Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Attentional and Mental Workload Demands in Nonverbal Communication

The present study applied assumptions of attention and working memory theories to tasks involving nonverbal (NV) communication. Thirty-six undergraduates interviewed for a job. Both type of interview (rote and improvisational) and type of observation (passive and active) were manipulated within groups. Participants were expected to observe fewer NV behaviors and indicate greater workload after active improvisational interviews. The results showed that participants detected fewer NV behaviors and reported higher mental workload when required to simultaneously participate in an interview and observe the interviewer, and particularly when they needed to improvise responses. These findings suggest that the ability to observe and possibly assess another’s NV behaviors may be compromised when engaged in an active conversation.
Circulation of HIV-1 CRF02_AG among MSM Population in Central Italy: A Molecular Epidemiology-Based Study

Introduction. The evolutionary and demographic history of the circular recombinant form CRF02_AG in a selected retrospective group of HIV-1 infected men who have sex with men (MSM) resident in Central Italy was investigated. Methods. A total of 55 HIV-1 subtype CRF02_AG pol sequences were analyzed using Bayesian methods and a relaxed molecular clock to reconstruct their dated phylogeny and estimate population dynamics. Results. Dated phylogeny indicated that the HIV-1 CRF02_AG strains currently circulating in Central Italy originated in the early 90's. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis revealed the existence of a main HIV-1 CRF02_AG clade, introduced in the area of Rome before 2000 and subsequently differentiated in two different subclades with a different date of introduction (2000 versus 2005). All the sequences within clusters were interspersed, indicating that the MSM analyzed form a close and restricted network where the individuals, also moving within different clinical centers, attend the same places to meet and exchange sex. Conclusions. It was suggested that the HIV-1 CRF02_AG epidemic entered central Italy in the early 1990s, with a similar trend observed in western Europe.
tau-FPL: Tolerance-Constrained Learning in Linear Time

Learning a classifier with control on the false-positive rate plays a critical role in many machine learning applications. Existing approaches either introduce prior knowledge dependent label cost or tune parameters based on traditional classifiers, which lack consistency in methodology because they do not strictly adhere to the false-positive rate constraint. In this paper, we propose a novel scoring-thresholding approach, tau-False Positive Learning (tau-FPL) to address this problem. We show the scoring problem which takes the false-positive rate tolerance into accounts can be efficiently solved in linear time, also an out-of-bootstrap thresholding method can transform the learned ranking function into a low false-positive classifier. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results show superior performance of the proposed tau-FPL over existing approaches.
Making electricity networks “visible”: Industry actor representations of “publics” and public engagement in infrastructure planning

This interview study with UK electricity distribution and transmission network operators (DNO and TNO) and the regulator Ofgem, examines how key industry actors conceptualise “publics,” “stakeholders” and “customers” and how these conceptualisations subsequently inform their engagement practices with these heterogeneous groups. The results show that regulatory changes to the structure of distribution networks have encouraged greater levels of “stakeholder” involvement. However, DNO regional monopoly powers and the regulatory environment serve to conflate network actors’ representations of “the public” with “customers,” and also “hides” DNO roles in a manner that precludes direct citizen engagement. TNO respondents employ public exhibitions in transmission line siting, although at a stage “downstream” in the decision-making process whereby citizens have little decisional influence. We conclude that network operators adopt the rhetoric of deliberative engagement whilst lacking a clear rationale and effective means to incorporate citizen perspectives in long-term network development or specific infrastructure siting proposals.
Independent SH2-binding Sites Mediate Interaction of Dok-related Protein with RasGTPase-activating Protein and Nck*

