Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Posthuman Ethics: Embodiment and Cultural Theory

Posthuman Ethics: Embodiment and Cultural Theory is a collection of audacious (some will say, outrageous) provocations*on tattooing, the mystic queer, animality, human extinction, monstrosity and transcendent art* that will test, and I hope will expand, the limits of that seemingly endlessly expanding universe, auto/biographical studies. Western autobiography and humanism have sustained a long, and until recently, amicable marriage. The germs of the modern autobiographical project are seeded in humanism’s philosophical Ur-texts. John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1694), for instance, defines a person as ‘a thinking, intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places. ’ Locke’s account of a self-identity that is evidenced by the continuity, or rather, unity, of consciousness over time cries out for autobiography, a genre apparently custom-built to produce the evidence for continuity of consciousness through time. Autobiography reifies the (human) individual, the chief political unit of humanist philosophy. We needn’t look beyond autobiography’s oft-cited Ur-text, Rousseau’s Confessions, to see how the traditional autobiographical project, an assertion of the intrinsic value of individual experience, was inextricable from humanist politics, apiece with the humanist project of attaching rights to those who could prove that they were individuals after the Lockean mould: thinking, intelligent, reasoning, reflecting Beings. Autobiography has traded on the humanist conviction that the human mind and memory are the repository for the self, and on the related notion of human culture’s distinction from brute matter. Over the last 50 years, auto/biography scholars have queried humanism under the formulae of post-structuralism, which, in questioning the idea that facts precede language, suggests that the individual is a discursive fabrication in a state of constant formation, rather than an abiding, fixed reality. More recently, posthumanist theory has intensified the Life Writing, 2013 Vol. 10, No. 3, 357 361, http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/14484528.2013. 802409
International Validation Study for Interim PET in ABVD-Treated, Advanced-Stage Hodgkin Lymphoma: Interpretation Criteria and Concordance Rate Among Reviewers

At present, there are no standard criteria that have been validated for interim PET reporting in lymphoma. In 2009, an international workshop attended by hematologists and nuclear medicine experts in Deauville, France, proposed to develop simple and reproducible rules for interim PET reporting in lymphoma. Accordingly, an international validation study was undertaken with the primary aim of validating the prognostic role of interim PET using the Deauville 5-point score to evaluate images and with the secondary aim of measuring concordance rates among reviewers using the same 5-point score. This paper focuses on the criteria for interpretation of interim PET and on concordance rates. Methods: A cohort of advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma patients treated with doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) were enrolled retrospectively from centers worldwide. Baseline and interim scans were reviewed by an international panel of 6 nuclear medicine experts using the 5-point score. Results: Complete scan datasets of acceptable diagnostic quality were available for 260 of 440 (59%) enrolled patients. Independent agreement among reviewers was reached on 252 of 260 patients (97%), for whom at least 4 reviewers agreed the findings were negative (score of 1–3) or positive (score of 4–5). After discussion, consensus was reached in all cases. There were 45 of 260 patients (17%) with positive interim PET findings and 215 of 260 patients (83%) with negative interim PET findings. Thirty-three interim PET–positive scans were true-positive, and 12 were false-positive. Two hundred three interim PET–negative scans were true-negative, and 12 were false-negative. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 0.73, 0.94, and 0.91, respectively. Negative predictive value and positive predictive value were 0.94 and 0.73, respectively. The 3-y failure-free survival was 83%, 28%, and 95% for the entire population and for interim PET–positive and –negative patients, respectively (P < 0.0001). The agreement between pairs of reviewers was good or very good, ranging from 0.69 to 0.84 as measured with the Cohen kappa. Overall agreement was good at 0.76 as measured with the Krippendorf α. Conclusion: The 5-point score proposed at Deauville for reviewing interim PET scans in advanced Hodgkin lymphoma is accurate and reproducible enough to be accepted as a standard reporting criterion in clinical practice and for clinical trials.
Global-scale Service Deployment in the XenoServer Platform

We are building the XenoServer platform for global computing, a public infrastructure capable of safely hosting untrusted distributed services on behalf of uncooperative paying clients. Service components execute on one or more XenoServers within resource-managed Virtual Machines (VMs) which provide resource isolation, protection, and allow the execution of arbitrary applications and services. To assist the deployment of services on the platform, we provide an effective solution that allows users to fully customize the VMs to be launched by specifying the operating system kernel image and distribution file-system to be used. Moreover, we have implemented mechanisms for facilitating easy and efficient distribution of those kernel and filesystem images; users build their VMs’ configurations once and use the platform to efficiently launch VMs on large numbers of machines around the world. Initial experiences with our deployment infrastructure demonstrate that the platform provides a practical substrate for public global computing; we show how a complex service running on the user’s own customized Linux environment can be deployed to multiple XenoServers around the world in under 45 seconds.
The Radiative Transport of Dust in Primordial Galaxies and Second-Generation Star Formation

