Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phytochemical Characterization of Terminalia catappa Linn. Extracts and Their antifungal Activities against Candida spp.

Terminalia catappa Linn bark is used to treat dysentery by various populations in Southeast Asian countries, and its leaves have also been used in traditional medicine to treat hepatitis in India and the Philippines. Here, the antifungal actions of crude hydro-alcoholic extract (TcHE) and fractions from T. catappa leaves were assessed via the agar diffusion and microdilution tests on Candida reference strains and clinical isolates from patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Additionally, the potential cytotoxic effects of TcHE were assessed on cultured human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). T. catappa fractions and sub-fractions were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry with electron impact (GC/MS/EI), high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry “electrospray” ionization in positive mode (HPLC/MS/MS/ESI+) and hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR). TcHE and its fractions were able to inhibit the growth of all tested Candida strains with the n-butanol (FBuOH) fraction presenting the best antifungal activity. Testing of different FBuOH sub-fractions (SF) showed that SF10 was the most active against Candida spp. Fractioning of SF10 demonstrated that 5 out of its 15 sub-fractions were active against Candida spp. , with SF10.5 presenting the highest activity. Chemical analysis of SF10 detected hydrolysable tannins (punicalin, punicalagin), gallic acid and flavonoid C-glycosides. Overall, the results showed that T. catappa L. leaf extract, fractions and sub-fractions were antifungal against Candida spp. and may be useful to treat diseases caused by this fungus.
A Decision Making Ontology Building Process for Analytical Requirements Elicitation

Goal-oriented modeling is a promising approach to elicit the analytical requirements of decision makers. However, the lack of a technique that formalizes the decision making knowledge necessary for goal elicitation hinders the automation of this type of approaches. In this paper, we propose a process for building a decision making ontology that represents the domain knowledge. The formal aspect of the ontology makes the domain knowledge machine readable, which facilitates the decomposition of goals and automates their elicitation. The usefulness of the ontology in analytical requirements elicitation is assessed through an experimental evaluation.
Factors influencing beliefs about mental health difficulties and attitudes towards seeking help amongst Nepalese people in the United Kingdom

Help-seeking This term will be used throughout to refer to attempts made by an individual experiencing mental health difficulties, to find support or help. This may be in the form of professional help via mental health services or informal support e.g. from family or friends. Intention (or Intention to seek professional help) These terms will be used interchangeably throughout to refer to intention to seek professional help for mental health difficulties in the event of experiencing such difficulties. Mental health difficulties These terms will be used interchangeable to refer to psychological difficulties which have a significant impact on one's daily life including difficulties with working, communication, relationships, and learning. These difficulties may include reactions to stressful life events e.g. trauma or stress and anything which is referred to in the literature as a 'psychiatric condition or disorder' e.g. depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder. Mental health professional This term will be used to refer to an individual who has been trained to work with individuals with mental health difficulties. Mental health services This term will be used to refer to professional mental health services which are statutory (i.e. National Health Service) or privately run. These services will usually be staffed by mental health professionals (as described above). Nepalese people living in the UK (NLU) This term will be used to refer to any individual who identifies themselves as 'Nepalese'. This may include individuals of Nepalese nationality or individuals who identify themselves as Nepalese but were born in the UK (or not in Nepal). Professional help/support These terms will be used to refer to a professional mental health service provided by one of the mental health professionals described above. South Asians This term will be used to refer to individuals who identify themselves as being Abstract Research shows that in the UK, individuals from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are significantly less likely to access mental health services than the general population. In the absence of literature or robust mental health service access figures for Nepalese people living in the UK (NLU) there is little understanding of the mental health needs and help-seeking preferences of this group. This study aimed to examine factors which are associated with professional help-seeking for mental health difficulties in NLU. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985) was used as a guiding theoretical framework to examine the strongest predictors of intention to seek professional help. Potential predictors, shame/izzat, …
Distributed Reservoir Computing with Sparse Readouts [Research Frontier]

In a network of agents, a widespread problem is the need to estimate a common underlying function starting from locally distributed measurements. Real-world scenarios may not allow the presence of centralized fusion centers, requiring the development of distributed, message-passing implementations of the standard machine learning training algorithms. In this paper, we are concerned with the distributed training of a particular class of recurrent neural networks, namely echo state networks (ESNs). In the centralized case, ESNs have received considerable attention, due to the fact that they can be trained with standard linear regression routines. Based on this observation, in our previous work we have introduced a decentralized algorithm, framed in the distributed optimization field, in order to train an ESN. In this paper, we focus on an additional sparsity property of the output layer of ESNs, allowing for very efficient implementations of the resulting networks. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, we test it on two well-known prediction benchmarks, namely the Mackey-Glass chaotic time series and the 10th order nonlinear auto regressive moving average (NARMA) system.
An experimental mutation system for Java

