Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of Prochlorothrix in Brackish Waters by Specific Amplification of pcb Genes

ABSTRACT Prochlorothrix hollandica is the only filamentous chlorophyll b (Chlb)-containing oxyphotobacterium that has been found in freshwater habitats to date. Chlb serves as a light-harvesting pigment which is bound to special binding proteins (Pcb). Even though Prochlorothrix was initially characterized as a highly salt-sensitive species, we detected it in a brackish water environment that is characterized by salinities of up to 12 practical salinity units. Using PCR and reverse transcription, we amplified pcb gene fragments of phytoplankton samples taken along a salinity gradient in the eutrophic Darss-Zingst estuary (southern Baltic Sea). After sequencing, high levels of homology to the pcbB and pcbC genes of P. hollandica were found. Furthermore, autofluorescence of Prochlorothrix-like filaments that indicated that Chlb was present was detected in enrichment cultures prepared from the estuarine phytoplankton. The detection of Chlb-containing filaments, as well as the pcb and 16S ribosomal DNA sequences, suggests that Prochlorothrix is an indigenous genus in the Darss-Zingst estuary and may also inhabit many other brackish water environments. The potential of using pcb gene detection to differentiate Prochlorothrix from morphologically indistinguishable species belonging to the genera Pseudanabaena and Planktothrix (Oscillatoria) in phytoplankton analyses is discussed.
Application of Sensing Techniques to Cellular Force Measurement

Cell traction forces (CTFs) are the forces produced by cells and exerted on extracellular matrix or an underlying substrate. CTFs function to maintain cell shape, enable cell migration, and generate and detect mechanical signals. As such, they play a vital role in many fundamental biological processes, including angiogenesis, inflammation, and wound healing. Therefore, a close examination of CTFs can enable better understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of such processes. To this end, various force-sensing techniques for CTF measurement have been developed over the years. This article will provide a concise review of these sensing techniques and comment on the needs for improved force-sensing technologies for cell mechanics and biology research.
Venice: Exploring server architectures for effective resource sharing

Consolidated server racks are quickly becoming the backbone of IT infrastructure for science, engineering, and business, alike. These servers are still largely built and organized as when they were distributed, individual entities. Given that many fields increasingly rely on analytics of huge datasets, it makes sense to support flexible resource utilization across servers to improve cost-effectiveness and performance. We introduce Venice, a family of data-center server architectures that builds a strong communication substrate as a first-class resource for server chips. Venice provides a diverse set of resource-joining mechanisms that enables user programs to efficiently leverage non-local resources. To better understand the implications of design decisions about system support for resource sharing we have constructed a hardware prototype that allows us to more accurately measure end-to-end performance of at-scale applications and to explore tradeoffs among performance, power, and resource-sharing transparency. We present results from our initial studies analyzing these tradeoffs when sharing memory, accelerators, or NICs. We find that it is particularly important to reduce or hide latency, that data-sharing access patterns should match the features of the communication channels employed, and that inter-channel collaboration can be exploited for better performance.
Improving learning by widening participation in higher education

signing a confidentiality clause with Apotex, a leading pharmaceutical company. Woodhouse believes the University of Toronto’s autonomy was threatened by Apotex’s massive $55 million donation, with serious consequences for academic freedom. He also argues that commercial agreements relating to drug research are disruptive of the fiduciary relationship between doctors and patients. The University of Saskatchewan provides further examples of corporate interests that determine the research agenda and overwhelm the public nature of knowledge creation. As academic leaders create ‘research-intensive’ institutions that attract partners and funds, their work is privatised in ways that dissolve the differences between universities and industry. Woodhouse argues that Saskatchewan has abandoned a long tradition of serving the community and is now more concerned to identify areas of activity that lend themselves to commercial exploitation. The university’s use of student evaluations illustrates a further trend associated with market values. Students are treated as customers, invited to evaluate teaching as if it were a service provided by hotels or restaurants. Instruction is thus treated as a consumer commodity, rather than as the start of a journey of personal growth and development. Woodhouse concludes by offering an idealistic and not especially convincing alternative to educational consumerism, based on the example of the People’s Free University, set up in 2002 to provide ‘free, open and community-based education’, initially for 200 students following six courses. This model is strong on educational principles and weak on how sustainable independent funding can be secured for mass higher education. The case studies in Selling out demonstrate, nevertheless, the pervasive influence of market values and the serious threat to university autonomy and disinterested critical enquiry. There is a risk that higher education around the world could become the servant of corporate conglomerates, eager to subsidise the early stages of research in return for lucrative contracts that shape priorities and privatise knowledge. Woodhouse balances this argument, however, by showing how overtly entrepreneurial, market-fixated behaviour has provoked dissent and resistance, with aggrieved staff and students appealing successfully to traditional norms of open enquiry and collegial decision-making. The triumph of the market is by no means assured.
Relation between Dopamine Synthesis Capacity and Cell-Level Structure in Human Striatum: A Multi-Modal Study with Positron Emission Tomography and Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Positron emission tomography (PET) study has shown that dopamine synthesis capacity varied among healthy individuals. This interindividual difference might be due to a difference in the cell-level structure of presynaptic dopaminergic neurons, i.e., cellular density and/or number. In this study, the relations between the dopamine synthesis capacity measured by PET and the parameter estimates in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in striatal subregions were investigated in healthy human subjects. DTI and PET studies with carbon-11 labeled L-DOPA were performed in ten healthy subjects. Age-related changes in the above parameters were also considered. Fractional anisotropy showed a significant positive correlation with age in the posterior caudate. There was significant negative correlation between dopamine synthesis capacity and mean diffusivity in the posterior caudate and putamen. Assuming that mean diffusivity reflects the density of wide-spreading axonal terminals in the striatum, the result suggests that dopamine synthesis may be related to the density of dopaminergic neuronal fibers. It is evident that PET/DTI combined measurements can contribute to investigations of the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric diseases involving malfunction of dopaminergic neurons.
Fear-of-success in Male and Female College Students: Sex-Role Identification and Self-Esteem as Factors

