Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond accession conditionality and negotiations : Privatization , trade dynamics and the political economy of early post-communist economic transition

Although the impact of the EU on the economic transformation of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is undisputed, contemporary causal explanations focus primarily on the impact of accession negotiations and conditionality on CEE transformation and, as such, are limited to the post-1997 period. This poses a challenging empirical puzzle, because, in terms of their pace of transition, the CEECs distanced themselves from the rest of the post-communist countries in the pre-1997 period, i.e. at a time when accession negotiations and conditionality could not have had a causal impact. To fill in this vacuum in our understanding of transition and enhance our ability to explain the various forms of variation that have emerged since the early 1990s, this paper challenges the established view of the way in which the EU impacts domestic transformations in its periphery. Specifically the focus in this paper is shifted from accession negotiations and conditionality to establishing the significance of trade and privatization dynamics in early patterns of differentiation within the broader set of post-communist countries. Emphasis is placed on the impact of EU policies – in particular EU trade policy and the offer of the prospect of EU membership – on these dynamics. * The author is grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for its generous support that made possible the preparation of this paper.
Medley filters — Simple tools for efficient signal smoothing

Medley filters are defined as convex combinations of elementary smoothing filters (averaging, median) with different smoothing bandwidths. It is shown that when adaptive weights of such a mixture are evaluated using the recently proposed Bayesian rules, one obtains a tool which often outperforms the state-of-the-art wavelet-based smoothing algorithms. Additionally, unlike wavelet-based procedures, medley filters can easily cope with non-Gaussian (Laplacian, uniform) and temporarily inhomogeneous measurement noise.
Cultural differences in personal identity in post-traumatic stress disorder.

OBJECTIVES This study investigated cultural differences in goals, self-defining memories, and self-cognitions in those with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). METHOD Trauma survivors with and without PTSD, from independent and interdependent cultures (N=106) provided major personal goals, self-defining memories, and self-cognitions. RESULTS Trauma survivors with PTSD from independent cultures reported more goals, self-defining memories, and self-cognitions that were trauma-related than non-PTSD trauma survivors from independent cultures. In contrast, for those from interdependent cultures, there was no difference between trauma survivors with and without PTSD in terms of trauma-centred goals, self-defining memories, and self-cognitions. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest cultural variability in the impact of trauma on memory and identity, and highlight the need for contemporary models of PTSD to more explicitly consider culture in their accounts of PTSD. Clinical implications of these findings, such as cultural considerations in assessment and treating trauma relevant self-schema in cognitive therapy for PTSD, are discussed.
Epigenomic Regulation of Androgen Receptor Signaling: Potential Role in Prostate Cancer Therapy

Androgen receptor (AR) signaling remains the major oncogenic pathway in prostate cancer (PCa). Androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) is the principle treatment for locally advanced and metastatic disease. However, a significant number of patients acquire treatment resistance leading to castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Epigenetics, the study of heritable and reversible changes in gene expression without alterations in DNA sequences, is a crucial regulatory step in AR signaling. We and others, recently described the technological advance Chem-seq, a method to identify the interaction between a drug and the genome. This has permitted better understanding of the underlying regulatory mechanisms of AR during carcinogenesis and revealed the importance of epigenetic modifiers. In screening for new epigenomic modifiying drugs, we identified SD-70, and found that this demethylase inhibitor is effective in CRPC cells in combination with current therapies. The aim of this review is to explore the role of epigenetic modifications as biomarkers for detection, prognosis, and risk evaluation of PCa. Furthermore, we also provide an update of the recent findings on the epigenetic key processes (DNA methylation, chromatin modifications and alterations in noncoding RNA profiles) involved in AR expression and their possible role as therapeutic targets.
ROTE: Rollback Protection for Trusted Execution

