Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-other processes in social cognition

This thesis aimed to investigate self-other processes in social cognition. Contrary to the traditional approach of focusing on self-other processes within the confines of a single domain, this thesis highlights the prominent role of these processes across different socio-cognitive domains. Three main empirical questions form the basis of the research reported here. The first is concerned with the extent to which self-other representations are shared across three different socio-cognitive abilities: the control of imitation, theory of mind, and visual perspective taking. The second relates to the neural underpinnings of self-other representations, in particular, the role of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) during socio-cognitive processing. The third question examines the role of culture as a modulatory factor of self-other processes. The findings from Experiment 1, 3 and 4 showed a relationship between the control of imitation and visual perspective taking. This relationship seems to rely on the online control of co-activated self-other representations, which at the neural level are mediated by the TPJ (bilaterally). In Experiment 2 it was found that individuals with mirror-touch synaesthesia are impaired in the control of imitation but their performance on visual perspective taking and theory of mind is comparable with non-synaesthetes. It is hypothesised that atypical self-other processes in mirror-touch synaesthesia might be confined to situations in which representations of the ‘other’ should be inhibited, but not when they should be enhanced. Experiment 5 showed that acculturation strategies adopted by migrants modulate their imitative behaviour towards a member of the heritage vs. a member of the host culture. The diverse nature of the studies reported in this thesis shows the complexity of self-other processes in social cognition. Taken together, these findings demonstrate how adopting a wider approach to the investigation of self-other processes contributes towards a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying socio-cognitive abilities.
Orb prevents autophagy in the Drosophila germline through translational repression of Atg12 mRNA

Drosophila Orb, the homologue of vertebrate CPEB is a key translational regulator involved in oocyte polarity and maturation through poly(A) tail elongation of specific mRNAs. orb has also an essential function during early oogenesis which has not been addressed at the molecular level. Here, we show that orb prevents cell death during early stages of oogenesis, thus allowing oogenesis to progress. It does so through the repression of autophagy, by directly repressing, together with the CCR4 deadenylase, the translation of Autophagy-specific gene 12 (Atg12) mRNA. The uncontrolled autophagy observed in orb mutant ovaries is reduced when Atg12 mRNA levels are decreased. These results reveal a role of Orb in translational repression and identify autophagy as an essential pathway regulated by Orb during early oogenesis. Importantly, they also establish translational regulation as a major mode of control of autophagy, a key process in cell homeostasis in response to environmental cues.
Effortful and effortless listening: how age-related hearing loss and cognitive abilities interact and influence memory performance in older adults

This study investigated how age-related-hearing loss (ARHL) might contribute to memory deficits and whether an enhanced auditory message can facilitate memory. According to the effortful listening hypothesis, effortful listening requires cognitivelinguistic and attentional resources for deciphering the message, resulting in fewer resources available for encoding into memory. Auditory perceptual and processing enhancements should reduce the listening effort and free up those resources resulting in better memory performance. Three experiments were conducted to investigate whether decreasing listening effort facilitates memory performance. In Experiment 1 recall of complex prescription instructions presented in conversational speech and clear speech was tested to see if the enhanced listening (clear) resulted in better memory performance than the non-enhanced listening (conversational) for the two groups of older adults matched for age and hearing loss (Quiet and Noise). In Experiment 2, recall of complex prescription instructions presented in degraded (65% time-compressed speech in babble) and enhanced (120% expanded speech) listening was compared for older adults with particular configurations of hearing loss to younger adults without hearing loss. Experiment 3 was a replication of Experiment 2 comparing a group of 21 older musicians (‘expert listeners’) to non-‘expert listeners’ (two non-musician groups: 20 younger and 20 older adults). Enhancements of the auditory message during encoding facilitated memory at the time of retrieval for all groups, more so for the hearing-impaired older adults. The older adult musicians demonstrated additional enhancement in listening such that their memory performance was more similar to the younger non-musicians than to a group of older adults matched for age and hearing ability. The findings from this study support the effortful listening hypothesis. According to this view, ARHL increases the effort in listening by degrading the message, increasing the distractor effect, and decreasing perceptual learning. These ARHL effects increase the processing load necessary to discern the message for communication at the perceptual, lexical and cognitive levels. These processing loads result in fewer attentional and cognitive-linguistic resources available for elaborate encoding for later recall. Enhancements to the auditory-verbal message in an ecologically valid task demonstrated that memory performance can be improved in older adults with hearing loss. These findings lend support to ARHL as a potential underlying causal mechanism contributing to declining memory performance in the aging adult population.
Maqasid Al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach

