Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Propensity of undulatory swimmers, such as worms, to go against the flow

Significance Undulating swimmers, such as worms, are ubiquitous and play important roles in the ecosystem; agriculture; human, animal, and plant health; and medical research. The ability of undulatory swimmers to align against the flow (rheotax) is important in the animals’ life cycles, enabling them to navigate their environment and to maintain their positions in the presence of adverse flows such as in the hosts’ guts and blood vessels. We elucidate, for the first time to our knowledge, the mechanism responsible for rheotaxis in low-Reynolds-number, undulatory swimmers. This knowledge will provide a better understanding of the animals’ life cycles, will enable the development of strategies to disturb their life cycles, and will improve the design of microfluidic devices for biological research. The ability to orient oneself in response to environmental cues is crucial to the survival and function of diverse organisms. One such orientation behavior is the alignment of aquatic organisms with (negative rheotaxis) or against (positive rheotaxis) fluid current. The questions of whether low-Reynolds-number, undulatory swimmers, such as worms, rheotax and whether rheotaxis is a deliberate or an involuntary response to mechanical forces have been the subject of conflicting reports. To address these questions, we use Caenorhabditis elegans as a model undulatory swimmer and examine, in experiment and theory, the orientation of C. elegans in the presence of flow. We find that when close to a stationary surface the animal aligns itself against the direction of the flow. We elucidate for the first time to our knowledge the mechanisms of rheotaxis in worms and show that rheotaxis can be explained solely by mechanical forces and does not require sensory input or deliberate action. The interaction between the flow field induced by the swimmer and a nearby surface causes the swimmer to tilt toward the surface and the velocity gradient associated with the flow rotates the animal to face upstream. Fluid mechanical computer simulations faithfully mimic the behavior observed in experiments, supporting the notion that rheotaxis behavior can be fully explained by hydrodynamics. Our study highlights the important role of hydrodynamics in the behavior of small undulating swimmers and may assist in developing control strategies to affect the animals’ life cycles.
WDR36 acts as a scaffold protein tethering a G-protein-coupled receptor, Gαq and phospholipase Cβ in a signalling complex

We identified the WD-repeat-containing protein, WDR36, as an interacting partner of the β isoform of thromboxane A2 receptor (TPβ) by yeast two-hybrid screening. We demonstrated that WDR36 directly interacts with the C-terminus and the first intracellular loop of TPβ by in vitro GST-pulldown assays. The interaction in a cellular context was observed by co-immunoprecipitation, which was positively affected by TPβ stimulation. TPβ–WDR36 colocalization was detected by confocal microscopy at the plasma membrane in non-stimulated HEK293 cells but the complex translocated to intracellular vesicles following receptor stimulation. Coexpression of WDR36 and its siRNA-mediated knockdown, respectively, increased and inhibited TPβ-induced Gαq signalling. Interestingly, WDR36 co-immunoprecipitated with Gαq, and promoted TPβ–Gαq interaction. WDR36 also associated with phospholipase Cβ (PLCβ) and increased the interaction between Gαq and PLCβ, but prevented sequestration of activated Gαq by GRK2. In addition, the presence of TPβ in PLCβ immunoprecipitates was augmented by expression of WDR36. Finally, disease-associated variants of WDR36 affected its ability to modulate Gαq-mediated signalling by TPβ. We report that WDR36 acts as a new scaffold protein tethering a G-protein-coupled receptor, Gαq and PLCβ in a signalling complex.
Puppetnets: misusing web browsers as a distributed attack infrastructure

Most of the recent work on Web security focuses on preventing attacks that directly harm the browser's host machine and user. In this paper we attempt to quantify the threat of browsers being indirectly misused for attacking third parties. Specifically, we look at how the existing Web infrastructure (e.g., the languages, protocols, and security policies) can be exploited by malicious Web sites to remotely instruct browsers to orchestrate actions including denial of service attacks, worm propagation and reconnaissance scans. We show that, depending mostly on the popularity of a malicious Web site and user browsing patterns, attackers are able to create powerful botnet-like infrastructures that can cause significant damage. We explore the effectiveness of countermeasures including anomaly detection and more fine-grained browser security policies.
Decremental Single-Source Shortest Paths on Undirected Graphs in Near-Linear Total Update Time

