Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validation of a French adaptation of the Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale in its abbreviated form, for 5- to 11-year-old children with and without intellectual disability

ABSTRACT Background: The quality of life (QOL) of children with and without intellectual disability (ID) has become a growing concern in the literature but the QOL instruments are not adapted for use with young children and children with ID. The objective of this study was to validate a French adaptation of the abbreviated form of the Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS). Method: Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on the data collected from 411 children aged between 5 and 11 years old. Internal consistency, test–retest fidelity, and convergent validity were tested. Results: The preliminary results of this study show that the model fitted the data collected to assess the life satisfaction of children, χ2 (395) = 705.340; p < . 001; CFI = 0.911; TLI = 0.902; RMSEA = 0.044. Very good levels of internal consistency were obtained for both children with and without ID, with coefficients ranging from 0.70 to 0.88. The test–retest coefficients calculated after a 2-week interval highlighted a moderate (coefficients lower than 0.70) to weak temporal stability, which seemed more pronounced in children with ID. Conclusion: Despite some limitations, this instrument could be very useful for childhood professionals. It will enable them to assess the perception that children have of their wellbeing in the perspective of promoting their QOL. This scale also provides researchers in psychology with the opportunity to enrich their knowledge on the QOL of children with ID.
The Discovery of a Reciprocal Relationship between Tyrosine-Kinase Signaling and Cullin Neddylation

While neddylation is known to activate cullin (CUL)-RING ubiquitin ligases (CRLs), its role in regulating T cell signaling is poorly understood. Using the investigational NEDD8 activating enzyme (NAE) inhibitor, MLN4924, we found that neddylation negatively regulates T cell receptor (TCR) signaling, as its inhibition increases IL-2 production, T cell proliferation and Treg development in vitro. We also discovered that loss of CUL neddylation occurs upon TCR signaling, and CRLs negatively regulate IL-2 production. Additionally, we found that tyrosine kinase signaling leads to CUL deneddylation in multiple cell types. These studies indicate that CUL neddylation is a global regulatory mechanism for tyrosine kinase signaling.
Empire-Building or Bridge-Building? Evidence from New CEOs' Internal Capital Allocation Decisions

This article investigates how the job histories of CEOs influence their capital allocation decisions when they preside over multidivisional firms. I find that, after CEO turnover, divisions not previously affiliated with the new CEO receive significantly more capital expenditures than divisions through which the new CEO has advanced. The pattern of reverse-favoritism in capital allocation is more pronounced if the new CEO has less authority or if the unaffiliated divisions have more bargaining power. I find evidence that having a specialist CEO negatively affects segment investment efficiency. The results suggest that new specialist CEOs use the capital budget as a bridge-building tool to elicit cooperation from powerful divisional managers in previously unaffiliated divisions. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org. , Oxford University Press.
Detecting and Mitigating Malware in Virtual Appliances Statement of Thesis Approval

System administrators use application-level knowledge to identify anomalies in virtual appliances (VAs) and to recover from them. This process can be automated through an anomaly detection and recovery system. In this thesis, we claim that application-level policies defined over kernel-level application state can be effective for automatically detecting and mitigating the effects of malicious software in VAs. By combining user-defined application-level policies, virtual machine introspection (VMI), expert systems, and kernel-based state management techniques for anomaly detection and recovery, we are able to provide a favorable environment for the execution of applications in VAs. We use policies to specify the desired state of the VA based on an administrator’s application-level knowledge. By using VMI we are able to generate a snapshot that represents the true internal state of the VA. An expert system evaluates the snapshot and identifies any violations. Potential violations include the execution of an irrelevant application, an unauthorized process, or an unfavorable environment configuration. The expert system also reasons about appropriate recovery strategies for each of the violations detected. The recovery strategy decided by the expert system is carried out by recovery tools so that the VA can be restored to an acceptable state. We evaluate the effectiveness of this approach for anomaly detection and repair by using it to detect and recover from the actions of different types malicious software targeting a web server VA. The system is shown to be effective in guarding the VA against the actions of a kernel-exploit kit, a kernel rootkit, a user-space rootkit, and an application malware. For each of these attacks, the recovery component was able to restore the VA to an acceptable state. Although, the recovery actions carried out did not remove the malicious software, they substantially mitigated the harmful effects of the malicious software. This thesis is dedicated to my parents for their love, support, and encouragement.
Direct Recognition of Fusobacterium nucleatum by the NK Cell Natural Cytotoxicity Receptor NKp46 Aggravates Periodontal Disease