Mutation is a powerful but complicated and computationally expensive testing method. Mutation is also a valuable experimental research technique that has been used in many studies. Mutation has been experimentally compared with other test criteria, and also used to support experimental comparisons of other test criteria, by using mutants as a method to create faults. In effect, mutation is often used as a "gold standard" for experimental evaluations of test methods. This paper presents a publicly available mutation system for Java that supports both traditional statement-level mutants and newer inter-class mutants. MUJAVA can be freely downloaded and installed with relative ease under both Unix and Windows. MUJAVA is offered as a free service to the community and we hope that it will promote the use of mutation analysis for experimental research in software testing.
Adaptation and Personalization of Web-Based Multimedia Content

A traditional multimedia system presents the same static content and suggests the same next page to all users, even though they might have widely differing knowledge of the subject. Such a system suffers from an inability to be all things to all people, especially when the user population is relatively diverse; users often lose sight of the goal of their inquiry, look for stimulating rather than informative material, or even use the navigational features unwisely. Moreover, new developments in ICT along with the growth of mobile and wireless communication allowed service providers to develop new ways of interactions through a variety of channels enabling users to become accustomed to new means of multimedia-based service consumption in an anytime, anywhere and anyhow manner, but developing more demanding requirements. To this end, researchers and practitioners studied adaptivity and personalization to address the comprehension and orientation difficulties presented in such systems to alleviate the navigational difficulties and instead, satisfy the heterogeneous needs of the mobile user. This chapter investigates the emergence of the mobile and wireless technology and the new multi-channel constraints and opportunities, as well as the new mobile user needs that arise. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between the adaptation and personalization research considerations and proposes a three-layer architecture for adaptation and personalization of Web-based multimedia content based on the “new” user profile with visual, emotional and cognitive processing parameters incorporated.
Multiuser Decorrelating Detectors for DS-CDMA on Frequency-Selective Fading Channels

In this article two multiuser receivers for DS-CDMA systems on frequency-selective fading channels are analyzed and compared: the rake decorrelating detector (RDD) and the multipath decorrelating detector (MDD). Simple and precise expressions for the bit error probability and for the computational complexity for synchronous and asynchronous DS-CDMA cases are obtained. The analytic and simulations results have shown that the RDD detector achieves better performance than the MDD detector, with much lower computational complexity
Classroom Participation as a Performative Act of Language Learners’ Identity Construction

Abstract In the first part of this study, we briefly present different approaches used to define the concept of second language learners’ identity. Then we introduce Butler’s theory of performativity (1988) and we attempt to apply its main concepts as tools for describing L2 learners’ identity. In the second part of the study, we try to answer the following question: What are typical performative acts of a good and a poor language learner in the language learning classroom? Our research suggests that performing a good language learner identity refers to the learner’s frequent and repetitive participation in utterances whose content is related to the language classroom, regardless of the chosen communicative resources. As for performing a poor language learner identity, it appeared that it refers to the learner’s repetitive and frequent participation in utterances whose content is not related to the language classroom, regardless of the chosen communicative resources.
Advanced patient or elder fall detection based on movement and sound data

The paper presents am initial implementation of a patient monitoring system that may be used for patient activity recognition and emergency treatment in case a patient or an elder falls. Sensors equipped with accelerometers and microphones are attached on the body of the patients and transmit patient movement and sound data wirelessly to the monitoring unit. Applying Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and spectrogram analysis on sounds detection of fall incidents is possible. The classification of the sound and movement data is performed using Support Vector Machines. Evaluation results indicate the high accuracy and the effectiveness of the proposed implementation.
Wavelet Analysis for the Extraction of Morphological Features for Orthopaedic Bearing Surfaces

In this chapter three generations of biorthogonal wavelet transforms, for the extraction of morphological structures from micro/nano scalar surfaces in the field of bioengineering, are introduced. The aim of the chapter is to create a “tool box” of wavelet techniques capable of complex analysis and interpretation of surface topography data; leading to the accurate extraction of roughness, waviness, form and form error, as well as functionally critical morphological features from micro/nano scalar surfaces of orthopaedic joints for in-vitro and clinically retrieved applications.
Information Retrieval on the Semantic Web - Does it exist?

