Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating Consumers' Variety Seeking Behavior in the Light of Online Reviews: An Individual Level Panel Analysis

User-generated content, such as online reviews, has grown rapidly on the Internet with the support of Web 2.0 technologies. Although previous studies have documented the relationship between online reviews and products sales, our understanding about how online reviews take effect at the individual consumer level is limited. We investigate consumers' variety seeking behavior under the influence of online reviews. Based on prospect theory and the competition literature, we posit that online reviews influence consumers' variety seeking through the information and competition effects. We test our hypotheses by using consumers' purchase records and review data from a popular restaurant review website. Our data analysis results support our hypotheses. This study contributes to the online review literature by showing how individual consumers engage, perceive, and use online information channels in relation to purchase behaviors. We draw implications about how firms can effectively market with new digital media contents, such as online reviews.
Application of proteomics technology for analyzing the interactions between host cells and intracellular infectious agents

Host–pathogen interactions involve protein expression changes within both the host and the pathogen. An understanding of the nature of these interactions provides insight into metabolic processes and critical regulatory events of the host cell as well as into the mechanisms of pathogenesis by infectious microorganisms. Pathogen exposure induces changes in host proteins at many functional levels including cell signaling pathways, protein degradation, cytokines and growth factor production, phagocytosis, apoptosis, and cytoskeletal rearrangement. Since proteins are responsible for the cell biological functions, pathogens have evolved to manipulate the host cell proteome to achieve optimal replication. Intracellular pathogens can also change their proteome to adapt to the host cell and escape from immune surveillance, or can incorporate cellular proteins to invade other cells. Given that the interactions of intracellular infectious agents with host cells are mainly at the protein level, proteomics is the most suitable tool for investigating these interactions. Proteomics is the systematic analysis of proteins, particularly their interactions, modifications, localization and functions, that permits the study of the association between pathogens with their host cells as well as complex interactions such as the host–vector–pathogen interplay. A review on the most relevant proteomic applications used in the study of host–pathogen interactions is presented.
Reverse engineering feature models

Feature models describe the common and variable characteristics of a product line. Their advantages are well recognized in product line methods. Unfortunately, creating a feature model for an existing project is time-consuming and requires substantial effort from a modeler. We present procedures for reverse engineering feature models based on a crucial heuristic for identifying parents - the major challenge of this task. We also automatically recover constructs such as feature groups, mandatory features, and implies/excludes edges. We evaluate the technique on two large-scale software product lines with existing reference feature models--the Linux and eCos kernels--and FreeBSD, a project without a feature model. Our heuristic is effective across all three projects by ranking the correct parent among the top results for a vast majority of features. The procedures effectively reduce the information a modeler has to consider from thousands of choices to typically five or less.
Generalised ambient reflection models for Lambertian and Phong surfaces

Ambient reflection is widely present in many applications of computer graphics and image processing, which is traditionally modelled as a constant free from environmental factors. This paper reconsiders ambient reflection modelling of Lambertian and Phong surfaces and calculates it as reflection integrations of infinitesimal incident beams from the environment. It reveals that ambient reflection exists in variable forms for Lambertian surfaces of non-convex objects and Phong surfaces of all objects. For convex objects with Lambertian surfaces, ambient reflectance coefficient is actually the diffuse reflectance coefficient. Generalised ambient reflection models are proposed to calculate ambient reflection using the same reflection model as used in calculation of other reflections. Based on this analysis, new ambient reflection formulations of Lambertian and Phong surfaces are derived to enable efficient computations in computer graphics and image processing.
Tuning Range Image Segmentation by Genetic Algorithm

Several range image segmentation algorithms have been proposed, each one to be tuned by a number of parameters in order to provide accurate results on a given class of images. Segmentation parameters are generally affected by the type of surfaces (e.g., planar versus curved) and the nature of the acquisition system (e.g., laser range finders or structured light scanners). It is impossible to answer the question, which is the best set of parameters given a range image within a class and a range segmentation algorithm? Systems proposing such a parameter optimization are often based either on careful selection or on solution space-partitioning methods. Their main drawback is that they have to limit their search to a subset of the solution space to provide an answer in acceptable time. In order to provide a different automated method to search a larger solution space, and possibly to answer more effectively the above question, we propose a tuning system based on genetic algorithms. A complete set of tests was performed over a range of different images and with different segmentation algorithms. Our system provided a particularly high degree of effectiveness in terms of segmentation quality and search time.
Drawing the straight line : social movements and hierarchies of evidence in sexual reorientation therapy debates

