Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Involvement of SLX4 in interstrand cross-link repair is regulated by the Fanconi anemia pathway

Interstrand cross-links (ICLs) block replication and transcription and thus are highly cytotoxic. In higher eukaryotes, ICLs processing involves the Fanconi anemia (FA) pathway and homologous recombination. Stalled replication forks activate the eight-subunit FA core complex, which ubiquitylates FANCD2-FANCI. Once it is posttranslationally modified, this heterodimer recruits downstream members of the ICL repairosome, including the FAN1 nuclease. However, ICL processing has been shown to also involve MUS81-EME1 and XPF-ERCC1, nucleases known to interact with SLX4, a docking protein that also can bind another nuclease, SLX1. To investigate the role of SLX4 more closely, we disrupted the SLX4 gene in avian DT40 cells. SLX4 deficiency caused cell death associated with extensive chromosomal aberrations, including a significant fraction of isochromatid-type breaks, with sister chromatids broken at the same site. SLX4 thus appears to play an essential role in cell proliferation, probably by promoting the resolution of interchromatid homologous recombination intermediates. Because ubiquitylation plays a key role in the FA pathway, and because the N-terminal region of SLX4 contains a ubiquitin-binding zinc finger (UBZ) domain, we asked whether this domain is required for ICL processing. We found that SLX4−/− cells expressing UBZ-deficient SLX4 were selectively sensitive to ICL-inducing agents, and that the UBZ domain was required for interaction of SLX4 with ubiquitylated FANCD2 and for its recruitment to DNA-damage foci generated by ICL-inducing agents. Our findings thus suggest that ubiquitylated FANCD2 recruits SLX4 to DNA damage sites, where it mediates the resolution of recombination intermediates generated during the processing of ICLs.
SAT-Based Test Pattern Generation with Improved Dynamic Compaction

During the last years, SAT-based ATPG has been proved to be a powerful complement of traditional structural approaches. It outperforms structural methods when applied to hard-to-detect faults, and it can be combined with advanced SAT solving techniques in order to compute provably optimal solutions to complex test generation problems with optimisation goals. However, one weakness of SAT-based ATPG methods is their relatively high pattern count, which results largely from the over specification of the generated patterns. In order to overcome this weakness, we present a dynamic compaction technique specifically designed to work with SAT-based ATPG. We systematically investigate the impact of a conflict limit parameter and of several fault list sorting strategies on both test compactness and run-time. Using the best parameter combination, our SAT-based algorithm was able to generate with feasible computational effort more compact test sets for ISCAS circuits than a commercial structural tool, and the pattern counts for industrial circuits were reduced significantly.
Replacement of Vena Cava up to the Right Atrium during Living Donor Liver Transplantation for Echinococcus alveolaris

Management of advanced stage of Echinococcus alveolaris is a very difficult procedure. Surgical treatment like resection and liver transplantation is accepted procedure nowadays. Here we presented a case report of Echinococcus alveolaris which invaded the inferior vena cava up to the right atrium and surrounding tissues. This patient underwent living donor liver transplantation with replacement of inferior vena cava up to the right atrium with cryopreserved cadaveric aortic graft. This procedure is very difficult but it is a life-saving chance for patients in advanced cases of Echinococcus alveolaris.
Sounds good to me: effects of photo and voice profiles on gaming partner choice

In an empirical study we investigated how matchmaking for online gaming platforms could benefit from additional implicit information conveyed in profiles that include photos or voice recordings. We used 150 real online gamer profiles (50 text-only, 50 text & photo, 50 text & voice) to elicit gaming partner preferences from 267 online gamers. We found profiles with photos to lead to lower overall preference, indicating that people used them to reject potential partners. Voice recordings did not reduce overall preference but gave participants relevant information for gaming partner choice. We close with recommendations for the design of profile-based matchmaking systems.
Element Level Semantic Matching

We think of Match as an operator which takes two graph-like structures and produces a mapping between semantically related nodes. The matching process is essentially divided into two steps: element level and structure level. Element level matchers consider only labels of nodes, while structure level matchers start from this information to consider the full graph. In this paper we present various element level semantic matchers, and discuss their implementation within the S-Match system. The main novelty of our approach is in that element level semantic matchers return semantic relations (=, E, I, ^) between concepts rather than similarity coefficients between labels in the [0, 1] range.
Extending Ecommerce Deception to Phishing Completed Research Paper

