Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of positive behavioral interventions and supports on academic achievement among African American male students diagnosed as emotionally disturbed

There are clearly many issues that need to be addressed when attempting to bring strength and resolve to school districts across the United States. In order to influence the culture of struggling school systems we must effectively manage student behavior within the classroom setting and on the campus at large. In class discipline is paramount for students to engage in active and efficacious learning. When students are identified for special education as emotionally disturbed (ED), their overall academic achievement has been shown to be lower than that of students identified with other disabilities. Additionally, the long-term academic achievement of students identified as ED may also be compromised by discipline issues that often take them out of the academic learning environment. This study will examine whether the African American males referred to special education programs under the diagnoses of emotionally disturbed (ED) are positively influenced by the implementation of positive behavioral interventions & supports (PBIS). Recent literature maintains PBIS is growing in popularity among state departments of education and local systems as an efficient and effective strategy for addressing students’ increasing and intensifying discipline needs. PBIS has been found to increase the effectiveness of instruction, improve academic performance, and reduce inappropriate behavior (Yeung & McInerney,
Received-Signal-Strength-Based Indoor Positioning Using Compressive Sensing

The recent growing interest for indoor Location-Based Services (LBSs) has created a need for more accurate and real-time indoor positioning solutions. The sparse nature of location finding makes the theory of Compressive Sensing (CS) desirable for accurate indoor positioning using Received Signal Strength (RSS) from Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Access Points (APs). We propose an accurate RSS-based indoor positioning system using the theory of compressive sensing, which is a method to recover sparse signals from a small number of noisy measurements by solving an `1-minimization problem. Our location estimator consists of a coarse localizer, where the RSS is compared to a number of clusters to detect in which cluster the node is located, followed by a fine localization step, using the theory of compressive sensing, to further refine the location estimation. We have investigated different coarse localization schemes and AP selection approaches to increase the accuracy. We also show that the CS theory can be used to reconstruct the RSS radio map from measurements at only a small number of fingerprints, reducing the number of measurements significantly. We have implemented the proposed system on a WiFi-integrated mobile device and have evaluated the performance. Experimental results indicate that the proposed system leads to substantial improvement on localization accuracy and complexity over the widely used traditional fingerprinting methods.
Icariin ameliorates IgA nephropathy by inhibition of nuclear factor kappa b/Nlrp3 pathway

Immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is the most frequent form of glomerulonephritis, which is characterized by glomerular proliferation and renal inflammation. Icariin is a flavonoid from the Chinese herb Epimedium, and its anti‐inflammatory effect has been reported. This study aimed to investigate the effects of icariin on the renal damage in IgAN rats and the mechanisms behind these effects. IgAN model was established in Sprague–Dawley rats by oral and intravenous immunization with bovine gamma‐globulin for 12 weeks, and rats were treated with icariin from 12 to 18 weeks. At the end of experimental period, kidneys, urine, and blood samples were collected for further analysis. Our results showed that icariin ameliorated the increase in the levels of proteinuria, serum creatinine, and urea nitrogen without severe side effects. IgAN rats exhibited significantly increased IgA deposition, mesangial matrix expansion, and glomerular fibrosis, while icariin treatment markedly attenuated these alterations. Moreover, treatment with icariin also dramatically blocked nuclear factor kappa b (NF‐κB) nuclear translocation and Nlrp3 inflammasome activation in IgAN rats, leading to reduced downstream proinflammatory cytokines production. Mechanistically, we found that icariin treatment inhibited IKKβ and IκBα phosphorylation and IκBα degradation in IgAN rats. Our data demonstrate that icariin ameliorates renal damage in IgAN rats via inhibition of NF‐κB‐mediated Nlrp3 inflammasome activation. These findings provide insight into an application of icariin for the treatment of IgAN disease, and represent a novel mechanism behind these effects.
Serological Evidence of Human Infection with Avian Influenza A H7virus in Egyptian Poultry Growers

