Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of gelatinase production of Enterococcus faecalis on adhesion to dentin after irrigation with various endodontic irrigants

Abstract Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the gelatinase production ability of Enterococcus faecalis provides any advantage on adhesion of this bacterium to dentin treated with various irrigants and their combinations. Materials and methods: Standardized dentin discs were randomly divided into five groups (n = 20): group 1: 2.5% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), group 2: 2% chlorhexidine (CHX), group 3: NaOCl + Saline + CHX, group 4: NaOCl + EDTA + NaOCl, group 5: QMix. After incubation of dentin discs with irrigants, each group was divided into two subgroups (n = 10) according to the bacterial strains used; a gelatinase-producing and a gelatinase-deficient strain of E. faecalis. After incubation of the discs with the bacterial suspensions aerobically for 48 h, XTT assay was conducted for bacterial adherence evaluation. Data were statistically analyzed by ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD tests (p = .05). Results: Gelatinase-producing E. faecalis adhered to dentin was significantly more than gelatinase-deficient E. faecalis in all test groups (p < .05). Adherence to CHX-treated dentin was lower than to the surfaces treated with other irrigants, alone or in combination (p < .05). These differences were significant except for comparisons with QMix for gelatinase-producing bacteria (p < .05). Conclusions: Gelatinase production of E. faecalis may be an important factor for bacterial adhesion. The addition of CHX to the irrigation regimen resulted in fewer adhered bacteria to dentin. QMix was not as effective as CHX in terms of bacterial adhesion prevention.
Sociomateriality and Information Systems Research: Quantum Radicals and Cartesian Conservatives

This paper provides an elaboration and comparison of two main streams of "sociomateriality" research within Information Systems (IS) discipline. Through the rapid and controversial emergence of discussions around sociomateriality, IS research has become entangled with the radical ideas derived from quantum mechanics. The philosophical elaboration of the implications of quantum mechanics, as formulated by physicist/philosopher Karen Barad, has provided a source of inspiration and a basis on theorizing for many IS scholars. Agential realism (AR) questions the Cartesian assumption of inherent and fixed demarcation between matter and meaning, and reworks many taken-for-granted assumptions underpinning much of IS research. In contrast, some IS scholars have sought to preserve the more conservative and established assumptions, and (re)turned to critical realism (CR) in order to fit sociomateriality to IS theorizing without radically reworking the Cartesian assumption. Thence, while both make references to 'sociomateriality', their conceptions build on largely different foundations, and use very different vocabulary to describe the phenomenon of interest that easily leads to confusion and to philosophically incongruent theorizing. By elaborating and juxtaposing the two perspectives of sociomateriality and related concepts (ontology/epistemology, matter, agency, time and space), this paper extends and contributes to the prior discussions (1) by providing generic research frameworks; (2) by outlining and explaining the related lexicons; (3) and by foregrounding challenges and opportunities to conduct sociomateriality research.
Game bot identification based on manifold learning

In recent years, online gaming has become one of the most popular Internet activities, but cheating activity, such as the use of game bots, has increased as a consequence. Generally, the gaming community disapproves of the use of game bots, as bot users obtain unreasonable rewards without corresponding efforts. However, bots are hard to detect because they are designed to simulate human game playing behavior and they follow game rules exactly. Existing detection approaches either disrupt players' gaming experiences, or they assume game bots are run as standalone clients or assigned a specific goal, such as aim bots in FPS games. In this paper, we propose a manifold learning approach for detecting game bots. It is a general technique that can be applied to any game in which avatars' movement is controlled by the players directly. Through real-life data traces, we show that the trajectories of human players and those of game bots are very different. In addition, although game bots may endeavor to simulate players' decisions, certain human behavior patterns are difficult to mimic because they are AI-hard. Taking Quake 2 as a case study, we evaluate our scheme's performance based on real-life traces. The results show that the scheme can achieve a detection accuracy of 98% or higher on a trace of 700 seconds.
Combinatorial graph creation and navigation for blind people