Phishing threatens the information security of Internet users and corporations. Where most research focuses on the phisher’s website, i.e., how to determine if a website is legitimate or not, this study examines the email that begins the phishing process. To understand why Internet consumers respond to phisher’s emails by sharing sensitive information, we draw on models of e-commerce deception to explain the efficacy of phishing strategies (e.g., content and presentation) found in the content of email messages. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a field experiment that manipulated the content of phishing emails. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found content manipulations improved the likelihood of our subjects’ conveying sensitive information. Further, we found that cognitive processes can influence a consumer’s likelihood of being deceived. However, hypotheses about deception support mechanisms and presentation manipulations were not supported. In sum, we find support for the general theory of ecommerce deception as well as our cognitive processing explanations for phishing’s effectiveness. The paper concludes with practical and research implications.
Implicit sequence‐specific motor learning after subcortical stroke is associated with increased prefrontal brain activations: An fMRI Study

Implicit motor learning is preserved after stroke, but how the brain compensates for damage to facilitate learning is unclear. We used a random effects analysis to determine how stroke alters patterns of brain activity during implicit sequence‐specific motor learning as compared to general improvements in motor control. Nine healthy participants and nine individuals with chronic, right focal subcortical stroke performed a continuous joystick‐based tracking task during an initial functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) session, over 5 days of practice, and a retention test during a separate fMRI session. Sequence‐specific implicit motor learning was differentiated from general improvements in motor control by comparing tracking performance on a novel, repeated tracking sequence during early practice and again at the retention test. Both groups demonstrated implicit sequence‐specific motor learning at the retention test, yet substantial differences were apparent. At retention, healthy control participants demonstrated increased blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response in left dorsal premotor cortex (PMd; BA 6) but decreased BOLD response left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; BA 9) during repeated sequence tracking. In contrast, at retention individuals with stroke did not show this reduction in DLPFC during repeated tracking. Instead implicit sequence‐specific motor learning and general improvements in motor control were associated with increased BOLD response in the left middle frontal gyrus BA 8, regardless of sequence type after stroke. These data emphasize the potential importance of a prefrontal‐based attentional network for implicit motor learning after stroke. This study is the first to highlight the importance of the prefrontal cortex for implicit sequence‐specific motor learning after stroke. Hum Brain Mapp, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Music Admission Policies and Practices: The Music Student Enters the NASM Accredited Institution of Higher Education.

Prompted by a concern for music admission policies and practices in NASM accredited institutions throughout the United States, a preliminary study was undertaken by the investigator in May, 1966.1 These data demonstrated the lack of consistent rules of action concerning the admission of students interested in music as a professional career choice. The following questions were raised: What are the prevailing policies and practices for admitting music students to the selected institutions of higher education? What are policies in relation to specific organizational settings and in relation to the music administrator's preference?
Ranking Consistent Rate: New evaluation criterion on pairwise subjective experiments

Subjective experimental results are widely used as the ground truth in objective Image Quality Assessment (IQA). Specifically, Pairwise Comparison method has superiority over Mean Opinion Scores (MOS), but there is a problem when measuring the consistency between subjective pairwise comparisons and objective quality predictions. In this paper, we first analyze the existing problem of current evaluation method for the consistency between the pairwise comparisons given by human subjects and the ranking results given by objective IQA algorithms. Then we propose a new direct evaluation method, Ranking Consistent Rate, to solve this problem. Moreover, through our method, we can check the self-consistency of datasets based on pairwise comparisons and evaluate the performance of an IQA algorithm more accurately.
Simple proof of fault tolerance in the graph-state model (6 pages)

We consider the problem of fault tolerance in the graph-state model of quantum computation. Using the notion of composable simulations, we provide a simple proof for the existence of an accuracy threshold for graph-state computation by invoking the threshold theorem derived for quantum circuit computation. Lower bounds for the threshold in the graph-state model are then obtained from known bounds in the circuit model under the same noise process.
A Simple Real-Time Method for Modeling and Rendering Clouds

This paper proposes a simple real-time method for modeling and rendering clouds. The density of cloud is formed by simulating projected motion of cloud particles into 2D plane. And then we render it by using an algorithm that approximates single forward scattering in real-time. This method does not require any preprocess to shade the cloud. By using this method one can create a cloud very quickly and control the cloud shape in an easy way.
Hydrodynamic optimization of a relative link lengths for a biomimetic robotic fish