Avian influenza viruses circulate widely in birds, with occasional human infections. Poultry-exposed individuals are considered to be at high risk of infection with avian influenza viruses due to frequent exposure to poultry. Some avian H7 viruses have occasionally been found to infect humans. Seroprevalence of neutralizing antibodies against influenza A/H7N7 virus among poultry-exposed and unexposed individuals in Egypt were assessed during a three-years prospective cohort study. The seroprevalence of antibodies (titer, ≥80) among exposed individuals was 0%, 1.9%, and 2.1% annually while the seroprevalence among the control group remained 0% as measured by virus microneutralization assay. We then confirmed our results using western blot and immunofluorescence assays. Although human infection with H7 in Egypt has not been reported yet, our results suggested that Egyptian poultry growers are exposed to avian H7 viruses. These findings highlight the need for surveillance in the people exposed to poultry to monitor the risk of zoonotic transmission of avian influenza viruses.
A Novel Chromone Derivative with Anti-Inflammatory Property via Inhibition of ROS-Dependent Activation of TRAF6-ASK1-p38 Pathway

The p38 MAPK signaling pathway plays a pivotal role in inflammation. Targeting p38 MAPK may be a potential strategy for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. In the present study, we show that a novel chromone derivative, DCO-6, significantly reduced lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced production of nitric oxide, IL-1β and IL-6, decreased the levels of iNOS, IL-1β and IL-6 mRNA expression in both RAW264.7 cells and mouse primary peritoneal macrophages, and inhibited LPS-induced activation of p38 MAPK but not of JNK, ERK. Moreover, DCO-6 specifically inhibited TLR4-dependent p38 activation without directly inhibiting its kinase activity. LPS-induced production of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) was remarkably impaired by DCO-6, which disrupted the formation of the TRAF6-ASK1 complex. Administering DCO-6 significantly protected mice from LPS-induced septic shock in parallel with the inhibition of p38 activation and ROS production. Our results indicate that DCO-6 showed anti-inflammatory properties through inhibition of ROS-dependent activation of TRAF6-ASK1-p38 pathway. Blockade of the upstream events required for p38 MAPK action by DCO-6 may provide a new therapeutic option in the treatment of inflammatory diseases.
Subspace Learning with Partial Information

The goal of subspace learning is to find a $k$-dimensional subspace of $\mathbb{R}^d$, such that the expected squared distance between instance vectors and the subspace is as small as possible. In this paper we study subspace learning in a partial information setting, in which the learner can only observe $r \le d$ attributes from each instance vector. We propose several efficient algorithms for this task, and analyze their sample complexity
Access-Efficient QoS-Aware Data Replication to Maximize User Satisfaction in Cloud Computing Environments

Cloud computing infrastructures capable of providing scalable storage and computing resources can efficiently be used for big data storage and processing. There are growing trends in developing data-intensive (big data) applications in this computing environment that need to access massive datasets. Hence, effective data management such as data availability and efficient accesses has become critical requirements in these applications. This can be achieved by using data replication, which offers reduced data access latency, higher data availability and improved system load balancing. Moreover, different applications may have different quality-of-service (QoS) requirements. To continuously support the QoS requirement of an application, we propose a highly distributed QoS-aware replication technique that computes the optimal data center locations for the replicas so that the overall replication cost is minimized. Further, the replication strategy aims at maximizing QoS satisfaction to improve data availability and reduce access latency. The problem is formulated using dynamic programming. Finally, simulation experiments are performed using widely observed data access patterns to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
Designing a Fuzzy Expert System to Evaluate Alternatives in Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process

This paper concerns with proposing a fuzzy logic based expert system to breakthrough the problem of alternatives evaluation in Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP as a multi criteria decision aid helped decision makers for ana-lyzing and prioritizing the alternatives in a hierarchical structure. During times AHP encountered some problems. Hence, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and some other extensions of AHP have been configured to solve those problems.
Envelope Correlation Parameter Measurements in a MIMO Antenna Array Configuration

