Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perceptions of the Energy Crisis

Two representative samples of residents living in a Colorado community were surveyed during acute and chronic stages of the 1973 gasoline shortage. The "Acute Sample" was surveyed during a period when gasoline was suddenly difficult to find. The "Chronic Sample" was surveyed after the energy problem had been established, and respondents expected more future effects of the energy "crisis" than had acute sample respondents. Support was assessed for the following three types of pro-energy actions: (1) voluntary as well as (2) mandatory actions that had benefits for energy and air pollution problems but entailed lifestyle costs, and (3) actions with energy benefits but environment costs. For both samples, results indicated levels of decreasing support in the order given above. However, significant increases in support for mandatory actions and environment-costs actions were obtained for the chronic as compared to the acute sample. Principal analysis of data involved five stepwise regression analyses for each sample. Five criteria (or dependent variables) were derived from the three types of pro-energy actions and two trade-off measures with air pollution abatement as the only stated benefit. Applications of the findings were made to the current situation of mandatory proposals and environmental costs.
A New Hierarchical Image Segmentation Method

Image segmentation is a popular topic in computer vision and image processing. As a region-based approach, the Mumford and Shah (MS) model is a powerful and robust segmentation technique as compared to local based methods. However, there are also some difficulties with the MS model. In this paper, we present a piecewise linear approximation for the MS model to adapt to the image intensities distribution inside the segmented regions. We also modify the MS model to detect roof edges. Because the MS functional is not convex, the result is often trapped in a local minimum and depends on the initial conditions. To overcome this problem, we present a new hierarchical strategy that takes into account both the local information at the pixel level and the global information of the MS model. The results indicate that our approach is effective in many applications
Use of Color Doppler Ultrasound for the Diagnosis of Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in Asymptomatic Full-Term Neonate: A Case Report

Cerebral hemorrhages are fairly common in full-term neonates with no history of traumatic birth, mostly limited, and with benign evolution. We report a case of a full-term neonate from vaginal birth with caput succedaneum in the right parietal area. The neonate underwent cranial ultrasonography and color Doppler which showed extra-axial blood effusion. Color Doppler showed vessels crossing the collection area, which allowed the diagnosis of subarachnoid hematoma.
Comments on "Design of Fiducials for Accurate Registration Using Machine Vision"

The commenters point out that the subpixel registration accuracy improves by one order of magnitude if images are not binarized as indicated in the above said paper by Bose and Amir (ibid. vol.12, p.1196-1200 (1990), but gray scale information is fully exploited in calculating the centroid position. >
Initial management strategies for dyspepsia.

BACKGROUND This review considers management strategies (combinations of initial investigation and empirical treatments) for dyspeptic patients. Dyspepsia was defined to include both epigastric pain and heartburn. OBJECTIVES To determine the effectiveness, acceptability, and cost effectiveness of the following initial management strategies for patients presenting with dyspepsia (a) initial pharmacological therapy (including endoscopy for treatment failures) (b) early endoscopy (c) testing for Helicobacter pylori and endoscope only those positive (d) H.pylori eradication therapy with or without prior testing. SEARCH STRATEGY Trials were located through electronic searches and extensive contact with trialists. SELECTION CRITERIA All randomised controlled trials of dyspeptic patients presenting in primary care. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Data was collected on dyspeptic symptoms, quality of life and use of resources. MAIN RESULTS Eighteen papers reporting 20 comparisons were found. Trials comparing proton pump inhibitors (PPI) with antacids (two trials) and H2 receptor antagonists (three trials), early endoscopy with initial acid suppression (five trials), H.pylori 'test and scope' v usual management (three trials) and H.pylori test and treat v. endoscopy (three trials) were pooled. PPIs were significantly more effective than both H2RA s and antacids. Relative risks (RR) and 95% CI were, for PPI: antacid 0.72 (0.64-0.80), PPI: H2RA 0.63 (0.47-0.85). Results for other drug comparisons were either absent or inconclusive. Initial endoscopy was associated with a small reduction in the risk of recurrent dyspepstic symptoms compared with initial prescribing (RR 0.89 (0.77-1.02). H.pylori test and endoscopy increases costs in primary care, but does not improve symptoms. H.pylori test and eradicate may be as effective as endoscopy- based management and reduces costs, by decreasing the proportion of patients that are endoscoped. Further primary care-based trials are needed to compare 'test and treat' with empirical acid suppression. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS PPIs are effective in the treatment of dyspepsia in these trials which may not adequately exclude patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease. The relative efficacy of H2RA and PPI is uncertain. Early investigation by endoscopy or H.pylori testing may benefit some patients with dyspepsia. The review will be updated in 2002 with an individual patient data meta-analysis of the economic data, and a subgroup analysis by age and predominant dyspeptic symptom.
Crystal structures of heterotypic nucleosomes containing histones H2A.Z and H2A