This paper focuses on the robotic fish body shape and mechanical design optimization problems. We show that our methodology will allow finding costs and benefits of having different number of links and the length of these links. We provide an algorithm of finding optimal lengths of links of robotic fish body. Also we discuss the benefits of having a continuous tail. Our approach is a mix of analytical and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solution. We also illustrate our research with simulation results.
Information diffusion efficiency in online social networks

The principle behind information diffusion is a key issue for online social networks, which has attracted much attention from both academia and industry. Some models, such as the independent cascade model, threshold model, and rumor model, have been proposed to characterize the process among nodes from the microscopic view. Topology properties such as degree and K-shell of the node have been used to evaluate the importance of a node. However, different topology properties will give different node's importance rankings in the process of information diffusion. The difficulty lies in the fact that previous work didn't consider the diffusion delay. In this paper, information diffusion is considered from a macroscopic perspective by taking time duration into account. A direct measure of node importance in information diffusion is proposed as a novel concept, diffusion efficiency. Based on the definition, a general information diffusion process is defined, where the aforementioned models can be directly generalized to their time-delayed versions. Simulation results show diffusion efficiency is better than degree and K-shell when measuring the importance of a node in the process of information diffusion. Furthermore, with taking time delay into consideration, the proposed information diffusion process becomes suitable for analyzing real online social networks.
Cost-Effectiveness of Cranberries vs Antibiotics to Prevent Urinary Tract Infections in Premenopausal Women: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common and result in an enormous economic burden. The increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms has stimulated interest in non-antibiotic agents to prevent UTIs. Objective To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of cranberry prophylaxis compared to antibiotic prophylaxis with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) over a 12 month period in premenopausal women with recurrent UTIs. Materials and Methods An economic evaluation was performed alongside a randomized trial. Primary outcome was the number of UTIs during 12 months. Secondary outcomes included satisfaction and quality of life. Healthcare utilization was measured using questionnaires. Missing data were imputed using multiple imputation. Bootstrapping was used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the treatments. Results Cranberry prophylaxis was less effective than TMP-SMX prophylaxis, but the differences in clinical outcomes were not statistically significant. Costs after 12 months in the cranberry group were statistically significantly higher than in the TMP-SMX group (mean difference €249, 95% confidence interval 70 to 516). Cost-effectiveness planes and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves showed that cranberry prophylaxis to prevent UTIs is less effective and more expensive than (dominated by) TMP-SMX prophylaxis. Conclusion In premenopausal women with recurrent UTIs, cranberry prophylaxis is not cost-effective compared to TMP-SMX prophylaxis. However, it was not possible to take into account costs attributed to increased antibiotic resistance within the framework of this randomized trial; modeling studies are recommended to investigate these costs. Moreover, although we based the dosage of cranberry extract on available evidence, this may not be the optimal dosage. Results may change when this optimal dosage is identified. Trial Registration ISRCTN.org ISRCTN50717094
Speaker Identification Based On MFCC and IMFCC Using GMM-UBM

In Speaker identification (SI) systems long-lasting feature extraction unit is required. For the purpose of proper representation of this features, there is a speaker modeling scheme after extraction unit. Several feature sets are used for speaker related application, one of the standard feature set is MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient) which are generally modeled on human auditory system. On the other hand complementary information present in the higher frequency range known as an IMFCC (Inverted Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient) is another feature set which is useful. This paper concentrates on Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)along with the Universal Background Model (UBM) is being used for the modeling purpose. Instead of triangular filters here Gaussian shaped filters are being used. Here , in this paper the results are being verified by the standard database TIMIT. The accuracy for the individual set of features such as for MFCC is coming to be 96.6% for the 16 mixtures while for the IMFCC is 95.4% for the 16 mixtures respectively for first set of speakers used and on other side the accuracy for MFCC and IMFCC in the other set of speakers is 97.22% and 86.11 respectively.
Effect of Channel Condition on the Performance of LTE in various Transmission Mode

Long Term Evaluation (LTE) is an emerging 4G wireless technology. Multiple-Input Multiple- Output (MIMO) systems are a primary enabler of the high data rate to be achieved by LTE . According to LTE Release 9 there are 7 MIMO configurations from mode 2 to 8. An LTE base station is expected to select and switch among these transmission modes based on channel quality feedback like Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) . In this paper we have investigated the effect of different channel conditions at different SNR levels on the performance achieved through transmission mode 1 to 4. The simulation output shows that the mode 3 and 4 which are open loop and close loop spatial multiplexing respectively using 4 transmitting antenna outperforms all other mode in terms of high throughput at very reasonable BLER.
On the Impact of Disk Scrubbing on Energy Savings