Plenty of contemporary attempts to search exist that are associated with the area of Semantic Web. But which of them qualify as information retrieval for the Semantic Web? Do such approaches exist? To answer these questions we take a look at the nature of the Semantic Web and Semantic Desktop and at definitions for information and data retrieval. We survey current approaches referred to by their authors as information retrieval for the Semantic Web or that use Semantic Web technology for search.
Expression of Tim‐1 in primary CNS lymphoma

Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is a distinct subtype of extranodal lymphoma with aggressive clinical course and poor outcome. As increased IL‐10/IL‐6 ratio is recognized in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of PCNSL patients, we hypothesized that PCNSL might originate from a population of B cells with high IL‐10‐producing capacity, an equivalent of “regulatory B cells” in mice. We intended in this study to clarify whether Tim‐1, a molecule known as a marker for regulatory B cells in mice, is expressed in PCNSL. By immunohistochemical analysis, Tim‐1 was shown to be positive in as high as 54.2% of PCNSL (26 of 58 samples), while it was positive in 19.1% of systemic diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL) samples (17 of 89 samples; P < 0.001). Tim‐1 expression positively correlated with IL‐10 expression in PCNSL (Cramer's V = 0.55, P < 0.001), and forced expression of Tim‐1 in a PCNSL cell line resulted in increased IL‐10 secretion, suggesting that Tim‐1 is functionally linked with IL‐10 production in PCNSL. Moreover, soluble Tim‐1 was detectable in the CSF of PCNSL patients, and was suggested to parallel disease activity. In summary, PCNSL is characterized by frequent Tim‐1 expression, and its soluble form in CSF may become a useful biomarker for PCNSL.
A Tutorial of Ten User Experience Heuristics

This tutorial presents ten user experience heuristics for service and product designers and developers. The aim of the heuristics is to help designers to take user experience aspects into account when making design solutions. The heuristics are created based on the empirical user experience studies of mobile services. However, heuristics are general and can be used in any kind of service or product design and evaluation context (e.g. mobile services, web sites, applications). Using these heuristics, developers can find out negative and positive user experience issues that can be taken into account in further design iterations.
A controlled experiment in program testing and code walkthroughs/inspections

This paper describes an experiment in program testing, employing 59 highly experienced data processing professionals using seven methods to test a small PL/I program. The results show that the popular code walkthrough/inspection method was as effective as other computer-based methods in finding errors and that the most effective methods (in terms of errors found and cost) employed pairs of subjects who tested the program independently and then pooled their findings. The study also shows that there is a tremendous amount of variability among subjects and that the ability to detect certain types of errors varies from method to method.
Distributional Compositional Semantics and Text Similarity

In this paper, an approach for semantic composition based on space projection operations over basic geometric lexical representations is proposed. Syntactic bi-grams are here projected in the so called Support Subspace, aimed at emphasizing the semantic features shared by the compound word. Empirical results are discussed over two tasks: a fine grained similarity estimation task over syntactically typed word pairs and the Semantic Textual Similarity (STS) taskas defined by SemEval 2012. The generalization capabilities ofthe proposed compositional operators are also investigated ina cross-linguistic scenario, i.e. over English and Italian.
Improved Multi-target Tracking Algorithm Based on Gaussian Mixture Particle PHD Filter

The paper proposes Gaussian mixture particle probability hypothesis density filter(PHD) algorithm ,which can effectively solve the problem that the object number is changing or unknown, based on particle PHD filter. This algorithm calculates the object number and state by recursive procedure, avoiding the uncertainty of target state estimation caused by particle sampling and clustering. Gaussian mixture particle is introduced to effectively maintain the multi-modal distribution of each target，reducing the complexity of calculation.
The design and control of a low cost humanoid robot

This paper introduces the hardware of the IHR-1 humanoid robot. It has 25 degrees of freedom with low cost direct brushless actuators and sensors. Moreover, to improve system stability and adaptability, an adaptive fuzzy logic control method is proposed to adjust joint trajectories online to adapt to real working conditions. As fuzzy logic control has high potential in dealing with fuzzy information, the system can compensate for joint angle errors based on low precision sensor information. The effectiveness of the proposed method is tested on the module of the "IHR-1" humanoid robot.
Levofolene modulates apoptosis induced by 5-fluorouracil through autophagy inhibition: Clinical and occupational implications