A murine embryonic cDNA library was screened for potential substrates of the Src family kinase, Lyn, using a phosphorylation-screening strategy. One cDNA that we identified encodes Dok-related protein (DokR), a protein with homology to p62 dok (Dok), and members of the insulin receptor substrate-1 family of proteins. Analysis of murine tissue extracts with DokR-specific antisera revealed that DokR protein is expressed at highest levels in lymphoid tissues. Co-expression of a FLAG epitope-tagged form of DokR (FLAG-DokR) with Lyn in embryonic kidney 293T cells resulted in constitutive phosphorylation of FLAG-DokR on tyrosine residues and consequential physical association with RasGTPase-activating protein (GAP) and the Nck adaptor protein. Stimulation of BaF/3 hematopoietic cells co-expressing the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor tyrosine kinase and FLAG-DokR with EGF also induced phosphorylation of FLAG-DokR and promoted its association with GAP. Immunoprecipitation experiments using DokR-specific antibodies revealed an interaction between endogenous DokR and a 150-kDa protein that is tyrosine-phosphorylated in EGF-stimulated BaF/3 cells. The molecular basis of the interactions involving DokR with GAP and Nck was investigated using a novel glutathioneS-transferase fusion protein binding assay and/or site-directed mutagenesis. Tandem SH2-binding sites containing Tyr-276 and Tyr-304 were shown to mediate binding of DokR to GAP, whereas Tyr-351 mediated the binding of DokR to Nck. These results suggest that DokR participates in numerous signaling pathways.
Aspects of the molecular and functional genetics in T1DM: a study of selected candidate genes.

A study of selected candidate genes Jesper Johannesen This review has been accepted as a thesis together with six previously pub-1. INTRODUCTION Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is an immune mediated disease characterised by selective destruction of the pancreatic beta-cells in the islets of Langerhans leading to lack of insulin production capacity , insulin depletion, hyperglycaemia, diabetic ketoacidosis and death if untreated. Exogenous delivery of insulin is standard care with the aim to obtain near-normalised blood sugar levels thereby preventing the metabolic deroute. Despite insulin-replacement treatment, T1DM patients face the risk of late diabetic complications like severe macro-and microvascular complications resulting in a decreased life-expectancy (Borch-Johnsen, 1989; Ng et al., 2001). However, stringent blood glucose control has shown to reduce the risk of developing late diabetic complications (DCCT, 1993; DCCT, 2003). There is a between-ethnic group and between-country variation in incidence and prevalence of T1DM (Karvonen et al., 2000). Recently , increasing incidence rates have been demonstrated especially in the eastern parts of Europe and a general tendency of decrease in A recent publication describing the increasing incidence rates of T1DM in Danish children from 1996 to 2000, suggested the steep increase in the youngest age group to be associated to an increased risk of co-horts born in the beginning of the 1980s (Svensson et al., 2002). T1DM is an immune-mediated disease. Both cellular (Roep, 2003) and humoral immunity (Notkins et al., 2001) have been detected in T1DM patients. Although autoantibodies to GAD65, IA-2, and insulin are clearly markers for T1DM, today these are believed to be a response of the underlying destructive process and do not contribute to the pathogenesis (Notkins et al., 2001). However, the observation of cellular infiltration of the islet of Langerhans (Gepts, 1965) as well as T-cell immuno-suppression preserving beta-cell function (Feutren et al., 1986) suggest a functional role of the T-cells in T1DM pathogene-sis, which has been substantiated (Roep, 2003). Whether the initiation of the selective beta-cell destruction is mediated by T-cells or by cy-tokines remains controversial (Donath et al., 2003). The aetiology of T1DM is still incompletely understood, however both genetic and environmental factors are involved. The evidence supporting T1DM being a genetically complex disorder includes:
Learning binary relations and total orders

The problem of designing polynomial prediction algorithms for learning binary relations is studied for an online model in which the instances are drawn by the learner, by a helpful teacher, by an adversary, or according to a probability distribution on the instance space. The relation is represented as an n*m binary matrix, and results are presented when the matrix is restricted to have at most k distinct row types, and when it is constrained by requiring that the predicate form a total order. <<ETX>>
Spread of infectious disease through clustered populations