This dissertation examines the construction of scientific knowledge about sexual orientation, as it has emerged within debates over reorientation therapies in the United States from the 1950s to the present. Experts struggling over reorientation in this context have been preoccupied with the sexualities of white men, and consequently, have constructed sexual subjectivities intertwined with particular notions of white American masculinity. Drawing on science studies, sexuality studies, and sociology of social movements, and building on an approach developed by Steven Epstein, I study how the credibility of different forms of evidence has been shaped by professionals seeking jurisdiction over therapy clients, the dynamics of opposing social movements, and the historical context. Over time, these struggles have brought about the co- construction of various diagnostic technologies and sexual subjectivities. To trace credibility hierarchies of evidence, I conducted participant observation at conferences, interviewed relevant scientists and activists, studied scientific and organizational literature, and followed mass media. Through the clashes of actors from different social worlds, reorientation has moved from the center to the margins of science, even as it has remained relevant in the public domain. Following the removal of homosexuality from the DSM, reorientation proponents have attempted to reinstate their authority with various tactics. Significantly, psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, known for his key role in demedicalizing homosexuality, conducted research purportedly demonstrating that some gay men and lesbians can become heterosexual through reorientation. While these efforts have been partially successful in public arenas, they have been thwarted in mainstream science by the boundary work of gay-affirmative professionals. Within these struggles, the credibility of evidence in reorientation debates has been interwoven with varying understandings of sexuality and concerns about public policy. Pro-gay and ex-gay movements have become hybrid, combining professional and lay expertise in the production of facts. As opposing social movements have interacted, they have created constraints and opportunities for one another that have shaped movement strategies and, in turn, have shaped hierarchies of evidence. Relegating reorientation to the fringe has also influenced mainstream science, as popularized dissent has required scientists to develop and clarify claims about reorientation and the relationship between science and religion
Androgenic Modulation of Lipid Metabolism at Subcellular Sites in Cholestatic Rats

The present studies examine the modulation of lipid metabolism at subcellular sites in the liver of control and cholestatic rats by a male sex hormone. Subcutaneous injection of testosterone enanthate (5 mg/kg body weight), increased triacylglycerol lipase (TG-lipase) and neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase (CE-hydrolase) activity in endosomes of normal rats. During induced cholestasis, TG-lipase and CE-hydrolase activity in endosomal fractions were decreased compared to those in endosomes of age-matched sham-operated female controls. Following testosterone administration to cholestatic rats, endosomal lipolytic enzyme activity increased to approximate the levels of normal controls. These observations may provide insight into the alterations in lipid metabolism which accompany cholestatic liver disease.
Structural basis for Marburg virus VP35–mediated immune evasion mechanisms

Filoviruses, marburgvirus (MARV) and ebolavirus (EBOV), are causative agents of highly lethal hemorrhagic fever in humans. MARV and EBOV share a common genome organization but show important differences in replication complex formation, cell entry, host tropism, transcriptional regulation, and immune evasion. Multifunctional filoviral viral protein (VP) 35 proteins inhibit innate immune responses. Recent studies suggest double-stranded (ds)RNA sequestration is a potential mechanism that allows EBOV VP35 to antagonize retinoic-acid inducible gene-I (RIG-I) like receptors (RLRs) that are activated by viral pathogen–associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), such as double-strandedness and dsRNA blunt ends. Here, we show that MARV VP35 can inhibit IFN production at multiple steps in the signaling pathways downstream of RLRs. The crystal structure of MARV VP35 IID in complex with 18-bp dsRNA reveals that despite the similar protein fold as EBOV VP35 IID, MARV VP35 IID interacts with the dsRNA backbone and not with blunt ends. Functional studies show that MARV VP35 can inhibit dsRNA-dependent RLR activation and interferon (IFN) regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) phosphorylation by IFN kinases TRAF family member-associated NFkb activator (TANK) binding kinase-1 (TBK-1) and IFN kB kinase e (IKKe) in cell-based studies. We also show that MARV VP35 can only inhibit RIG-I and melanoma differentiation associated gene 5 (MDA5) activation by double strandedness of RNA PAMPs (coating backbone) but is unable to inhibit activation of RLRs by dsRNA blunt ends (end capping). In contrast, EBOV VP35 can inhibit activation by both PAMPs. Insights on differential PAMP recognition and inhibition of IFN induction by a similar filoviral VP35 fold, as shown here, reveal the structural and functional plasticity of a highly conserved virulence factor.
Multi-scale region candidate combination for action recognition

