Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Properties of the diversity effect in category-based inductive reasoning

Four experiments investigated how people judge the plausibility of category-based arguments, focusing on the diversity effect, in which arguments with diverse premise categories are considered particularly strong. In Experiment 1 we show that priming people as to the nature of the blank property determines whether sensitivity to diversity is observed. In Experiment 2 we find that people's hypotheses about the nature of the blank property predict judgements of argument strength. In Experiment 3 we examine the effect of our priming methodology on people's tendency to bring knowledge about causality or similarity to bear when evaluating arguments, and in Experiment 4 we show that whether people's hypotheses about the nature of the blank property were causal predicted ratings of argument strength. Together these results suggest that diversity effects occur because diverse premises lead people to bring general features of the premise categories to mind. Although our findings are broadly consistent with Bayesian and Relevance-based approaches to category-based inductive reasoning, neither approach captures all of our findings.
Liver X Receptor Activation Controls Intracellular Cholesterol Trafficking and Esterification in Human Macrophages

Liver X receptors (LXRs) are nuclear receptors that regulate macrophage cholesterol efflux by inducing ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) and ABCG1/ABCG4 gene expression. The Niemann-Pick C (NPC) proteins NPC1 and NPC2 are located in the late endosome, where they control cholesterol trafficking to the plasma membrane. The mobilization of cholesterol from intracellular pools to the plasma membrane is a determinant governing its availability for efflux to extracellular acceptors. Here we investigated the influence of LXR activation on intracellular cholesterol trafficking in primary human macrophages. Synthetic LXR activators increase the amount of free cholesterol in the plasma membrane by inducing NPC1 and NPC2 gene expression. Moreover, ABCA1-dependent cholesterol efflux induced by LXR activators was drastically decreased in the presence of progesterone, which blocks postlysosomal cholesterol trafficking, and reduced when NPC1 and NPC2 mRNA expression was depleted using small interfering RNA. The stimulation of cholesterol mobilization to the plasma membrane by LXRs led to a decrease in cholesteryl ester formation and Acyl–coenzyme A cholesterol acyltransferase-1 activity. These data indicate that LXR activation enhances cholesterol trafficking to the plasma membrane, where it becomes available for efflux, at the expense of esterification, thus contributing to the overall effects of LXR agonists in the control of macrophage cholesterol homeostasis.
Time-Shifted Streaming in a Tree-Based Peer-to-Peer System

We propose a peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming system that multicasts live video as well as provides the live video as Video-on-Demand (VoD) during the live session. The proposed system allows users to individually pause and resume a live video stream, and to view video that was streamed before the particular user joined the session. Since live video content naturally results in many users watching it online at the same time, the P2P concept is leveraged to reduce server load. We extend our Stanford Peer-to-Peer Multicast (SPPM) protocol, originally designed for live video multicast, to support playback control. To achieve this in a P2P fashion, peers store received video packets in their local buffer and forward them at a later time when requested by other peers, which is called time-shifted streaming. To understand interaction between live and time-shifted traffic, we analyze video availability of the proposed system, which refers to how many peers possess video contents of a particular position. Motivated by the analysis, we propose fast prefetching and a parent selection scheme suitable for fast prefetching in order to further reduce server load by disseminating video quickly. Fast prefetching is possible because the relaxed transfer deadline of time-shifted streams and peers’ extra uplink bandwidths are exploited. With simulations and mathematical analysis, it is shown that fast prefetching not only alleviates the requirement of server bandwidth by expediting video dissemination, but also mitigates video disruption due to peer churn.
Scheduled Collision Avoidance in wireless sensor network using Zigbee

Transmission reliability and energy consumptions are two critical concerns associated with wireless sensor network (WSN) design for a long time and continuous operation. With the increase in reliability of the transmission, the energy consumption increases by affecting the efficiency of the network. This paper proposes the Schedule based Collision Avoidance (SCA) algorithm for finding the tradeoff between reliability and energy efficiency by fusion of CSMA/CA and TDMA techniques in Zigbee/ IEEE802.15. 4. It uses the multi-path data propagation for collision avoidance and effective utilization of the channel providing efficient energy consumption. It analyses different scheduling schemes to provide an appropriate solution for reducing collisions and improving network lifetime.
Intranasal Vaccination against Cutaneous Leishmaniasis with a Particulated Leishmanial Antigen or DNA Encoding LACK