Blind individuals have been deprived of the use of diagrams as a form of knowledge representation and an aid to problem solving as well as a means of communication. Our focus is on providing them with access to a specific type of diagram – the node-link diagram, also known as a combinatorial graph. Graphs figure prominently in computer science and software engineering as well as chemistry and other fields. Our goal is to provide blind students and professionals with graph representations that approach the computational equivalence of those available to sighted people. A number of applications have been developed specifically and exclusively to give blind users access to graphs, but separate applications are often not equal. We have worked instead to include them in our graph-based application known as ProofChecker which is intended for universal use. In this paper, we provide examples of general diagram accessibility efforts on behalf of blind people, a discussion of important issues in conveying graphs nonvisually, and a review of the work to date in this area. We also describe how ProofChecker has been made accessible to blind users and how these techniques were applied to a commercial graph-based application. Lastly, we propose the development of an universally accessible graph sketching tool. This tool would allow blind and sighted people to work alone or together using the same interface to create and/or examine graphs and use them for design, problem solving, and teaching/learning.
The patterned organization of thick and thin microfilaments in the contracting pseudopod of Difflugia.

SUMMARY The lobopodial pseudopods of the shelled amoeba Difflugia undergo a rapid active contraction and length shortening which results in movement of the organism, or rapid pseudopod retraction. In polarized light, the p3eudopod shows high birefringence before and during this normal contraction, suggesting a high degree of linear organization, and a complex pattern of changes. Immediately conventional fixation begins, pseudopods retract rapidly, and show changes in birefringence. When longitudinal sections are viewed in the electron microscope, such fixed, contracting pseudopods are seen to contain thick (14—16 nm) and thin (5—8 nm) microfilaments. Montages demonstrate that these microfilaments are found in close parallel association with each other, and lie parallel and peripheral to the longitudinal axis of the pseudopod, which is the axis of contraction. This distribution suggests that the patterned microfilaments could be involved in the shortening process and that they could account for the birefringence seen in the contracting pseudopod. Rapid alignment, or assembly, is also suggested.
Magnetoelectric Force Microscopy on Antiferromagnetic 180∘ Domains in Cr2O3

Magnetoelectric force microscopy (MeFM) is characterized as methodical tool for the investigation of antiferromagnetic domain states, in particular of the 180∘ variety. As reference compound for this investigation we use Cr2O3. Access to the antiferromagnetic order is provided by the linear magnetoelectric effect. We resolve the opposite antiferromagnetic 180∘ domain states of Cr2O3 and estimate the sensitivity of the MeFM approach, its inherent advantages in comparison to alternative techniques and its general feasibility for probing antiferromagnetic order.
A Novel Signaling Scheme for Blind Unique Identification of Alamouti Space-Time Block-Coded Channel

In this paper, we present a simple signaling scheme to blindly and uniquely identify the Alamouti space-time block-coded channel, first under a noise-free environment, and then, under a complex Gaussian noise environment in which pth- and qth-order statistics (p and q are coprime) of the received signals are available. In both cases, closed-form solutions to determine the channel coefficients are obtained by exploiting specific properties of the Alamouti space-time block code (STBC) and the linear Diophantine equation theory. Under Gaussian noise, when the length of the received data is finite, we propose to use the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) algorithm to approximate maximum-likelihood (ML) detection so that the joint estimation of the channel and symbols can be efficiently implemented. Simulation results show that while other existing blind methods fail, our signaling scheme works well
Communion and Complaint: Attachment, Object-Relations, and Triangular Love Perspectives on Relationship with God

