocial behavior between childhood and adolescence. The findings suggest that risk assessors should look beyond broad adult criminal history data to include aspects of antisocial development to improve predictive accuracy.
DP-POIRS: A Diversified and Personalized Point-of-Interest Recommendation System

Diversity point-of-interest recommendation system benefits users to broaden their interests, access and discover new interest points. This paper describes a Diversified and Personalized Point-Of-Interest Recommendation System (DP-POIRS) by leveraging the geo-social relationships between POIs. The system consists of three components. The first component – geo-social distance measuring component is used to construct a correlation matrix to describe the geo-social distance between points of interests. The second component –point-of-interest partition component, divides the interest points into diverse clusters by using the spectral clustering algorithm over the correlation matrix. The third component –personalized sorting component, finds out the user's favorite interest points from each cluster, and then sorts them into a list of recommendation by the use of matrix factorization algorithms.
Personalized Intelligent Context-Aware E-Learning on Demand

Personalized on demand e-learning has gained traction driven by socio-economic and demographic change. Concomitant with these developments is the revolution in the capability and ubiquity of mobile systems. The result of these developments is interest in personalized e-learning provided on-demand using mobile technologies. Additionally, e-learning is utilizing Web 2.0 technologies to enable personalized collaborative networking at both a pedagogic and personal level. Personalization requires the creation of a user profile (a context), a context reflects a user's current state. This paper addresses personalized e-learning in the domain of higher education. Following an overview of the educational landscape e-learning the related Web 2.0 influences will be considered and technology enhanced learning discussed. Context and related research is introduced followed by an overview of the posited approach to enable effective personalization. The paper concludes with final observations, a discussion, and an overview of open research questions.
Analysis of the Arabic using neural networks: an overview

This paper is a quick review of some of the scholarly work aiming at solving various problems of the Arabic language using neural networks. It includes some research work concerning online recognition of handwritten Arabic characters, speech recognition, offline character text recognition, text categorization and recognition of printed text. This paper concludes that more research should be conducted in this area considering the importance of the Arabic language, the rapid growth of internet users in the Arab world, and the widespread usage of Arabic characters by many languages other than Arabic. Streszczenie. W artykule przedstawiono metody analizy jezyka arabskiego z wykorzystaniem sieci neuronowych. Analizowano mozliwości rozpoznawania pisma odrecznego, drukowanego jak i mowy. (Analiza jezyka arabskiego z wykorzystaniem sieci neuronowych)
LATINAS AND THE TRADITIONAL GENETIC COUNSELING MODEL: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

The traditional genetic counseling model reflects an individualized counseling session that includes the presentation of information about genes, chromosomes, personalized risk assessment, and genetic testing and screening options. Counselors are challenged to balance providing educational information with discussion of implications of this information in an allotted amount of time. The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of pregnant Latinas on the benefits and limitations of the traditional prenatal genetic counseling model and to determine the specific preferences for receiving prenatal genetic counseling. Data were collected through focus groups and one-on-one, semi-structured interviews of twenty-five Spanish speaking Latinas who received genetic counseling during their current pregnancy. Their responses were evaluated using thematic analysis to identify major themes in participant responses, using a grounded theory approach. Several themes were identified including an overall satisfaction with their prenatal genetic counseling appointment, desire for a healthy baby, peace of mind following their appointment, no desire for invasive testing, and faith in God. Several participants also stated a preference for group genetic counseling over the traditional individual genetic counseling model. Our data indicate that Latinas value the information presented at prenatal genetic counseling appointments despite disinterest in pursuing genetic testing or screening and suggest that group prenatal genetic counseling may be an effective alternative to the traditional genetic counseling model in the Latina population.
Mutation analysis using mutant schemata

