Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Message from General Chair

A virtual assistant or an artificial intelligence chatbot is one of the technological interventions to help individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The virtual assistant must have a bank of knowledge to answer the questions from individuals with BPD to accompany and chat with them like a digital friend. As part of artificial intelligence software, Program-O can handle the interaction between users and the bank of knowledge in the server. The voice recognition and textto-speech features can be used to enhance the virtual assistant's function to become even closer as a friend. There are three possibilities for implementing voice recognition and text-to-speech features on virtual assistants, which are using Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and smartphone devices. All these three devices can be connected to the speech recognition module or Application Protocol Interface (API) for voice recognition on the internet. This paper will explore and compare several aspects of the implementation of voice recognition and text-to-speech features in the virtual assistant. The result will be a recommendation for the application of voice recognition and text-to-speech features on a virtual assistant for individuals with BPD. Keywordsborderline personality disorder; chatbot; digital friend; text to speech; virtual assistant, voice recognition
Teaching Evidence-Based Practice in a Distance Education Occupational Therapy Doctoral Program: Strategies for Professional Growth and Advancing the Profession

ABSTRACT The Centennial Vision of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) projects that by 2017 all occupational therapy (OT) practice areas will be supported by evidence. Achieving this goal requires preparing clinicians with the skills to assimilate, analyze, and apply research to their areas of practice and communicate the value of OT services to consumers and payers. These skills are at the heart of evidence-based practice (EBP). Educators must be prepared to teach EBP skills in both entry-level and postprofessional programs. This article outlines how EBP can be taught to postprofessional occupational therapy clinical doctoral students using a distance education format. Key features of a successful EBP course include having access to full-text electronic articles, opportunities for students to explore the literature in their own areas of interest, consistent and timely feedback on written work and discussion topics, and opportunities to collaborate with peers.
A Carrier-Based Modulation Scheme to Reduce the Third Harmonic Component of Common-Mode Voltage in a Three-Phase Inverter Under High DC Voltage Utilization

High dc voltage utilization is one of the important requirements in a three-phase inverter. Under some carrier-based pulse width modulations (PWMs), the dc voltage utilization can reach the same maximum as that under the space vector modulation. But the third harmonic component of common-mode voltage (CMV) will be increased markedly while using these carrier-based PWMs in inverters. To improve the situation, this paper proposes that a midpoint-fluctuation carrier (MFC) scheme should be used in the three-phase inverter. The MFC is formed by adding a midpoint-fluctuation signal on the standard symmetrical triangular carrier. By analyzing the linear modulation region of the midpoint-fluctuation signals, a minimum fluctuant signal in the linear modulation region is designed in the paper. Compared with the use of other conventional schemes in the three-phase inverter, the use of minimum MFC scheme has higher fundamental amplitude in the output line voltage and smaller magnitude of the third harmonic in the CMV. The feasibility and validity of the MFC are proved by experiment results in a three-phase inverter.
Isolation of a soluble and template-dependent poliovirus RNA polymerase that copies virion RNA in vitro

A soluble RNA-dependent RNA polymerase was isolated from poliovirus-infected HeLa cells and was shown to copy poliovirus RNA in vitro. The enzyme was purified from a 200,000-X-g supernatant of a cytoplasmic extract of infected cells. The activity of the enzyme was measured throughout the purification by using a polyadenylic acid template and oligouridylic acid primer. The enzyme was partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation, glycerol gradient centrifugation, and phosphocellulose chromatography. The polymerase precipitated in a 35% saturated solution of ammonium sulfate, sedimented at about 7S on a glycerol gradient, and eluted from phosphocellulose with 0.15 M KC1. The polymerase was purified about 40-fold and was shown to be totally dependent on exogenous RNA for activity and relatively free of contaminating nuclease. The partially purified polymerase was able to use purified polio virion RNA as well as a template. Under the reaction conditions used, the polymerase required an oligouridylic acid primer and all four ribonucleside triphosphates for activity. The optimum ratio of oligouridylic acid molecules to poliovirus RNA molecules for priming activity was about 16:1. A nearest-neighbor analysis of the in vitro RNA product shows it to be heteropolymeric. Annealing the in vitro product with poliovirus RNA product shows it to be heteropolymeric. Annealing the in vitro product with poliovirus RNA rendered it resistant to RNase digestion, thus suggesting that the product RNA was complementary to the virion RNA template.
Conjugation of [125I]ubiquitin to cellular proteins in permeabilized mammalian cells: comparison of mitotic and interphase cells.

