Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From Sparse Matrix to Optimal GPU CUDA Sparse Matrix Vector Product Implementation

The CUDA model for GPUs presents the programmer with a plethora of different programming options. These includes different memory types, different memory access methods, and different data types. Identifying which options to use and when is a non-trivial exercise. This paper explores the effect of these different options on the performance of a routine that evaluates sparse matrix vector products. A process for analysing performance and selecting the subset of implementations that perform best is proposed. The potential for mapping sparse matrix attributes to optimal CUDA sparse matrix vector product implementation is discussed.
Properdin- and nephritic factor-dependent C3 convertases: requirement of native C3 for enzyme formation and the function of bound C3b as properdin receptor

Two complex enzymes were assembled that both converted C3 to C3b, one consisting of activated properdin (P), native C3, proactivator (PA) and proactivator convertase (PAase), and the other of nephritic factor (NF) and the same three cofactors. By maintaining a critical concentration of PAase, the P-C3 convertase and the NF-C3 convertase were shown to function efficiently without formation of the C3b-feedback enzyme. The former two enzymes are distinct from the C3b-dependent C3 convertase in that they utilize native C3 instead of C3b and PA in an apparently uncleaved form. The P- and NF-C3 convertase express maximal activity within approximately 10 min at 37 degrees C and decay with a half-life of 35 min at 37 degrees C, which is in contradistinction to the reported lability of the C3b-feedback enzyme. P- and NF-C3 convertases are inhibited by their product C3b, which may constitute a heretofore unknown control of the alternative pathway. A direct physical interaction of P with native C3 and C3b was demonstrated by agglutination of C3b-bearing erythrocytes and by agglutination inhibition. Bound C3b thus constitutes the only known receptor of P and may fulfill an important localizing function for P and the P-C3 convertase in vivo. Although P and NF form functionally similar enzymes, they act independently of each other and are apparently immunochemically unrelated proteins.
Taylorism, the International Labour Organization, and the Genesis and Diffusion of Codetermination

The conventional negative understanding of the scientific management movement has been challenged in recent decades by heterodox scholars who hold that the movement supported the democratization of the management process and in so doing worked closely with unions and with progressives within and around Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. This paper seeks to strengthen this challenge to orthodoxy by documenting how the leadership of the Taylor Society, a body established by Frederick Taylor’s inner circle as a vehicle to develop and promote their mentor’s ideas, strove to internationalize the diffusion of participatory management in tandem with the International Labour Organization, a body whose core purpose was and is to promote codetermination both in workplaces and in wider society.
A new wrist vein biometric system

In this piece of work a wrist vein pattern recognition and verification system is proposed. Here the wrist vein images from the PUT database were used, which were acquired in visible spectrum. The vein image only highlights the vein pattern area so, segmentation was not required. Since the wrist's veins are not prominent, image enhancement was performed. An Adaptive Histogram Equalization and Discrete Meyer Wavelet were used to enhance the vessel patterns. For feature extraction, the vein pattern is characterized with Dense Local Binary Pattern (D-LBP). D-LBP patch descriptors of each training image are used to form a bag of features, which was used to produce the training model. Support Vector Machines (SVMs) were used for classification. An encouraging Equal Error Rate (EER) of 0.79% was achieved in our experiments.
Gender differences in academically talented young students' mathematical reasoning: Patterns across age and subskills.

When a sample of academically talented students in Grades 2-6 was given a test of mathematical reasoning ability, boys performed better overall than girls. The gender differences for mathematical ability appeared as early as 2nd grade in samples tested over a 7-year period but varied somewhat according to mathematical subskills. There were no substantial gender-related differences on tasks requiring students to identify whether enough information was provided to solve a task; however, boys performed better than girls on tasks requiring application of algebraic rules or algorithms, as well as on tasks in which the understanding of mathematical concepts and number relationships was required
On rewriting XPath queries using views

The problem of rewriting a query using a materialized view is studied for a well known fragment of XPath that includes the following three constructs: wildcards, descendant edges and branches. In earlier work, determining the existence of a rewriting was shown to be coNP-hard, but no tight complexity bound was given. While it was argued that Σ3p is an upper bound, the proof was based on results that have recently been refuted. Consequently, the exact complexity (and even decidability) of this basic problem has been unknown, and there have been no practical rewriting algorithms if the query and the view use all the three constructs mentioned above. It is shown that under fairly general conditions, there are only two candidates for rewriting and hence, the problem can be practically solved by two containment tests. In particular, under these conditions, determining the existence of a rewriting is coNP-complete. The proofs utilize various novel techniques for reasoning about XPath patterns. For the general case, the exact complexity remains unknown, but it is shown that the problem is decidable.
Richard E. Snow's Remaking of the Concept of Aptitude and Multidimensional Test Validity: Introduction to the Special Issue