Maqasid are also good ends that the laws aim to achieve by blocking, or opening, certain means. Thus, the Maqasid of ‘preserving people’s minds and souls’ explain the total and strict Islamic ban on alcohol and intoxicants. Maqasidare also the group of divine intents and moral concepts upon which the Islamic law is based, such as, justice, human dignity, free will, magnanimity, facilitation, and social cooperation. Thus, they represent the link between the Islamic law and today’s notions of human rights, development, and civility. This chapter explains what ‘Maqasidal-Shariah’ is and how it could play a fundamental role in the much-needed ‘contemporarisation’ of the Islamic maqasid as philosophy of islamic law. It will introduce traditional and current definitions and classifications of Maqasid, and elaborate on three historical stages that the idea of al-Maqasid went through, namely, the Companions’ era, the schools of law foundational era, and the era between the fifth and eighth Islamic centuries. Finally, recent developments of al-Maqasid terminology will be surveyed, and the relevance and significance of some of the terms will be explained. ‘Maqasid al-Shariah’ is given a fundamental status in this book. Thus, theories and methods of the Islamic law presented throughout the book will be analysed and evaluated based on their agreement with the Maqasid of the Islamic law. click for a full book in pdf
Hypermethylation of ATP‐binding cassette B1 (ABCB1) multidrug resistance 1 (MDR1) is associated with cisplatin resistance in the A549 lung adenocarcinoma cell line

Development of multiple drug resistance has been attributed to the overexpression of the ATP‐binding cassette B1 (ABCB1) gene. In this study, the major purpose was to assess the expression and methylation levels of ABCB1 in human lung adenocarcinoma and to reveal the relationship between these processes and acquisition of cisplatin (DDP) resistance in the human cancer cell line A549. Methylation and expression levels of the ABCB1 gene ABCB1 in clinical human lung tissue were assessed using bisulphite sequencing, reverse transcription real‐time PCR (RT2‐PCR) and Western blot methods. Cell viability, DDP resistance and apoptosis of A549 cells were evaluated using the Cell Counting Kit‐8 and fluorescence‐activated cell sorter analysis. Our results showed that the onset of resistance to the cisplatin analogue, DDP, was associated with hypermethylation of the ABCB1 gene. Expression of the ABCB1 gene was enhanced at both mRNA and protein levels. Treatment with 5‐Aza‐C contributed to the hypomethylation of the ABCB1 gene and decreased ABCB1 protein expression in A549 cells. In conclusion, this in vitro and human tissue study of lung adenocarcinoma cells demonstrated that hypermethylation of the ABCB1 gene correlated with increased gene expression and was associated with the acquisition of resistance to the cisplatin analogue, DDP in human lung adenocarcinoma cells. Taken together, our study highlighted the connection between increased ABCB1 methylation level and upregulated expression of the gene in lung cancer. Moreover, the abnormally high expression of ABCB1 in A549 cells contributed to the development of the DDP resistance.
Associative clustering for exploring dependencies between functional genomics data sets

High-throughput genomic measurements, interpreted as cooccurring data samples from multiple sources, open up a fresh problem for machine learning: What is in common in the different data sets, that is, what kind of statistical dependencies are there between the paired samples from the different sets? We introduce a clustering algorithm for exploring the dependencies. Samples within each data set are grouped such that the dependencies between groups of different sets capture as much of pairwise dependencies between the samples as possible. We formalize this problem in a novel probabilistic way, as optimization of a Bayes factor. The method is applied to reveal commonalities and exceptions in gene expression between organisms and to suggest regulatory interactions in the form of dependencies between gene expression profiles and regulator binding patterns.
AAV‐mediated knockdown of phospholamban leads to improved contractility and calcium handling in cardiomyocytes

Reduced contractility due to dysregulation of intracellular calcium (Ca2+) is a common pathologic feature of chronic heart failure. Calcium stores in the sarcoplasmic reticulum play a major role in regulating cardiac contractility. Several animal models of heart failure have been treated by altering the regulation of the sarcoplamic reticulum ATPase through ablation or down‐regulation of its inhibitor peptide, phospholamban (PLN).
Reducing multimedia decode power using feedback control