Periodontitis is a common human chronic inflammatory disease that results in the destruction of the tooth attachment apparatus and tooth loss. Although infections with periopathogenic bacteria such as Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) and Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) are essential for inducing periodontitis, the nature and magnitude of the disease is determined by the host's immune response. Here, we investigate the role played by the NK killer receptor NKp46 (NCR1 in mice), in the pathogenesis of periodontitis. Using an oral infection periodontitis model we demonstrate that following F. nucleatum infection no alveolar bone loss is observed in mice deficient for NCR1 expression, whereas around 20% bone loss is observed in wild type mice and in mice infected with P. gingivalis. By using subcutaneous chambers inoculated with F. nucleatum we demonstrate that immune cells, including NK cells, rapidly accumulate in the chambers and that this leads to a fast and transient, NCR1-dependant TNF-α secretion. We further show that both the mouse NCR1 and the human NKp46 bind directly to F. nucleatum and we demonstrate that this binding is sensitive to heat, to proteinase K and to pronase treatments. Finally, we show in vitro that the interaction of NK cells with F. nucleatum leads to an NCR1-dependent secretion of TNF-α. Thus, the present study provides the first evidence that NCR1 and NKp46 directly recognize a periodontal pathogen and that this interaction influences the outcome of F. nucleatum-mediated periodontitis.
Optimization-based decision support system for retail souring

Some of the biggest challenges in the retail sourcing lie in predicting demand for a new article and making purchase decisions such as quantity, source, transportation mode and time of the order. Such decisions become more complex and time consuming as the number of SKUs and suppliers increase. The thesis addresses the issue of managing retail sourcing using forecasting and optimization based decision system developed for Zara, a leading fast-fashion clothing retailer. We started with an existing pre-season demand forecasting method that uses POS data from a comparable older article to forecast demand for a new article after adjusting for stock-outs and seasonality. We developed and compared various forecast updating methods for accuracy and found that an exponential smoothing-based model, modified to accommodate for changes in level few steps ahead, resulted in highest accuracy using Cumulative Absolute Percentage Error (CAPE). Next, we implemented a profit-maximizing optimization model to produce explicit sourcing decisions such as quantity, time and source of orders. The model takes in distributional forecasts, supply constraints, holding cost, pricing information and outputs explicit sourcing decisions mentioned above. A prototype for forecasting and optimization code is ready and currently being evaluated to secure approval for a live pilot for Summer 2013 campaign sourcing. Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Graves Title: Professor of Management Science and Engineering Systems, MIT Sloan School of Management Thesis Supervisor: David Simchi-Levi Title: Co-director, Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems
A standard stellar library for evolutionary synthesis - II. The M dwarf extension

A standard library of theoretical stellar spectra intended for multiple synthetic photometry applications including spectral evolutionary synthesis is presented. The grid includes M dwarf model spectra, hence complementing the first library version established in Paper I (Lejeune et al. 1997). It covers wide ranges of fundamental parameters: : 50 000 K ~ 2000 K, : 5.5 , and : . A correction procedure is also applied to the theoretical spectra in order to provide color-calibrated flux distributions over a large domain of effective temperatures. For this purpose, empirical –color calibrations are constructed between 11500 K and 2000 K, and semi -empirical calibrations for non-solar abundances ( to +1.0) are established. Model colors and bolometric corrections for both the original and the corrected spectra, synthesized in the system, are given for the full range of stellar parameters. We find that the corrected spectra provide a more realistic representation of empirical stellar colors, though the method employed is not completely adapted to the lowest temperature models. In particular the original differential colors of the grid implied by metallicity and/or luminosity changes are not preserved below 2500 K. Limitations of the correction method used are also discussed.
Characterization of acute ischemia‐related physiological responses associated with remote ischemic preconditioning: a randomized controlled, crossover human study

