Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disorder as Order: The Ethno-Nationalist Struggle of the Karen in Burma/Myanmar—A Discussion of the Dynamics of an Ethicized Civil War and Its Historical Roots

Burma’s 66 years of civil war is the longest armed conflict in the world. This article analyses the complexity of one of the many ethnic armed conflicts between the Karen and the state. The Karen ethno-nationalist struggle is rooted in the ethnic categorization and identity politics of colonial order, which has influenced the political orders after independence. All living generations in Burma have to some extent experienced violence. Violent disorder and memory of suffering and victimhood dominate a majority of the Karen. The author argues that the prolonged violent conflict has widened the ethnic incompatibilities and impacts the current ceasefire negotiations. Internal segmentation of the Karen society as well as internal divisions and conflicts has also had a considerable impact upon the track of this conflict. Cultural, religious, and political diversity among the Karen—and other ethnic groups—further complicates prospects for a political solution to the armed struggle.
Expanding, refining, and replicating research on high school gay-straight student alliances and sexual minority youth

iii Dedication iv Acknowledgements v List of Figures ix List of Tables x Chapter One: Background 1 Important Definitions 1 Studies of Sexual Minority Youth 3 Early Research Involving Sexual Minority Youth 4 Methodological Improvements 10 Abuse and Victimization among Sexual Minority Youth 13 Minority Stress Hypothesis 17 Gay-Straight Alliances and Sexual Minority Youth 20 Objectives and Hypotheses 23 Chapter Two: Methods 27 Participants 27 Procedure 30 Survey Instrument and Associated Measures 33 Analytic Strategy 46 Chapter Three: Results 48 Determining Demographic Covariates 48
Linking Theories of Concurrency

We construct a Galois connection between the theories that underlie CCS [7] and CSP [4]. It projects the complete transition system for CCS onto exactly the subset that satisfies the healthiness conditions of CSP. The construction applies to several varieties of both calculi: CCS with strong, weak or barbed simulation, and CSP with trace refinement or failures refinement, or failures/divergence. We suggest the challenge of linking other theories of concurrency by Galois connection. He Jifeng is a senior research-fellow of UNU/IIST. He is also a professor of computer science at the Software Engineering Institute of East China Normal University. His research interests include the theories of programming languages, formal methods for safety-critical systems, parallel and distributed systems, component-oriented computing, co-design techniques for real-time embedded systems. Email: jifeng@iist.unu. edu Professor Sir Tony Hoare held the James Martin Chair in Computing at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory from 1979 to 1999. Following his retirement from Oxford, he has taken up an appointment as Senior Researcher with Microsoft Research at Cambridge, where he is pursuing his long-term interest in programming theory. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London. As one of the foremost experts in the field of computer science, he was knighted in 2000 for his achievements in software engineering. In further recognition of this, Sir Tony was awarded the Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology in November 2000. Email: thoare@microsoft.com Copyright c © 2005 by UNU-IIST, He Jifeng and C.A. R. Hoare
Towards Disambiguating Web Tables

Web tables comprise a rich source of factual information. However, without semantic annotation of the tables' content the information is not usable for automatic integration and search. We propose a methodology to annotate table headers with semantic type information based on the content of column's cells. In our experiments on 50 tables we achieved an F1 value of 0.55, where the accuracy greatly varies depending on the used ontology. Moreover, we found that for 94% of maximal F1 score only 20 cells (37%) need to be considered on average. Results suggest that for table disambiguation the choice of the ontology needs to be considered and the data input size can be reduced.
Secure lossy source coding with side information at the decoders

