Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved Reconstruction Quality of Bioluminescent Images by Combining SP3 Equations and Bregman Iteration Method

Bioluminescence tomography (BLT) has a great potential to provide a powerful tool for tumor detection, monitoring tumor therapy progress, and drug development; developing new reconstruction algorithms will advance the technique to practical applications. In the paper, we propose a BLT reconstruction algorithm by combining SP3 equations and Bregman iteration method to improve the quality of reconstructed sources. The numerical results for homogeneous and heterogeneous phantoms are very encouraging and give significant improvement over the algorithms without the use of SP3 equations and Bregman iteration method.
Structural brain injury in patients with disorders of consciousness: A voxel-based morphometry study

Abstract Main objective: Disorders of consciousness (DOC; encompassing coma, vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS) and minimally conscious state minus/plus (MCS–/+)) are associated with structural brain injury. The extent of this damage remains poorly understood and merits a detailed examination using novel analysis techniques. Research design/methods and procedures: This study used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) on structural magnetic resonance imaging scans of 61 patients with DOC to examine grey and white matter injury associated with DOC, time spent in DOC, aetiology and diagnosis. Main outcomes and results: DOC and time spent in DOC were found to be associated with widespread structural brain injury, although the latter did not correlate strongly with injury in the right cerebral hemisphere. Traumatic, as compared to non-traumatic aetiology, was related to more injury in the brainstem, midbrain, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, cerebellum, and posterior corpus callosum. Potential structural differences were found between VS/UWS and MCS and between MCS– and MCS+, but need further examination. Conclusions: The findings indicate that both traumatic and non-traumatic DOC are associated with widespread structural brain injury, although differences exist that could lead to aetiology-specific treatment strategies. Furthermore, the high degree of atrophy occurring after initial brain injury prompts the development and use of neuroprotective techniques to potentially increase patients’ chances of recovery.
Commodification and the official discourse of higher education.

The commodification of higher education has been described, within the philosophical and sociological literature, in opposition to, or in alliance with principled perspectives about the nature, purpose or value of ‘higher education’: for example, as that which is intrinsically valuable, a social good, a democratic requirement or an individual entitlement. This thesis argues that such approaches are relatively unproductive in providing descriptions that can inform higher education practice. Rather, it is argued, they largely seem to operate to reproduce the principled perspectives with which they are aligned or opposed. The thesis examines the following question: How do official texts that describe higher education, operate to (re)produce and/or resist the idea of its commodification? The methodology employed to examine this question, locates ‘official’ texts as empirical objects for analysis. The analysis proceeds by identifying and organising oppositions and alliances within these texts, to produce a constructive description of how each text is operating within the higher education field. Specific descriptions of higher education within official texts are analysed in relation to constructed theoretical spaces that describe modes of discursive action, including the commodified mode. The method provides a means of describing commodification as a discursive modality rather than as a representation of use-value/exchange-value or market/non-market type oppositions. This approach is productive in describing the ways that official texts operate to regulate higher education practice without reproducing a principled perspective. Despite some explicit references to the economic or commodity value of higher education, official texts tend to use such descriptions to promote the introduction or maintenance of bureaucratic and regulatory systems that actually stand in opposition to the commodified mode. This conclusion is in contrast with the idea that official descriptions of higher education are operating to promote increasing commodification.
Managing Social Networks in vehicular networks using trust rules

Drivers and passengers in urban areas may spend large portion of their time waiting in their cars on the road while commuting to and from work, to school, or to the supermarket. Regularities of driving patterns in time and in space motivate the formation of communities of common backgrounds and interests. We propose a model for forming and maintaining Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs) that uses trust principles for admission to social groups, and controlling the interactions among members. This paper describes the details of the design, and proposes a simple but representative probabilistic model for deriving the probability of wrongful admissions and the probability of an agent trusting a malicious node. The experimental results, which were obtained from simulations using the network simulation software ns2, describe metrics related to the dynamics of group formation and time to form groups as well as to detecting malicious members. Our system was able to form social groups with agents of common interests and maintain an accurate trust evaluation of their behavior.
Vision-based relative altitude estimation of small unmanned aerial vehicles in target localization

This paper presents a UAV vision-based relative altitude estimation method using a given size (length) of the ground vehicle. In conjunction with a well known target localization technique, the proposed method relaxes the flat ground assumption and provides an independent approach of altitude correction. It offers possible improvement or expansion in small UAV applications in target localization, tracking, and terrain exploration missions, such as ground terrain mapping. In addition, the proposed kinematic method is reliable and computationally efficient. Its feasibility and effectiveness is further demonstrated by extensive experiments, including both stationary and moving target estimations.
Integrated magnetic for hybrid full-bridge three-level LLC resonant converter

