Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visuomotor adaptation needs a validation of prediction error by feedback error

The processes underlying short-term plasticity induced by visuomotor adaptation to a shifted visual field are still debated. Two main sources of error can induce motor adaptation: reaching feedback errors, which correspond to visually perceived discrepancies between hand and target positions, and errors between predicted and actual visual reafferences of the moving hand. These two sources of error are closely intertwined and difficult to disentangle, as both the target and the reaching limb are simultaneously visible. Accordingly, the goal of the present study was to clarify the relative contributions of these two types of errors during a pointing task under prism-displaced vision. In “terminal feedback error” condition, viewing of their hand by subjects was allowed only at movement end, simultaneously with viewing of the target. In “movement prediction error” condition, viewing of the hand was limited to movement duration, in the absence of any visual target, and error signals arose solely from comparisons between predicted and actual reafferences of the hand. In order to prevent intentional corrections of errors, a subthreshold, progressive stepwise increase in prism deviation was used, so that subjects remained unaware of the visual deviation applied in both conditions. An adaptive aftereffect was observed in the “terminal feedback error” condition only. As far as subjects remained unaware of the optical deviation and self-assigned pointing errors, prediction error alone was insufficient to induce adaptation. These results indicate a critical role of hand-to-target feedback error signals in visuomotor adaptation; consistent with recent neurophysiological findings, they suggest that a combination of feedback and prediction error signals is necessary for eliciting aftereffects. They also suggest that feedback error updates the prediction of reafferences when a visual perturbation is introduced gradually and cognitive factors are eliminated or strongly attenuated.
Nuclear protein p68 is an RNA‐dependent ATPase.

The human nuclear antigen p68 cross reacts with a monoclonal antibody to SV40 large‐T antigen. Its deduced amino acid sequence contains short motifs which place it in a large superfamily of proteins of known or putative helicase activity. Recently, a p68 subfamily (DEAD box proteins) which share more extensive regions of homology has been identified in mouse, Drosophila, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli. These proteins are involved in translation, ribosome assembly, mitochondrial splicing, spermatogenesis and embryogenesis. We show here that immunopurified human p68 has RNA dependent ATPase activity. In addition, we show that the protein undergoes dramatic changes in cellular location during the cell cycle.
Clinical significance of mannose‐binding lectin‐associated serine protease‐2 expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Mannan‐binding lectin‐associated serine protease‐2 (MASP‐2) is a serine protease involved in the activation of lectin complement pathway. The differential expression of MASP‐2 in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) was recently reported from our laboratory using differential display. To determine the expression of MASP‐2 protein, we raised a polyclonal antibody to human MASP‐2 and used it for immunohistochemical analysis of MASP‐2 in ESCCs. The antibody showed a single band of predicted molecular weight by western blotting. In normal human liver tissue, the cytoplasm was distinctly labeled by the antibody. Intriguingly, besides the cytoplasm, the nuclei of esophageal tumor cells were also labeled. To investigate the association of MASP‐2 expression with esophageal tumorigenesis, its expression was analyzed in 51 primary ESCCs, 32 dysplasias, 21 histologically normal esophageal tissues and 6 adenocarcinomas by immunohistochemistry. Increased MASP‐2 expression was observed in ESCCs (p = 0.001, Odd's ratio (OR) = 3.662) and in premalignant condition, dysplasia (p = 0.000, OR = 5.091) in comparison with the normal tissues. MASP‐2 expression in ESCCs was associated with late clinical stage (p = 0.009, O.R. = 3.430) and nodal metastasis (p = 0.001, O.R. = 4.520). In conclusion, our antibody was demonstrated to be useful in recognizing MASP‐2 expression on paraffin embedded tissue sections. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing MASP‐2 expression in a solid tumor. MASP‐2 expression in premalignant stage (dysplasia) as well as in ESCCs and its association with late clinical stage and nodal metastasis suggest that alteration in its expression is maintained during disease progression and is associated with aggressive tumor behavior. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
PATS: A Framework of Pattern-Aware Trajectory Search

In this paper, we develop a framework of trajectory search called pattern-aware trajectory search abbreviated as PATS). Given a set of trajectories, potential regions are extracted first and potential regions are viewed as popular regions interested by users. Furthermore, potential regions are organized as a region transition graph where each vertex is a potential region and edges capture sequential travels of potential regions from a set of trajectories given. By exploring the concept of random walk, the attractiveness of a potential region is derived. In light of attractiveness of potential regions the attractiveness of a trajectory is formulated and PATS will return top-K trajectories according to their attractiveness. We evaluated our framework by a real GPS dataset. Experimental results show that PATS is able to retrieve trajectories interested by users.
A structured interview version of the Hamilton Rating Scale for depression: reliability and validity