H2A.Z is incorporated into nucleosomes located around transcription start sites and functions as an epigenetic regulator for the transcription of certain genes. During transcriptional regulation, the heterotypic H2A.Z/H2A nucleosome containing one each of H2A.Z and H2A is formed. However, previous homotypic H2A.Z nucleosome structures suggested that the L1 loop region of H2A.Z would sterically clash with the corresponding region of canonical H2A in the heterotypic nucleosome. To resolve this issue, we determined the crystal structures of heterotypic H2A.Z/H2A nucleosomes. In the H2A.Z/H2A nucleosome structure, the H2A.Z L1 loop structure was drastically altered without any structural changes of the canonical H2A L1 loop, thus avoiding the steric clash. Unexpectedly, the heterotypic H2A.Z/H2A nucleosome is more stable than the homotypic H2A.Z nucleosome. These data suggested that the flexible character of the H2A.Z L1 loop plays an essential role in forming the stable heterotypic H2A.Z/H2A nucleosome.
Variability in CT lung-nodule volumetry: Effects of dose reduction and reconstruction methods.

PURPOSE Measuring the size of nodules on chest CT is important for lung cancer staging and measuring therapy response. 3D volumetry has been proposed as a more robust alternative to 1D and 2D sizing methods. There have also been substantial advances in methods to reduce radiation dose in CT. The purpose of this work was to investigate the effect of dose reduction and reconstruction methods on variability in 3D lung-nodule volumetry. METHODS Reduced-dose CT scans were simulated by applying a noise-addition tool to the raw (sinogram) data from clinically indicated patient scans acquired on a multidetector-row CT scanner (Definition Flash, Siemens Healthcare). Scans were simulated at 25%, 10%, and 3% of the dose of their clinical protocol (CTDIvol of 20.9 mGy), corresponding to CTDIvol values of 5.2, 2.1, and 0.6 mGy. Simulated reduced-dose data were reconstructed with both conventional filtered backprojection (B45 kernel) and iterative reconstruction methods (SAFIRE: I44 strength 3 and I50 strength 3). Three lab technologist readers contoured "measurable" nodules in 33 patients under each of the different acquisition/reconstruction conditions in a blinded study design. Of the 33 measurable nodules, 17 were used to estimate repeatability with their clinical reference protocol, as well as interdose and inter-reconstruction-method reproducibilities. The authors compared the resulting distributions of proportional differences across dose and reconstruction methods by analyzing their means, standard deviations (SDs), and t-test and F-test results. RESULTS The clinical-dose repeatability experiment yielded a mean proportional difference of 1.1% and SD of 5.5%. The interdose reproducibility experiments gave mean differences ranging from -5.6% to -1.7% and SDs ranging from 6.3% to 9.9%. The inter-reconstruction-method reproducibility experiments gave mean differences of 2.0% (I44 strength 3) and -0.3% (I50 strength 3), and SDs were identical at 7.3%. For the subset of repeatability cases, inter-reconstruction-method mean/SD pairs were (1.4%, 6.3%) and (-0.7%, 7.2%) for I44 strength 3 and I50 strength 3, respectively. Analysis of representative nodules confirmed that reader variability appeared unaffected by dose or reconstruction method. CONCLUSIONS Lung-nodule volumetry was extremely robust to the radiation-dose level, down to the minimum scanner-supported dose settings. In addition, volumetry was robust to the reconstruction methods used in this study, which included both conventional filtered backprojection and iterative methods.
Identification of novel therapeutic target genes and pathway in pancreatic cancer by integrative analysis

Background: Gene alterations are crucial to the molecular pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer. The present study was designed to identify the potential candidate genes in the pancreatic carcinogenesis. Methods: Gene Expression Omnibus database (GEO) datasets of pancreatic cancer tissue were retrieval and the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from individual microarray data were merged. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis, protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks, and gene coexpression analysis were performed. Results: Three GEO datasets, including 74 pancreatic cancer samples and 55 controls samples were selected. A total of 2325 DEGs were identified, including 1383 upregulated and 942 downregulated genes. The GO terms for molecular functions, biological processes, and cellular component were protein binding, small molecule metabolic process, and integral to membrane, respectively. The most significant pathway in KEGG analysis was metabolic pathways. PPI network analysis indicated that the significant hub genes including cytochrome P450, family 2, subfamily E, polypeptide 1 (CYP2E1), mitogen-activated protein kinase 3 (MAPK3), and phospholipase C, gamma 1 (PLCG1). Gene coexpression network analysis identified 4 major modules, and the potassium channel tetramerization domain containing 10 (KCTD10), kin of IRRE like (KIRREL), dipeptidyl-peptidase 10 (DPP10), and unc-80 homolog (UNC80) were the hub gene of each modules, respectively. Conclusion: Our integrative analysis provides a comprehensive view of gene expression patterns associated with the pancreatic carcinogenesis.
Identification of shrimp species in raw and processed food products by means of a polymerase chain reaction‐restriction fragment length polymorphism method targeted to cytochrome b mitochondrial sequences

