Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning

In interpersonal value conflicts ethical principles are employed to justify own actions. However, there is competition among ethical principles. Therefore the preference for a specific ethical principle may be merely a function both of personal values and of the value-laden situations in which actions are made. A German sample of 132 partici-pants rated their agreement on ten justifications in seven experimentally constructed situations. The situations varied in their expression of values, organized by the value circle (Schwartz, 1992). The justifications assess five ethical principles (deontology, utilitarianism, partiality, hedonism, and intuitionism). Variance components of the agreement ratings were separated using GLM and plotted in the value circle. Preferences for ethical principles depended on both the value content of situations and the responder values. The Person x Situation interaction was not significant. The results illustrate the difficulties in gaining agreement on arguments among individuals with conflicting values.
Nanoscale Visualization of Magnetic Contrasts with Soft X-ray Spectro-Ptychography at the Advanced Light Source

The demand for magnetic imaging tools for understanding complex spin textures at relevant length scales (sub-10 nm spatial resolution) is rising because nanoscale correlations between magnetic and morphological heterogeneities play a key role in non-collinear spin configurations, which have been widely considered as data carriers in spintronic devices [1]. Lorentz transmission electron microscopy (LTEM) combined with aberration-correction still offers the highest spatial resolution [2], but imposes challenges involving sample thickness and retrieval of spin configurations from the phase shifts of electrons (i.e. measurable quantities in LTEM). A complementary choice is synchrotron-based soft X-ray microscopy coupled with circular-polarization, which induces a magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) according to relative orientations between the incident X-ray and magnetizations of the magnetic system. The limitation in spatial resolution of conventional scanning (STXM) and full field (FF TXM) X-ray microscopes has recently been overcome by soft X-ray ptychographic microscopy, a diffractive imaging method with a demonstrated spatial resolution better than 5 nm and 11 nm in twoand three-dimensions, respectively [3-6].
Improving Activity Recognition Accuracy in Ambient-Assisted Living Systems by Automated Feature Engineering

Ambient-assisted living (AAL) is promising to become a supplement of the current care models, providing enhanced living experience to people within context-aware homes and smart environments. Activity recognition based on sensory data in AAL systems is an important task because 1) it can be used for estimation of levels of physical activity, 2) it can lead to detecting changes of daily patterns that may indicate an emerging medical condition, or 3) it can be used for detection of accidents and emergencies. To be accepted, AAL systems must be affordable while providing reliable performance. These two factors hugely depend on optimizing the number of utilized sensors and extracting robust features from them. This paper proposes a generic feature engineering method for selecting robust features from a variety of sensors, which can be used for generating reliable classification models. From the originally recorded time series and some newly generated time series [i.e., magnitudes, first derivatives, delta series, and fast Fourier transformation (FFT)-based series], a variety of time and frequency domain features are extracted. Then, using two-phase feature selection, the number of generated features is greatly reduced. Finally, different classification models are trained and evaluated on an independent test set. The proposed method was evaluated on five publicly available data sets, and on all of them, it yielded better accuracy than when using hand-tailored features. The benefits of the proposed systematic feature engineering method are quickly discovering good feature sets for any given task than manually finding ones suitable for a particular task, selecting a small feature set that outperforms manually determined features in both execution time and accuracy, and identification of relevant sensor types and body locations automatically. Ultimately, the proposed method could reduce the cost of AAL systems by facilitating execution of algorithms on devices with limited resources and by using as few sensors as possible.
Targeting endosialin/CD248 through antibody-mediated internalization results in impaired pericyte maturation and dysfunctional tumor microvasculature

Over-expression of endosialin/CD248 (herein referred to as CD248) has been associated with increased tumor microvasculature in various tissue origins which makes it an attractive anti-angiogenic target. In an effort to target CD248, we have generated a human CD248 knock-in mouse line and MORAb-004, the humanized version of the mouse anti-human CD248 antibody Fb5. Here, we report that MORAb-004 treatment significantly impacted syngeneic tumor growth and tumor metastasis in the human CD248 knock-in mice. In comparison with untreated tumors, MORAb-004 treated tumors displayed overall shortened and distorted blood vessels. Immunofluorescent staining of tumor sections revealed drastically more small and dysfunctional vessels in the treated tumors. The CD248 levels on cell surfaces of neovasculature pericytes were significantly reduced due to its internalization. This reduction of CD248 was also accompanied by reduced α-SMA expression, depolarization of pericytes and endothelium, and ultimately dysfunctional microvessels. These results suggest that MORAb-004 reduced CD248 on pericytes, impaired tumor microvasculature maturation and ultimately suppressed tumor development.
Reaching the population with dementia drugs: what are the challenges?

