Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
One is Enough

The Dynamic Analog Scale (DAS)—a generic and flexible technique for creating single-item measures of psychological constructs—comprises detailed definitions and a continuous analog scale on which self and others are rated simultaneously. Using five experimental conditions, the authors investigated the psychometric properties of the DAS as well as the impact of different social contexts and modified Big Five trait definitions on participant ratings and their relationships to measures of volunteerism, religiosity, affect, and alcohol consumption. Results revealed few differences across conditions, and reliability coefficients and predictive validity estimates were similar to those typically obtained using standard, multiple-item questionnaires. The DAS is therefore supported as a consistent and efficacious method for measuring personality traits with single items.
Flexible , Wide-Area Storage for Distributed Systems Using Semantic Cues

There is a growing set of Internet-based services that are too big, or too important, to run at a single site. Examples include Web services for e-mail, video and image hosting, and social networking. Splitting such services over multiple sites can increase capacity, improve fault tolerance, and reduce network delays to clients. These services often need storage infrastructure to share data among the sites. This dissertation explores the use of a new file system (WheelFS) specifically designed to be the storage infrastructure for wide-area distributed services. WheelFS allows applications to adjust the semantics of their data via semantic cues, which provide application control over consistency, failure handling, and file and replica placement. This dissertation describes a particular set of semantic cues that reflect the specific challenges that storing data over the wide-area network entails: high-latency and low-bandwidth links, coupled with increased node and link failures, when compared to local-area networks. By augmenting a familiar POSIX interface with support for semantic cues, WheelFS provides a wide-area distributed storage system intended to help multi-site applications share data and gain fault tolerance, in the form of a distributed file system. Its design allows applications to adjust the tradeoff between prompt visibility of updates from other sites and the ability for sites to operate independently despite failures and long delays. WheelFS is implemented as a user-level file system and is deployed on PlanetLab and Emulab. Six applications (an all-pairs-pings script, a distributed Web cache, an email service, large file distribution, distributed compilation, and protein sequence alignment software) demonstrate that WheelFS’s file system interface simplifies construction of distributed applications by allowing reuse of existing software. These applications would perform poorly with the strict semantics implied by a traditional file system interface, but by providing cues to WheelFS they are able to achieve good performance. Measurements show that applications built on WheelFS deliver comparable performance to services such as CoralCDN and BitTorrent that use specialized wide-area storage systems. Thesis Supervisor: M. Frans Kaashoek Title: Professor Thesis Supervisor: Robert Morris Title: Professor Thesis Supervisor: Jinyang Li Title: Assistant Professor, NYU
Discrete Robust Anti-Windup to Improve a Novel Dual-Stage Large-Span Track-Seek/Following Method

An application of an advanced anti-windup compensation scheme to a recently developed large-span track-seeking and track-following method for dual-stage actuator systems in hard disk drives (HDDs) is presented. In the original dual-stage servo control approach, micro-actuator saturation was addressed using the Circle Criterion to guide the controller design. However, such an approach does not allow the fine-tuning of seeking and settling speeds and also limits the class of linear controllers for the secondary loop due to the Circle Criterion. Anti-windup compensation removes many of these limitations and improves settling duration, disturbance rejection, recovery from saturation in the secondary actuator loop, and design flexibility. A general anti-windup (AW) compensator is presented in discrete time bringing together a number of AW concepts and results previously given in continuous time. Robustness is taken into account and performance requirements are expressed via frequency weights. The robust performance design is based on an l 2-optimization approach using linear matrix inequalities (LMIs).
Have Gun Will Shoot?

The weapon instrumentality hypothesis suggests that guns contribute to the escalation and lethality of violence. But the relationship between guns and violence might be spurious if the aggressor's violent tendencies or the aggressor's situation-specific intent to harm is the common cause of the presence/use of a gun and the violent outcome. To examine such rival explanations, we draw on interviews with 100 men imprisoned for an aggravated assault or homicide that stemmed from an interpersonal conflict. Each respondent described a matched pair of conflicts: the violent conflict that led to incarceration and a similar nonviolent conflict from the same time period. The matched pair design allows us to control for both potential sources of spuriousness: violent tendencies and situation-specific intent to harm. The results suggest that guns contribute to the violent escalation of conflict, but the impact of guns attenuates substantially after accounting for situation-specific intent to harm.
The impact of situational context on assault completion: the moderating role of relational distance

