Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cognitive science meets multi-agent systems: A prolegomenon

In the current research on multi-agent systems (MAS), many theoretical issues related to sociocultural processes have been touched upon. These issues are in fact intellectually profound and should prove to be significant for MAS. Moreover, these issues should have equally significant impact on cognitive science, if we ever try to understand cognition in the broad context of sociocultural environments in which cognitive agents exist. Furthermore, cognitive models as studied in cognitive science can help us in a substantial way to better probe multi-agent issues, by taking into account essential characteristics of cognitive agents and their various capacities. In this paper, we systematically examine the interplay among social sciences, MAS, and cognitive science. We try to justify an integrated approach for MAS which incorporates different perspectives. We show how a new cognitive model, CLARION, can embody such an integrated approach through a combination of autonomous learning and assimilation.
Intercultural Communication in the Global Village: How to Understand “The Other”

Intercultural communication scholarship is poised to be a powerful force in the communication field as well as social sciences in general. In this paper, we focus on four main areas which we hope will spur creative academic inquiry in the future. More productive efforts will move beyond the ethnocentrism that permeates current communication research and will entail a thorough redefinition of personhood. Future work will move beyond discussions of how cultures assimilate to include how other cultures interact in a host culture to sustain multiple cultural identities. Additionally, research will move beyond examining linguistic and cultural differences, to also recognize the social-action nature of communication. Finally, future endeavors will move beyond the study of culture-typed identities and question the very notion of cultural boundaries. We predict that the inevitable challenges posed by multiculturalism will allow intercultural communication studies to play a more central role as an interdisciplinary “clearing-house” within the social sciences.
Anatomical and Functional Modularity in Cognitive Science: Shifting the Focus

Much of cognitive science is committed to the modular approach to the study of cognition. The core of this approach consists of a pair of assumptions—the anatomical and the functional modularity assumptions—which motivate two kinds of inference: the anatomical and the functional modularity inferences. The legitimacy of both of these inferences has been strongly challenged, a situation that has had surprisingly little impact on most theorizing in the field. Following the introduction of an important, yet rarely made, distinction between two functional concepts—the distinction between cognitive working and cognitive role—this paper analyses these kinds of inference, and refocuses the attention on new aspects of their main limitations. It is argued that both the anatomical and functional modularity inferences can, and do, operate in three distinct modes in contemporary cognitive science, and that seeing this is essential to understanding both the power and the limitations of these methodological tools.
Race and Penalized Sports Behaviors

There are a number of verbal and non-verbal behaviors exhibited by football and basketball players, such as trash talking, taunting, celebrating, dancing, etc. that are penalized and heavily criticized by the athletic officials, coaches, the media and fans. The amount of attention these behaviors receive seems out of proportion to their importance, since they provide little if any competitive advantage and seem to be only peripherally related to the actual competition. It is argued that the undue attention these behaviors receive is racially motivated in that African Americans are to an overwhelming degree responsible for the sanctioned behaviors. These behaviors are a reflection of urban African American cultural norms, which conflict with white mainstream norms. The sanctions represent white male mainstream society’s response to the threat to white masculinity represented by black athletic superiority and by African American athletes’ assertion of the right to define the meaning of their own behavior. In this contested terrain African Americans are resisting white male hegemony and asserting their manhood and cultural identity.
Community Response Grids for Older Adults: Motivations, Usability, and Sociability

This paper discusses the motivation for a Community Response Grid (CRG) to help older adults improve their capability for coping with emergency situations. We define and discuss the concept of a CRG, briefly review the limits of current emergency response systems, and identify usability and sociability guidelines for CRGs for older adults based on existing research. The paper ends with a call to action and suggestions for future research directions.
Abnormal Electrophysiological Motor Responses in Huntington’s Disease: Evidence of Premanifest Compensation

Background Huntington's disease (HD) causes progressive motor dysfunction through characteristic atrophy. Changes to neural structure begin in premanifest stages yet individuals are able to maintain a high degree of function, suggesting involvement of supportive processing during motor performance. Electroencephalography (EEG) enables the investigation of subtle impairments at the neuronal level, and possible compensatory strategies, by examining differential activation patterns. We aimed to use EEG to investigate neural motor processing (via the Readiness Potential; RP), premotor processing and sensorimotor integration (Contingent Negative Variation; CNV) during simple motor performance in HD. Methods We assessed neural activity associated with motor preparation and processing in 20 premanifest (pre-HD), 14 symptomatic HD (symp-HD), and 17 healthy controls. Participants performed sequential tapping within two experimental paradigms (simple tapping; Go/No-Go). RP and CNV potentials were calculated separately for each group. Results Motor components and behavioural measures did not distinguish pre-HD from controls. Compared to controls and pre-HD, symp-HD demonstrated significantly reduced relative amplitude and latency of the RP, whereas controls and pre-HD did not differ. However, early CNV was found to significantly differ between control and pre-HD groups, due to enhanced early CNV in pre-HD. Conclusions For the first time, we provide evidence of atypical activation during preparatory processing in pre-HD. The increased activation during this early stage of the disease may reflect ancillary processing in the form of recruitment of additional neural resources for adequate motor preparation, despite atrophic disruption to structure and circuitry. We propose an early adaptive compensation mechanism in pre-HD during motor preparation.
Prospero: a T Ool for Organizing Internet Resources Organizing, Not Just Searching