The present study attempted to find empirical connections between the attachment, object-relations, and triangular love perspectives as they apply to relationship with God. Attachment to God and object-relations perspectives on God have already been extensively investigated in the literature. In this study, it was observed that the triangular love model (Sternberg, 1986) could also be applied to relationship with God. Using established instruments from each literature—attachment, object-relations, triangular love—it was observed that two factors best explained the correlations among these instruments. The first factor, “Communion,” describes the degree of intimacy, closeness, dependency, and trust in the God-relationship. The second factor, “Complaint,” describes the degree of disappointment and/or frustration involved in the God-relationship. Because these two factors—Communion and Complaint—are orthogonal, it is argued that the commingling of Communion and Complaint in the God-relationship is one feature that can imbue this relationship with an emotional dynamic similar to that observed in human love relationships.
The comparison of attitudes of black and white high school students toward physical education

TUCKER, MARILYN QUE. The Comparison of Attitudes of Black and White High School Students Toward Physical Education. (1977) Directed by: Dr. Rosemary McGee. Pp. 40. The purpose of this study was to compare the attitudes of Black and White ninth and tenth grade students in four high schools in Rockingham County, North Carolina, toward physical education. In order to measure and then compare these attitudes, the Edgington Attitude Scale was administered. The majority of all the 407 students tested had a favorable attitude toward physical education measured by the Edgington Attitude Scale. As a result of this study it was found: 1. There was a significant difference in the attitude of Black and White students toward physical education. White students' attitudes were significantly more positive than Black students' atti tudes. 2. There was a significant difference in the attitudes of Black and White girls toward physical education with White girls scoring more positively. 3. There was a significant difference in the attitudes of Black and White boys, with White boys scoring more positively. 4. There was a significant difference in the attitudes of Black boys and White girls, with the White girls' attitudes more positive. 5. There was a significant difference in the attitudes of Black girls and White boys, with the White boys' attitude more positive. The present study revealed that, overall, Black and White students had a favorable attitude toward physical education. The interaction analysis revealed that the White students demonstrated a more favorable attitude toward physical education than the Black students. Based upon the findings of this study and a review of the literature, the writer makes the following recommendations: 1. That more research be conducted on Black-White attitudes toward physical education. 2. That an oral attitude scale be administered to a comparable group of Black and White students to determine attitudes toward physical education. 3. That research be conducted among Black students to determine the reasons for favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward physical education. THE COMPARISON OF ATTITUDES OF BLACK AND WHITE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TOWARD PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Utilising exhaled nitric oxide information to enhance diagnosis and therapy of respiratory disease – current evidence for clinical practice and proposals to improve the methodology

ABSTRACT Introduction: A non-invasive tool to diagnose respiratory diseases and to follow treatment has long been looked-for. Exhaled nitric oxide (NO) is a promising marker of inflammation in asthma but nearly 25-years of research has shown that it works in only certain endotypes of asthma. The modelling of NO dynamics of the lung can give more information than a single FENO value. Areas covered: The estimation of the NO production in the conducting airways and in the gas exchange area has given new insight of the NO production in diseases beyond asthma. In this article, we discuss the importance of methodology for NO measurement in the exhaled breath and the indication of applying this technique to detect respiratory disorders. This narrative review is an attempt to examine and discuss the physiological basis underlying exhaled NO measurements and the clinical evidence of the usefulness of this method in asthma and various other respiratory disorders. Expert commentary: Estimation of the NO parameters would aid in our understanding of the NO dynamics of the lung and thereby give more knowledge how to interpret the measured FENO value in clinical practice.
Discovery of Community Structure in Complex Networks Based on Resistance Distance and Center Nodes

On the basis of analyzing the classical algorithms of network clustering and community detecting, a new algorithmic method of discovery of community was brought up, which has different thinking from previous algorithms. In this method a general network is looked upon as a corresponding electrical network firstly, the link in between the connected pairs of nodes is substituted by a fixed resistor, and then compute all the resistance distance between nodes. Simultaneously, according to the properties of small world and scale-free, each community has some center nodes with the larger degree. The algorithm decides the center nodes of community by using both the resistance distance and degrees of nodes; whereafter compares the resistance distance in between other nodes and center nodes for clustering the network. The experiment results show that the algorithm is stable and reliable and can accurately obtain the division of community structure.
Trust and Adaptive Rationality : Towards a New Paradigm in Trust Research

