Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
International Conference on Information Systems ( ICIS ) 1-1-2010 FACTORS IN ICT-ENABLED COLLABORATION IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR : THE NEIGHBOR EFFECT

Interorganizational relationships enabled by information systems (IS) are formed under various contingencies. Past research in interorganizational collaborations has benefitted from employing rational choice and institutional theory separately but as organizations face dual pressures to improve performance and gain legitimacy in their social environments a fuller explanation must encompass both perspectives. This study examines the question of why ICT-enabled collaborations form in the public safety domain by employing rational choice and institutional theory perspectives as complementary. This study specifically examines the possibility of a neighbor effect in stimulating the establishment of interagency policing collaborations, while also attending to economic, geographic, and demographic factors influencing this decision to join-up. When completed, this study will contribute to IS knowledge by extending homophily research into the domain of public safety IS, and by incorporating institutional and rational perspectives as an analytical platform from which to apply findings from the public to the private sector.
Meta-Analytic Procedures for Social Research

Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1993, Vol 38(9), 1000–1001. Reviews the book, Meta-Analytic Procedures for Social Research by Robert Rosenthal (1991). This is a revised edition of Rosenthal's 1984 book describing meta-analytic procedures for researchers and adva
Verification of regular architectures using ALPHA: a case study

We present a formal method for the verification of regular VLSI architectures. In our method, the behavioral specification of the chip and its implementation are first expressed in ALPHA, a language for the design of regular synchronous architectures. The behavioral specification as refined down to an abstract architecture description, while the implementation is simplified by induction techniques up to the same abstract architecture level. Verification is then done by matching both descriptions. This method has been successfully applied to check the correctness of a 300.000 transistor VLSI systolic chip named API69 for sequence comparison. <<ETX>>
Application of neural networks for stereo-camera calibration

The position of a world point can be measured by the use of calibrated stereo cameras. Although simple linear methods for the calibration assuming an ideal projection model are available, their solutions are usually not accurate since most off-the-shelf lenses used in machine vision applications sustain considerable amount of nonlinear distortion. Recent research efforts on the problem have been thus concentrated on the modeling of lens distortion and its correction techniques. However, the types of lens distortion are various and the equations derived are more complicated if more precise model is employed for higher accuracy. In this paper methods for calibrating stereo vision systems with neural networks are described. Different approaches are tested under various conditions and their results are compared.
Anonymity and Monitoring: How to Monitor the Infrastructure of an Anonymity System

The Tor network is a widely deployed anonymity system on the Internet used by thousands of users every day. A basic monitoring system has been designed and implemented to allow long-term statistics, provide feedback to the interested user, and detect certain attacks on the network. The implementation has been added to TorStatus, a project to display the current state of the Tor network. During a period of six months, this monitoring system collected data, where information and patterns have been extracted and analyzed. Interestingly, the Tor network is very stable with more than half of all the servers located in Germany and the United States. The data also shows a sinusoidal pattern every 24 h in the total number of servers.
Bioactive Phytochemical Proanthocyanidins Inhibit Growth of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cells by Targeting Multiple Signaling Molecules