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact ecommons@luc.edu. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The contributions of several people to the present research are gratefully acknowledged. James E. Johnson gave extensive critical advice, continuing support, and his friendship over time and distance throughout the execution of the work. Jeanne Foley consulted often on questions of instrumentation and formation of groups, and offered meticulous , valuable evaluation of the written work at each stage. Thomas Petzel's helpful advice and prompt reading of each draft greatly facilitated the completion of the research. Kenneth Bradley donated both a specially designed computer program to score a portion of the research data, and good humor and emotional support through the d~ration of the study. Ronald Szoc gave extensive technical advice in the computer analysis of the data. Mildred Odumosu learned the fear-of-success scoring system and conscientiously scored many sets of stories so that a scoring reliability standard could be established. Sincere thanks are extended to all of these individuals for their help. she received the Master of Arts degree in clinical psychology. Her Master's thesis is entitled "Sex-role identification, achievement motivation, and self-esteem in male and female college students. " In 1974 she received a Loyola University Doctoral Fellowship in support of her dissertation research. The title of her dissertation is "Fear-of-success in male and female college students: Sex-role identification and self-esteem as factors. "
Chaos , Solitons & Fractals Nonlinear Science , and Nonequilibrium and Complex Phenomena

This is an introduction to the special issue titled ‘‘Networks of networks’’ that is in the making at Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. Recent research and reviews attest to the fact that networks of networks are the next frontier in network science [1–7]. Not only are interactions limited and thus inadequately described by well-mixed models, it is also a fact that the networks that should be an integral part of such models are often interconnected, thus making the processes that are unfolding on them interdependent. From the World economy and transportation systems to social media, it is clear that processes taking place in one network might significantly affect what is happening in many other networks. Within an interdependent system, each type of interaction has a certain relevance and meaning, so that treating all the links identically inevitably leads to information loss. Networks of networks, interdependent networks, or multilayer networks are therefore a much better and realistic description of such systems, and this Special Issue is devoted to their structure, dynamics and evolution, as well as to the study of emergent properties in multi-layered systems in general. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the spread of epidemics and information, percolation, diffusion, synchronization, collective behavior, and evolutionary games on networks of networks. Interdisciplinary work on all aspects of networks of networks, regardless of background and motivation, is very
Design of computationally efficient 2-D narrow-band FIR filters using sampling kernels and McClellan transformation

In this paper, a new method of designing 2-D linear-phase narrowband FIR filters is proposed by extending the conventional method of designing computationally efficient sharp linear-phase FIR filters, whereby the McClellan transformation and sampling kernels are utilized. In particular, by applying the McClellan transformation to the sampling kernels and 1-D prototype model filters, we can design various types of 2-D narrow-band FIR filters (e.g., circular, elliptic, and diamond-shaped) with sharp transition. Design examples are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design approach.
The Effect of Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System Blockade Medications on Contrast-Induced Nephropathy in Patients Undergoing Coronary Angiography: A Meta-Analysis

