Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of Heart Failure and Congenital Septal Defects in Mice Lacking Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase

Background—Nitric oxide (NO) produced by endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) plays an important role in the regulation of cell growth, apoptosis, and tissue perfusion. Recent studies showed that mice deficient in eNOS developed abnormal aortic bicuspid valves. The aim of the present study was to additionally investigate the role of eNOS in heart development. Methods and Results—We examined postnatal mortality, cardiac function, and septum defects in eNOS−/−, eNOS+/−, and wild-type mice. Postnatal mortality was significantly increased in eNOS−/− (85.1%) and eNOS+/− (38.3%) compared with wild-type mice (13.3%, P <0.001). Postmortem examination found severe pulmonary congestion with focal alveolar edema in mice deficient in eNOS. Heart shortening determined by ultrasound crystals was significantly decreased in eNOS−/− compared with wild-type mice (P <0.05). Congenital atrial and ventricular septal defects were found in neonatal hearts. The incidence of atrial or ventricular septal defects was significantly increased in eNOS−/− (75%) and eNOS+/− (32.4%) neonates compared with those of the wild-type mice (4.9%). At embryonic days 12.5 and 15.5, cardiomyocyte apoptosis and myocardial caspase-3 activity were increased in the myocardium of eNOS−/− compared with wild-type embryos (P <0.01), and increases in apoptosis persisted to neonatal stage in eNOS−/− mice. Conclusions—Deficiency in eNOS results in heart failure and congenital septal defects during cardiac development, which is associated with increases in cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Our data demonstrate that eNOS plays an important role in normal heart development.
English language learning in a one-to-one computing environment: Impacts and considerations

This case study research describes and evaluates the impacts of the learning of English language in an ICT-enriched learning environment, in a primary school under the FutureSchools@Singapore programme. Students from the school are provided with a ratio of one computing device to two students in Primary 1 and subsequently a one-to-one computing learning environment from Primary 2 (i.e. Grade 2) onwards. From Primary 4 onwards, students procure and use their own computing devices. This case study describes how ICT has been used for the teaching and learning of English. The frequency of ICT use in the English classrooms is presented. More importantly, the impacts in terms of the students’ ICT skills, English test score and feedback from students involved are also presented and discussed. The students performed well in the ICT skill test. The students also performed relatively well in the English test as compared to a comparable school. In the English test, the ICT-enabled school reported a statistically significant higher mean score than the comparable school; the mean scores were 73.87 and 67.38 between the school and the comparable school, respectively. In general, the students commented that they were satisfied with the use of their notebook computers. They found it interesting, useful and easy to use. However, students complained about computer viruses, small computer screen, battery lifespan, weight of their notebook computers, slow Internet connect speed and Internet connection errors. In the self-reported higher-order thinking questionnaire, no significant difference was found for students’ problemsolving and reflective thinking skills between the school in this study and the comparable school.
Around device interaction for multiscale navigation

In this paper we study the design space of free-space interactions for multiscale navigation afforded by mobile depth sensors. Such interactions will have a greater working volume, more fluid control and avoid screen occlusion effects intrinsic to touch screens. This work contributes the first study to show that mobile free-space interactions can be as good as touch. We also analyze sensor orientation and interaction volume usage, resulting in strong implications for how sensors should be placed on mobile devices. We describe a user study evaluating mobile free-space navigation techniques and the impacts of sensor orientation on user experience. Finally, we discuss guidelines for future mobile free-space interaction techniques and sensor design.
Background noise levels and reverberation times in unoccupied classrooms: predictions and measurements.

Classrooms are often filled with deterrents that hamper a child's ability to listen and learn. It is evident that the acoustical environment in classrooms can be one such deterrent. Excessive background noise and reverberation can affect the achievement and educational performance of children with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and children with normal hearing sensitivity who have other auditory learning difficulties, as well as elementary school children with no verbal or hearing disabilities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent of the problem of noise and reverberation in schools. To that end, we measured reverberation times and background noise levels in 32 different unoccupied elementary classrooms in eight public school buildings in central Ohio. The results were compared with the limits recommended in the American National Standards Institute standard for acoustical characteristics of classrooms in the United States (ANSI S12.60-2002). These measurements were also compared to the external and internal criteria variables developed by Crandell, Smaldino, & Flexer (1995) to determine if a simple checklist can accurately predict unwanted classroom background noise levels and reverberation. Results indicated that most classrooms were not in compliance with ANSI noise and reverberation standards. Further, our results suggested that a checklist was not a good predictor of the noisier and more reverberant rooms.
Bilingual PRESRI - Integration of Multiple Research Paper Databases