This paper investigates the problem of secure lossy source coding in the presence of an eavesdropper with arbitrary correlated side informations at the legitimate decoder (referred to as Bob) and the eavesdropper (referred to as Eve). This scenario consists of an encoder that wishes to compress a source to satisfy the desired requirements on: (i) the distortion level at Bob and (ii) the equivocation rate at Eve. It is assumed that the decoders have access to correlated sources as side information. For instance, this problem can be seen as a generalization of the well-known Wyner-Ziv problem taking into account the security requirements. A complete characterization of the rate-distortion-equivocation region for the case of arbitrary correlated side informations at the decoders is derived. Several special cases of interest and an application example to secure lossy source coding of binary sources in the presence of binary and ternary side informations are also considered. It is shown that the statistical differences between the side information at the decoders and the presence of non-zero distortion at the legitimate decoder can be useful in terms of secrecy. Applications of these results arise in a variety of distributed sensor network scenarios.
Type Systems for Distributed Programs: Session Communication

Distributed systems are everywhere around us and guaranteeing their correctness is of paramount importance. It is natural to expect that these systems interact and communicate among them to achieve a common task. In this work, we develop techniques based on types and type systems for the verification of correctness, consistency and safety properties related to communication in complex distributed systems. We study advanced safety properties related to communication, like deadlock or lock freedom and progress. We study session types in the pi-calculus describing distributed systems and communication-centric computation. Most importantly, we de- fine an encoding of the session pi-calculus into the standard typed pi-calculus in order to understand the expressive power of these concurrent calculi. We show how to derive in the session pi-calculus basic properties, like type safety or complex ones, like progress, by exploiting this encoding.
Hardware DWT accelerator for MultiProcessor System-on-Chip on FPGA

High performance multimedia applications are typical targets of today embedded systems. These applications, complex both in terms of execution flow and amount of elaborated data, can be well addressed by multiprocessor systems on-chip (MPSoCs). MPSoCs are composed of simple processors and memories tightly interconnected with fast communication channels and customized IP cores for the most demanding functions can be implemented and attached to these systems to enhance performance even more. Reconfigurable devices like FPGA, can act as a target, even programmed at runtime, for the custom IP cores, or as a prototyping platform for the whole system. Image compression like JPEG2000, can benefit very much from this approach and this type of architectures. This paper shows how the most demanding task of the JPEG2000 compression algorithm, the two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform, can be hardware accelerated and implemented in a multiprocessor system-on-chip prototyping platform on field programmable gate array (FPGA), CerberO. Architectures with different number of processors and hardware accelerators, shared among the processors or dedicated, have been implemented. To validate the approach, we show some experimental results on the platform with the hardware and the software implementation of the transformation
Development and psychometric properties of a self-regulation scale about leisure time physical activity in Iranian male adolescents

Background: Self-regulation is one of the current psychological concepts that have been known as a determinant of leisure time physical activity. Due to cultural and social diversity in different societies and age groups, application of specific questionnaires is essential to perform investigations about physical activities. The aim of this study is development and evaluation of psychometric properties of a self-regulation questionnaire about leisure time physical activity in Iranian male adolescents. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013, and data of 603 male students from 12 high schools in Isfahan were collected. A comprehensive literature review and similar questionnaire review were conducted and 25 items were selected or developed to measure self-regulation. Comprehensibility of items was evaluated in a pilot study and an expert panel evaluated face and content validity. Exploratory factors analysis (EFA) was used for evaluation of construct validity and extraction of sub-constructs of self-regulation. Leisure time physical activity was assessed using International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Results: The mean age of the participants was 16.3 years (SD =1.0) and the range was 15-19 years. Cronbach′s α coefficient of the questionnaire in the pilot and main study was 0.84 and 0.90, respectively. EFA resulted in four sub-constructs including "enlistment of social support," "goal setting," "self-construction," and "self-monitoring," which explained 63.6% of the variance of self-regulation. Conclusions: Results of this investigation provide some support to the validity and reliability of the 16-item questionnaire of self-regulation abut leisure time physical activity in the target group.
Theory, Science, and 'Micro-macro' Bridges in Structural Social Psychology