ABSTRACT We have previously demonstrated that oral delivery of a disease-promoting particulated antigen of Leishmania amazonensis (LaAg) partially protects mice against cutaneous leishmaniasis. In the present work, we sought to optimize a mucosal vaccine by using the intranasal route for delivery of different antigen preparations, including (i) LaAg, (ii) soluble recombinant p36/LACK leishmanial antigen (LACK), and (iii) plasmid DNA encoding LACK (LACK DNA). BALB/c mice that received two intranasal doses of 10 μg of LaAg and were challenged 1 week postvaccination with L. amazonensis developed delayed but effective control of lesion growth. A diminished parasite burden was accompanied by enhancement of both gamma interferon (IFN-γ) and interleukin-10 levels in the lesion-draining lymph nodes. The vaccine efficacy improved with time. At 4 months postvaccination, when a strong parasite-specific TH1-type response was present in vivo, the infection was controlled for at least 5 months after challenge. In contrast to the particulated LaAg, soluble LACK (10 μg/dose) had no effect. Interestingly, LACK DNA (30 μg/dose), but not empty DNA, promoted rapid and durable protective immunity. Parasite growth was effectively controlled, and at 5 months after challenge LACK-reactive cells in both the mucosal and lesion-draining lymph nodes produced high levels of IFN-γ. These results demonstrate for the first time the feasibility of using the intranasal route for long-lived memory vaccination against cutaneous leishmaniasis with adjuvant-free crude antigens or DNA.
Neutralinos and the Origin of Radio Halos in Clusters of Galaxies

We assume that the supersymmetric lightest neutralino is a good candidate for the cold dark matter in the galaxy halo and explore the possibility to produce extended diffuse radio emission from high-energy electrons arising from the neutralino annihilation in galaxy clusters whose intracluster medium is filled with a large-scale magnetic field. We show that these electrons fit the population of seed relativistic electrons that is postulated in many models for the origin of cluster radio halos. For a uniform magnetic field of ≈1-3 μG the population of seed relativistic electrons from neutralino annihilation can fit the radio halo spectra of two well-studied clusters: Coma and 1E 0657-56. In the case of a magnetic field that is radially decreasing from the cluster center, central values ≈8 μG (for Coma) and ≈50 μG (for 1E 0657-56) are required to fit the data. The radio halo data strongly favor a centrally peaked dark matter density profile (like a Navarro, Frenk, & White [NFW97] density profile). The shape and the frequency extension of the radio halo spectra are connected with the mass and physical composition of the neutralino. A pure gaugino neutralino with mass Mχ ≥ 80 GeV can reasonably fit the radio halo spectra of both Coma and 1E 0657-56. The model we present here provides a number of extra predictions that make it definitely testable. On the one hand, it agrees quite well with the observations that (1) the radio halo is centered on the cluster dynamical center, usually coincident with the center of its X-ray emission; (2) the radio halo surface brightness is similar to the X-ray one; and (3) the monochromatic radio luminosity at 1.4 GHz correlates strongly with the intracluster (IC) gas temperature. On the other hand, the same model predicts that radio halos should be present in every cluster, which is not presently observed, although the predicted radio halo luminosities can change (decrease) by factors of up to ~102-106, depending on the amplitude and the structure of the IC magnetic field. In addition, neutral pions arising from neutralino annihilation should give rise to substantial amounts of diffuse gamma-ray emission, up to energies of order Mχ, that could be tested by the next-generation gamma-ray experiments.
YBX1 Is a Modulator of MIA/CD-RAP-Dependent Chondrogenesis