The decremental single-source shortest paths (SSSP) problem concerns maintaining the distances between a given source node s to every node in an n-node m-edge graph G undergoing edge deletions. While its static counterpart can be easily solved in near-linear time, this decremental problem is much more challenging even in the undirected unweighted case. In this case, the classic O(mn) total update time of Even and Shiloach (JACM 1981) has been the fastest known algorithm for three decades. With the loss of a (1 + ε)-approximation factor, the running time was recently improved to O(n2+o(1)) by Bernstein and Roditty (SODA 2011), and more recently to O(n1.8+o(1) + m1+o(1)) by Henzinger, Krinninger, and Nanongkai (SODA 2014). In this paper, we finally bring the running time of this case down to near-linear: We give a (1 + ε)-approximation algorithm with O(m1+o(1)) total update time, thus obtaining near-linear time. Moreover, we obtain O(m1+o(1) log W) time for the weighted case, where the edge weights are integers from 1 to W. The only prior work on weighted graphs in o(mn log W) time is the O(mn0.986 log W)-time algorithm by Henzinger, Krinninger, and Nanongkai (STOC 2014) which works for the general weighted directed case. In contrast to the previous results which rely on maintaining a sparse emulator, our algorithm relies on maintaining a so-called sparse (d, ε)-hop set introduced by Cohen (JACM 2000) in the PRAM literature. A (d, ε)-hop set of a graph G = (V, E) is a set E' of weighted edges such that the distance between any pair of nodes in G can be (1 + ε)-approximated by their d-hop distance (given by a path containing at most d edges) on G'=(V, E∪E'). Our algorithm can maintain an (no(1), ε)-hop set of near-linear size in near-linear time under edge deletions. It is the first of its kind to the best of our knowledge. To maintain the distances on this hop set, we develop a monotone bounded-hop Even-Shiloach tree. It results from extending and combining the monotone Even-Shiloach tree of Henzinger, Krinninger, and Nanongkai (FOCS 2013) with the bounded-hop SSSP technique of Bernstein (STOC 2013). These two new tools might be of independent interest.
The relationship between multiple indicators of wellness and parental stress in foster parents

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the parental stress of foster parents and factors of wellness. Outcomes were measur ed u ing the Parenting Stress Inventory – Short Form (Abidin, 1995) and the Five Factor Wellne ss Inventory (Myers & Sweeney, 2004). Data were collected on a single occasion fr om 148 foster parents utilizing on-line support groups. Pearsons correlation found that there wa s a significant negative relationship between both Total Parenting Stress a nd Overall Wellness as well as Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interactions and Overall Wellness. Stepwise regression was used to investigate the variance caused by diffe rent factors of wellness. Two factors of wellness, Realistic Beliefs and Leisure, wer e found to be related to lower levels of Total Stress. Four factors of wellness, Leisure, Emoti ons, Positive Humor, and Realistic Beliefs were found to be related to lower levels of ParentChild Dysfunctional Interactions. Introduction In 2007 there were 496,000 children in foster care in the United States (US Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 2008). With such high numbers of children who are wards of the state, there is a strong need to improve caregi vers’ ability to meet the needs of this challenging population. While there is growing r esearch on foster children’s experience in foster care, there is a lack of understanding of how the experience of being a foster parent, with its rewards and challenges, might i pac the experience of foster children in foster care. Foster parents have diffic ult jobs that are often underappreciated (Swartz, 2004; Tripp De Robertis & Litrownik, 2004). However, when the caregivers are able to meet the needs of foster children, primarily b y providing a consistent placement and developing relationships with them, the children are bett er able to cope with the upheaval in their lives (Pecora, et al., 2005).
Autism spectrum disorders in children of parents with inflammatory bowel disease – a nationwide cohort study in Denmark

Purpose Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may share genetic and environmental risk factors. We examined whether parental IBD is associated with an increased risk of ASD in offspring. Methods We conducted a registry-based nationwide cohort study including children born alive in Denmark from January 1, 1994 to December 31, 2009, with follow-up throughout 2010. IBD in parents and ASD in offspring were identified using inpatient and outpatient hospital diagnoses. We computed risk of ASD and crude and adjusted incidence rate ratios (aIRRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) using Cox proportional-hazards regression. We evaluated the risk of ASD according to maternal and paternal IBD, and separately for maternal and paternal Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Children with parents free of IBD were the comparison cohort. Results We identified 1,005,330 children during the study period. Among them, 11,888 (1.2%) had a parent with IBD and 8,087 (0.8%) had a diagnosis of ASD during up to 17 years of follow-up. The 10-year risks of ASD were 0.7% among children of parents with IBD and 0.9% among children of parents without IBD. The aIRR for ASD among children with parental IBD was 0.8 (95% CI: 0.6–1.0), and results were similar regardless of parent of IBD origin or whether a parent had CD or UC. The estimates were similar for different ASD subtypes. Conclusion We found no evidence of an increased risk of ASD among children born to parents with IBD.
Implant-Guided Tenting of the Schneiderian Membrane by the Osteotome Technique without Grafting Materials : Literature Review