Recent growth of the Internet has greatly increased the amount of information that is accessible and the number of resources that are available to users. To exploit this growth, it must be p ossible for users to nd the information and resources they need. Existing techniques for organizing systems have evolved f r om those used o n c entralized systems, but these techniques a r e inadequate for organizing information on a global scale. This article describes Prospero, a distributed le system based on the Virtual System Model. Prospero p r ovides tools to help users organize Internet resources. These tools allow users to construct customized views of available resources, while taking advantage of the structure imposed by others. Prospero p r ovides a framework that can tie together various indexing services producing the fabric upon which resource discovery techniques can be applied. The Internet contains a massive amount of information , but it is hard to use that information. There are several barriers to usability: it is diicult to identify the information of interest; it is diicult to keep track of this information once found; it is diicult to share information about what is available, or to collabora-tively maintain such meta-information; and the information is often scattered across multiple le systems of diierent t ypes, meaning that diierent mechanisms are needed to access it. Existing methods for organizing information have e v olved from techniques used on centralized systems and are inadequate for organizing information on a global scale. Users look for information in many w ays. They consult libraries, journals, professional society publications , mailing lists, indexing services, and other users. While these sources of meta-information are useful, it is still necessary for users to identify the source that can answer their query. Prospero provides a framework Cliiord Neuman is a computer scientist at the Informa-The views and conclusions contained in this article are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the oocial policies, either expressed or implied, of any of the funding agencies. within which such meta-information which I will refer to as directories can be made available to users and it provides the tools to allow directories from multiple sources to be combined in useful ways. Prospero lets users create customized views of a global le system. This customization plays an important role in organizing information since there are many communities …
Mouse brain full‐length cDNA library construction by negative selection of intact mRNAs

Synthesis of full‐length cDNA libraries is an essential step for the study of gene function. The method for selecting the intact mRNA directly affects the number of full‐length transcripts. We have developed a novel method for intact mRNA selection based on the elimination of uncapped mRNAs. A negative‐selection strategy that removes both uncapped mRNA and other non‐mRNA molecules that present a phosphate at the 5'‐end has been applied in the mRNA purification procedures. Briefly, after performing a standard mRNA purification, a biotinylated oligoribonucleotide is ligated to the 5‐end phosphate of uncapped mRNAs. Streptavidin extraction is then performed to remove truncated and non‐mRNAs from the intact mRNAs. By comparing random sequencing results of mouse brain full‐length and standard cDNA libraries, there was a significant increase of full‐length clones with the modified procedure. The results showed that the full‐length library contained more than 68% full‐length clones with the 5'‐end positions ranging between –485 to +100 compared to the standard library with 33% of full‐length clones and 5'‐end positions ranging between –233 to +100. The data were analyzed using the t‐test with the significance level set at p<0.05. The statistical results showed that there were significant differences between two libraries in both 5'‐end position and mRNA size (p<0.05).
A Pivotal Role for Tryptophan 447 in Enzymatic Coupling of Human Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase (eNOS)