We investigate the radiative transport of dust in primordial galaxies in the presence of the UV radiation field from the first metal-free stars. We find that dust created in the first supernova (SN) explosions can be driven through the interior of the SN remnant to accumulate in the SN shells, where second-generation stars may form from compressed cooling gas. This scenario requires metal-free stars to form continuously over timescales of up to 10 Myr, consistent with recent estimates. Silicate and graphite grains, as well as iron-bearing magnetites, are transported to the shells for reasonable parameter assumptions, but their relative yields from primordial SNe is an important factor in the resulting abundance ratios. We compare the results of segregated grain transport with the current nucleosynthetic data on extremely metal-poor Galactic halo stars. Fossil signatures of this process may already have been detected in those iron-poor stars with enhanced carbon and silicate elements such as magnesium, silicon and oxygen. We discuss the implications of our results for the transition from first- to second-generation star formation in primordial galaxies, and the role played by the radiative transport of dust in this process.
Differences Across Academic Subjects in Teachers’ Attitudes About Professional Development

Abstract A survey study examined how attitudes about professional development (PD) vary among teachers of different subjects. Elementary teachers were more supportive of PD than health and physical education, social studies, and science teachers; special education teachers were more supportive of PD than social studies and science teachers; and five teacher groups (elementary, special education, math, English, and art and music) were more supportive of PD than science teachers. The results show the need for the design, implementation, and evaluation of program innovations aimed to improve both program effectiveness and teachers’ attitudes about PD.
Sophisticated Construction and Search of 2D Motion Graphs for Synthesizing Videos

This paper presents an intuitive method for synthesizing videos by directly manipulating video objects without using 3D models. The proposed method extracts a video object from each video frame and creates locally consistent video sequences using a 2D motion graph, where its node corresponds to the extracted video object and its edge represents a motion transition between a pair of nodes. Our primary contribution lies in a sophisticated construction of the 2D motion graph using shape matching techniques, and its search that allows us to intuitively synthesize a new video sequence by manipulating feature points extracted from the video objects through the 2D screen space. The method further employs a deformation technique to interpolate between video objects with relatively different shapes, and thus can increase available motion transitions by inserting intervening video objects into the 2D motion graph. Several examples have been generated to demonstrate that this approach can create the user-intended motions of the video objects easily by clicking and dragging the feature points.
Identification of a Novel Polyomavirus from Patients with Acute Respiratory Tract Infections

We report the identification of a novel polyomavirus present in respiratory secretions from human patients with symptoms of acute respiratory tract infection. The virus was initially detected in a nasopharyngeal aspirate from a 3-year-old child from Australia diagnosed with pneumonia. A random library was generated from nucleic acids extracted from the nasopharyngeal aspirate and analyzed by high throughput DNA sequencing. Multiple DNA fragments were cloned that possessed limited homology to known polyomaviruses. We subsequently sequenced the entire virus genome of 5,229 bp, henceforth referred to as WU virus, and found it to have genomic features characteristic of the family Polyomaviridae. The genome was predicted to encode small T antigen, large T antigen, and three capsid proteins: VP1, VP2, and VP3. Phylogenetic analysis clearly revealed that the WU virus was divergent from all known polyomaviruses. Screening of 2,135 patients with acute respiratory tract infections in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, and St. Louis, Missouri, United States, using WU virus–specific PCR primers resulted in the detection of 43 additional specimens that contained WU virus. The presence of multiple instances of the virus in two continents suggests that this virus is geographically widespread in the human population and raises the possibility that the WU virus may be a human pathogen.
Mobility Independent Secret Key Generation for Wearable Health-care Devices

Security in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) is of major concern as the miniature personal health-care devices need to protect the sensitive health information transmitted in wireless medium. It is essential for these devices to generate the shared secret key used for data encryption periodically. Recent studies have exploited wireless channel characteristics, e.g., received signal strength indicator (RSSI) to derive the shared secret key during random body movement of subject wearing devices. However, in the absence of node mobility, these schemes have very low bit rate capacity, and fail to derive keys with good entropy, which is a big threat for security. In this work, we study the effectiveness of combining dual antennas and frequency diversity for obtaining uncorrelated channel samples to improve entropy of key and bit rate in static channel conditions. We propose a novel mobility independent RSSI based secret key generation protocol -- iARC for WBAN. We conduct an extensive set of experiments in real time environments on sensor platforms used in WBAN to validate the performance of iARC. iARC has 800 bps secrecy capacity and generates 128 bit key in only 160 ms.
Efficient parallel implementations of multipole based n-body algorithms

