Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Novel Curcumin Derivative CNB-001 Mitigates Obesity-Associated Insulin Resistance

Type 2 diabetes is growing at epidemic proportions, and pharmacological interventions are being actively sought. This study examined the effect of a novel neuroprotective curcuminoid, CNB-001 [4-((1E)-2-(5-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxystyryl-)-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazoyl-3-yl)vinyl)-2-methoxy-phenol], on glucose intolerance and insulin signaling in high-fat diet (HFD)–fed mice. C57BL6 mice (5–6 weeks old) were randomly assigned to receive either a HFD (45% fat) or a low-fat diet (LFD, 10% fat) for 24 weeks, together with CNB-001 (40 mg/kg i.p. per day). Glucose tolerance test revealed that the area under the curve of postchallenge glucose concentration was elevated on HF-feeding, which was attenuated by CNB-001. CNB-001 attenuated body weight gain, serum triglycerides, and IL-6, and augmented insulin signaling [elevated phosphoprotein kinase B (p-Akt), and phosphoinsulin receptor (p-IR)β, lowered endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, protein–tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B)] and glucose uptake in gastrocnemius muscle of HFD-fed mice. Respiratory quotient, measured using a metabolic chamber, was elevated in HFD-fed mice, which was unaltered by CNB-001, although CNB-001 treatment resulted in higher energy expenditure. In cultured myotubes, CNB-001 reversed palmitate-induced impairment of insulin signaling and glucose uptake. Docking studies suggest a potential interaction between CNB-001 and PTP1B. Taken together, CNB-001 alleviates obesity-induced glucose intolerance and represents a potential candidate for further development as an antidiabetic agent.
Picking the Amateur’s Mind - Predicting Chess Player Strength from Game Annotations

Results from psychology show a connection between a speaker’s expertise in a task and the language he uses to talk about it. In this paper, we present an empirical study on using linguistic evidence to predict the expertise of a speaker in a task: playing chess. Instructional chess literature claims that the mindsets of amateur and expert players differ fundamentally (Silman, 1999); psychological science has empirically arrived at similar results (e.g., Pfau and Murphy (1988)). We conduct experiments on automatically predicting chess player skill based on their natural language game commentary. We make use of annotated chess games, in which players provide their own interpretation of game in prose. Based on a dataset collected from an online chess forum, we predict player strength through SVM classification and ranking. We show that using textual and chess-specific features achieves both high classification accuracy and significant correlation. Finally, we compare our findings to claims from the chess literature and results from psychology.
Hot Deformation Behavior and Microstructure Evolution of a TiBw/Near α-Ti Composite with Fine Matrix Microstructure

The hot deformation behavior and microstructure evolution of a 7.5 vol% TiBw/near α-Ti composite with fine matrix microstructure were investigated under the deformation conditions in a temperature range of 800–950 °C and strain rate range of 0.001–1 s−1 using plane strain compression tests. The flow stress curves show different characteristics according to the various deformation conditions. At a higher strain rate (1 s−1), the flow stress of the composite continuously increases until a peak value is reached. The activation energy is 410.40 kJ/mol, much lower than the activation energy of as-sintered or as-forged composites. The decreased activation energy is ascribed to the breaking of the TiBw reinforcement during the multi-directional forging and the resultant fine matrix microstructure. Refined reinforcement and refined matrix microstructure significantly improve the hot deformation ability of the composite. The deformation conditions determine the morphology and fraction of α and β phases. At 800–900 °C and 0.01 s−1 the matrix α grains are much refined due to the continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX). The processing map is constructed based on the hot deformation behavior and microstructure evolution. The optimal hot processing window is determined to be 800–950 °C/0.001–0.01 s−1, which lead to CDRX of primary α grains or dynamic recovery (DRV) and dynamic recrystallization (DRX) of β phase.
Will Americans Vote for Muslims? Cultural Outgroup Antipathy, Candidate Religion, and U.S. Voting Behavior

Abstract We assess how likely Americans are to support political candidates who are Muslim, and the extent to which support for Muslim candidates is structured by “cultural outgroup antipathy”—generalized antipathy targeting cultural outgroups. We employ two survey experiments included in the 2007 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies that juxtapose a hypothetical state legislative candidate's Muslim faith with Arab ethnicity, African American race, and both Democratic and Republican party affiliation. Identifying a candidate as Muslim significantly reduces voter support and that reduction is largest among people with higher levels of cultural outgroup antipathy. The effect is consistent regardless of whether the candidate is also identified as being Arab or African American or is just presented as a Muslim. We also find that cultural outgroup antipathy diminished electoral support for same-party Muslim candidates among Democrats but not among Republicans.
On the Fairest Corner Point of the MIMO-BC Capacity Region ∗