Security architectures such as Intel SGX need protection against rollback attacks, where the adversary violates the integrity of a protected application state by replaying old persistently stored data or by starting multiple application instances. Successful rollback attacks have serious consequences on applications such as financial services. In this paper, we propose a new approach for rollback protection on SGX. The intuition behind our approach is simple. A single platform cannot efficiently prevent rollback, but in many practical scenarios, multiple processors can be enrolled to assist each other. We design and implement a rollback protection system called ROTE that realizes integrity protection as a distributed system. We construct a model that captures adversarial ability to schedule enclave execution and show that our solution achieves a strong security property: the only way to violate integrity is to reset all participating platforms to their initial state. We implement ROTE and demonstrate that distributed rollback protection can provide significantly better performance than previously known solutions based on local non-volatile memory.
Left atrial remodelling in mitral regurgitation--methodologic approach, physiological determinants, and outcome implications: a prospective quantitative Doppler-echocardiographic and electron beam-computed tomographic study.

AIMS To define accurate and normal range of echocardiographic left atrial (LA) volume measurement and to assess the prevalence, determinants, and outcome implications of LA enlargement in mitral regurgitation (MR). METHODS AND RESULTS We prospectively compared LA volume obtained simultaneously by electron beam-computed tomography (EBCT) and by four echocardiographic methods in 33 test patients. Accurate echocardiographic LA volume measurements were obtained only by biplane area-length method with vertical longitudinal-length (r = 0.95, P < 0.0001; 145 +/- 57 vs. 143 +/- 55 mL, P = 0.57). Using this method, the normal range in 100 normal subjects, the physiological determinants and outcome implications of LA enlargement in 320 patients with organic MR were analysed. In normal subjects, indexed to body surface area, LA index (27 +/- 6 mL/m(2)) was not influenced by age or gender and values > or = 40 mL/m(2) were beyond the upper limit of normal. In MR, the most powerful determinants of LA enlargement were higher regurgitant volume (RVol) and atrial fibrillation (AF) (P < 0.0001), followed by older age, female gender, higher left ventricular end-systolic volume, and mass (all P < 0.001). After diagnosis in sinus rhythm, LA index > or = 40 mL/m(2) predicted superiorly and independently to LA diameter the occurrence of AF [adjusted RR 1.48 (1.06-2.16), P < 0.01] and the combined endpoint of death or need for mitral surgery [adjusted RR 1.61 (1.3-2.0), P < 0.0001]. CONCLUSION LA remodelling can be accurately assessed by echocardiography and LA index > or = 40 mL/m(2) is beyond the normal range. In organic MR, higher LA index is the combined result of multiple physiological effects, provides independent prognostic information, and therefore should be part of a comprehensive echocardiographic examination.
Meta-prediction of phosphorylation sites with weighted voting and restricted grid search parameter selection

Meta-predictors make predictions by organizing and processing the predictions produced by several other predictors in a defined problem domain. A proficient meta-predictor not only offers better predicting performance than the individual predictors from which it is constructed, but it also relieves experimentally researchers from making difficult judgments when faced with conflicting results made by multiple prediction programs. As increasing numbers of predicting programs are being developed in a large number of fields of life sciences, there is an urgent need for effective meta-prediction strategies to be investigated. We compiled four unbiased phosphorylation site datasets, each for one of the four major serine/threonine (S/T) protein kinase families—CDK, CK2, PKA and PKC. Using these datasets, we examined several meta-predicting strategies with 15 phosphorylation site predictors from six predicting programs: GPS, KinasePhos, NetPhosK, PPSP, PredPhospho and Scansite. Meta-predictors constructed with a generalized weighted voting meta-predicting strategy with parameters determined by restricted grid search possess the best performance, exceeding that of all individual predictors in predicting phosphorylation sites of all four kinase families. Our results demonstrate a useful decision-making tool for analysing the predictions of the various S/T phosphorylation site predictors. An implementation of these meta-predictors is available on the web at: http://MetaPred.umn. edu/MetaPredPS/.
Learning About Customers Without Asking