Despite recent advances, battery life continues to be a limiting factor in mobile multimedia systems. Significant energy savings can be achieved by adapting systems at runtime to match the execution requirements of different tasks. We introduce an online dynamic voltage/frequency scaling (DVS) feedback technique that reduces voltage and frequency to match the playback rate. A PI controller adjusts the decoder's speed to keep constant the occupancy of the buffer between the decoder and the display, effectively matching the average decode rate to the display rate without the need for any off-line profiling. MPEG simulation results show that this technique reduces decoder power consumption while providing strong real-time guarantees.
Exploiting Syntactic and Semantic Information for Relation Extraction from Wikipedia

The exponential growth of Wikipedia recently attracts the attention of a large number of researchers and practitioners. One of the current challenge on Wikipedia is to make the encyclopedia processable for machines. In this paper, we deal with the problem of extracting relations between entities from Wikipedia's En- glish articles, which can straightforwardly be transformed into Semantic Web meta data. We propose a method to exploit syntactic and semantic information for relation extraction. In addition, our method can utilize the nature of Wikipedia to automatically obtain training data. The preliminary results of our experiments strongly support our hyperthesis that using information in higher level of description is better for relation extraction on Wikipedia and show that our method is promising for text understanding.
Sequence and structure‐specific elements of HERG mRNA determine channel synthesis and trafficking efficiency

Human ether‐á‐gogo‐related gene (HERG) encodes a potassium channel that is highly susceptible to deleterious mutations resulting in susceptibility to fatal cardiac arrhythmias. Most mutations adversely affect HERG channel assembly and trafficking. Why the channel is so vulnerable to missense mutations is not well understood. Since nothing is known of how mRNA structural elements factor in channel processing, we synthesized a codon‐modified HERG cDNA (HERG‐CM) where the codons were synonymously changed to reduce GC content, secondary structure, and rare codon usage. HERG‐CM produced typical IKr‐like currents; however, channel synthesis and processing were markedly different. Translation efficiency was reduced for HERG‐CM, as determined by heterologous expression, in vitro translation, and polysomal profiling. Trafficking efficiency to the cell surface was greatly enhanced, as assayed by immunofluorescence, subcellular fractionation, and surface labeling. Chimeras of HERG‐NT/CM indicated that trafficking efficiency was largely dependent on 5' sequences, while translation efficiency involved multiple areas. These results suggest that HERG translation and trafficking rates are independently governed by noncoding information in various regions of the mRNA molecule. Noncoding information embedded within the mRNA may play a role in the pathogenesis of hereditary arrhythmia syndromes and could provide an avenue for targeted therapeutics. —Sroubek, J., Krishnan, Y. , McDonald, T V. Sequence‐ and structure‐specific elements of HERG mRNA determine channel synthesis and trafficking efficiency. FASEB J. 27, 3039–3053 (2013). www.fasebj. org
Structure-oriented smoothing and semblance

Smoothing along structures apparent in seismic images can enhance these structural features while preserving important discontinuities such as faults or channels. Filters appropriate for such smoothing must seamlessly adapt to variations in the orientation and coherence of image features. I describe an implementation of smoothing filters that does this and is both computationally efficient and simple to implement. Structure-oriented filters lead naturally to the computation of structure-oriented semblance, an attribute commonly used to highlight discontinuities in seismic images. Semblance is defined in this paper as simply the ratio of a squared smoothed-image to a smoothed squared-image. This definition of semblance generalizes that commonly used today, because an unlimited variety of smoothing filters can be used to compute the numerator and denominator images in the semblance ratio. The smoothing filters described in this paper yield an especially flexible method for computing structure-oriented semblance.
Topology of fracture networks

We propose a mapping from fracture systems consisting of intersecting fracture sheets in three dimensions to an abstract network consisting of nodes and links. This makes it possible to analyze fracture systems with the methods developed within modern network theory. We test the mapping for two-dimensional geological fracture outcrops and find that the equivalent networks show small-world characteristics and are dissasortative. By analyzing the Discrete Fracture Network model, which is used to generate artificial fracture outcrop networks, we also find small world networks. However, the networks turn out to be assortative.
Design optimization of radially magnetized, iron-cored, tubular permanent-magnet machines and drive systems