MIA/CD-RAP is a small, secreted protein involved in cartilage differentiation and melanoma progression. We recently revealed that p54nrb acts as a mediator of MIA/CD-RAP action to promote chondrogenesis and the progression of malignant melanoma. As the molecular mechanism of MIA/CD-RAP action in cartilage has not been defined in detail until now, we aimed to understand the regulation of p54nrb transcription in chondrogenesis. We concentrated on the previously described MIA/CD-RAP-dependent regulatory region in the p54nrb promoter and characterized the transcriptional regulation of p54nrb by MIA/CD-RAP in cartilage. A series of truncated p54nrb promoter constructs and mutagenesis analysis revealed that the transcription factor YBX1, which has not been investigated in chondrogenesis thus far, is the mediator of MIA/CD-RAP dependent activation of p54nrb transcription. A systematic analysis of genes carrying this binding site in their promoter region revealed further potential MIA/CD-RAP-regulated genes that have been implicated in cartilage differentiation. In summary, we described the effects of MIA/CD-RAP on transcriptional regulation in chondrocytes. Understanding the regulation of p54nrb via YBX1 contributes to the understanding of chondrogenesis. Uncovering new downstream effectors that function via the activation of YBX1 supports the important role of MIA/CD-RAP in these processes.
Molecular Basis of Filamin A-FilGAP Interaction and Its Impairment in Congenital Disorders Associated with Filamin A Mutations

Background Mutations in filamin A (FLNa), an essential cytoskeletal protein with multiple binding partners, cause developmental anomalies in humans. Methodology/Principal Findings We determined the structure of the 23rd Ig repeat of FLNa (IgFLNa23) that interacts with FilGAP, a Rac-specific GTPase-activating protein and regulator of cell polarity and movement, and the effect of the three disease-related mutations on this interaction. A combination of NMR structural analysis and in silico modeling revealed the structural interface details between the C and D β-strands of the IgFLNa23 and the C-terminal 32 residues of FilGAP. Mutagenesis of the predicted key interface residues confirmed the binding constraints between the two proteins. Specific loss-of-function FLNa constructs were generated and used to analyze the importance of the FLNa-FilGAP interaction in vivo. Point mutagenesis revealed that disruption of the FLNa-FilGAP interface perturbs cell spreading. FilGAP does not bind FLNa homologs FLNb or FLNc establishing the importance of this interaction to the human FLNa mutations. Tight complex formation requires dimerization of both partners and the correct alignment of the binding surfaces, which is promoted by a flexible hinge domain between repeats 23 and 24 of FLNa. FLNa mutations associated with human developmental anomalies disrupt the binding interaction and weaken the elasticity of FLNa/F-actin network under high mechanical stress. Conclusions/Significance Mutational analysis informed by structure can generate reagents for probing specific cellular interactions of FLNa. Disease-related FLNa mutations have demonstrable effects on FLNa function.
Reassessment of the CAGE questionnaire by ROC/Taguchi methods

Objectives: The clinical assessment efficiency of the CAGE questionnaire for alcohol abuse based on diagnostic accuracy has not been fully established to date because of the varied and inconclusive gold standards used as diagnostic criteria. CAGE has also been highlighted to miss almost half of the risk-drinkers due to the use of inadequetly set criteria for the positive recognition of alcohol abuse. This study aims to establish the diagnostic accuracy of CAGE at different treatment settings. Methods: A hybrid of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and the Taguchi method was used, as this approach proved to evaluate the diagnostic performance and accuracy in hypothetical clinical settings. Data were used from three cross-clinical treatment settings, i.e., general medicine outpatients, medical inpatients, and psychiatric inpatients, and analyzed by means of a step-wise application of managable number of statistical indices such as the area under the ROC curve (AUC), leveling factor (p′), and signal-to-noise ratios (S/N; standardized S/N [SS/N]). Results: The selected settings yielded similar AUCs but portrayed different trade-offs on the ROC curves signaling the presence of different critical CAGE scores. Analysis of the sensitivity and specificity data of i, ii, iii by p′, S/N, SS/N and their dependent relation resulted in the critical CAGE scores of 1,1, and 2; and high diagnostic accuracy levels of 76.84 percent, 86 percent, and 76.84 percent, respectively. Conclusions: By setting these critical CAGE scores as the minimum detection levels of alcohol abuse, early intervention before the onset of serious alcohol-related problems is possible. This will decrease the health-care costs of the patient and, in addition, reduce the psychological and social burdens inherent to alcohol abuse both on the patient and society. Having its critical scores reliably identified and diagnostic accuracy fully determined, CAGE can now improve the detection rate of problem drinking individuals substantially.
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and emotional or behavioral disorders in primary grades: inappropriate placement in the learning disability category

