Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Indigenous Pidgins and Koinés

0. There are a number of popular, but erroneous, ideas about pidgin languages. One particularly widespread view is that pidgins are only very much simplified forms of standard languages, with self-evident concessions to the ignorance or linguistic peculiarities of so-called 'natives'. Moreover, it is assumed that within a few minutes any speaker of the dominant language can adjust his speech so as to talk pidgin, or at least so as to understand it. In addition, it is assumed that pidgins really have little or no stable structure; that is to say, each speaker merely improvises as he goes along. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pidgin languages are not merely simplified world languages, and one simply cannot throw words together in any form or order and expect local people to understand. In fact, learning to speak a pidgin language well can be as difficult as mastering any foreign language, except for the fact that many of the lexical forms are at least familiar, but deceptively so, since the meanings assigned to them in the pidgin language are so often radically altered. Some people regard any so-called hybrid language as being a pidgin, long after such a language has become the only language of a relatively large speech community. In early colonial days the form of French spoken in Haiti by the slave population from Africa and the European plantation managers was obviously only a pidgin, but rapidly this form of speech became the only language for the largely Negro population. In this process it evolved from a pidgin into a creole, with all the structural elaboration and vocabulary enrichment which is involved in any fullscale language. Another misconception about pidgins is that they consist merely of the vocabulary of one language and the grammar of another. The dominant language, normally foreign to the area, is supposed to provide the vocabulary, while the local language or languages provide the grammar. Another view of pidgins is that they are merely a kind of local m6lange, in which the ingredients from various languages are so mixed up that one cannot determine any genetic relationship. But a careful study of pidgins has indicated that both these views about pidgins are unjustified. ' It is true that certain important structural features of the dominant language are altered by the speakers of local languages, but the essential structure of the dominant language remains. Many people have thought that all pidgin languages were the result of contact between (1) some great 'world language', such as English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish, and (2) the local languages. Most of the pidgins which have developed within the last few centuries have involved such com-
Russian academic scientists in the first post-Soviet decade: Empirical study

Over several decades, the research institutes of the Russian (former Soviet) Academy of Sciences (RAS) have concentrated the cream of the country's research personnel, both individuals and teams. What happened to this vast intellectual potential in the time of post-Communist transformation, and what was the state of the scientific community during the last decade? This article, based on the findings of empirical studies, answers these questions. All the data used in the text are the results of sociological monitoring undertaken in the research institutes of RAS during 1994–2002. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.
SPLODE: Semi-probabilistic point and line odometry with depth estimation from RGB-D camera motion

Active depth cameras suffer from several limitations, which cause incomplete and noisy depth maps, and may consequently affect the performance of RGB-D Odometry. To address this issue, this paper presents a visual odometry method based on point and line features that leverages both measurements from a depth sensor and depth estimates from camera motion. Depth estimates are generated continuously by a probabilistic depth estimation framework for both types of features to compensate for the lack of depth measurements and inaccurate feature depth associations. The framework models explicitly the uncertainty of triangulating depth from both point and line observations to validate and obtain precise estimates. Furthermore, depth measurements are exploited by propagating them through a depth map registration module and using a frame-to-frame motion estimation method that considers 3D-to-2D and 2D-to-3D reprojection errors, independently. Results on RGB-D sequences captured on large indoor and outdoor scenes, where depth sensor limitations are critical, show that the combination of depth measurements and estimates through our approach is able to overcome the absence and inaccuracy of depth measurements.
A Theory of Family Housing Adjustment.

