Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of a low-cost point of care device for near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) based online imaging during non-invasive electrical brain stimulation

All of us are exposed to optical (i.e., visible and near-infrared) radiation from the sun and other sources throughout our lives. Assuming our eyes are shielded from excessive intensity, and our skin is protected from the ultraviolet content of sunlight, we accept this exposure in the knowledge that it is perfectly safe. Unlike x-rays, optical photons are insufficiently energetic to produce ionisation, and unless light is concentrated to such a high degree that it causes burning to the skin, optical radiation offers no significant hazard. The diagnostic potential of optical methods has been widely known since Jobsis [1] first demonstrated that transmittance measurements of near-infrared (NIR) radiation could be used to monitor the degree of oxygenation of certain metabolites. This led to the development and increasingly widespread use of clinical near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which offers a safe, non-invasive means of monitoring cerebral function at the bedside without the use of radioisotopes or other contrast agents [2].
Intergenerational environmental effects: functional signals in offspring transcriptomes and metabolomes after parental jasmonic acid treatment in apomictic dandelion

Summary Parental environments can influence offspring traits. However, the magnitude of the impact of parental environments on offspring molecular phenotypes is poorly understood. Here, we test the direct effects and intergenerational effects of jasmonic acid (JA) treatment, which is involved in herbivory‐induced defense signaling, on transcriptomes and metabolomes in apomictic common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). In a full factorial crossed design with parental and offspring JA and control treatments, we performed leaf RNA‐seq gene expression analysis, LC‐MS metabolomics and total phenolics assays in offspring plants. Expression analysis, leveraged by a de novo assembled transcriptome, revealed an induced response to JA exposure that is consistent with known JA effects. The intergenerational effect of treatment was considerable: 307 of 858 detected JA‐responsive transcripts were affected by parental JA treatment. In terms of the numbers of metabolites affected, the magnitude of the chemical response to parental JA exposure was c. 10% of the direct JA treatment response. Transcriptome and metabolome analyses both identified the phosphatidylinositol signaling pathway as a target of intergenerational JA effects. Our results highlight that parental environments can have substantial effects in offspring generations. Transcriptome and metabolome assays provide a basis for zooming in on the potential mechanisms of inherited JA effects.
Depth Edge Filtering Using Parameterized Structured Light Imaging

This research features parameterized depth edge detection using structured light imaging that exploits a single color stripes pattern and an associated binary stripes pattern. By parameterized depth edge detection, we refer to the detection of all depth edges in a given range of distances with depth difference greater or equal to a specific value. While previous research has not properly dealt with shadow regions, which result in double edges, we effectively remove shadow regions using statistical learning through effective identification of color stripes in the structured light images. We also provide a much simpler control of involved parameters. We have compared the depth edge filtering performance of our method with that of the state-of-the-art method and depth edge detection from the Kinect depth map. Experimental results clearly show that our method finds the desired depth edges most correctly while the other methods cannot.
Binding Mode and Induced Fit Predictions for Prospective Computational Drug Design

Computer-aided drug design plays an important role in medicinal chemistry to obtain insights into molecular mechanisms and to prioritize design strategies. Although significant improvement has been made in structure based design, it still remains a key challenge to accurately model and predict induced fit mechanisms. Most of the current available techniques either do not provide sufficient protein conformational sampling or are too computationally demanding to fit an industrial setting. The current study presents a systematic and exhaustive investigation of predicting binding modes for a range of systems using PELE (Protein Energy Landscape Exploration), an efficient and fast protein-ligand sampling algorithm. The systems analyzed (cytochrome P, kinase, protease, and nuclear hormone receptor) exhibit different complexities of ligand induced fit mechanisms and protein dynamics. The results are compared with results from classical molecular dynamics simulations and (induced fit) docking. This study shows that ligand induced side chain rearrangements and smaller to medium backbone movements are captured well in PELE. Large secondary structure rearrangements, however, remain challenging for all employed techniques. Relevant binding modes (ligand heavy atom RMSD < 1.0 Å) can be obtained by the PELE method within a few hours of simulation, positioning PELE as a tool applicable for rapid drug design cycles.
Information Management & Computer Security Democracy , culture and information security : a case study in Zanzibar