In a 2 × 2 MIMO antenna array system envelope correlation coefficient “ρ” shows the influence of different propagation paths of the RF signals that reach the antenna elements. The approximated value of this coefficient is based on a simple closed-form equation and also varies from 0 to 1. Quite perfect performance for MIMO applications is achieved when this parameter approximates to zero. In this paper, we evaluate an antenna diversity MIMO system by measuring the envelope correlation coefficient. The corresponding results in our antenna array configurations show that the measured “ρ” has very small values and approximates to zero. This observation indicates quite perfect behavior and performance of our MIMO antenna array system.
Design and assessment of the Haptic Creature's affect display

The Haptic Creature is a small, animal-like robot we have developed to investigate the role of touch in communicating emotions between humans and robots. This paper presents a study examining how successful our robot is at communicating its emotional state through touch. Results show that, regardless of the human's gender or background with animals, the robot is effective in communicating its state of arousal but less so for valence. Also included are descriptions of the design of the Haptic Creature's emotion model and suggested improvements based on results of the study.
New Drug Development: Estimating Entry from Human Clinical Trials

This paper analyses a detailed data set on drugs in human clinical trials around the world between 1989 and 2002. The data provides information on the probabilities with which drugs successfully complete the different phases of the trials and the durations of successful completions. The paper shows that success rates and durations can vary substantially across observable characteristics of the drugs, including primary indication, originating company, route of administration and chemistry. It suggests that analysis of this type of data can help us to answer questions such as: Do AIDS drugs get to market faster? Do Biotech drugs have higher probabilities of getting to market? This paper provides some general statistics for analyzing these questions.
lodination of Thyroliberin by Use of lodogen

In this method of labeling thyroliberin for radioimmunoassay, 1,3,4,6-tetrachloro-3a,6a-diphenylglycoluril (lodogert#{174}) is usedas oxidant. By cation-exchange chromatography and in response to antibody, thyroliberin so labeled behaved similarly to that produced by the conventional Chloramine-T method. Major advantages of the lodogen method are its reliability, simplicity, and higher yield of stable RIA label in its most convenient (diiodinated) form.
Design and evaluation of a query-based jamming detection algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Jamming attacks, which are the main cause of data corruption and network blockages in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), are one of the most serious threats for WSNs. This type of attack not only blocks the ongoing communication in the network, but also causes the wireless nodes to exhaust their energy much earlier than expected. A countermeasure must be deployed against jamming attacks, especially in military and medical applications in which security breaches cannot be tolerated. In this paper, we have designed a new query-based jamming detection algorithm (QUJDA) to detect jamming attacks occurring in WSNs. QUJDA is an attack detection mechanism, which uses an anomaly-based approach and operates in a distributed manner. It separates attacking cases from natural network conditions by the help of packet delivery ratio, bad packet ratio, and the amount of energy consumption parameters. QUJDA enables sensor nodes to operate with their neighbors in a collective sense in order to achieve higher detection rates. QUJDA was evaluated and analyzed over 3 parameters: detection rates, false-positive rates, and communication overheads. According to the simulation results obtained, all critical jamming attacks can be detected with 97% or above detection rates, along with 0.95% or lower false positive rates. In addition, QUJDA only charges about 13% extra communication overhead to the network message traffic of the sensor nodes.
IN PRESS α-Lipoic acid increases energy expenditure by enhancing adenosine monophosphate – activated protein kinase – peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1 α signaling in the skeletal muscle of aged mice