A novel hybrid full-bridge (H-FB) three-level (TL) LLC resonant converter with integrated magnetics (IM) is proposed in this paper, it integrates the advantages of the TL converter and the LLC resonant converter, which is very suitable for wide-input-voltage-range applications, such as fuel cell power systems, or high input voltage applications, i.e. HV input converters in wind power system. With magnetic integration, it cannot only reduce the number and size of the magnetic components, but also reduce the secondary leakage inductance compared with other LLC IM structure which can ensure the ZCS of the rectifier diodes. Two prototypes, with or without IM, of 200-400 V input and 360 V/4A output are built to verify the operation principle of the H-FB TLLLC converter with IM.
Toward a Tailored Modeling of Non-Functional Requirements for Telecommunication Systems

Addressing non-functional requirements in Real-Time Embedded Systems (RTES) is of critical importance. Proper functionality of the whole system is heavily dependent on satisfying these requirements. In model-based approaches for development of the systems in RTES domain, there are several methods and languages for modeling and analysis of non-functional requirements. However, in this domain there are different types of systems that have different sets of non-functional requirements. The problem is that the general modeling approaches for RTES may not cover all the needs of these sub domains such as telecommunication. In this poster paper, we suggest an approach to complement and apply general RTES modeling languages to better cover different non-functional requirements of telecommunication systems.
Childbot: A Conversational Assistant for Childcare

— In this paper, we used the RNN Encoder-Decoder ( seq2seq ) model in Korean conversational robot (Konvbot). As a first step of being a general conversational model, we restricted our domain to childcare situation which includes six circumstances: 1) waking up, 2) morning exercise, 3) having breakfast, 4) taking a shower, 5) wearing clothes, and 6) going to school. We collected about 10,000 dialogue pairs for this scenario from more than 30 people. With the data, we implemented the base conversational model, which is used for collecting more dialogues in real environments (e.g. lab tour, conference demo). We present experiments in our expected scenario as well as general conversations which are out-of-script, and finally, real conversation with children. The result showed that our model could catch slight different expressions in the similar context, but it can cover only specific domain and has low vocabulary due to the small amount of training data. With more real experiments, we can collect data from experimenters, the better conversation the model will generate.
Maintaining Consistency of Client-Cached Data

This paper addresses the problem of cache consistency in a client-server database environment. We assume the server provides shared database access for multiple client workstations and that client workstations may cache a portion of the database. Our primary goal is to investigate techniques to maintain the consistency of the client cache and to improve server throughput. We propose a new cache consistency algorithm for client caches. The algorithm is a simple extension to twophase locking and consists of three additional lock modes that must be supported by the server lock manager. For comparison, we devised a second cache consistency algorithm based on notify locks. A simulation model was developed to analyze the performance of the server under the two cache consistency algorithms and under noncaching two-phase locking. The results show that both consistency algorithms can significantly improve server performance over basic two-chase lo&ins. The notifv locks algorithm? at times, ou<performs the’ cache locks *algorithm. But, it IS very sensitive to data contention and server load. Cache locks is always better than two-phase locking and is much more stable than notify locks under all conditions.
Urine High and Low Molecular Weight Proteins One‐Year Post‐Kidney Transplant: Relationship to Histology and Graft Survival

Increased urinary protein excretion is common after renal transplantation and portends worse outcome. In this study we assessed the prognostic contribution of several urinary proteins. Urinary total protein, albumin, retinol binding protein (RBP), α‐1‐microglobulin, IgG and IgM were measured in banked urine samples from 221 individuals 1 year after renal transplantation (age 52 ± 13 years, 55% male, 93% Caucasian and 82% living donor). Levels of all proteins measured were higher than in normal nontransplant populations. Patients with glomerular lesions had higher urinary albumin than those with normal histology, while those with interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy plus inflammation (ci>0, cg = 0, i>0) had higher levels of IgG, IgM, α‐1‐microglobulin and RBP. Concomitant normal levels of urinary albumin, IgM and RBP identified normal histology (specificity 91%, sensitivity 15%,). Urinary levels of the specific proteins were highly correlated, could not differentiate among the histologic groups, and appeared to result from tubulointerstitial damage. Increased urinary excretion of the low molecular weight protein RBP was a sensitive marker of allografts at risk, predicting long‐term graft loss independent of histology and urinary albumin. This study highlights the prognostic importance of tubulointerstitial disease for long‐term graft loss.
InkSeine: In Situ search for active note taking