Collecting all the papers in a research field is a first step towards an exhaustive survey. A number of research paper databases are available for searching papers. However, searchers are compelled to repeat the same search operation for each database if there are multiple databases for a research field. To improve such inefficient searching, we have developed PRESRI, which can construct an exhaustive database by integrating multiple research paper databases. First, we collect Postscript and PDF files on the WWW, and construct a database ('WEB-DB') by extracting bibliographic information from the files. Second, we construct an exhaustive database by integrating WEB-DB with other databases. As a key technique for constructing an exhaustive database, we propose a method for extracting bibliographic information from Postscript and PDF files based on a SVM. To investigate the effectiveness of our method, we conducted an examination. We found that our method is useful for both Japanese and English. In this paper, we also focus on the presentation of search results, which is an important factor in constructing an efficient survey environment. We have developed a system that makes it possible to understand the relationships between papers intuitively based on citation information.
Deformation of 2D flow fields using stream functions

Recently, visual simulation of fluids has become an important element in many applications, such as movies and computer games. These fluid animations are usually created by physically-based fluid simulation. However, the simulation often requires very expensive computational cost for creating realistic fluid animations. Therefore, when the user tries to create various fluid animations, he or she must execute fluid simulation repeatedly, which requires a prohibitive computational time. To address this problem, this paper proposes a method for deforming velocity fields of fluids while preserving the divergence-free condition. In this paper, we focus on grid-based 2D fluid simulations. Our system allows the user to interactively create various fluid animations from a single set of velocity fields generated by the fluid simulation. In a preprocess, our method converts the input velocity fields into scalar fields representing the stream functions. At run-time, the user deforms the grid representing the scalar stream functions and the deformed velocity fields are then obtained by applying a curl operator to the deformed scalar stream functions. The velocity fields obtained by this process naturally perseveres the divergence-free condition. For the deformation of the grid, we use a method based on Moving Least Squares. The usefulness of our method is demonstrated by several examples.
Heavy Handed: A Multi-Level Approach to Understanding Regional Variation In The Use of Force By Police

Using data from the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004 (ICPSR 4572) from the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, the goal of this paper is to determine whether or not there are regional variations in the way in which American police officers use force at the time of arrest. Specifically, this paper suggests that lower levels of police-suspect violence are present in the Southern United States owning to a culture of violence. Conversely, higher levels of police-suspect violence are likely to be found in the Northern United States as a result of crimes that can best be explained by routine activity theory. To test these theories, this paper addresses two key hypotheses: 1) lower levels of police force will be found in Southern U.S regions, relative to levels in the North; 2) Regional Characteristics can be used in an effort to predict the level of force used in a police-suspect encounter. Results indicate that there is a significant (p < .001) negative relationship between Southern residence and police use of force , with weaker relationships found in the West (p < . 05) and the Midwest (p < .10), all relative to the North. This finding suggests that, in fact, police use of force is higher in the Northern states relative to Southern states, and also higher than levels found in the West and Midwest, respectively. Another important finding, however, indicates that when accounting for regional and demographic variables, the most important predictor is the suspect’s use of force towards the officer, which when taken with the previous findings is also higher in the Northern states relative to Southern States.
Effects of AZT and RNA-protein complex (FA-2-b-beta) extracted from Liang Jin mushroom on apoptosis of gastric cancer cells.

AIM To investigate the synergistic effects of 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine (AZT) and FA-2-b-beta extracted from Ling Jin mushroom on apoptosis of gastric cancer cells MKN45 in vitro. METHODS MTT analysis was made to examine the inhibition rate of MKN45 cells treated with AZT (2.5, 5, 10 and 20 mg/L) and FA-2-b-beta (5, 10, 20 and 40 mg/L) singly and combinatively for 24, 48 and 72 h. Apoptotic effects were evaluated by morphological methods, DNA agarose gel electrophoresis and flow cytometry, respectively. Telomerase activity was estimated by TRAP-ELISA. The mRNA expression of caspase-3 and Bcl-2 were detected by RT-PCR. RESULTS AZT and FA-2-b-beta could significantly inhibit MKN45 cell proliferation and induce its apoptosis. MKN45 cells were inhibited in dose- and time- dependent manner. The inhibition effect of AZT combined with FA-2-b-beta was obviously better than that used singly (0.469 +/- 0.022 vs 1.075 +/- 0.055, P < 0.05, 0.325 +/- 0.029 vs 0.469 +/- 0.022 P < 0.01). AZT used singly and combination of FA-2-b-beta could decrease the activity of tumor cell telomerase, and AZT has synergistic function with FA-2-b-beta. A certain concentration of AZT could up-regulate the expression of caspase-3 mRNA (r = 0.9969, P < 0.01), which was positively related to apoptosis rate, and could down-regulate the expression of Bcl-2 mRNA, which was negatively related to apoptosis rate (r = 0.926, P < 0.01). Furthermore, the effect of AZT combined with FA-2-b-beta was significantly higher than that used singly. CONCLUSION Combination of AZT and FA-2-b-beta has an obviously synergetic effect in the gastric cancer cells MKN45, which has provided a new approach to the treatment of gastric cancer clinically.
A model-based inquiry approach to explore system dynamics and modeling aspects of the prey-predator system