Combining economic, social-psychological and sociological approaches trust, this book provides a general theoretical framework to explain conditional and unconditional trust; it also presents an experimental test of the corresponding integrative model and its predictions. Broadly, it aims at advancing a ‘cognitive turn’ in trust research by highlighting the importance of (1) an actor´s context-dependent definition of the situation and (2) the flexible and dynamic degree of rationality involved in the phenomenon. In essence, trust is as “multi-faceted” as there are cognitive routes that take us to the choice of a trusting act. Therefore, adaptive rationality has to be incorporated as an independent and orthogonal dimension to the typological space of trust. Going from description to prediction, the work develops an analytically precise and tractable model of trust and adaptive rationality. The empirical test presented combines trust games, high- and low-incentive conditions, framing manipulations, and psychometric measurements; it is complemented by decision-time analyses.
A new precoding for linear dispersion codes to reduce the spatial correlation in transmitter

In this paper we study the data-error performance of Linear Dispersion (LD) codes under spatial correlated multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels. We propose a new precoding algorithm for LD codes by minimizing the pairwise error probability (PEP). This precoding can totally remove the spatial correlation existing in the transmitter. Particularly, the precoding process can be integrated into the LD codes design process, which means that there is no extra computation required in the coding process.
Chromatic Properties of Horizontal and Ganglion Cell Responses Follow a Dual Gradient in Cone Opsin Expression

In guinea pig retina, immunostaining reveals a dual gradient of opsins: cones expressing opsin sensitive to medium wavelengths (M) predominate in the upper retina, whereas cones expressing opsin sensitive to shorter wavelengths (S) predominate in the lower retina. Whether these gradients correspond to functional gradients in postreceptoral neurons is essentially unknown. Using monochromatic flashes, we measured the relative weights with which M, S, and rod signals contribute to horizontal cell responses. For a background that produced 4.76 log10 photoisomerizations per rod per second (Rh*/rod/s), mean weights in superior retina were 52% (M), 2% (S), and 46% (rod). Mean weights in inferior retina were 9% (M), 50% (S), and 41% (rod). In superior retina, cone opsin weights agreed quantitatively with relative pigment density estimates from immunostaining. In inferior retina, cone opsin weights agreed qualitatively with relative pigment density estimates, but quantitative comparison was impossible because individual cones coexpress both opsins to varying and unquantifiable degrees. We further characterized the functional gradients in horizontal and brisk-transient ganglion cells using flickering stimuli produced by various mixtures of blue and green primary lights. Cone weights for both cell types resembled those obtained for horizontal cells using monochromatic flashes. Because the brisk-transient ganglion cell is thought to mediate behavioral detection of luminance contrast, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the dual gradient of cone opsins assists achromatic contrast detection against different spectral backgrounds. In our preparation, rod responses did not completely saturate, even at background light levels typical of outdoor sunlight (5.14 log10 Rh*/rod/s).
Drosophila mutants of the autism candidate gene neurobeachin (rugose) exhibit neuro-developmental disorders, aberrant synaptic properties, altered locomotion, and impaired adult social behavior and activity patterns

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder in humans characterized by complex behavioral deficits, including intellectual disability, impaired social interactions, and hyperactivity. ASD exhibits a strong genetic component with underlying multigene interactions. Candidate gene studies have shown that the neurobeachin (NBEA) gene is disrupted in human patients with idiopathic autism (Castermans et al., 2003). The NBEA gene spans the common fragile site FRA 13A and encodes a signal scaffold protein (Savelyeva et al., 2006). In mice, NBEA has been shown to be involved in the trafficking and function of a specific subset of synaptic vesicles. (Medrihan et al., 2009; Savelyeva et al., 2006). Rugose (rg) is the Drosophila homolog of the mammalian and human NBEA. Our previous genetic and molecular analyses have shown that rg encodes an A kinase anchor protein (DAKAP 550), which interacts with components of the epidermal growth factor receptor or EGFR and Notch-mediated signaling pathways, facilitating cross talk between these and other pathways (Shamloula et al., 2002). We now present functional data from studies on the larval neuromuscular junction that reveal abnormal synaptic architecture and physiology. In addition, adult rg loss-of-function mutants exhibit defective social interactions, impaired habituation, aberrant locomotion, and hyperactivity. These results demonstrate that Drosophila NBEA (rg) mutants exhibit phenotypic characteristics reminiscent of human ASD and thus could serve as a genetic model for studying ASDs.
Inverse Displacement Mapping

