Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reification and Fetishism: Processes of Transformation

Reification, fetishism, alienation, mastery, and control – these are some of the key concepts of modernity that have been battered and beaten by postmoderns and nonmoderns alike, with Bruno Latour, a nonmodern, discarding them most recently. Critical of this approach, which creates a rift between moderns and nonmoderns, the author engages in dialogue with modern thinkers – particularly Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann and Stanley Pullberg – with a view to recycling and redefining the concept of reification from a nonmodern perspective. Marxian scholars associate reification with an attitude of detachment and passivity. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Luvale-speaking region of northwest Zambia, Africa, the author seeks to convert the negative and asymmetrical Marxian reading of reification, which places subjects above objects, to a positive symmetry. Marx explained the capitalist economy through the lens of religion. Reversing the direction of symmetrical comparison, the author considers the northwestern Zambian universe of ancestors and their different mahamba manifestations in the form of spiritual beings, diseased bodies and material objects through the lens of Marxian concepts, mainly reification and fetishism. Three aspects of reification understood as a human universal come to light: first, reification and animation entail each other both in the realms of materiality (human bodies and material objects) and immateriality (concepts and spirits), being best perceived as a form of fetishism. Reifacts are fetishes and fetishes are reifacts. Second, because fetishes are animated and do things, reification is a form of engagement with the world, a means to action and a tool for transformation. Third and last, and without contradiction, reification entails engagement and detachment, action and withdrawal, control and surrender. There is much to gain from recycling the old concept of reification. In a non-partisan symmetrical perspective, the redefinition of reification as fetishism yields a new, positive understanding of the place of material and immaterial things in social life and the ways in which we humans apprehend the world and implicate those things in our projects and struggles. Reification is not an impediment to action but a condition for action.
A novel fuzzy neural network estimator for predicting hypoglycaemia in insulin-induced subjects

Predicting the onset of hypoglycaemia can avoid major health complications in Type I insulin-dependent-diabetes-mellitus (IDDM) patients. This paper describes the design of a novel fuzzy neural network estimator algorithm (FNNE) for predicting the glycaemia profile and onset of hypoglycaemia in insulin-induced subjects, by modelling the changes in heart rate and skin impedance parameters. Hypoglycaemia was induced briefly in 12 volunteers (group A: 6 non-diabetic subjects and group B: 6 Type 1 IDDM patients) using insulin infusion. Their skin impedances, heart rates and actual blood glucose levels (BGL) were monitored at regular intervals. The FNNE algorithm was trained using all subjects from group A and validated/tested on the remaining subjects from group B. The mean error of estimation of BGL profile for the training data set (group A) was 0.107 (p < 0.05) and for the validation/test data set (group B) was 0.139 (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the FNNE algorithm was able to predict the onset of hypoglycaemia episodes in group A and group B with a mean error of 0.071 (p < 0.03) and 0. 176 (p < 0.05) respectively.
A Customized Vision System for Tracking Humans Wearing Reflective Safety Clothing from Industrial Vehicles and Machinery

This article presents a novel approach for vision-based detection and tracking of humans wearing high-visibility clothing with retro-reflective markers. Addressing industrial applications where heavy vehicles operate in the vicinity of humans, we deploy a customized stereo camera setup with active illumination that allows for efficient detection of the reflective patterns created by the worker's safety garments. After segmenting reflective objects from the image background, the interest regions are described with local image feature descriptors and classified in order to discriminate safety garments from other reflective objects in the scene. In a final step, the trajectories of the detected humans are estimated in 3D space relative to the camera. We evaluate our tracking system in two industrial real-world work environments on several challenging video sequences. The experimental results indicate accurate tracking performance and good robustness towards partial occlusions, body pose variation, and a wide range of different illumination conditions.
Assessing Function and Endurance in Adults with Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy: Validity of the Adult Myopathy Assessment Tool

Purpose. The adult myopathy assessment tool (AMAT) is a performance-based battery comprised of functional and endurance subscales that can be completed in approximately 30 minutes without the use of specialized equipment. The purpose of this study was to determine the construct validity and internal consistency of the AMAT with a sample of adults with spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA). Methods. AMAT validity was assessed in 56-male participants with genetically confirmed SBMA (mean age, 53 ± 10 years). The participants completed the AMAT and assessments for disease status, strength, and functional status. Results. Lower AMAT scores were associated with longer disease duration (r = −0.29; P < 0.03) and lower serum androgen levels (r = 0.49–0.59; P < 0.001). The AMAT was significantly correlated with strength and functional status (r = 0.82–0.88; P < 0.001). The domains of the AMAT exhibited good internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.77–0.89; P < 0.001). Conclusions. The AMAT is a standardized, performance-based tool that may be used to assess functional limitations and muscle endurance. The AMAT has good internal consistency, and the construct validity of the AMAT is supported by its significant associations with hormonal, strength, and functional characteristics of adults with SBMA. This trial is registered with Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT00303446.
An adaptive algorithm to prevent SQL injection