A novel PCR‐RFLP method has been developed for the identification of six commercially relevant penaeid shrimp species in raw and processed food products. The method can be completed within 8 h. To implement the method, PCR amplification with the crustF/crustR primers, targeted to the amplification of a ca. 181 bp region of the cytochrome b (cytb) mitochondrial gene in penaeid shrimps, was coupled to restriction analysis with CviJI, DdeI and NlaIV. The method was also applied successfully to the identification of shrimp species in complex processed foods, including this type of shellfish as an added‐value food ingredient. The small size of this molecular target facilitates amplification from fresh, frozen, or precooked samples, where DNA fragmentation may be relevant and fragment size critical. We also report the first cytb mitochondrial sequences described to date for the species Farfantepenaeus notialis, Parapenaeus longirostris and Pleoticus muelleri, and these nearly triplicate current knowledge of reference nucleotide sequences in this mitochondrial region for this group of species. The cytb mitochondrial gene may also be considered as a molecular marker for identification and phylogenetic purposes in penaeid shrimp species.
On-demand, In-place Help for Augmented Reality Environments

In many help systems, users are either distracted with a constant barrage of help or have to stop working on the task at hand and explicitly search for help. In this paper, we propose two methods to present on-demand, in-place help in augmented reality environments. In the interfaces we describe, users interact with virtual objects that are superimposed on the real world by manipulating physical cards. We describe Tiles, a prototype application for designing aircraft instrument panels, from which our work on help systems grew. In Tiles, users manipulate special ‘help’ cards in combination with data cards to invoke detailed help. This technique, which we call Tangible Bubble Help may be multi-modal, taking the form of text, audio, graphics, and animations. We also present Tangible Tooltips, a lightweight technique in which users control the display of textual help by tilting data cards. In both cases, users can seamlessly transition between performing the main task and acquiring help.
An exploratory study of emotional speech production using functional data analysis techniques

Speech articulations associated with emotion expression were investigated using electromagnetic articulography (EMA) data and vocal tract data acquired using a fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique. The data are explored using functional data analysis (FDA) techniques for articulatory timing and vocal tract shape analyses. It is observed that the EMA trajectories of tongue tip movements associated with the production of a target word segment are quite similar across emotions examined in this study, suggesting that articulatory maneuvers for linguistic realization are largely maintained during emotion encoding. Results of the functional principal component analysis of the vocal tract shapes also support this observation. Mainly, the articulatory movement range and velocity (i.e., the manner of articulation) are modulated for emotional expression. However, another interesting articulatory behavior observed in this study is the horizontal shift of tongue tip positioning when emotion changes. Such a strategy by a speaker may facilitate the task of emotional contrast as long as such a variation of the place of articulation does not obscure linguistic contrast. (Supported by NIH, ONR-MURI)
Visuospatial Skill Learning for Robots

A novel skill learning approach is proposed that allows a robot to acquire human-like visuospatial skills for object manipulation tasks. Visuospatial skills are attained by observing spatial relationships among objects through demonstrations. The proposed Visuospatial Skill Learning (VSL) is a goal-based approach that focuses on achieving a desired goal configuration of objects relative to one another while maintaining the sequence of operations. VSL is capable of learning and generalizing multi-operation skills from a single demonstration, while requiring minimum prior knowledge about the objects and the environment. In contrast to many existing approaches, VSL offers simplicity, efficiency and user-friendly human-robot interaction. We also show that VSL can be easily extended towards 3D object manipulation tasks, simply by employing point cloud processing techniques. In addition, a robot learning framework, VSL-SP, is proposed by integrating VSL, Imitation Learning, and a conventional planning method. In VSL-SP, the sequence of performed actions are learned using VSL, while the sensorimotor skills are learned using a conventional trajectory-based learning approach. such integration easily extends robot capabilities to novel situations, even by users without programming ability. In VSL-SP the internal planner of VSL is integrated with an existing action-level symbolic planner. Using the underlying constraints of the task and extracted symbolic predicates, identified by VSL, symbolic representation of the task is updated. Therefore the planner maintains a generalized representation of each skill as a reusable action, which can be used in planning and performed independently during the learning phase. The proposed approach is validated through several real-world experiments.
Formation of a uniquely stable type I interferon receptor complex by interferon beta is dependent upon particular interactions between interferon beta and its receptor and independent of tyrosine phosphorylation.