Background: Interaction of tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) with a key tryptophan residue in the NOS active site is critical for activity. Results: Mutation of tryptophan 447 causes eNOS uncoupling and monomerization. Conclusion: Tryptophan 447 determines enzymatic coupling of human eNOS. Significance: The development of BH4-based strategies to restore NOS function must consider the structural effects of BH4 binding and their role in NOS coupling. Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) is a required cofactor for the synthesis of NO by NOS. Bioavailability of BH4 is a critical factor in regulating the balance between NO and superoxide production by endothelial NOS (eNOS coupling). Crystal structures of the mouse inducible NOS oxygenase domain reveal a homologous BH4-binding site located in the dimer interface and a conserved tryptophan residue that engages in hydrogen bonding or aromatic stacking interactions with the BH4 ring. The role of this residue in eNOS coupling remains unexplored. We overexpressed human eNOS W447A and W447F mutants in novel cell lines with tetracycline-regulated expression of human GTP cyclohydrolase I, the rate-limiting enzyme in BH4 synthesis, to determine the importance of BH4 and Trp-447 in eNOS uncoupling. NO production was abolished in eNOS-W447A cells and diminished in cells expressing W447F, despite high BH4 levels. eNOS-derived superoxide production was significantly elevated in W447A and W447F versus wild-type eNOS, and this was sufficient to oxidize BH4 to 7,8-dihydrobiopterin. In uncoupled, BH4-deficient cells, the deleterious effects of W447A mutation were greatly exacerbated, resulting in further attenuation of NO and greatly increased superoxide production. eNOS dimerization was attenuated in W447A eNOS cells and further reduced in BH4-deficient cells, as demonstrated using a novel split Renilla luciferase biosensor. Reduction of cellular BH4 levels resulted in a switch from an eNOS dimer to an eNOS monomer. These data reveal a key role for Trp-447 in determining NO versus superoxide production by eNOS, by effects on BH4-dependent catalysis, and by modulating eNOS dimer formation.
Cost-benefit analysis of central and local voltage control provided by distributed generators in MV networks

In this study, technical as well as economic aspects of local and central coordinated voltage control strategies, which are based on reactive power provision from the distributed generators, will be analyzed in the context of high penetration of renewable energy resources in European medium voltage distribution networks. An economical evaluation of the operation and investment costs of the strategies is the main focus of this study. The results suggest that voltage control strategies which are based on distributed generators can increase the hosting capacity of the network, while being economically viable in comparison to classic grid reinforcement.
USARSim: Providing a Framework for Multi-Robot Performance Evaluation | NIST

Research efforts in urban search and rescue robotics have grown substantially in recent years. Two important robotic competitions (a robot physical league and a high-level infrastructure simulation league) were established in 2001 under the RoboCup umbrella to foster collaboration amongst institutions and to provide benchmark test environments for system evaluation. While these leagues play valuable roles, a significant gap existed between simulating disaster infrastructure and implementing agent behaviors on real hardware. In this paper we describe a software simulation framework intended to be a bridge between these communities. The framework allows for the realistic modeling of robots, sensors, and actuators, as well as complex, unstructured, dynamic environments. Multiple heterogeneous agents can be concurrently placed in the simulation environment thus allowing for team or group evaluations. This paper presents a description of the simulation along with results from the RoboCup 2006 Virtual Robot Competition in which it was used and a roadmap of the framework’s future directions.
TIGER: an efficient timing-driven global router for gate array and standard cell layout design

In this paper, we propose an efficient timing-driven global router, TIGER, for gate array and standard cell layout design. Unlike other conventional global routing techniques, interconnection delays are modeled and included during the routing and rerouting process in order to minimize the maximum channel density for gate arrays or the total track number for standard cells, as well as to satisfy the timing constraints in TIGER. The timing-driven global routing problem is formulated as a multiterminal, multicommodity network flow problem with integer flows under additional timing constraints. Two novel performance-driven Steiner tree algorithms are proposed to generate the initial global routing trees. A critical-path-based timing analysis method is used to guarantee the satisfaction of timing constraints. Experimental results based on MCNC (ISCAS) benchmarks show that TIGER can obtain better results than or comparable results with TimberWolf 5.6.
The impact of giving support to others on older adults' perceived health status

Social support that may contribute to the physical and mental health of older adults is widely studied. However, much of the existing research has focused on the impact of receiving support; the effects of giving support have largely been neglected. Using the biopsychosocial perspective, this study aimed to examine the independent impact of giving support to others on older adults' perceived health status.
The Effects of Bar-Sponsored Alcohol Beverage Promotions across Binge and Nonbinge Drinkers

Alcohol-related problems have proliferated on college campuses in recent years and have resulted in many negative consequences, including death. The authors examine the effects of advertised drink specials at bars (reduced prices on beer and wine, all you can drink for a fixed price) in two between-subjects experiments. The findings indicate that these advertised promotions positively affect attitudes and intentions of patronizing the bar and influence students’ expectations of amounts consumed for themselves and other consumers. The authors examine the effects of the promotions for consumers who are categorized as binge and nonbinge drinkers and find that binge drinkers differ from nonbingers in their attitudes and intentions related to such promotions in several important ways. For example, when a social responsibility message about not drinking and driving is included in the advertisement, bar patronage intentions are lower for nonbinge drinkers, but there is no effect of the message for binge drinkers. The authors address implications for consumer welfare and policy.
Becoming Teachers of Inner-City Students