Systematic evidence became available in the late 1990s on efficacy of cholinesterase inhibitors (CHEIs) for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) and they began to be used sporadically. Since January 2001 UK based guidelines indicated that one of three cholinesterase inhibitors (CHEIs) could be prescribed for these patients. Since then the cost of prescription in England and Wales has risen. There has been little investigation of uptake at the population level.
Providing group tour guide by RFIDs and wireless sensor networks

This paper proposes a new application framework for group tour guiding services based on RFIDs and wireless sensor networks. We consider a sensing field mixed with multiple independent tourist groups, each with a leader and several members. Members of a group will follow the moving path of their leader, but may occasionally roam around randomly on their own interests. Sensor nodes have to track leaders' locations and maintain guiding paths from members to leaders. A member may inquire where his/her leader is, and a leader may "recall" his/her members. We propose a feasible solution to such an application by using existing technologies and off-the-shelf components. A group guiding protocol is presented. The design enables reliable group guiding at low cost and low traffic load. Our prototyping system is reported and system performance is discussed.
Morphometric Analysis of Anatomic Scoliotic Specimens

Study Design. Morphometric analysis of anatomic scoliotic specimens. Objective. The objective of this study was to identify a typical deformation pattern for thoracic and lumbar vertebrae in idiopathic scoliosis. Summary of Background Data. Idiopathic scoliosis is a three-dimensional deformity affecting the orientation and position of the spine in space. The regional deformity has been studied extensively, but most of the knowledge we currently have regarding the local deformity is the result of isolated observations made on rare scoliotic specimens with severe deformities. Materials and Methods. Thirty scoliotic specimens from two major osteologic sources were studied using a three-dimensional digitizing protocol developed by our research group creating a precise three-dimensional reconstruction of the vertebrae. Parameters were then calculated for each vertebra from these reconstructions. Every scoliotic specimen was then matched with a normal specimen to provide for a representative control group. Results. A total of 984 vertebrae (472 scoliotic and 512 normal vertebrae) were measured, creating the largest database of normal and scoliotic vertebral specimens. A characteristic deformity pattern was identified consisting of progressive vertebral wedging, decreased pedicle width on the concave side of the curve, and articular facet surface varying greatly with all findings increasingly more important toward the apex of the curve and as curve severity increased. All findings were statistically significant with P < 0.05. Conclusion. These results are of critical importance for the understanding of the local and regional deformity and in understanding curve progression. Our results also advocate caution in the use of pedicle screws in the thoracic spine, especially on the concave side of the curve.
Power optimization in fading Gaussian MIMO broadcast channels

In this paper, we consider the problem of minimizing long-term sum power under the constraint of an average sum rate in fading multiple input multiple output (MIMO) broadcast channels (BC) with additive Gaussian noise. This problem arises frequently in dynamic power allocation and power efficiency optimization for wireless communication systems. It is complementary to sum capacity maximization with a sum power constraint for a fading MIMO downlink. We first formulate the equivalent convex optimization problem using the duality between the MIMO multi-access channel (MAC) and the MIMO BC. Then we derive a simple and fast iterative water-filling algorithm based on the subgradient and bisection methods that computes the long-term sum power of the transmitter. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations show that the proposed algorithm converges to the minimum sum power globally and efficiently.
Growth, water content, and solute accumulation of two tobacco cell lines cultured on sodium chloride, dextran, and polyethylene glycol.

Simulated drought tolerance was compared for an NaCl-adapted and a nonadapted cell line of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum var. Samsum) to determine the relationship of salt and drought tolerances. The osmotic adjustment and growth of these two lines was followed when cultured on solid media which contained isosmotic concentrations of NaCl, KCl, polyethylene glycol (PEG) or dextran. One line was adapted to growth on 130 millimolar NaCl, but the other was not.The growth of NaCl-adapted and nonadapted cell lines was equally inhibited (61 per cent of control) by 130 millimolar NaCl. Growth inhibition was greater on PEG or dextran than on NaCl. Growth ceased on the second passage of dextran for the nonadapted cells, while the NaCl-adapted cells grew slowly for four passages on dextran. Water contents for both cell lines were 95 per cent on NaCl or KCl and 70 to 88 per cent on PEG 1540 or 4000 or dextran after the second passage on these media.On dextran or PEG 4000, 46 to 89 per cent of the cellular osmotic potential was produced by the solutes initially present in the medium. Similarly, on NaCl, almost 100 per cent was attributable to solutes in the medium. It was concluded that cells grown on the nonpenetrating solutes had a more negative osmotic potential than those grown in the absence of added solute due to partial dehydration, greater uptake of external ions, and possibly the production of unidentified osmotica. Adjustment to growth on penetrating solutes may have enabled the adapted line to overcome the osmotic stress produced by nonpenetrating dextran.
Hedge Accounting in the Brazilian Stock Market: Effects on the Quality of Accounting Information, Disclosure, and Information Asymmetry

