Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unravelling the written word: expressive writing, narratives and counselling psychology

There is a growing body of evidence supporting the use of Pennebaker’s ‘Expressive Writing’ paradigm as an adjunct to psychological therapy or as a self-help therapeutic intervention. Research, thus far, has predominantly focused on measuring, explaining and analysing the effects of ‘Expressive Writing’ as a therapeutic intervention through randomised controlled trials, paying little attention to the subjective experience of the individuals and the types of narratives people write. This doctoral research approaches ‘Expressive Writing’ from a narrative perspective, which argues that individuals construct their sense of self and create meaning of their own lives through the use of narratives. The aim of this thesis is to explore how people construct their sense of self through ‘Expressive Writing’. Following an adapted version of Pennebaker’s ‘Expressive Writing’ guidelines, six participants were asked to spend 50 to 60 minutes writing about an emotional life-changing event and then share their stories, and their experience of writing about their stories, in an hour-long interview. The study used qualitative methods of inquiry, namely narrative analyses to explore the process of the construction of sense of self in both the written and oral narratives. The emerged findings point to the natural tendency of people to write in a narrative form using culturally available narratives and highlight the dialogical nature of the intervention. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for Counselling Psychology practice, their contribution to theory, and suggestions for future research. Overall, this thesis suggests that Expressive Writing could be a valuable addition to Counselling Psychology practice, when used in line with the ethos and values of Counselling Psychology.
Effects of colluding Sybil nodes in message falsification attacks for vehicular platooning

This paper studies the impact of vulnerabilities associated with the Sybil attack (through falsification of multiple identities) and message falsification in vehicular platooning. Platooning employs Inter-Vehicular Communication (IVC) to control a group of vehicles. It uses broadcast information such as acceleration, position, and velocity to operate a longitudinal control law. Cooperation among vehicles allows platoons to reduce fuel consumption and risks associated with driver mistakes. In spite of these benefits, the use of network communication to control vehicles exposes a relevant attack surface that can be exploited by malicious actors. To carry out this study, we evaluate five scenarios to quantify the potential impact of such attacks, identifying how platoons behave under varying Sybil attack conditions and what are the associated safety risks. This research also presents the use of location hijacking attack. In this attack, innocent vehicles that are not part of a platoon are used as a way to create trust bond between the false identities and the physical vehicles. We demonstrate that the ability to create false identities increases the effectiveness of message falsification attacks by making them easier to deploy and harder to detect in time.
Organisational factors affecting teachers' use and perception of information & communications technology

While the learning benefits of information & communication technologies (ICTs) are widely recognised by academics and practitioners alike, the context in which teachers operate often affects the extent to which ICTs are used to achieve beneficial teaching & learning outcomes. The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to explore what organisational factors affected teachers' use and perception of ICTs, and the use of a new learning management system. Teaching staff across all learning areas at a secondary school responded to a survey. A subset of teachers and school system personnel also participated in interviews. Document analysis was used to place the results in the context of school-system planning. The study focused on three factors affecting the use and perception of ICTs: the characteristics and perceptions of leadership; the nature, relevance and usefulness of training; and, management approaches to IS/IT system implementation. Outcomes from the study are in the form of recommendations to assist the ongoing implementation of a learning management system and the integration of technology in learning environments. The findings of this study have implications for many learning environment that involve the implementation of technological systems.
Recommending electricity plans: A data-driven method

In this paper, a customized electricity retailing plan recommendation strategy is developed. Cost-effective retailing plans are recommended according to customer's electricity usage pattern. Usage pattern is recognized through classifying daily load profile (DLP) into a certain class, which is obtained in DLP clustering process. Two DLP clustering skills, plan rank-oriented and load feature-oriented clustering are investigated in this paper. Each DLP class is attributed to a typical plan rank, plans in which are more likely to supply good deal for DLPs in this class. Correlative features of DLP are evaluated in DLP classification phase, which enables recommendation accessible to customers with limited features information other than full load profile record. Promising results on plan recommendation for 60 residential customers demonstrate that the proposed strategy could supply effective recommendation to electricity users.
Downstream processing of value-added proteins in biotechnology: An Indian scenario.