There is evidence that students with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders (EBD) are often inappropriately placed in special education programs other than classrooms for Seriously and Emotionally Disturbed (SED) students. This paper examines the congruence between research-based classifications of children as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and EBD and the actual placement decisions made by the schools. Students in grades two through four referred to School Study Teams (SST) were participants in the study. An ethnically stratified sample of 150 students participated. Forty three of the children were classified as ADHD and 12 were classified as EBD by the project. The majority of these students received special education services under the category of Learning Disability (LD), while very few were qualified as eligible under the category of SED. Comparisons on measures of intelligence, achievement, and social skills revealed that ADHD and EBD children (i.e., behavior disordered children) did not differ on intelligence or achievement when compared to other at-risk nonbehavior disordered children; however, significant differences were found between these two groups on social skills measures. Similarly, ADHD and EBD children placed in LD programs did not differ on measures of intelligence and achievement when compared to nonbehavior disordered children, but did differ significantly on measures of social skills. The reluctance of schools to classify children as SED and instead utilize the LD designation is discussed. Language: en
Multi-dimensional Topic Modeling with Determinantal Point Processes

Probabilistic topics models such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) provide a useful and elegant tool for discovering hidden structure within large data sets of discrete data, such as corpuses of text. However, LDA implicitly discovers topics along only a single dimension. Recent research on multi-dimensional topic modeling aims to devise techniques that can discover multiple groups of topics, where each group models some different dimension, or aspect, of the data. For example, applying a multi-dimensional topic modeling algorithm to a text corpus could result in three dimensions that turn out to represent “subject,” “sentiment,” and “political ideology. ” In this work, we present a new multi-dimensional topic model that uses a determinantal point process prior to encourage different groups of topics to model different dimensions of the data. Determinantal point processes are probabilistic models of repulsive phenomena which originated in statistical physics but have recently seen interest from the machine learning community. Though topic models are usually applied to text, we motivate our method with the problem of discovering “tastes” (topics) in a data set of recipes that have been rated by users of a cooking web site. We present both an unsupervised algorithm, which discovers dimensions and their tastes automatically, and a semisupervised algorithm, which allows the modeler to steer the tastes (topics) towards ones that will be semantically meaningful, by “seeding” each taste with a small number of representative recipes (words). Our results on the recipe data set are mixed, but we are hopeful that the general technique presented here might very well prove useful to multi-dimensional topic modeling in other domains.
Brainstem cavernous malformations.

the age difference in our cases and controls, we are not convinced that this would bias our case group to contain fewer cases of symptomatic tonsillar ectopia. Fibromyalgia (FM) is generally diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, and it typically takes 5 or more years from symptom onset to final diagnosis. Therefore, although we do not have data regarding age at onset in our FM group, this reasonably correlates with the mean age at onset of symptoms in Chiari I malformation (24.9 6 15.8 years). With this in mind, the fact that our case group was older more likely implicates long-standing misdiagnosis than biasing the study against symptomatic tonsillar ectopia. Regardless, the point is moot because Chiari I malformation was not associated with FM in our study group and our regression analysis was adjusted for age and found no difference between the 2 groups in tonsillar position. We did find evidence of abnormalities on neurological examination in our FM group suggestive of craniocervical neuroanatomic abnormality, heightening our interest in neuroimaging of the craniocervical junction. Although we found no substantial craniocervical pathology in our FM group, we are not convinced that this settles the issue. FM tends to occur after motor vehicle accidents, surgery, or other trauma, particularly trauma to the neck. Our study only assessed the cervical spine to C4 and did not assess for dynamic compromise of the cervical cord. Future investigations are needed to ensure that we are not being misled by studies of static images of the cervical cord because intermittent cord compromise is a potential mechanism for chronic widespread pain.
Oral acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) challenge in asthmatic children

