Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying identity: identity as an interactional construct, and some relations to second language learning

Raymond and Heritage (2006) argue that the interactional management of epistemological rights is a key resource for working up identities in interaction. This notion has broad implications for second language learning research. From the mid to late nineteen-nineties, a number of second language researchers have problematized the practice of grouping participants into generic categories such as 'Native speaker' and 'Nonnative speaker' (e.g., Firth 2009; Firth and Wagner 1997, 2007; Hosoda 2006; Kasper 2004; Kramsch and Whiteside 2007; Norton Peirce 1995, 1997, 2000; Pavlenko and Lantolf 2000; Rampton 1995). One thrust of this movement has been to increase recognition of the fact that second language learners are not one-dimensional. Some researchers have drawn on poststructuralist notions to develop more complex views of the identities of the participants in their data (e.g., Canagarajah 2004, 2007; Norton Peirce, 1995, 1997, 2000; Norton and Toohey 2002; Siegal 1996; see Block 2007 for an overview). Such studies have enriched our view of second language learners as second language users, and as people. However, with notable exceptions such as Hosoda (2006) and Kasper (2004), research examining the actual ways in which identities are treated by the participants themselves as being relevant for their second language learning activities are still relatively rare. It is the goal of the present essay to provide some insights and footholds for future research examining the relationships between identity and second language learning. In particular, this essay provides a discussion of how participant identity is both conceptualized and analyzed from the perspectives of conversation and membership categorization analysis (CA and MCA). The ways in which sequential and categorial aspects of talk are reflexively constituted are considered and
Potent Inhibition of HIV-1 Replication by a Tat Mutant

Herein we describe a mutant of the two-exon HIV-1 Tat protein, termed Nullbasic, that potently inhibits multiple steps of the HIV-1 replication cycle. Nullbasic was created by replacing the entire arginine-rich basic domain of wild type Tat with glycine/alanine residues. Like similarly mutated one-exon Tat mutants, Nullbasic exhibited transdominant negative effects on Tat-dependent transactivation. However, unlike previously reported mutants, we discovered that Nullbasic also strongly suppressed the expression of unspliced and singly-spliced viral mRNA, an activity likely caused by redistribution and thus functional inhibition of HIV-1 Rev. Furthermore, HIV-1 virion particles produced by cells expressing Nullbasic had severely reduced infectivity, a defect attributable to a reduced ability of the virions to undergo reverse transcription. Combination of these inhibitory effects on transactivation, Rev-dependent mRNA transport and reverse transcription meant that permissive cells constitutively expressing Nullbasic were highly resistant to a spreading infection by HIV-1. Nullbasic and its activities thus provide potential insights into the development of potent antiviral therapeutics that target multiple stages of HIV-1 infection.
Fractionation of water-soluble pig gastric mucus by equilibrium density-gradient centrifugation in caesium chloride.

stabilities of the polymeric collagen increased up to the age of 25-30 years. After treatment with cold alkali, however, the stability of the polymeric collagen appeared to increase up to the age of 60 years. The trends were similar whether values from normal individuals alone were taken or whether the whole group was considered, including patients with various connective-tissue disorders. There is thus evidence for two distinct biochemical processes leading to an increased stability of polymeric collagen; one of these may continue throughout life. The relation of the changes to the known interand intramolecular cross-links present in collagen fibres is being investigated.
Knowledge and health information communication in Tanzania.