1132 © 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Biotechnology is perceived as a revolution throughout the world. India holds a small share of 2% in the global biotech market (source: BioSpectrum, www.biospectrumindia.ciol.com) and it makes consistent efforts to emerge as a key player in biotechnology-related activities and investments endowed with a huge knowledge pool, rich biodiversity and a vibrant pharmaceutical industry. Biotechnology has emerged globally as a high-growth sector with tremendous applications in the areas of healthcare, agriculture, environment and processing industry. The Indian biotechnology industry, like its global counterparts, is dominated by the healthcare sector [1]. In India nearly 40% of the biotech Companies operate in the biopharma sector, followed by bioservices (21%), bioagriculture (19%), bioinformatics (14%) and the bioindustrial sector (5%) (source: www.biospectrumindia.ciol.com). Healthcare Biotechnology includes the production of diagnostics (mAbs and DNA probes), prophylactics (vaccines) and therapeutics (recombinant proteins). Table 1 shows the significant role of Indian biotech companies in the biopharmaceutical segment by producing recombinant-DNA therapeutic proteins. Still India needs to pay special attention to the production of biotechnology products, particularly in the healthcare sector. At present high priority is given to the areas of R&D to improve the quality of viral/bacterial vaccines such as diphtheria, pertussis, measles and many others for the National Health Programmes. R&D also focuses on the development of simple and cost-effective immunodiagnostic systems for diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy. The improved production of therapeutic proteins like human insulin, interferons and interleukins, human growth factor etc. at a lower costs is one of the biggest challenges. Continuing discoveries in molecular biology and genetics provide a base for new and improved processes and products in today's biochemical process industry.The efforts of Indian biotech companies have led to marked improvements in the production of value-added proteins, particularly therapeutic recombinant proteins. Continued introduction of new technology necessitates innovations in process development, scale-up and design. As a consequence, there is a need to design new and improve existing processes. An integral and cost-intensive part of these processes is associated with downstream processing for product isolation and purification. To satisfy the high level of drug safety and purity demanded by the regulatory authorities, Indian biopharmaceutical companies need access to a broad range of excellent purification techniques. This review attempts to give an overview of the current status of downstream processing of value-added proteins in the Indian biotechnology sector. Biotech Highlight
The use of WAGA to search the best polarity of XNOR/OR logic

In this paper, a new algorithm based on whole annealing genetic algorithm (WAGA) is proposed to search the best polarity of XNOR/OR circuit. By introducing the weighing of power and area in the fitness function, the good compromise of power and area is obtained. The algorithm has been implemented in C and tested on MCNC Benchmark circuits. The experimental results show that the significant reduction of power dissipation and area can be obtained.
The release of acetylated choline analogues by a sympathetic ganglion.

The present experiments tested the uptake, metabolism, and release of choline and two choline analogues, (2-hydroxyethyl)-N-ethyl-N,N-dimethylammonium (monoethylcholine) and N-hydroxyethyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium (pyrrolcholine), by the cat superior cervical ganglion. Both analogues were acetylated in situ, as was choline, and the acetylated derivatives, but not the parent compounds, were released upon subsequent preganglionic nerve stimulation. Like acetylcholine, the release of acetylmonoethylcholine and of acetylpyrrolcholine by nerve impulses required the presence of Ca++. It is concluded that these choline analogues form cholinergic false transmitters. Acetylmonoethylcholine and acetylpyrrolcholine were substrates for acetylcholinesterase. Previous studies showed that acetylmonoethyicholine is less active than acetylcholine as a cholinergic agonist; the present study showed this also for acetylpyrrolcholine. Thus either false transmitter would reduce the safety factor for transmission at cholinergic synapses.
Susceptibility towards Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli F4ac Diarrhea Is Governed by the MUC13 Gene in Pigs

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) F4ac is a major determinant of diarrhea and mortality in neonatal and young pigs. Susceptibility to ETEC F4ac is governed by the intestinal receptor specific for the bacterium and is inherited as a monogenic dominant trait. To identify the receptor gene (F4acR), we first mapped the locus to a 7.8-cM region on pig chromosome 13 using a genome scan with 194 microsatellite markers. A further scan with high density markers on chromosome 13 refined the locus to a 5.7-cM interval. Recombination breakpoint analysis defined the locus within a 2.3-Mb region. Further genome-wide mapping using 39,720 informative SNPs revealed that the most significant markers were proximal to the MUC13 gene in the 2.3-Mb region. Association studies in a collection of diverse outbred populations strongly supported that MUC13 is the most likely responsible gene. We characterized the porcine MUC13 gene that encodes two transcripts: MUC13A and MUC13B. Both transcripts have the characteristic PTS regions of mucins that are enriched in distinct tandem repeats. MUC13B is predicated to be heavily O-glycosylated, forming the binding site of the bacterium; while MUC13A does not have the O-glycosylation binding site. Concordantly, 127 independent pigs homozygous for MUC13A across diverse breeds are all resistant to ETEC F4ac, and all 718 susceptible animals from the broad breed panel carry at least one MUC13B allele. Altogether, we conclude that susceptibility towards ETEC F4ac is governed by the MUC13 gene in pigs. The finding has an immediate translation into breeding practice, as it allows us to establish an efficient and accurate diagnostic test for selecting against susceptible animals. Moreover, the finding improves our understanding of mucins that play crucial roles in defense against enteric pathogens. It revealed, for the first time, the direct interaction between MUC13 and enteric bacteria, which is poorly understood in mammals.
An initial examination of ease of use for 2D and 3D information visualizations of web content