Thirty‐two asthmatic children, mean age 9.6 years (range: 6–14 years), were studied by oral challenge with acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin), and their PEFR was recorded at 30 min intervals for 3 hr. They had been asthmatic for a mean of 7.1 years. Other allergic symptoms (urticaria, rhinitis or atopic dermatitis), were present in 81% of the patients, and a family history of atopy in 94%; the mean blood eosinophilia was 590 cells per mm3. In three children aspirin induced a fall in PEFR values less than 8% which was non‐significant. In the group as a whole there was an increase in the PEFR values of 13.9%, 150 min after aspirin challenge. These values where subjected to statistical analysis (Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Student's and Wilcoxon tests), which showed this increase to be significant at a level of P= 0.001. Possible mechanisms involving prostaglandin synthetase inhibition by aspirin are discussed as an explanation for this increase.
The next 700 BFT protocols

Modern Byzantine fault-tolerant state machine replication (BFT) protocols involve about 20,000 lines of challenging C++ code encompassing synchronization, networking and cryptography. They are notoriously difficult to develop, test and prove. We present a new abstraction to simplify these tasks. We treat a BFT protocol as a composition of instances of our abstraction. Each instance is developed and analyzed independently. To illustrate our approach, we first show how our abstraction can be used to obtain the benefits of a state-of-the-art BFT protocol with much less pain. Namely, we develop AZyzzyva, a new protocol that mimics the behavior of Zyzzyva in best-case situations (for which Zyzzyva was optimized) using less than 24% of the actual code of Zyzzyva. To cover worst-case situations, our abstraction enables to use in AZyzzyva any existing BFT protocol, typically, a classical one like PBFT which has been tested and proved correct. We then present Aliph, a new BFT protocol that outperforms previous BFT protocols both in terms of latency (by up to 30%) and throughput (by up to 360%). The development of Aliph required two new instances of our abstraction. Each instance contains less than 25% of the code needed to develop state-of-the-art BFT protocols.
A New Congestion Control Algorithm for High Speed Networks

- Nowadays, more and more applications require fast transfer of massive data over networks, and the emergence of high-speed networks provide an ideal solution to this challenge. Due to the limitations of the conservative congestion control algorithm, the standard TCP is no longer appropriate for high-speed networks to efficiently utilize the bandwidth resources. A new congestion control algorithm for high-speed networks. It uses packet loss information to determine whether the window size should be increased or decreased, and uses queuing delay information to determine the amount of increment or decrement.
Strong Stackelberg reasoning in symmetric games: An experimental replication and extension

In common interest games in which players are motivated to coordinate their strategies to achieve a jointly optimal outcome, orthodox game theory provides no general reason or justification for choosing the required strategies. In the simplest cases, where the optimal strategies are intuitively obvious, human decision makers generally coordinate without difficulty, but how they achieve this is poorly understood. Most theories seeking to explain strategic coordination have limited applicability, or require changes to the game specification, or introduce implausible assumptions or radical departures from fundamental game-theoretic assumptions. The theory of strong Stackelberg reasoning, according to which players choose strategies that would maximize their own payoffs if their co-players could invariably anticipate any strategy and respond with a best reply to it, avoids these problems and explains strategic coordination in all dyadic common interest games. Previous experimental evidence has provided evidence for strong Stackelberg reasoning in asymmetric games. Here we report evidence from two experiments consistent with players being influenced by strong Stackelberg reasoning in a wide variety of symmetric 3 × 3 games but tending to revert to other choice criteria when strong Stackelberg reasoning generates small payoffs.