[125I]Ubiquitin introduced into permeabilized hepatoma tissue culture (HTC) cells rapidly forms conjugates with endogenous proteins. A characteristic pattern of low mol. wt conjugates is obtained which includes the ubiquitinated histone, uH2A, and unknown molecular species with MrS of 14, 23, 26 (two bands) and 29 kd. A broad spectrum of higher mol. wt conjugates is also produced. The formation of all conjugates is absolutely dependent on ATP, and upon depletion of ATP they are rapidly broken down. The 14, 23 and 29 kd species are found in all subcellular fractions examined. uH2A is located exclusively in the nuclear fraction. The pair of 26 kd bands is specifically associated with the ribosome fraction. A considerable percentage of the higher mol. wt conjugates sediments with the small particle (100,000 g) fraction in the ultracentrifuge but is solubilized with deoxycholate, indicating that there are many membrane‐associated conjugates. The pattern of ubiquitin conjugation in interphase and metaphase cells was compared. The incorporation of ubiquitin into uH2A was markedly reduced in metaphase cells whereas its incorporation into other low mol. wt conjugates and into high mol. wt conjugates was affected slightly, if at all. This shows that the known decrease of uH2A levels in metaphase is due to a specific effect on histone ubiquitination and not to a general decrease in ubiquitination activity or increase of isopeptidase activity. Changes in the levels of uH2A during mitosis measured by immunoblotting were similar to those estimated in permeabilized cells. These experiments indicate that permeabilized cells provide a useful approach to the study of rapidly turning over ubiquitin conjugates in mammalian cells.
Robust H ∞ and adaptive tracking control against actuator faults with a linearised aircraft application

This article studies the problem of designing adaptive fault-tolerant H ∞ tracking controllers for a class of aircraft flight systems against general actuator faults and bounded perturbations. A robust adaptive state-feedback controller is constructed by a stabilising controller gain and an adaptive control gain function. Using mode-dependent Lyapunov functions, linear matrix inequality-based conditions are developed to find the controller gain such that disturbance attenuation performance is optimised. Adaptive control schemes are proposed to estimate the unknown controller parameters on-line for unparametrisable stuck faults and perturbation compensations. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, it is shown that the resulting closed-loop systems can guarantee asymptotic tracking with H ∞ performances in the presence of faults on actuators and perturbations. An application to a decoupled linearised dynamic aircraft system and its simulation results are given.
Comparison of Sample Preparation Methods for Detection of Legionella pneumophila in Culture-Positive Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluids by PCR

ABSTRACT A prospective study was conducted on 25 Legionella pneumophila culture-positive and 98 culture-negative bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples to compare two DNA preparation methods: a rapid modified Chelex-based protocol and a proteinase K method. PCR was found to be more sensitive with the Chelex-based method (P = 0.03). No difference was found concerning the inhibition rate.
Identification of Potential Serum Biomarkers in Mercury-Treated Mice Using a Glycoproteomic Approach

