Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
dbl-1/TGF-β and daf-12/NHR Signaling Mediate Cell-Nonautonomous Effects of daf-16/FOXO on Starvation-Induced Developmental Arrest

Nutrient availability has profound influence on development. In the nematode C. elegans, nutrient availability governs post-embryonic development. L1-stage larvae remain in a state of developmental arrest after hatching until they feed. This “L1 arrest” (or "L1 diapause") is associated with increased stress resistance, supporting starvation survival. Loss of the transcription factor daf-16/FOXO, an effector of insulin/IGF signaling, results in arrest-defective and starvation-sensitive phenotypes. We show that daf-16/FOXO regulates L1 arrest cell-nonautonomously, suggesting that insulin/IGF signaling regulates at least one additional signaling pathway. We used mRNA-seq to identify candidate signaling molecules affected by daf-16/FOXO during L1 arrest. dbl-1/TGF-β, a ligand for the Sma/Mab pathway, daf-12/NHR and daf-36/oxygenase, an upstream component of the daf-12 steroid hormone signaling pathway, were up-regulated during L1 arrest in a daf-16/FOXO mutant. Using genetic epistasis analysis, we show that dbl-1/TGF-β and daf-12/NHR steroid hormone signaling pathways are required for the daf-16/FOXO arrest-defective phenotype, suggesting that daf-16/FOXO represses dbl-1/TGF-β, daf-12/NHR and daf-36/oxygenase. The dbl-1/TGF-β and daf-12/NHR pathways have not previously been shown to affect L1 development, but we found that disruption of these pathways delayed L1 development in fed larvae, consistent with these pathways promoting development in starved daf-16/FOXO mutants. Though the dbl-1/TGF-β and daf-12/NHR pathways are epistatic to daf-16/FOXO for the arrest-defective phenotype, disruption of these pathways does not suppress starvation sensitivity of daf-16/FOXO mutants. This observation uncouples starvation survival from developmental arrest, indicating that DAF-16/FOXO targets distinct effectors for each phenotype and revealing that inappropriate development during starvation does not cause the early demise of daf-16/FOXO mutants. Overall, this study shows that daf-16/FOXO promotes developmental arrest cell-nonautonomously by repressing pathways that promote larval development.
The Myth of the Computer Hacker

The seriousness of computer hacking is not exaggerated, it is far worse than that. The computer hacker has attained the status of myth; society associates all computer crime with a mythical perpetrator that bears no resemblance to reality. This paper will argue that in the early stages of the myth the computer hacker was regarded as a highly skilled but mentally disturbed youth who has an unhealthy association with computers. The new reality of electronic commerce resulted in pressures that culminated in the computer hacker becoming regarded as a dangerous criminal. A thorough analysis of the statistics will demonstrate that the majority of computer intruders are neither dangerous nor highly skilled, and thus nothing like the mythical hacker.
Dose—Response Relationships of Clothianidin, Imidacloprid, and Thiamethoxam to Blissus occiduus (Hemiptera: Blissidae)

ABSTRACT The western chinch bug, Blissus occiduus Barber (Hemiptera: Blissidae), has emerged as a serious pest of buffalograss, Buchloë dactyloides (Nuttall) Engelmann. In general, neonicotinoid insecticides effectively control a variety of turfgrass insects, particularly phloem-feeding pests. However, because of well documented inconsistencies in control, these compounds are generally not recommended for chinch bugs. This study was designed to document the contact and systemic toxicity of three neonicotinoid insecticides (clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam) to B. occiduus. In contact bioassays, thiamethoxam was ≈20-fold less toxic than clothianidin or imidacloprid to B. occiduus nymphs and three-fold more toxic to adults. In adult systemic bioassays, thiamethoxam was up to five-fold more toxic than clothianidin or imidacloprid. Interestingly, thiamethoxam was significantly more toxic to adults than to nymphs in both contact and systemic bioassays. This was not observed with clothianidin or imidacloprid. Bifenthrin, used for comparative purposes, exhibited 1,844-fold and 122-fold increase in toxicity to nymphs and adults, respectively. These results provide the first documentation of the relative toxicity of these neonicotinoid insecticides to B. occiduus.
UNCONFERENCING AS AN APPROACH FOR FACILITATING ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING AND CHANGE

