Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Specific sequences in the N-terminal domain of human small heat-shock protein HSPB6 dictate preferential hetero-oligomerization with the orthologue HSPB1

Small heat-shock proteins (sHSPs) are a conserved group of molecular chaperones with important roles in cellular proteostasis. Although sHSPs are characterized by their small monomeric weight, they typically assemble into large polydisperse oligomers that vary in both size and shape but are principally composed of dimeric building blocks. These assemblies can include different sHSP orthologues, creating additional complexity that may affect chaperone activity. However, the structural and functional properties of such hetero-oligomers are poorly understood. We became interested in hetero-oligomer formation between human heat-shock protein family B (small) member 1 (HSPB1) and HSPB6, which are both highly expressed in skeletal muscle. When mixed in vitro, these two sHSPs form a polydisperse oligomer array composed solely of heterodimers, suggesting preferential association that is determined at the monomer level. Previously, we have shown that the sHSP N-terminal domains (NTDs), which have a high degree of intrinsic disorder, are essential for the biased formation. Here we employed iterative deletion mapping to elucidate how the NTD of HSPB6 influences its preferential association with HSPB1 and show that this region has multiple roles in this process. First, the highly conserved motif RLFDQXFG is necessary for subunit exchange among oligomers. Second, a site ∼20 residues downstream of this motif determines the size of the resultant hetero-oligomers. Third, a region unique to HSPB6 dictates the preferential formation of heterodimers. In conclusion, the disordered NTD of HSPB6 helps regulate the size and stability of hetero-oligomeric complexes, indicating that terminal sHSP regions define the assembly properties of these proteins.
MaSiF: Machine learning guided auto-tuning of Parallel Skeletons

We present MaSiF, a novel tool to auto-tune parallelization parameters of skeleton parallel programs. It reduces the cost of searching the optimization space using a combination of machine learning and linear dimensionality reduction. To auto-tune a new program, a set of program features is determined statically and used to compute k nearest neighbors from a set of training programs. Previously collected performance data for the nearest neighbors is used to reduce the size of the search space using Principal Components Analysis. This results in a set of eigenvectors that are used to search the reduced space. MaSiF achieves 88% of the performance of the oracle, which searches a random set of 10,000 parameter values. MaSiF searches just 45 points, or 0.45% of the optimization space, to achieve this performance. MaSiF provides an average speedup of 1.18x over parallelization parameters chosen by a human expert.
What is popular on Wikipedia and why?

This paper analyzes which pages and topics are the most popular on Wikipedia and why. For the period of September 2006 to January 2007, the 100 most visited Wikipedia pages in a month are identified and categorized in terms of the major topics of interest. The observed topics are compared with search behavior on the Web. Search queries, which are identical to the titles of the most popular Wikipedia pages, are submitted to major search engines and the positions of popular Wikipedia pages in the top 10 search results are determined. The presented data helps to explain how search engines, and Google in particular, fuel the growth and shape what is popular on Wikipedia.
SOMATIC AWARENESS IN ANXIOUS YOUTH: RELATING TRAIT AND SITUATIONAL SYMPTOMS TO NEURAL MECHANISMS OF THREAT-PROCESSING

The current study examined the relationship between self-reported somatic symptomatology and neural patterns of threat-processing in anxious youth. It attempted to merge discrepant findings regarding somatic awareness in anxiety by differentiating between more chronic somatic anxiety symptoms and an experiential (“situational”) awareness of bodily symptoms in response to an acute stressor. Forty-two adolescents (ages 9-13), meeting DSM-IV criteria for GAD, Social Phobia, and/or Separation Anxiety completed a classic dot-probe task in which they indicated the location of a probe that replaced either threatening or neutral faces. Mean BOLD responses on to threat trials were extracted for anatomically defined regions of interest that have been related to anxiety, and this activity was correlated with self-reported somatic subscale scores. Results indicated that, within a sample of anxious youth, chronic somatic anxiety symptomatology was negatively correlated with sustained bilateral amygdala activity, while situational somatic symptomatology was associated with increased sustained bilateral anterior insula and caudal anterior cingulate activity. Thus, patients who display blunted emotional reactivity to mild threat cues may be more prone to chronic somatic anxiety symptoms. In addition, patients who maintain an awareness of interoceptive cues during low-grade threat-processing may be more likely to notice and report bodily cues under periods of more acute threat.
B-spline Shape from Motion & Shading: An Automatic Free-form Surface Modeling for Face Reconstruction