The purpose of this paper is to present how a model-based inquiry approach could support the development of students' conceptual understanding about the prey-predator system and cognitive skills. In so doing, we developed a sequence of activities, which involve three cycles of scientific inquiry. The first cycle involves, among others, playing a role-playing game of a prey-predator system, whereas the second cycle involves developing and running a model (i.e., a simulation) of the prey-predator system on a computer. The third cycle follows after the enactment of the first two cycles and it involves comparing the role-playing game to the computer simulation, in an attempt to identify differences concerning the modelling process and system dynamics applied in each of the former two cycles, as well as to identify and discuss nature-of-science related issues within the context of the prey-predator system. The whole approach has been designed for upper secondary school students, but with some adaptations it could also be used for lower secondary education or even the last grades of the primary school.
Evaluation of grasp stiffness in underactuated compliant hands

Underactuation represents a solution to reduce the number of Degrees of Freddom (DoF) of robotic hands. Altough reducing the number of DoFs in general limits the ability to perform many and different types of grasp, the use of springs in the structure improves the compliance of the grasp and mitigates the loss of generality due to the reduction of DoFs in the mechanical structure. The use of active and passive elastic elements improves robustness of the whole grasp. In this paper we evaluate the grasp stiffness which depends on the structural compliance of hand links and joints and of the contacts, and on the gains of impedance controllers. A quasi-static model of the grasp for underactuated hands is presented and used to explicitly compute the grasp compliance.
Human capital , public pensions and endogenous growth ∗

This paper investigates the implications of different social security systems on economic growth, when growth is engined by both human and physical capital accumulation. To do so, I extend the standard overlapping generations model with individuals that in their first period of life divide their time between education activities and working activities. Thus, the model allows for skill acquisition which affects economic growth. In their second period of life, individuals are old and receive pension benefits assumed to be positively related to human capital formation. It is shown that the introduction of an unfunded pension scheme in a Laissez-Faire economy decreases output growth, while a properly designed public funded pension scheme will lead to higher growth.
Housing Services and Volatility Bounds with Real Estate Returns

We investigate the role of a real estate market in consumption based asset pricing models. A long-standing issue in this context is the inability of these models to match the equity premium observed in the data. Piazzesi, Schneider, and Tuzel (2007) use a model with housing services that comes closer to matching the premium. We look at the performance of this model from a different perspective. Rather than focusing on the model implied returns, we use historical returns to construct the Hansen-Jagannathan volatility bounds for the inter-temporal rate of substitution (a stochastic discount factor). Our returns include real estate returns in addition to the typically included returns on stocks and a risk-free asset. Then we calculate moments of a stochastic discount factor implied by the model from Piazzesi, Schneider, and Tuzel (2007). These moments are shown to be above the Hansen-Jagannathan volatility bounds.
Concept extraction from legal cases: the use of a statistic of coincidence

Effective retrieval of court decisions is important. Automatically identifying legal concepts in the decision texts would be very helpful. In this paper we investigate how a statistics for hypothesis testing, i.e., the likelihood ratio, can help in this task. We describe how this statistic can be used for detecting important multi-term phrases in the case texts, how it can be used to find correlated terms, and how it is a means for feature or topic signature selection in automated case categorization. The technology has been tested upon more than 600 US cases.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Terminological systems and prognostic models as instruments for quality assessment in intensive care

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Infrared and visible imagery fusion based on region saliency detection for 24-hour-surveillance systems