Rehabilitation of the atrophied edentulous maxilla is complicated. Often the residual bone height is insufficient for implant placement due to crestal bone resorption and pneumatization of the sinus.The meticulous management of the available residual bone, the atraumatic sinus lifting procedure, and the proper selection of the implants are the keys to successful dental implantation in resorbed alveolar alveolar bone. Today, one of the most common ways to compensate for inadequate vertical bone height is to elevate the sinus floor by tenting of the schneiderian membrane by the implant which is guided by itself eliminating the need for bone graft. The Osteotome sinus-floor elevation in conjunction with implant placement is also possible in severely resorbed alveolar bone. Extensive and traumatic conventional lateral approach for the sinus lifting and the grafting procedures can be avoided even in the highly resorbed alveolar bone by using Osteotome technique. This paper consists of a review of the literature available on sinus membrane elevation with simultaneous implant placement without the use of grafting materials. This review shows that grafting materials are not necessary to achieve a high implant survival rate. Some advantages with the less invasive non-grafting method are a decreased patient discomfort and a shorter
Navigating the swampy lowland: a framework for evaluating the effect of community mobilisation in female sex workers in Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative

Background Few models of how community mobilisation works have been elaborated in the scientific literature, and evaluation of the impact of these programmes on HIV and other health outcomes is extremely limited. Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative, has been implementing community mobilisation as part of its prevention programming with groups of high-risk individuals across six states since 2005. Purpose To articulate a programme theory and evaluation framework for evaluation of Avahan's approach to community mobilisation among female sex workers in four southern states in India. Methods The authors use a goal-based evaluation approach to describe the programme goals and an underlying programme theory that specifies how the programme is expected to work. Using multilevel structural equation modelling with propensity score matching, the evaluation will compare what is observed in the data with the predicted relationships specified by the model. Results The Avahan model of community mobilisation posits that meaningful participation in high-risk group intervention, structural intervention and organisational development activities leads to identification, collectivisation and ownership, which in turn leads to improved programme outcomes. Strong community groups and an enabling environment reinforce social norm and behaviour change outcomes and lead to sustained impact. Discussion Specifying an explicit programme theory can aid in the evaluation of complex interventions, especially when the evaluation design is observational. In addition to articulating Avahan's community mobilisation approach in a model that can be tested, we recommend some specific measures and methods that could be used to improve evaluation efforts in the future.
Social Influences on the Choice of a Linguistic Variant

were engaged in a study of child-rearing in a semi-rural New England village. In the course of the study I had occasion to record two or more interviews on Audograph discs or tapes, with each of the 24 children of our sample. Previously certain inconsistencies in the children's speech had attracted my attention, especially the variation between -in and -ing for the present participle ending. (The variation in this dialect between -in and -ing in the participle ending does not extend to words with a final -m in an unstressed syllable in standard speech. This variation is therefore probably best viewed as a case of free alternation of two allomorphs which happen to differ in respect to one phoneme, rather than as a case of phonological free variation.) Accordingly, in transcribing the discs and tapes, I decided to note the choice of these two variants, and this paper is intended to summarize and discuss this information. To begin with, all of the 24 children, except three, used both forms to some extent at least. The three exceptions used only the -ing form, and since they were less loquacious than most of the other children, it is possible that a larger sample of their speech would have revealed the use of the other variant as well. This may then be regarded as a case of so-called free variation of two linguistic forms within a local speech community, and within the speech of most individual members of our sample community. In general, the choice of one or the other of the variants would not affect the denotation of acts, states, or events by the word. "Free variation" is of course a label, not an explanation. It does not tell us where the variants came from nor why the speakers use JOHN L FISCHER
Low-Power CMOS Comparator with Embedded Amplification for Ultra-high-speed ADCs

In this paper the challenge of improving the energy-efficiency of comparators is addressed, by proposing a novel comparator structure, to be used in ultra-high-speed ADCs. In this comparator, the pre-amplification is embedded in the input switched-capacitor network by using the passive-amplification capability of MOS devices. Simulated results show that this comparator exhibits low-offset ultra-fast regeneration-time and high energy-efficiency.
Nature of the cone ON-pathway dysfunction in melanoma-associated retinopathy.

PURPOSE To establish the basis for an ON-pathway abnormality of the cone system in melanoma-associated retinopathy (MAR) through analysis of the electroretinogram (ERG) and visual evoked potential (VEP). METHODS Two patients with MAR syndrome whose sera produced immunolabeling of retinal bipolar cells participated in the study. Full-field ERGs were recorded in response to brief flashes, to rapid-on and rapid-off sawtooth stimuli at a temporal frequency of 8 Hz, and to sine-wave stimuli at temporal frequencies ranging from 8 to 96 Hz. Fundamental responses to the sine-wave stimuli were evaluated within the context of a vector-summation model of the depolarizing bipolar cell (DBC) and hyperpolarizing bipolar cell (HBC) contributions to the response fundamental. VEPs were recorded to the onset of luminance increments and decrements that had contrasts of 10%, 20%, and 50%. The patients' results were compared with those of age-similar control subjects. RESULTS The patients with MAR showed abnormal ERG responses to luminance increments, consisting of a marked attenuation of the initial portion of the b-wave, but their ERG responses to luminance decrements were normal in amplitude and timing. The ERG temporal response functions of the patients with MAR had normal amplitudes at frequencies of 32 Hz and higher, with a constant phase lag across these frequencies, but larger-than-normal amplitudes at frequencies below 32 Hz, and a phase lead at 8 Hz. Their VEP responses showed a marked delay to increments but only a minimal delay to decrements. CONCLUSIONS Within the context of the vector-summation model, the ERG findings in the patients with MAR are more consistent with an attenuation of the DBC contribution to the ERG response than with a DBC response delay. The delayed VEP responses of the patients with MAR to luminance increments may represent a late response of the OFF system to increment onset.
Video shot boundary detection using motion activity descriptor