Mercury is a well-recognized health hazard and a deleterious environmental contaminant. Exposure to mercury can cause neurotoxic manifestations, nephrotoxicity, and immune function alterations; however, the mechanisms and related proteins responsible for these effects are still unclear. Our goal is to understand the relationship between the toxicity of mercury and the proteins affected by this toxic heavy metal and to define biomarkers for mercury intoxication. Two different forms of mercury, organic methylmercury or inorganic mercury sulfide, were orally administered to the mice for 4 weeks. To reduce complexity of the serum proteome, we enriched glycoproteins from mice serum with lectin concanavalin A resin, and the tryptic peptides of the purified glycoproteins were subjected to nanoultra performance liquid chromatography-Quadrupole time-of-flight for identification and label-free quantification. In this study, we characterized approximately 209 proteins from mice serum, and, among them, 21 proteins were differentially expressed in organic methylmercury-treated mice serum compared with the control group. Two proteins, serum amyloid P component (SAP) and inter α-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain 4 (ITI-H4), were upregulated in organic methylmercury-treated mice and confirmed with different doses of both types of mercury by Western blot analysis. Results of immunohistochemistry also confirmed the validity of SAP and ITI-H4 as biomarker candidates for organic methylmercury exposure. Findings of this study may assist in understanding the relationship between toxicity of mercury and upregulated proteins in mouse serum. Furthermore, the proteins identified here might be used as biomarker candidates in mercury intoxication.
DARTS: Performance-counter driven sampling using binary translators

We motivate DARTS, a new technique for workload sampling to drive architectural simulation, that carefully integrates hardware performance counter monitoring with fast, dynamic binary translation. This paper focuses on a key finding that motivates the DARTS methodology. We present our experience applying it to the generation of simulation points for the integer benchmarks of the SPEC CPU2006 suite. We were able to match existing approaches in terms of coverage of dynamic workload behaviours and simulated performance. DARTS achieved this with significant improvements in turn-around time, simulation effort, and storage requirements, with a slight increase in the number of simulation points.
ADMA: autonomous decentralized management architecture for MANETs: a simple self-configuring case study

ADMA represents an Autonomous Decentralized Management Architecture designed to provide Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) with autonomic principles. It allows the network to configure and reconfigure itself under environment changes without any human intervention. Our solution operates in a peer-to-peer manner and does not require any centralized entity to perform network management functions. Each mobile node implementing ADMA components is able to take the appropriate decision based on predefined high level policies and collected monitoring information. We present in this paper the basic components of an ADMA node. Then, we provide a simple self-configuring case study of our design considering Voice over IP (VoIP) as a test application. Simulation results show an improvement of the VoIP delay and loss rate while applying predefined policies.
Evaluación morfológica del cultivar de buffelgrass “Lucero INTA-PEMAN” en condiciones de sequía

En la busqueda de nuevos cultivares nacionales mejor adaptados a las restricciones edafo-climaticas presentes en el noroeste argentino, principalmente estres por sequia y salinidad, un hibrido de buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) denominado "Lucero INTA-PEMAN" fue obtenido mediante cruzamientos controlados en el Instituto de Fitopatologia y Fisiologia Vegetal (IFFIVE) del INTA. El objetivo fue evaluar morfologicamente al cultivar Lucero en comparacion con los cultivares Texas-4464, Biloela y Molopo, en Dean Funes (Norte de Cordoba, Argentina) a campo bajo condiciones de sequia, en un diseno en bloques completos aleatorizados con tres repeticiones y por dos ciclos de cultivo (2006/2007 y 2007/2008), considerandose como estados ontogenicos planta de un ano y rebrote, respectivamente. Se analizaron 13 caracteres morfologicos mediante ANAVA y test DGC (p<0,05). A pesar de que la expresion de la mayoria de los 13 caracteres evaluados disminuyo en rebrote con respecto al primer ano de implantacion, Lucero INTA-PEMAN fue el menos afectado por la baja disponibilidad de agua y tuvo un desempeno superior en ambos estados ontogenicos, en caracteres componentes de produccion de semillas. Fue superior en caracteres de produccion de biomasa al Texas-4464 y en la mayoria de los mismos a los cultivares Biloela y Molopo. Lucero INTA-PEMAN se muestra como promisorio y de considerable valor forrajero para las regiones afectadas por sequia, tales como el noroeste argentino.
Analysis of human tear proteins by two‐dimensional electrophoresis