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of culture on information security in a developing country’s view. Design/methodology/approach – Two questionnaires adopted from the GLOBE project and OCAI were used to collect quantitative data on national and organisational culture. Also, a face to face semi-structured interview was used to get insight into deep-rooted issues concerning information security in the study environment. In addition, a previous study was used to find correlation of the data in this study. Findings – The findings show that national culture has more influence than organisation culture on information security. We find that the dimensions that influence information security are Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, In-Group Collectivism, and Future Orientation. Research limitations/implications – This research was conducted in a public sector environment with employees thereby limiting external validity. Also, the population of the survey was small to make a generalisation of the findings. Also, the length of the questionnaire and complexity of questions put off many potential respondents. Practical implications – Culture has impact on information security implementation and therefore the results imply that some consideration should be given when implementing information security models. Originality/value – This study is important because it empirically correlates information security with cultural dimensions in a developing country’s environment.
MAC design on real 802.11 devices: From exponential to Moderated Backoff

In this paper we describe how a novel backoff mechanism called Moderated Backoff (MB), recently proposed as a standard extension for 802.11 networks, has been prototyped and experimentally validated on a commercial 802.11 card before being ratified. Indeed, for performance reasons, the time critical operations of MAC protocols, such as the backoff mechanism, are implemented into the card hardware/firmware and cannot be arbitrarily changed by third parties or by manufacturers only for experimental reasons. Our validation has been possible thanks to the availability of the so called Wireless MAC Processor (WMP), a prototype of a novel wireless card architecture in which MAC protocols can be programmed by using proper abstractions and a state-machine formal language, which enable easy modifications of legacy operations. Experimental results are in agreement with simulations and prove the effectiveness of Moderated Backoff, as well as the potentialities of the WMP platform.
Choir singing and creative writing enhance emotion regulation in adults with chronic mental health conditions

OBJECTIVES Adults with mental health conditions commonly experience difficulties with emotion regulation which affect their social functioning. Arts-based groups provide opportunities for shared emotional experiences and emotion regulation. This study explores emotion regulation strategies and the emotional effects of arts-based group participation in adults with mental health problems and in controls. DESIGN AND METHOD The 62 participants included 39 adults with chronic mental health problems who were members of arts-based groups (ABG) and 23 comparison choir (CC) members who were not specifically experiencing mental health problems. The repeated measures design included self-reports of emotion upon waking (T1), the hour before group (T2), end of the group (T3), and evening (T4), as well as participant notes to explain their emotion ratings at each time. They also completed measures of individual and interpersonal emotion regulation. RESULTS The ABG participants engaged marginally more in affect worsening strategies than CC (p = .057 and .08), but there were no other group differences. All participants reported a significant increase in positive emotions, F (3, 180) = 28.044, p < . 001, np2 = . 319; and a decrease in negative emotions during the arts-based activity: F (2.637, 155.597) = 21.09, p < . 001, np2 = . 263. The influence on positive emotions was short-lived, while the effect on negative emotions lasted until evening. CONCLUSION Findings show that participation in arts-based groups benefits the emotions of both healthy adults and those experiencing mental health conditions through individual and interpersonal processes. PRACTITIONER POINTS Individuals with chronic mental health conditions often experience difficulties in emotion processing Participation in arts-based groups was associated with significant increases in positive emotions although these were short-lived Negative emotion was significantly decreased during arts-based group activities, and sustained to the evening assessment Adults with chronic mental health conditions were equally able to derive emotional benefits as healthy adults.
Secure transmission and processing of information in organisations systems

Businesses interchange information internally and manage electronic transactions with trading partners over internet. The success factor is integration of e-business processes with the existing internal infrastructure and applications, as well as with business partner's systems. It is essential to provide correct and relevant information to the right receiver. In this paper, we present an approach of transmission and processing of information in the organisations systems by intelligent agents to improve information flow, provide availability and protect confidential information from being disclosed, modified and lost. To monitor and control information flow in e-business processes, we propose using Multi-Agent Systems (MASs).
Is the CARD8 rs2043211 polymorphism associated with susceptibility to Crohn’s disease? A meta-analysis

Abstract Many studies have reported the association between the CARD8 gene polymorphism rs2043211 and the susceptibility to Crohn’s disease (CD), but the results have remained quite contradictory. Therefore, the aim of the meta-analysis was to explore whether the CARD8 rs2043211 polymorphism has an effect on CD risk. We performed a systematic literature search for related articles published up to July 2014 in multiple databases. Six eligible articles containing eight studies were selected. Odds ratios (ORs) as well as their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate the association between the CARD8 polymorphism and CD risk in different genotypic models. Heterogeneity analysis was also performed and publication bias was taken into account. Subgroup analyses were conducted according to different ethnicities, as well as different types of CD. In the pooled analyses, no statistical significant association was found between the CARD8 polymorphism and CD risk in the overall population or Caucasian subgroup in the additive model (overall population: OR = 0.93, 95% CI = 0.87–1.01; Caucasian: OR = 0.93, 95% CI = 0.83–1.05). However, subgroup analysis based on different CD types showed a significant association between the CARD8 polymorphism and CD risk in the additive model (ileal CD: OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.70–0.98; stenotic or fistulizing CD: OR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.72–0.92). Our results indicated that CD may involve different types of pathogenesis and have variable clinical manifestations. In patients with ileal, stenotic or fistulizing CD, the mutant-type rs2043211 polymorphism may generate a potentially protective effect.
Techniques for integrating parallelizing transformations and compiler based scheduling methods