The increasing use of computers for saving valuable data imposes stringent reliability constraints on storage systems. Reliability improvement via use of redundancy is a common practice. As the disk capacity improves, advanced techniques such as disk scrubbing are being employed to proactively fix latent sector errors. These techniques utilize the disk idle time for reliability improvement. However, the idle time is a key to dynamic energy management that detects such idle periods and turns-off the disks to save energy. In this paper, we are concerned with the distribution of the disk idle periods between reliability and energy management tasks. For this purpose, we define a new metric, energy-reliability product (ERP), to capture the effect of one technique on the other. Our initial investigation using trace-driven simulations of typical enterprise applications shows that the ERP is a suitable metric for identifying efficient idle period utilization. Thus, ERP can facilitate development of systems that provide both reliability and energy managements.
A Review of Energy Drinks and Mental Health, with a Focus on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Background: Concerns have been expressed regarding the potential for caffeinated energy drinks to negatively affect mental health, and particularly so in young consumers at whom they are often targeted. The products are frequently marketed with declarations of increasing mental and physical energy, providing a short-term boost to mood and performance. Although a certain amount of evidence has accumulated to substantiate some of these claims, the chronic effects of energy drinks on mental health also need to be addressed. Methods: To review the relevant literature, PubMed and PsycINFO were searched for all peer-reviewed articles published in English that addressed associations between energy drink use and mental health outcomes. Case reports were also considered, though empirical studies investigating acute mood effects were excluded as a review of such articles had recently been published. Fifty-six articles were retrieved: 20 of these (along with eight more identified through other means) were included in the current review, and, because the majority addressed aspects of stress, anxiety, and depression, particular focus was placed on these outcomes. Results: Though a number of null findings (and one negative relationship) were observed, the majority of studies examined reported positive associations between energy drink consumption and symptoms of mental health problems. Conclusions: Though the findings imply that energy drink use may increase the risk of undesirable mental health outcomes, the majority of research examined utilized cross-sectional designs. In most cases, it was therefore not possible to determine causation or direction of effect. For this reason, longitudinal and intervention studies are required to increase our understanding of the nature of the relationships observed.
Bachelor/ Master Thesis Topics

In life sciences, scientists collect increasing amounts of data that must be stored, integrated, processed, and analyzed efficiently to make effective use of them. Thereby, not only the huge volume of available data raises challenges regarding storage space and analysis throughput, but also data quality issues, different data formats, and compliance issues such as data provenance make it hard to handle life science data. To address these challenges, advanced data management techniques are required. Otherwise, the effective use of life science data will be limited. In our research, we want to develop data management techniques for life science data, especially for genome data. Thereby, one question is whether general purpose techniques and methods for data management are enough or whether we have to develop specialized solutions for the life science use case(s).
Managing the biological weapons problem: from the individual to the international

1. The problem posed by biological weapons is very complex. It encompasses attempts to ensure biological disarmament under the BWC has real meaning, the prohibition on use of biological weapons in the Geneva Protocol remains the international norm, and that the proliferation of capabilities is not transformed into actual weapons. There are no easy solutions to the biological weapons issue. 2. Any attempt to model solutions to the biological weapons problem based only on international treaties and agreements will fail. This is not an issue which can be resolved by a treaty on its own. 3. If the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission seeks to identify realistic proposals to reduce the dangers posed by biological weapons in the short to long term it will have to advocate a break with past policies. Efforts such as those enshrined in the negotiations on the BWC Protocol (1995-2001) are no longer workable. 4. The issue is not biological weapons and states: the issue is the biological weapons problem itself, which encompasses states, non-state actors, and individuals. Efforts at control must address each of those discrete areas of concern through a variety of measures. 5. Any effort to ameliorate the problems posed by biological weapons requires six components: (1) a real understanding of the problem such weapons pose; (2) a willingness to go well beyond the traditional arms control/disarmament paradigm; (3) a short-term strategy to overcome the political difficulties in the BWC; (4) a medium-term strategy to strengthen the BWC; (5) a willingness to actually enforce – by putative means if required – existing law and norms; (6) a recognition that there is no solution to this problem: it requires on-going and permanent management.