Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crime, punishment, and stake in conformity: Legal and informal control of domestic violence.

Deterrence theories and labeling theories offer inconsistent predictions about the relative impact of legal and informal controls on the subsequent criminal activities of arrested persons. In a controlled experiment using police contacts for domestic violence offenses in Milwaukee, we test whether the effect of arrest on recidivism is conditional on key individual characteristics indicating a "stake in conformity. " Contrary to deterrence theories, arrest had no overall crime reduction effect in either the official or victim interview measures of repeat domestic violence. Consistent with labeling theories, arrest increased recidivism among those with a low stake in conformity: the unemployed and the unmarried. Neither race nor a record of prior offenses conditioned the effect of arrest on subsequent domestic violence. The results are consistent with findings from similar experiments in Omaha, Dade County (Miami), and Colorado Springs. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by the American Sociological Association) Wisconsin Nebraska Florida Colorado Arrest and Apprehension Arrest Effects Deterrence Police Intervention Law Enforcement Intervention Police Response Domestic Violence Offender Spouse Abuse Offender Partner Violence Violence Against Women Adult Male Adult Offender Adult Violence Offender Arrest Male Offender Male Violence Offender Recidivism Labeling Theory 07-02
Utilizing the Cloud to Store Hijacked Camera Images

Mobile devices implementing Android operating systems inherently encourage opportunities to create and implement malicious software. This opportunity increases as dissemination of the Android OS to standalone devices, such as cameras, increases. The problem intensifies when these devices utilize cloud storage service capabilities. Previous security and forensics research is focused on Android malware detection, data leakage and operating system modifications. In this research, malware was developed and implemented on a camera running an Android Operating System. The execution of this malware successfully transferred images to a secondary cloud location without notifying the user about the data transfer or raising noticeable indicators with an industry accepted mobile device analysis toolkit. The research contribution is an initial empirical analysis of the viability of software to divert an image and store it in a secondary cloud storage environment without alerting digital forensics software about the malicious nature of the malware.
Impact of Motivation, Attraction, and Parasocial Interaction on Talk Radio listening

We examined the impact of motivation, interpersonal attraction, and parasocial interaction (PSI) on listening to public affairs talk radio. Hierarchical regression identified several results. PSI and exciting entertainment motivation predicted intentional and frequent listening to a favorite host. PSI, task attraction, and information motivation predicted regarding a host as an important source of information. PSI, information motivation, task attraction, and pass time/habit motivation predicted feeling that a host influenced attitudes. PSI, information motivation, and pass time/habit motivation predicted following a host's advice to act on societal concerns.
Evidence of Increased Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate Dehydrogenase and Fatty Acid Synthetase Promoter Activities in Transiently Transfected Adipocytes from Genetically Obese Rats (*)

Previous studies have shown that the adipose tissue of young genetically obese Zucker rats was characterized by a coordinate overtranscription of lipogenic genes, suggesting that the fa mutation triggers transcription factor(s) acting in common on the promoters of these genes. To test this hypothesis, we developed a system of transient transfection of rat adipocytes with constructs containing glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and fatty acid synthetase (FAS) promoters fused to gene reporter CAT. Those transfected cells expressed high levels of promoter-driven chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) activity through correctly initiated transcription as shown by primer extension analysis. Using this system we found a direct effect of insulin on GAPDH and FAS gene expression in rat adipocytes. In transfected adipocytes from obese compared to lean rats, activity of GAPDH and FAS promoters fused to CAT, was 2.6- and 8-fold increased, respectively. In contrast when reporter gene activity was driven by either phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase or β-actin promoter, no difference could be observed between lean and obese, pointing out the promoter specificity of genotype effect. 5′ deletion analysis of GAPDH promoter allowed us to narrow down the fa responsive region to nucleotide −488-329. As assessed by gel retardation and DNase I footprinting analysis, adipocyte nuclear protein interactions to this 159-bp fragment were found to be identical and to footprint the same 20-bp sequence. This study pointed out that overexpression of GAPDH and FAS genes in adipose tissue of genetically obese rats relies on promoter activation, through a 159-bp cisacting region within the GAPDH promoter. The effects of the fa mutation on trans-acting factors binding to this region remain to be identified.
Evolution support by homogeneously documenting patterns, aspects and traces