In this paper we deduce, from analytical field solutions, the influence of leading design parameters on the performance of a radially magnetized, iron-cored, tubular permanent-magnet machine and its drive system. We derive analytical formulas for predicting the open-circuit electromotive force, the thrust force, the iron loss, and the winding resistance and inductances, as well as the converter losses. The force density, the machine and drive system efficiencies, and the power factor and converter volt-ampere (VA) rating are established as functions of a set of machine dimensional ratios, with due account of magnetic saturation and subject to a specified thermal constraint. We validate the utility and accuracy of the analytically derived formulas by finite-element calculations. Finally, we show that the design optimization of such a linear drive system must account for the losses and VA rating of the converter as well as the design parameters of the tubular machine.
Analysis of genomic diversity within the Xr-region of the protein A gene in clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus

Protein A of Staphylococcus aureus contains a polymorphic Xr-region characterized by a tandem repeat of eight amino acid units. In this study, the diversity of genes encoding the repeat regions and their relatedness among S. aureus strains was analyzed. Ten different protein-A types characterized by repeat numbers 4–13 were identified in a total of 293 clinical isolates. The protein-A type with 10 repeat units (10 repeats) in the Xr-region was most frequently detected in methicillin-resistant S. aureus, whereas the majority of methicillin- susceptible strains were distributed almost evenly into protein-A types with 7–11 repeats. Strains that belonged to a single coagulase type were classified into multiple protein-A types, e.g. strains with the common coagulase types II and VII were differentiated into 7 and 8 protein-A types, respectively. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the Xr-region of 42 representative strains revealed the presence of 37 different genotypes (spa types), which were constituted by a combination of several of 24 different repeat unit genotypes. Based on the similarity in arrangement of repeat unit genotypes, 34 strains with different repeat numbers were classified into 5 genetic clusters (C1–C5). The clusters C1, C2 and C3 consisted exclusively of strains with identical coagulase types II, III, and IV, respectively. These findings suggested that the protein-A gene of S. aureus has evolved from a common ancestral clone in individual clusters independently.
Clustering and Bayesian network for image of faces classification

In a content based image classification system, target images are sorted by feature similarities with respect to the query (CBIR). In this paper, we propose to use new approach combining distance tangent, k-means algorithm and Bayesian network for image classification. First, we use the technique of tangent distance to calculate several tangent spaces representing the same image. The objective is to reduce the error in the classification phase. Second, we cut the image in a whole of blocks. For each block, we compute a vector of descriptors. Then, we use K-means to cluster the low-level features including color and texture information to build a vector of labels for each image. Finally, we apply five variants of Bayesian networks classifiers (Na\"ive Bayes, Global Tree Augmented Na\"ive Bayes (GTAN), Global Forest Augmented Na\"ive Bayes (GFAN), Tree Augmented Na\"ive Bayes for each class (TAN), and Forest Augmented Na\"ive Bayes for each class (FAN) to classify the image of faces using the vector of labels. In order to validate the feasibility and effectively, we compare the results of GFAN to FAN and to the others classifiers (NB, GTAN, TAN). The results demonstrate FAN outperforms than GFAN, NB, GTAN and TAN in the overall classification accuracy.
Acceptance of Web-Based Personalized Feedback: User Ratings of an Alcohol Misuse Prevention Program Targeting U.S. Marines

The use of Web-based programs for a variety of health education, risk reduction, and health promotion purposes can be a valuable tool in the effort to improve the health of a population. Providing theory-based personalized feedback through such a method can be particularly useful in alcohol misuse prevention efforts. A brief alcohol use feedback program was developed for members of the U.S. Marine Corps, and user-satisfaction ratings were collected from 167 participants. Approximately 44% of the sample found the program to be useful or very useful, and 46% of the sample reported that they were likely or very likely to recommend the Web site to others. The Web-based format with tailored responses was preferred by 85% of respondents over other more traditional methods of alcohol training, and 80% of participants felt that the feedback was appropriate for Marines in their community. Significantly higher usefulness, likelihood of recommending the program to others, and overall ratings of the program were reported among younger and nonheavy-drinking participants (p <. 05). Results indicate that this computerized assessment and feedback program is a promising mechanism with which to provide personalized alcohol misuse prevention information.