Human tear proteins in the conjunctival sac were separated on the basis of the differences in their isoelectric points and molecular weights using micro two‐dimensional electrophoresis combined with immunoblotting. The two‐dimensional electrophoretic patterns of tear proteins from patients with conjunctivitis were compared with those from normal individuals. We also measured integrated intensities of seven protein spots, lactoferrin (LF), albumin and five specific tear proteins (STP), to examine differences in the amounts of these proteins in tears from normal individuals of different sexes. In the tears from patients with conjunctivitis, secretory immunoglobulin A (IgA), LF and STP spots were stained more weakly, whereas the albumin spot was stained more strongly as compared with those from normal individuals. Furthermore, haptoglobin and IgG spots appeared in the tears from patients with conjunctivitis. These were more prominent in the tears from patients with severe conjunctivitis. There were significant differences in the amounts of LF and two kinds of STPs in the different sexes. The amounts of these proteins were larger in females.
Pharmacotherapy of Spasticity: Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations

ABSTRACT: The availability of new antispasticity agents has greatly extended the therapeutic arm of the neurologist and has obviated the need for destructive neurosurgical procedures in many instances. Baclofen remains the single most useful agent, but in certain circumstances, benzodiazepines and dantrolene sodium are useful alternative or adjunctive treatments. Tizanidine has been recently introduced, and early experience with this agent appears to be favourable. A variety of new drugs are awaiting further evaluation. The effective use of these agents demands an understanding of their principal mechanisms of action, knowledge of their predictable side effects, and a familiarity with the underlying neurological disorders. The monitoring of clinical efficacy is difficult and is often dependent upon subjective evaluation. The application of electrophysiological studies might facilitate the monitoring of treatment and the prediction of optimum treatment strategies forindividual patients. The use of these pharmacological agents, from the perspective of a clinician, will be discussed.
ICFHR 2016 Competition on Local Attribute Detection for Handwriting Recogntion

this paper describes the ICFHR2016 Local Attribute Detection competition held at the 15th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition. This competition uses the ANDoc-Attrib-10K database, which consists of roughly 10,000 image snippets drawn from 30 collections from historical documents and records of various types, each labeled with seven attributes such as the presence of text, text type (handwritten machine-printed, or both), if the text is legible, etc. The objective of this competition is to use the training partition of the database to develop and submit for evaluation a system that detects the seven attributes in the snippets from the test partition. Two teams submitted five systems for scoring, evaluation, and comparison to Ancestry baseline systems. The results of this scoring are reported, along with brief descriptions of each system. Keywords-component; formatting; style; styling; insert
Cost-aware function migration in heterogeneous systems

Today's approaches towards heterogeneous computing rely on either the programmer or dedicated programming models to efficiently integrate heterogeneous components. In this work, we propose an adaptive cost-aware function-migration mechanism built on top of a light-weight hardware abstraction layer. With this mechanism, the highly dynamic task of choosing the most beneficial processing unit will be hidden from the programmer while causing only minor variation in the work and program flow. The migration mechanism transparently adapts to the current workload and system environment without the necessity of JIT compilation or binary translation. Evaluation shows that our approach successfully adapts to new circumstances and predicts the most beneficial processing unit (PU). Through fine-grained PU selection, our solution achieves a speedup of up to 2.27 for the average kernel execution time but introduces only a marginal overhead in case its services are not required.
Effects of Small Dams on Cold Water Stream Fish Communities