N-body problems pervade many different branches of numerical simulation. While the exact computation of the pairwise interactions between all N components of such a system is O(N2) in complexity, approximate solutions often may be computed with O (N log N) or O( N) complexity. This work presents an original design and implementation of a parallel, multipole-based N-body algorithm for particle simulation, with molecular dynamics simulation of biomolecules as the principal target application. The algorithm is designed for distributed memory processors and is portable to a wide variety of platforms. Performance data are presented for networks of workstations as well as for dedicated distributed multiprocessors, demonstrating the scalability of the implementation to large numbers of processors. Several extensions to the basic algorithm are presented that provide for the inclusion of periodic boundary conditions, infinite lattices, arbitrary potential functions and non-cubic simulation spaces. Computation of an accurate virial tensor is a common step in molecular dynamics simulations involving constant pressure and periodic boundary conditions. The naive approach involves an all-pairs computation and is O( N2) complexity. This dissertation presents a novel O(N2) method for the computation of an approximate pressure tensor. The algorithm uses multipole expansions and hierarchical decomposition to produce results with a known error bound, while allowing integration with existing multipole-based N-body solvers. Results are presented that show the calculation of the full electrostatic virial tensor can be performed with a minimal amount of overhead. In addition to obtaining high performance through efficient algorithms and scalability, implementations of distributed programs must also address issues associated with load imbalances. An analysis is performed to determine the impact of different data mapping schemes for this distributed N-body algorithm. Results are presented that show their impact upon both performance and communication overhead. A generalized load balancing functionality is implemented within the existing N-body application. This code is used to compare several different load balancing strategies that attempt to compensate for the inefficiencies caused by both irregular data distributions as well as external processor loads. Performance results are presented for both data and processor load imbalances.
Distributional models of verb meaning : syntactic versus lexical contexts

Over the last decade or so, distributional methods have become the mainstay of semantic modelling in Computational Linguistics. As such, they have also been applied the automatic modelling of verb meaning. However, more than with other lexical categories, the research into verb semantics has taken its inspiration from the idea that a verb's meaning is strongly linked to its syntactic behaviour and more specifically, to its selectional preferences. Depending on how they use these selectional preferences, distributional models of verb meaning come in two flavours. The first approach has its historical origins in the linguistic research tradition into verb valency and frame sem-natics and is in principle purely syntactical in nature. A verb's semantic category is said to be inferrable from its distribution over subcategorization (subcat) frames, i.e. the possible combinations of syntactic verb arguments like subject, direct object, indirect object etc. Additionally, this purely syntactic information can be extended with some high-level semantic information like the animacy of the verb arguments (see Schulte im Walde (2006) for an overview). Whereas this first, syntax-oriented approach is specifically geared towards verbs, the second approach is more generally applicable to all lexical categories and is a direct implementation of the ideas of Harris (1954). These so-called word space models use other words as context features with a specific implementation using only those context words that co-occur in a given dependency relation to the target word (see Padó and Lapata (2007) for an overview). In the first approach, one context feature is a possible combination of syntactic arguments that a verb can govern. In the second approach, one specific context feature corresponds to one lexeme plus its syntactic relation to the target verb. Whereas the first approach is mostly used to automatically induce Levin-style verb classes, the second approach is typically applied to retrieve semantic equivalents for specific verbs (but see Li and Brew (2008) for a comparison of the two methods on the task of inducing Levin-style classes). In this presentation we will try to have a closer look at the kind of semantic information that is captured by these two distinct types of distri-butional methods for verb meaning. For a sample of 1000 frequent Dutch
Low-Index Equilibrium and Multiple Period-Doubling Cascades to Chaos of Atmospheric Flow in Beta-Plane Channel

The nonlinear dynamical behavior of an atmospheric circulation in a beta-plane channel is examined on a five-spectral mode model, truncated from the Charney and DeVore quasi-geostrophic equation. Bifurcation and chaos are observed when subjected to a topographic driving disturbance and a thermally driving zonal source. An equilibrium state undergoes supercritical Hopf bifurcation and becomes a stable periodic state with respect to the magnitude of the thermally driving source, whereas the periodic state undergoes a subcritical Hopf bifurcation and transforms into a low-index equilibrium state with respect to the increasing topographic driving disturbance. The stable periodic state further develops into a pair of stable periodic states when increasing the thermally driving source. The first one with the period of 4.3 days exhibits an oscillation of strong and weak zonal flow patterns, whereas the second one with the period of 6.8 days demonstrates a fluctuation amongst weak zonal disturbance flow patterns. Moreover, the two periodic states transform respectively into chaos through separate period-doubling cascades with the further development of the thermally driving source.
Business as Usual: Using the Case Method to Teach ESL to Executives*