Networks of person-to-person contacts form the substrate along which infectious diseases spread. Most network-based studies of this spread focus on the impact of variations in degree (the number of contacts an individual has). However, other effects such as clustering, variations in infectiousness or susceptibility, or variations in closeness of contacts may play a significant role. We develop analytic techniques to predict how these effects alter the growth rate, probability and size of epidemics, and validate the predictions with a realistic social network. We find that (for a given degree distribution and average transmissibility) clustering is the dominant factor controlling the growth rate, heterogeneity in infectiousness is the dominant factor controlling the probability of an epidemic and heterogeneity in susceptibility is the dominant factor controlling the size of an epidemic. Edge weights (measuring closeness or duration of contacts) have impact only if correlations exist between different edges. Combined, these effects can play a minor role in reinforcing one another, with the impact of clustering the largest when the population is maximally heterogeneous or if the closer contacts are also strongly clustered. Our most significant contribution is a systematic way to address clustering in infectious disease models, and our results have a number of implications for the design of interventions.
Useful Roles of Emotions in Artificial Agents: A Case Study from Artificial Life

In this paper, we discuss the role of emotions in AI and possible ways to determine their utility for the design of artificial agents. We propose a research methodology for determining the utility of emotional control and apply it to the study of autonomous agents that compete for resources in an artificial life environment. The results show that the emotional control can improve performance in some circumstances.
Community-Based Mass Ultrasonographic Screening of Hepatocellular Carcinoma among Thrombocytopenic Adults

Thrombocytopenia has been reported as a valid surrogate for liver cirrhosis and could be used to identify groups at high risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) for ultrasonographic (US) screening. We designed this two-stage community-based screening for HCC. In 2004, subjects (ages ≥40 years) were invited to undergo comprehensive health examinations, with 17,551 men (ages 63.0 ± 11.5 years) and 39,151 women (ages 59.9 ± 11.7 years) participating. Subjects with platelet counts <150 × 109/L or α-fetoprotein (AFP) >20 ng/mL were enrolled for the second-stage US screening; 3,242 subjects (5.7%; male/female, 1,415/1,827; age 66 ± 10 years) were candidates for US screening and 2,983 (92.2%) responded. Of 137 suspected cases, 124 (90.5%) complied with referral for confirmation and 72 (58.1%) were confirmed to be HCC cases (male/female, 41/31; age 68.1 ± 8.8 years). Screening with AFP, thrombocytopenia, or both could identify 0.64% (n = 364), 5.33% (n = 3,205), and 5.7% (n = 3,242) of the high-risk subjects from the population, estimated to include 50.5%, 54.5%, and 71.3% of all HCC cases. Among confirmed patients, tumor diameters were <3 cm for the 27 (37.5%) patients and 3 to 5 cm for the 23 (31.9%) patients. Only 5 (6.9%) patients' conditions were too advanced to be actively treated. This study enrolled only 5.7% of the participants for US, which cover 64.7% to 71.3% of the HCC cases. Most (93%) of the detected cases were caught early enough to undergo effective treatment modalities. This HCC screening protocol should be feasible, economical, and effective. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(7):1813–21)
Immunophenotypic and Genotypic Features , Clinical Characteristics , and Treatment Outcome of Adult ProB Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia : Results of the German Multicenter Trials