Mutation analysis is a powerful technique for assessing and improving the quality of test data used to unit test software. Unfortunately, current automated mutation analysis systems suffer from severe performance problems. This paper presents a new method for performing mutation analysis that uses program schemata to encode all mutants for a program into one metaprogram, which is subsequently compiled and run at speeds substantially higher than achieved by previous interpretive systems. Preliminary performance improvements of over 300% are reported. This method has the additional advantages of being easier to implement than interpretive systems, being simpler to port across a wide range of hardware and software platforms, and using the same compiler and run-time support system that is used during development and/or deployment.
Hynek Hermansky, Narendranath Malayath, "speaker Verification Using Speaker-specific Mappings", in Proc. of Speaker Recognition Speaker Veriication Using Speaker-speciic Mappings

The paper describes a method for text independent speaker veriication, which uses speaker-speciic map-pings between speaker independent and speaker dependent representations of speech to model speaker information in the signal. We aim for a compact system with a relatively small number of parameters which need to be derived from the training data. Two techniques for deriving the speaker independent representation are studied: 1) the low-order PLP model, 2) a novel technique based on oriented principal component analysis. The results indicate eeectiveness of the proposed technique, as well as its potential for further improvements with our increased ability to derive more eecient speaker independent representation of speech. R esum e L'article d ecrit une nouvelle technique pour identiier un humain de son discours. La m ethode est bas ee sur transformer une repr esentation qui est ind ependante du causeur a une repr esentation qui d epend du causeur. Les r esultats indiquent l'eecacit e de la technique pro-pos ee, aussi bien que le potentiel pour davantage d'amil eoration.
Endovascular model of abdominal aortic aneurysm induction in swine

Abdominal aortic aneurysms are among the main causes of death. The high morbidity and mortality associated with aneurysm rupture and repair represents a challenge for surgeons and high risk for patients. Although experimental models are useful to understand, train, and develop new treatment and diagnostic methods for this pathology, animal models developed to date are far from ideal. Animals are either too small and do not represent the pathology of humans, or the procedures employ laparotomy, or the aortic behavior does not resemble that of a true aneurysm. We developed a novel, less invasive and effective method to induce true aortic aneurysms in Large White pigs. Animals were submitted to an endovascular chemical induction using either calcium chloride (25%) or swine pancreatic elastase. Controls were exposed to saline solution. All animals were operated on using the same surgical technique under general anesthesia. They were followed weekly with ultrasound examinations and at 4 weeks the aorta was harvested. Although elastase induced only arterial dilation, imaging, histological, and biomechanical studies of the aorta revealed the formation of true aneurysms in animals exposed to calcium chloride. Aneurysms in the latter group had biomechanical failure properties similar to those of human aneurysms. These findings indicate that the endovascular approach is viable and does not cause retroperitoneal fibrosis.
The Rate and Character of Spontaneous Mutation in Thermus thermophilus

Selection of spontaneous, loss-of-function mutations at two chromosomal loci (pyrF and pyrE) enabled the first molecular-level analysis of replication fidelity in the extremely thermophilic bacterium Thermus thermophilus. Two different methods yielded similar mutation rates, and mutational spectra determined by sequencing of independent mutants revealed a variety of replication errors distributed throughout the target genes. The genomic mutation rate estimated from these targets, 0.00097 ± 0.00052 per replication, was lower than corresponding estimates from mesophilic microorganisms, primarily because of a low rate of base substitution. However, both the rate and spectrum of spontaneous mutations in T. thermophilus resembled those of the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, despite important molecular differences between these two thermophiles and their genomes.
Assessing Transcultural Validity of the Transtheoretical Model With Chinese Americans and Physical Activity

Transtheoretical model has shown promise in promoting adoption and maintenance of physical activity and was used to guide this study. A cross-sectional design with snowball sampling was applied to recruit 201 Chinese Americans. Self-efficacy scores were significantly higher for participants in maintenance than those in precontemplation. There were no significant differences in perceived benefits and barriers in different stages. The transtheoretical model partially applied to the participants for whom the reinforcement of self-efficacy is more important than emphasizing the benefits or decreasing the barriers to regular physical activity. Cultural issues may play a critical role and should be further investigated.
Expecting the Unexpected: Emissions Uncertainty and Environmental Market Design