Este trabalho investiga, no mercado acionario brasileiro, o efeito do hedge accounting na qualidade das informacoes contabeis, no disclosure dos instrumentos financeiros derivativos e na assimetria de informacao. Para medir a qualidade da informacao contabil, foram utilizadas as metricas de relevância da informacao contabil e informatividade dos lucros contabeis. Para a execucao desta pesquisa, foi constituida uma amostra geral com empresas brasileiras, nao financeiras, listadas na Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias e Futuros de Sao Paulo (BMF a amostra para informatividade contou com 701 observacoes firmas-anos no periodo de 2008 a 2013; a amostra para disclosure contou com 100 observacoes firmas-anos, para o periodo de 2011 a 2012; a amostra para assimetria de informacao contou com 100 observacoes firmas-anos, tambem relativa ao periodo de 2011 a 2012. Alem dos modelos econometricos, aplicou-se o metodo de propensity score matching para as analises do efeito do hedge accounting sobre disclosure e assimetria de informacao. As evidencias encontradas para a influencia da hedge accounting indicam uma relacao: (i) positiva e significativa na relevância da informacao contabil e no disclosure dos derivativos; (ii) negativa e significativa para informatividade dos lucros contabeis. Para a assimetria de informacao, embora os coeficientes se mostrassem conforme o esperado, nao foram estatisticamente significativos.
Urban bat communities are affected by wetland size, quality, and pollution levels

Abstract Wetlands support unique biota and provide important ecosystem services. These services are highly threatened due to the rate of loss and relative rarity of wetlands in most landscapes, an issue that is exacerbated in highly modified urban environments. Despite this, critical ecological knowledge is currently lacking for many wetland‐dependent taxa, such as insectivorous bats, which can persist in urban areas if their habitats are managed appropriately. Here, we use a novel paired landscape approach to investigate the role of wetlands in urban bat conservation and examine local and landscape factors driving bat species richness and activity. We acoustically monitored bat activity at 58 urban wetlands and 35 nonwetland sites (ecologically similar sites without free‐standing water) in the greater Melbourne area, southeastern Australia. We analyzed bat species richness and activity patterns using generalized linear mixed‐effects models. We found that the presence of water in urban Melbourne was an important driver of bat species richness and activity at a landscape scale. Increasing distance to bushland and increasing levels of heavy metal pollution within the waterbody also negatively influenced bat richness and individual species activity. Areas with high levels of artificial night light had reduced bat species richness, and reduced activity for all species except those adapted to urban areas, such as the White‐striped free‐tailed bat (Austronomus australis). Increased surrounding tree cover and wetland size had a positive effect on bat species richness. Our findings indicate that wetlands form critical habitats for insectivorous bats in urban environments. Large, unlit, and unpolluted wetlands flanked by high tree cover in close proximity to bushland contribute most to the richness of the bat community. Our findings clarify the role of wetlands for insectivorous bats in urban areas and will also allow for the preservation, construction, and management of wetlands that maximize conservation outcomes for urban bats and possibly other wetland‐dependent and nocturnal fauna.
Automated Corpus Analysis and the Acquisition of Large, Multi-Lingual Knowledge Bases for MT

Although knowledge-based MT systems have the potential to achieve high translation accuracy, each successful application system requires a large amount of hand-coded knowledge (lexicons, grammars, mapping rules, etc.). Systems like KBMT-89 and its descendants have demonstrated how knowledge-based translation can produce good results in technical domains with tractable domain semantics. Nevertheless, the cost of developing large-scale applications with tens of thousands of domain concepts precludes a purely hand-crafted approach. The current challenge for the "next generation" of knowledge-based MT systems is to utilize on-line textual resources and corpus analysis software in order to automate the most laborious aspects of the knowledge acquisition process. This partial automation can in turn maximize the productivity of human knowledge engineers and help to make large-scale applications of knowledge-based MT an economic reality. In this paper we discuss the corpus-based knowledge acquisition methodology used in KANT, a knowledge-based translation system for multi-lingual document production. This methodology can be generalized beyond the KANT interlingua approach for use with any system that requires similar kinds of knowledge.
Python in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI): Development of a BCI based on Motor imagery