Skeletal muscle mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with aging and diabetes, which decreases respiratory capacity and increases reactive oxygen species. Lipoic acid (LA) possesses antioxidative and antidiabetic properties. Metabolic action of LA is mediated by activation of adenosine monophosphate–activated protein kinase (AMPK), a cellular energy sensor that can regulate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α), a master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis. We hypothesized that LA improves energy metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis by enhancing AMPK–PGC-1α signaling in the skeletal muscle of aged mice. C57BL/6 mice (24 months old, male) were supplemented with or without α-LA (0.75% in drinking water) for 1 month. In addition, metabolic action and cellular signaling of LA were studied in cultured mouse myoblastoma C2C12 cells. Lipoic acid supplementation improved body composition, glucose tolerance, and energy expenditure in the aged mice. Lipoic acid increased skeletal muscle mitochondrial biogenesis with increased phosphorylation of AMPK and messenger RNA expression of PGC-1α and glucose transporter–4. Besides body fat mass, LA decreased lean mass and attenuated phosphorylation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling in the skeletal muscle. In cultured C2C12 cells, LA increased glucose uptake and palmitate β-oxidation, but decreased protein synthesis, which was associated with increased phosphorylation of AMPK and expression of PGC-1α and glucose transporter–4, and attenuated phosphorylation of mTOR and p70S6 kinase. We conclude that LA improves skeletal muscle energy metabolism in the aged mouse possibly through enhancing AMPK–PGC-1α–mediated mitochondrial biogenesis and function. Moreover, LA increases lean mass loss possibly by suppressing protein synthesis in the skeletal muscle by down-regulating the mTOR signaling pathway. Thus, LA may be a promising supplement for treatment of obesity and/or insulin resistance in older patients. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Inc.
Heart rate turbulence analysis in female patients with fibromyalgia

OBJECTIVE: Fibromyalgia is characterized by diffuse musculoskeletal pain and discomfort. There are several reports regarding autonomic nervous system dysfunction in patients with fibromyalgia. Heart rate turbulence is expressed as ventriculophasic sinus arrhythmia and has been considered to reflect cardiac autonomic activity. Heart rate turbulence has been shown to be an independent and powerful predictor of sudden cardiac death in various cardiac abnormalities. The aim of this study is to determine whether heart rate turbulence is changed in female patients with fibromyalgia compared with healthy controls. METHODS: Thirty-seven female patients (mean age, 40±11 years) with fibromyalgia, and 35 age- and sex-matched healthy female control subjects (mean age, 42±9 years) were included. Twenty-four hours of ambulatory electrocardiography recordings were collected for all subjects, and turbulence onset and turbulence slope values were automatically calculated. RESULTS: The baseline clinical characteristics of the two groups were similar. There were no significant differences in turbulence onset and turbulence slope measures between patients and control subjects (turbulence onset: −1.648±1.568% vs. −1.582±1.436%, p ϝ 0.853; turbulence slope: 12.933±5.693 ms/RR vs. 13.639±2.505 ms/RR, p ϝ 0.508). Although body mass index was negatively correlated with turbulence slope (r ϝ −0.258, p ϝ 0.046), no significant correlation was found between body mass index and turbulence onset (r ϝ 0.228, p ϝ 0.054). CONCLUSION: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate heart rate turbulence in patients with fibromyalgia. It appears that heart rate turbulence parameters reflecting cardiac autonomic activity are not changed in female patients with fibromyalgia.
TwitIE: An Open-Source Information Extraction Pipeline for Microblog Text

Twitter is the largest source of microblog text, responsible for gigabytes of human discourse every day. Processing microblog text is difficult: the genre is noisy, documents have little context, and utterances are very short. As such, conventional NLP tools fail when faced with tweets and other microblog text. We present TwitIE, an open-source NLP pipeline customised to microblog text at every stage. Additionally, it includes Twitter-specific data import and metadata handling. This paper introduces each stage of the TwitIE pipeline, which is a modification of the GATE ANNIE open-source pipeline for news text. An evaluation against some state-of-the-art systems is also presented.
Satire as uncertain territory: Uncertainty expression in discussion about political satire, opinion, and news