SQL Injection attacks are one of the top most threats for application written for the web. SQL Injection is a type of attack in which the attacker uses SQL commands to gain access or make changes to data. It allows attacker to obtain unauthorized access to the database to change the intended queries. In the web environment, end user privacy is one of the most controversial legal issues. Using SQL Injection, an attacker can leak confidential information such as credit card no. ATM Pin, User Credentials etc from the web applications or even corrupts the database. An unauthorized access to this much of confidential data by an attacker can threat to user confidentiality. In this paper, we had surveyed existing techniques against SQL Injection and analyzed their advantages and disadvantages and proposed a novel and effective solution to avoid attacks on login phase.
Beyond single syllables: The effect of first syllable frequency and orthographic similarity on eye movements during silent reading

The study assessed the eye movements of 60 adult German readers during silent reading of target words, consisting of two and three syllables, embedded in sentences. The first objective was to assess whether the inhibitory effect of first syllable frequency, which was up to now primarily shown for isolated words, generalises to natural reading. The second objective was to assess the effect of orthographic similarity. First syllable frequency was defined phonologically and was based on the SUBTLEX norms for spoken language [Brysbaert et al. (2011). The word frequency effect: A review of recent developments and implications for the choice of frequency estimates in German. Experimental Psychology, 58, 412–424]. Orthographic similarity was indexed by orthographic Levenshtein distance neighbourhood frequency (NF) [Yarkoni, T. , Balota, D. & Yap, M. (2008). Moving beyond Coltheart's N: A new measure of orthographic similarity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 971–979]. We found inhibitory effects for first syllable frequency and for orthographic NF. First syllable frequency affected first fixation duration which was considered as reflecting early effects in visual word recognition. Orthographic NF affected “late” measures. These findings show that, first, the effect of first syllable frequency does generalise to silent reading. Second, the effect of orthographic NF, up to now investigated only for short words in the context of English, does generalise to multisyllabic words in the German orthography. Relating the effects to the individual reading rate of the participants revealed that the effects were consistent in fast readers but highly variable in slow readers.
Jordanian Pre‐service Teachers' Perceptions of the Portfolio as a Reflective Learning Tool

This study investigates how portfolios support pre‐service teachers' learning to teach. The findings revealed that the portfolio provides pre‐service teachers with productive learning experiences which help them develop their library use, knowledge, skills, attitudes, personal traits, motivation to learn, interpersonal relationships and an information source. The respondents were found to consider the portfolio a highly effective tool in their learning to teach.
Regulation of mucosal immune responses by recombinant interleukin 10 produced by intestinal epithelial cells in mice.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Interleukin (IL)-10 is a cytokine with anti-inflammatory properties. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of a site-specific delivery of IL-10 on intestinal immune responses. METHODS Transgenic mice were created in which IL-10 is expressed by the intestinal epithelial cells. RESULTS Transgenic mice showed a marked increase in the number of intraepithelial lymphocytes in the small intestine. Mucosal lymphocytes of transgenic animals produced fewer T helper type 1 cytokines than wild-type lymphocytes. By contrast, the production of transforming growth factor beta was increased. Moreover, the epithelial layer in transgenic mice was significantly enriched for CD4(+)CD25(+) T cells. Furthermore, transgenic mice had increased numbers of immunoglobulin A-producing B cells in the small intestine. These effects were local because splenic lymphocytes were not affected. Studies in models of inflammatory bowel disease showed that transgenic IL-10 was able to attenuate the acute colitis induced by dextran sodium sulfate administration or by adoptive transfer of CD4(+)CD45RB(high) splenocytes, with a modest effect on the chronic intestinal inflammation arising spontaneously in IL-10(-/-) mice. CONCLUSIONS These observations provide evidence for an in vivo lymphoepithelial cross talk, by which cytokines locally produced by epithelial cells can regulate immune responses in the intestine without systemic modifications.
Apoptosis and lung cancer: A review