Dams provide many benefits to society, yet they have profound impacts on aquatic ecosystems. In addition to blocking fish migration, small surface-release dams on coldwater streams generally increase water temperature below the dam. The goal of this study was to evaluate how small, surface-release dams affect fish communities, separating the total effect into components related to fragmentation and habitat alteration. The approach taken in this study was to synthesize results of two large studies conducted in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin. The first study focused on low-head barriers (<0.5 m in height) built to prevent the upstream migration of sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus. In this study, 24 streams with sea lamprey barriers and 23 nearby reference streams without barriers were sampled. The second study evaluated 10 small hydroelectric dams. Dams that do not substantially warm downstream water temperature cause a moderate shift in fish community composition, whereas dams that warm downstream water temperature by more than 2°C cause substantial shifts in fish community composition. The abundance of stream resident coldwater species such as brook Salvelinus fontinalis and brown trout Salmo trutta does not appear to be affected by the presence of a barrier. Dams that increase water temperature result in substantial reductions in abundance, however. These results suggest that the effect of habitat alteration caused by dams on coldwater streams should receive as much, if not greater attention, as the effect of habitat and population fragmentation.
EBNA-3B- and EBNA-3C-Regulated Cellular Genes in Epstein-Barr Virus-Immortalized Lymphoblastoid Cell Lines

ABSTRACT The cellular pathways that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) manipulates in order to effect its lifelong persistence within hosts and facilitate its transmission between hosts are not well understood. The EBV nuclear antigen 3 (EBNA-3) family of latent infection proteins consists of transcriptional regulators that influence viral and cellular gene expression in EBV-infected cells. To identify EBNA-3B- and EBNA-3C-regulated cellular genes potentially important for virus infection in vivo, we studied a lymphoblastoid cell line (LCL) infected with an unusual EBV mutant, where a genetic manipulation to delete EBNA-3B also resulted in a significant decrease in EBNA-3C expression and slower than normal growth (3B−/3Clow). Transcriptional profiling was performed on the 3B−/3Clow LCLs, and comparison of mutant and wild-type LCL profiles resulted in a group of 21 probe sets representing 16 individual genes showing statistically significant differences in expression. Further quantitative reverse transcription-PCR analyses comparing 3B−/3Clow LCLs to a previously described EBNA-3B mutant (3B−) where EBNA-3C expression was normal revealed three potential EBNA-3B-repressed genes, three potential EBNA-3C-repressed genes, and two potential EBNA-3C-activated genes. The most highly EBNA-3C-repressed gene was Jagged1, a cell surface ligand and inducer of the Notch receptor signaling pathway that is usurped by EBV genes essential for B-cell immortalization. 3B−/3Clow LCLs expressed increased levels of Jagged1 protein and were able to more efficiently induce functional Notch signaling, and this signaling was dependent on Notch cleavage by γ-secretase. However, inhibiting γ-secretase-mediated Notch cleavage did not rescue 3B−/3Clow LCL growth, suggesting that EBNA-3C-mediated repression of this signaling pathway did not contribute to LCL growth in tissue culture. Similarly, expression of the chemokine receptor CXCR4 was reproducibly upregulated in EBNA-3B-null LCLs. Since deletion of EBNA-3B has no significant impact on B-cell immortalization in tissue culture, this finding suggested that EBNA-3B-mediated regulation of CXCR4 may be an important viral strategy for alteration of B-cell homing in the infected host. These studies identify two cellular genes that do not contribute to EBV-induced B-cell growth but whose expression levels are strongly EBNA-3 regulated in EBV-infected primary B cells. These EBV-manipulated cellular pathways may be important for virus survival or transmission in humans, and their independence from EBV-induced B-cell growth makes them potential targets for testing in vivo with the rhesus lymphocryptovirus animal model for EBV infection.
A cooperative search framework for distributed agents

This paper presents an approach for cooperative search of a team of distributed agents. We consider two or more agents, or vehicles, moving in a geographic environment, searching for targets of interest and avoiding obstacles or threats. The moving agents are equipped with sensors to view a limited region of the environment they are visiting, and are able to communicate with one another to enable cooperation. The agents are assumed to have some "physical" limitations including possibly maneuverability limitations, fuel/time constraints and sensor range and accuracy. The developed cooperative search framework is based on two inter-dependent tasks: (1) online learning of the environment and storing of the information in the form of a "search map"; and (2) utilization of the search map and other information to compute online a guidance trajectory for the agent to follow. The distributed learning and planning approach for cooperative search is illustrated by computer simulations.