Recently, many methods have been proposed for face reconstruction from multiple images, most of which involve fundamental principles of Shape from Shading and Structure from motion. However, a majority of the methods just generate discrete surface model of face. In this paper, B-spline Shape from Motion and Shading (BsSfMS) is proposed to reconstruct continuous B-spline surface for multi-view face images, according to an assumption that shading and motion information in the images contain 1st- and 0th-order derivative of B-spline face respectively. Face surface is expressed as a B-spline surface that can be reconstructed by optimizing B-spline control points. Therefore, normals and 3D feature points computed from shading and motion of images respectively are used as the 1st- and 0th- order derivative information, to be jointly applied in optimizing the B-spline face. Additionally, an IMLS (iterative multi-least-square) algorithm is proposed to handle the difficult control point optimization. Furthermore, synthetic samples and LFW dataset are introduced and conducted to verify the proposed approach, and the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness with different poses, illuminations, expressions etc., even with wild images.
Context-driven activation of odor representations in the absence of olfactory stimuli in the olfactory bulb and piriform cortex

Sensory neural activity is highly context dependent and shaped by experience and expectation. In the olfactory bulb (OB), the first cerebral relay of olfactory processing, responses to odorants are shaped by previous experiences including contextual information thanks to strong feedback connections. In the present experiment, mice were conditioned to associate an odorant with a visual context and were then exposed to the visual context alone. We found that the visual context alone elicited exploration of the odor port similar to that elicited by the stimulus when it was initially presented. In the OB, the visual context alone elicited a neural activation pattern, assessed by mapping the expression of the immediate early gene zif268 (egr-1) that was highly similar to that evoked by the conditioned odorant, but not other odorants. This OB activation was processed by olfactory network as it was transmitted to the piriform cortex. Interestingly, a novel context abolished neural and behavioral responses. In addition, the neural representation in response to the context was dependent on top-down inputs, suggesting that context-dependent representation is initiated in cortex. Modeling of the experimental data suggests that odor representations are stored in cortical networks, reactivated by the context and activate bulbar representations. Activation of the OB and the associated behavioral response in the absence of physical stimulus showed that mice are capable of internal representations of sensory stimuli. The similarity of activation patterns induced by imaged and the corresponding physical stimulus, triggered only by the relevant context provides evidence for an odor-specific internal representation.
Bone fracture risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are predisposed to osteoporotic fracture. The present study aims to determine the association between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and bone fracture risk, and in relation to gender and site-specific fractures. Methods: Studies related to bone fracture in patients with RA were searched from databases including PubMed, EMBASE, and OVID from inception through April 2016. The quality of the studies was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Meta-analysis was performed with Stata13.1 software. The results were reported based on risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) using a random effects model. Results: The meta-analysis of 13 studies showed a significant higher risk of bone fracture in patients with RA than in patients without RA (RR = 2.25, 95% CI [1.76–2.87]). Subgroup analyses showed that both female and male patients with RA had increased risk of fracture when compared with female and male patients without RA (female: RR = 1.99, 95% CI [1.58–2.50]; male: RR = 1.87, 95% CI [1.48–2.37]). Another subgroup analysis of site-specific fracture also showed that RA is positively correlated with the incidence of vertebral fracture (RR = 2.93, 95% CI [2.25–3.83]) or hip fracture (RR = 2.41, 95% CI [1.83–3.17]). Conclusion: RA is a risk factor for bone fracture in both men and women, with comparable risks of fractures at the vertebral and hip.
The Study of Applying Incremental Classification for a New P2P e-learning System

Abstrac t During the learning process, sharing and participating is the important thing. Efficiently using the learning contents has been an active research topic in developing the educational material. It probes the environment of the learning process through Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). Peer to Peer (P2P) technology seems to be the most well suited mechanism to deal with the problems that the users have the difficult time to find the usable information and do not want to participate. In this paper, we explore an e-learning prototype based on P2P. It consists of 3-layer structure and uses P2P's concepts and methods. This e-learning system uses incremental kNN algorithm to analyze the data, combines of the SCORM's metadata information and the records of learners used particular contents. It improves the disadvantages of Napster and Gnutella, and features with content feature classification, file index distribution, overloading, and user's query.
Postmodernist Identity Construction and Consumption