Human type I interferons (IFN) require two receptor chains, IFNAR1 and IFNAR2c for high affinity (pM) binding and biological activity. Our previous studies have shown that the ligand dependent assembly of the type I IFN receptor chains is not identical for all type I IFNs. IFNbeta appears unique in its ability to assemble a stable complex of receptor chains, as demonstrated by the observation that IFNAR2c co-immunoprecipitates with IFNAR1 when cells are stimulated with IFNbeta but not with IFNalpha. The characteristics of such a receptor complex are not well defined nor is it understood if differential signaling events can be mediated by variations in receptor assembly. To further characterize the factors required for formation of such a stable receptor complex we demonstrate using IFN stimulated Daudi cells that (1) IFNAR2c co-immunoprecipitates with IFNAR1 even when tyrosine phosphorylation of receptor chains is blocked with staurosporine, and (2) IFNbeta1b but not IFNalpha2, is present in the immunoprecipitated receptor complex. These results demonstrate that the unique IFNbeta induced assembly of type I IFN receptor chains is independent of receptor tyrosine phosphorylation and the recruitment of additional proteins to the receptor by such events. Furthermore, the presence of IFNbeta1b in the immunoprecipitated IFN receptor complex suggests that IFNbeta interacts and binds differently to the receptor than IFNalpha2. These results suggest that the specific assembly of type I IFN receptor chains is ligand dependent and may represent an early event which leads to the differential biological responses observed among type I IFNs.
Recursive constructions for triangulations

Three recursive constructions are presented; two deal with embeddings of complete graphs and one with embeddings of complete tripartite graphs. All three facilitate the construction of 2 an 2−o(n 2 ) non‐isomorphic face 2‐colourable triangulations of Kn and Kn,n,n in orientable and non‐orientable surfaces for values of n lying in certain residue classes and for appropriate constants a. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 39: 87–107, 2002
Multidimensional Analysis of Conflict Mediator Style

This study explores mediator stylistic variations in a sample of professional and novice mediators. Participants mediated the same simulated conflict and reported on their in-session thinking using a stimulated recall procedure. Mediators described themselves as stylistically eclectic, but this was not borne out by observational data. Multidimensional scaling identified two dimensions underlying mediator performance: stylistic orientation (relational versus settlement oriented) and level of empathic attunement. Qualitative analysis identified facilitative and evaluative variants of the settlement orientation and transformative and diagnostic variants of the relational orientation. The facilitative and diagnostic mediators performed more skillfully than their evaluative and transformative counterparts.
Characterization of Haemophilus ducreyi cdtA, cdtB, and cdtC Mutants in In Vitro and In Vivo Systems

ABSTRACT Haemophilus ducreyi expresses a soluble cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) that is encoded by the cdtABC gene cluster and can be detected in culture supernatant fluid by its ability to kill HeLa cells. The cdtA, cdtB, and cdtCgenes of H. ducreyi were cloned independently into plasmid vectors, and their encoded proteins expressed singly or in various combinations in an Escherichia coli background. All three gene products had to be expressed in order for E. coli-derived culture supernatant fluids to demonstrate cytotoxicity for HeLa cells. Isogenic H. ducreyi cdtA and cdtB mutants were constructed and used in combination with the wild-type parent strain and a previously describedH. ducreyi cdtC mutant (M. K. Stevens, J. L. Latimer, S. R. Lumbley, C. K. Ward, L. D. Cope, T. Lagergard, and E. J. Hansen, Infect. Immun. 67:3900–3908, 1999) to determine the relative contributions of the CdtA, CdtB, and CdtC proteins to CDT activity. Expression of CdtA, CdtB, and CdtC appeared necessary for H. ducreyi-derived culture supernatant fluid to exhibit cytotoxicity for HeLa cells. Whole-cell sonicates and periplasmic extracts from the cdtB and cdtC mutants had no effect on HeLa cells, whereas these same fractions from a cdtA mutant had a very modest cytotoxic effect on these same human cells. CdtA appeared to be primarily associated with the H. ducreyi cell envelope, whereas both CdtB and CdtC were present primarily in the soluble fraction from sonicated cells. Both the cdtAmutant and the cdtB mutant were found to be fully virulent in the temperature-dependent rabbit model for experimental chancroid.
The construction of the ‘ideal pupil’ and pupils’ perceptions of ‘misbehaviour’ and discipline: contrasting experiences from a low‐socio‐economic and a high‐socio‐economic primary school

This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high‐stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working‐class school and a middle‐class school, indicate that the effect of the ‘testing culture’ is much greater in the working‐class school. Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the ‘ideal pupil’, it is shown that these pupils’ learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle‐class school. While this study includes only two schools, it indicates a potentially significant issue for neo‐liberal education policy where education is marketised and characterised by high‐stakes testing, and schools are polarised in terms of social class.