Although the tasks of applying transformations and scheduling instructions are typically implemented in separate phases of a parallelizing compiler, interactions between these phases occur. The authors discuss these interdependencies and demonstrate that the separate phase approach can result in the application of a sequence of transformations that is not effective. The techniques presented for integrating these tasks utilize an iterative approach to applying program transformations and scheduling instructions for execution on a multiprocessor. These integrated techniques employ a demand driven approach to applying transformations; by iterating between the scheduling and transforming tasks, transformations are applied to the program only if and where they are needed. The authors also introduce an automatic transformation application and selection algorithm that provides further control over the application of transformations. <<ETX>>
Orthographic and Morphological Correspondences between Related Slavic Languages as a Base for Modeling of Mutual Intelligibility

In an intercomprehension scenario, typically a native speaker of language L1 is confronted with output from an unknown, but related language L2. In this setting, the degree to which the receiver recognizes the unfamiliar words greatly determines communicative success. Despite exhibiting great string-level differences, cognates may be recognized very successfully if the receiver is aware of regular correspondences which allow to transform the unknown word into its familiar form. Modeling L1-L2 intercomprehension then requires the identification of all the regular correspondences between languages L1 and L2. We here present a set of linguistic orthographic correspondences manually compiled from comparative linguistics literature along with a set of statistically-inferred suggestions for correspondence rules. In order to do statistical inference, we followed the Minimum Description Length principle, which proposes to choose those rules which are most effective at describing the data. Our statistical model was able to reproduce most of our linguistic correspondences (88.5% for Czech-Polish and 75.7% for Bulgarian-Russian) and furthermore allowed to easily identify many more non-trivial correspondences which also cover aspects of morphology.
Extracellular ATP induces apoptosis through P2X7R activation in acute myeloid leukemia cells but not in normal hematopoietic stem cells

Recent studies have shown that high ATP levels exhibit direct cytotoxic effects on several cancer cells types. Among the receptors engaged by ATP, P2×7R is the most consistently expressed by tumors. P2×7R is an ATP-gated ion channel that could drive the opening of a non-selective pore, triggering cell-death signal. We previously demonstrated that acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells express high level of P2×7R. Here, we show that P2×7R activation with high dose ATP induces AML blast cells apoptosis. Moreover, P2×7R is also expressed on leukemic stem/progenitor cells (LSCs) which are sensitive to ATP-mediated cytotoxicity. Conversely, this cytotoxic effect was not observed on normal hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSCs). Notably, the antileukemic activity of ATP was also observed in presence of bone marrow stromal cells and its addition to the culture medium enhanced cytosine arabinoside cytotoxicity despite stroma-induced chemoresistance. Xenotransplant experiments confirmed ATP antineoplastic activity in vivo. Overall, our results demonstrate that P2×7R stimulation by ATP induced a therapeutic response in AML at the LSC level while the normal stem cell compartment was not affected. These results provide evidence that ATP would be promising for developing innovative therapy for AML.
Vicious strategies for Vickrey auctions

We show that the Vickrey auction, despite its theoretical benefits, is inappropriate if “antisocial” agents participate in the auction process. More specifically, an antisocial attitude for economic agents that makes {\em reducing the profit of competitors}\/ their main goal besides maximizing their own profit is introduced. Under this novel condition, agents need to deviate from the dominant truth-telling strategy. This paper presents a strategy for bidders in repeated Vickrey auctions who are intending to inflict losses to fellow agents in order to be more successful, not in absolute measures, but relatively to the group of bidders.
JAM: a BDI-theoretic mobile agent architecture

JAM is a hybrid intelligent agent architecture that draws upon the theories and ideas of the Procedural Reasoning System (PRS), Structured Circuit Semantics (SCS), and Act plan interlhtgua. Furthermore, JAM draws upon the implementation pragmatics of the University of Michigan’s and SRI Internatlonal’s implementation of PRS (UMPRS and PRS-CL, respectively). JAM provides rich and extensive plan and procedural representations, metalevel and utility-based reasoning over multiple simultaneous goals, and goal-driven and event-driven behavior that are an amalgam of all of the sources listed above. The JAM agent architecture also provides an agentGo primitive function utilizing Java’s object serialization mechanism to provide widely-supported mobility capabilities.
Transmembrane adaptor protein PAG1 is a novel tumor suppressor in neuroblastoma