This article proposes that instructors of advanced ESL courses for executives adopt a methodology which allows these executives to use the managerial skills and styles they have developed over the years. The case method suits the learning style of most adults, particularly those in business, since it allows them to discuss issues which interest them and about which they can offer their professional advice. This article explains the case method and justifies its appropriateness for these specialized courses. It suggests ways for the instructor to act as consultant to the group, and it describes other functions the instructor should perform. In essence, it urges instructors to trade the culture of the classroom for the culture of the boardroom.
Antispasmodic effects of eugenol on rat airway smooth muscle

This study was undertaken to assess the effects of eugenol (EUG) on tracheal muscle (TM) and the putative mechanisms underlying these effects. Cumulatively increasing concentrations (1–1000 μm) of EUG did not affect the resting tonus of TM. However, EUG (1–2000 μm) reduced the contractions induced by electrical field stimulation (IC50 = 842.3 ± 52.7 μm), an effect that was unaltered by either 10 μm montelukast (IC50 = 816.1 ± 70.1 μm) or 2 μm indomethacin (IC50 = 693.1 ± 170.8 μm). EUG also completely relaxed the sustained contractile responses to 80 mM K+ (IC50 = 597.3 ± 60.6 μm) and 1 μm carbamoylcholine (IC50 = 571.3 ± 148.8 μm), an effect that was unaltered by indomethacin (2 μm). Under Ca2+‐free conditions, EUG reduced the ACh‐induced contractions (IC50 = 703.4 ± 256.1 μm), the CaCl2‐induced contractions in preparations pretreated with 60 μm ACh in the presence of nifedipine, and the Ba2+‐induced contractions in preparations depolarized with K+. In tracheal preparations maintained in Ca2+‐containing solution, EUG (300–2000 μm) relaxed the contractile response to phorbol dibutyrate (1 μm), an activator of protein kinase C. It is concluded that in TM, EUG induces a myogenic antispasmodic effect (not modulated by arachidonic acid derivatives) either through various mechanisms almost with the same pharmacological potency or via an action on a step common to all of them. These mechanisms seem to include blockade of voltage‐ and receptor‐operated Ca2+ channels, IP3‐induced Ca2+ release from sarcoplasmic reticulum and reduction of the sensitivity of contractile proteins to Ca2+.
Uncertainty as a Factor in Production

case which I shall consider in this paper. In venturing on an economic undertaking, one may feel uncertain regarding the ratio of outlay to product or the relation of product to price. The former lies in the field of technique, the latter in the field of exchange, which is traditionally economic, but both affect production in precisely the same way and, hence, should be studied by the economist with equal care. In the first part of this paper I review the causes of variation and compare the different departments of industry in respect to degree of uncertainty. In the second
Playing in the academic field: Non-native English-speaking academics in UK business schools

This paper draws on Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital to explore the ways in which working in English as a non-native language influences foreign academics' performance of academic habitus and the level of their symbolic capital necessary for the achievement of success within UK higher education. Empirically, it is based on interviews with 54 non-native English-speaking academics employed in UK business schools. Our findings point to advantages and disadvantages associated with being a non-native English-speaking academic, to strategies deployed by individuals to enhance their linguistic capital, and to the importance of language not merely as a tool of communication but as a key factor enabling individuals to perform academic habitus in the UK academic field. We reflect on whether, and if so, how, the UK academic field is changing as a result of the increased presence within it of non-UK-born academics and, in particular, the fact of their professional functioning in English as a non-native language.
A Tool for Exploring Hybrid FPGAs

We show that the VPH tool can accurately model a commercial FPGA on a set of benchmark problems. It is able to model heterogeneous embedded blocks in a hybrid FPGA and facilitates design exploration. This tool combines the benefits of both the VPR and the VEB. VPR allows a larger FPGA architecture design space to be evaluated than commercial tools, and VEB enables analysis of hybrid FPGAs. Current and future work includes extending VPH to cover other devices, using VPH to explore the performance of hybrid FPGAs in various architectures, and developing automated algorithms to optimize the hybrid FPGAs for domain specific applications.
Hybrid delay scan: a low hardware overhead scan-based delay test technique for high fault coverage and compact test sets

A novel scan-based delay test approach, referred as the hybrid delay scan, is proposed in this paper. The proposed scan-based delay testing method combines advantages of the skewed-load and broad-side approaches. Unlike the skewed-load approach whose design requirement is often too costly to meet due to the fast switching scan enable signal, the hybrid delay scan does not require a strong buffer or buffer tree to drive the fast switching scan enable signal. Hardware overhead added to standard scan designs to implement the hybrid approach is negligible. Since the fast scan enable signal is internally generated, no external pin is required. Transition delay fault coverage achieved by the hybrid approach is equal to or higher than that achieved by the broad-side load for all ISCAS 89 benchmark circuits. On an average, about 4.5% improvement in fault coverage is obtained by the hybrid approach over the broad-side approach.