OBJECTIVE To explore and identify gaps in knowledge and information communication at all levels of health delivery system in Tanzania. METHODS In-depth interviews and twelve Focus Group Discussions were conducted to capture information on the community knowledge on different health problems and the health information communication process. Interviews and discussions were also held with primary schoolchildren, traditional healers, health facility workers and district health management team members. Documentary review and inventory of the available health education materials at community, health facility and district levels, was made. RESULTS Major community health and health-related problems included diseases (61.6%), lack of potable water (36.5%), frequent famine (26.9%) and lack of health facility services (253%). Malaria, HIV/AIDS and diarrhoeal diseases were the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Most of the health communication packages covered communicable diseases and their prevention. Health care facility was the main (91.6%) source of health information for most communities. Public meetings, radio and print materials were the most frequently used channels of health information communication. Major constraints in adopting health education messages included poverty, inappropriate health education, ignorance and local beliefs. CONCLUSION This study has identified gaps in health knowledge and information communication in Tanzania. There is lack of adequate knowledge and information exchange capacities among the health providers and the ability to share that information with the targeted community. Moreover, although the information gets to the community, most of them are not able to utilize it properly because they lack the necessary background knowledge.
Navigation System for Computer Assisted Tumor Ablation using Radio Frequency

Currently, physicians are using a new technique based on radiofrequency (RF) induced hyperthermia, to treat tumors in the musculoskeletal system. This method uses a RF probe, which is placed inside the tumor, which in turn is heated within the active volume of the probe, eliminating in this way the tumor cells without affecting healthy cells. For this treatment, the surgeon must know the exact shape and location of the tumor. Usually a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (NMRI) study is performed before surgery. Ultrasound imaging is used to locate the tumor intraoperatively. In this work is presented a computer system to build a 3D model of the tumor and adjacent bones based on segmented images from the preoperative NMRI study. Then, during surgery, the model will be registered with the anatomy of the patient, using intraoperative ultrasound images segmented by the surgeon. This work is part of a larger project, which will be a complete computer aided surgery (CAS) system to help train physicians in radiofrequency treatment and to make the procedure more reliable and efficient
CULTIVATING eXtension COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

This study empirically describes and analyzes the characteristics and functionality of the ―Communities of Practice (CoPs)‖ used within eXtension, a new initiative of the Cooperative Extension (CE) system. It also endeavors to lay the foundation for empirical analysis of CoP processes, which to date have been explained almost exclusively using qualitative case study methods. Land-grant universities were founded on the ideals that higher education should be accessible to all, that the university should teach liberal and practical subjects and should share the college's knowledge with people throughout their states. eXtension is an educational partnership of more than 70 land-grant universities. Its reported purpose is to help Americans improve their lives with access to timely, objective, research-based information and educational opportunities accessed through http://www.extension. org . This Web resource is customized with links to state land-grant university CE Web sites. This mixed-method, action research project applied to the virtual environment describes the extent to which people who became part of an eXtension Communities of Practice (XCoPs) reported that they engaged in purposeful cycles of continuous inquiry in dialog, decision, action, and evaluation (DDAE) and the attainment of eXtension‘s goals. An Internet survey obtained descriptive data of members‘ participation within the eight pioneer XCoPs to assess the extent to which each XCoP engaged in the DDAE cycles of inquiry. Analysis of the survey data resulted in the categorization of low-, medium-, and high-level functioning XCoPs. Members of three pioneer XCoPs representing each category (low, medium, high collaboration) participated in online interviews that revealed how CE‘s reward structure, XCoP membership composition, and leader/member skill sets impact XCoP performance in meeting eXtension goals. Two sets of ―best practices‖ for eXtension initiative staff and XCoPs emerge from the discussion of triangulated data.
On Using Physical Analogies for Feature and Shape Extraction in Computer Vision

There is a rich literature of approaches to image feature extraction in computer vision. Many sophisticated approaches exist for low-and for high-level feature extraction but can be complex to implement with parameter choice guided by experimentation, but with performance analysis and optimization impeded by speed of computation. We have developed new feature extraction techniques on notional use of physical paradigms, with parametrization aimed to be more familiar to a scientifically trained user, aiming to make best use of computational resource. This paper is the first unified description of these new approaches, outlining the basis and results that can be achieved. We describe how gravitational force can be used for low-level analysis, while analogies of water flow and heat can be deployed to achieve high-level smooth shape detection, by determining features and shapes in a selection of images, comparing results with those by stock approaches from the literature. We also aim to show that the implementation is consistent with the original motivations for these techniques and so contend that the exploration of physical paradigms offers a promising new avenue for new approaches to feature extraction in computer vision.
Recognizing /spl omega/-regular languages with probabilistic automata