With the growing demand for security, video surveillance is becoming increasingly important. And persistence is a key indicator for intelligent surveillance systems which means the ability to fit 24 hoursall-weather work. While the performances of traditional surveillance systems are limited since they can only gain either visible images during the day or intensity images in poor illumination conditions at night. To solve this problem, the integration of images from multiple sensors is becoming a new way. This paper utilize this measure to realize a whole day moving object detection system. First, infrared and visible images are integrated using Region saliency detection (RSD) method with different fusion strategies applied for salient and non-salient regions. In the next target detection stage, fused images are adopted instead of directly using images from various sensors for time efficiency. And background subtraction method is employed afterwards using Mixture of Gaussian (MOG). Experiments in several kinds of environments give promising results and show that this model is robust for whole-day surveillance.
Effects of Human Land Use on Prey Availability and Body Condition in the Green Anole Lizard, Anolis Carolinensis

—Lizards frequently occur in disturbed habitats, yet the impacts of human activity on lizard biology remain understudied. Here, we examined the effects of land use on the body condition of Green Anole lizards (Anolis carolinensis) and the availability of their arthropod prey. Because human activity generally alters abiotic and biotic habitat features, we predicted that areas modified by humans would differ from areas with natural, intact vegetation in arthropod abundance and biomass. In addition, because biological communities in high use areas are often relatively homogenized, we predicted that higher human land use would result in lower prey diversity. Regardless of land use, we also predicted that areas with greater prey availability and diversity would support lizards with higher body condition. We studied anoles in six plots with varying levels of human modification in Palmetto State Park in Gonzales County, Texas. We quantified arthropod abundance, biomass, and diversity in each plot via transects and insect traps. We also determined lizard body condition using mass:length ratios and residuals, fat pad mass, and liver lipid content. We found that, although arthropod abundance did not differ across plots, arthropod biomass was higher in natural than in disturbed plots. Diversity indices showed that the plots varied in their arthropod community diversity, but not in relation to disturbance. Female (but not male) lizard body condition differed across plots, with body condition higher in natural plots than disturbed plots. Together, these results suggest that land use is associated with lizard body condition, but not through a direct relationship with prey availability.
fMRI Activity in Posterior Parietal Cortex Relates to the Perceptual Use of Binocular Disparity for Both Signal-In-Noise and Feature Difference Tasks

Visually guided action and interaction depends on the brain’s ability to (a) extract and (b) discriminate meaningful targets from complex retinal inputs. Binocular disparity is known to facilitate this process, and it is an open question how activity in different parts of the visual cortex relates to these fundamental visual abilities. Here we examined fMRI responses related to performance on two different tasks (signal-in-noise “coarse” and feature difference “fine” tasks) that have been widely used in previous work, and are believed to differentially target the visual processes of signal extraction and feature discrimination. We used multi-voxel pattern analysis to decode depth positions (near vs. far) from the fMRI activity evoked while participants were engaged in these tasks. To look for similarities between perceptual judgments and brain activity, we constructed ‘fMR-metric’ functions that described decoding performance as a function of signal magnitude. Thereafter we compared fMR-metric and psychometric functions, and report an association between judged depth and fMRI responses in the posterior parietal cortex during performance on both tasks. This highlights common stages of processing during perceptual performance on these tasks.
SCHOOL SIZE AND YOUTH VIOLENCE: POTENTIAL MEDIATING AND MODERATING ROLE OF SCHOOL CONNECTEDNESS

In 2001, the Surgeon General released a report in order to designate youth violence as a public health concern in the United States (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Interestingly, youth violence was found to be less lethal than it was in the early-mid 1990s, but at the same time rates of adolescent violent behavior in general had increased (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1999). However, it is important to note that the most recent data available for violent crime arrests by age have shown significant trends in decreasing for adolescents over the past 10 years (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2010). Also of concern are the findings that adolescent problem and criminal behaviors are related to future adult illegal behaviors (Loeber & Hay, 1997; Sampson & Laub, 1990). Furthermore, compared to all other age groups, children and adolescents are most likely to be the victims of crimes (Furlong & Morrison, 2000). Youth violence is the second leading cause of fatal injuries for adolescents and in 2009 over 300,000 youth received emergency treatment for nonfatal injuries resulting from violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009).
The efficiency of using Orthogonal Matching Pursuit in compressed sensing

We investigate the efficiency of compressed sensing by using Orthogonal Matching Pursuit. We prove that if the sampling Matrix Φ has coherence less than 1 20K0.8 and satisfies the Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) of order (CK 1.2 ) with constant δ = cK −0.2 ,t hen everyK-sparse signal x can be recovered from measure values y =Φ x via Orthogonal Matching Pursuit in at most optimal approximation on the first (CK 1.2 ) iterations.