The evolution of complex software systems is promoted by software engineering principles and techniques like separation of concerns, encapsulation, stepwise refinement, and reusability of design solutions. Design patterns capture the expertise for reusable design solutions. Aspect-oriented programming is a methodology that enables the modularization of cross-cutting concerns. Traceability links designate dependencies between requirements, design, and source code. In order to support maintenance, documentation has to enable understandability by describing these issues. Descriptions have to facilitate tool support for automating documentation activities. In this paper, we use the notion of patterns, aspects and traces for a homogeneous documentation approach. We integrate various types of documentation, keep track of traces from requirements to the source code, keep design information in the source code, and generate additional design views on software systems. We have implemented these ideas as an extension to javadoc, the documentation approach used by Java. This extension can be used to automatically generate views on the design and on aspects as well as on traceability links as part of the standard javadoc system documentation.
SITUATION-ORIENTED UBIQUITOUS INFORMATION SYSTEMS INNOVATION – LEVERAGING USER INTEGRATION Research in Progress

Nowadays mobile devices like smartphones can be used for nearly all entertainment and information applications. With the diffusion of these devices and the usage of built-in sensors, ubiquitous information systems (UIS) are used in a wide range of services in different real-world situations. However, when designing UIS, development approaches for desktop-based information system (IS) are no longer applicable. In UIS, users encounter many different situations, which poses a challenge for designing these services. Thus knowing these situations exhibits a central. But adopting a situation-oriented system design has not been as essential to IS research as it is for UIS. Since the latter has only started gaining the IS community's attention, there has not been thorough investigation on situations in UIS. In this research in progress paper we propose a method, which outlined using a design science research approach for firmly investigating the users' situations and adopting this knowledge to UIS prototypes. We divide our methodological approach into two phases: (1) knowledge collection and (2) innovation implementation. In this paper we outline the concept of the first phase by presenting an existing UIS prototype that is used to evaluate our method as well as depict our contribution to research on UIS. 1 Introduction Ubiquitous Information Systems (UIS) refer to information systems available through many devices (e.g. smartphones) that support single actors and groups anytime and anywhere in real-world situations The technological trends that Weiser insightfully extrapolated have resulted in radical transformations and reconfigurations of computation's role in everyday life (Bell and Dourish, 2007; Yoo, 2010). Nowadays UIS are used in almost every scope of application and have experienced their diffusion mainly through the use of smartphones and tablets (Jonsson et al., 2010; Schmidt et al., 2012). Although the research field of computer science has tackled the issue of creating UIS since, the information systems (IS) community has long neglected the necessity of researching design and validation methods for UIS (Vodanovich et al., 2010; Yoo, 2010).
Worsening trends in the management and treatment of back pain.

IMPORTANCE Back pain treatment is costly and frequently includes overuse of treatments that are unsupported by clinical guidelines. Few studies have evaluated recent national trends in guideline adherence of spine-related care. OBJECTIVE To characterize the treatment of back pain from January 1, 1999, through December 26, 2010. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Using nationally representative data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, we studied outpatient visits with a chief symptom and/or primary diagnosis of back or neck pain, as well as those with secondary symptoms and diagnoses of back or neck pain. We excluded visits with concomitant "red flags," including fever, neurologic symptoms, or cancer. Results were analyzed using logistic regression adjusted for patient and health care professional characteristics and weighted to reflect national estimates. We also present adjusted results stratified by symptom duration and whether the health care professional was the primary care physician (PCP). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES We assessed imaging, narcotics, and referrals to physicians (guideline discordant indicators). In addition, we evaluated use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or acetaminophen and referrals to physical therapy (guideline concordant indicators). RESULTS We identified 23,918 visits for spine problems, representing an estimated 440 million visits. Approximately 58% of patients were female. Mean age increased from 49 to 53 years (P< .001) during the study period. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or acetaminophen use per visit decreased from 36.9% in 1999-2000 to 24.5% in 2009-2010 (unadjusted P< .001). In contrast, narcotic use increased from 19.3% to 29.1% (P< .001). Although physical therapy referrals remained unchanged at approximately 20%, physician referrals increased from 6.8% to 14.0% (P< .001). The number of radiographs remained stable at approximately 17%, whereas the number of computed tomograms or magnetic resonance images increased from 7.2% to 11.3% during the study period (P< .001). These trends were similar after stratifying by short-term vs long-term presentations, visits to PCPs vs non-PCPs, and adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, PCP status, symptom duration, region, and metropolitan location. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Despite numerous published clinical guidelines, management of back pain has relied increasingly on guideline discordant care. Improvements in the management of spine-related disease represent an area of potential cost savings for the health care system with the potential for improving the quality of care.
Economics of zoonoses surveillance in a ‘One Health’ context: an assessment of Campylobacter surveillance in Switzerland