(NB) is the most common extracranial pediatric solid tumor with high mortality rates. The tyrosine kinase c-Src has been known to play an important role in differentiation of NB cells, but the mechanism of c-Src regulation has not been defined. Here, we characterize PAG1 (Cbp, Csk binding protein), a central inhibitor of c-Src and other Src family kinases, as a novel tumor suppressor in NB. Clinical cohort analysis demonstrate that low expression of PAG1 is a significant prognostic factor for high stage disease, increased relapse, and worse overall survival for children with NB. PAG1 knockdown in NB cells promotes proliferation and anchorage-independent colony formation with increased activation of AKT and ERK downstream of c-Src, while PAG1 overexpression significantly rescues these effects. In vivo, PAG1 overexpression significantly inhibits NB tumorigenicity in an orthotopic xenograft model. Our results establish PAG1 as a potent tumor suppressor in NB by inhibiting c-Src and downstream effector pathways. Thus, reactivation of PAG1 and inhibition of c-Src kinase activity represents an important novel therapeutic approach for high-risk NB.
Laser-Assisted Waterjet Microgrooving of Silicon Nitride Ceramics with near Damage-Free

A new processing technology is used in micromachining silicon nitride ceramics for improving the processing efficiency. Laser-assisted waterjet machining technology with near damage-free plays an important role in reducing the heat-affected zone (HAZ). In order to understand the effects of process parameters, such as pulse energy, waterjet offset distance and water pressure, on microgrooving of silicon nitride ceramics and the machining performance, a full-factorial experiment with the comparison experiment has been carried out in this study for analyzing and discussing the groove geometry, the surface quality and HAZ width. It can be concluded that the laser-assisted waterjet processing technology can expel more material removal with near damage-free.
Segmenting Motivation: An Analysis of Fantasy Baseball Motives and Mediated Sport Consumption

Fantasy sport consumer behavior research is a burgeoning area of inquiry as this growing segment of sport fans exhibits unconventional, yet robust media consumption habits. In addition, consumer motivation and market segmentation represent core principles within the study of marketing, yet the integration of these two essential concepts with regard to sport consumers is limited. The purpose of this study was to explore fantasy baseball motives, develop a motive-based taxonomy of users, and quantify the differences between segments through an examination of mediated sport consumption. An exploratory hierarchal cluster analysis with a subsequent K-means analysis was conducted to determine the number of segments. Additionally, a MANOVA was performed to ascertain behavioral differences between the motive-based clusters. Four distinct segments emerged with statistically significant differences between each with regard to mediated consumption intentions. The following paper addresses theoretical and practical implications for academics and practitioners. Future research is also suggested.
Optimizing Charging at an Electric Vehicle Battery Swap Station

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Velocity Perception: Collision Handling Technique for Agent Avoidance Behavior

Collision avoidance behavior is always about maintaining free collision between virtual objects. It is also about generating evasion routing for the agents in virtual environment such as in crowd simulation. It consists of three processes which are construction of Field of Vision, Collision handling and collision response. Constructing field of vision is always a daunting task and always in enigma for the designer because it is subjected towards agent’s perception which is varies to each of them. There are few attempts on designing field of vision based on the agent’s dynamic focus toward its surrounding. Therefore, we present a top down approach study from crowd simulation modeling until the collision handling level in order to identify the suitable crowd modeling for our approach. Hence, at the end of this paper we will be able to discuss the possible techniques for constructing agent’s field of vision and analyze its potential in crowd simulation environment. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i4. 2599 Full Text: PDF
An Improved destriping method for Remote Sensing Images

Aiming at the problem of the stripe noises of agricultural remote sensing (RS) images, an improved destriping method high order unidirectional total variation with split-bregman iteration (HOUTV-SBI) for agricultural RS images is proposed by a higher-order partial diﬀerential model. The new method is based on the unidirectional total variation (UTV) model. It could highly performance remove the stripe noises, and eﬀectively suppress the “ripple phenomenon(cid:3) followed by UTV model. The experiments are compared with other traditional algorithms on the satellite images and their simulation images with two kinds of imaging systems. The results show that our method has good adaptability for removing all kinds of periodic and non-periodic random stripe noises and could provide better practicability.