In contrast to childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the cell-biological features, clinical characteristics, and treatment outcome of CD102 pro-B ALL have not yet been determined in larger series of adult patients. Therefore, we studied 57 adult patients with newly diagnosed pro-B ALL (median age, 30 years) enrolled in two consecutive German multicenter ALL studies (03/87 and 04/89). Extensive immunophenotypic characterization of leukemic blasts could be performed on all patients, whereas adequate cytogenetic data were available in 33 cases and molecular studies in 18 cases, using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction to detect MLL-AF-4 transcripts. Twenty-two patients demonstrated a t(4;11)(q21;q23) and/or MLL-AF-4 rearrangements, and 6 patients had other structural abnormalities, including a t(9;22)(q34;q11) (N 5 2). Nine patients had a normal karyotype. Patients with 11q23 abnormalities tended to be younger (median age, 29 years) and were characterized by male predominance (64%), hyperleukocytosis (median leukocyte count, 168 3 109/L), and a frequent coexpression of CD65s (64%) as compared with patients with other cytogenetic abnormalities or a normal karyotype. Twelve of 16 (75%) pro-B ALL patients in study 03/87 and 30 of 41 (73%) in study 04/89 achieved a complete remission (CR). Sixteen of 30 patients in study 04/89 remain in continuous CR (CCR) in contrast to only 2 of 12 patients in study 03/87. Interestingly, all 7 patients treated with high-dose cytarabine and mitoxantrone as consolidation in study 04/89 remain alive and leukemia-free. One patient in study 03/87 and 8 in study 04/89 underwent autologous (N 5 2) or allogeneic (N 5 7) bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The median remission duration was 420 days for patients in study 03/87 and has not yet been reached in study 04/89. The median survival time of all pro-B ALL patients was 571 days in study 03/87 and 747 days in study 04/89. Among the 22 patients with a t(4;11) and/or MLL-AF-4 rearrangements, 17 achieved a CR and 8 are still in CCR, of whom 4 underwent an allogeneic BMT. Remission duration and overall survival did not differ significantly between pro-B ALL patients with 11q23 abnormalities and those with a normal karyotype or other structural abnormalities. These data indicate that intensification of postremission treatment may improve the prognosis of adult pro-B ALL, including patients with a t(4;11). r 1998 by The American Society of Hematology.
Characterizations of stable model semantics for logic programs with arbitrary constraint atoms

Abstract This paper studies the stable model semantics of logic programs with (abstract) constraint atoms and their properties. We introduce a succinct abstract representation of these constraint atoms in which a constraint atom is represented compactly. We show two applications. First, under this representation of constraint atoms, we generalize the Gelfond–Lifschitz transformation and apply it to define stable models (also called answer sets) for logic programs with arbitrary constraint atoms. The resulting semantics turns out to coincide with the one defined by Son et al. (2007), which is based on a fixpoint approach. One advantage of our approach is that it can be applied, in a natural way, to define stable models for disjunctive logic programs with constraint atoms, which may appear in the disjunctive head as well as in the body of a rule. As a result, our approach to the stable model semantics for logic programs with constraint atoms generalizes a number of previous approaches. Second, we show that our abstract representation of constraint atoms provides a means to characterize dependencies of atoms in a program with constraint atoms, so that some standard characterizations and properties relying on these dependencies in the past for logic programs with ordinary atoms can be extended to logic programs with constraint atoms.
The NUS statistical machine translation system for IWSLT 2009

We describe the system developed by the team of the National University of Singapore for the Chinese-English BTEC task of the IWSLT 2009 evaluation campaign. We adopted a state-of-the-art phrase-based statistical machine translation approach and focused on experiments with different Chinese word segmentation standards. In our official submission, we trained a separate system for each segmenter and we combined the outputs in a subsequent re-ranking step. Given the small size of the training data, we further re-trained the system on the development data after tuning. The evaluation results show that both strategies yield sizeable and consistent improvements in translation quality.
A new framework for exhaustive and incremental data flow analysis using DJ graphs

We present a new elimination-based framework for exhaustive and incremental data flow analysis using the DJ graph representation of a program. Unlike the previous approaches to elimination-based incremental data flow analysis, our approach can handle arbitrary non-structural and structural changes to program flowgraphs, including those causing irreducibility. We show how our approach is related to (iterated) dominance frontiers, and exploit this relationship to establish the complexity of our exhaustive analysis and to aid the design of our incremental analysis.
Factors Influencing the Educational Performance of Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds 1