It is important to understand the molecular events that contribute to drug‐induced apoptosis, and how tumors evade apoptotic death. Defects in apoptosis are implicated in both tumorigenesis and drug resistance, and these defects are cause of chemotherapy failures. These studies should explain the relationship between cancer genetics and treatment sensitivity, and should enable a more rational approach to anticancer drug design and therapy. Lung cancer is a major cause of cancer deaths throughout the world. Small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) and non‐small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) represent the two major categories of lung cancer that differ in their sensitivity to undergo apoptosis. The role of apoptosis regulation in lung cancer with major focus on the differential sensitivities of the major subtypes is reviewed. J. Cell. Biochem. 88: 885–898, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Embedded Organizational Events: the Units Ofprocess in Organization Science

Analyses of the events that occur in the context of organization process are rapidly advancing. Scholars holding otherwise disparate views share the sense that social actors, including organizations, attend to, interpret, and act upon events. Analyses of events are converging from two theoretical and methodological starting points. Analyses that emphasize human subjectivity and contextual specificity are seeking increased cross-situational learning. Nomothetic analyses are building on their strength in cross-situational learning by striving to represent the way subjects themselves construct events in relation to context. Rather than continuing to analyze classic organizational and environmental dimensions like formalization, general uncertainty, munificence, and stability, scholars are increasingly analyzing the qualities of events and the meanings they are given. They are treating events as elements that social actors abstract from social processes, and social actors as parties who interact to give events meaning. The present paper defines event analyzes its origins and current uses, and indicates how using and going beyond lessons from physics can promote organization studies. These lessons come from the analysis of physical events as particles in relation to waves, fields, and perspectives. The uniquely social element of potential takes us beyond the experience of physical science.
USING TEXT STRUCTURE TO IMPROVE OLDER ADULTS' RECALL OF IMPORTANT MEDICAL INFORMATION

This study makes use of the “levels effect” in prose recall to increase older adults' recall of important medical information. Seventy older adults (over 65) read and recalled two passages containing medical information about hypertension and arthritis. Half of the adults read the passages in which the text structure had been revised so that target ideas (identified as important by physician consultants) were located at the highest levels of the content structure. Recall of target ideas, details, and total number of ideas were investigated. Results showed an increase in recall of target ideas for the revised passages. Education, medical condition, and age also affected recall to differing degrees depending on the measure studied. The results indicate that older adults remain sensitive to differences in prose structure and that their memory for important information can be improved by use of principles developed with younger subject groups.
Estimation of bathymetric depth and slope from data assimilation of swath altimetry into a hydrodynamic model

The proposed Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission would provide measurements of water surface elevation (WSE) for characterization of storage change and discharge. River channel bathymetry is a significant source of uncertainty in estimating discharge from WSE measurements, however. In this paper, we demonstrate an ensemble‐based data assimilation (DA) methodology for estimating bathymetric depth and slope from WSE measurements and the LISFLOOD‐FP hydrodynamic model. We performed two proof‐of‐concept experiments using synthetically generated SWOT measurements. The experiments demonstrated that bathymetric depth and slope can be estimated to within 3.0 microradians or 50 cm, respectively, using SWOT WSE measurements, within the context of our DA and modeling framework. We found that channel bathymetry estimation accuracy is relatively insensitive to SWOT measurement error, because uncertainty in LISFLOOD‐FP inputs (such as channel roughness and upstream boundary conditions) is likely to be of greater magnitude than measurement error.
Sparse modelling and predictive coding of subaperture images for lossless plenoptic image compression

This paper studies the lossless compression of rectified light-field images captured by plenoptic cameras, exploiting the high similarity existing between the subaperture images, or views, composing the light-field image. The encoding is predictive, where one sparse predictor is designed for every region of a view, using as regressors the pixels from the already transmitted views. As a first step, consistent segmentations for all subaperture images are constructed, defining the regions as connected components in the quantized depth map of the central view, and then propagating them to all side views. The sparse predictors are able to take into account the small horizontal and vertical disparities between regions in corresponding close-by views and perform optimal least squares interpolation accounting implicitly for fractional disparities. The optimal structure of the sparse predictor is selected for each region based on an implementable description length. The encoding of the views is done sequentially starting from the central view and the scheme produces results better than standard lossless compression methods utilized directly on the full lightfield image or applied to the views in a similar sequential order as our method.
Statechart methodology for the design, validation, and synthesis of large scale asynchronous systems

We apply a novel methodology, based on statecharts, for the design of large scale asynchronous systems. The EXV CAD tool offers specification at multiple levels, simulation, animation, and compilation into synthesizable VHDL code. EXV has some verification capabilities, and we add a validation sub-system EXV is originally synchronous, but we discuss how to employ it for asynchronous design. The tool is demonstrated through a simple FSM.
Category and letter fluency in highly educated older adults.

