Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autophagy Negatively Regulates Early Axon Growth in Cortical Neurons

ABSTRACT Neurite growth requires neurite extension and retraction, which are associated with protein degradation. Autophagy is a conserved bulk degradation pathway that regulates several cellular processes. However, little is known about autophagic regulation during early neurite growth. In this study, we investigated whether autophagy was involved in early neurite growth and how it regulated neurite growth in primary cortical neurons. Components of autophagy were expressed and autophagy was activated during early neurite growth. Interestingly, inhibition of autophagy by atg7 small interfering RNA (siRNA) caused elongation of axons, while activation of autophagy by rapamycin suppressed axon growth. Surprisingly, inhibition of autophagy reduced the protein level of RhoA. Moreover, expression of RhoA suppressed axon overelongation mediated by autophagy inhibition, whereas inhibition of the RhoA signaling pathway by Y-27632 recovered rapamycin-mediated suppression of axon growth. Interestingly, hnRNP-Q1, which negatively regulates RhoA, accumulated in autophagy-deficient neurons, while its protein level was reduced by autophagy activation. Overall, our study suggests that autophagy negatively regulates axon extension via the RhoA-ROCK pathway by regulating hnRNP-Q1 in primary cortical neurons. Therefore, autophagy might serve as a fine-tuning mechanism to regulate early axon extension.
Lean principles applied to software development – avoiding waste

Under the current economic conditions many organizations strive to continue the trend towards adopting better software development processes, in order to take advantage of the numerous benefits that these can offer. Those benefits include quicker return on investment, better software quality, and higher customer satisfaction. To date, however, there is little body of research that can guide organizations in adopting modern software development practices, especially when it comes to Lean thinking and principles. To address this situation, the current paper identifies and structures the main wastes (or muda in Lean terms) in software development as described by Lean principles, in an attempt to bring into researchers’ and practitioners’ attention Lean Software Development, a modern development methodology based on well-established practices such as Lean Manufacturing or Toyota Production System.
Discovery of Two Nearby Peculiar L Dwarfs from the 2MASS Proper-Motion Survey: Young or Metal-Rich?

We present the discovery of two nearby L dwarfs from our 2MASS proper-motion search, which uses multiepoch 2MASS observations covering ~4700 deg2 of sky. 2MASS J18212815+1414010 and 2MASS J21481628+4003593 were overlooked by earlier surveys due to their faint optical magnitudes and their proximity to the Galactic plane (10° ⩽ | b | ⩽ 15°). Assuming that both dwarfs are single, we derive spectrophotometric distances of ~10 pc, thus increasing the number of known L dwarfs within 10 pc to 10. In the near-infrared, 2MASS J21481628+4003593 shows a triangular H-band spectrum, strong CO absorption, and a markedly red J − Ks color (2.38 ± 0.06) for its L6 optical spectral type. 2MASS J18212815+1414010 also shows a triangular H-band spectrum and a slightly red J − Ks color (1.78 ± 0.05) for its L4.5 optical spectral type. Both objects show strong silicate absorption at 9-11 μm. Cumulatively, these features imply an unusually dusty photosphere for both of these objects. We examine several scenarios to explain the underlying cause for their enhanced dust content and find that a metal-rich atmosphere or a low surface gravity are consistent with these results. 2MASS J18212815+1414010 may be young (and therefore have a low surface gravity) based on its low tangential velocity of 10 km s−1. On the other hand, 2MASS J21481628+4003593 has a high tangential velocity of 62 km s−1 and is therefore likely old. Hence, high metallicity and low surface gravity may lead to similar effects.
Active Galactic Nuclei In Cosmological Simulations - I. Formation of black holes and spheroids through mergers