We study potential equilibria in California’s cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gases (GHGs) based on information available before the market started. We find large ex ante uncertainty in business-as-usual emissions and in the abatement that might result from non-market policies, much larger than the reduction that could plausibly occur in response to an allowance price within a politically acceptable range. This implies that the market price is very likely to be determined by an administrative price floor or ceiling. Similar factors seem likely to be present in other cap-and-trade markets for GHGs. (JEL D47, D81, Q54, Q58, R11)
Constraint-driven diagram layout

Taking both perceptual organization and aesthetic criteria into account is the key to high-quality diagram layout, but makes for a more difficult problem than pure aesthetic layout. Computing the layout of a network diagram that exhibits a specified perceptual organization can be phrased as a constraint-satisfaction problem. Some constraints are derived from the perceptual-organization specification: the nodes in the diagram must be positioned so that they form specified perceptual gestalts, i.e., certain groups of nodes must form perceptual groupings by proximity, or symmetry, or shape motif, etc. Additional constraints are derived from aesthetic considerations: the layout should satisfy criteria that concern the number of link crossings, the sum of link lengths, or diagram area, etc. Using a generalization of a simple mass-spring layout technique to 'satisfice' constraints, we show how to produce high-quality layouts with specified perceptual organization for medium-sized diagrams (10-30 nodes) in under 30 seconds on a workstation. <<ETX>>
BIOTECHNOLOGICALLY RELEVANT ENZYMES AND PROTEINS Glucose exerts a negative effect over a peroxidase from Trichosporon asahii, with carotenoid cleaving activity

Tobacco aroma compounds were generated via lutein cleavage by the combined action of a yeast and a bacterium identified as Trichosporon asahii and Paenibacillus amylolyticus, respectively. In this study, an inverse relationship between glucose concentration and the generation of three compounds, present in the tobacco aroma profile, was observed in mixed cultures. In order to identify the organism sensitive to the sugar effect, both were grown separately. The presence of glucose suppressed β-ionone production by T. asahii grown with lutein. However, the biotransformation of the ionone into its reduced derivatives (7,8-dihydro-β-ionone and 7,8-dihydro-β-ionol) by P. amylolyticus was not affected by the sugar . This pointed to the cleavage of lutein, a step within the process necessary for the synthesis of β-ionone, as the target of the glucose effect. In vitro studies with crude extracts and concentrated cell-free medium derived from T. asahii cultures showed that the carotenoid breakdown activity was located extracellularly and only detected in supernatants from yeast cells grown in the absence of the sugar. Rather than an inhibition or a mechanism affecting the enzyme secretion, the glucose effect on lutein degradation comprised another regulatory level. Further experiments showed that the enzyme responsible for lutein breakdown and susceptible to the sugar effect exhibited a high degree of identity to fungal peroxidases, studied as well, for their involvement in carotenoid cleavage.
CC-Paxos: Integrating Consistency and Reliability in Wide-Area Storage Systems

Data replication is widely used in geo-distributed storage systems, and strong consistency is preferred for correctness and programming simplicity at the application layer. To address the inefficiency and insufficiency of the causal consistency model, a strong consistency model named distributed context consistency is defined. It explicitly defines the necessary dependencies among distributed clients to effectively reduce falsepositive dependencies among operations. A consensus algorithm named CC-Paxos is proposed to implement this distributed context consistency model. It exploits timestamps for operation sequencing in distributed contexts and adopts fine-granularity dependency checking to effectively reduce the number of potential conflicts. Experimental results show that, compared with implementations using causal+ consistency model in the upper layer and Egalitarian Paxos in system layer, CC-Paxos can significantly decreases latency and increases throughput with no sacrifice on scalability.
Validity of a Physical Activity Computer Questionnaire in 12- to 18-year-old Boys and Girls