This paper discusses the potential of unconferencing, a relatively new alternative to traditional conferences, as method for facilitating organisational learning and change. The paper describes the application of unconferencing at a large university (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich) which aimed at developing project proposals for CO2 reduction. The processes and outcomes of the unconference are described. A qualitative analysis of observations, narrative interviews and a participant survey was carried out to investigate whether, how and to what extent unconferencing can facilitate organisational learning. 1 Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. Patricia Wolf, Lucerne School of Business, Zentralstr. 9, 6002 Lucerne, Switzerland, phone: +41(0)41 228 41 62, fax: +41(0)41 228 41 51, e-mail: patricia.wolf@hslu.ch
Tracking the Evolution of Polymerase Genes of Influenza A Viruses during Interspecies Transmission between Avian and Swine Hosts

Human influenza pandemics have historically been caused by reassortant influenza A viruses using genes from human and avian viruses. This genetic reassortment between human and avian viruses has been known to occur in swine during viral circulation, as swine are capable of circulating both avian and human viruses. Therefore, avian-to-swine transmission of viruses plays an important role in the emergence of new pandemic strains. The amino acids at several positions on PB2, PB1, and PA are known to determine the host range of influenza A viruses. In this paper, we track viral transmission between avian and swine to investigate the evolution on polymerase genes associated with their hosts. We traced viral transmissions between avian and swine hosts by using nucleotide sequences of avian viruses and swine viruses registered in the NCBI GenBank. Using BLAST and the reciprocal best hits technique, we found 32, 33, and 30 pairs of avian and swine nucleotide sequences that may be associated with avian-to-swine transmissions for PB2, PB1, and PA genes, respectively. Then, we examined the amino acid substitutions involved in these sporadic transmissions. On average, avian-to-swine transmission pairs had 5.47, 3.73, and 5.13 amino acid substitutions on PB2, PB1, and PA, respectively. However, amino acid substitutions were distributed over the positions, and few positions showed common substitutions in the multiple transmission events. Statistical tests on the number of repeated amino acid substitutions suggested that no specific positions on PB2 and PA may be required for avian viruses to infect swine. We also found that avian viruses that transmitted to swine tend to process I478V substitutions on PB2 before interspecies transmission events. Furthermore, most mutations occurred after the interspecies transmissions, possibly due to selective viral adaptation to swine.
Laboratory Colonisation and Genetic Bottlenecks in the Tsetse Fly Glossina pallidipes

Background The IAEA colony is the only one available for mass rearing of Glossina pallidipes, a vector of human and animal African trypanosomiasis in eastern Africa. This colony is the source for Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) programs in East Africa. The source population of this colony is unclear and its genetic diversity has not previously been evaluated and compared to field populations. Methodology/Principal Findings We examined the genetic variation within and between the IAEA colony and its potential source populations in north Zimbabwe and the Kenya/Uganda border at 9 microsatellites loci to retrace the demographic history of the IAEA colony. We performed classical population genetics analyses and also combined historical and genetic data in a quantitative analysis using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC). There is no evidence of introgression from the north Zimbabwean population into the IAEA colony. Moreover, the ABC analyses revealed that the foundation and establishment of the colony was associated with a genetic bottleneck that has resulted in a loss of 35.7% of alleles and 54% of expected heterozygosity compared to its source population. Also, we show that tsetse control carried out in the 1990's is likely reduced the effective population size of the Kenya/Uganda border population. Conclusions/Significance All the analyses indicate that the area of origin of the IAEA colony is the Kenya/Uganda border and that a genetic bottleneck was associated with the foundation and establishment of the colony. Genetic diversity associated with traits that are important for SIT may potentially have been lost during this genetic bottleneck which could lead to a suboptimal competitiveness of the colony males in the field. The genetic diversity of the colony is lower than that of field populations and so, studies using colony flies should be interpreted with caution when drawing general conclusions about G. pallidipes biology.
Mining Android App Usages for Generating Actionable GUI-Based Execution Scenarios

