Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Mining Semantic Maturity in Social Bookmarking Systems

The existence of emergent semantics within social metadata (such as tags in bookmarking systems) has been proven by a large number of successful approaches making the implicit semantic structures explicit. However, much less attention has been given to the factors which influence the “maturing” process of these structures over time. A natural hypothesis is that tags become semantically more and more mature whenever many users use them in the same contexts. This would allow to describe a tag by a specific and informative “semantic fingerprint” in the context of tagged resoures. However, the question of assessing the quality of such fingerprints has been seldomly addressed. In this paper, we provide a systematic approach of mining semantic maturity profiles within folksonomy-based tag properties. Our ultimate goal is to provide a characterization of “mature tags”. Additionally, we consider semantic information about the tags as a gold-standard source for the characterization of the collected results. Our initial results suggest that a suitable composition of tag properties allows the identification of more mature tag subsets. The presented work has implications for a number of problems related to social tagging systems, including tag ranking, tag recommendation, and the capturing of light-weight ontologies from tagging data.
A calculus for computing Filippov's differential inclusion with application to the variable structure control of robot manipulators

This paper develops a calculus for computing Filippov's differential inclusion which simplifies the analysis of dynamical systems described by differential equations with discontinuous right-hand-side. In particular, when a slightly generalized Lyapunov theory is used, the rigorous stability analysis of variable structure systems is routine. As an example, a variable structure control law for rigid-link robot manipulators is described and its stability is proved.
Reconfigurable Mechanisms for Application Control (RMAC): Applications

AbstractBuilt upon the direct control architecture, the Reconfigurable Mechanisms for Application Control (RMAC) architectural framework is described in reference [1]. This companion paper describes several applications that are of historical significance to the RMAC architecture and also shows the flexibility and simplicity of direct control reconfiguration. We first present two direct control applications that have encouraged RMAC development. The first application describes the reconfiguration of a large 3-axis mill into a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM), where the popular PC-DMIS CMM planning software uses a device driver interface to plan and control inspection processes on the mill directly, without process plan conversion to typical machine control languages. Second, a robot is converted into a rapid prototyping commercial application, using direct control of the robot from popular CAD/CAM systems. RMAC flexibility is then demonstrated on a 3-axis prototype mill by reconfiguring the mill as eith.
The Impact of Lipoprotein-Associated Oxidative Stress on Cell-Specific Microvesicle Release in Patients with Familial Hypercholesterolemia

Objective. Microvesicles (MVs) are small cell-derived particles shed upon activation. Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) particularly when associated with Achilles tendon xanthomas (ATX) predisposes to atherosclerosis, possibly through oxLDL-C interaction with the CD36 receptor. To investigate the hypothesis that MVs derived from cells involved in atherosclerosis are increased in FH and that CD36 expressing MVs (CD36+ MVs) may be markers of oxLDL-C-induced cell activation, cell-specific MVs were measured in FH patients with and without ATX and their association with atherogenic lipid profile was studied. Approach and Results. Thirty FH patients with and without ATX and twenty-three controls were included. Plasma concentrations of MVs and CD36+ MVs derived from platelets (PMVs), erythrocytes (ErytMVs), monocytes (MMVs), and endothelial cells (EMVs), as well as tissue factor-positive cells (TF+ MVs), were measured by flow cytometry. Total MVs, MMVs, EMVs, ErytMVs, and TF+ MVs were significantly increased in FH patients, compared to controls. CD36+ MVs derived from endothelial cells and monocytes were significantly higher in FH patients and oxLDL-C predicted all the investigated cell-specific CD36+ MVs in FH patients with ATX. Conclusions. MVs derived from cells involved in atherosclerosis were increased in FH and may contribute to elevated atherothrombosis risk. The increased cell-specific CD36+ MVs observed in FH may represent markers of oxLDL-C-induced cell activation.
UMLS as Knowledge Base-A Rule-Based Expert System Approach to Controlled Medical Vocabulary Management.

Abstract The National Library of Medicine is developing a Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) which addresses the need for integration of several large, nationally accepted vocabularies. This is important to the clinical information system under development at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (CPMC). We are using UMLS components as the core of our effort to integrate existing local CPMC vocabularies which are not among the source vocabularies of the UMLS. We are also using the UMLS to build a knowledge base of vocabulary structure and content such that logical rules can be developed to assist in the management of our integrated vocabularies. At present, the UMLS Semantic Network is used to organize terms which describe laboratory procedures. We have developed a set of rules for identifying undesirable conditions in our vocabulary. We have applied these rules to 526 laboratory test terms and have found ten cases (2%) of definite redundancy and sixty-eight cases (13%) of potential redundancy. The rules have also been used to organize the terminology in new ways that facilitate its management. Using the UMLS model as a vocabulary knowledge base allows us to apply an expert system approach to vocabulary integration and management.
Measuring how stress impacts physical activity behaviors in undergraduates