Performance on letter and category fluency was studied in a group of 478 healthy, highly intelligent and educated, older adults (aged 55 to 94 years). The aim of the study was to determine and contrast the effects of age, sex, and intelligence (estimated by the NAART) on letter (FAS) and category (fruits, animal, vegetables) verbal fluency performance. Significant effects were found for age and NAART error score on all fluency scores. However, these effects were small in magnitude. The NAART was found to be a better predictor of verbal fluency scores than education. The relative sensitivity of letter and category fluency to age was not significantly different. Sex was related to performance for the categories of fruits and vegetables, with women outperforming men. Separate mean values for fluency measures are provided for different ages, NAART error scores, educational level, and sex.
Information Theoretic Similarity Measures for Inter-domain Predicate Mapping

The development of similarity functions for firstorder logic predicates and argument types is the initial step in the development of techniques for inter-domain predicate mapping. Predicate mappings established across textual data sources can be applied in federated text search during resource selection, and by systems such as Markov Logic Networks for transfer learning. In this work, we propose similarity functions for mapping predicates and argument types. Each predicate is represented by a mutual information matrix characterizing statistical associations between predicate arguments. Drawbacks of using the Euclidean distance function as a similarity measure are discussed and mitigated in our approach. We also demonstrate that variations in the numbers of groundings of predicates have a significant and undesirable impact on their similarity scores, and propose a normalization scheme to address this deficiency. Preliminary experimental results on real world datasets collected from the web demonstrate the effects of normalization of mutual information matrices and the resulting invariance of the similarity functions to variations in the numbers of groundings of predicates. The results also show that predicates that encode the same type of relations (e.g., one-to-many) tend to receive higher similarity scores than pairs of predicates where each predicate encodes a different type of relation (e.g., oneto-many and one-to-one). Overall, our approach to measuring similarity for predicate mapping promises to scale to a number of text mining applications including federated search and retrieval, as well as other domains such as transfer learning.
Immunofluorescent localization of 100K coated vesicle proteins

A family of coated vesicle proteins, with molecular weights of approximately 100,000 and designated 100K, has been implicated in both coat assembly and the attachment of clathrin to the vesicle membrane. These proteins were purified from extracts of bovine brain coated vesicles by gel filtration, hydroxylapatite chromatography, and preparative SDS PAGE. Peptide mapping by limited proteolysis indicated that the polypeptides making up the three major 100K bands have distinct amino acid sequences. When four rats were immunized with total 100K protein, each rat responded differently to the different bands, although all four antisera cross-reacted with the 100K proteins of human placental coated vesicles. After affinity purification, two of the antisera were able to detect a 100K band on blots of whole 3T3 cell protein and were used for immunofluorescence, double labeling the cells with either rabbit anti-clathrin or with wheat germ lectin as a Golgi apparatus marker. Both antisera gave staining that was coincident with anti-clathrin, with punctate labeling of the plasma membrane and perinuclear Golgi apparatus labeling. Thus, the 100K proteins are present on endocytic as well as Golgi-derived coated pits and vesicles. The punctate patterns were nearly identical with anti-100K and anti- clathrin, indicating that when vesicles become uncoated, the 100K proteins are removed as well as clathrin. One of the two antisera gave stronger plasma membrane labeling than Golgi apparatus labeling when compared with the anti-clathrin antiserum. The other antiserum gave stronger Golgi apparatus labeling. Although we have as yet no evidence that these two antisera label different proteins on blots of 3T3 cells, they do show differences on blots of bovine brain 100K proteins. This result, although preliminary, raises the possibility that different 100K proteins may be associated with different pathways of membrane traffic.
Improvement of Voltage Profile and Reduce Power System Losses by using Multi Type Facts Devices

ABSTRACT In emerging electric power systems, increased transactions often lead to the situations where the system no longer remains in secure operating region. The flexible Ac transmission system (FACTS) controllers can play an important role in the power system security enhancement. However, due to high capital investment, it is necessary to locate these controllers optimally in the power system. FACTS devices can regulate the active and reactive power control as well as adaptive to voltage-magnitude control simultaneously because of their flexibility and fast control characteristics. Placement of these devices in suitable location can lead to control in line flow and maintain bus voltages in desired level and so improve voltage stability margins. This paper proposes a systematic method by which optimal location of MUTI TYPE FACTS DEVICES to be installed. FACTS DEVICES model is incorporated into a Newton-Raphson algorithm to perform load flow analysis. Optimizing its location becomes a concern when coming to the practical implementation stage. Proposed algorithm is tested on IEEE 5 bus power system for optimal allocation of multi-type FACTS devices and results are presented.