This is the first paper of a series on the methods and results of the Active Galactic Nuclei In Cosmological Simulations (AGNICS) project, which incorporates the physics of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) into Galaxies In Cosmological Simulations (GalICS), a galaxy formation model that combines large cosmological N-body simulations of dark matter hierarchical clustering and a semi-analytic approach to the physics of the baryons. The project explores the quasar-galaxy link in a cosmological perspective, in response to growing observational evidence for a close relation between supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and spheroids. The key problems are the quasar fuelling mechanism, the origin of the black hole (BH)-to-bulge mass relation, the causal and chronological link between BH growth and galaxy formation, the properties of quasar hosts and the role of AGN feedback in galaxy formation. This first paper has two goals. The first is to describe the general structure and assumptions that provide the framework for the AGNICS series. The second is to apply AGNICS to studying the joint formation of SMBHs and spheroids in galaxy mergers. We investigate under what conditions this scenario can reproduce the local distribution of SMBHs in nearby galaxies and the evolution of the quasar population. AGNICS contains two star formation modes: a quiescent mode in discs and a starburst mode in proto-spheroids, the latter triggered by mergers and disc instabilities. Here we assume that BH growth is linked to the starburst mode. The simplest version of this scenario, in which the BH accretion rate M. and the star formation rate in the starburst component M *burst are simply related by a constant of proportionality, does not to reproduce the cosmic evolution of the quasar population. A model in which M* ρ ζ burst M* burst , where ρ burst is the density of the gas in the starburst and ζ ≃ 0.5, can explain the evolution of the quasar luminosity function in B band and X-rays (taking into account the presence of obscured AGNs inferred from X-ray studies). The scatter and the tilt that this model introduces in the BH-to-bulge mass relation are within the observational constraints. The model predicts that the quasar contribution increases with the total bolometric luminosity and that, for a given bulge mass, the most massive BHs are in the bulges with the oldest stars.
Cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma with Short-Run Players

This paper studies cooperative behavior in communities with a subset of short-run players. This is done in the context of a repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma game. The introduction of a short-run player in the population breaks any equilibrium supported by symmetric pure strategies. Despite this, I suggest a plausible information technology that ensures a cooperative outcome by identifying the cooperative members of a community. This technology resembles the informational institutions that allow firms to recognize clients and to make them recognizable for other firms.
Power Systems Monitoring & Control Centers Sharing SCADA/EMS Information in the Age of Enterprise Mobility

The current trend of creation of deregulated electricity markets opened numerous questions related to the nature and the architecture of the power system enterprises control and information architecture that can properly satisfy the new requirements of the deregulated market and provide fast, secure and reliable exchange of information. As power systems businesses deal with ever-increasing levels of globalization, competitive pressures and regulatory mandates, providing timely, actionable information to an increasingly un-tethered and nomadic workforces is fast-becoming a critical component of the power systems corporate information & telecommunication infrastructure. Abu Dhabi Transmission & Dispatch Company (Transco) designed and undertook the activities to construct its new control & information system architecture to enable the sharing of supervisory control & data acquisition (SCADA) & energy management system (EMS) data, cope with the new business requirements of the emerging deregulated electricity market in the area, consider a comprehensive disaster recovery (DR) solution and support enterprise mobility (EM). The ideas, concepts & solutions used by Transco to achieve these goals are discussed in [1-5]. This paper builds on the ideas, concepts & solutions discussed in [1-5] and explains some of the supported EM applications and shows how the computer and telecommunication infrastructures are deployed and the state of the art technology and open system interconnection standards are used to achieve the requirements of these applications. The paper also shows how the DR solution given in [4] can be extended to support the EM requirements.
Relieving the Burden of System Administration Through Support Automation

The number of computer users with little or no training continues to rapidly increase. Networks are at the heart of companies large and small. Applications, ever more complex, span intranets and extranets. This all adds up to an increasing burden on system administrators and end user support organizations at a time when there is constant downward pressure on support budgets and a shortage of qualified staff. The result is a technical support crisis with dissatisfied end users, burned out system administrators, and unhappy support teams. The need for support automation is critical as it enables the scaling of effective end user support while minimizing the need for additional resources.There are significant challenges to automating support, since it is essentially a large collection of special cases. Different methods have been used to achieve this automation, with varying degrees of success. This paper describes a software system that automates the solution of many recurring end user problems, greatly relieving the burden on system administration staff for mundane issues. We describe the architecture of the system, give examples of its use, demonstrate its extensibility, and report on our experience using it in the field.
Protection against carbon tetrachloride-induced hepatotoxicity by pretreating rats with the hemisuccinate esters of tocopherol and cholesterol.