Social psychology stands to benefit from multilevel theories that link it to both lower and higher levels of analysis. Making the link, however, requires a level of theoretical rigor heretofore relatively uncommon in the social sciences. After refuting several common objections to this brand of theorizing, I offer a rationale and a set of criteria for multilevel theory construction. [page 30] [page 31]
A method for localized computation of Pulse Wave Velocity in carotid structure

Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) promises to be a useful clinical marker for noninvasive diagnosis of atherosclerosis. This work demonstrates the ability to perform localized carotid PWV measurements from the distention waveform derived from the Radio Frequency (RF) ultrasound signal using a carotid phantom setup. The proposed system consists of low cost custom-built ultrasound probe and algorithms for envelope detection, arterial wall identification, echo tracking, distension waveform computation and PWV estimation. The method is proposed on a phantom data acquired using custom-built prototype non-imaging probe. The proposed approach is non-image based and can be seamlessly integrated into existing clinical ultrasound scanners.
Reconciling $\nu$ -Gap Metric and IQC Based Robust Stability Analysis

This technical note elaborates on the flexibility of an approach that combines ν-gap metric and integral quadratic constraint (IQC) based analysis in the study of uncertain feedback interconnections of distributed-parameter transfer functions. It is established that a standard ν-gap ball robust stability result can be recovered within the blended IQC/ν-gap framework, which only requires the existence of ν-gap continuous paths within the uncertainty set of interest. This is achieved, in part, by showing that sufficiently small ν-gap balls are pathwise connected in the graph topology. A linear fractional characterisation of the ν-gap is a key ingredient. This characterisation is underpinned by a certain J-spectral factorisation, also shown to exist herein.
Quantitative Proteomic Profiling of Prostate Cancer Reveals a Role for miR-128 in Prostate Cancer*

Multiple, complex molecular events characterize cancer development and progression. Deciphering the molecular networks that distinguish organ-confined disease from metastatic disease may lead to the identification of biomarkers of cancer invasion and disease aggressiveness. Although alterations in gene expression have been extensively quantified during neoplastic progression, complementary analyses of proteomic changes have been limited. Here we interrogate the proteomic alterations in a cohort of 15 prostate-derived tissues that included five each from adjacent benign prostate, clinically localized prostate cancer, and metastatic disease from distant sites. The experimental strategy couples isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation with multidimensional liquid phase peptide fractionation followed by tandem mass spectrometry. Over 1000 proteins were quantified across the specimens and delineated into clinically localized and metastatic prostate cancer-specific signatures. Included in these class-specific profiles were both proteins that were known to be dysregulated during prostate cancer progression and new ones defined by this study. Enrichment analysis of the prostate cancer-specific proteomic signature, to gain insight into the functional consequences of these alterations, revealed involvement of miR-128-a/b regulation during prostate cancer progression. This finding was validated using real time PCR analysis for microRNA transcript levels in an independent set of 15 clinical specimens. miR-128 levels were elevated in benign prostate epithelial cell lines compared with invasive prostate cancer cells. Knockdown of miR-128 induced invasion in benign prostate epithelial cells, whereas its overexpression attenuated invasion in prostate cancer cells. Taken together, our profiles of the proteomic alterations of prostate cancer progression revealed miR-128 as a potentially important negative regulator of prostate cancer cell invasion.
Differential Dynamics of ATR-Mediated Checkpoint Regulators

The ATR-Chk1 checkpoint pathway is activated by UV-induced DNA lesions and replication stress. Little was known about the spatio and temporal behaviour of the proteins involved, and we, therefore, examined the behaviour of the ATRIP-ATR and Rad9-Rad1-Hus1 putative DNA damage sensor complexes and the downstream effector kinase Chk1. We developed assays for the generation and validation of stable cell lines expressing GFP-fusion proteins. Photobleaching experiments in living cells expressing these fusions indicated that after UV-induced DNA damage, ATRIP associates more transiently with damaged chromatin than members of the Rad9-Rad1-Hus1 complex. Interestingly, ATRIP directly associated with locally induced UV damage, whereas Rad9 bound in a cooperative manner, which can be explained by the Rad17-dependent loading of Rad9 onto damaged chromatin. Although Chk1 dissociates from the chromatin upon UV damage, no change in the mobility of GFP-Chk1 was observed, supporting the notion that Chk1 is a highly dynamic protein.
A Reconfigurable, Generic and Programmable Feed Forward Neural Network Implementation in FPGA