A number of recent works have addressed the problem of characterizing the sum-capacity of the multiple-input multiple-output broadcast channels (MIMOBC). However, the issue of the fairness remains an open problem. This article aims at finding a point on the sum-capacity hyperplane which satisfies a notion of fairness among active users. To facilitate the derivation of the results, we focus on a subset of capacity region which includes the corner points and their convex hull. It is shown that this region is a Polymatroid. The properties of polymatroids are exploited to locate a rate-vector on the sum-capacity hyperplane which is optimally fair. This means the minimum rate among all users is maximized (max-min rate). In the case that more than one user attain the max-min value, the algorithm recursively maximizes the minimum rate among the rest of the users. It is shown that the problem of deriving the time-sharing coefficients to attain this point can be decomposed to some lower-dimensional problems. In some cases, the complexity of computing and implementing an appropriate time-sharing strategy is not feasible. This motivates us to compute the corner point for which the minimum rate of the active users is maximized (max-min corner point). A simple greedy algorithm is introduced to find the max-min corner point.
Advice on Reliability Analysis with Small Samples - Revised Version

Whilst it is common statistical advice not to attempt a reliability analysis with a sample size less than 300 a recent simulation study by Yurdugul indicates that this is possible in certain circumstances. The most common statistic used in reliability analysis is Cronbach’s alpha and an often quoted rule of thumb is a coefficient value above 0.7 is acceptable for psychological constructs. However, Cortina found that the size of a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient depends upon the number of items in the scale with scales with more items having higher coefficients. The advantage of carrying out a reliability analysis is that it can enable a researcher to treat a group of variables on the same subject as a single scale variable, reducing the complexity of further analysis and reducing the risk of Type I errors. However, student researchers often find it hard to obtain sample sizes of 300. The purpose of this worksheet is to advise students about how to go about trying to validate a scale with smaller sample sizes.
Elastic granular flows of ellipsoidal particles

Granular flow rheology can be divided into two global regimes: the elastic, which is dominated by force chains, and the inertial, which is nearly free of force chains. As the propensity of a material to form force chains should be strongly influenced by particle shape, this paper is an attempt to assess the effects of shape on flow regime transitions through computer simulations of shear flow of ellipsoidal particles. On one hand, the results show that at a given concentration, ellipsoidal particles generate smaller quasistatic stress than spheres, likely a result of their ability to form denser packings. But at the same time, large aspect ratio ellipsoids more readily form force chains and demonstrate elastic behavior at smaller concentrations than spheres. This is shown to be due to a tradeoff between a shear-induced particle alignment that tends to minimize the interference of the particles and the shear flow, and the particle surface friction, which works to rotate the particles into the flow.
Expression Analysis of Gnrh1 and Gnrhr1 in Spermatogenic Cells of Rat

Hypothalamic Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH), via GnRH receptor (GnRHR), is the main actor in the control of reproduction, in that it induces the biosynthesis and the release of pituitary gonadotropins, which in turn promote steroidogenesis and gametogenesis in both sexes. Extrabrain functions of GnRH have been extensively described in the past decades and, in males, local GnRH activity promotes the progression of spermatogenesis and sperm functions at several levels. The canonical localization of Gnrh1 and Gnrhr1 mRNA is Sertoli and Leydig cells, respectively, but ligand and receptor are also expressed in germ cells. Here, we analysed the expression rate of Gnrh1 and Gnrhr1 in rat testis (180 days old) by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and by in situ hybridization we localized Gnrh1 and Gnrhr1 mRNA in different spermatogenic cells of adult animals. Our data confirm the testicular expression of Gnrh1 and of Gnrhr1 in somatic cells and provide evidence that their expression in the germinal compartment is restricted to haploid cells. In addition, not only Sertoli cells connected to spermatids in the last steps of maturation but also Leydig and peritubular myoid cells express Gnrh1.
Ecstasy use: cognitive deficits related to dosage rather than self-reported problematic use of the drug