SUMMARY Cross-sectorial surveillance and general collaboration between the animal and the public health sectors are increasingly recognized as needed to better manage the impacts of zoonoses. From 2009, the Swiss established a Campylobacter mitigation system that includes human and poultry surveillance data-sharing within a multi-sectorial platform, in a ‘One Health’ approach. The objective of this study was to explore the economics of this cross-sectorial approach, including surveillance and triggered interventions. Costs and benefits of the One Health and of the uni-sectorial approach to Campylobacter surveillance were identified using an economic assessment framework developed earlier. Cost information of surveillance activities and interventions was gathered and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) associated with the disease estimated for 2008 and 2013. In the first 5 years of this One Health approach to Campylobacter mitigation, surveillance contributed with information mainly used to perform risk assessments, monitor trends and shape research efforts on Campylobacter. There was an increase in costs associated with the mitigation activities following integration, due mainly to the allocation of additional resources to research and implementation of poultry surveillance. The overall burden of campylobacteriosis increased by 3·4–8·8% to 1751–2852 DALYs in 2013. In the timing of the analysis, added value associated with this cross-sectorial approach to surveillance of Campylobacter in the country was likely generated through non-measurable benefits such as intellectual capital and social capital.
Global Analysis of Small RNA Dynamics during Seed Development of Picea glauca and Arabidopsis thaliana Populations Reveals Insights on their Evolutionary Trajectories

While DNA methylation carries genetic signals and is instrumental in the evolution of organismal complexity, small RNAs (sRNAs), ~18–24 ribonucleotide (nt) sequences, are crucial mediators of methylation as well as gene silencing. However, scant study deals with sRNA evolution via featuring their expression dynamics coupled with species of different evolutionary time. Here we report an atlas of sRNAs and microRNAs (miRNAs, single-stranded sRNAs) produced over time at seed-set of two major spermatophytes represented by populations of Picea glauca and Arabidopsis thaliana with different seed-set duration. We applied diverse profiling methods to examine sRNA and miRNA features, including size distribution, sequence conservation and reproduction-specific regulation, as well as to predict their putative targets. The top 27 most abundant miRNAs were highly overlapped between the two species (e.g., miR166,−319 and−396), but in P. glauca, they were less abundant and significantly less correlated with seed-set phases. The most abundant sRNAs in libraries were deeply conserved miRNAs in the plant kingdom for Arabidopsis but long sRNAs (24-nt) for P. glauca. We also found significant difference in normalized expression between populations for population-specific sRNAs but not for lineage-specific ones. Moreover, lineage-specific sRNAs were enriched in the 21-nt size class. This pattern is consistent in both species and alludes to a specific type of sRNAs (e.g., miRNA, tasiRNA) being selected for. In addition, we deemed 24 and 9 sRNAs in P. glauca and Arabidopsis, respectively, as sRNA candidates targeting known adaptive genes. Temperature had significant influence on selected gene and miRNA expression at seed development in both species. This study increases our integrated understanding of sRNA evolution and its potential link to genomic architecture (e.g., sRNA derivation from genome and sRNA-mediated genomic events) and organismal complexity (e.g., association between different sRNA expression and their functionality).
32-bit Configurable bias current generator with sub-off-current capability

A fully configurable bias current reference is described. The output of the current reference is a gate voltage which produces a desired current. For each daisy-chained bias, 32 bits of configuration are divided into 22 bits of bias current, 6 bits of active-mirror buffer current, and 4 bits of other configuration. Configuration of each bias allows specifying the type of transistor (nfet or pfet), whether the bias is enabled or weakly pulled to the rail, whether the bias is for a cascode, and whether the bias transistor uses a shifted source (SS) voltage for sub-off-current biasing. In addition, the current reference integrates a pair of voltage regulators that generate stable voltage sources near the rails, suitable for the SS current references. Measurements from fabricated current references built in 180 nm CMOS show that the reference achieves at least 110 dB (22-bit) dynamic range and reaches 160dB when power-rail gate biasing is included. Generated bias currents reach at least 30x smaller current than the transistor off-current. Each current reference occupies an area of 620×50 urn2. The design kit schematics and layout are open-sourced.
HMM-based continuous sign language recognition using a fast optical flow parameterization of visual information

This paper presents a preliminary study of an optical flow-based parameterization of visual information in a sign language recognition system using Hidden Markov Models (HMM). Current feature extraction processes need initialization, tracking and segmentation stages in order to describe signer gestures. Our aim is to develop a single and fast technique to reduce computational complexity which doesn't require these stages and is able to work in mobile devices with limited hardware resources. The Moving Block Distance (MBD) parameterization is an interesting first approach for this purpose, proved by two signers under a static background constraint. A lexicon of 33 basic word units (signemes) was used to build the data set containing phrases with a variable number of words. Continuous recognition results achieve more than 99% accuracy in close test. Index Terms: multi-modal recognition, visual feature extraction, mobile devices, sign language, optical flow.
Robust Camera Captured Image Mosaicking for Document Digitization and OCR Processing