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) give rise to a communication means between individuals with severe motor disorders, and their external world via the measurement of the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. BCI users may control this activity by concentrating on a specific mental task. Motor imagery (MI) executions have become the most used mental task by BCI-groups. Despite a large number of references describing the theoretical framework of MI-based BCIs, there is not enough information related to the available computer software that could be suitable to develop a specific-purpose, efficient and straightforward BCI. Therefore, the aims of this paper are: (1) to develop a MI-based BCI system making use of Python programming language, and (2) to study MI signals of three users via the proposed BCI system in order to adapt a computer for posterior applications. The use of Python along with plug-ins for developing MI-based BCI systems is not only feasible, but also it is proficient. Moreover, the Python community provides extensive variety of tools to design compelling systems.
Improved optimized content-aware authentication scheme for secure scalable streaming and transcoding with JPEG-2000 images

In this paper we focus on improving the optimized content-aware authentication scheme over lossy network [1] and incorporating this scheme into secure scalable streaming (SSS) and secure transcoding with JPEG-2000 Images [2]. SSS encodes, encrypts and packetizes image into secure scalable packets in a manner that allows downstream transcoders to perform transcoding operations by simply truncating or discarding packets without decrypting the data. However SSS does not consider the issues of packet loss and stream authentication while the stream is transmitted over today's public and lossy networks. This paper proposes an improved optimized content-aware authentication scheme and implements a system to integrate it with SSS seamlessly. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieved our design goal in that the R-D curve of the authenticated image is very close to its original one where no authentication is applied.
Minimum effort motions for open chain manipulators with task-dependent end-effector constraints

In this article we examine the solution of minimum effort optimal control problems for open-chain manipulators. A local solution to the optimal control problem is determined by a constrained parameter optimization over a set of B-spline basis functions. We demonstrate that the parameter optimization formulation of the problem is numerically ill-conditioned and that it is therefore essential to include analytic, or exact, gradients of the objective function and the constraints in order to guarantee a solution. A main contribution of our approach is an explicit expression for these gradients for general serial chains. Our formulation relies on the use of matrix exponentials for the manipulator kinematics, dynamics, and task constraints. Several examples are presented that demonstrate the power and flexibility of our approach.
Bar homeodomain proteins are anti-proneural in the Drosophila eye: transcriptional repression of atonal by Bar prevents ectopic retinal neurogenesis

Atonal (Ato)/Math (Mammalian atonal homolog) family proneural proteins are key regulators of neurogenesis in both vertebrates and invertebrates. In the Drosophila eye, Ato is essential for the generation of photoreceptor neurons. Ato expression is initiated at the anterior ridge of the morphogenetic furrow but is repressed in the retinal precursor cells behind the furrow to prevent ectopic neurogenesis. We show that Ato repression is mediated by the conserved homeobox proteins BarH1 and BarH2. Loss of Bar causes cell-autonomous ectopic Ato expression, resulting in excess photoreceptor clusters. The initial ommatidial spacing at the furrow occurs normally in the absence of Bar, suggesting that the ectopic neurogenesis within Bar mutant clones is not due to the lack of Notch (N)-dependent lateral inhibition. Targeted misexpression of Bar is sufficient to repress ato expression. Furthermore, we provide evidence that Bar represses ato expression at the level of transcription without affecting the expression of an ato activator, Cubitus interruptus (Ci). Thus, we propose that Bar is essential for transcriptional repression of ato and the prevention of ectopic neurogenesis behind the furrow.
The N-Terminal Part of the Enzyme Component (C2I) of the BinaryClostridium botulinum C2 Toxin Interacts with the Binding Component C2II and Functions as a Carrier System for a Rho ADP-Ribosylating C3-Like Fusion Toxin

ABSTRACT The binary actin–ADP-ribosylating Clostridium botulinum C2 toxin consists of the enzyme component C2I and the binding component C2II, which are separate proteins. The active component C2I enters cells through C2II by receptor-mediated endocytosis and membrane translocation. The N-terminal part of C2I (C2IN), which consists of 225 amino acid residues but lacks ADP-ribosyltransferase activity, was identified as the C2II contact site. A fusion protein (C2IN-C3) of C2IN and the full-length C3-like ADP-ribosyltransferase from Clostridium limosum was constructed. The fusion protein C2IN-C3 ADP-ribosylated Rho but not actin in CHO cell lysates. Together with C2II, C2IN-C3 induced complete rounding up of CHO and HeLa cells after incubation for 3 h. No cell rounding was observed without C2II or with the original C3-like transferase from C. limosum. The data indicate that the N-terminal 225 amino acid residues of C2I are sufficient to cause the cellular uptake of C. limosum transferase via the binding component of C2II, thereby increasing the cytotoxicity of the C3-like exoenzyme several hundred-fold.