Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Jos Crisis and the Challenge of Managing Cultural Differences

This paper is an analysis of how the Nigerian government manages cultural differences, especially the type that is causing the crisis in Jos, Nigeria. I sampled textual exemplars from Nigerian newspapers. The newspaper texts served as part of the data used for the analysis. The sampled texts are displayed on a titled text box and interpreted. Comments given by two interviewees representing opposing sides in the Jos crisis are also displayed. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis are used to interpret and discuss the newspaper texts and the comments given by the interviewees. The discussion reveals that flaws in the implementation of multicultural policy are the cause of the recurrent crisis in Jos. Discussion on multiculturalism found flaws in how Canada and other Western countries handle liberal multiculturalism. Discussion also reveals that even when a new policy is devised to solve the Jos crisis, the Nigerian government would be reluctant to accept the policy if the acceptance gets suspected of having a potential to undermine its Federal Character policy. The paper also found that government’s reluctance has not deterred other Nigerians from pushing for possible innovative ways of managing the ever-increasing cultural problems besetting Nigeria. Keywords: Jos crisis, cultural differences, settlers, indigenes, non-indigenes, multiculturalism
Mechanical thrombectomy as the primary treatment for acute basilar artery occlusion: experience from 5 years of practice

Background Most studies of the treatment for acute basilar occlusion focus on intravenous or intra-arterial thrombolysis whereas data on mechanical thrombectomy as the preferred treatment for acute basilar occlusion are scarce. In this study, data are presented on 28 patients treated with mechanical thrombectomy as the preferred treatment for basilar artery occlusion. Methods Retrospective study comprising all patients who were treated for acute basilar occlusion at the Karolinska University Hospital from September 2005 to November 2010. Favorable outcome was defined as a modified Rankin score of ≤2 at 3–8 months after thrombectomy. Results Of 28 patients treated with mechanical thrombectomy, the proportion reaching a favorable outcome was 57% (95% CI 37% to 75%), and if there were no signs of acute infarction prior to treatment the proportion was 73% (95% CI 50% to 89%). Only 21% died (95% CI 8% to 41%). Conclusions The results for mechanical thrombectomy for basilar artery occlusion were superior to those presented previously for intravenous and intra-arterial thrombolysis. The study suggests that mechanical thrombectomy is a method distinct from therapies based on thrombolysis and that any randomized clinical trial on treatment for acute basilar occlusion must consider mechanical thrombectomy as a separate entity.
Skew aware polarity assignment in clock tree

In modern sequential VLSI designs, clock tree plays an important role in synchronizing different components in a chip. To reduce peak current and power/ground noises caused by clock network, assigning different signal polarities to clock buffers is proposed in previous work. Although peak current and power/ground noises are minimized by signal polarities assignment, an assignment without timing information may increase the clock skew significantly. As a result, a timing-aware signal polarities assigning technique is necessary. In this paper, we propose a novel signal polarities assigning technique which can not only reduce peak current and power/ground noises simultaneously but also render the clock skew in control. The experimental result shows that the clock skew produced by our algorithm is 94% of original clock skew in average while the dock skews produced by three algorithms (Partition. MST, Matching) [5] are 235%, 272%, and 283%, respectively. Moreover, our algorithm is as efficient as the three algorithms of [5] in reducing peak current and power/ground noises.
The IplA Ca2+ channel of Dictyostelium discoideum is necessary for chemotaxis mediated through Ca2+, but not through cAMP, and has a fundamental role in natural aggregation