Probabilistic finite automata as acceptors for languages over finite words have been studied by many researchers. In this paper, we show how probabilistic automata can serve as acceptors for /spl omega/-regular languages. Our main results are that our variant of probabilistic Buchi automata (PBA) is more expressive than non-deterministic /spl omega/-automata, but a certain subclass of PBA, called uniform PBA, has exactly the power of /spl omega/-regular languages. This also holds for probabilistic /spl omega/-automata with Streett or Rabin acceptance. We show that certain /spl omega/-regular languages have uniform PBA of linear size, while any nondeterministic Streett automaton is of exponential size, and vice versa. Finally, we discuss the emptiness problem for uniform PBA and the use of PBA for the verification of Markov chains against qualitative linear-time properties.
Asymptotic properties of functionals of increments of a continuous semimartingale with stochastic sampling times

This paper is concerned with asymptotic behavior of the normalized sums of functionals of a variety of continuous semimartingales where observations are sampled at stochastic times. Several laws of large numbers and a major central limit theorem are proved after an appropriate normalization. These results are connected to the needs of nancial econometrics in that they provide future foundation for redenition of the realized kernel estimation of integrated volatility. Realized kernel method is currently one of the most popular methods for estimation of integrated volatility of a price process for high-frequency nancial data. The classical denition is based on equispaced data; however, it has to be redened in cases where the trading times are stochastic. The stochastic trading duration assumption is typically true whenever the tick-by-tick trading data are recorded. Our results provide the foundation of asymptotic theory of the redened realized kernel estimator which is the subject of our second (forthcoming) article.
Up-regulation of telomerase activity in human pancreatic cancer cells after exposure to etoposide

Telomerase plays a critical role in the development of cellular immortality and oncogenesis. Activation of telomerase occurs in a majority of human malignant tumours, and the relation between telomerase and vulnerability to drug-mediated apoptosis remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrate, for the first time, up-regulation of telomerase activity in human pancreatic cancer cells treated with etoposide, a topoisomerase II inhibitor. Exposure of MIA PaCa-2 cells to etoposide at various concentrations (1–30 μM) resulted in two- to threefold increases in telomerase activity. Up-regulation was detectable 24 h after drug exposure and was accompanied by enhanced expression of mRNA of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase. Telomerase activation was also observed in AsPC-1 and PANC-1 cells but not in KP-3 and KP-1N cells. Furthermore, we found a negative correlation between increased telomerase activity and the percentage of dead cells after etoposide treatment. These findings suggest the existence of an anti-apoptotic pathway through which telomerase is up-regulated in response to DNA damage. This telomerase activation pathway may be one of the mechanisms responsible for the development of etoposide resistance in certain pancreatic cancer cells. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
WAVE: an architecture for predicting dropout in undergraduate courses using EDM

Predicting the academic progress of student is an issue faced by many public universities in emerging countries. Although, those institutions stores large amounts of educational data, they fail to recognize the students that are in danger to leave the system. This paper presents a novel architecture that uses EDM techniques to predict and to identify those who are at dropout risk. This approach allows academic managers to monitor the progress of the students in each academic semester, identifying the ones in difficult to fulfill their academic requirements. This paper shows initial experimental results using real world data about of three undergraduate engineering courses of one the largest Brazilian public university. According to the experiments, the classifier Naïve Bayes presented the highest true positive rate for all datasets used in the experiments.
Segmentation of Volumetric Medical Data Using Hidden Markov Random Field Model