We present a discussion and initial empirical investigation of user-interface designs for a set of three Web browsers. The target end-user population we identified were experienced software engineers who maintained large Web sites or portals. The user study demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of two conventional 2D browsers for this target user, as well as that of XML3D, a novel browser that integrates an interactive 3D hyperbolic graph view with a more traditional 2D list view of the data. A standard collapse/expand tree browser and a Web-based hierarchical categorization similar to Yahoo! , were competitively evaluated against XML3D. No reliable difference between the two 2D browsers was observed. However, the results showed clear differences between XML3D and the 2D user interfaces combined. With XML3D, participants performed search tasks within existing categories reliably faster with no decline in the quality of their responses. It was informally observed that integrating the ability to view the overall structure of the information space with the ability to easily assess local and global relationships was key to successful search performance. XML3D was the only tool of the three that efficiently showed the overall structure within one visualization. The XML3D browser accomplished this by combining a 3D graph layout view as well as an accompanying 2D list view. Users did opt to use the 2D user-interface components of XML3D during new category search tasks, and the XML3D performance advantage was no longer obtained in those conditions. In addition, there were no reliable differences in overall user satisfaction across the three user-interface designs. Since we observed subjects using the XML3D features differently depending on the kind of search task, future studies should explore optimal ways of integrating the use of novel focus+context visualizations and 2D lists for effective information retrieval. The contribution of this paper is that it includes empirical data to demonstrate where novel focus+context views might benefit experienced users over and above more conventional user-interface techniques, in addition to where design improvements are warranted.
Lectin-type oxidized LDL receptor-1 distinguishes population of human polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells in cancer patients

PMN-MDSC in cancer patients can be distinguished from neutrophils by a genomic signature and by expression of the LOX-1 receptor. Stressing myeloid-derived suppressor cells in cancer Immunotherapies for cancer have shown promising results in part because they overcome the suppressive effects of the tumor microenvironment on immune cells. Condamine et al. now report that polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSCs) can be distinguished from neutrophils in the same cancer patient by the expression of the lipid metabolism–related molecule lectin-type oxidized LDL receptor-1 (LOX-1). LOX-1–expressing neutrophils were nearly undetectable in healthy individuals but were found prominently in tumor tissues. Moreover, exposing neutrophils from healthy individuals to endoplasmic reticulum stress resulted in up-regulation of LOX-1 and increased suppressive function. These data support the specific targeting of LOX-1–expressing PMN-MDSC for cancer immunotherapy. Polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSCs) are important regulators of immune responses in cancer and have been directly implicated in the promotion of tumor progression. However, the heterogeneity of these cells and the lack of distinct markers hamper the progress in understanding the biology and clinical importance of these cells. Using partial enrichment of PMN-MDSC with gradient centrifugation, we determined that low-density PMN-MDSC and high-density neutrophils from the same cancer patients had a distinct gene profile. The most prominent changes were observed in the expression of genes associated with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Unexpectedly, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) was one of the most increased regulators, and its receptor oxidized LDL receptor 1 (OLR1) was one of the most overexpressed genes in PMN-MDSC. Lectin-type oxidized LDL receptor-1 (LOX-1) encoded by OLR1 was practically undetectable in neutrophils in peripheral blood of healthy donors, whereas 5 to 15% of total neutrophils in cancer patients and 15 to 50% of neutrophils in tumor tissues were LOX-1+. In contrast to their LOX-1− counterparts, LOX-1+ neutrophils had gene signature, potent immunosuppressive activity, up-regulation of ER stress, and other biochemical characteristics of PMN-MDSCs. Moreover, induction of ER stress in neutrophils from healthy donors up-regulated LOX-1 expression and converted these cells to suppressive PMN-MDSCs. Thus, we identified a specific marker of human PMN-MDSC associated with ER stress and lipid metabolism, which provides new insights into the biology and potential therapeutic targeting of these cells.
An intercultural theory of international relations: how self-worth underlies politics among nations

This article introduces an intercultural theory of international relations based on three distinctive ways of establishing self-worth: honor, face, and dignity. In each culture of self-worth, concerns with status and humiliation intervene differently in producing political outcomes. The theory explains important variation in the way states and nations relate to members of their own culture of self-worth, as well as members of other such cultures.
Active Learning For Identifying Function Threshold Boundaries