With the transition from modernism to post-modernism, identity as a concept has started to become redefined in sociology literature. The aim of this study is to show that post-modernism and symbolic interactionism are fused together to determine both the scene as well as an actor's identity. In that way, the interaction of a social structure with a culture won't be completely ignored, and, with the opinion that the categorized roles can skilfully be shaped and diversified by actors, they are then able to move away from a pure determinism. However, individuals pay more attention to their appearance more than who they are in order to be accepted by each group. In this manner, a metaphysical shell game begins. In the following study, the 'Social Appearance Anxiety' is used as an indicator of this game. This study was based on the analysis of the data collected through a questionnaire given to 181 students studying at Hitit University. The INDCOL [Singelis et al., 1995] was used to determine the cultural values of students in four dimensions; namely, vertical individualism-collectivism, and, horizontal individualism-collectivism. To measure the 'Social Appearance Anxiety', the validity of the Turkish version of the scale developed by Hart et al. in 2008 [Dogan, 2010] was used. The findings show that individuals having greater vertical individualistic value are more malleable to have social appearance anxiety. The findings also indicate that individuals having more collectivist value are not affected by this kind of anxiety. Also, the new generation of advertisements especially emphasizes the importance of appearance. Due to this trend, a person's Social Appearance Anxiety can result in excessive consumption for the more individualistic individual
Treatment strategies for dystonia

Importance of the field: Dystonia is a neurological syndrome characterized by involuntary twisting movements and unnatural postures. It has many different manifestations and causes, and many different treatment options are available. These options include physical and occupational therapy, oral medications, intramuscular injection of botulinum toxins, and neurosurgical interventions. Areas covered in this review: In this review, we first summarize the treatment options available, then we provide suggestions from our own experience for how these can be applied in different types of dystonia. In preparing this review article, an extensive literature search was undertaken using PubMed. Only selected references from 1970 to 2008 are cited. What the reader will gain: This review is intended to provide the clinician with a practical guide to the treatment of dystonia. Take home message: Treatment of dystonia begins with proper diagnosis and classification, followed by an appropriate search for underlying etiology, and an assessment of the functional impairment associated with the dystonia. The therapeutic approach, which is usually limited to symptomatic therapy, must then be tailored to the individual needs of the patient.
On hardware implementation of fuzzy processing

Digital architecture of fuzzy processor is proposed. All blocks - fuzzy sets (triangular), rule strength calculation (minimum) and defuzzyfication (weighted sum) were implemented in VHDL, verified and synthesized for FPGA. Implementation of floating point division block appeared to be the most difficult part of the design. Partially concurrent and pipelined data flow provides competitive performance, with relatively little dependence on particular algorithm complexity.
Modeling 3D textured objects by fusion of multiple views

For modeling 3D objects, the object geometry is often not sufficient. Better appearance can be obtained by texture mapping which efficiently combines good appearance resolution with small geometric complexity. This paper presents a way to create such texture mapped 3D models of free-form objects, by integrating textured views obtained from range images. The three main steps consist of the following: first, texture-mapped views of the object are obtained from a 3D scanner. Then, the different views are registered, considering geometric and color information of overlapping grids. Finally, meshes can be fused by using a new overlap-removing method that keeps most of the existing triangulation and texture mapping unchanged.
Unsupervised Learning of Generalized Names

We present an algorithm, NOMEN, for learning generalized names in text. Examples of these are names of diseases and infectious agents, such as bacteria and viruses. These names exhibit certain properties that make their identification more complex than that of regular proper names, NOMEN uses a novel form of bootstrapping to grow sets of textual instances and of their contextual patterns. The algorithm makes use of competing evidence to boost the learning of several categories of names simultaneously. We present results of the algorithm on a large corpus. We also investigate the relative merits of several evaluation strategies.
An anthropological account of the Vim text editor: features and tweaks after 10 years of usage

The Vim text editor is very rich in capabilities and thus complex. This article is a description of Vim and a set of considerations about its usage and design. It results from more than ten years of experience in using Vim for writing and editing various types of documents, e.g. Python, C++, JavaScript, ChucK programs; \LaTeX, Markdown, HTML, RDF, Make and other markup files; % TTM binary files. It is commonplace, in the Vim users and developers communities, to say that it takes about ten years to master (or start mastering) this text editor, and I find that other experienced users have a different view of Vim and that they use a different set of features. Therefore, this document exposes my understandings in order to confront my usage with that of other Vim users. Another goal is to make available a reference document with which new users can grasp a sound overview by reading it and the discussions that it might generate. Also, it should be useful for users of any degree of experience, including me, as a compendium of commands, namespaces and tweaks. Upon feedback, and maturing of my Vim usage, this document might be enhanced and expanded.
Adaptable Software Retrieval Service for Wireless Environments Based on Mobile Agents