GUI-based models extracted from Android app execution traces, events, or source code can be extremely useful for challenging tasks such as the generation of scenarios or test cases. However, extracting effective models can be an expensive process. Moreover, existing approaches for automatically deriving GUI-based models are not able to generate scenarios that include events which were not observed in execution (nor event) traces. In this paper, we address these and other major challenges in our novel hybrid approach, coined as MONKEYLAB. Our approach is based on the Record→Mine→Generate→Validate framework, which relies on recording app usages that yield execution (event) traces, mining those event traces and generating execution scenarios using statistical language modeling, static and dynamic analyses, and validating the resulting scenarios using an interactive execution of the app on a real device. The framework aims at mining models capable of generating feasible and fully replayable (i.e., actionable) scenarios reflecting either natural user behavior or uncommon usages (e.g., corner cases) for a given app. We evaluated MONKEYLAB in a case study involving several medium-to-large open-source Android apps. Our results demonstrate that MONKEYLAB is able to mine GUI-based models that can be used to generate actionable execution scenarios for both natural and unnatural sequences of events on Google Nexus 7 tablets.
Concept of Care, Caring Expectations, and Caring Frustrations of the Elderly Suffering from Chronic Illness

While it is true that elderly concepts of care and caring expectations have been ascertained in previous literatures, little is known about how the elderly population views caring frustrations—particularly that of the Filipino elderly. This study purports to surface the lebenswelt of healthcare expectations and frustrations based on the repondents’ concept of care. A three-part instrument consisting of robotfoto, picture prompts, and unstructured interviews was used to elicit pertinent data. Through the use of dendrogram, field texts were phenomenologically reduced to emerge conceptual clusters. On the whole, this study yielded interesting conceptualizations which include the Clock of Care, the Clock of Caring Expectations and the Clock of Caring Frustrations. The emerged meanings in this study create a picture of care as a driving force in the progression of care expectations and frustrations. This eidetic background enables healthcare providers to offer care that is both timely and relevant to their client's subjective illness experience.
Regulation of L‐type Ca++ currents and process morphology in white matter oligodendrocyte precursor cells by golli‐myelin proteins

The golli myelin basic proteins are expressed in oligodendroglial precursor cells (OPCs) where they play a role in regulating Ca2+ homeostasis. During depolarization, they influence process outgrowth and migration through their action on voltage‐operated Ca2+ channels (VOCCs). To identify ion channels that are modulated by golli, we examined the electrophysiological properties of VOCCs in OPCs in the white matter of golli knock‐out and control mice. OPCs exhibited two distinct Ca2+ channels, which were distinguished by their voltage dependence and pharmacological profiles and which exhibited many of the hallmarks of LVA/T‐type and HVA/L‐type Ca2+ channels. The density of high‐voltage‐activated (HVA) currents was reduced in OPCs recorded in golli‐KO tissue, while low‐voltage‐activated (LVA) currents remained unaltered in these cells. These data indicate that golli exerts an exclusive influence on L‐type Ca2+ channels in OPCs. Oligodendrocytes (OLs) also displayed LVA and HVA currents, although the density of these currents was much reduced at this developmental stage. These currents were not altered in golli‐KO OLs showing the influence of golli on L‐type Ca2+ channels is restricted to a specific time‐window during the course of oligodendroglial development. The actions of golli on OPC L‐type Ca2+ channels were accompanied by changes in process morphology, including a reduction in process complexity and the appearance of enlarged varicosities that decorated these cellular processes. These data on L‐type Ca2+ channels and process development provide in situ evidence for the influence of golli on VOCCs, and offer an explanation for the hypomyelination observed in the brains of golli‐KO mice. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Worldviews in Transition: The Impact of Exotic Plants and Animals on Iron Age/Romano-British landscapes