During aggregation of Dictyostelium discoideum, nondissipating, symmetrical, outwardly moving waves of cAMP direct cells towards aggregation centers. It has been assumed that the spatial and temporal characteristics of the front and back of each cAMP wave regulate both chemokinesis and chemotaxis. However, during the period preceding aggregation, cells acquire not only the capacity to chemotax in a spatial gradient of cAMP, but also in a spatial gradient of Ca2+. The null mutant of the putative IplA Ca2+ channel gene, iplA−, undergoes normal chemotaxis in spatial gradients of cAMP and normal chemokinetic responses to increasing temporal gradients of cAMP, both generated in vitro. However, iplA− cells lose the capacity to undergo chemotaxis in response to a spatial gradient of Ca2+, suggesting that IplA is either the Ca2+ chemotaxis receptor or an essential component of the Ca2+ chemotaxis regulatory pathway. In response to natural chemotactic waves generated by wild-type cells, the chemokinetic response of iplA− cells to the temporal dynamics of the cAMP wave is intact, but the capacity to reorient in the direction of the aggregation center at the onset of each wave is lost. These results suggest that transient Ca2+ gradients formed between cells at the onset of each natural cAMP wave augment reorientation towards the aggregation center. If this hypothesis proves correct, it will provide a more complex contextual framework for interpreting D. discoideum chemotaxis.
Modern Genome Editing Technologies in Huntington’s Disease Research

The development of new revolutionary technologies for directed gene editing has made it possible to thoroughly model and study NgAgo human diseases at the cellular and molecular levels. Gene editing tools like ZFN, TALEN, CRISPR-based systems, NgAgo and SGN can introduce different modifications. In gene sequences and regulate gene expression in different types of cells including induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These tools can be successfully used for Huntington’s disease (HD) modeling, for example, to generate isogenic cell lines bearing different numbers of CAG repeats or to correct the mutation causing the disease. This review presents common genome editing technologies and summarizes the progress made in using them in HD and other hereditary diseases. Furthermore, we will discuss prospects and limitations of genome editing in understanding HD pathology.
Multiobjective genetic programming: reducing bloat using SPEA2

This study investigates the use of multiobjective techniques in genetic programming (GP) in order to evolve compact programs and to reduce the effects caused by bloating. The proposed approach considers the program size as a second, independent objective besides the program functionality. In combination with a multiobjective evolutionary technique, SPEA2, this method outperforms four other strategies to reduce bloat with regard to both convergence speed and size of the produced programs on an even-parity problem.
Exploring online self-disclosure: Synchronicity, time, trust and relationship context

iii DECLARATION vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii LIST OF TABLES xv LIST OF FIGURES xvi CHAPTER 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE SELF-DISCLOSURE 1 1.1. Overview of Chapter 1 2 1.2. Online Counselling 2 1.3. Defining Self-Disclosure 5 1.4. Theoretical Discussions of Online Self-Disclosure 5 1.5. Empirical Investigations into Online Self-Disclosure 6 1.6. The Present Research: Thesis Outline 10 CHAPTER 2: THEORIES OF SELF-DISCLOSURE 13 2.1 Overview of Chapter 2 14 2.2 Self-Disclosure Theory: An Introduction 14 2.2.1 Offline Theories of Self-Disclosure 16 2.2.2.1. Social Penetration Theory 17 2.2.2 Online Theories of Self-Disclosure 21 2.2.2.1. The Online Disinhibition Effect 21 2.2.2.2. Deindividuation Theory 22 2.2.2.3. Social Identity Model for Deindividuation Effects 27 2.2.2.4. Hyperpersonal CMC Theory 30 2.2.2.5. Reduced Cues Theory 32 2.2.2.6. Social Information Processing Theory 34 2.2.2.7. Explaining online self-disclosure 36 CHAPTER 3: A REVIEW OF ONLINE AND OFFLINE SELF-DISCLOSURE RESEARCH 39 3.1. Overview of Chapter 3 40 3.2. Systematic Review of Self-Disclosure Research 40 3.2.1. Methods 42 3.2.1.1. Data sources and search strategy 42 3.2.1.2. Study selection 42
Insertion of Artificial Individuals to Increase the Diversity of Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms

In recent years, many evolutionary algorithms approaches were introduced to improve existing algorithms as well as to solve optimization and search for problems. Problems involving the optimization of many objectives require a set of optimal solutions known as Pareto frontier. Unfortunately, similarly to single objective Evolutionary Algorithms, the Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) also suffer from loss of genetic diversity. When solutions converge to a few Pareto points, a mechanism to maintain the diversity of the population throughout generations is needed. It is expected that, if diversity is controlled effectively, at the end of the evolutionary process, the Pareto Front optimum will be distributed as uniformly as possible. This paper proposes a new diversity operator which generates artificial solutions to fill sparse regions of the non-dominated set of solutions found by the MOEA. It uses Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to perform a reverse mapping from the phenotype to the corresponding genotype of an inserted artificial solution; this mechanism was tested with NSGA-II and SPEA2 algorithms. With the diversity operator is possible to obtain significant improvements in the hypervolume metric and, mainly, a reduce in the spread metric in the solutions of the Pareto frontier obtained.
Design and performance of a novel miniaturized LTCC Wilkinson power divider

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a novel miniaturized low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) Wilkinson power divider. By using the even-odd mode impedance theory, the analysis of this Wilkinson power divider is transformed to solve problems of impedance matching. LC impedance transformer is used to replace conventional transmission line to reduce the volume of the power divider. Build and optimize the schematic diagram through Agilent advanced design system (ADS) and then use Agilent high frequency structure simulator (HFSS) to build the 3D model. Finally, LTCC technology is used to manufacture the power divider. The test curves of the samples match well with the simulated curves. The insertion loss is less than 0.4dB from 3.1 GHz to 3.5 GHz, the return loss is better than 18dB and the isolation is better than 20dB. The size of the power divider is only 3.2mm × 1.6mm × 0.9mm.
Tension-sensitive kinetochore phosphorylation in vitro.

Many cells have a checkpoint that detects a single misattached chromosome and delays anaphase, allowing time for error correction. Detection probably depends on tension-sensitive kinetochore protein phosphorylation. Somehow, mechanical tension, or some consequence of tension, produces a chemical change, dephosphorylation. The mechanism of tension-mediated dephosphorylation can be approached using an in vitro system. Earlier work showed that the kinetochores of washed chromosomes from a mammalian cell line can be phosphorylated in vitro simply by incubation with ATP and a phosphatase inhibitor. We confirm this for chromosomes from insect meiotic cells. Thus, kinetochores of washed chromosomes from diverse sources contain a complete phosphorylation system: a kinase, a phosphatase and the substrate protein(s). We show that phosphorylation in vitro is sensitive to tension, as it is in living cells. This makes the conditions required for phosphorylation in vitro relevant to the process in living cells. The phosphatase is ruled out as the tension-sensitive component in vitro, leaving either the kinase or the substrate as the sensitive component. We show that a kinase extracted from mammalian cells in mitosis phosphorylates the kinetochores of insect meiotic chromosomes very effectively. The mammalian kinase under-phosphorylates the kinetochore of the insect's X-chromosome, just as the native insect kinase does. This provides a clue to the evolution of a chromosome that is not detected by the checkpoint. The mammalian kinase is not tightly bound to the chromosome and thus functions primarily in solution. This suggests that the substrate's phosphorylatable groups are freely available to outside constituents, e.g. regulators, as well as to the kinetochore's own kinase and phosphatase.
Transfer and lntegration of T-DNA without Cell lnjury in the Host Plant

Agrobacterium colonizes plant cells via a gene transfer mechanism that results in plant tumorigenesis. Virulence (vi4 genes are transcriptionally activated in the bacteria by plant metabolites released from the wound site. Hence, it is believed that agrobacteria use injuries to facilitate their entrance into the host plant and that the wounded state is required for plant cell competence for Agrobacterium-mediated gene delivery. However, our experiments using vir gene-activated bacteria sprayed onto tobacco plantlets demonstrated that cells in unwounded plants could also be efficiently transformed. The condition of the plant cells was monitored using P-glucuronidase under the control of a wound-inducible promoter. lnfection of leaf tissue is light dependent, and it is drastically reduced when abscisic acid is exogenously applied to the plant. Under these experimental conditions, stomatal opening seems to be used by Agrobacterium to circumvent the physical barrier of the cuticle. These results thus show that the proposed cellular responses evoked by wounding in higher plants are not essential for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation.
Crucial Role for Early Growth Response-1 in the Transcriptional Regulation of miR-20b in Breast Cancer