The relationship between family socio-economic status (SES) and the academic performance of children is well established in sociological research. While there is disagreement over how best to measure SES, most studies indicate that children from low SES families do not perform as well as they potentially could at school compared to children from high SES families (Graetz, 1995). Most studies, however, compare students from across all SES backgrounds to reach the conclusion that low SES adversely affects a range of educational outcomes. Another important dimension, however, is the factors that may influence educational outcomes within particular SES bands. This paper presents data on the educational performance of children from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and examines its variation as affected by traditional measures of SES as well as by a range of other family, individual and contextual factors.
The Bittersweet Taste of Success: Daily and Recalled Experiences of Being an Upward Social Comparison Target

Outperforming others can provide psychological benefits but may also result in interpersonal costs. Two studies examined reactions to being an upward comparison (UC) target. Study 1 used event-contingent diaries and found that undergraduates’ concerns for the outperformed person's response corresponded to lower positive affect and higher negative affect. Study 2 recruited participants via the Internet to recall particularly important instances of being a UC target. Results revealed that concerns about the other's response were linked to negative reactions, whereas perceiving the outperformed person as upset was linked to positive reactions (when concerns about the outperformed person's response were statistically controlled). Additional analyses suggested trait social anxiety as a potential moderator. Although outperforming others may feel good, the good feelings may diminish when people are concerned about the outperformed person's response.
Teaching strategies for self-care of the intestinal stoma patients

Teaching self-care must ensure the intestinal stoma patient more independence concerning the family and health professionals. The planning involves the assessment of the clinical and socio-demographic data, and the conditions for the self-care. This study aimed at identifying strategies to teach self-care for intestinal stoma patients in the scientific production. We used an integrative review on MEDLINE, PUBMED, LILACS, CINAHL and COCHRANE bases from 2005 to 2011, 7 papers were selected. In the perioperative teaching, multimedia, telephone follow-up, personal meetings, interactive material through the Internet were used, besides the continuing education of the health professionals. These different strategies profess the needs of each individual that promote self-care learning about the surgery and its consequences, skills development and the necessary adaptation of the condition of a stoma patient. The nurse needs to have technical and scientific knowledge on surgical technique, demarcation, treatment, complications, and skills for the teaching of self-care.
The C-terminal Six Amino Acids of the FNT Channel FocA Are Required for Formate Translocation But Not Homopentamer Integrity

FocA is the archetype of the pentameric formate-nitrite transporter (FNT) superfamily of channels, members of which translocate small organic and inorganic anions across the cytoplasmic membrane of microorganisms. The N- and C-termini of each protomer are cytoplasmically oriented. A Y-L-R motif is found immediately after transmembrane helix 6 at the C-terminus of FNT proteins related to FocA, or those with a role in formate translocation. Previous in vivo studies had revealed that formate translocation through FocA was controlled by interaction with the formate-producing glycyl-radical enzyme pyruvate formate-lyase (PflB) or its structural and functional homolog, TdcE. In this study we analyzed the effect on in vivo formate export and import, as well as on the stability of the homopentamer in the membrane, of successively removing amino acid residues from the C-terminus of FocA. Removal of up to five amino acids was without consequence for either formate translocation or oligomer stability. Removal of a sixth residue (R280) prevented formate uptake by FocA in a strain lacking PflB and significantly reduced, but did not prevent, formate export. Sensitivity to the toxic formate analog hypophosphite, which is also transported into the cell by FocA, was also relieved. Circular dichroism spectroscopy and blue-native PAGE analysis revealed, however, that this variant had near identical secondary and quaternary structural properties to those of native FocA. Interaction with the glycyl radical enzyme, TdcE, was also unaffected by removal of the C-terminal 6 amino acid residues, indicating that impaired interaction with TdcE was not the reason for impaired formate translocation. Removal of a further residue (L279) severely restricted formate export, the stability of the protein and its ability to form homopentamers. Together, these studies revealed that the Y278-L279-R280 motif at the C-terminus is essential for bidirectional formate translocation by FocA, but that L279 is both necessary and sufficient for homopentamer integrity.