Remote Ischemic Preconditioning (RIPC) is emerging as a new noninvasive intervention that has the potential to protect a number of organs against ischemia–reperfusion (IR) injury. The standard protocols normally used to deliver RIPC involve a number of cycles of inflation of a blood pressure (BP) cuff on the arm and/or leg to an inflation pressure of 200 mmHg followed by cuff deflation for a short period of time. There is little evidence to support what limb (upper or lower) or cuff inflation pressures are most effective to deliver this intervention without causing undue discomfort/pain in nonanesthetized humans. In this preliminary study, a dose–response assessment was performed using a range of cuff inflation pressures (140, 160, and 180 mmHg) to induce limb ischemia in upper and lower limbs. Physiological changes in the occluded limb and any pain/discomfort associated with RIPC with each cuff inflation pressure were determined. Results showed that ischemia can be induced in the upper limb at much lower cuff inflation pressures compared with the standard 200 mmHg pressure generally used for RIPC, provided the cuff inflation pressure is ~30 mmHg higher than the resting systolic BP. In the lower limb, a higher inflation pressure, (~55 mmHg > resting systolic BP), is required to induce ischemia. Cyclical changes in capillary blood O2, CO2, and lactate levels during the RIPC stimulus were observed. RIPC at higher cuff inflation pressures of 160 and 180 mmHg was better tolerated in the upper limb. In summary, limb ischemia for RIPC can be more easily induced at lower pressures and is much better tolerated in the upper limb in young healthy individuals. However, whether benefits of RIPC can also be derived with protocols delivered to the upper limb using lower cuff inflation pressures and with lesser discomfort compared to the lower limb, remains to be investigated.
Estimating a pseudounitary operator for velocity-stack inversion

I estimate a pseudounitary operator for enhancing an iterative conjugate-gradient (CG) inversion of CMP data to derive a best-fitting model in velocity-stack space. The amplitude balance of the operator is approximated with a simple time- and offset-variant operator weighting function. The spectral balance of the operator is tuned with a finite-aperture finite-fold approximation to the continuous integral rho filter. Convergence of the CG inversion and separation of multiple and primary velocity-stack energy is improved by application of the pseudounitary operator weights. Application of the rho filter improves the first few CG iterations, but counterintuitively slows or reverses convergence in subsequent iterations.
Exploit Latent Dirichlet Allocation for One-Class Collaborative Filtering

Previous work studied one-class collaborative filtering (OCCF) problems including pointwise methods, pairwise methods, and content-based methods. The fundamental assumptions made on these approaches are roughly the same. They regard all missing values as negative. However, this is unreasonable since the missing values actually are the mixture of negative and positive examples. A user does not give a positive feedback on an item probably only because she/he is unaware of the item, but in fact, she/he is fond of it. Furthermore, content-based methods, e.g. collaborative topic regression (CTR), usually require textual content information of items. This cannot be satisfied in some cases. In this paper, we exploit latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model on OCCF problem. It assumes missing values unknown and only models the observed data, and it also does not need content information of items. In our model items are regarded as words and users are considered as documents and the user-item feedback matrix denotes the corpus. Experimental results show that our proposed method outperforms the previous methods on various ranking-oriented evaluation metrics.
Inequality and the digital divide : myths and realities

Introduction. 2 Internet and inequality, key elements of the current analysis . 2 Internet citizens: not a world of equals . 2 Is there a divide? Some critical thoughts . 3 Time . 4 Access to internet, more than one dimension. 6 Digital divide, also in information provision? 7 Conclusion: redefinition of the digital divide . 8 References. 10
Internal Combustion Engine Performance

The present study aims to quantify the applicability of artificial neural network as a black-box model for internal combustion engine performance. In consequence, an artificial neural network (ANN) based model for a four cylinder, four stroke internal combustion diesel engine has been developed on the basis of specific input and output factors, which have been taken from experimental readings for different load and engine speed circumstances. The input parameters that have been used to create the model are load, engine speed (RPM), fuel flow rate (FFR) & air flow rate (AFR); contrariwise the output parameters that have been used are brake power (BP), brake thermal efficiency (BTE), volumetric efficiency (VE), brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC). To begin with, databank has been alienated into training sets and testing sets. At that juncture, an ANN based model has been developed using training dataset which is based on standard back-propagation algorithm. Subsequently, performance and validation of the ANN based models have been measured by relating the predictions with the experimental results. Correspondingly, four different statistical functions have been used to examine the performance and reliability of the ANN based models. Moreover, Garson equation has been used to estimate the relative importance of the four different input variables towards their specific output. The results of the model suggests that, ANN based model is impressively successful to forecast the performance parameters of diesel engines for different input variables with a greater degree of accurateness and to evaluate relative impact of input variables. Keywords— Artificial Neural Networks, Internal Combustion Engine, Engine Performance Parameters, Back Propagation Algorithm, Gradient Descent Algorithm, Architecture, Garson Equation, Modelling, Simulation, Validation and Relative Importance.
Secure Palmprint Verification Using Random Measure and Permutations