Abstract Cultural geographers have long accepted that plants and animals play an important role in the construction and perception of landscape but such beliefs are yet to be embraced by landscape archaeologists who seldom give consideration to bioarchaeological data beyond the occasional economic or environmental reconstruction. In an attempt to highlight the value of plant and animal remains for landscape research this paper examines the Iron Age/Romano-British transition from a bioarchaeological perspective, focusing on the landscape change brought by the exotic species introduced around A.D. 43. I argue that the establishment of new plants and animals altered patterns of landscape organisation by introducing horticultural spaces – gardens, orchards, vineyards – and wild animal reserves – vivaria and leporaria – all of which were unknown before the Conquest. In itself, the use of bioarchaeological data to highlight the widespread existence of Roman horticultural spaces and game reserves is important since these have received little attention from landscape archaeologists due to the difficulties of their detection. Beyond this, however, I propose that the arrival of these species and spaces impacted on the way that people engaged with, traversed and experienced their world. Indeed, the very concept of 'wild animal enclosure' indicates a Roman worldview fundamentally different to that seen in the Iron Age period, when people seemingly negotiated with the wilderness and wild things rather than feeling they had the right to bring them to order.
Leg ulcer due to multiple arteriovenous malformations in the lower extremity of an elderly patient

A 66‐year‐old woman with a history of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) presented with an irregularly shaped leg ulcer surrounded by pigmentation on the left lower limb. In addition, the circumference of her left thigh had gradually increased. The ulcer did not respond to topical treatment and enlarged, therefore, she visited our hospital. Arteriography of the left lower limb showed multiple arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), based on which we made a diagnosis of a leg ulcer due to multiple AVMs. Transcatheter arterial embolisation with a mixture of N‐butyl‐2‐cyanoacrylate and lipiodol was performed six times in the period of about a year for treating the AVMs. The ulcer was managed with bed rest, surgical debridement, continuous pressure support with elastic wrap and topical treatment. After 15 months, the ulcer healed, leaving pigmentation and scarring. It is quite rare for AVMs to progress in the elderly. We speculate that the DVT had caused occult AVMs to become symptomatic following an increase in size.
Children's Responses to Moral and Social Conventional Transgressions in Free-Play Settings.

NuccI, LARRY P., and NuccI, MARIA SANTIAGO. Children's Responses to Moral and Social Conventional Transgressions in Free-Play Settings. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 1337-1342. Observations were conducted of children's responses to naturally occurring moral and social conventional transgressions during unsupervised free play in 10 playgrounds. Findings paralleled results of previous observational studies conducted in adult-governed (school) contexts. It was found that children responded to both moral and conventional forms of transgression. Responses of both the younger (7-10-year-old) and older (11-14-year-old) children to moral transgressions revolved around the intrinsic (hurtful and unjust) consequences of acts upon victims. Children's responses to conventional breaches, in contrast, focused on aspects of the social order (i.e., rules, normative expectations). Sex differences in the usage of specific forms of response to moral and conventional breaches were found.
Social Desirability Response Set and Self-Report Depression Inventories in the Elderly

The present study addressed the issue of the sensitivity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) to a social desirability response set, i.e., the tendency to respond to items on the basis of judgments of desirability/undesirability of item content, as measured by the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (M-CSDS). This investigation was conducted with clinically depressed older adults and with healthy older adults recruited from the community. A negative association was found, only in the clinical group, between M-CSDS and BDI scores. This was explained by the relative emphasis on the assessment of negative attitudes toward self on the BDI. Characteristics of older subjects most susceptible to answering in a socially approved fashion, and possibly to under-reporting depression, are also discussed.
An unsupervised scheme for detection of microcalcifications on mammograms