Background Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) is the main complication of contrast media administration (CM) in patients undergoing coronary angiography (CAG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). There are inconsistent results in the literature regarding the effect of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) blockers (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors [ACEIs] and angiotensin receptor blockers [ARBs]) on CIN. We evaluated the association between the administration of ACEI/ARBs and CIN, as well as the effect of ACEI/ARBs on post-procedural changes in renal function index, in patients undergoing CAG. Methods We searched Pubmed, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and ClinicalTrials.gov for relevant studies. The primary search generated 893 potentially relevant articles. A total of 879 studies were excluded because they did not meet the selection criteria. Finally, 14 studies were eligible for inclusion. There were 7,288 patients that received ACEI/ARBs and 8,159 patients that received placebo or naive to ACEI/ARBs in the study. A random or a fixed effect model was used to calculate the pooled odd ratios (ORs). Results The risk of CIN was significantly increased in the ACEI/ARBs group compared to the control group (OR= 1.50, 95%CI: 1.03-2.18, P =0.03). The magnitude of association was significantly reinforced in the observational studies (OR=1.84, 95%CI 1.19-2.85, P=0.006) but not in the randomized controlled trials (OR=0.88, 95%CI 0.41-1.90 P=0.74). The summary adjusted OR of 4 observational studies was 1.56 (95%CI 1.25-1.94, P<0.0001) and was weaker than the unadjusted OR. Conclusions Although there is some evidence to suggest that the administration of RAAS blockers was associated with the increased risk of CIN in patients undergoing CAG, the robustness of our study remains weak. The results are based on small observational studies and need further validation.
The Relationship Between Information Asymmetry and Dividend Policy

This paper examines how the quality of firm information disclosure affects shareholders' use of dividends to mitigate agency problems. Managerial compensation is linked to firm value. However, because the manager and shareholders are asymmetrically informed, the manager can manipulate the firm's accounting information to increase perceived firm value. Dividends can limit such practices by adding to the cost faced by a manager manipulating earnings. Empirical tests match model predictions. Dividend-paying firms show less evidence of earnings management. Furthermore, nondividend payers changed earnings announcement behavior more than dividend payers following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law that increased financial disclosures.
An approach to verify a large scale system-on-a-chip using symbolic model checking

For system-level verification of a large-scale design, logic simulation is widely used. When a simulation trace exposes a design error a designer may rectify the design inadequately because the trace shows only one particular erroneous path. This is one of the essential problems of simulation based verification. On the other hand, model checkers are becoming widely used in industry but cannot verify large designs. We propose a new verification methodology based on a "navigated" model checking in order to overcome the above problems. We first generalize the trace and generate a property. We then verify the rectified design against the property by navigating state traversal in model checking. With navigation, we can verify designs without ad-hoc simplification and also can check various possible paths relating the error, instead of concentrating on a particular path of the trace. We have successfully verified bus transactions of a system-on-a-chip having two million transistors with our methodology. For one case, we found that the rectification was inadequate, and we fixed it successfully.
SELF-CONCEPT ENHANCEMENT THROUGH MUSIC: THE EVALUATION OF A PROGRAM

Although extraordinary claims have often been made regarding the success of numerous approaches aimed at enhancing children's self-concept (Canfield & Wells, 1976; Conner, 1986; Thompson & Lowson, 1992), not all researchers are convinced that such programs have any measurable effects on the interpretation of this construct (Hattie, 1992; Kohn, 1995). It has been argued by some, in fact, that such programs may be more harmful than they are beneficial, often teaching the child that s/he is the most important person in the world and so leaving him/her with the erroneous belief that it is the responsibility of others to make them feel good (Katz, 1993; Vitz, 1994). The program under investigation has been running in some Western Australian public as well as private schools since 1992, with anecdotal data suggesting that staff as well as students saw it as being beneficial in raising pupils' self-esteem. It may be the case, however, that such claims are highly exaggerated, as the program has never been formally evaluated. After detailing program content, this paper presents the results of a systematic evaluation with three primary classes from different schools. The test instrument used was the Song and Hattie About Myself test (Hattie, 1992), which measured seven sub-scales of a concept of the self. Future implications for the program are discussed.
Automated Action Abstraction of Imperfect Information Extensive-Form Games

Multi-agent decision problems can often be formulated as extensive-form games. We focus on imperfect information extensive-form games in which one or more actions at many decision points have an associated continuous or many-valued parameter. A stock trading agent, in addition to deciding whether to buy or not, must decide how much to buy. In no-limit poker, in addition to selecting a probability for each action, the agent must decide how much to bet for each betting action. Selecting values for these parameters makes these games extremely large. Two-player no-limit Texas Hold'em poker with stacks of 500 big blinds has approximately 1071 states, which is more than 1050 times more states than two-player limit Texas Hold'em. The main contribution of this paper is a technique that abstracts a game's action space by selecting one, or a small number, of the many values for each parameter. We show that strategies computed using this new algorithm for no-limit Leduc poker exhibit significant utility gains over epsilon-Nash equilibrium strategies computed with standard, hand-crafted parameter value abstractions.
Comparison of the quick mild cognitive impairment (Qmci) screen and the SMMSE in screening for mild cognitive impairment