Medical imaging applications produce large sets of similar images. The huge amount of data makes the manual analysis and interpretation a fastidious task. Medical image segmentation is thus an important process in image processing used to partition the images into different regions (e.g. gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid). Hidden Markov Random Field (HMRF) Model and Gibbs distributions provide powerful tools for image modeling. In this paper, we use a HMRF model to perform segmentation of volumetric medical images. We have a problem with incomplete data. We seek the segmented images according to the MAP (Maximum A Posteriori) criterion. MAP estimation leads to the minimization of an energy function. This problem is computationally intractable. Therefore, optimizations techniques are used to compute a solution. We will use and compare three optimization techniques that are Gibbs Sampler and Metropolis sampling with Simulated Annealing scheme, and the Iterated Conditional Modes (ICM).
Controlled Mechanical Buckling for Origami‐Inspired Construction of 3D Microstructures in Advanced Materials

Origami is a topic of rapidly growing interest in both the scientific and engineering research communities due to its promising potential in a broad range of applications. Previous assembly approaches for origami structures at the micro/nanoscale are constrained by the applicable classes of materials, topologies, and/or capability for reversible control over the transformation process. Here, a strategy is introduced that exploits mechanical buckling for autonomic origami assembly of 3D structures across material classes from soft polymers to brittle inorganic semiconductors, and length scales from nanometers to centimeters. This approach relies on a spatial variation of thickness in the initial 2D structures as a means to produce engineered folding creases during the compressive buckling process. The elastic nature of the assembly scheme enables active, deterministic control over intermediate states in the 2D to 3D transformation in a continuous and reversible manner. Demonstrations include a broad set of 3D structures formed through unidirectional, bidirectional, and even hierarchical folding, with examples ranging from half cylindrical columns and fish scales, to cubic boxes, pyramids, starfish, paper fans, skew tooth structures, and to amusing system‐level examples of soccer balls, model houses, cars, and multifloor textured buildings.
PAIRWISE PARTIAL ORDER ALIGNMENT AS A SUPERGRAPH PROBLEM — ALIGNING ALIGNMENTS REVISITED

Partial Order Alignment (POA) has been proposed recently as an alternative to conventional sequence alignment. Instead of the familiar tabular alignments, POA methods produce a partial order — a labeled directed acyclic graph — that includes the input sequences. In this paper, we formalize POA in terms of graphs, and show it corresponds to finding a Minimal Common Supergraph for a set of partial order graphs. We also show how this formulation may serve as a guide in the development of new alignment algorithms, and in addressing perennial problems, such as how to align alignments.
Improved Reliability of FPGA-Based PUF Identification Generator Design

Physical unclonable functions (PUFs), a form of physical security primitive, enable digital identifiers to be extracted from devices, such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Many PUF implementations have been proposed to generate these unique n-bit binary strings. However, they often offer insufficient uniqueness and reliability when implemented on FPGAs and can consume excessive resources. To address these problems, in this article we present an efficient, lightweight, and scalable PUF identification (ID) generator circuit that offers a compact design with good uniqueness and reliability properties and is specifically designed for FPGAs. A novel post-characterisation methodology is also proposed that improves the reliability of a PUF without the need for any additional hardware resources. Moreover, the proposed post-characterisation method can be generally used for any FPGA-based PUF designs. The PUF ID generator consumes 8.95% of the hardware resources of a low-cost Xilinx Spartan-6 LX9 FPGA and 0.81% of a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA. Experimental results show good uniqueness, reliability, and uniformity with no occurrence of bit-aliasing. In particular, the reliability of the PUF is close to 100% over an environmental temperature range of 25°C to 70°C with ± 10% variation in the supply voltage.
Tumor imaging using a standardized radiolabeled adapter protein docked to vascular endothelial growth factor.