Clusters of microcalcifications which appear like small white grains of sand on mammograms are the earliest signs of breast cancer. In this work we employ a Gabor filter bank for texture analysis of mammograms to detect microcalcifications. A subset of the Gabor filter bank with a certain central frequency and different orientations is used to obtain the Gabor-filtered images. The filtered images are then subjected to a histogram based threshold to obtain binary images. Feature vectors are computed using the binary images. A k-means clustering algorithm with a variance scaled Euclidean distance is used for segmentation of the image.
EMG processing for classification of hand gestures and regression of wrist torque

This paper investigates the use of myoelectric signals to identify hand gesture as well as predict wrist torque in healthy volunteers. Surface electromyography (sEMG) signals from four forearm muscles were recorded while the volunteers were exerting wrist torque on a custom-made rig. Multi class support vector machines (SVM) were used for classification and regression. The obtained experimental results proved that the proposed sEMG processing scheme enabled classifying six different hand gestures with 95.51% accuracy and estimate wrist torque intensity for each of those classes with a normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) of 0.057 for regression.
Sentiment Analysis of Online News Using MALLET

The challenge of sentiment analysis consists in automatically determining whether a text is positive or negative in tone. Part of the difficulty in this task stems from the fact that the same words or sentences can have very different sentimental meaning given their context. In our work, we further focus on news articles, which tend to use a more neutral vocabulary, as opposed to the emotionally charged vocabulary of opinion pieces such as editorials, reviews, and blogs. In this paper, we use MALLET (Machine Learning for Language Toolkit) to implement and train several algorithms for sentiment analysis, and run experiments to compare and contrast them.
Radiological Image Enhancement by X-Ray Choppers

A new scatter control technology consisting a pair of X-ray choppers is being developed to provide improved radiographic contrast and measure geometrical distribution of scattered photons. By placing the choppers (which are rotating by different angular velocities) in two sides of the static object in direction of X-rays, the beam is position-encoded by two frequencies f1 and f2 due to the chopping velocities. The chopped beams reaching to image detectors generate a dynamic image consisting blinking pixels, while some non-chopped beams provide constant gray level of pixels. By extracting the gray value varying with compound frequency f1+f2 or f1-f2, the correct pathways of the beam are really selected, which have no scatter; whilst other provided frequencies including zero, f1, and f2 are due to scattered radiations. Hence, after video capturing by a digital fluoroscopy and digital image processing, an image is obtained which has better contrast in a region under both choppers. Using an assembled prototype device for a constructed phantom showed significantly image improvement.
Mapping the landscape of Internet Studies: Text mining of social science journal articles 2000–2009

What does ‘Internet studies’ entail as a field of social science research? We aim to answer the question by mapping research themes, theorization, and methodology of Internet studies based on 27,000+ articles published in Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index journals over the last 10 years. In analyzing the articles, we adopt a ‘bottom-up’ approach – classifying keywords of the Internet studies without any a priori categorization – to identify the boundaries, major divisions, and basic elements of the field talis qualis. The research strategy results in a number of expected, as well as surprising, patterns and trends. Internet studies have evolved into a viable field that has witnessed a booming decade. The field is clustered around four primary research themes: e-Health, e-Business, e-Society, and Human–Technology Interactions. Two or three sub-themes with different research foci and methodologies emerge within each theme. The evolution of popular keywords in each sub-theme further shows that the field has become more concerned with intricate relationships between Internet use and specific behaviors/attitudes/effects; Internet usage patterns have increasingly attracted research attention; and network perspectives and approaches have become popular. Internet studies in the past decade have been modestly theorized. Established research methods (e.g., survey, experiment, and content analysis) still prevail in the Internet studies reviewed.