Reliability and validity data are provided for pre- and posttreatment administrations of a structured interview version of the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) integrated with the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). Ss were 70 adult patients requesting therapy for depression. Results indicate excellent agreement between DIS-HRSD ratings made by graduate students and psychiatrist-administered HRSD ratings. The DIS-HRSD exhibited a pattern of correlation with other scales of depression similar to that of the HRSD, thus supporting the validity of the new scale. Intraclass correlations and concurrent validity estimates obtained from analyzing data separately for pre- and posttest administrations were consistently lower than those obtained from the whole sample, suggesting that methodological shortcomings in prior psychometric studies of the HRSD may have spuriously inflated the obtained results.
Escherichia coli N-Acetylglucosamine-1-Phosphate-Uridyltransferase/Glucosamine-1-Phosphate-Acetyltransferase (GlmU) Inhibitory Activity of Terreic Acid Isolated from Aspergillus terreus

Secondary metabolite of Aspergillus terreus, terreic acid, is a reported potent antibacterial that was identified more than 60 years ago, but its cellular target(s) are still unknown. Here we screen its activity against the acetyltransferase domain of a bifunctional enzyme, Escherichia coli N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate-uridyltransferase/glucosamine-1-phosphate-acetyltransferase (GlmU). An absorbance-based assay was used to screen terreic acid against the acetyltransferase activity of E. coli GlmU. Terreic acid was found to inhibit the acetyltransferase domain of E. coli GlmU with an IC50 of 44.24 ± 1.85 µM. Mode of inhibition studies revealed that terreic acid was competitive with AcCoA and uncompetitive with GlcN-1-P. It also exhibited concentration-dependent killing of E. coli ATCC 25922 up to 4× minimum inhibitory concentration and inhibited the growth of biofilms generated by E. coli. Characterization of resistant mutants established mutation in the acetyltransferase domain of GlmU. Terreic acid was also found to be metabolically stable in the in vitro incubations with rat liver microsome in the presence of a NADPH regenerating system. The studies reported here suggest that terreic acid is a potent antimicrobial agent and support that E. coli GlmU acetyltransferase is a molecular target of terreic acid, resulting in its antibacterial activity.
CONTROLS IN CROSS‐CULTURAL EXPERIMENTATION

Abstract Toute experimentation psychologique requiert, pour la formulation de conclusions valides, le controle des variables etudiees. Les experiences de type interculturel n'echappent pas a cette exigence et ce controle doit s'exercer aux trois niveaux classiques suivants: variables independantes, variables associees aux sujets eux-měmes et variables inherentes au recueil des reponses. Dans les etudes interculturelles, tel aspect particulier de conditionnement culturel constituera generalement la variable independante mais ce procede ne dispense pas de contodler egalement d'autres facteurs, L'equivalence des stimuli, la presence de facteurs d'attention ou de preferences esthetiques peuvent influencer le controle au niveau du stimulus. Les fruits de l'apprentissage, les attitudes envers les conditions experimentales ou les exigences particulieres d'une situation peu familiere constituent autant de variables importantes au niveau du sujet. La pertinence de l'outil de mesure en fonction du phenomene etudie .
PoDiffusion: an innovative functionality for pod devices

Living the era of high technological convergence, it is required to seize the best utilization of ubiquitous devices. This paper presents pod devices and investigates the need for new functionalities such as PoDiffusion. PoDiffusion takes advantage of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to develop an integrated speech capability for pod devices. Likewise, PoDiffusion has been developed and tested with respect to compatibility issues, usability issues, and limitations of pod devices.
Steady-state visual evoked potential based classification system for detecting migraine seizures

The recurrent migraine attacks between interictal phenomenon is triggered by the migraineurs' brain lacking for habituation, due to the stimulations from the outside world that increase the excitability of brain activity, which have been considered as the possible reasons for migraine seizure. The variation of habituation level within the migraine cycle is proposed to be a critical symptom to describe the physiological states of migraine headache. This study proposed Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP) examination to utilize habituation for classifying the different physiologic states of migraine cycle, and implement a classification system to determine different migraine states. The developed system may be extended to detect migraine seizure, and provide an opportunity to a clinically individual-based headache monitoring program, aiming for early migraine detection.
A Hybrid Scheme for Controlling Transactional Composite Services

This paper proposes a hybrid concurrency control scheme for transactional composite services. The scheme uses the information gathered from the workflow specifications of the composite services to reduce the overhead in detecting cycles in the serialization graph. The scheme carries out runtime analysis of the SQL statements used by the composite services to determine whether the clients that execute composite services depend on each other more accurately. As a result, it reduces the response time to some users. The proposed scheme also tackles the repeated rollback problem facing many concurrency control schemes.
A General Game Description Language for Incomplete Information Games