Previous studies have demonstrated that alpha-tocopheryl hemisuccinate (TS) protects hepatocyte suspensions from chemical-induced toxicity. It has been suggested that TS cytoprotection is related to unique properties of the TS molecule or is dependent on the cellular release and activity of unesterified alpha-tocopherol (T). To test the unique cytoprotective nature of TS in vivo, the protective ability of T and tocopherol esters against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced hepatotoxicity in rats was examined. Hepatoprotection [determined by serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and histopathology] was not observed after T (or tocopheryl acetate and tocopheryl nicotinate) administration, even though this treatment resulted in a fivefold elevation in hepatic T content. Only pretreatment with TS (100 mg/kg, intraperitoneally) resulted in partial hepatoprotection against CCl4 (2.9 g/kg, orally) toxicity. These findings suggest that hepatoprotection results not from the cellular accumulation of T but rather from the intact TS molecule. To test this hypothesis, the hepatoprotective capacity of cholesteryl hemisuccinate (CS), unesterified cholesterol, and cholesteryl acetate (CA) was examined against CCl4 toxicity. As observed with the tocopherol derivatives, pretreatment with unesterified cholesterol or CA demonstrated no protective ability. However, when rats were pretreated with CS (100 mg/kg), the hepatotoxic effects of CCl4 (elevated serum AST and ALT levels and centrilobular necrosis) were completely prevented. The prevention of CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity by CS and TS do not appear to result from an alteration in hepatic drug metabolism. These data clearly demonstrate that CS and TS are unique and powerful cytoprotective agents against CCl4 hepatotoxicity in vivo. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) ImagesFigure 1. aFigure 1. bFigure 1. cFigure 1. dFigure 2. aFigure 2. bFigure 2. c
Plagiarism Detection in Java Code

iii Acknowledgement We feel a great sense of accomplishment to be able to complete this thesis, as part of the requirement for our Master " s degree. We would have not been able to do this on our own without the supports of the people whom are important to us. Firstly, we would like to thank our supervisor, Associate Professor Dr. Jonas Lundberg for his continuous support and guidance. His advice and comments are crucial in our progress to complete this thesis. We would also like to thank our parents and family for their words of encouragement and their supports throughout our study period. Our friends are also important to us, for without them this experience would be less meaningful. Abstract The issue of plagiarism is often discussed in academia, it relates to the act of one person citing or quoting another individual's work without giving credit to the original writer. In programming, students are submitting assignments every year in the form of Java code files. There is a possibility that students may copy the Java code files from another source without properly crediting the original writer or programmer, intentionally or unintentionally. This is also a form of plagiarism. The main focus of this thesis is divided into two parts. The first part is focused on a written Java code program that could assist academician in detecting plagiarism in Java programming. The program should be able to read a large number of Java code files and to identify programming codes that are identical or almost identical when the files are being compared to one another. The second part of the thesis is a report on the properties of different approaches in detecting plagiarism in Java code files and recommendation on best approaches for future work or study.
Washington State Health Services Act: Implementing Comprehensive Health Care Reform

In 1993, Washington State enacted the Health Services Act of 1993 (HSA) to guarantee universal access to health care through an employer mandate, with caps on premiums as the primary cost-control mechanism. The HSA represents the Nation's first formal experiment with managed competition. This article reports the results of a case study of the HSA's implementation. The study concludes that the Washington State initiative can be replicated in other States, but that implementation is complex, requires sustained public education, and requires cooperation from the Federal Government through program waivers. A major implementation challenge is to facilitate competition and minimize regulation.
Design Web Services: Towards Service Reuse at the Design Level