Previous research has shown drug-free Ecstasy users to demonstrate selective cognitive impairment However, there seems to be a degree of individual variation in the occurrence of such deficits. The present study aimed to assess whether these cognitive deficits are related to an awareness of problematic Ecstasy use, or to past drug dosage. Twenty regular Ecstasy users who reported experiencing Ecstasy-related problems were compared with 20 Ecstasy users who had not reported any previous problems. The two groups displayed similar past histories in relation to a range of illicit drugs, and were divided into low, medium and high users. The controls comprised 20 illicit recreational drug users who had never taken Ecstasy. Executive task measures comprised the Tower of London (TOL), the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) and spatial working memory. Immediate and delayed word recall, matched verbal recognition and recall and simple reaction time were also included. Both Ecstasy groups performed significantly worse than controls on two executive measures: TOL planning time and spatial working memory score. There were no differences in cognitive impairment between the Ecstasy users who complained of problems and those who did not. In both groups, decrement on executive tasks was demonstrated as a function of previous drug dose. The study confirms that heavy Ecstasy polydrug use may culminate in selective executive deficits. It also demonstrates that two differently self-perceived Ecstasy groups showed similar cognitive impairment, despite only one group complaining of problems. Because all Ecstasy participants also consumed a range of other illicit drugs, the results are reflective of Ecstasy polydrug use in individuals who use Ecstasy as a drug of preference.
A Random Dot Product Model for Weighted Networks

This paper presents a generalization of the random dot product model for networks whose edge weights are drawn from a parametrized probability distribution. We focus on the case of integer weight edges and show that many previously studied models can be recovered as special cases of this generalization. Our model also determines a dimension--reducing embedding process that gives geometric interpretations of community structure and centrality. The dimension of the embedding has consequences for the derived community structure and we exhibit a stress function for determining appropriate dimensions. We use this approach to analyze a coauthorship network and voting data from the U.S. Senate.
Automatic Configuration of Systems for Texture Analysis

Automatic visual inspection plays a growing role in today's efforts to reduce the costs of industrial production. Three to ten months of man power have to be invested for the development of a typical industrial application. In this context, a reduction of time and thus of costs will make it easier to introduce new systems. We show a solution by using several algorithms for two kinds of selection routines, feature selection and training pattern selection. This method offers a convenient way to easily adapt a given system to a special texture analysis task.
Women’s participation in technical and vocational education and training in the Gulf States

Abstract While Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have launched a number of economic and education reforms to align their education and training systems with macroeconomic policies to develop diversified, knowledge-based economies, female technical and vocational education and training (TVET) faces an identity crisis. The Gulf States are struggling with increasing the enrollment and employment of women in TVET fields. While some GCC countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have viewed TVET as a key element of educational policy for many years, other GCC nations have only relatively recently focused their attention on improving TVET systems. In light of empirical gaps surrounding female enrollment and employment, this paper examines trends across the Gulf States to understand what factors affect women’s educational and labor market decisions. In line with the framework for action of GCC countries towards attaining Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No. 4 on quality of education and based on common TVET education and employment reform challenges faced by GCC countries, this paper suggests a number of possible reforms to support GCC countries in increasing female TVET enrollment and employment in technical fields.
Delphi: Predition-based Page Prefetching to Improve the Performance of Shared Virtual Memory Systems

Software distributed shared memory (SDSM) systems traditionally exhibit poor performance on applications with significant fine-grain or false sharing. Techniques such as relaxedconsistency models and multiple -writers protocols improve the performance of SDSM systems significantly, but their performance still lags that of hardware shared memory implementations. This paper describes Delphi, a system that borrows techniques from microarchitectural research on value prediction and applies them to software distributed shared memory. We run a small software predictor on each node in the Delphi system to predict which virtual pages will be needed in the future. We use the predictions to prefetch pages in order to reduce the number of accesses to invalid data and thereby reduce expensive network accesses. Experimental results show that Delphi is able to reduce the number of read misses to virtual pages by up to 62% on a set of well-known scientific benchmarks with minimal runtime overhead in extra processing and memory requirements. This translates into a 14% reduction in execution time over a comparable base system that does not employ prediction techniques.
Colonizing Pepe: Internet Memes as Cyberplaces

This article explores the Pepe the Frog Internet meme through a spatial approach that targets the ways in which netizens attempt to repurpose it, so as to build a communal space in which meaning is constantly negotiated and hijacked. We argue that Pepe the Frog and other memes can be interpreted as “cyberplaces” defined as computer environments that display the ideological polemics between netizens as they struggle to build a sense of community. Moreover, the rhizomatic stratification of such cyberplaces reveals a more nuanced view of meme dynamics, one that takes into account the agency of users as they efface and impose meanings on memes, not unlike the process of deterritorialization enacted on places.
Alkemio: association of chemicals with biomedical topics by text and data mining