This paper presents a new reconfigurable generic hardware implementation of multilayer feed-forward Neural-Networks (NNs) using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Implementations of feed-forward Neural-Networks face two major issues: 1) Limited resources available on the FPGA compared to the large number of multiplications required by Neural-Networks 2) The limited reusability of the design when applied to Neural-Network applications with different architectures. Our proposed implementation addresses both issues: The design reduces resource requirements by time-sharing. The time-shared resources are arranged in a scalable configurable processing unit. The scalability allows the user to implement the design with variable number of neurons-starting from only one neuron to the maximum number of neurons in any layer. The design also gives the user the ability to reconfigure it to solve different applications, this is performed with programming-like ease and flexibility and a GUI was implemented to allow automatic configuration of the design for different applications.
Molecular mapping of tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins in focal adhesions using fluorescence resonance energy transfer

Microscopy-based fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) provides an opportunity to monitor molecular processes in the natural environment in live cells. Here we studied molecular interactions and tyrosine phosphorylation of paxillin, Crk-associated substrate (CAS), and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) in focal adhesions. For that purpose, these focal adhesion phosphoproteins, fused to cyan or yellow fluorescent proteins (CFP or YFP) were expressed in cultured fibroblasts. To assess the dynamics of tyrosine phosphorylation we used YFP- or CFP-tagged SH2 domain of pp60src (dSH2), which specifically binds to phosphotyrosine residues. FRET measurements, combined with immunolabeling with phosphospecific antibodies revealed that FAK, CAS and paxillin are tyrosine phosphorylated in early matrix adhesions and that FAK is in FRET proximity to CAS and paxillin in focal complexes and focal adhesions. Data suggest that paxillin incorporation into nascent focal complexes precedes its tyrosine phosphorylation, which then gradually increases. In cells treated with Rho-kinase inhibitors or expressing constitutively active Rac, focal complexes showed similar levels of paxillin tyrosine phosphorylation as seen in mature focal adhesions. Dynamic FRET-based examination indicated that paxillin phosphorylation occurs in specific areas (hotspots) within focal adhesions, whereas FAK phosphorylation is broadly distributed.
Prospective Cohort Study of Central Adiposity and Risk of Death in Middle Aged and Elderly Chinese

Asians have high prevalence of central obesity despite the low prevalence of general obesity. We evaluated associations between the central obesity measure, waist-hip ratio (WHR) with total and cause-specific mortality in middle-aged and elderly Chinese participants. Data arise from two prospective population-based cohort studies: the Shanghai Men’s Health Study involves 53,425 men (participation rate = 74.0%), age 40–74 at baseline, and the Shanghai Women’s Health Study involves 63,017 women (participation rate = 92.7%), age 40–70 at baseline. Information on lifestyle factors and anthropometric measurements were taken at baseline interview. Vital status and causes of death were obtained via surveys and annual linkages to relevant Shanghai registries through December 31, 2011. After median follow-up time of 7.5 years for the Shanghai Men’s Health Study and 13.2 years for the Shanghai Women’s Health Study, there were 2,058 and 3,167 deaths, respectively. In models adjusted for BMI and other potential confounders, WHR was associated with all-cause mortality; hazard ratios (HRs) (95% confidence intervals) across the first to fifth quintile increased from 1 (Reference), 1.10 (0.95,1.27), 1.21 (1.04,1.41), 1.11 (0.96,1.30), to 1.42 (1.22,1.65) in men and from 1 (Reference), 1.10 (0.96,1.27), 1.11 (0.97,1.27), 1.20 (1.05,1.37), to 1.48 (1.30,1.69) in women. WHR had a stronger association with cardiovascular disease, with multivariate-adjusted HRs of 1.5 to 1.7 observed for the highest versus lowest quintile of WHR. Dose-response associations were also seen for cancer and other-cause deaths. Stratified analyses suggested a stronger association with mortality among normal weight (BMI <25) than over-weight (BMI ≥25) individuals. Positive associations with mortality were observed in subgroups defined by follow-up duration, comorbidity, age, smoking, and physical activity. Greater central adiposity is associated with increased mortality in Chinese adults, even among individuals with low BMI. Physicians and the public should be aware of central adiposity’s independent effects on health.
Phase II study of recombinant interleukin 1alpha and etoposide in patients with relapsed osteosarcoma.