Transcriptional regulation of miRNAs that control the pathogenesis of breast cancer remains largely unknown. Here, we showed that ionizing radiation, a known breast carcinogen, triggered the differential expression of miR-20b in mammary tissues. We identified several GC-rich consensus binding motifs for the zinc finger transcription factor early growth response-1 (EGR1) in miR-20b promoter. miR-20b was upregulated by IR and its upregulation correlated with EGR1 expression in the breast cancer cell line HCC1806. Therefore, we used HCC1806 cells as a model system to explore the role of EGR1 in miR-20b transcription. siRNA knockdown of EGR1 attenuated miR-20b expression. Luciferase assays showed that whereas EGR1 stimulated luciferase activity driven by the wild-type miR-20b promoter, this induction was abolished in the mutant miR-20 promoter construct. We noted significant enrichment of EGR1 at miR-20b promoter in HCC1806 cells compared with normal human mammary epithelial cells. Suppression of miR-20b significantly inhibited HCC1806 cell proliferation and migration, and led to G 0/G 1 and S phase arrest. In vitro RNA-pull down assays indicated that miR-20b targets numerous tumor suppressors, including PTEN and BRCA1, which were downregulated in HCC1806. Conversely, suppression of miR-20b increased PTEN and BRCA1 levels. Moreover, immunohistochemical and FISH analyses showed that the miR-20b expression correlated significantly with EGR1 levels in breast cancer tissues. Our findings thus demonstrate for the first time that EGR1 is a key player in the transcriptional control of miR-20b, and miR-20b may in turn function as an oncogene by contributing to breast tumorigenesis via tumor suppressor targeting.
Optimal Strategy for the Vardi Casino with Interest Payments

A gambler starts with fortune f < 1 and plays in a Vardi casino with infinitely many tables indexed by their odds, r ≥ 0. In addition, all tables return the same expected winnings per dollar, c < 0, and a discount factor is applied after each round. We determine the optimal probability of reaching fortune 1, as well as an optimal strategy that is different from bold play for fortunes larger than a critical value depending exclusively on c and 1 + a, the discount factor. The general result is computed explicitly for some relevant special cases. The question of whether bold play is an optimal strategy is discussed for various choices of the parameters.
Lexicon induction and part-of-speech tagging of non-resourced languages without any bilingual resources

We introduce a generic approach for transferring part-of-speech annotations from a resourced language to a non-resourced but etymologically close language. We first infer a bilingual lexicon between the two languages with methods based on character similarity, frequency similarity and context similarity. We then assign part-of-speech tags to these bilingual lexicon entries and annotate the remaining words on the basis of suffix analogy. We evaluate our approach on five language pairs of the Iberic peninsula, reaching up to 95% of precision on the lexicon induction task and up to 85% of tagging accuracy.
Identification of Quasi-linear Dynamic Model with Dead Zone for Mobile Robot with Differential Drive

This note deals with the identification of a mobile robot with differential drive. The robot system is modeled by two MISO Hammer stein systems with input dead zones. The robot dynamic model is based on the traveled distance increment instead of the robot coordinates, making the model linear and allowing the application of classical methods of identification. Both parameters of linear and nonlinear blocks are estimated simultaneously through application of recursive least squares. Our main contribution is to use simple identification techniques to recursively estimate the linear and non-linear parameters of the robot system, that may vary over the time. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated by examples using both simulated and real robot.
Concurrent and construct validity of three alternative versions of the standard OMNI Cycle Scale of perceived exertion in young adult males

Purpose: To examine, (a) both the concurrent and construct validity of three Alternative Adult OMNI-Cycle Scale formats that eliminate the zero category as an exercise response and (b) to determine if the alternative formats identify perceptual signal dominance integration. Methods: Sixteen young adult males performed four load incremented cycle ergometer tests. Concurrent validity was established by correlating RPE from the three alternative scales with corresponding VO2 and HR responses. Construct validity was established by correlating RPE from the three alternative scales with RPE from the original scale. Perceptual signal dominance and signal integration were examined by a within subjects three factor ANOVA. All perceptual and physiological data were measured at 40%, 65%, and 90% VO2peak. Results: Correlations between RPE (Alt I, II, III) and both VO2 and HR ranged from r = 0.81 to 0.94 (P < 0.001). Correlations between RPE (Alt I, II, III) and RPE (Original Scale) ranged from r = 0.93 to 0.98 (P < 0.001). RPE-Legs were higher (P < 0.05) than RPE-Chest for all three Alternative Scales. RPE-Overall did not differ from the mean of RPE-Legs & RPE-Chest. Conclusion: Findings supported concurrent and construct validity of the three Alternative Adult OMNI-Cycle Scale formats where the zero category was eliminated or represented a resting state and not an exercise response. Both perceptual signal dominance and integration were supported for all three Alternative Scales.
HMM-Based Online Recognition of Handwritten Chemical Symbols