Abstract This study integrates satire literature and uncertainty-based theories in order to introduce more theoretical organization into the political communication and discussion literature. In doing so, the main goals of this study are (1) to bring conceptual organization to various types of political messages (i.e., satire and news), (2) to show how and why satire, in particular, is linked with uncertainty, and (3) to examine the extent to which satire and news can arouse uncertainty and encourage discussion of uncertainty in political conversations. Four types of political media messages (traditional news, opinion news, juvenalian satire, and horatian satire) are used in a computer-mediated discussion experiment to answer the study’s hypotheses. Results show that uncertainty differed across political messages (i.e., satire aroused more uncertainty) and uncertainty was expressed in discussion.
A Proximal Stochastic Quasi-Newton Algorithm

In this paper, we discuss the problem of minimizing the sum of two convex functions: a smooth function plus a non-smooth function. Further, the smooth part can be expressed by the average of a large number of smooth component functions, and the non-smooth part is equipped with a simple proximal mapping. We propose a proximal stochastic second-order method, which is efficient and scalable. It incorporates the Hessian in the smooth part of the function and exploits multistage scheme to reduce the variance of the stochastic gradient. We prove that our method can achieve linear rate of convergence.
Commonality in Liquidity Shocks and Market Collapse : Theory and Application to the Market for Perps *

Traditional explanations of market collapse rely on the bursting of an asset price bubble or significant information asymmetry across market participants about fundamental value. We show that markets can collapse even though asset prices have not deviated from fundamental values and information is shared symmetrically among all market participants. We present a model in which markets collapse when investors shift their beliefs about market liquidity. While such shifts in liquidity may be a factor in explaining many market collapses, the collapse of the market for perpetual floating-rate notes (perps) seems to provide an especially clear illustration of the theory because a shift in liquidity beliefs appears to have been the primary determinant of the collapse of the market for perps. Such a shift can be precipitated by a common liquidity shock, and can be transitory or permanent. The latter proved to be the case with perps because perceptions of the liquidity of the secondary market for perps were permanently altered. In addition to providing new insights into why markets collapse, our findings are particularly relevant for unseasoned financial products that are often priced and marketed on the assumption that liquid secondary markets will develop. The collapse of the market for perps also highlights the importance of broad placement of securities. As our model illustrates, market liquidity arises endogenously from the diversity of liquidity needs across the investor base and therefore, the broader the investor base, the lower the probability of a common liquidity shock.
Long‐range oscillatory Ca2+ waves in rat spinal dorsal horn

Synchronous activity of large populations of neurons shapes neuronal networks during development. However, re‐emergence of such activity at later stages of development could severely disrupt the orderly processing of sensory information, e.g. in the spinal dorsal horn. We used Ca2+ imaging in spinal cord slices of neonatal and young rats to assess under which conditions synchronous activity occurs in dorsal horn. No spontaneous synchronous Ca2+ transients were detected. However, increasing neuronal excitability by application of 4‐aminopyridine after pretreatment of the slice with blockers of (RS)‐alpha‐amino‐3‐hydroxy‐5‐methyl‐4‐isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)/kainate, γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)A and glycine receptors evoked repetitive Ca2+ waves in dorsal horn. These waves spread mediolaterally with a speed of 1.0 ± 0.1 mm/s and affected virtually every dorsal horn neuron. The Ca2+ waves were associated with large depolarizing shifts of the membrane potential of participating neurons and were most likely synaptically mediated because they were abolished by blockade of action potentials or N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA) receptors. They were most pronounced in the superficial dorsal horn and absent from the ventral horn. A significant proportion of the Ca2+ waves spread to the contralateral dorsal horn. This seemed to be enabled by disinhibition as primary afferent‐induced dorsal horn excitation crossed the midline only when GABAA and glycine receptors were blocked. Interestingly, the Ca2+ waves occurred under conditions where AMPA/kainate receptors were blocked. Thus, superficial dorsal horn NMDA receptors are able to sustain synchronous neuronal excitation in the absence of functional AMPA/kainate receptors.