Richard E. Snow conceived of individuals' performances as the result of a transaction between their aptitudes and the particular characteristics of the situation in which a performance occurred over time. By aptitudes he meant the cognitive, conative, and affective resources that an individual brings to the situation. By situation he meant the characteristics of a particular environment (e.g., test) that afforded or impeded-that assisted or constrained-certain courses of goal-directed action for different individuals. In relation to achievement tests, Snow proposed that individuals' test performances emerged from the organization of their demographic background and intellectual history; an "assembly" of cognitive, conative, and affective processes needed to more or less effectively respond to a series of situation-embedded test tasks (e.g., multiple-choice items); and the ways in which the demand characteristics and opportunities of the tasks were attuned to or mismatched with individuals' aptitude resources. Performance and its determinants were not viewed as static but rather as dynamic processes unfolding over time at the interface of person and situation. From this reasoning and related empirical findings, Snow concluded that a new multivariate approach to validating interpretations of achievement test scores was needed. In this introduction to this special issue, we describe some of Snow's "big ideas" regarding issues of aptitude, person-situation transactions, and test validity. We then describe the design of the "high school study" we undertook, after Snow's passing in 1997, to explore some of these ideas further.
Socio‐psychological Environments and Learning: a quantitative synthesis

Abstract To estimate the sign and size of correlations between student perceptions of social‐psychological environments of their classes and learning outcomes, 734 correlations from 12 studies on 823 classes in eight subject areas were analyzed. These represented a total of 17,805 students in four nations. A total of 31 of 36 hypotheses, theoretically‐derived in 1969 were supported. Learning outcomes and gains are positively associated with Cohesiveness, Satisfaction, Task Difficulty, Formality, Goal Direction, Democracy, and the Material Environment and negatively associated with Friction, Cliqueness, Apathy, and Disorganization. Jack‐knifed regression equations show that the magnitudes of the correlations depend on specific scales, level of aggregation, and nation but not on sample size, subject matter, domain of learning outcome (cognitive, affective, or behavioral), or statistical adjustments for ability and pretests.
Exercise Locus of Control, Behavior, and Intention Among Mexican American Youth

Mexican American youth have higher physical inactivity rates than their Black or non-Hispanic White counterparts. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among exercise locus of control, age, present exercise level, weight status, and gender with intention to exercise in a sample of Mexican American youth. The study sample consisted of 216 boys and 185 girls ranging in age from 10 to 15 years, and data were collected through a self-report survey instrument and height and weight measures to calculate body mass index. Structural equation modeling was employed to test for variable associations. Results suggested that for boys and girls, current exercise involvement had the greatest influence on intent to be physically active, and age had a mediating effect because of the increased importance of the powerful others’ exercise locus of control belief as one grew older.
Closely related octopus species show different spatial genetic structures in response to the Antarctic seascape

Abstract Determining whether comparable processes drive genetic divergence among marine species is relevant to molecular ecologists and managers alike. Sympatric species with similar life histories might be expected to show comparable patterns of genetic differentiation and a consistent influence of environmental factors in shaping divergence. We used microsatellite loci to quantify genetic differentiation across the Scotia Arc in three species of closely related benthic octopods, Pareledone turqueti, P. charcoti, and Adelieledone polymorpha. The relative importance of environmental factors (latitude, longitude, depth, and temperature) in shaping genetic structure was investigated when significant spatial genetic structure was uncovered. Isolated populations of P. turqueti and A. polymorpha at these species’ range margins were genetically different to samples close to mainland Antarctica; however, these species showed different genetic structures at a regional scale. Samples of P. turqueti from the Antarctic Peninsula, Elephant Island, and Signy Island were genetically different, and this divergence was associated primarily with sample collection depth. By contrast, weak or nonsignificant spatial genetic structure was evident across the Antarctic Peninsula, Elephant Island, and Signy Island region for A. polymorpha, and slight associations between population divergence and temperature or depth (and/or longitude) were detected. Pareledone charcoti has a limited geographic range, but exhibited no genetic differentiation between samples from a small region of the Scotia Arc (Elephant Island and the Antarctic Peninsula). Thus, closely related species with similar life history strategies can display contrasting patterns of genetic differentiation depending on spatial scale; moreover, depth may drive genetic divergence in Southern Ocean benthos.
Pretreatment with Mangafodipir Improves Liver Graft Tolerance to Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury in Rat