Using a notebook to sketch designs, reflect on a topic, or capture and extend creative ideas are examples of active note taking tasks. Optimal experience for such tasks demands concentration without interruption. Yet active note taking may also require reference documents or emails from team members. InkSeine is a Tablet PC application that supports active note taking by coupling a pen-and-ink interface with an in situ search facility that flows directly from a user's ink notes (Fig. 1). InkSeine integrates four key concepts: it leverages preexisting ink to initiate a search; it provides tight coupling of search queries with application content; it persists search queries as first class objects that can be commingled with ink notes; and it enables a quick and flexible workflow where the user may freely interleave inking, searching, and gathering content. InkSeine offers these capabilities in an interface that is tailored to the unique demands of pen input, and that maintains the primacy of inking above all other tasks.
PROPIEDADES PSICOMÉTRICAS DEL INVENTARIO PARA LA EVALUACIÓN DEL ESPECTRO DE LA SINTOMATOLOGÍA DEPRESIVA EN ADOLESCENTES* PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF THE DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS SPECTRUM ASSESSMENT INVENTORY IN YOUTH

To validate indigenous scales enables the optimal assessment of youth depression in Puerto Rico. We assessed the psychometric properties of the Depressive Symptoms Spectrum Assessment Inventory (Cumba-Aviles, 2004) with 201 youth (12-17 years old). We obtained an excellent internal consistency (α=.98) for its total scales of the last two weeks (L2W) and last six months (L6M), as well as for its subscales (ranges of .78- .90 [L2W] and .75- .89 (L6M). Its temporal stability (r=.90 [L2W] and .80 [L6M]) and concurrent validity were appropriate too (r=.72 with the Children’s Depression Inventory). Our results also document its convergent, divergent and discriminate validity, supporting its status as a valid and reliable measure of youth depression.
Convergence Analysis for Distributionally Robust Optimization and Equilibrium Problems

In this paper, we study distributionally robust optimization approaches for a one-stage stochastic minimization problem, where the true distribution of the underlying random variables is unknown but it is possible to construct a set of probability distributions, which contains the true distribution and optimal decision is taken on the basis of the worst-possible distribution from that set. We consider the case when the distributional set (which is also known as the ambiguity set) varies and its impact on the optimal value and the optimal solutions. A typical example is when the ambiguity set is constructed through samples and we need to look into the impact of increasing the sample size. The analysis provides a unified framework for convergence of some problems where the ambiguity set is approximated in a process with increasing information on uncertainty and extends the classical convergence analysis in stochastic programming. The discussion is extended briefly to a stochastic Nash equilibrium problem where each player takes a robust action on the basis of the worst subjective expected objective values.
Heterogeneity-Aware Workload Placement and Migration in Distributed Sustainable Datacenters

While major cloud service operators have taken various initiatives to operate their sustainable data enters with green energy, it is challenging to effectively utilize the green energy since its generation depends on dynamic natural conditions. Fortunately, the geographical distribution of data enters provides an opportunity for optimizing the system performance by distributing cloud workloads. In this paper, we propose a holistic heterogeneity-aware cloud workload placement and migration approach, sCloud, that aims to maximize the system good put in distributed self-sustainable data enters. sCloud adaptively places the transactional workload to distributed data enters, allocates the available resource to heterogeneous workloads in each data enter, and migrates batch jobs across data enters, while taking into account the green power availability and QoS requirements. We formulate the transactional workload placement as a constrained optimization problem that can be solved by nonlinear programming. Then, we propose a batch job migration algorithm to further improve the system good put when the green power supply varies widely at different locations. We have implemented sCloud in a university cloud test bed with real-world weather conditions and workload traces. Experimental results demonstrate sCloud can achieve near-to-optimal system performance while being resilient to dynamic power availability. It outperforms a heterogeneity-oblivious approach by 26% in improving system good put and 29% in reducing QoS violations.
These Are Ours: The Effects of Ownership and Groups on Property Negotiation

Abstract : Ownership tends to affect negotiation by increasing the value that the negotiator places on the objects being negotiated. In this study, we invented a new computer-controlled negotiation task that presents negotiators pictures of objects on a screen and the negotiators grab the objects, or give them to an opponent, using a mouse. We experimentally varied ownership, telling negotiators in one case that they owned the objects (but needed the other's agreement on the distribution of the objects), or the other owned the objects (but their agreement was needed for distribution), or neither party owned the objects (and both had to agree on the distribution). We also varied whether negotiations were conducted by 3-person groups, or by individuals, and we varied the opponent's behavior in the negotiation (the other consistently demanded almost all the objects, hardly demanded any, or was totally responsive with a Tit-for-Tat strategy on the objects). We also varied the value of the objects, thus giving the task an integrative structure. One result was that groups were more likely than individuals to match the opponent's competitiveness, but only when ownership of the objects was undefined. Ownership, either self or other, attenuated differences between groups and individuals, an effect not observable in studies that use abstract negotiation tasks or prisoner-dilemma-type games.
Narraciones de adolescentes con estilos de vida activos y sedentarios