A Phase II trial using interleukin 1alpha (IL-1alpha) and etoposide for patients with relapsed osteosarcoma (OS) was undertaken to assess the feasibility and tolerability of combination therapy with biotherapy and chemotherapy. Nine patients with histologically proven relapsed OS were treated with IL-1alpha immediately followed by etoposide daily for 5 days every 3 weeks. Surgical resection of lung metastasis or peripheral tumor was performed after two or three cycles. We observed three partial responses; disease was stable in another case. One case could not be evaluated. The side effects associated with combination therapy were as predicted from known side effects of the individual agents; however, more profound neutropenia was observed. Four patients exhibited clinical signs of capillary leak syndrome, i.e., hypotension, edema, and weight gain. The etiology of the capillary leak was unclear, because serum IL-1alpha, IL-2, tumor necrosis factor, and nitric oxide levels could not be used to predict which patients would develop capillary leak. Histological analysis of tumor specimens obtained after two or more courses of therapy showed changes consistent with a response to a biological response modifier: peripheral fibrosis surrounded the metastasis with infiltration of chronic and acute inflammatory cells. Because the response of relapsed OS to any type of salvage regimen has been poor, we interpret the clinical response of this therapy as good. However, the significant side effects associated with this therapy must also be taken into consideration before deciding to use this combination therapy. It is unfortunate that the study was stopped early due to halted production of IL-1alpha. If this agent is again manufactured for clinical use, we conclude that additional evaluation in patients with relapsed OS is warranted.
Do Ants Need to Estimate the Geometrical Properties of Trail Bifurcations to Find an Efficient Route? A Swarm Robotics Test Bed

Interactions between individuals and the structure of their environment play a crucial role in shaping self-organized collective behaviors. Recent studies have shown that ants crossing asymmetrical bifurcations in a network of galleries tend to follow the branch that deviates the least from their incoming direction. At the collective level, the combination of this tendency and the pheromone-based recruitment results in a greater likelihood of selecting the shortest path between the colony's nest and a food source in a network containing asymmetrical bifurcations. It was not clear however what the origin of this behavioral bias is. Here we propose that it results from a simple interaction between the behavior of the ants and the geometry of the network, and that it does not require the ability to measure the angle of the bifurcation. We tested this hypothesis using groups of ant-like robots whose perceptual and cognitive abilities can be fully specified. We programmed them only to lay down and follow light trails, avoid obstacles and move according to a correlated random walk, but not to use more sophisticated orientation methods. We recorded the behavior of the robots in networks of galleries presenting either only symmetrical bifurcations or a combination of symmetrical and asymmetrical bifurcations. Individual robots displayed the same pattern of branch choice as individual ants when crossing a bifurcation, suggesting that ants do not actually measure the geometry of the bifurcations when travelling along a pheromone trail. Finally at the collective level, the group of robots was more likely to select one of the possible shorter paths between two designated areas when moving in an asymmetrical network, as observed in ants. This study reveals the importance of the shape of trail networks for foraging in ants and emphasizes the underestimated role of the geometrical properties of transportation networks in general.