Ischemia/reperfusion injury occurring during liver transplantation is mainly due to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon revascularization. Thus, delivery of antioxidant enzymes might reduce the deleterious effects of ROS and improve liver graft initial function. Mangafodipir trisodium (MnDPDP), a contrast agent currently used in magnetic resonance imaging of the liver, has been shown to be endowed with powerful antioxidant properties. We hypothesized that MnDPDP could have a protective effect against liver ischemia reperfusion injury when administrated to the donor prior to harvesting. Livers from Sprague Dawley rats pretreated or not with MnDPDP were harvested and subsequently preserved for 24 h in Celsior® solution at 4°C. Organs were then perfused ex vivo for 120 min at 37°C with Krebs Henseleit solution. In MnDPDP (5 µmol/kg) group, we observed that ATP content was significantly higher at the end of the cold preservation period relative to untreated group. After reperfusion, livers from MnDPDP-treated rats showed better tissue integrity, less hepatocellular and endothelial cell injury. This was accompanied by larger amounts of bile production and higher ATP recovery as compared to untreated livers. The protective effect of MnDPDP was associated with a significant decrease of lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial damage, and apoptosis. Interestingly, MnDPDP-pretreated livers exhibited activation of Nfr2 and HIF-1α pathways resulting in a higher catalase and HO-1 activities. MnDPDP also increased total nitric oxide (NO) production which derived from higher expression of constitutive NO synthase and lower expression of inducible NO synthase. In conclusion, our results show that donor pretreatment with MnDPDP protects the rat liver graft from cold ischemia/reperfusion injury and demonstrate for the first time the potential interest of this molecule in the field of organ preservation. Since MnDPDP is safely used in liver imaging, this preservation strategy holds great promise for translation to clinical liver transplantation.
Towards service pool based approach for services discovery and subscription

In current web service discovery and subscription, consumers must pay too much time on manually selection and cannot easily benefit from the wide QoS spectrum brought by the proliferating services. In our approach, we introduce the service pool as a "virtual service" grouping function identical services together and dispatching consumer requests to the proper service in terms of QoS requirements.
A-MEDIAS: concept and design of an adaptive integrating event notification service

Title Page and Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Analysis of Application Scenarios 9 3. A Model of Event Notification Services 31 4. Review and Analysis of Event Notification Services 41 5. Adaptable Event Composition 51 6. Accurate Event Composition 67 7. Efficient Event Filtering 109 8. Implementing Adaptivity 127 9. The A-MEDIAS System 145 10. Experimental Results 153 11. Conclusion 175 Bibliography 183 A Selected A-MEDIAS Class Definitions 199 B Symbols used in the Thesis 201 C Anlagen gemas Promotionsordnung 205
Focused access to sparsely and densely relevant documents

XML retrieval provides a focused access to the relevant content of documents. However, in evaluation, full document retrieval has appeared competitive to focused XML retrieval. We analyze the density of relevance in documents, and show that in sparsely relevant documents focused retrieval performs better, whereas in densely relevant documents the performance of focused and document retrieval is equal.
Brr2 plays a role in spliceosomal activation in addition to U4/U6 unwinding

Brr2 is a DExD/H-box RNA helicase that is responsible for U4/U6 unwinding, a critical step in spliceosomal activation. Brr2 is a large protein (∼250 kD) that consists of an N-terminal domain (∼500 residues) with unknown function and two Hel308-like modules that are responsible for RNA unwinding. Here we demonstrate that removal of the entire N-terminal domain is lethal to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and deletion of the N-terminal 120 residues leads to splicing defects and severely impaired growth. This N-terminal truncation does not significantly affect Brr2's helicase activity. Brr2-Δ120 can be successfully assembled into the tri-snRNP (albeit at a lower level than the WT Brr2) and the spliceosomal B complex. However, the truncation significantly impairs spliceosomal activation, leading to a dramatic reduction of U5, U6 snRNAs and accumulation of U1 snRNA in the Bact complex. The N-terminal domain of Brr2 does not seem to be directly involved in regulating U1/5'ss unwinding. Instead, the N-terminal domain seems to be critical for retaining U5 and U6 snRNPs during/after spliceosomal activation through its interaction with snRNAs and possibly other spliceosomal proteins, revealing a new role of Brr2 in spliceosomal activation in addition to U4/U6 unwinding.
The nonlinearity of Diffuse Optical Tomography And Born Expansion

Diffuse optical tomography(DOT) is a nonlinear optimization problem to find optical coefficients using near-infrared light. Linearized methods was used by many researchers to avoid the nonlinearity of DOT. In this paper, the nonlinearity of DOT is studied using Born expansion and some parameters measuring the nonlinearity of DOT is suggested.
Induction of immediate early genes in the mouse auditory cortex after auditory cued fear conditioning to complex sounds