The Internet gives incredible opportunities for companies to learn about their consumers. Most managers view learning as actively asking questions directly to consumers and listening to their responses. Alternatively, managers can passively learn by observing the choices that consumers make. Passive learning techniques include user profiling, collaborative filtering, path analysis, and conjoint analysis. These techniques can be used to extract knowledge from online data sources like purchase transactions, clickstream data, and e-mail. Together active and passive learning can be used to create personalized environments for consumers. Such personalization gives higher value and causes customers to become more loyal and more profitable for businesses.
A Low-Power Fully-Differential CMOS Operational Transconductance Amplifier for A / D Converters

The design of a fully differential CMOS transconductance amplifier is presented in this paper. This amplifier is to be used in the first stage of a 13-bit pipelined A/D converter, and was designed to meet the necessary specifications at a minimum level of power consumption. The amplifier presented below was based on a two-stage design of a telescopic cascode input stage followed by a common-source output gain stage. The amplifier was compensated with a variation of Miller compensation in order to achieve maximum bandwidth. The amplifier designed meets all performance specifications and consumes less than 2 mW of power.
A Vector Space Equalization Scheme for a Concept-based Collaborative Information Retrieval System

This paper describes a vector space equalization scheme for a concept-based collaborative information retrieval system; evaluation results are given. The authors previously proposed a peer-to-peer information exchange system that aims at smooth knowledge and information management to activate organizations and communities. One problem with the system arises when information is retrieved from another’s personal repository since the framework’s retrieval criteria are strongly personalized. The system is assumed to employ a vector space model and a concept-base as its information retrieval mechanism. The vector space of one system is very different from that of another system, so retrieval results would not reflect the requester’s intention. This paper presents a vector space equalization scheme, the automated relevance feedback scheme, that compensates the differences in the vector spaces of the personal repositories. A system that implements the scheme is realized and evaluated using documents on the Internet. This paper presents implementation details, the evaluation procedure, and evaluation results.
Bisimulation for labelled Markov processes

In this paper we introduce a new class of labelled transition systems-Labelled Markov Processes-and define bisimulation for them. Labelled Markov processes are probabilistic labelled transition systems where the state space is not necessarily discrete, it could be the reals, for example. We assume that it is a Polish space (the underlying topological space for a complete separable metric space). The mathematical theory of such systems is completely new from the point of view of the extant literature on probabilistic process algebra; of course, it uses classical ideas from measure theory and Markov process theory. The notion of bisimulation builds on the ideas of Larsen and Skou and of Joyal, Nielsen and Winskel. The main result that we prove is that a notion of bisimulation for Markov processes on Polish spaces, which extends the Larsen-Skou definition for discrete systems, is indeed an equivalence relation. This turns our to be a rather hard mathematical result which, as far as we know, embodies a new result in pure probability theory. This work heavily uses continuous mathematics which is becoming an important part of work on hybrid systems.
Regulation of melanoblast and retinal pigment epithelium development by Xenopus laevis Mitf

Mitf is a central regulator of pigment cell development that is essential for the normal development of the melanocyte and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) lineages. To understand better the role of Mitf, we have used the Xenopus laevis experimental system to allow a rapid examination of the role of Mitf in vivo. Here, we report the function of XlMitfα‐M on melanophore development and melanization compared with that of Slug that is expressed in neural crest cells. Overexpression of XlMitfα‐M led to an increase in melanophores that was partly contributed by an increase in Slug‐positive cells, indicating that XlMitfα‐M is a key regulator of melanocyte/melanophore development and melanization. Moreover, overexpression of a dominant‐negative form of XlMitfα led to a decrease in the number of melanophores and induced abnormal melanoblast migration. We also observed an induction of ectopic RPE and extended RPE by overexpression of XlMitfα‐M and possible interactions between XlMitfα and several eye‐related genes essential for normal eye development. Developmental Dynamics 234:523–534, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Study on Performance Evaluation Metrics for Digital Watermarking Algorithms