People often capture document images from their mobile camera or handheld digital camera. These cameras are handy and can capture partial images of a big document like chart or new paper and text written on wall. Image mosaic king is the process of reconstructing the whole image from its constituent partial overlapped images. If partial images of a document are captured by flatbed scanner then mosaic of the document is obtained by simply estimating the homography which is a simple 2D transformation between partial images. While this is not the case when partial images are captured by mobile or handheld camera. Camera images are suffered from illumination change, scale change, change in viewpoint, perspective distortions and low resolution. In this paper we discussed a robust mosaicking approach for camera captured document images and its implementation results for the applications like document digitization and OCR processing.
Molecular cloning and characterization of a new and highly thermostable esterase from Geobacillus sp. JM6

A new lipolytic enzyme gene was cloned from a thermophile Geobacillus sp. JM6. The gene contained 750 bp and encoded a 249‐amino acid protein. The recombinant enzyme was expressed and purified from Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) with a molecular mass of 33.6 kDa. Enzyme assays using p‐nitrophenyl esters with different acyl chain lengths as the substrates confirmed its esterase activity, yielding the highest activity with p‐nitrophenyl butyrate. When p‐nitrophenyl butyrate was used as a substrate, the optimum reaction temperature and pH for the enzyme were 60 °C and pH 7.5, respectively. Geobacillus sp. JM6 esterase showed excellent thermostability with 68% residual activity after incubation at 100 °C for 18 h. A theoretical structural model of strain JM6 esterase was developed with a monoacylglycerol lipase from Bacillus sp. H‐257 as a template. The predicted core structure exhibits an α/β hydrolase fold, and a putative catalytic triad (Ser97, Asp196, and His226) was identified. Inhibition assays with PMSF indicated that serine residue is involved in the catalytic activity of strain JM6 esterase. The recombinant esterase showed a relatively good tolerance to the detected detergents and denaturants, such as SDS, Chaps, Tween 20, Tween 80, Triton X‐100, sodium deoxycholate, urea, and guanidine hydrochloride.
Defining ‘knowledge’ in vocational education qualifications in England: an analysis of key stakeholders and their constructions of knowledge, purposes and content

What is meant by ‘knowledge’ in vocational education qualifications and who decides? These are significant questions in a context where ‘skill’ is the prevailing discourse. This paper reports on a research project, undertaken in 2010–2011, which investigated the role of national stakeholders in defining knowledge in vocational education qualifications at levels 2 and 3 in the English qualifications framework. The paper explores who the key constituencies were at this point in time, and how they conceptualised the purpose and content of vocational education qualifications. The study found a complex mix of stakeholders involved in design and regulation of qualifications, but it was difficult to discern who took responsibility for knowledge beyond qualification awarding bodies. While concern was expressed about the dominant role of employers, other constituencies such as higher education subject specialists and teachers were missing. There was a lack of consensus amongst stakeholders about the purposes of vocational education qualifications, and uncertainty about their role as preparation for both work and further study. The study indicates the complicated and unstable state of knowledge in vocational education qualifications. It is argued that knowledge needs to be considered in greater depth as part of qualification design, so that vocational qualifications genuinely enable progression, whether to employment or to higher levels of education.
Towards a validated model for affective classification of texts

In this paper, we present the results of experiments aiming to validate a two-dimensional typology of affective states as a suitable basis for affective classification of texts. Using a corpus of English weblog posts, annotated for mood by their authors, we trained support vector machine binary classifiers to distinguish texts on the basis of their affiliation with one region of the space. We then report on experiments which go a step further, using four-class classifiers based on automated scoring of texts for each dimension of the typology. Our results indicate that it is possible to extend the standard binary sentiment analysis (positive/negative) approach to a two dimensional model (positive/negative; active/passive), and provide some evidence to support a more fine-grained classification along these two axes.
Parallel Repetition from Fortification

The Parallel Repetition Theorem upper-bounds the value of a repeated (tensored) two prover game in terms of the value of the base game and the number of repetitions. In this work we give a simple transformation on games -- "fortification" -- and show that for fortified games, the value of the repeated game decreases perfectly exponentially with the number of repetitions, up to an arbitrarily small additive error. Our proof is combinatorial and short. As corollaries, we obtain: (1) Starting from a PCP Theorem with soundness error bounded away from 1, we get a PCP with arbitrarily small constant soundness error. In particular, starting with the combinatorial PCP of Dinur, we get a combinatorial PCP with low error. The latter can be used for hardness of approximation as in the work of Håstad. (2) Starting from the work of the author and Raz, we get a projection PCP theorem with the smallest soundness error known today. The theorem yields nearly a quadratic improvement in the size compared to previous work. We then discuss the problem of derandomizing parallel repetition, and the limitations of the fortification idea in this setting. We point out a connection between the problem of derandomizing parallel repetition and the problem of composition. This connection could shed light on the so-called Projection Games Conjecture, which asks for projection PCP with minimal error.