The PubMed® database of biomedical citations allows the retrieval of scientific articles studying the function of chemicals in biology and medicine. Mining millions of available citations to search reported associations between chemicals and topics of interest would require substantial human time. We have implemented the Alkemio text mining web tool and SOAP web service to help in this task. The tool uses biomedical articles discussing chemicals (including drugs), predicts their relatedness to the query topic with a naïve Bayesian classifier and ranks all chemicals by P-values computed from random simulations. Benchmarks on seven human pathways showed good retrieval performance (areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves ranged from 73.6 to 94.5%). Comparison with existing tools to retrieve chemicals associated to eight diseases showed the higher precision and recall of Alkemio when considering the top 10 candidate chemicals. Alkemio is a high performing web tool ranking chemicals for any biomedical topics and it is free to non-commercial users. Availability: http://cbdm.mdc-berlin.de/∼medlineranker/cms/alkemio.
The c-Abl Tyrosine Kinase Phosphorylates the Fe65 Adaptor Protein to Stimulate Fe65/Amyloid Precursor Protein Nuclear Signaling*

The amyloid precursor protein (APP) is proteolytically processed to release a C-terminal domain that signals to the nucleus to regulate transcription of responsive genes. The APP C terminus binds to a number of phosphotyrosine binding (PTB) domain proteins and one of these, Fe65, stimulates APP nuclear signaling. Fe65 is an adaptor protein that contains a number of protein-protein interaction domains. These include two PTB domains, the second of which binds APP, and a WW domain that binds proline-rich ligands. One ligand for the Fe65WW domain is the tyrosine kinase c-Abl. Here, we show that active c-Abl stimulates APP/Fe65-mediated gene transcription and that this effect is mediated by phosphorylation of Fe65 on tyrosine 547 within its second PTB domain. The homologous tyrosine within the motif Tyr-(Leu/Met)-Gly is conserved in a variety of PTB domains, and this suggests that PTB tyrosine phosphorylation occurs in other proteins. As such, PTB domain phosphorylation may represent a novel mechanism for regulating the function of this class of protein.
Aesthetic experience and self-esteem in adolescents

The concern is to examine the structure and content of the aesthetic experience of adolescents with particular reference to its relationships with self-esteem. The focus is on the experience of the general population rather than artists, and includes reactions to everyday objects and events as well as to special creations. The literature review of mainly philosophers and critics revealed a diversity of emphasis on the weighting of components but following Aristotle, Dewey and subsequent writers, it was possible to extract sufficient common elements to specify defining characteristics that could form the basis of a conceptual model. The model served as a framework to generate a large pool of questionnaire items. A sample of 457 13-15 years old pupils completed one of two versions of the questionnaire. Correlation matrices and factor analyses were used to examine the structure and to ref= the questionnaire. This Aesthetic Experience Scale was refined still in the main study. Harter's Perceived Self-Competence Profile was first refined and then supplemented with a specially constructed Aesthetic Affordance Subseale and with Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale made up the measures of self-perception and self-evaluation. All instruments were administered to 652 13-15 years olds, representative of the major demographic groupings in Greece: gender, rural/urban, and socio-economic status. Subsidiary comparisons were possible of schools with and without art education and of schools with and without artistic productions. Results showed a general Aesthetic Experience Factor, which then differentiated in ways consistent with the structural model proposed. Relationships with self-esteem were positive only with the Rosenberg Scale and for girls on Harter's global self-worth. Within Harter's subscales the Aesthetic Affordance set of items cohered with each other and separated out from the other subscales which in turn behaved as they have done in previous research, except in one important respect. Physical Appearance did not emerge as a factor separate from Global Self-Worth, but that could be because the subscale items were all evaluative rather than descriptive. The demographic analysis pointed to greater aesthetic maturity of girls and the higher the socio-economic students, as indexed in the extent of differentiation and integration of experience. Art education was a significant influence for one sub-group only, and artistic performances not at all. These results suggest that the Aesthetic Affordance Subscale can be added to Harter's Profile and that both it and the Aesthetic Experience scale offer instruments for research into this generally neglected fields.
Critical and ramification points of the modular parametrization of an elliptic curve

Soit E une courbe elliptique definie sur Q de conducteur N et soit φ son revetement modulaire: Φ: X 0 (N) → E(C). Dans cet article, nous nous interessons aux points critiques et aux points de ramification de φ. En particulier, nous expliquons comment donner une etude plus ou moins experimentale de ces points.
Working with Java Interfaces and Classes How to maximize design and code reuse in the face of inheritance

Software engineering has been using interfaces for over 25 years. The distinction between interfaces and implementations is an important issue of object-oriented software system design. Java supports this distinction, yet for many developers, in particular with a C++ or Smalltalk background, the proper use of interfaces may not be intuitive right from the beginning. This article briefly discusses the general distinction between interfaces and classes as interface implementations, and then describes how to deal with interface inheritance and how to factor implementations to maximize code reuse. The implementation of a simple CORBA-based naming service is used as an ongoing example.