A General Game Player is a system that can play previously unknown games given nothing but their rules. The Game Description Language (GDL) has been developed as a high-level knowledge representation formalism for axiomatising the rules of any game, and a basic requirement of a General Game Player is the ability to reason logically about a given game description. In this paper, we address the fundamental limitation of existing GDL to be confined to deterministic games with complete information about the game state. To this end, we develop an extension of GDL that is both simple and elegant yet expressive enough to allow to formalise the rules of arbitrary (discrete and finite) n-player games with randomness and incomplete state knowledge. We also show that this extension suffices to provide players with all information they need to reason about their own knowledge as well as that of the other players up front and during game play.
An Efficient Non-Preemptive Real-Time Scheduling

Traditional real-time systems are designed using preemptive scheduling and worst-case execution time estimates to guarantee the execution of high priority tasks. There is, however, an interest in exploring non-preemptive scheduling models for real-time systems, particularly for soft real-time multimedia applications. In this paper we propose a new algorithm that uses multiple scheduling strategies. Our goal in this research is to improve the success rate of the well-known Earliest Deadline First (EDF) approach even when the load on the system is very high. Our approach, known as group-EDF (gEDF) is based on (dynamic) grouping of tasks with deadlines that are very close to each other, and using Shortest Job First (SJF) technique to schedule tasks within the group. We will present results comparing gEDF and EDF using randomly generated tasks with varying execution times, release times, deadlines and tolerance to missing deadlines, under varying workloads. We believe that the grouping of tasks with similar deadlines and utilizing information other than deadlines (such as execution times, priorities or resource availability) for scheduling tasks within a group can lead to new and more efficient real-time scheduling algorithms.
Performance Evaluation of Elliptical-cylindrical Antenna Array using SaDE Optimized Hyper Beam

For high performance communication systems, Side Lobe Level (SLL) reduction and improved directivity are the goal of antenna designers. In the recent years, many optimization techniques of antenna design are occupying demanding place over the analytical techniques. Though they have contributed attractive solutions, it is often obvious to select one that meets the particular design need at hand. In this paper, an optimization technique called Self-adaptive Differential Evolution (SaDE) that can be able to learn and behave intelligently along with hyper beam forming is integrated to determine an optimal set of excitation weights in the design of EcAA. Non-uniform excitation weights of the individual array elements of EcAA are performed to obtain reduced SLL, high directivity and flexible radiation pattern. To evaluate the improved performance of the proposed SaDE optimized hyper beam, comparison are done with uniformly excited, SaDE without hyper beam and Genetic Algorithm (GA). In general, the proposed work of pattern synthesis has resulted in much better reduction of SLL and FNBW than both the uniformly excited and thinned EcAA. The results of this study clearly reveal that the SLL highly reduced at a very directive beamwidth.
Tracking dirty proceeds: Exploring data mining technologies as tools to investigate money laundering

Money laundering enforcement operations in the USA and abroad have developed in the past decade from the simple use of informant information to the sophisticated analysis of voluminous, complex financial transaction arrays. Traditional investigative techniques aimed at uncovering patterns consume numerous man-hours. The volume of these records and the complexity of the relationships call for innovative techniques that can aid financial investigators in generating timely, accurate leads. Data mining techniques are well suited for identifying trends and patterns in large data sets often comprised of hundreds or even thousands of complex hidden relationships. This paper explores the use of innovative data mining methodologies that could enhance law enforcement's ability to detect, reduce, and prevent money laundering activities. This paper provides an overview of the money laundering problem in the USA and overseas and describes the nature and scope of the money laundering problems. It reviews traditional approaches to financial crime investigation and discusses various innovative data mining and artificial-intelligence-based solutions that can assist financial investigators.
Are Returns to Private Infrastructure in Developing Countries Consistent with Risks since the Asian Crisis?