Service oriented software development has gained more and more importance in the area of e-business. Most researchers focus on the semantic description of Web services and automated composition but pay little attention to how to design Web services for supporting service reuse effectively, thus a substantial amount of modeling and programming is still required. In this paper, a pattern oriented service design method is presented by which all components of different abstraction levels are uniform in regard to their specifications and composition mechanism. Pattern oriented service design model provides a traceable and explicit link from business components to software components so that the top-down service reuse at design level is supported, and the service maintainer profits from the traceability because the impact of requirement or design modifications can be better assessed. The semantic information of component specification can support semantics based component reuse. The pattern oriented service design model can improve development productivity by offering a better chance of reuse through better modularity.
The CSedRes toolbox: a resource to support research in computer science education

We introduce the notion of a "CSedRes Toolbox" for educational research in the field of computer science. The Toolbox should include a repertoire of instruments and methodologies that instructor-researchers can use in planning well-designed and valid studies. We propose an on-going project for the SIGCSE membership: to incrementally add appropriate tools to the Toolbox. In this article, we motivate the existence of such a repository and describe our vision for the Toolbox. As our starting point in building up the Toolbox, we discuss the characteristics of instruments used to measure phenomena of interest in educational research, with focus on instruments developed by other researchers and how to locate these existing tools. The balance of the paper presents an instrument for assessing individuals' learning styles, Kolb's LSI-1985.
The influence of AGN nuclear parameters on the FRI/FRII dichotomy

We have investigated the influence of nuclear parameters such as black hole mass and photoionizing luminosity on the FRI/FRII transition in a sample of nearby (z < 0.2) radio galaxies from the 3CR catalogue. The sample was observed with medium-resolution, optical spectroscopy and contains some galaxies with unpublished velocity dispersion measurements and emission-line fluxes. The measured velocity dispersions for the sample lie in the range 130–340 km s −1 with a mean of 216 km s −1 . U sing the M-σ∗ relation, we convert to black hole mass and find that the black hole mass distribution is identical for FRI and FRII galaxies, with a mean of ≈2.5 × 10 8 M� . We determine narrow emission-line luminosities from [O ii ]a nd [Oiii] in our spectra, as well as from the literature, and convert them to photoionizing luminosities under the assumption that the gas is ionized by the nuclear UV continuum. Most of the galaxies with FRI morphology and/or low-excitation emission-line spectra have progressively lower black hole masses at lower photoionizing (and jet) luminosities. This agrees with the well-known Ledlow-Owen relation which states that the radio luminosity at the FRI/FRII transition depends on the optical luminosity of the host, Lradio ∝ L 1.8 optical , because these two luminosities relate to AGN nuclear parameters. When recasting the Ledlow-Owen relation into black hole mass versus photoionizing luminosity and jet luminosity, we find that the recasted relation describes the sample quite well. Furthermore, the FRI/FRII transition is seen to occur at approximately an order of magnitude lower luminosity relative to the Eddington luminosity than the soft-to-hard transition in X-ray binaries. This difference is also consistent with the Ledlow-Owen relation, which predicts a weak black hole mass dependence in the transition luminosity in Eddington units. We conclude that the FRI/FRII dichotomy is caused by a combination of external and nuclear factors, with the latter dominating.
Edge Detection in Color Images - A Comparative Study

ability to detect edges from an image plays a key role in solving many problems related to computer vision. Extracting appropriate features from an image is a great challenge in the context of content based image retrieval. Some important points in an image could be used to describe the features of an object. To recognize objects from an image, it is essential that the features extracted from an image are invariant due to noise and illumination. Such points lie in high contrast regions such as edges of an object. Generally, a color image is converted to gray scale image to detect the edges of objects. In this paper two color spaces namely RGB and HSV have been considered. These color spaces individually are combined with gray plane and the effect has been discussed. It is evident from the results that by either OR-ing the R, G, B planes with the grayscale plane or by OR-ing S, V planes with the grayscale plane more edges could be detected.
Spatio-Temporal Distribution Patterns in Environmental Factors, Chlorophyll-a and Microcystins in a Large Shallow Lake, Lake Taihu, China