In still images, multi-scale regions contain rich information of different granularity. However, only semantically meaningful regions provide auxiliary cues for action recognition. Moreover, regions at different scales contribute differently. Motivated by the two observations, we propose an approach that is composed of three components: 1) detecting semantic region candidates at multiple scales, 2) training networks at each scale, 3) extracting features and learning to fuse them. The proposed approach captures multi-scale cues and highlights the optimal scale for each action, Experimental results show that our approach reaches the state-of-the-art performance on two challenging benchmarks: 1) PASCAL VOC 2012 and 2) Stanford-40.
Side-Channel Attacks on BLISS Lattice-Based Signatures: Exploiting Branch Tracing against strongSwan and Electromagnetic Emanations in Microcontrollers

In this paper, we investigate the security of the BLISS lattice-based signature scheme, one of the most promising candidates for postquantum-secure signatures, against side-channel attacks. Several works have been devoted to its efficient implementation on various platforms, from desktop CPUs to microcontrollers and FPGAs, and more recent papers have also considered its security against certain types of physical attacks, notably fault injection and cache attacks. We turn to more traditional side-channel analysis, and describe several attacks that can yield a full key recovery. We first identify a serious source of leakage in the rejection sampling algorithm used during signature generation. Existing implementations of that rejection sampling step, which is essential for security, actually leak the "relative norm" of the secret key. We show how an extension of an algorithm due to Howgrave-Graham and Szydlo can be used to recover the key from that relative norm, at least when the absolute norm is easy to factor (which happens for a significant fraction of secret keys). We describe how this leakage can be exploited in practice both on an embedded device (an 8-bit AVR microcontroller) using electromagnetic analysis (EMA), and a desktop computer (recent Intel CPU running Linux) using branch tracing. The latter attack has been mounted against the open source VPN software strongSwan. We also show that other parts of the BLISS signing algorithm can leak secrets not just for a subset of secret keys, but for 100% of them. The BLISS Gaussian sampling algorithm in strongSwan is intrinsically variable time. This would be hard to exploit using a noisy source of leakage like EMA, but branch tracing allows to recover the entire randomness and hence the key: we show that a single execution of the strongSwan signature algorithm is actually sufficient for full key recovery. We also describe a more traditional side-channel attack on the sparse polynomial multiplications carried out in BLISS: classically, multiplications can be attacked using DPA; however, our target 8-bit AVR target implementation uses repeated shifted additions instead. Surprisingly, we manage to obtain a full key recovery in that setting using integer linear programming from a single EMA trace.
The vagus nerve in the thermoregulatory response to systemic inflammation.

Experimentally, systemic inflammation induced by a bolus intravenous injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) may be accompanied by three different thermoregulatory responses: monophasic fever (the typical response to low doses of LPS), biphasic fever (medium doses), and hypothermia (high doses). In our recent study [Romanovsky, A. A. , V. A. Kulchitsky, C. T. Simons, N. Sugimoto, and M. Székely. Am. J. Physiol. (Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol.). In press], monophasic fever did not occur in subdiaphragmatically vagotomized rats. In the present work, we asked whether vagotomy affects the two other types of thermoregulatory response. Adult Wistar rats were vagotomized (or sham operated) and had an intravenous catheter implanted. On day 28 postvagotomy, the thermal responses to the intravenous injection of Escherichia coli LPS (0, 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 micrograms/kg) were tested in either a neutral (30 degrees C) or slightly cool (25 degrees C) environment. Three major results were obtained. 1) In the sham-operated rats, the 1 microgram/kg dose of LPS caused at 30 degrees C a monophasic fever with a maximal colonic temperature (Tc) rise of approximately 0.6 degree C; this response was abated (no Tc changes) in the vagotomized rats. 2) At 30 degrees C, all responses to higher doses of LPS (10-1,000 micrograms/kg) were represented by biphasic fevers (the higher the dose, the less pronounced the first and the more pronounced the second phase was); none of these biphasic fevers was altered in the vagotomized animals. 3) In response to the 1,000 micrograms/kg dose at 25 degrees C, hypothermia occurred: Tc changed by -0.5 +/- 0.1 degree C (nadir); this hypothermia was exaggerated (-1.1 +/- 0.1 degrees C) in the vagotomized rats. It is concluded that vagal afferentation may be important in the mediation of the response to minor amounts of circulating LPS, whereas the response to larger amounts is brought about mostly (if not exclusively) by nonvagal mechanisms. This difference may be explained by the dose-dependent mechanisms of the processing of exogenous pyrogens. Vagotomized animals also appear to be more sensitive to the hypothermizing action of LPS in a cool environment; the mechanisms of this phenomenon remain speculative.
A Novel Blind Channel Estimation for CP-Based MIMO OFDM Systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of blind channel estimation for multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems via second order statistics (SOS) only. By an appropriate re-modulation on the received signal blocks, we find an effective way to apply the subspace based channel estimation for the cyclic prefix (CP) based MIMO-OFDM system when the number of the receive antennas is no less than the number of transmit antennas. Suitable relationships are built between the proposed algorithm and one existing technique (called ZPSOS in the future) for zero-padding (ZP) based MIMO-OFDM systems, thanks to the re-modulation considered. Consequently, many advantages could be directly inherited from ZPSOS, for example, robustness to channel order over-estimation, guaranteeing the estimation identiflability. By comparing these two algorithms, we found that they could provide similar channel estimation accuracy but the proposed method could beat the other in terms of bit error rate (BER). Moreover, adopting CP-based OFDM is compatible with many existing standards and applications, which shows great potential of our proposed algorithm.
Discriminating transmembrane proteins from signal peptides using SVM-Fisher approach