Inverse displacement mapping is a variant of displacement mapping which does not actually perturb the geometry of the surface being mapped. It is thus a true texture mapping technique which can be applied during rendering without breaking viewing pipeline discipline. The method works by first projecting probing rays into texture space and solving for a ray‐texture intersection there. Shadows can also be determined by mapping a probe from the intersection point towards the light source into texture space and seeing if an intersection results. Our implementation uses as much knowledge about the base surface as possible to speed up the ray‐surface intersection calculation. We have limited our treatment to spheres, cones, cylinders and planes, and our rendering method to ray casting, in order to contain the scope of this work up to the present. The inverse displacement mapping technique can, however, be applied more widely, for example as part of a full ray‐tracer, and also as part of the rendering pipeline for a wider class of smooth surfaces.
X-Ray Emission from PSR B1800–21, Its Wind Nebula, and Similar Systems

We detected X-ray emission from PSR B1800-21 (J1803-2137) and its synchrotron nebula with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The observed pulsar flux is (1.4 ± 0.2) × 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1 in the 1-6 keV band. The spectrum can be described by a two-component power law + blackbody (PL + BB) model, suggesting a mixture of thermal and magnetospheric emission. For a plausible nH = 1.4 × 1022 cm-2, the PL component has a slope Γ = 1.4 ± 0.6 and a luminosity L = 4 × 1031(d/4 kpc)2 ergs s-1. The properties of the thermal component (kT = 0.1-0.3 keV, L = 1031-1033 ergs s-1) are very poorly constrained because of the strong interstellar absorption. The compact, 7′′ × 4′′, inner pulsar wind nebula (PWN), elongated perpendicular to the pulsar's proper motion, is immersed in a fainter asymmetric emission. The observed flux of the PWN is (5.5 ± 0.6) × 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1 in the 1-8 keV band. The PWN spectrum fits a PL model with Γ = 1.6 ± 0.3, LPWN = 1.6 × 1032(d/4 kpc)2 ergs s-1. The shape of the inner PWN suggests that the pulsar moves subsonically and X-ray emission emerges from a torus associated with the termination shock in the equatorial pulsar wind. The inferred PWN-pulsar properties (e.g., the PWN X-ray efficiency, LPWN/Ė ~ 10-4; the luminosity ratio, LPWN/L = 4; the pulsar wind pressure at the termination shock, ps = 10-9 ergs cm-3) are very similar to those of other subsonically moving Vela-like objects detected with Chandra (LPWN/Ė ~ 10-4.5 to 10-3.5, LPWN/L ~ 5, ps = 10-10 to 10-8 ergs cm-1).
Scam Light Field Rendering by Jingyi Yu

In this thesis we present a new variant of the light field representation that supports improved image reconstruction by accommodating sparse correspondence information. This places our representation somewhere between a pure, two-plane parameterized, light field and a lumigraph representation, with its continuous geometric proxy. Our approach factors the rays of a light field into one of two separate classes. All rays consistent with a given correspondence are implicitly represented using a new auxiliary data structure, which we call a surface camera, or scam. The remaining rays of the light field are represented using a standard two-plane parameterized light field. We present an efficient rendering algorithm that combines ray samples from scams with those from the light field. The resulting image reconstructions are noticeably improved over that of a pure light field. Thesis Supervisor: Leonard McMillan Title: Associate Professor