The paper presents a conceptual and theoretical framework for the study of the housing adjustment behavior of families. Families are viewed as evaluating their housing in terms of cultural norms and family norms. When their housing does not meet the norms, it tends to give rise to dissatisfaction, producing a propensity to reduce the normative deficit. Residential mobility, residential adaptation, and family adaptation are the modes of adjustment used to reduce such deficits, and are undertaken when the constraints on the behavior can be overcome.
Building frameworks in aspectJ

The combination of aspect-oriented programming and framework technology boosts software reuse and brings separation of concerns to a new, more generic level. On the one hand, AOP enables the separate implementation of crosscutting concerns. Frameworks, on the other hand, allow us to reuse and customize a particular implementation in different applications. By means of a security example, we show the ease and power of the AOP language AspectJ to analyze and design a solution in terms of a framework. We also suggest a number of improvements.
Optimal Exposure Time for Diagnosis of Approximal Caries Lesions on Digital X-rays

In digital radiography the image can be enhanced and thereby an incorrect exposed radiograph can appear to have optimal brightness but with limited information and possibility to diagnose e.g. caries.The primary aim of this study was to determine if different exposure times have an impact on the accuracy in diagnosis of approximal caries lesions in bitewing radiographs using a CMOS system. If so, what the optimal exposure time was.A total of 40 extracted human teeth were selected and evaluated with a digital CMOS system. The teeth were exposed with different exposure times. CBCT was used to validate the presence and degree of approximal caries lesions on every individual tooth surface. The radiographs were evaluated by 11 general dentists and 4 specialists in oral and maxillofacial radiology.The choice of exposure time did affect the diagnostic accuracy. A higher diagnostic accuracy was achieved when a longer exposure time (> 0.1 sec) was used when comparing kappa values and ROC curves among the observers. The radiologists had a higher diagnostic accuracy than the general dentists. A substantial variation in individual diagnostic accuracy between observers was found.In conclusion; approximal caries was found to be easier to diagnose when the evaluated longer exposure times were used in the studied digital CMOS system. There was some decline in the longest exposures of the time span. However, when selecting optimal exposure time the patient's age and size should also be taken into consideration.
Strangers, Patients, Monsters, Jailers, or Children: How South African Caregivers View Their Partners with Manganese Poisoning

Manganese poisoning (MP) is one of many chronic, degenerative conditions that result in spousal caregiver stress. Partners who were once fully functioning become strangers to those who love them. In time, spousal caregivers may come to view their erstwhile partners as patients, jailers, monsters, or bratty children. We explore spousal caregiver perceptions of loved ones with MP, based on the narrated experiences of five full-time South African carers and develop a typology of carer experiences, which contributes to an understanding of manganese poisoning, in particular, and to caregiving theory, in general. The findings contribute to practice by providing service providers with a rich understanding of carer stress and coping, in general, and the stress of those caring for partners with MP, in particular. Such richer understanding should extend service provider empathy and encourage appropriate, supportive intervention.
A Study on Relationship Migration among Social Networking Providers

User profiles backup and migration among social networking providers have become more urgent after the conflict between Tencent1, the largest Instant Messaging(IM) service provider in China, and Qihu3602, the largest antivirus company in China. So far, exchanging contact list among emails has been wildly used. Mainstream email service providers commonly make use of Comma Separated Value (CSV) files to export/import contact lists. Meanwhile, XML format is popular to transfer information among different platforms due to its rich hierarchical data structures. By using CSV files and XML files, we propose a new method to do relationship migration among social networking providers, which consists of three stages: 1) information retrieval from original social networking provider, 2) information storage and re-processing, and 3) relationship migration and recovery in the target provider. In order to evaluate our solution, we have designed and implemented a real experiment to test the migration from RenRen (the largest social network in China) to my Elgg (our test bed server).
Maximum weighted likelihood via rival penalized EM for density mixture clustering with automatic model selection

Expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm (A.P. Dempster et al., 1977) has been extensively used in density mixture clustering problems, but it is unable to-perform model selection automatically. This paper, therefore, proposes to learn the model parameters via maximizing a weighted likelihood. Under a specific weight design, we give out a rival penalized expectation-maximization (RPEM) algorithm, which makes the components in a density mixture compete each other at each time step. Not only are the associated parameters of the winner updated to adapt to an input, but also all rivals' parameters are penalized with the strength proportional to the corresponding posterior density probabilities. Compared to the EM algorithm (A.P. Dempster et al., 1977), the RPEM is able to fade out the redundant densities from a density mixture during the learning process. Hence, it can automatically select an appropriate number of densities in density mixture clustering. We experimentally demonstrate its outstanding performance on Gaussian mixtures and color image segmentation problem. Moreover, a simplified version of RPEM generalizes our recently proposed RPCCL algorithm (Y.M. Cheung, 2002) so that it is applicable to elliptical clusters as well with any input proportion. Compared to the existing heuristic RPCL (L. Xu et al., 1993) and its variants, this generalized RPCCL (G-RPCCL) circumvents the difficult preselection of the so-called delearning rate. Additionally, a special setting of the G-RPCCL not only degenerates to RPCL and its Type A variant, but also gives a guidance to choose an appropriate delearning rate for them. Subsequently, we propose a stochastic version of RPCL and its type A variant, respectively, in which the difficult selection problem of delearning rate has been novelly circumvented. The experiments show the promising results of this stochastic implementation.
Shrinkage Linear and Widely Linear Complex-Valued Least Mean Squares Algorithms for Adaptive Beamforming

In this paper, shrinkage linear complex-valued least mean squares (SL-CLMS) and shrinkage widely linear complex-valued least mean squares (SWL-CLMS) algorithms are devised for adaptive beamforming. By exploiting the relationship between the noise-free a posteriori and a priori error signals, the SL-CLMS method is able to provide a variable step size to update the weight vector for the adaptive beamformer, significantly enhancing the convergence speed and decreasing the steady-state misadjustment. On the other hand, besides adopting a variable step size determined by minimizing the square of the augmented noise-free a posteriori errors, the SWL-CLMS approach exploits the noncircular properties of the signal of interest, which considerably improves the steady-state performance. Simulation results are presented to illustrate their superiority over the CLMS, complex-valued normalized LMS, variable step size, recursive least squares (RLS) algorithms and their corresponding widely linear-based schemes. Additionally, our proposed algorithms are more computationally efficient than the RLS solutions though they may have a slightly slower convergence rate.
The Second-Shell Metal Ligands of Human Arginase Affect Coordination of the Nucleophile and Substrate†

The active sites of eukaryotic arginase enzymes are strictly conserved, especially the first- and second-shell ligands that coordinate the two divalent metal cations that generate a hydroxide molecule for nucleophilic attack on the guanidinium carbon of l-arginine and the subsequent production of urea and l-ornithine. Here by using comprehensive pairwise saturation mutagenesis of the first- and second-shell metal ligands in human arginase I, we demonstrate that several metal binding ligands are actually quite tolerant to amino acid substitutions. Of >2800 double mutants of first- and second-shell residues analyzed, we found more than 80 unique amino acid substitutions, of which four were in first-shell residues. Remarkably, certain second-shell mutations could modulate the binding of both the nucleophilic water/hydroxide molecule and substrate or product ligands, resulting in activity greater than that of the wild-type enzyme. The data presented here constitute the first comprehensive saturation mutagenesis analysis of a metallohydrolase active site and reveal that the strict conservation of the second-shell metal binding residues in eukaryotic arginases does not reflect kinetic optimization of the enzyme during the course of evolution.
Anaerobic Metabolism in Germinating Seeds of Echinochloa crus-galli (Barnyard Grass) : METABOLITE AND ENZYME STUDIES.