Abstract —This paper focus on the study of the motion activity descriptor for shot boundary detection in video sequences. We interest in the validation of this descriptor in the aim of its real time implementation with reasonable high performances in shot boundary detection. The motion activity information is extracted in uncompressed domain based on adaptive rood pattern search (ARPS) algorithm. In this context, the motion activity descriptor was applied for different video sequence. Index Terms —Motion activity, MPEG-7, video segmentation, ARPS, Block-matching. —————————— —————————— 1. I NTRODUCTION n recent years, the development of software and hardware technology has enabled the creation of a large amount of digital video content. Video segmentation based on motion [1] is a new research area. Motion is a salient feature in video, in addition to other typical image features such as color, shape and texture. Video shot boundary detection is a fundamental step in video indexing and retrieval, and in general video data management. The general objectives are to segment a given video sequence into its constituent shots, and to identify and classify the different shot transitions in the sequence [10]. Different algorithms have been proposed, for instance, based on simple color histograms [11, 12], pixel color differences [13], color ratio histograms [14], edges [15], and motion [16– 18]. In this work, we study the problem of video partitioning using a motion-based approach. In this study we interest in the validation of the motion activity descriptor in the aim of its possible real time implementation. We have applied this descriptor for different video sequence. We have considered its application for shot boundary detection. The rest of this paper is organized as follows: in section 2, we present the motion activity descriptor specification. In section 3 we focus on the study of the motion activity descriptor for shot boundary detection in video sequences. The different experimentations and the evolution results of the motion activity are presented in section 4.
Should adhesive small bowel obstruction be managed laparoscopically? A National Surgical Quality Improvement Program propensity score analysis

BACKGROUND Celiotomy is the most common approach for refractory small bowel obstruction (SBO). Small reviews suggest that a laparoscopic approach is associated with shorter stay and less morbidity. Given the limitations of previous studies, we sought to evaluate outcomes of laparoscopic (L) compared with open (O) adhesiolysis for SBO, using the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program data set. METHODS Patients from the American College of Surgeons’ National Surgical Quality Improvement Program 2005 to 2009 database who underwent surgery for SBO were stratified based on surgical approach. A propensity score to undergo L instead of O was calculated based on demographics, comorbidities, physiology, and laboratory values. Logistic regression was then used to determine differences in outcomes between those propensity score–matched patients who actually underwent L compared with O surgery. RESULTS There were 6,762 patients who underwent adhesiolysis. The propensity score–matching process created 222 matched patients in L and O groups. Laparoscopy was associated with significantly lower rates of any complication (odds ratio [OR] 0.41; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.28–0.60), including superficial site infections (OR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.05–0.49), intraoperative transfusion (OR, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.05–0.90), and shorter hospital stay (4 days vs. 10 days; p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in operative time, rates of reoperation within 30 days, or mortality. CONCLUSION Laparoscopic treatment of SBO is associated with lower rates of postoperative morbidity compared with laparotomy as well as shorter hospital stay. Laparoscopic treatment of surgical SBO is not associated with higher rates of early reoperation and seems to be associated with lower resource use. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic study, level IV.
A multi-threshold feedback scheme for cognitive radio networks based on opportunistic beamforming

Cognitive radio is a promising technique for efficient spectrum utilization in wireless systems. In multi-user Multiple- Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) system, a large amount of feedback information has to be used to achieve multi-user diversity. In this paper, in order to reduce the feedback amount and hence the wasted energy, we propose a novel scheduling scheme of secondary users (SUs) for an underlay cognitive radio network. Our scheme is based on opportunistic beamforming and employs multiple feedback thresholds. The lowest threshold is chosen to insure a predefined allowed scheduling outage probability. A scheduling outage event occurs if at least one transmit beam has no feedback information. The other thresholds are chosen in order to reduce the number of SUs feeding back their maximum signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) (and hence the wasted energy) and the delay due to the number of attempts. We show via simulations that a significant gain in terms of energy is obtained at the price of a reasonable delay.