Nuestra investigacion trata de analizar las narraciones de adolescentes que han adoptado diferentes estilos de vida e identificar las variables psicologicas, comportamentales, sociales y ambientales relacionadas con un estilo de vida activo y una vida sedentaria. Se aplicaron entrevistas de caracter narrativo a 2 ninas (1 activa y 1 sedentaria) y 2 ninos (1 activo y 1 sedentario). El analisis tematico ha identificado las categorias que distinguen a los dos grupos de estudiantes, a lo largo de su infancia y adolescencia, especificamente: historia de la actividad fisica (AF); valor de los comportamientos sedentarios; apoyo social de la familia y amigos a la AF; seguridad fisica y las instalaciones en el barrio; participacion en AF extracurricular en la escuela; la escuela primaria y secundaria y experiencias en Educacion Fisica (EF); profesores y companeros de EF; conocimiento de la AF y la salud; y actitudes hacia la EF y la escuela. PALABRAS CLAVE: Actividad fisica, Educacion Fisica, promocion de estilos de vida, adolescentes, investigacion cualitativa. ABSTRACT This study sought to analyse the narratives of adolescents who have adopted an active or a sedentary lifestyle, and to identify psychological, behavioural, social and environmental variabl­­es related to an active and a sedentary lifestyle among adolescents. Narrative interviews were conducted with 2 girls (1active and 1 sedentary) and 2 boys (1 active and 1sedentary). Thematic analysis identified a number of key personal, social and environmental influences on physical activity (PA) that distinguished the two groups of students, through their childhood and adolescence. These included PA history, the value of sedentary behaviours, social support from family and friends for PA, safety and PA facilities in the local neighbourhood, PA participation in school besides Physical Education (PE), primary and secondary school and experiences in PE, PE teachers and PE peers, PA and health knowledge and perception of PE goals, and attitudes toward school and PE. KEYWORDS: Physical activity, Physical Education, lifestyle promotion, adolescents, qualitative research.
Iron-Binding E 3 Ligase Mediates Iron Response in Plants by Targeting Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors 1

Iron uptake and metabolism are tightly regulated in both plants and animals. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), BRUTUS (BTS), which contains three hemerythrin (HHE) domains and a Really Interesting New Gene (RING) domain, interacts with basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors that are capable of forming heterodimers with POPEYE (PYE), a positive regulator of the iron deficiency response. BTS has been shown to have E3 ligase capacity and to play a role in root growth, rhizosphere acidification, and iron reductase activity in response to iron deprivation. To further characterize the function of this protein, we examined the expression pattern of recombinant ProBTS::b-GLUCURONIDASE and found that it is expressed in developing embryos and other reproductive tissues, corresponding with its apparent role in reproductive growth and development. Our findings also indicate that the interactions between BTS and PYE-like (PYEL) basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors occur within the nucleus and are dependent on the presence of the RING domain. We provide evidence that BTS facilitates 26S proteasome-mediated degradation of PYEL proteins in the absence of iron. We also determined that, upon binding iron at the HHE domains, BTS is destabilized and that this destabilization relies on specific residues within the HHE domains. This study reveals an important and unique mechanism for plant iron homeostasis whereby an E3 ubiquitin ligase may posttranslationally control components of the transcriptional regulatory network involved in the iron deficiency response.
THE APPLICABILITY AND BIOPOLITICS OF CONTRACEPTIVE TECHNIQUES FOR DEER MANAGEMENT

While regulated public hunting or controlled lethal reduction programs are effective in controlling white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), populations in most areas, increasingly there are settings (e.g., urban and suburban environments) where such programs are either unsafe or publicly unacceptable. Past research with contraceptive techniques in deer have shown these techniques to be either ineffective or infeasible for managerial implementation. Current research with immunocontraceptives show promise as being both effective and feasible for field application. Immunocontraceptive vaccines can be delivered remotely and are highly effective in causing infertility in most treated does. Much more research is needed before these techniques can be used efficiently in contraceptive management programs for deer, however. Immunocontraceptives techniques need to be developed that will not require separate booster vaccinations. Also, field application trials are needed to determine the effectiveness of these techniques at the population level. Finally, effort also is needed on public information and education programs so that both the limitations and potential of these new techniques are understood.