This paper presents a basic assessment of the financial performance of infrastructure service operators in developing countries. It relies on a new database of 120 companies put together to track the evolution of the cost of capital, the cost of equity and the return to equity for electricity, water and sanitation, railways and port operators in 31 developing countries distributed evenly across low-income, low-middle income and upper-middle-income countries. The paper shows that between 1998 and 2002, the average cost of capital in developing countries varied from less than 9% to over 15% across regions and sectors while the cost of equity varied from around 11% to over 21%. Low-middle-income countries have recovered relatively well from the East Asia crisis, while low-income and upper-middle-income countries have seen their situation deteriorate since the crisis. At the regional level, the main story is that East Asia is recovering quite well from its crisis, and that the financial performance of the operators in Africa and Latin America has deteriorated. Eastern Europe and South Asia are doing relatively better but show a large volatility of returns over time and within sectors. At the sector level, the railways and the water sectors have seen their performance deteriorate significantly over the period, while the energy and port sectors have done relatively better. In all sectors and regions, the average return to equity has been lower than the cost of equity since the Asian crisis.
The Ford Foundation-Arkansas Experiment

The accompanying article describes the plan which has been agreed upon between the school people in Arkansas and the Fund for the Advancement of Education of The Ford Foundation. It summarizes the reconcilement of what originally de veloped as a highly controversial proposal. First announcements of the proposal, widely publicized in the press, caused extreme speculation and apprehension among teacher-education personnel throughout the country. These announce ments rather categorically and, it seemed from this distance, rather confidently stated that all professional courses in the first four years were to be eliminated, the two state teachers colleges abolished, as such, and transformed into liberal-arts col leges. The inference was that a predeter mined plan of teacher education, unsup ported by any valid evidence of superiority over the old, was to be imposed on a state school system. The furor raised by these unfortunate statements was reflected in a resolution denouncing the plan, adopted by the AACTE at its annual meeting in Chicago last February. Fortunately, school personnel in Arkan sas calmly and judiciously sought sound answers to questions raised by the pro posal. They refused to be stampeded by newspaper and public pressures or the lure of grants. A year of intensive study has resulted in a meeting of minds and the adoption of an experimental program which will parallel the present one. If valid evaluative techniques are used, a great service could be rendered teacher education by providing evidence of the relative merits of this plan as contrasted with another. Without such evidence, skepticism may justifiably continue con cerning the wisdom of telescoping profes sional preparation into the fifth year. C. M. Clarke is Director of the Division of Teacher Education and Certification, Arkansas State Department of Education. He will serve as Chairman of the Execu tive Committee which will direct the project.
Servant leadership and commitment to change, the mediating role of justice and optimism

Purpose – The main aim of this study was to contribute to the change management literature by providing additional insight into how leadership encourages commitment to change.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 135 employees of a reintegration company filled out a survey.Findings – Using structural equation modeling, the results showed that servant leadership and contingent reward leadership may contribute to a stronger sense of interactional justice, an optimistic attitude and commitment to change.Originality/value – This study contributes to the organizational change literature by providing a deeper insight into what aspect of leadership may be of essential importance for employees undergoing an organizational change process. It is the first study on the combined influence of servant leadership and contingent reward leadership in this process.
Reprowd: Crowdsourced Data Processing Made Reproducible

Crowdsourcing is a multidisciplinary research area including disciplines like artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, database, and social science. To facilitate cooperation across disciplines, reproducibility is a crucial factor, but unfortunately, it has not gotten enough attention in the HCOMP community. In this paper, we present Reprowd, a system aiming to make it easy to reproduce crowdsourced data processing research. We have open sourced Reprowd at this http URL.
Perioperative manipulation of the circulation in children with congenital heart disease

A low cardiac output state with reduced systemic oxygen delivery can complicate the early postoperative recovery early after surgery for congenital heart disease (CHD). All patients undergoing surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) are at risk for a low cardiac output state, but the risk is greatest for younger patients undergoing more complex surgery. Although the clinical manifestations of a reduced cardiac output are generally transient and reversible, this can result in increased intensive care stay, and contributes to the long term morbidity and mortality associated with surgery for CHD. The circulatory management of children with CHD should routinely be aimed at optimising systemic oxygen delivery according to the underlying diagnosis and physiology. This article will begin with a review of the pathophysiology of circulatory insufficiency, focusing on the period early after surgery for CHD. This background will provide a template for the ensuing discussions of a range of strategies for manipulating the circulation and optimising systemic oxygen delivery of infants and children with CHD, focusing mainly on postoperative management. An evolving or established low cardiac output state should always be suspected in infants and children who are not progressing as would be expected early after cardiac surgery. The low cardiac output state may have one or more of the following manifestations: increased heart rate, worsening acidosis, organ dysfunction, elevated atrial pressures, elevated central temperature, systemic hypertension or hypotension, or cardiac arrest. In a landmark study of infants early after the arterial switch operation, Wernovsky identified a typical time course for the low cardiac output state when related to cardiopulmonary bypass itself, with the nadir of cardiac output predictably occurring between 9–12 h after surgery, with a return to “normal” by 24 h. Concomitant with this fall was an increase in calculated systemic and pulmonary resistances.1 Clinicians caring for patients …