Abstract Intimacy between two disputants provides insulation against the occurrence of violence. However, once violence becomes a viable option for conflict resolution, intimacy may exacerbate incident outcomes. Furthermore, because of the emotional intensity, relationally close assailants may be less attuned to the situational characteristics, a known predictor of incident outcomes such as injury. This study explores the role of relational distance as a determinant of the completion (versus the attempt or threat) of non-sexual assault, as well as a potential moderator of the relationship between situational characteristics and assault completion. The analysis uses 35,616 incidents of non-sexual assault from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1992–2008). A logistic regression model of assault completion is estimated, with attention devoted to the influence of relational distance, demographic, and situational characteristics. A heteroscedastic logistic regression model is then estimated, including product terms between the regressors and an indicator for whether the assailant was relationally distant (versus relationally close). Relational distance is strongly and inversely related to the likelihood of assault completion. Furthermore, 10 of 12 situational characteristics (e.g. bystander presence use of a weapon) are significantly more strongly correlated with assault completion in incidents where the victim and assailant(s) are relationally distant.
Shared parts for deformable part-based models

The deformable part-based model (DPM) proposed by Felzenszwalb et al. has demonstrated state-of-the-art results in object localization. The model offers a high degree of learnt invariance by utilizing viewpoint-dependent mixture components and movable parts in each mixture component. One might hope to increase the accuracy of the DPM by increasing the number of mixture components and parts to give a more faithful model, but limited training data prevents this from being effective. We propose an extension to the DPM which allows for sharing of object part models among multiple mixture components as well as object classes. This results in more compact models and allows training examples to be shared by multiple components, ameliorating the effect of a limited size training set. We (i) reformulate the DPM to incorporate part sharing, and (ii) propose a novel energy function allowing for coupled training of mixture components and object classes. We report state-of-the-art results on the PASCAL VOC dataset.
In vitro production of granulocyte–macrophage colony‐stimulating activity by murine bone marrow and spleen following vinblastine administration IN VIVO

The production of granulocyte–macrophage colony‐stimulating activity (CSA) by isolated murine femur shafts, non‐dispersed bone marrow and spleens was assessed following administration of Vinblastine (VLB). These organs were removed from 2 h to 10 days post‐VLB and allowed to condition endotoxin‐free medium for 48 h. CSA activity was assessed using a soft agar cloning system. The data demonstrate that CSA elaboration was maximal 24 h post‐VLB, corresponding to the nadir of bone marrow GM‐CFC, and 6 h after splenic reached a minimum. No relationship between peripheral blood granulocyte count or serum endotoxin levels were observed.
Organizationally intended and unintended coping: The case of an incentive compensation plan

Coping typically is viewed in terms of its functionality for the individual engaging in it. We suggest that it also may be fruitful to consider coping from the perspective of the individual's employing organization. That is, from a managerial perspective, workers may cope with job stressors in intended or unintended ways. Among a sample of professional and managerial personnel of an insurance company, it was found that global evaluations of the job and evaluations of the specific stressor were associated with organizationally intended and unintended ways of coping with the stressor. More specifically, it was found that workers' overall job satisfaction and their evaluations of the controllability of the amount of incentive compensation received and the contingency between performance and incentive compensation were positively related to organizationally intended ways of coping with an incentive compensation plan and negatively related to organizationally unintended ways of coping. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.
Absence of XMRV and Closely Related Viruses in Primary Prostate Cancer Tissues Used to Derive the XMRV-Infected Cell Line 22Rv1

The 22Rv1 cell line is widely used for prostate cancer research and other studies throughout the world. These cells were established from a human prostate tumor, CWR22, that was serially passaged in nude mice and selected for androgen independence. The 22Rv1 cells are known to produce high titers of xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV). Recent studies suggested that XMRV was inadvertently created in the 1990's when two murine leukemia virus (MLV) genomes (pre-XMRV1 and pre-XMRV-2) recombined during passaging of the CWR22 tumor in mice. The conclusion that XMRV originated from mice and not the patient was based partly on the failure to detect XMRV in early CWR22 xenografts. While that deduction is certainly justified, we examined the possibility that a closely related virus could have been present in primary tumor tissue. Here we report that we have located the original prostate tumor tissue excised from patient CWR22 and have assayed the corresponding DNA by PCR and the tissue sections by fluorescence in situ hybridization for the presence of XMRV or a similar virus. The primary tumor tissues lacked mouse DNA as determined by PCR for intracisternal A type particle DNA, thus avoiding one of the limitations of studying xenografts. We show that neither XMRV nor a closely related virus was present in primary prostate tissue of patient CWR22. Our findings confirm and reinforce the conclusion that XMRV is a recombinant laboratory-generated mouse virus that is highly adapted for human prostate cancer cells.
Inflammatory biomarkers improve clinical prediction of mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