UNLABELLED Direct radiolabeling of proteins can result in the loss of targeting activity, requires highly customized procedures, and yields heterogeneous products. Here we describe a novel imaging complex comprised of a standardized (99m)Tc-radiolabeled adapter protein noncovalently bound to a "Docking tag" fused to a "Targeting protein". The assembly of this complex is based on interactions between human 109-amino acid (HuS) and 15-amino acid (Hu-tag) fragments of ribonuclease I, which serve as an "Adapter protein" and a Docking tag, respectively. METHODS HuS modified with hydrazinonicotinamide (HYNIC) was radiolabeled using (99m)Tc-tricine to a specific activity of 3.4-7.4 MBq/microg. Protein complexes were then formed by mixing (99m)Tc-HuS with equimolar amounts of either Hu-tagged VEGF(121) (Hu-VEGF [vascular endothelial growth factor]) or Hu-tagged anti-VEGFR-2 single-chain antibody (Hu-P4G7) and incubating on ice for 15 min. 4T1 luc/gfp luciferase-expressing murine mammary adenocarcinoma cells (1 x 10(4)) were implanted subcutaneously or injected intravenously into BALB/c mice. Bioluminescent imaging (BLI) was performed 10 d later. Immediately after BLI visualization of tumor, 18.5-37 MBq of tracer (5-10 microg of protein) were injected via tail vein. One hour later planar or SPECT images were obtained, followed by killing the mice. RESULTS There was significantly (P = 0.0128) increased uptake of (99m)Tc-HuS/Hu-VEGF (n = 10) within subcutaneous tumor as compared with (99m)Tc-HuS/Hu-P4G7 (n = 5) at biodistribution assay (2.68 +/- 0.75 vs. 1.8 +/- 0.21; tumor-to-subcutaneous tissue [ratio of specific activities], respectively), despite similar molecular weights. The focal (99m)Tc-HuS/Hu-VEGF uptake seen on planar images (3.44 +/- 1.16 [tumor to soft-tissue background]) corresponded directly to the locations of tumor observed by BLI. Region of interest analyses of SPECT images revealed a significant increase of (99m)Tc-HuS/Hu-VEGF (n = 5) within the lungs with BLI-detectable pulmonary tumor nodules as compared with controls (n = 4) (right: 4.47 +/- 2.07 vs. 1.79 +/- 0.56; left: 3.66 +/- 1.65 vs. 1.62 +/- 0.45, tumor lung [counts/pixel]/normal lung [counts/pixel], respectively). CONCLUSION (99m)Tc-HuS/Hu-VEGF complex is stable for at least 1 h in vivo and can be effectively used to image mouse tumor neovasculature in lesions as small as several millimeters in soft tissue. We expect that a similar approach can be adapted for in vivo delivery of other targeting proteins of interest without affecting their bioactivity.
Visualizing Music: Tonal Progressions and Distributions

This paper presents a music visualization tool that shows the tonal progression in, and tonal distribution of, a piece of music on Lerdahl’s two-dimensional tonal pitch space. The method segments a piece into uniform time slices, and determines the most likely key in each slice. It then generates the visualization by dynamically showing the sequence of keys as translucent, growing discs on the twodimensional plane. The frequency of a key is indicated by the size of its colored disc. Each color and position corresponds to a key, and related keys are shown in proximity with related colors. The visual result effectively presents the changing distribution of the keys employed. The proposed visualization is an improvement over more basic charting methods, such as histograms, and it maintains standards of information design in the form of added dimensionality, color, and animation. We show that the visualization is invariant under music transformations that preserve the piece’s identity. We conclude by illustrating how this method may be used to visually distinguish between tonal progression and distribution patterns in western classical versus Armenian folk music.
Characterization of pKP1433, a Novel KPC-2-Encoding Plasmid from Klebsiella pneumoniae Sequence Type 340

ABSTRACT The nucleotide sequence of pKP1433 (55,417 bp), a blaKPC-2-carrying plasmid from Klebsiella pneumoniae sequence type 340, was determined. pKP1433 displayed extensive sequence and structural similarities with the IncN plasmids possessing the KPC-2-encoding Tn4401b isoform. However, the replication, partitioning, and stability of pKP1433 were determined by sequences related to diverse non-IncN plasmids.