Echinochloa crus-galli, a problem weed in rice fields, has the rare ability to germinate and to grow in a totally oxygen-free environment. After 7 days growth in the light or dark under N(2), E. crus-galli var. oryzicola produces a 2- to 3-centimeter nonpigmented shoot.Ethanol, malate, and lactate were measured in seeds germinated under N(2) and air, and compared with changes in the activities of alcohol dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase, NADP-malic enzyme, and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase. During a 7-day time course, ethanol levels increased 661 micromoles per gram dry weight under N(2), with no increase under air. Alcohol dehydrogenase activity increased 5.5 micromoles per gram dry weight per minute in N(2) compared to 1.0 in air. Corresponding increases for lactate were 7.9 micromoles per gram dry weight under N(2) and 2.7 under air, and for malate, 5.3 micromoles per gram dry weight under N(2) and 0.4 under air.Although 85% of the ethanol produced by the seedlings was found in the external solution under N(2), the seeds still contained 90 times more ethanol under anaerobic conditions than under air. No phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase activity was detected and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase activity was 10 times less under N(2) than air. Malic enzyme activity increased 5-fold under anaerobic conditions, comparable to the change under aerobic conditions. Proposed adaptive mechanisms of flood-tolerant species to anaerobiosis are discussed.
Sumanirole, a Highly Dopamine D2-Selective Receptor Agonist: In Vitro and in Vivo Pharmacological Characterization and Efficacy in Animal Models of Parkinson's Disease

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that sumanirole is a novel dopamine receptor agonist with high in vitro and in vivo selectivity for the D2 receptor subtype. Sumanirole, (R)-5,6-dihydro-5-(methylamino)-4H-imidazo[4,5,1-ij]quinolin-2(1H)-one (Z)-2-butenedioate (1:1), is unique; it has greater than 200-fold selectivity for the D2 receptor subtype versus the other dopamine receptor subtypes in radioligand binding assays. In cell-based assays, sumanirole is a fully efficacious agonist, with EC50 values between 17 and 75 nM. In animals, sumanirole elicits many physiological responses attributed to D2-like receptor function. In rats, sumanirole is a full agonist for elevation of striatal acetylcholine levels (ED50 = 12.1 μmol/kg i.p.). Sumanirole s.c. dose dependently decreased plasma prolactin levels and depressed dopamine neuron firing rates in the substantia nigra pars compacta with an ED50 of 2.3 μmol/kg i.v. This high selectivity for D2 receptors translates into excellent locomotor stimulant activity in animal models of Parkinson's disease. In reserpinized, α-methyl-para-tyrosine-treated rats, sumanirole caused a significant and sustained increase in horizontal activity at doses ≥12.5 μmol/kg s.c. In unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned rats, sumanirole caused profound, sustained rotational behavior and was substantially more efficacious than any other agonist tested. Sumanirole-stimulated rotational behavior was blocked by the dopamine receptor antagonist haloperidol. Sumanirole dose dependently improved disability scores and locomotor activities of two of three 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine-lesioned monkeys. In summary, sumanirole is the first published selective D2 receptor agonist. The compound has activity in animal models of dopamine hypofunction and has a high level of efficacy in animal models of Parkinson's disease.
DNA Barcodes of Arabian Partridge and Philby’s Rock Partridge: Implications for Phylogeny and Species Identification

Recently, DNA barcoding based on mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) has gained wide attention because of simplicity and robustness of these barcodes for species identification including birds. The current GenBank records show the COI barcodes of only one species, chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar), of the Alectoris genus. In this study, we sequenced the 694 bp segment of COI gene of the two species including, Arabian partridge (Alectoris melanocephala) and Philby's rock partridge (Alectoris philbyi) of the same genus. We also compared these sequences with earlier published barcodes of chukar partridge. The pair-wise sequence comparison showed a total of 53 variable sites across all the 9 sequences from 3 species. Within-species variable sites were found to be 4 (Alectoris chukar), 0 (Alectorisphilbyi) and 3 (Alectoris melanocephala). The genetic distances among the 9 individuals varied from 0.000 to 0.056. Phylogenetic analysis using COI barcodes clearly discriminated the 3 species, while Alectoris chukar was found to be more closely related to Alectoris philbyi. Similar differentiation was also observed using 1155 bp mitochondrial control region (CR) sequences suggesting the efficiency of COI gene for phylogenetic reconstruction and interspecific identification. This is the first study reporting the barcodes of Arabian partridge and Philby's rock partridge.
Modulation of Transient Receptor Vanilloid 1 Activity by Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1

Transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) is a nonselective ligand-gated cation channel responding to noxious heat, protons, and chemicals such as capsaicin. TRPV1 is expressed in sensory neurons and plays a critical role in pain associated with tissue injury, inflammation, and nerve lesions. Transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) is coexpressed with TRPV1. It is activated by compounds that cause a burning sensation (e.g., mustard oil) and, indirectly, by components of the inflammatory milieu eliciting nociceptor excitation and pain hypersensitivity. Previous studies indicate an interaction of TRPV1 and TRPA1 signaling pathways. Here we sought to examine the molecular mechanisms underlying such interactions in nociceptive neurons. We first excluded physical interactions of both channels using radioligand binding studies. By microfluorimetry, electrophysiological experiments, cAMP measurements, and site-directed mutagenesis we found a sensitization of TRPV1 after TRPA1 stimulation with mustard oil in a calcium and cAMP/protein kinase A (PKA)–dependent manner. TRPA1 stimulation enhanced TRPV1 phosphorylation via the putative PKA phosphorylation site serine 116. We also detected calcium-sensitive increased TRPV1 activity after TRPA1 activation in dorsal root ganglion neurons. The inhibition of TRPA1 by HC-030031 (1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-1,3-dimethyl-N-[4-(1-methylethyl)phenyl]-2,6-dioxo-7H-purine-7-acetamide, 2-(1,3-dimethyl-2,6-dioxo-1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-7H-purin-7-yl)-N-(4-isopropylphenyl)acetamide) after its initial stimulation (and the calcium-insensitive TRPA1 mutant D477A) still showed increased capsaicin-induced TRPV1 activity. This excludes a calcium-induced additive TRPA1 current after TRPV1 stimulation. Our study shows sensitization of TRPV1 via activation of TRPA1, which involves adenylyl cyclase, increased cAMP, subsequent translocation and activation of PKA, and phosphorylation of TRPV1 at PKA phosphorylation residues. This suggests that cross-sensitization of TRP channels contributes to enhanced pain sensitivity in inflamed tissues.
Situated messages for asynchronous human-robot interaction

An ongoing issue in human robot interaction (HRI) is how people and robots communicate with one another. While there is considerable work in real-time human-robot communication, fairly little has been done in asynchronous realm. Our approach, which we call situated messages, lets humans and robots asynchronously exchange information by placing physical tokens - each representing a simple message - in meaningful physical locations of their shared environment. Using knowledge of the robot's routines, a person can place a message token at a location, where the location is typically relevant to redirecting the robot's behavior at that location. When the robot passes nearby that location, it detects the message and reacts accordingly. Similarly, robots can themselves place tokens at specific locations for people to read. Thus situated messages leverages embodied interaction, where token placement exploits the everyday practices and routines of both people and robots. We describe our working prototype, introduce application scenarios, explore message categories and usage patterns, and suggest future directions.
An Energy Efficient Congestion control Technique for Wireless Sensor Networks

WSN are distributed networks with small, light weight wireless sensor nodes. These sensor nodes cooperatively monitor the environment to measure the physical parameter such as temperature, pressure etc. It is data centric. When sensor nodes detect an event, it become active in collecting and transmitting the data, which cause congestion and results in packet drops, decrease in throughput and retransmission of data. To ensure the application’s reliability requirements and to reduce the load on the network, WSN need proficient congestion control policies. With this aim, this paper evaluates a contextual cooperative congestion control policy that makes use of the environment information of each node to reduce the channel load, by satisfying the applications requirements. This paper proposes a selective data forwarding scheme to avoid congestion and to optimize the energy drain. The SDFS scheme depends on parameters such as available energy and precedence of the data at the node. This scheme collects data from other sensors of this context.