Broadly speaking, this reflection approaches the on-going concern of capacitating an overwhelmingly White teaching profession for effectively teaching inner-city students attending de facto segregated schools. Using professional identifications, this reflection presents narrativized understanding of respondents’ becoming committed teachers of inner-city students through identification creativity driven by alternative masculinity. Respondents’ professional identifications, articulating identification creativity, provide an understanding of curriculum wisdom for teaching in inner-city schools that includes race visibility, difference within difference, and relational-experiential pedagogy. Last, this reflection urges researchers toward a second wave of White teacher identity studies based on directions emerging in this research.
Temperamental Profiles of Children with Communication Impairment.

The temperament literature available that involves children with communication impairments is limited but promising. The purpose of this study was to investigate the temperamental profiles of children with autism spectrum disorders, primary language impairments, phonological/articulation impairments, and combined phonological and language impairments. Participants included 38 children who attended the East Tennessee State University Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic at the time of the study or in the past 10 years. Parents of eligible participants were asked to complete demographic and temperament questionnaires about their children. Results indicated that the temperamental profiles of children with communication impairments differed significantly from typically developing children in terms of the superdimensions Negative Emotionality, Effortful Control, and Sociability/Affiliation. Temperamental differences were also noted between diagnostic groups. While the results of this pilot study are promising, further research is necessary to investigate the intricacies of the relationships identified in this study.
Parents, ICTs, and Children's Prospects for Success: Interviews along the Digital “Access Rainbow”

Interviews with 52 parents of varying income levels and positions on the digital “access rainbow” are used to explore how parents discuss the widespread belief that ICT (information and communication technologies) access affects their children's prospects for success. While all parents agreed that ICT competence is important, differences emerged along socioeconomic lines regarding how parents conceptualized the computer/success relationship. While upper-income parents demonstrated greater ICT proficiency and access and assumed that their children needed ICT proficiency for success, parents in the lower-income groups saw the need for ICT proficiency as more context-dependent and adopted broader definitions of success. All parents expressed concerns about the negative attributes of ICTs as entertainment rather than educational media; for lower- and middle-income families, however, this objection justified limits on use or access among children.
The Roles of APC and Axin Derived from Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of the Wnt Pathway

Wnt signaling plays an important role in both oncogenesis and development. Activation of the Wnt pathway results in stabilization of the transcriptional coactivator β-catenin. Recent studies have demonstrated that axin, which coordinates β-catenin degradation, is itself degraded. Although the key molecules required for transducing a Wnt signal have been identified, a quantitative understanding of this pathway has been lacking. We have developed a mathematical model for the canonical Wnt pathway that describes the interactions among the core components: Wnt, Frizzled, Dishevelled, GSK3β, APC, axin, β-catenin, and TCF. Using a system of differential equations, the model incorporates the kinetics of protein–protein interactions, protein synthesis/degradation, and phosphorylation/dephosphorylation. We initially defined a reference state of kinetic, thermodynamic, and flux data from experiments using Xenopus extracts. Predictions based on the analysis of the reference state were used iteratively to develop a more refined model from which we analyzed the effects of prolonged and transient Wnt stimulation on β-catenin and axin turnover. We predict several unusual features of the Wnt pathway, some of which we tested experimentally. An insight from our model, which we confirmed experimentally, is that the two scaffold proteins axin and APC promote the formation of degradation complexes in very different ways. We can also explain the importance of axin degradation in amplifying and sharpening the Wnt signal, and we show that the dependence of axin degradation on APC is an essential part of an unappreciated regulatory loop that prevents the accumulation of β-catenin at decreased APC concentrations. By applying control analysis to our mathematical model, we demonstrate the modular design, sensitivity, and robustness of the Wnt pathway and derive an explicit expression for tumor suppression and oncogenicity.
Draft Genome Sequence of Serratia sp. Strain ATCC 39006, a Model Bacterium for Analysis of the Biosynthesis and Regulation of Prodigiosin, a Carbapenem, and Gas Vesicles

ABSTRACT Serratia sp. strain ATCC 39006 is a Gram-negative bacterium and a member of the Enterobacteriaceae that produces various bioactive secondary metabolites, including the tripyrrole red pigment prodigiosin and the β-lactam antibiotic 1-carbapenen-2-em-3-carboxylic acid (a carbapenem). This strain is the only member of the Enterobacteriaceae known to naturally produce gas vesicles, as flotation organelles. Here we present the genome sequence of this strain, which has served as a model for analysis of the biosynthesis and regulation of antibiotic production.