Compared with the traditional verification schemes, the cancelability and re-issueability of biometric system is the inherent shortages. Therefore, problem of palmprint template security must be considered and solved in a real biometric system. To handle these problems, a hybrid palprint template protection scheme using random measure and permutations is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the Gabor is employed to convolute with preprocessed palmprint image. Then, the obtained Gabor representation is compared with a chaotic random matrix to generate cancelable palmprint template. The random measure can improve the template’s discriminablity. At last, the cancelable palmprint template is scrambled to strengthen the security of the template. The publicly available HongKong PolyU Palmprint Database is employed for evaluation. The experimental results show that our proposed scheme can separate the imposter and genuine population very well, that is also to say that, the EER is zero. And the re-usability of the proposed template protection scheme is very large to brute force attack.
A systematic review on outcome after stenting for intracranial atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Angioplasty and stenting is increasingly being used for the treatment of intracranial stenoses. Based on a literature search (01/1998 to 04/2008) we sought to determine the immediate and long-term outcomes, as well as the durability of this procedure. SUMMARY OF REVIEW We identified 31 studies dealing with 1177 procedures, which had mainly been performed in patients with a symptomatic (98%) intracranial high-grade stenosis (mean: 78+/-7%) at high technical success rates (median: 96%; interquartile range [IQR]: 90% to 100%). The periprocedural minor or major stroke and death rates ranged from 0% to 50% with a median of 7.7% (IQR: 4.4% to 14.3%). Periprocedural complications were significantly higher in the posterior versus the anterior circulation (12.1%, versus 6.6%, P<0.01, odds ratio [OR]: 1.94, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.21 to 3.10), but did not differ between patients treated with a balloon-mounted (n=906) versus those who had been treated with a self-expandable stent (n=271; 9.5% versus 7.7%, P=0.47, OR: 1.15, CI:0.76 to 2.05). Restenosis >50% occurred more frequently after the use of a self-expandable stent (16/92; 17.4%, mean follow-up time: 5.4 months) than a balloon-mounted stent (61/443; 13.8%, mean follow-up time: 8.7 months; P<0.001, log-rank test). CONCLUSIONS Although intracranial stenting appears to be feasible, adverse events vary widely. Against the background of the results of this review yielding a high rate of restenoses and no clear impact of new stent devices on outcome, the widespread application of intracranial stenting outside the setting of randomized trials and in inexperienced centers currently does not seem to be justified.
Comparison of a fully integrated differential voltage controlled Colpitts oscillator to the cross-coupled oscillator topology

In that paper a detailed comparison between the differential Colpitts oscillator and the well-known cross-coupled oscillator topology is presented. Frequency tuning is realized by using a combination of switchable capacitors and an analog varactor diode. The main focus is to minimize the phase noise, which is a limiting factor in the realization of RF-radios for modern communication systems. Other criteria are power consumption, tuning range and chip area. The charge-phase transfer function, which characterizes the impulse-sensitivity function (ISF), is calculated. Thus, the impact of harmonics, which are coupled into the oscillator, can be determined. Effects like VDD pushing and load pulling are covered also. All oscillators presented in this paper are manufactured in a 0.35 mum SiGe-BiCMOS process
Acceleration of Bullet Physics Physical Simulation Library Using GPU and Demonstration on a Set-Top Box Platform

Bullet physics library is an open source, professional physics library which does the 3D collision detection, applies laws of physics on the rigid bodies and performs the rigid body and soft body dynamics. It is used in games, movies for simulating the rigid bodies according to the laws of physics. Bullet uses the inbuilt feature for continuous tracking and updating the world transform of the colliding and the moving object. The main aim of the paper is utilization of GPU for visual effects through bullet physics.GPU computing is the use of a GPU (graphics processing unit) together with a CPU to accelerate general-purpose scientific and engineering applications [2]. CPU in association with GPU proves to be powerful combination as CPU contains optimized cores for serial processing while GPU consist of 100s of cores which can be used for parallel computation. GPU can act as an accelerator for compute intensive processing by offloading those tasks on to GPU [1]. In this paper we intent to harness this unused processing power of the GPU for performing the complex graphics operations as well as the compute intensive operations of the bullet physics library. An application is developed using shaders for running it on the graphics processing unit and integrate the bullet physics library into it. The GPU used for this process is Nvidia graphics card, Quadro NVS 295. Finally, the code is ported onto the Pandaboard and Snowball for ensuring it's compatibility with the orly platform.