One of the most frequent tasks using any kind of computer is the retrieval of new software, that is commonly downloaded from websites that offer freeware, shareware and demos, such as Tucows. However, naive users must deal with too many technical details in order to take advantage of these facilities. Moreover, navigating those websites without exactly knowing what we look for results in high communication costs, specially for wireless device users. In this paper we present a Software Retrieval Service that, first, allows users to obtain software by browsing a catalog (that contains a semantic description of software available at different repositories), and second, it minimizes the use of the network by adapting its behavior to the current network status. The service has been developed using mobile agent technology. In the paper we describe the main elements that take part of the service and stress how the system adapts its behavior to the current network status.
Prediction of Self-Similar Traffic and its Application in Network Bandwidth Allocation

In this paper, traffic prediction models based on chaos theory are studied and compared with FARIMA (fractional autoregressive integrated moving average) predictors by means of the adopted measurements of predictability. The traffic prediction results are applied in the bandwidth allocation of a mesh network, and the OPNET simulation platform is developed in order to compare their effects. The adopted predictability measurements are inadequate because although the chaotic predictor based on the Lyapunov exponent with worse values of the measurements can timely predict the burstiness of self- similar traffic, the FARIMA predictor forecasts the burstiness with a time-delay. The DAMA (dynamic assignment multiaccess) bandwidth allocation strategy combined with the chaotic predictor can provide better QoS performance.
GeoVisualisation of SAPO Search Activity

The objective of this paper is to report on the research inherent to the conceptualisation and prototyping of an Information Visualisation system centred on the task of conveying meaning to user interaction data collected by the SAPO Broker web service. SAPO Broker, a real-time monitoring application that collects data regarding activity within the SAPO Web Portal, collects a large set of data with the main purpose of assisting visualisation and analysis of tasks linked to georeferenced web searches performed on the portal. The research and its results where guided according to two major challenges: i) design an appropriate visual metaphor capable of appropriately integrating the collected data for a specific target audience, technology set and context of use; ii) design intuitive and relevant interaction tools able to assist this particular data analysis.
Profiling phlorotannins in brown macroalgae by liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry.

INTRODUCTION Phlorotannins, phenolic compounds produced exclusively by Phaeophyceae (brown algae), have recently been associated with a wide variety of beneficial bioactivities. Several studies have measured the total phenolic content in extracts from various species, but little characterisation of individual phlorotannin components has been demonstrated. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to develop a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based method for rapid profiling of phlorotannins in brown algae. METHODOLOGY Phlorotannin-enriched extracts from five phaeophyceaen species were analysed by ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) operating in hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) mode combined with high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). The method was optimised using an extract of Fucus vesiculosus; separation was achieved in less than 15 min. The basic mobile phase enhanced negative-ion electrospray ionisation (ESI), and generated multiply charged ions that allowed detection of high molecular weight phlorotannins. RESULTS The phlorotannin profiles of Pelvetia canaliculata, Fucus spiralis, F. vesiculosus, Ascophyllum nodosum and Saccharina longicruris differed significantly. Fucus vesiculosus yielded a high abundance of low molecular weight (< 1200 Da) phlorotannins, while P. canaliculata exhibited a more evenly distributed profile, with moderate degrees of polymerisation ranging from 3 to 49. HRMS enabled the identification of phlorotannins with masses up to 6000 Da using a combination of accurate mass and ¹³C isotopic patterns. CONCLUSION The UHPLC-HRMS method described was successful in rapidly profiling phlorotannins in brown seaweeds based on their degree of polymerisation. HILIC was demonstrated to be an effective separation mode, particularly for low molecular weight phlorotannins.
Continuing Professional Development in Kuwaiti Academic Libraries

This study investigates the current state of continuing professional development activities for information professionals in academic libraries, as well as their perceptions of the value of different continuing professional development activities. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 63 librarians and information professionals working at five Kuwaiti academic libraries, located in two public and three private universities. The findings of the study revealed that, generally, information professionals in academic libraries are of the opinion that they possess personal and professional skills that enable them to serve library users. Moreover, continuing professional development activities and programs are perceived as important for developing a professional workforce and maintaining professional competence.