PURPOSE: To examine the effect of self-reported life stress on objective measures of physical activity. METHODS: Participants were a convenience sample of 98 undergraduates. Participants wore an ActiGraph GT1M Accelerometer for 6 consecutive days. Thirty participants were eliminated due to insufficient wear time (at least 8 hours/day). On each day of the week, they completed the Perceived Stress Scale. This was used to identify their highest and lowest stress day of the week excluding weekends. In addition, participants were divided according to their reports of consistent, exercise behavior. ANALYSIS: A 2 (gender) X 2 (day) RM-ANOVA was conducted to examine differences in time spent in MVPA. RESULTS: There was a significant interaction for gender, in that females increased their time spent in MVPA on their high stress day compared to their low stress day while males MVPA did not change, F (1, 66) = 7.55, p = . 008. DISCUSSION: These results support findings by Lutz et al (2010), and extend it by using a sample with males and an objective measure of MVPA. Future studies should investigate the impact of exercise behavior on the relationship between stress and exercise.
PcubeCast: A novel peer-assisted live streaming system

In this paper, we propose a P2P-based live streaming system called PcubeCast. Different from conventional P2P systems, PcubeCast utilizes servers to ensure end-user QoS. Thus, the proposed PcubeCast takes advantage of traditional systems: 1) Quality-of-Service(QoS) from client-server systems and 2) scalability and cost reduction from P2P systems. Through the experiments with real-world application data, we show that PcubeCast improves scalability up to 10 times while ensuring end-user QoS.
Nitrogen fixation by the thermophilic green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum

The thermophilic green sulfur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum grew with N2, NH4+, or glutamine as the sole nitrogen source under phototrophic (anaerobic-light) conditions. Growth on N2 required increased buffering capacity to stabilize uncharacterized pH changes that occurred during diazotrophic growth. Increased sulfide levels were stimulatory for growth on N2. Levels of nitrogenase activity (acetylene reduction) in N2-grown C. tepidum cells were very high, among the highest ever reported for anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria. Maximal acetylene reduction rates in C. tepidum cells were observed at 48 to 50 degrees C, which is about 15 degrees C higher than the optimum temperature for nitrogenase activity in mesophilic chlorobia, and nitrogenase activity in C. tepidum responded to addition of ammonia by a "switch-off/switch-on" mechanism like that in phototrophic purple bacteria. C. tepidum cells assimilated ammonia mainly via the glutamine synthetase-glutamate synthase pathway, elevated levels of both of these enzymes being present in cells grown on N2. These results show that N2 fixation can occur in green sulfur bacteria up to at least 60 degrees C and that regulatory mechanisms important in control of nitrogenase activity in mesophilic anoxygenic phototrophs also appear to regulate thermally active forms of the enzyme.
Diabetes mellitus and risk of hepatocellular carcinoma: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Studies of diabetes and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) yielded inconsistent findings. This meta‐analysis was conducted to examine the association between diabetes and risk of HCC. Studies were identified by searching PUBMED and MEDLINE database up to February 2011. Pooled risk estimates were calculated using the random‐effects model. Potential sources of heterogeneity were explored by subgroup analyses. A total of 17 case‐control studies and 32 cohort studies were included in the meta‐analysis. The combined risk estimate of all studies showed a statistically significant increased risk of HCC prevalence among diabetic individuals (RR = 2.31, 95% CI: 1.87–2.84). The pooled risk estimate of 17 case‐control studies (OR = 2.40, 95% CI: 1.85–3.11) was slightly higher than that from 25 cohort studies (RR = 2.23, 95% CI: 1.68–2.96). Metformin treatment was potentially protective. On the contrary, long duration of diabetes and sulfonylureas or insulin treatment possibly increase HCC risk. Also meta‐analysis of 7 cohort studies found a statistically significant increased risk of HCC mortality (RR = 2.43, 95% CI: 1.66–3.55) for individuals with (versus without) diabetes. This meta‐analysis shows that diabetes is associated with moderately increased risk of HCC prevalence, as well as HCC mortality. Considering the rapidly increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus, the study underlines the need for cancer prevention in diabetic individuals. Further investigation is needed to focus on the potential mechanism for the pathogenesis of HCC and the link between HCC and different types, severity, treatment and duration of diabetes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ACCOUNTING FOR DIFFERENCES IN LITERACY ABILITY AMONG CHILDREN ENTERING KINDERGARTEN