We present an efficient algorithm to actively select queries for learning the boundaries separating a function domain into regions where the function is above and below a given threshold. We develop experiment selection methods based on entropy, misclassification rate, variance, and their combinations, and show how they perform on a number of data sets. We then show how these algorithms are used to determine simultaneously valid 1 - α confidence intervals for seven cosmological parameters. Experimentation shows that the algorithm reduces the computation necessary for the parameter estimation problem by an order of magnitude.
Unique characteristics of Ca2+ homeostasis of the trans-Golgi compartment

Taking advantage of a fluorescent Ca2+ indicator selectively targeted to the trans-Golgi lumen, we here demonstrate that its Ca2+ homeostatic mechanisms are distinct from those of the other Golgi subcompartments: (i) Ca2+ uptake depends exclusively on the activity of the secretory pathway Ca2+ ATPase1 (SPCA1), whereas the sarco-endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase (SERCA) is excluded; (ii) IP3 generated by receptor stimulation causes Ca2+ uptake rather than release; (iii) Ca2+ release can be triggered by activation of ryanodine receptors in cells endowed with robust expression of the latter channels (e.g., in neonatal cardiac myocyte). Finally, we show that, knocking down the SPCA1, and thus altering the trans-Golgi Ca2+ content, specific functions associated with this subcompartment, such as sorting of proteins to the plasma membrane through the secretory pathway, and the structure of the entire Golgi apparatus are dramatically altered.
Exploring the Benefits of Immersion in Abstract Information Visualization

The benefits of immersion with regard to information visualization applications have rarely been explored. In this paper, we describe a user study designed to explore a variety of information visualization tasks in immersive and non-immersive 3D scatterplots. In the non-immersive version the information was displayed using only one wall of the CAVE, while the immersive version used all four walls. We also examined the effects of head tracking, giving a total of four conditions: four walls in the CAVE with head tracking, four walls without head tracking, one wall with head tracking and finally, one wall without head tracking. By separating the variables in this way, we can independently evaluate the effects of immersion and head tracking. In general, we found the fully immersive condition, (four walls with head tracking) to be most useful in viewing the datasets and performing the tasks.
Changes in running mechanics and spring-mass behaviour induced by a 5-hour hilly running bout

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate changes in running mechanics and spring-mass behaviour with fatigue induced by 5-hour hilly running (5HHR). Running mechanics were measured pre- and post-5HHR at 10, 12 and 14 km · h-1 on an instrumented treadmill in eight ultramarathon runners, and sampled at 1000 Hz for 10 consecutive steps. Contact (tc ) and aerial (ta ) times were determined from ground reaction force (GRF) signals and used to compute step frequency (f). Maximal GRF, loading rate, downward displacement of the centre of mass (Δz), and leg length change (ΔL) during the support phase were determined and used to compute both vertical (Kvert ) and leg (Kleg ) stiffness. A significant decrease in tc was observed at 12 and 14 km · h-1 resulting in an increase of f at all speeds. Duty factor and Fmax significantly decreased at 10 km · h-1. A significant increase in Kvert and Kleg was observed at all running speeds with significant decreases in Δz and ΔL. Despite the shorter duration, the changes in running mechanics appeared to be in the same direction (increased f and Kvert , decrease in Δz and Fmax ) but of lower amplitude compared with those obtained after an ultra-trail or an ultramarathon.
Spontaneous Alpha Power Lateralization Predicts Detection Performance in an Un-Cued Signal Detection Task

Focusing one’s attention by external guiding stimuli towards a specific area of the visual field produces systematical neural signatures. One of the most robust is the change in topological distribution of oscillatory alpha band activity across parieto-occipital cortices. In particular, decreases in alpha activity over contralateral and/or increases over ipsilateral scalp sites, respect to the side of the visual field where attention was focused. This evidence comes mainly from experiments where an explicit cue informs subjects where to focus their attention, thus facilitating detection of an upcoming target stimulus. However, recent theoretical models of attention have highlighted a stochastic or non-deterministic component related to visuospatial attentional allocation. In an attempt to evidence this component, here we analyzed alpha activity in a signal detection paradigm in the lack of informative cues; in the absence of preceding information about the location (and time) of appearance of target stimuli. We believe that the unpredictability of this situation could be beneficial for unveiling this component. Interestingly, although total alpha power did not differ between Seen and Unseen conditions, we found a significant lateralization of alpha activity over parieto-occipital electrodes, which predicted behavioral performance. This effect had a smaller magnitude compared to paradigms in which attention is externally guided (cued). However we believe that further characterization of this spontaneous component of attention is of great importance in the study of visuospatial attentional dynamics. These results support the presence of a spontaneous component of visuospatial attentional allocation and they advance pre-stimulus alpha-band lateralization as one of its neural signatures.