The spatio-temporal distribution of environmental factors, chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), and microcystins (MCs) in a shallow lake, Lake Taihu (China), were investigated from 2009 to 2011 on a monthly basis at nine sampling stations. The annual mean concentration ranges of total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), Chl-a, MC-LR and MC-RR were 0.17–10.53 mg/L, 0.027–0.581 mg/L, 0.10–129.75 µg/L, 0.013–2.019 µg/L and 0.002–0.794 µg/L, respectively. The average TN, ammonium (NH4+) and TP concentrations in Meiliang Bay decreased from 3.54 to 2.26 mg/L, 0.63 to 0.31 mg/L and 0.150 to 0.124 mg/L, respectively, when compared with values from 2006–2008, indicating that water quality has improved in severe cyanobacterial bloom areas in recent years. Additionally, the distribution of MCs was northern lake areas > western lake areas > central lake areas > macrophyte-dominated areas. Correlation analysis revealed that nutrients were the most important variable accounting for the variation of extracellular MC-LR concentration in heavy cyanobacterial bloom areas of Lake Taihu. During the study period, the maximum MCs concentration reached 2.75 ± 0.27 μg/L in the bloom period in the northern lake areas, which is more than two times the safety limit of 1 μg/L MCs required for drinking water. However, microcystins decreased gradually as the water quality improved from 2009 to 2011, indicating that the risk of MCs exposure was slightly decreased in Lake Taihu.
Three RNA Binding Proteins Form a Complex to Promote Differentiation of Germline Stem Cell Lineage in Drosophila

In regenerative tissues, one of the strategies to protect stem cells from genetic aberrations, potentially caused by frequent cell division, is to transiently expand the stem cell daughters before further differentiation. However, failure to exit the transit amplification may lead to overgrowth, and the molecular mechanism governing this regulation remains vague. In a Drosophila mutagenesis screen for factors involved in the regulation of germline stem cell (GSC) lineage, we isolated a mutation in the gene CG32364, which encodes a putative RNA-binding protein (RBP) and is designated as tumorous testis (tut). In tut mutant, spermatogonia fail to differentiate and over-amplify, a phenotype similar to that in mei-P26 mutant. Mei-P26 is a TRIM-NHL tumor suppressor homolog required for the differentiation of GSC lineage. We found that Tut binds preferentially a long isoform of mei-P26 3′UTR, and is essential for the translational repression of mei-P26 reporter. Bam and Bgcn are both RBPs that have also been shown to repress mei-P26 expression. Our genetic analyses indicate that tut, bam, or bgcn is required to repress mei-P26 and to promote the differentiation of GSCs. Biochemically, we demonstrate that Tut, Bam, and Bgcn can form a physical complex in which Bam holds Tut on its N-terminus and Bgcn on its C-terminus. Our in vivo and in vitro evidence illustrate that Tut acts with Bam, Bgcn to accurately coordinate proliferation and differentiation in Drosophila germline stem cell lineage.
Intent based clustering of search engine query log

The keyword based search technique suffers from the problem of synonymic and polysemic queries. Current approaches address only the problem of synonymic queries in which different queries might have the same information requirement. But the problem of polysemic queries, i.e., same query having different intentions, still remains unaddressed. In this paper, we propose the notion of intent clusters, the members of which will have the same intention. We develop a clustering algorithm that uses the user session information in query logs in addition to query URL entries to identify cluster of queries having the same intention. The proposed approach has been studied through case examples from the actual log data from AOL, and the clustering algorithm is shown to be successful in discerning the user intentions.