Introduction: differentiating mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from normal cognition (NC) is difficult. The AB Cognitive Screen (ABCS) 135, sensitive in differentiating MCI from dementia, was modified to improve sensitivity and specificity, producing the quick mild cognitive impairment (Qmci) screen. Objective: this study compared the sensitivity and specificity of the Qmci with the Standardised MMSE and ABCS 135, to differentiate NC, MCI and dementia. Methods: weightings and subtests of the ABCS 135 were changed and a new section ‘logical memory’ added, creating the Qmci. From four memory clinics in Ontario, Canada, 335 subjects (154 with MCI, 181 with dementia) were recruited and underwent comprehensive assessment. Caregivers, attending with the subjects, without cognitive symptoms, were recruited as controls (n = 630). Results: the Qmci was more sensitive than the SMMSE and ABCS 135, in differentiating MCI from NC, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.86 compared with 0.67 and 0.83, respectively, and in differentiating MCI from mild dementia, AUC of 0.92 versus 0.91 and 0.91. The ability of the Qmci to identify MCI was better for those over 75 years. Conclusion: the Qmci is more sensitive than the SMMSE in differentiating MCI and NC, making it a useful test, for MCI in clinical practice, especially for older adults.
Slip initiation in alternative and slip-resistant footwear

Slips occur as a result of failure of normal locomotion. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of alternative footwear (Crocs™, flip-flops) and an industry standard low-top slip-resistant shoe (SRS) under multiple gait trials (normal dry, unexpected slip, alert slip and expected slip) on lower extremity joint kinematics, kinetics and muscle activity. Eighteen healthy male participants (age: 22.28 ± 2.2 years; height: 177.66 ± 6.9 cm; mass: 79.27 ± 7.6 kg) completed the study. Kinematic, kinetic and muscle activity variables were analyzed using a 3(footwear) × 4(gait trials) repeated-measures analysis of variance at p = 0.05. Greater plantar flexion angles, lower ground reaction forces and greater muscle activity were seen on slip trials with the alternative footwear. During slip events, SRS closely resembled normal dry biomechanics, suggesting it to be a safer footwear choice compared with alternative footwear.
p21-activated kinase 4 interacts with integrin αvβ5 and regulates αvβ5-mediated cell migration

p21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) can affect cell migration (Price et al., 1998; del Pozo et al., 2000) and modulate myosin light chain kinase and LIM kinase, which are components of the cellular motility machinery (Edwards, D.C., L.C. Sanders, G.M. Bokoch, and G.N. Gill. 1999. Nature Cell Biol. 1:253–259; Sanders, L.C., F. Matsumura, G.M. Bokoch, and P. de Lanerolle. 1999. Science. 283:2083–2085). We here present a novel cell motility pathway by demonstrating that PAK4 directly interacts with an integrin intracellular domain and regulates carcinoma cell motility in an integrin-specific manner. Yeast two-hybrid screening identified PAK4 binding to the cytoplasmic domain of the integrin β5 subunit, an association that was also found in mammalian cells between endogenous PAK4 and integrin αvβ5. Furthermore, we mapped the PAK4 binding to the membrane-proximal region of integrin β5, and identified an integrin-binding domain at aa 505–530 in the COOH terminus of PAK4. Importantly, engagement of integrin αvβ5 by cell attachment to vitronectin led to a redistribution of PAK4 from the cytosol to dynamic lamellipodial structures where PAK4 colocalized with integrin αvβ5. Functionally, PAK4 induced integrin αvβ5–mediated, but not β1-mediated, human breast carcinoma cell migration, while no changes in integrin cell surface expression levels were observed. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that PAK4 interacts with integrin αvβ5 and selectively promotes integrin αvβ5–mediated cell migration.
Incorporating named entity recognition into the speech transcription process

Named Entity Recognition (NER) from speech usually involves two sequential steps: transcribing the speech using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and annotating the outputs of the ASR process using NER techniques. Recognizing named entities in automatic transcripts is difficult due to the presence of transcription errors and the absence of some important NER clues, such as capitalization and punctuation. In this paper, we describe a methodology for speech NER which consists of incorporating NER into the ASR process so that the ASR system generates transcripts annotated with named entities. The combination is achieved by adapting ASR language models and pre-annotating the pronunciation dictionary. We evaluate this method on Ester 2 corpus, and show significant improvements over traditional approaches.
Map-based Navigation Interface for Multiple Rescue Robots

In this paper, we present a navigation interface for multiple robots. For the task of information collection in disaster areas, it is efficient to use multiple robots. However with existing interfaces of rescue robots, one operator can not conveniently control multiple robots at the same time. In this paper, we report the development of an interface that offers convenient interaction with multiple robots at the same time. In the proposed interface, the system displays the environment map surrounding the robots on the monitor and the operator can graphically input the target position for multiple robots. Moreover, using the touch-pen device, the operator can group multiple robots easily, and grouped robots can move to the target position using a formation control algorithm.