This capstone project explores the question of factors that may account for variance in literacy ability among children entering Kindergarten. This researcher has personal interest in this topic because of her own experience as a Kindergarten teacher. The most appropriate way to address this research question is with an exhaustive literature review and research synthesis. The synthesis produced five findings. First is that participation in a structured, formal preschool has a positive impact on the literacy development and school readiness of all children, regardless of their diversity or non-diversity, or socio-economic status (SES). Second, the quality and type of instruction a child receives in preschool has an impact on that child’s literacy growth, and third, the impact from attending preschool is not directly influenced by a child’s SES or demographics. Fourth is that home literacy experiences have a greater impact on literacy development than SES regardless of the SES level. Fifth is that SES levels are factors in language and literacy development only indirectly because they can impact family stress, a mother’s well-being, and size and number of literacy activities in the home; low socioeconomic status and a mother’s level of education do not automatically mean poor literacy development, neither do they hinder literacy development when there is rich home literacy environment. The application of this new knowledge will result in professional development for Kindergarten and grade one teachers, and will take the form of a video accessible for free on YouTube and Teacher Tube.
Glucose Metabolism, Islet Architecture, and Genetic Homogeneity in Imprinting of [Ca2+]i and Insulin Rhythms in Mouse Islets

We reported previously that islets isolated from individual, outbred Swiss-Webster mice displayed oscillations in intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) that varied little between islets of a single mouse but considerably between mice, a phenomenon we termed “islet imprinting. ” We have now confirmed and extended these findings in several respects. First, imprinting occurs in both inbred (C57BL/6J) as well as outbred mouse strains (Swiss-Webster; CD1). Second, imprinting was observed in NAD(P)H oscillations, indicating a metabolic component. Further, short-term exposure to a glucose-free solution, which transiently silenced [Ca2+]i oscillations, reset the oscillatory patterns to a higher frequency. This suggests a key role for glucose metabolism in maintaining imprinting, as transiently suppressing the oscillations with diazoxide, a KATP-channel opener that blocks [Ca2+]i influx downstream of glucose metabolism, did not change the imprinted patterns. Third, imprinting was not as readily observed at the level of single beta cells, as the [Ca2+]i oscillations of single cells isolated from imprinted islets exhibited highly variable, and typically slower [Ca2+]i oscillations. Lastly, to test whether the imprinted [Ca2+]i patterns were of functional significance, a novel microchip platform was used to monitor insulin release from multiple islets in real time. Insulin release patterns correlated closely with [Ca2+]i oscillations and showed significant mouse-to-mouse differences, indicating imprinting. These results indicate that islet imprinting is a general feature of islets and is likely to be of physiological significance. While islet imprinting did not depend on the genetic background of the mice, glucose metabolism and intact islet architecture may be important for the imprinting phenomenon.
Connecting Mathematics Teaching with Vocational Learning.

For many vocational students in England, mathematics is now a compulsory part of their programme, yet the inclusion of an academic subject within a vocational course presents challenges. In this paper, an analysis of a series of case studies of vocational student groups in Further Education colleges in England shows how contrasting practices in ‘functional mathematics’ and vocational classes reinforce perceptions that mathematics is an isolated and irrelevant subject. Some mathematics teachers made contextual connections by embedding mathematical problems in vocationally-related scenarios but distinctive socio-cultural features of vocational learning situations were often absent from mathematics classes. Addressing this disconnection requires a pedagogical approach and classroom culture that links mathematics learning with vocational values. The findings suggest that adopting mathematics classroom practices that reflect the surrounding vocational culture creates greater coherence for students and has positive effects on their engagement with mathematics learning.
Evaluation of Agriculture-Based Phytoremediation in Pacific Island Ecosystems Using Trisector Planters

ABSTRACT It is difficult to directly evaluate the efficacy of phytoremediation of petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants embedded in deep soil layers, especially if the contaminants are of relatively low concentration and are unevenly distributed. This report describes the greenhouse and laboratory experiments carried out to evaluate a field demonstration project. A trisector planter was designed to simulate field conditions, including soil profiles and field management of the trees selected. The third or bottom section of the planter was spiked with known quantities of 6 diesel-fuel components and the reduction of their concentrations was monitored after 200 days under the influence of the plant root systems. Results are statistically compared; among the three tree species used, milo (Thespesia populnea) and kou (Cordia subcordata) are more effective than false sandalwood (Myoporum sandwicense) in reducing the concentration of the spiked contaminant. Enumerations of populations of hydrocarbon-degrading microoorganisms in the bottom section suggest that biodegradation may be affected by the response of microorganisms to both the “close rhizosphere” (soil within 1 mm of the root) and the “expanded rhizosphere” (soil in the bottom section after root removal). Root exudates leached from the upper sections could be responsible for the expanded rhizosphere effect in the bottom section.
Treebank-Based Deep Grammar Acquisition for French Probabilistic Parsing Resources