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU), often used in combination with levofolene (LF), can induce, as an important side effect, the hand-foot syndrome (HFS) due to toxicity on keratinocytes. This can also damage workers involved in its handling. In the present study, we investigated the mechanisms of the toxicity induced by 5-FU alone or together with LF on human keratinocytes in culture. We found that the two drugs, as expected, had potentiating activity on keratinocyte growth inhibition and that this effect was mediated by induction of apoptosis. In our experimental model, an increased autophagic vacuole accumulation was observed in keratinocytes treated with 5-FU as a significant increase of the monodansylcadaverine (MDC) labeling (marker of late autophagy vacuoles) was recorded. However, the synergism of 5-FU with LF on apoptotic occurrence was not paralleled by a similar increase in autophagic vacuoles at 72 h suggesting an antagonistic effect of LF on autophagy elicited by 5-FU. Differential effects on reactive oxygen species (ROS) elevation in cells treated with 5-FU alone or the combination between 5-FU and LF were also observed. 5-FU induced a time-dependent increase of both O2− and lipid peroxidation while the combination of 5-FU and LF caused a stronger intracellular O2− increase only at 24 h while at 48 and 72 h its effect was lower when compared with that one of 5-FU alone. On the other hand, the addition of LF to 5-FU caused a stronger increase of lipid peroxidation at 48 and 72 h, but its effects were significantly lower at 24 h. These results suggest for the first time that LF potentiates the cytotoxicity of 5-FU on keratinocytes likely through the antagonism on autophagy escape pathway and consequent apoptosis potentiation.
Evidence that Lyb-2 is critical to specific activation of B cells before they become responsive to T cell and other signals

The generation of plaque-forming cells (PFC) to T-dependent antigen, but not to T-independent antigen, is reduced in vitro by Lyb-2 antibody. Monoclonal Lyb-2 antibody, added to Mishell-Dutton cultures within the first 2 d, but not later, greatly reduces the generation of alpha-sheep erythrocyte (SRBC) PFC from T-depleted spleen cells whether help is provided in the form of intact T cells or as soluble factors contained in mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) supernatants. Generation of alpha-SRBC PFC from purified B cells, assisted by soluble factors in MLC and macrophage (P388D.1 cell) supernatants, is similarly reduced by Lyb-2 antibody. The initial 2-d period, during which cultures are diminishingly sensitive to reduction of PFC generation by Lyb-2 antibody, is not affected by the time at which such soluble factors are added. Thus, Lyb-2 cell surface molecules evidently do not function as receptors for these differentiative signals. Reduction of PFC generation by Lyb-2 antibody is antigen dependent in the sense that reduction of the PFC response to one antigen (SRBC) does not affect subsequent generation of PFC to a second antigen (horse erythrocytes) from the same cell population. These findings accord with the view that the Lyb-2 molecule participates in a B cell differentiative phase, probably proliferative, which begins with binding of antigen and precedes the phase in which B cells become fully receptive to signals from T and other cells.
Joint resource optimization for OFDMA cellular networks with user cooperation and QoS provisioning

In this paper, a joint resource optimization scheme is designed for orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) cellular wireless networks with multi-user cooperation. Joint relay selection, subcarrier allocation and pairing and power allocation algorithms are developed with the objective of maximizing the total capacity of the system considering the quality of service (QoS) requirements of the users. The optimization problem is a mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP), which is often very difficult to solve in its original form. We provide a novel optimization framework to solve such non-linear optimization problems. The joint relay selection and subcarrier allocation problem is modified to a linear assignment problem and an efficient algorithm is developed to obtain the optimal assignment solution based on the Hungarian method. We propose computationally efficient solution to the joint resource optimization problem via dual decomposition method. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.
Tax Policy and Charitable Contributions of Money

I use a recent series of household surveys to estimate the price and income elasticities of charitable giving. I estimate price elasticities of-0.94 to-1.15 and income elasticities of 0.24 to 0.35. Although the price elasticity estimates are smaller than those found in early studies, they do imply that the charitable deduction has a substantial impact on charitable giving. I also find that respondents' own reports of their sensitivity to tax deductions corroborate the price elasticity estimates. Those who report being most influenced by tax deductions have the highest price elasticity and those who report being least sensitive to tax deductions have the lowest price elasticity.
Sparse image representations with shift and rotation invariance constraints

This paper presents a sparse image representation and its dictionary learning under shift and rotation invariance constraints. Sparse coding is a generative signal model that approximates signals by linear combinations of atoms in a dictionary. Since a sparsity penalty is introduced during signal approximation and dictionary learning, the dictionary represents primal structures of the signals. Under the shift and rotation invariance, the atoms in the dictionary are generated by the rotation and translation of the two-dimensional basic functions that indicate primal local structures of an image. The number of atoms for representation of an image is a product of the numbers of translation positions, rotation angles and basic functions. For the decomposition and dictionary learning, the huge storage capacity is required to store the coefficients, which are assigned to the atoms. In order to reduce the number of the coefficients and the computational burden, we propose a restricted image generative model for the shift and rotation invariant sparse representation. In experiment, the dictionary learning for synthetic and natural images is demonstrated. The results show that the sparse decomposition using the dictionary learnt by the proposed method can decompose images into parts which have different features.