Despite advances in surgical and medical therapies, approximate 50% survival rate of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) has had marginal improvement in the last 30 years. Therefore, alternative strategies are required for the management of HNSCC. Here, we report the chemotherapeutic effect of proanthocyanidins on HNSCC cells using in vitro and in vivo models. Treatment of human HNSCC cell lines from different sub-sites, such as oral cavity (SCC1), larynx (SCC5), tongue (OSC19) and pharynx (FaDu), with grape seed proanthocyanidins (GSPs) reduced their cell viability and induced cell death in a dose- and time-dependent manner. GSPs induced inhibition of cell viability was associated with: (i) G1-phase arrest, (ii) inhibition of expressions of cyclins (cyclin D1 and Cyclin D2) and cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdk), (iii) increased expression of the Cdk inhibitory proteins (Cip1/p21, Kip1/p27), enhanced binding of Cdk inhibitors to Cdks, and downregulation of E2F transcription factor. GSPs significantly (P<0.05−0.001) increased apoptosis of SCC1 and OSC19 cells with induction of Bax, reduced expression of Bcl-2, and activation of caspase-3. GSPs also reduced the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and treatment of SCC1 cells with erlotinib, an EGFR-targeting small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor, significantly (P<0.05−0.001) reduced cell viability and increased cell death. Dietary administration of GSPs (0.5%, w/w) in supplementation with AIN76A control diet inhibited the growth of SCC1 tumor xenografts in athymic nude mice, which was associated with: (i) inhibition of cell proliferation, (ii) induction of apoptosis of tumor xenograft cells, (iii) decreased expression of cyclins and Cdks, (iv) decreased expression of EGFR, and (v) increased expression of Cip1/p21 and Kip1/p27 proteins and their increased binding to Cdks in tumor xenograft samples. Together, these results suggest that GSPs may be a promising candidate for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma therapy.
Nuclear Spin Relaxation within Interstellar Grains

We identify a new mechanism of internal dissipation of rotational kinetic energy in spinning dust grains, arising from the reorientation of nuclear angular momentum, e.g., spins of protons. Grain rotation induces magnetization of the nuclear spin system, with net alignment of nuclear spins parallel to the grain angular velocity. When the grain does not rotate around a principal axis, the nuclear magnetization vector precesses in grain-body coordinates, resulting in dissipation of energy. The analogous process involving electron spins was discovered by E. M. Purcell and termed "Barnett relaxation. " We revisit the physics of the Barnett relaxation process and correct the estimate for the Barnett relaxation rate. We show that nuclear relaxation can be orders of magnitude more important than Barnett relaxation. This finding implies that the processes of "thermal flipping" and "thermal trapping" are important for a broad range of grain sizes.
Interleukin-6 Enhances Glucose-Stimulated Insulin Secretion From Pancreatic β-Cells

OBJECTIVE Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has a significant impact on glucose metabolism. However, the effects of IL-6 on insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells are controversial. Therefore, we analyzed IL-6 effects on pancreatic β-cell functions both in vivo and in vitro. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS First, to examine the effects of IL-6 on in vivo insulin secretion, we expressed IL-6 in the livers of mice using the adenoviral gene transfer system. In addition, using both MIN-6 cells, a murine β-cell line, and pancreatic islets isolated from mice, we analyzed the in vitro effects of IL-6 pretreatment on insulin secretion. Furthermore, using pharmacological inhibitors and small interfering RNAs, we studied the intracellular signaling pathway through which IL-6 may affect insulin secretion from MIN-6 cells. RESULTS Hepatic IL-6 expression raised circulating IL-6 and improved glucose tolerance due to enhancement of glucose stimulated-insulin secretion (GSIS). In addition, in both isolated pancreatic islets and MIN-6 cells, 24-h pretreatment with IL-6 significantly enhanced GSIS. Furthermore, pretreatment of MIN-6 cells with phospholipase C (PLC) inhibitors with different mechanisms of action, U-73122 and neomycin, and knockdowns of the IL-6 receptor and PLC-β1, but not with a protein kinase A inhibitor, H-89, inhibited IL-6–induced enhancement of GSIS. An inositol triphosphate (IP3) receptor antagonist, Xestospondin C, also abrogated the GSIS enhancement induced by IL-6. CONCLUSIONS The results obtained from both in vivo and in vitro experiments strongly suggest that IL-6 acts directly on pancreatic β-cells and enhances GSIS. The PLC-IP3–dependent pathway is likely to be involved in IL-6-mediated enhancements of GSIS.
Analysis of periplasmic sensor domains from Anaeromyxobacter dehalogenans 2CP-C: Structure of one sensor domain from a histidine kinase and another from a chemotaxis protein