Even though diverse digital watermarking algorithm was developed to protect copyright, existing methods vary in performances according to image characteristics. While there are simple methods suitable for black and white images like medical images, there is an algorithm which shows the performance in complicated images like general nature images. Because of these reasons, evaluation metrics to evaluate |�� | ∬ ��(��, ��′) ��∈�� ����
Methods to Measure the Impact of Home, Social, and Sexual Neighborhoods of Urban Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men

Men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for 61% of new HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2010. Recent analyses indicate that socio-structural factors are important correlates of HIV infection. NYCM2M was a cross-sectional study designed to identify neighborhood-level characteristics within the urban environment that influence sexual risk behaviors, substance use and depression among MSM living in New York City. The sample was recruited using a modified venue-based time-space sampling methodology and through select websites and mobile applications. This paper describes novel methodological approaches used to improve the quality of data collected for analysis of the impact of neighborhoods on MSM health. Previous research has focused predominately on residential neighborhoods and used pre-determined administrative boundaries (e.g., census tracts) that often do not reflect authentic and meaningful neighborhoods. This study included the definition and assessment of multiple neighborhoods of influence including where men live (home neighborhood), socialize (social neighborhood) and have sex (sexual neighborhood). Furthermore, making use of technological advances in mapping, we collected geo-points of reference for each type of neighborhood and identified and constructed self-identified neighborhood boundary definitions. Finally, this study collected both perceived neighborhood characteristics and objective neighborhood conditions to create a comprehensive, flexible and rich neighborhood-level set of covariates. This research revealed that men perceived their home, social and sexual neighborhoods in different ways. Few men (15%) had the same home, social and sexual neighborhoods; for 31%, none of the neighborhoods was the same. Of the three types of neighborhoods, the number of unique social neighborhoods was the lowest; the size of sexual neighborhoods was the smallest. The resultant dataset offers the opportunity to conduct analyses that will yield context-specific and nuanced understandings of the relations among neighborhood space, and the well-being and health of urban MSM.
Clarté des attributions dans un contexte de changement social : la privation relative comme résultat d'un manque de clarté des attributions par rapport au changement social et ses impacts sur le bien-être psychologique

The first goal of the present paper is to introduce the novel concept of attribution clarity. The second goal of this paper is to test the impact of attribution clarity on collective relative deprivation and psychological well-being in the context of dramatic social change. First, we hypothesize that attribution clarity plays a key role in reducing the feeling of social and temporal collective relative deprivation. Second, we hypothesize that collective relative deprivation will have a major impact on psychological well-being. Study 1 took place in a natural context of social change, following the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, a former soviet state located in Central Asia. In total, 227 participants took part of this study. In contrast, Study 2 took place in an experimental setting at Université de Montréal, involving 61 university students. A fictional social change was created, and attribution clarity manipulated in 3 experimental conditions: clear attributions, unclear attributions and no attribution. Impacts of attributions clarity on collective relative deprivation and psychological well-being were then evaluated by mean of a questionnaire. Multivartiate analysis of variance (MANOV A) and correlational analysis were conducted. Results of the two studies confirmed our hypothesis, suggesting that attribution clarity plays an important role in reducing the feeling of threat in the context of dramatic social change.
Transcriptional regulation of juvenile hormone-mediated induction of Krüppel homolog 1, a repressor of insect metamorphosis