Immediate early genes (IEGs) are widely used as markers to delineate neuronal circuits because they show fast and transient expression induced by various behavioral paradigms. In this study, we investigated the expression of the IEGs c‐fos and Arc in the auditory cortex of the mouse after auditory cued fear conditioning using quantitative polymerase chain reaction and microarray analysis. To test for the specificity of the IEG induction, we included several control groups that allowed us to test for factors other than associative learning to sounds that could lead to an induction of IEGs. We found that both c‐fos and Arc showed strong and robust induction after auditory fear conditioning. However, we also observed increased expression of both genes in any control paradigm that involved shocks, even when no sounds were presented. Using mRNA microarrays and comparing the effect of the various behavioral paradigms on mRNA expression levels, we did not find genes being selectively upregulated in the auditory fear conditioned group. In summary, our results indicate that the use of IEGs to identify neuronal circuits involved specifically in processing of sound cues in the fear conditioning paradigm can be limited by the effects of the aversive unconditional stimulus and that activity levels in a particular primary sensory cortical area can be strongly influenced by stimuli mediated by other modalities.
Subordination of racial tolerance to freedom of speech: Some considerations for education in contemporary multicultural societies

Of particular importance for contemporary multicultural societies are basic human rights such as freedom of speech and tolerance. Studies show that children as young as 6 years of age can conceptualise such basic human rights as freedom of speech and tolerance. However, when freedom of speech is in conflict with other human rights or with tolerance, older adolescents and adults subordinated tolerance to freedom of speech. More specifically, students between 15 and 24 years subordinated racial tolerance to freedom of speech, with appeal to free speech increasing with age. In contrast, students between 9 and 12 years rarely subordinated tolerance to free speech, and this was never observed among students between 6 and 7 years. The findings have implications for education.
The erasure of antagonisms between popular music and advertising

While the use of music in advertising dates back centuries, using popular music in advertisements was often seen as the ultimate sellout that offended aesthetic and bohemian values. By contrast, today advertisements represent one of the best opportunities for many musicians to gain access to mainstream markets. We chart this warming of relationships between music and advertising by chronicling the practices of music industry insiders and evaluating the political economy and ideological consequences of such a nominal paradigm shift. We demonstrate that the convergence of these two media is perceived to be nonproblematic and suggest that this may be an enactment of the true industrialization of culture, with important consequences for our dialectical understanding of branding.
Women in formal corporate networks: an organisational citizenship perspective

Purpose – To investigate women's corporate networks, and the reported benefits for the women and their employers. To gain insight into the motivation for these voluntary activities, by drawing on organisational citizenship theory.Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the issue using in‐depth interviews with chairs and organisers of 12 women's networks, and triangulated the data with an email survey resulting in 164 responses from network members in five companies.Findings – The paper identifies how networks were set up and managed, as well as the benefits that accrue to the organisation, the leaders and the members. Key findings were the wealth of voluntarily contributed extra‐role behaviours, and totally business‐oriented view of the activities presented by network leaders. More senior women were more likely to report prosocial behaviours such as driving change and supporting others. Organisational citizenship theory provided a lens through which to draw insight into actors' motivations for su.
Rab7 Regulates Transport from Early to Late Endocytic Compartments in Xenopus Oocytes*

Rab7 has been shown to localize to late endosomes and to mediate transport from early to late endosome/lysosome in mammalian cells and in yeast. We developed a novel assay to quantify transport from early to late endosomes using the Xenopusoocyte. Oocytes were pulsed with avidin after which the oocytes were incubated to allow avidin transport to a late compartment. The oocytes were then allowed to internalize biotin-horseradish peroxidase (HRP). The oocytes were then injected with test proteins and incubated further to allow transport of biotin-HRP from early endosomes to late endosomal/lysosomal compartments. Transport was quantified by assessing the formation of HRP-biotin-avidin complexes. Injection of Rab7:wild-type (WT) and Rab7:Q67L, a GTPase defective mutant, stimulated transport. Rab5:WT had no effect. Rab7:WT-stimulated transport was inhibited by nocodazole, suggesting a role for intact microtubules. Wortmannin, a phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitor, blocked Rab7:WT-stimulated transport, but Rab7:Q67L-stimulated transport was unaffected by the drug. Rab7:Q67L is constitutively activated and may not require phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase activity for activation. Rab7-stimulated transport requiresN-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) activity as transport was blocked by N-ethylmaleimide and ATPase defective NSF mutants. Our results indicate that sequentially acting endocytic Rab GTPases utilize similar factors although their modes of action may be different.
Who Wants Out When the Going Gets Good? Psychological Investment and Preference for Self-Verifying College Roommates

The results of a field investigation indicate that people who are highly invested in their self-views (confidently held or personally important) are especially inclined to display a preference for verification of their self-views. Specifically, only those participants who were certain of their self-views or perceived them as important preferred roommates who confirmed their self-views. Such preferences were some-what stronger when the self-views were relatively negative. This is the first demonstration of self-verification in a field setting in which relationship partners were randomly assigned to one another.