Anaeromyxobacter dehalogenans is a δ‐proteobacterium found in diverse soils and sediments. It is of interest in bioremediation efforts due to its dechlorination and metal‐reducing capabilities. To gain an understanding on A. dehalogenans' abilities to adapt to diverse environments we analyzed its signal transduction proteins. The A. dehalogenans genome codes for a large number of sensor histidine kinases (HK) and methyl‐accepting chemotaxis proteins (MCP); among these 23 HK and 11 MCP proteins have a sensor domain in the periplasm. These proteins most likely contribute to adaptation to the organism's surroundings. We predicted their three‐dimensional folds and determined the structures of two of the periplasmic sensor domains by X‐ray diffraction. Most of the domains are predicted to have either PAS‐like or helical bundle structures, with two predicted to have solute‐binding protein fold, and another predicted to have a 6‐phosphogluconolactonase like fold. Atomic structures of two sensor domains confirmed the respective fold predictions. The Adeh_2942 sensor (HK) was found to have a helical bundle structure, and the Adeh_3718 sensor (MCP) has a PAS‐like structure. Interestingly, the Adeh_3718 sensor has an acetate moiety bound in a binding site typical for PAS‐like domains. Future work is needed to determine whether Adeh_3718 is involved in acetate sensing by A. dehalogenans.
A novel morbillivirus pneumonia of horses and its transmission to humans.

contributed to the studies outlined in this paper. Richard Lawrence, Clinical Superintendent of Medicine, Westmead Hospital, provided valuable discussions on clinical aspects and case presentation. Our investigations were supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Ramaciotti Foundations. Plikaytis B. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and direct immunofluorescence assay for Lyme disease. veterinary authorities in Queensland and at the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory were advised of an outbreak of acute respiratory disease in horses at a stable in the Brisbane suburb of Hendra. The trainer of the horses had been hospitalized for a respiratory disease and was in critical condition. At that time, the cause of the horses' illness was unclear and any link between equine and human disease was thought improbable. Poisoning, bacterial, viral, and exotic disease causes were investigated. The history of the horses on this property was considered important (Figure 1). Two weeks before the trainer's illness, on September 7, two horses had been moved to the Hendra stable from a spelling paddock in Cannon Hill (6 km). One of these, a pregnant mare, was sick and died within 2 days. The other horse was subsequently moved on and never became sick. By September 26, 13 horses had died: the mare; 10 other horses in the Hendra stable; one horse, which had very close contact with horses in the Hendra stable, on a neighboring property ; and one which had been transported from the stable to another site (150 km). Four Hendra horses and three others (one in an adjacent stable, one moved to Kenilworth, and one to Samford) were later considered to have been exposed and recovered from the illness. Some of these horses were asymp-tomatic. Nine Hendra horses have remained unaffected. The sick horses were anorexic, depressed, usually febrile (temperature up to 41°C), showed elevated respiratory rates, and became ataxic. Head pressing was occasionally seen, and commonly, a frothy nasal discharge occurred before death. On September 14, a stablehand at the Hendra stable developed an influenza-like illness characterized by fever and myalgia. The next day, the horse trainer also became ill with similar symptoms. Both had close contact with the dying mare, particularly the trainer who was exposed to nasal discharge while trying to feed her; he had abrasions on his hands and arms. The stablehand, a 40-year-old man, remained ill for 6 weeks and gradually recovered. Besides myalgia, he also had headaches, …
Towards the Integration of Constraint Logic Programming and Mathematical Programming

Preface During the first days of the new millennium I started my research project at Paragon Decision Technology in Haarlem, the Netherlands. That was January 3, 2000. Some 6 months later, the research project is finished, and the report is in front of the reader. As for the writer, a feeling of satisfaction has come over him. This thesis concerns a subject that is quite promising. Since it is not a regular subject of my graduate program, quite a lot of time had to be spent on the theoretical background. Furthermore, several practical applications of the subject were considered. This mixture of theory and applications turned out to be an ideal combination for me. I would like to thank the following persons: J. Bisschop, for being an inspiring supervisor, for reviewing this thesis, but mostly for enabling me to carry out this research project at this level. Koos Heerink, for supporting me during the implementation of the programs, for answering other questions that appeared, and for reading this thesis. J. Hurink, for reading this thesis. The colleagues at Paragon Decision Technology, for providing a nice working environment.
Differential roles of ICAM‐1 and VCAM‐1 in leukocyte‐endothelial cell interactions in skin and brain of MRL/faslpr mice