RATIONALE Accurate prediction of mortality helps select patients for interventions aimed at improving outcome. OBJECTIVES Because chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is characterized by low-grade systemic inflammation, we hypothesized that addition of inflammatory biomarkers to established predictive factors will improve accuracy. METHODS A total of 1,843 patients enrolled in the Evaluation of COPD Longitudinally to Identify Predictive Surrogate Endpoints study were followed for 3 years. Kaplan-Meier curves, log-rank analysis, and Cox proportional hazards analyses determined the predictive value for mortality of clinical variables, while C statistics assessed the added discriminative power offered by addition of biomarkers. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS At recruitment we measured anthropometrics, spirometry, 6-minute walk distance, dyspnea, BODE index, history of hospitalization, comorbidities, and computed tomography scan emphysema. White blood cell and neutrophil counts, serum or plasma levels of fibrinogen, chemokine ligand 18, surfactant protein D, C-reactive protein, Clara cell secretory protein-16, IL-6 and -8, and tumor necrosis factor-α were determined at recruitment and subsequent visits. A total of 168 of the 1,843 patients (9.1%) died. Nonsurvivors were older and had more severe airflow limitation, increased dyspnea, higher BODE score, more emphysema, and higher rates of comorbidities and history of hospitalizations. The best predictive model for mortality using clinical variables included age, BODE, and hospitalization history (C statistic of 0.686; P < 0.001). One single biomarker (IL-6) significantly improved the C statistic to 0.708, but this was further improved to 0.726 (P = 0.003) by the addition of all biomarkers. CONCLUSIONS The addition of a panel of selected biomarkers improves the ability of established clinical variables to predict mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials. gov (NCT00292552).
DNA microarrays: a bridge between genome sequence information and biological understanding

The development, refinement and increasingly widespread use of DNA microarrays have been important responses to the explosion of sequence information produced by genome science. The high sample densities possible with DNA microarrays, coupled with the complete or nearly complete genome sequences available for humans and model organisms, provide a powerful analytical method to measure both qualitative and quantitative variations in RNA and DNA. Principal among the applications of microarrays is the large-scale analysis of RNA expression, often referred to as expression profiling. The power of this application lies in its ability to determine the expression patterns of tens of thousands of genes in a single experiment. Additionally, the ability to detect DNA polymorphisms makes microarrays useful in studies designed to correlate DNA sequence variations with variations in phenotype. The unprecedented scale on which microarrays allow both experimentation and generation of results should make possible a more complete and comprehensive understanding of cells and cellular processes.
Demand response of a heterogeneous cluster of electric water heaters using batch reinforcement learning

A demand response aggregator, that manages a large cluster of heterogeneous flexibility carriers, faces a complex optimal control problem. Moreover, in most applications of demand response an exact description of the system dynamics and constraints is unavailable, and information comes mostly from observations of system trajectories. This paper presents a model-free approach for controlling a cluster of domestic electric water heaters. The objective is to schedule the cluster at minimum electricity cost by using the thermal storage of the water tanks. The control scheme applies a model-free batch reinforcement learning (batch RL) algorithm in combination with a market-based heuristic. The considered batch RL technique is tested in a stochastic setting, without prior information or model of the system dynamics of the cluster. The simulation results show that the batch RL technique is able to reduce the daily electricity cost within a reasonable learning period of 40-45 days, compared to a hysteresis controller.
On the Necessity of Pre‐emption

The attacks of September 11, 2001 led President Bush to declare a 'war' on terrorism. Terrorists are capable of inflicting grave damage, and are not susceptible to the deterrent pressures felt by states. Pre-emption and prevention of attacks have become part of the US national security strategy to deal with this danger. International lawyers claim that pre-emption must be limited to actions in response to an attack that is imminent and unavoidable by any other means. This paper examines the background of the requirement that pre-emption is restricted to imminent attacks, and argues that the narrow standard properly applies only when a potential victim state can rely on the police powers of the state from which a prospective attack is anticipated. A more flexible standard for determining necessity is appropriate for situations in which the state from which attacks are anticipated is either unwilling or unable to prevent the attacks, or may even be responsible for them. The situation posed by Al Qaeda, operating from Afghanistan, was one in which the Taliban explicitly refused to prevent attacks on the US by that terrorist organization. The question of the applicability of the rule regarding necessity to Saddam Hussein's Iraq is more complicated, but a strong case can be made for the necessity of pre-emptive action.
Targeted doxorubicin-containing luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone analogue AN-152 inhibits the growth of doxorubicin-resistant MX-1 human breast cancers.