The reliability and validity of a physical activity computer questionnaire of a usual week were studied in 33 adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. Intraclass correlation coefficients and Kappa values were calculated to verify test-retest reliability. Validity was investigated by calculating Pearson correlation coefficients between the questionnaire and the Computer Science and Applications uniaxial accelerometer (CSA). Accelerometer data were obtained during seven successive days (sum and mean counts, estimated MET). Intraclass coefficients generally exceeded 0.70 and all Kappa values but one varied between 0.44 and 1.00. Transport variables (active transport from and to school, and during leisure time) showed no relationship with CSA. Sport participation during leisure time, sport participation summed with total transport, and the frequencies of moderate and hard activity were significantly correlated with CSA (r between 0.48 and 0.78). These data indicate that the physical activity computer variables provide reliable information. Moreover, sport participation (and summed with total transport) and the frequencies of moderate and hard activity provide valid data about adolescents' usual week physical activity, based on CSA comparison.
FACTORS INFLUENCING ELEMENTS OF STRESS AND AUTONOMY AND CONTROL AMONG SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS

School principals play one of the most important roles in education. Research has consistently confirmed this, stating that a principal’s influence is second only to that of teachers in terms of student achievement and the well-being of students and teachers in a building (Devos, Bouckenooghe, Engels, Hooton, & Aelterman, 2007; Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004; Portin, Schneider, DeArmond, & Gundlach, 2003; Rodriguez-Campos; Rincones-Gomez, & Shen, 2005). A dynamic, effective, and compelling principal is a critical component in maintaining a successful school. Understanding the factors that contribute to the health, satisfaction, and well-being of practicing school principals is essential because of the impact that principals have on teacher performance and student learning. This study employed a mixed-methods approach and attempted to determine the specific tasks performed by building principals that contribute to their stress. Career trajectories, coping mechanisms, experiences with school leadership training providers, and salary and financial implications are interconnected with the research questions, and were also considered.
Association of injury severity, MRI-results and ApoE genotype with 1-year outcome in mainly mild TBI: A preliminary study

Primary objective: To study the ability of MRI findings, apolipoprotein E (ApoE) genotype, the Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) and duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) to predict the 1-year outcome in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Research design: A prospective study in unselected emergency room patients with an acute TBI, followed for 1 year. Methods and procedures: Thirty-three consecutive patients were studied. The TBI severity was assessed with GCS and duration of PTA. Brain MRI scans were obtained within ∼1 week post-injury. The ApoE genotypes were determined by standard methods. The outcome was evaluated with the Head Injury Symptom Checklist and the Glasgow Outcome Scale (extended) 1 year after the injury. The prognostic value of the explanatory variables was evaluated with multiple linear regression analysis. Main outcomes and results: The presence of traumatic axonal injury lesions or contusions in MRI and duration of PTA were independent predictors of poor outcome. The ApoE genotype and GCS were not associated with outcome. Conclusions: In multivariate models, the duration of PTA and acute MRI are the best predictors of 1-year outcome in TBI, whereas the prognostic values of GCS and ApoE are modest. The dominating role of GCS in assessing TBI severity should be questioned.
Feedback based Reputation on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain

The ability to assess the reputation of a member in a web community is a need addressed in many different ways according to the many different stages in which the nature of communities has evolved over time. In the case of reputation of goods/services suppliers, the solutions available to prevent the feedback abuse are generally reliable but centralized under the control of few big Internet companies. In this paper we show how a decentralized and distributed feedback management system can be built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain
Fault-tolerant control for cooperative unmanned aerial vehicles formation via fuzzy logic

In this paper, we investigate the problem of fault tolerant for a group of multiple autonomous cooperative unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during execution their mission in a desired geometrical pattern. A decentralized linear model predictive control (LMPC) is designed and implemented on a team of cooperative UAVs to achieve the desired formation in the absence of faults (normal/fault-free cases). When faults occur in one or more of the UAVs, a fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) strategy is designed via fuzzy logic such that each UAV in the team will take its own decision in a decentralized manner, to reconfigure the formation of the whole team ensuring the execution of the required mission. The proposed controller respects the general formation constraints known as Reynolds rules of flocking during simulations. Our main contribution in this paper lays in the use of fuzzy logic control by the cooperative UAVs in taking the decision to solve the problem of formation reconfiguration for an autonomous team of UAVs in the presences of faults.