MRL/faslpr mice, which undergo a systemic autoimmune disease with similarities to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), display reduced pathology and prolonged survival if rendered deficient in ICAM‐1. However, it remains unclear whether this is a result of the ability of ICAM‐1 to promote the immune response or mediate leukocyte recruitment. Therefore, the aim of these studies was to compare the role of ICAM‐1 in the elevated leukocyte‐endothelial interactions, which affect MRL/faslpr mice. Intravital microscopy was used to compare leukocyte rolling and adhesion in postcapillary venules in the dermal and cerebral (pial) microcirculations of wild‐type (ICAM+/+) and ICAM‐1‐deficient (ICAM‐1−/−) MRL/faslpr mice. In the dermal microcirculation of 16‐week MRL/faslpr mice, leukocyte adhesion was increased relative to nondiseased MRL+/+ mice. However, this increase was abolished in ICAM‐1−/− MRL/faslpr mice. ICAM‐1 deficiency was also associated with reduced dermal pathology. In contrast, in the pial microcirculation, the elevation in leukocyte adhesion observed in ICAM+/+ MRL/faslpr mice also occurred in ICAM‐1−/− MRL/faslpr mice. VCAM‐1 expression was detectable in both vascular beds, but higher levels were detected in the pial vasculature. Furthermore, VCAM‐1 blockade significantly reduced leukocyte adhesion and rolling in the cerebral microcirculation of ICAM‐1−/− MRL/faslpr mice. Therefore, ICAM‐1 was critical for leukocyte adhesion in the skin but not the brain, where VCAM‐1 assumed the major function. Given the ongoing development of anti‐adhesion molecule therapies and their potential in inflammatory diseases such as SLE, these data indicate that implementation of these therapies in SLE should take into account the potential for tissue‐specific functions of adhesion molecules.
Automating Mode Detection Using Neural Networks and Assisted GPS Data Collected Using GPS-Enabled Mobile Phones

This paper describes the use of TRAC-IT, a mobile phone application, as a survey tool to collect trip and travel data. TRAC-IT records travel behavior by collecting real-time GPS data and requiring minimal input from the user for data such as trip purpose, mode of transportation, and vehicle occupancy. The authors stress that in order to ease survey burden on participants, new techniques must be explored to derive more information directly from GPS data. The paper focuses on the feasibility of using neural networks and GPS data collected from GPS-enabled mobile phones to automatically detect the mode of transportation. The authors demonstrate how this technique can be optimized using a critical point algorithm to reduce the size of required GPS datasets obtained from GPS-enabled mobile phones, thus reducing data collection costs while saving mobile phone resources such as battery life and storage space. When broken down by mode, the neural network correctly predicted 92.11 percent of the car trips, 81.58 percent of the bus trips, and 100 percent of the walking trips for this test series.
Design of an RF receiver in BiCMOS implementing beamforming to reject interference

This thesis deals with the implementation of an RF frontend for a digital beamforming Software Defined Radio receiver. Initial beamforming is implemented in the frontend to reject interferers, which would otherwise desensitise the frontend. A beamforming strategy is presented which creates a beam by applying independent phase shifts to the input signals. This way the radiation pattern of the beam is altered resulting in varying beamshapes and differently placed zeros. This beam is then used to create a set of 4 orthogonal beams, which, together, prove to preserve all information, so further beamforming can be performed in software. Interferers can be rejected in the frontend by ‘capturing’ the interferer in 1 of the 4 beams, therewith not affecting the other 3 beams. A circuit level implementation re-using the LO phases already created for harmonic rejection to implement beamforming and therewith saving the implementation of extra phase shifters is proposed. Circuit simulation shows an improvement of the signal-to-interferer ratio of the created beams by 14 to 33 dB in a worst-case scenario in comparison to when no initial beamforming is implemented in the frontend.
Guides for practitioners : meta-analysis