In this paper, we present an online handwritten recognition method for Chemical Symbols, a widely used symbol in education and academic interactions. This method is based on Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), which are increasingly being used to model characters. We built an HMM for each symbol and used 11-dimensional local features which are suitable for online handwritten recognition, and obtained top-1 accuracy of 89.5% and top-3 accuracy of 98.7% on a dataset containing 5,670 train samples and 2,016 test samples. These initial results are promising and warrant further research in this direction.
Decentralized and sybil-resistant pseudonym registration using social graphs

A registration of identities is necessary in a wide array of systems, from online forums to smart environments. While pseudonyms are, in most cases, sufficient, mechanisms must be put in place to prevent malicious adversaries from registering great numbers of sybil identities. Preventing such sybil attacks becomes an especially significant challenge when the existence of a trusted party cannot be assumed. Several countermeasures against sybil attacks on decentralized systems have been proposed that are based on leveraging information from the social graph between participating users. While promising, existing solutions typically require knowledge of the complete social graph, which is a privacy issue, or are tailored towards specific applications like distributed hash tables. In this paper, we propose an approach for registering general-purpose pseudonyms in a completely decentralized manner while keeping social relationships private. Joining users collect confirmations from a fraction of already registered users while being aware only of their own neighbors in the social graph. Using the presented SybilHedge algorithm, sybil attackers are limited in the number of confirmations they can collect. We present an evaluation of the algorithm and discuss its practical application.
On Time-Aware Instrumentation of Programs

Software instrumentation is a key technique in many stages of the development process. It is of particular importance for debugging embedded systems. Instrumented programs produce data traces which enable the developer to locate the origins of misbehaviours in the system under test. However, producing data traces incurs runtime overhead in the form of additional computation resources for capturing and copying the data. The instrumentation may therefore interfere with the system's timing and perturb its behavior. In the worst case, this perturbation leads to new system behaviours that prevent the developer from locating the original misbehaviours.In this work, we propose an instrumentation technique for applications with temporal constraints, specifically targetting background/foreground systems. Our framework permits reasoning about space and time for software instrumentations. In particular, we propose a definition for trace reliability, which enables us to instrument real-time applications which aggressively push their time budgets. Using the framework, we present a method with low perturbation by optimizing the number of insertion points and trace buffer size for code size and time budgets. Finally, we apply the theory to a concrete case study and instrument the OpenEC firmware for the keyboard controller of the One Laptop Per Child project.
SSARP: a sound speed adaptive routing protocol for large-scale underwater acoustic sensor networks

In this paper, an important property of acoustic signal that the speed of acoustic signal varies with water depth has been considered to explore a new routing protocol in UASNs. It implies that the shortest end-to-end delay path may not be the shortest path directly from the source to the sink. Based on this property, a per-hop based routing protocol, named sound speed adaptive routing protocol (SSARP), is proposed. SSARP takes the acoustic speed in different water depth into consideration. SSARP can find a path with a short end-to-end delay to transmit the data. The simulation results also verify that SSARP actually reduces the end-to-end delay and outperforms other routing protocols in terms of end-to-end delay.
Reason, Truth and History: Contents

Preface 1. Brains in a vat 2. A problem about reference 3. Two philosophical perspectives 4. Mind and body 5. Two conceptions of rationality 6. Fact and value 7. Reason and history 8. The impact of science on modern conceptions of rationality 9. Values, facts and cognition Appendix Index.