The Krüppel homolog 1 gene (Kr-h1) has been proposed to play a key role in the repression of insect metamorphosis. Kr-h1 is assumed to be induced by juvenile hormone (JH) via a JH receptor, methoprene-tolerant (Met), but the mechanism of induction is unclear. To elucidate the molecular mechanism of Kr-h1 induction, we first cloned cDNAs encoding Kr-h1 (BmKr-h1) and Met (BmMet1 and BmMet2) homologs from Bombyx mori. In a B. mori cell line, BmKr-h1 was rapidly induced by subnanomolar levels of natural JHs. Reporter assays identified a JH response element (kJHRE), comprising 141 nucleotides, located ∼2 kb upstream from the BmKr-h1 transcription start site. The core region of kJHRE (GGCCTCCACGTG) contains a canonical E-box sequence to which Met, a basic helix–loop–helix Per-ARNT-Sim (bHLH–PAS) transcription factor, is likely to bind. In mammalian HEK293 cells, which lack an intrinsic JH receptor, ectopic expression of BmMet2 fused with Gal4DBD induced JH-dependent activity of an upstream activation sequence reporter. Meanwhile, the kJHRE reporter was activated JH-dependently in HEK293 cells only when cotransfected with BmMet2 and BmSRC, another bHLH–PAS family member, suggesting that BmMet2 and BmSRC jointly interact with kJHRE. We also found that the interaction between BmMet2 and BmSRC is dependent on JH. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis for the mechanism of JH-mediated induction of BmKr-h1: BmMet2 accepts JH as a ligand, JH-liganded BmMet2 interacts with BmSRC, and the JH/BmMet2/BmSRC complex activates BmKr-h1 by interacting with kJHRE.
Music therapy and traumatic brain injury : a light on a dark night

1. Traumatic Brain Injury and Rehabilitation. 2. Music Therapy with People who Have Experienced Traumatic Brain Injury: What the Literature Says. 3. Therapeutic Narrative Analysis: How We Look at Cases. 4. Bert's Story - Changing perspectives: Identifying and realizing communicative potential in early isolated states . 5. Neil's Story - From distress and agitation to humour and joy: the creation of a dialogue. 6. Mark's Story - A fusion of two worlds: physical dependency and creative partnership. 7. The Narrative Explicated. Bibliography.
Large Scale Nearest Neighbors Search Based on Neighborhood Graph

Large scale approximate k-nearest neighbors search is an important and very useful technique for many multimedia retrieval applications. Most of existing search algorithms used the centralized indexing approaches and thus cannot meet the needs to search upon large scale datasets. This paper proposes an efficient and distributed approximate k-nearest neighbors search algorithm over a billion high-dimensional visual descriptors. We propose a randomized partitioning strategy and then design a two-layer distributed indexing scheme based on a neighborhood graph for large scale k-nearest neighbors search. The experimental results show that our method achieves excellent performance and scalability.
HUMAN POSTURE ESTIMATION BASED ON LINEAR REGRESSION OF HOG FEATURES FROM MONOCULAR IMAGES

In this paper, we propose a method to estimate the 3D human posture from monocular image without using the markers. A 3D human body is expressed by a multi-joint model, and a set of the joint angles describes a posture. The proposed method estimates the posture using Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG) feature vectors that can express the shape of the object in the input image obtained from monocular camera. In addition, the feature dimension of the background region is reduced for reliability by principal component analysis (PCA) computed at every block of HOG. The joint angles in Human multi-joint model are estimated by linear regression analysis applied to its feature vector extracted from the input image. As a result of comparison experiment with the Shape Contexts features, the RMS error was reduced by about 5.35 degrees. KATSUNORI ONISHI, TETSUYA TAKIGUCHI and YASUO ARIKI 176
Caregivers' Experiences of Informal Support in the Context Of HIV/AIDS

Social support is an important buffer for family caregivers of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV/ AIDS). With limited formal support options, these caregivers have to rely increasingly on informal networks. Yet, accessing this avenue is also fraught with difficulty due to the stigmatising nature of HIV infection. Research in this area is not just not sparse, but focusses largely on sources of support and the circumscribing effects of stigma. To further our understanding, a qualitative study was conducted using various concepts from social support theory. Twelve family caregivers in Mumbai, India, were interviewed, using the in-depth interview method. An iterative, thematic analysis was done through which themes and major themes were identified. Major themes included sources of support, types of support received, spontaneous support, soliciting support, caregivers' perceptions of support experiences and reciprocity. The findings raised several issues for intervention.