Most computational methods for transmembrane protein topology prediction rely on compositional bias of amino acids to locate those hydrophobic domains in transmembrane proteins. Because signal peptides also contain hydrophobic segments, these computational prediction methods often misidentify signal peptides as transmembrane proteins. Here, we present a new approach that combines the SVM-Fisher discrimination method and TMMOD - a hidden Markov model based predictor for transmembrane proteins. While TMMOD alone has already outperformed most existing methods in both identification and topology prediction, this new approach further improves the ability of TMMOD to discriminate between transmembrane proteins and signal peptide containing proteins, reducing mis-prediction of signal peptides by more than 30% in our test data.
Gestion hétérogène des données dans les hiérarchies mémoires pour l'optimisation énergétique des architectures multi-coeurs. (Read Only Data Specific Management for an Energy Efficient Memory System)

Les problematiques de consommation dans la hierarchie memoire sont tres presentes dans les architectures actuelles que ce soit pour les systemes embarques limites par leurs batteries ou pour les supercalculateurs limites par leurs enveloppes thermiques. Introduire une information de classification dans le systeme memoire permet une gestion heterogene, adaptee a chaque type particulier de donnees. Nous nous sommes interesse dans cette these plus precisement aux donnees en lecture seule et etudions les possibilites d’une gestion specifique dans la hierarchie memoire a travers un codesign compilation/architecture. Cela permet d’ouvrir de nouveaux potentiels en terme de localite des donnees, passage a l’echelle des architectures ou design des memoires. Evaluee par simulation sur une architecture multi-coeurs, la solution mise en oeuvre permet des gains significatifs en terme de reduction de la consommation d’energie a performance constante.
Analysis of Flavanols in Foods: What Methods are Required to Enable Meaningful Health Recommendations?

Flavanols and their related oligomeric compounds, the procyanidins, have received increased attention during the past decade due to their reported health benefits. On the basis of compelling data published during the past decade demonstrating that the consumption of certain flavanol-rich foods can improve markers of cardiovascular health, additional clinical, and epidemiological research is clearly warranted to establish appropriate public health recommendations. However, recommendations on the consumption of these foods appropriate for use by health professionals can only be made on the basis of clinical investigations that accurately identify and quantify—through proper analytical measurement systems—the flavanols in the foods used in these investigations. This manuscript provides an overview of the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of commonly used analytical methods to characterize the content of flavanols in foods. Two nonspecific measurements widely used by investigators, the Folin-Ciocalteu assay and the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) measurement, are discussed in this context, as is the use of various high-performance liquid chromatography methods that provide more specific data related to the content of flavanols in foods. A comparison of the data obtained from these analytical methods to those of the more rigorous high-performance liquid chromatography analyses demonstrates that these nonspecific methods are ill-suited for providing unequivocal data necessary to evaluate the importance of dietary flavanols in the context of improving cardiovascular health. Meaningful dietary recommendations for the consumption of flavanol-rich foods will only be made possible by additional well-designed clinical and epidemiological studies enabled by detailed compositional data obtained through use of appropriate analytical methods.
A trial bank model for the publication of clinical trials.

Clinical trials constitute one of the main sources of medical knowledge, yet trial reports are difficult to find, read, and apply to clinical care. Reasons for these difficulties include the lack of a common, standardized, structure for trial reports; the restricted length of reports; and limited computer support for use of the literature. We propose a new model of reporting clinical trials, in which trials are published as both prose commentary and as data in electronic "trial banks. " The prose will allow authors to discuss their trials in writing; the electronic database will allow readers easy access to well-defined data about the trials. We are developing a formal conceptual model of the clinical trials domain for integrating the use of multiple trial banks. We will then focus on validating this conceptual model with clinical literature users.