PURPOSE The receptors for luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone receptor (LHRH-R) are found in >50% of human breast cancers. Doxorubicin (DOX) was linked to [D-Lys(6)]LHRH to form a cytotoxic conjugate, AN-152, which can be targeted to tumor cells expressing LHRH-R. We evaluated the effects of AN-152 on the estrogen-independent, DOX-resistant human mammary carcinoma line MX-1, xenografted into nude mice. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Nude mice bearing MX-1 tumors were administered five i.v. injections of AN-152 or DOX at doses equivalent to 3 mg/kg DOX. Tumor growth was followed, and changes in the expression of LHRH-R on tumors were evaluated by radioreceptor assays, reverse transcription-PCR, and Western blotting. The effects of AN-152 on the expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER)-2 were investigated. Because LHRH-R are coupled to various G proteins, which are involved in mitogenic signaling, we determined the outcome of treatment with AN-152 on the levels of mRNA for different G proteins. RESULTS Treatment with AN-152 significantly (P < 0.05) decreased the final tumor volume to 978.56 +/- 176.85 mm(3), compared with the control tumors, which measured 2837.38 +/- 515.38 mm(3). Tumor doubling time was likewise significantly (P < 0.05) extended by AN-152 to 12.01 +/- 1.99 days from 6.45 +/- 0.36 days for the controls. Therapy with AN-152, but not with DOX, resulted in a significant decrease of LHRH-R levels on MX-1 tumors. The expression of mRNAs for HER-2, HER-3, Galpha(i2), and Galpha(11) and the levels of HER-2 and HER-3 proteins were also significantly reduced by AN-152. CONCLUSIONS Cytotoxic LHRH analogue AN-152 could be considered for targeted chemotherapy of DOX-resistant breast cancers expressing LHRH-R.
Training and the Commitment of Outsourced Information Technologies’ Workers

Outsourced workers in information technologies (IT) generally have high skills and a high value on the job market. Their IT outsourcing organizations are likely to provide them with training, in the first place for skill development, but perhaps also as a way to bind the workers to them. This can be understood along the role of the psychological contract. Outsourced IT workers may see training as a fulfillment of their psychological contract. Accordingly, we hypothesize that psychological contract fulfillment mediates the relationship between training and affective commitment to the IT outsourcer. This was tested in a sample of 158 Portuguese outsourced IT workers. The results showed that employees who considered that they were receiving good training opportunities felt a greater affective commitment to their IT outsourcers. This relationship was mediated by the fulfillment of the relational psychological contract.
A Simplified Dynamical System for Tropical Cyclone Intensity Prediction

Abstract A simplified dynamical system for tropical cyclone intensity prediction based on a logistic growth equation (LGE) is developed. The time tendency of the maximum sustained surface winds is proportional to the sum of two terms: a growth term and a term that limits the maximum wind to an upper bound. The maximum wind evolution over land is determined by an empirical inland wind decay formula. The LGE contains four free parameters, which are the time-dependent growth rate and maximum potential intensity (MPI), and two constants that determine how quickly the intensity relaxes toward the MPI. The MPI is estimated from an empirical formula as a function of sea surface temperature and storm translational speed. The adjoint of the LGE provides a method for finding the other three free parameters to make the predictions as close as possible to the National Hurricane Center best-track intensities. The growth rate is assumed to be a linear function of the vertical shear (S), a convective instability paramet.
Nodal signalling imposes left-right asymmetry upon neurogenesis in the habenular nuclei

The habenulae are evolutionarily conserved bilateral nuclei in the epithalamus that relay input from the forebrain to the ventral midbrain. In zebrafish, the habenulae display left-right (L/R) asymmetries in gene expression and axonal projections. The elaboration of habenular asymmetries requires the presence of a second asymmetric structure, the parapineal, the laterality of which is biased by unilateral Nodal signalling. Here we show that neurons are present earlier in the left habenula than in the right, but, in contrast to other habenular asymmetry phenotypes, this asymmetry in neurogenesis is not dependent on the parapineal. Embryos in which the L/R asymmetry in Nodal signalling is abolished display symmetric neurogenesis, revealing a requirement for this pathway in asymmetrically biasing neurogenesis. Our results provide evidence of a direct requirement for unilateral Nodal activity in establishing an asymmetry per se, rather than solely in biasing its laterality.
Teacher researchers as writers: A way to sharing findings

A teacher development programme (TDP) for teachers of English at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota has incorporated the research element as a means to motivate practitioners to widen professional knowledge. Based on the assumption that research findings gain real value if shared with other people, teachers have been challenged to establish a dialogue with academic communities by writing formal reports required by the University and articles describing the research processes they have accomplished. This paper examines the experiences of teacher researchers as writers as revealed in a research project in progress. I start by providing some background information about the TDP and then refer to the criteria that helped us to complete the writing tasks. Difficulties and strategies used to overcome them are also pointed out. Finally, I mention the benefits teachers identified after publishing their research reports in the PROFILE journal as well as some pedagogical implications.