John A.Collins Also, although experience is priceless and some clinical experiences are etched into our memories, experience can be Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Clinical misleading: the most memorable experiences are the atypical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health Sciences, events which generate utter terror and sheer pleasure. Thus, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8N 3Z5 clinical research is the most reliable source of evidence on Address for correspondence: Room 3N52B, 1200 Main Street West, which to base clinical reasoning and clinical judgements. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8N 3Z5 How do clinicians access research evidence? Discussions An informal survey among colleagues turns up the far-from with colleagues, hospital grand rounds, clinical meetings and surprising information that the average patient contact postgraduate sessions usually take precedence over reading the involves at least three or four judgements and decisions: current literature. The rapid expansion of published evidence in judgements about aetiology and prognosis, decisions about recent years means that clinicians are hard-pressed to stay at diagnosis and therapy, and sometimes discussions about the forefront of advances in knowledge and technology through costs and side-effects. And so it goes: 20 patients a day, 60 reading. Two unfolding developments may make that task decisions; 100 patients a week, 300 decisions. Who makes easier. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) procedures empower these decisions, the doctor or the patient? What factors physicians to choose ruthlessly only the readings which will govern the final choice in each case? Evidence-based medibe useful in their practice. Meta-analysis techniques objectively cine (EBM) is the factor getting a lot of attention these summarize the often-confusing literature on clinical subjects. days, but clinical decisions depend on many different Both developments have the potential to assist clinical decisionelements. Good doctors have always made use of experience making in reproductive medicine. and judgement as well as the best available evidence.
Progressively-Refined Reflectance Functions from natural Illumination

In this paper we present a simple, robust, and efficient algorithm for estimating reflectance fields (i.e., a description of the transport of light through a scene) for a fixed viewpoint using images of the scene under known natural illumination. Our algorithm treats the scene as a black-box linear system that transforms an input signal (the incident light) into an output signal (the reflected light). The algorithm is hierarchical – it progressively refines the approximation of the reflectance field with an increasing number of training samples until the required precision is reached. Our method relies on a new representation for reflectance fields. This representation is compact, can be progressively refined, and quickly computes the relighting of scenes with complex illumination. Our representation and the corresponding algorithm allow us to efficiently estimate the reflectance fields of scenes with specular, glossy, refractive, and diffuse elements. The method also handles soft and hard shadows, inter-reflections, caustics, and subsurface scattering. We verify our algorithm and representation using two measurement setups and several scenes, including an outdoor view of the city of Cambridge.
Array Optimizations in OCaml

OCaml is a modern programming language with many advanced features, yet its strict sequential semantics and consequent lack of support for locality-enhancement optimizations on arrays prohibit its use in numerically intensive computation. In this paper we show that it is possible to perform such optimizations by creating safe regions in which array bounds checking is unnecessary. These optimizations can be performed (mostly) automatically by a prototype implementation that we describe. Performance gains from the optimizations range from 37-94% on simple matrix kernels.
SSG-AT: An Auto-tuning Method of Sparse Matrix-vector Multiplicataion for Semi-structured Grids -- An Adaptation to OpenFOAM

We are developing ppOpen-AT, which is an infrastructureof auto-tuning (AT) for ppOpen-HPC. ppOpen-HPC is numerical middleware for post Petascale era. In this study, we propose a new auto-tuning (AT) facility for semi-structured grids in OpenFOAM. We focus on sparse matrix-vector multiplication and the matrix storage formats. Using the features of input data and mesh connectivity, we propose a hybrid storage format that is suitable for semistructured grids. We evaluate the proposed AT facility on the T2K supercomputer and an Intel Xeon cluster. For a typical computational fluid dynamics scenario, we obtain speedup factors of 1.3 on the T2K and 1.84 on the Xeon cluster. These results indicate that the proposed AT method has the potential to select the optimal data format according to features of the input sparse matrix.