Motivated by the expense in time and other resources to produce hand-crafted grammars, there has been increased interest in wide-coverage grammars automatically obtained from treebanks. In particular, recent years have seen a move towards acquiring deep (LFG, HPSG and CCG) resources that can represent information absent from simple CFG-type structured treebanks and which are considered to produce more language-neutral linguistic representations, such as syntactic dependency trees. As is often the case in early pioneering work in natural language processing, English has been the focus of attention in the first efforts towards acquiring treebank-based deep-grammar resources, followed by treatments of, for example, German, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. However, to date no comparable large-scale automatically acquired deep-grammar resources have been obtained for French. The goal of the research presented in this thesis is to develop, implement, and evaluate treebank-based deep-grammar acquisition techniques for French. Along the way towards achieving this goal, this thesis presents the derivation of a new treebank for French from the Paris 7 Treebank, the Modified French Treebank, a cleaner, more coherent treebank with several transformed structures and new linguistic analyses. Statistical parsers trained on this data outperform those trained on the original Paris 7 Treebank, which has five times the amount of data. The Modified French Treebank is the data source used for the development of treebank-based automatic deep-grammar acquisition for LFG parsing resources for French, based on an f-structure annotation algorithm for this treebank. LFG CFG-based parsing architectures are then extended and tested, achieving a competitive best f-score of 86.73% for all features. The CFG-based parsing architectures are then complemented with an alternative dependency-based statistical parsing approach, obviating the CFG-based parsing step, and instead directly parsing strings into f-structures.
Examining the Relationships between Recreational Physical Activity, Body Image, and Sexual Functioning and Satisfaction in Men

EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, BODY IMAGE AND SEXUAL FUNCTIONING AND SATISFACTION IN MEN Rebecca Breuer Advisor: University of Guelph, 2013 Dr. Robin Milhausen Few studies have examined the relationships between recreational physical activity, body image and sexuality simultaneously. Research has demonstrated that females experience poor body satisfaction to a greater degree than men (Faith & Schare, 1993; Feingold & Mazzella, 1998), however, studies focusing on male body image and sexuality are lacking (Lavender, 2011). The objective of the current study was to investigate the relationships between recreational physical activity, body image and sexual function and satisfaction in 849 emerging adult, heterosexual men. Results indicated that engagement in recreational physical activity predicted better body image but not sexual functioning or satisfaction. Better body image predicted greater sexual function and satisfaction, and sexual function predicted greater sexual satisfaction. Implications and future research are discussed.
Application of mercury intrusion porosimetry for studying the porosity of mineral trioxide aggregate at two different pH

Abstract Objective. To evaluate a novel method of detecting and comparing the porosity of white Mineral Trioxide Aggregate and Portland cement at two different pH. Materials and methods. Cylindrical specimens (n = 120) were prepared from hydrated ordinary white Portland Cement (WPC) (n = 60) and white Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (WMTA) (n = 60) and exposed to environments with pH of 4.4 (n = 30) or 7.4 (n = 30). The pore size distribution and total pore volume were detected using Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance and post-hoc Tukey or Tamhane test (p = 0.05). Results. The pore volume of WMTA was significantly lesser than WPC at both pH (p < 0.05). The surface tension of mercury was taken as 480 (N/m) and the contact angle 141.3° for both materials. Pores were consistently found in all specimens. Total pore volumes for WPC and WMTA (cubic centimeter/gram) were 0.1954 and 0.1023, respectively, while the diameter of the pores ranged from 50–100 Å and 20–50 Å, respectively. Conclusions. Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry technique is a promising and reliable technique for assessing the porosity of endodontic materials.
Understudied and underrecognised: Invited commentary on... Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults

That [Zwi & York (2004)][1] have opened the discussion on adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is to be applauded. Their main conclusion is that the diagnostic validity of adult ADHD remains uncertain and that further study is needed. This is based on a review of the ADHD concept in
PRAGUE: A Practical Framework for Blending Visual Subgraph Query Formulation and Query Processing

In a previous paper, we laid out the vision of a novel graph query processing paradigm where instead of processing a visual query graph after its construction, it interleaves visual query formulation and processing by exploiting the latency offered by the GUI to filter irrelevant matches and prefetch partial query results [10]. Our first attempt at implementing this vision, called GBLENDER [10], shows significant improvement in system response time (SRT) for subgraph containment queries. However, GBLENDER suffers from two key drawbacks, namely inability to handle visual subgraph similarity queries and inefficient support for visual query modification, limiting its usage in practical environment. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called PRAGUE (PRactical visuAlGraph QUery blEnder), that addresses these limitations by exploiting a novel data structure called spindleshaped graphs (SPIG). A SPIG succinctly records various information related to the set of supergraphs of a newly added edge in the visual query fragment. Specifically, PRAGUE realizes a unified visual framework to support SPIGbased processing of modification-efficient subgraph containment and similarity queries. Extensive experiments on real-world and synthetic datasets demonstrate effectiveness of PRAGUE.