Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using k-means clustering algorithm for handling data precision

The sensitive data are patient record details, organization record which are handled only administrative member. Preservation of privacy is a major feature of data mining and individual's privacy without losing of confidential data. The objective of privacy preserving data mining is to mine significant information from large amounts of dataset. To prevent the misuse of sensitive information such as patient record by the system administrator. The database administrator collects patient's data which are maintained in secured manner. The sensitive information has patient's name, Address, Disease, Date of Visit. The privacy preservation mechanism can be carried out through anonymization techniques. In order to preserve the sensitive data, the system administrator modifying the patient details. Privacy preserving techniques used to handle the sensitive information from unsanctioned users. The proposal system is original patient record should be transformed into Anonymized table which is identified only by administrative. To keep anonymized table in cluster form using k-means clustering algorithm. To keep anonymized table in cluster form using k-means clustering algorithm. To partition anonymized table into cluster, and each cluster has similar data object which is based on anonymized data attribute. After that the grouped similar data to be protected using AES encryption algorithm. The aim of this paper is to provide more accuracy and better level of privacy of sensitive attribute.
Parasite strain specificity of precursor cytotoxic T cells in individual animals correlates with cross-protection in cattle challenged with Theileria parva

Class I major histocompatibility complex-restricted parasite-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) are known to be a major component of the bovine immune response to the protozoan parasite Theileria parva, but formal proof for their role in protection of cattle against infection with T. parva has been lacking. Animals immunized with one stock of T. parva show variations in the degree of protection against heterologous challenge and also in the parasite strain specificity of their CTL responses. The present study investigated the relationship of strain specificity of CTL responses and cross-protection in an effort to verify the role of CTL in protection. The parasite strain specificity of the CTL responses generated in 23 cattle immunized with either of two immunologically distinct parasite populations was examined, and the susceptibility of individual cattle to challenge with the heterologous parasite population was determined. The frequency of stock-specific or cross-reactive CTL precursor cells (CTLp) in individual animals was measured by a limiting-dilution microassay. A proportion of animals immunized with either parasite exhibited cross-reactive CTLp, whereas CTLp detected in the remaining animals were specific for the homologous parasite. On challenge with the heterologous stock, those animals with cross-reactive CTLp were solidly protected while those with strain-specific CTLp showed moderate to severe reactions, although many of them recovered. The finding of a close association between strain specificity of the CTL response and protection against challenge provides strong evidence that CTL are important in mediating immunity.
District Induction Policy and New Teachers’ Experiences: An Examination of Local Policy Implementation in Connecticut

Background Studies of new teacher induction have typically examined the structural components of mentoring programs or documented the nature of support provided to beginning teachers. More recently, Susan Moore Johnson and her colleagues examined new teachers’ induction experiences across multiple states and preparation routes. In addition, Thomas Smith and Richard Ingersoll used the 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey to investigate the experiences and retention rates of beginning teachers who received different levels of induction support. Despite these advances, there is little understanding in the research literature of the relationship between district induction policy and the nature and quality of the support experienced by beginning teachers. Purpose One purpose of the study was to explore whether variations in district policy seemed to be associated with differences in the nature and quality of instructional assistance experienced by first- and second-year teachers. A second purpose was to investigate how the understandings of induction held by mentors, principals, and other educators seemed to mediate the effects of district policy on new teachers’ experiences. Research Design The research design involved qualitative case studies during 2000–2001 of two urban high-poverty Connecticut districts, Copley and Ashton. Copley and Ashton served similar percentages of students eligible for free and reduced lunch (58.0% and 54.3%, respectively) and had similar policies with regard to mentor training and work conditions. The two districts differed with regard to district policy related to mentor selection and assignment, district policy related to professional development for second-year teachers, and district size (10,216 students and 3,361 students). Findings The study found that beginning teachers in Copley experienced higher quality assistance than their counterparts in Ashton with regard to acquiring curricular knowledge, planning instruction, and reflecting on practice. These differences seemed related to district policy involving mentor selection, mentor assignment, and professional development. In addition, the understandings of induction held by mentors and others seemed to mediate the effects of district policy on new teachers’ experiences. Conclusions Study findings suggest that future research should examine whether there are grade-level and content-area matches between mentors and mentees and how mentors’ and other educators’ knowledge and skills influence beginning teachers’ induction experiences. In addition, scholars should consider how educators’ understandings of induction interact with school and district policies and organizational conditions to shape their work with beginning teachers. Finally, researchers should conceptualize induction as involving multiple individuals in the provision of support for beginning teachers.
Author's Personal Copy Robotics and Autonomous Systems a Spatio-temporal Long-term Memory Approach for Visual Place Recognition in Mobile Robotic Navigation

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: • We propose a novel biologically inspired neural network architecture for the problem of visual topological indoor localization. • K-Iteration Fast Learning Neural Network and Spatio-temporal Long-Term Memory structure were combined to process image sequences. • Competitive results were obtained on the challenging COLD dataset. Keywords: Visual place recognition Spatio-temporal neural networks Long-term Memory Topological robotic mapping a b s t r a c t This paper proposes a solution to the problem of mobile robotic localization using visual indoor image sequences with a biologically inspired spatio-temporal neural network approach. The system contains three major subsystems: a feature extraction module, a scene quantization module and a spatio-temporal long-term memory (LTM) module. During learning, the scene quantization module clusters the visual images set into scene tokens. A K-Iteration Fast Learning Artificial Neural Network (KFLANN) is employed as the core unit of the quantization module. The KFLANN network is driven by intrinsic statistics of the data stream and therefore does not require the number of clusters to be predefined. In addition, the KFLANN performance is less sensitive to data presentation ordering compared to popular clustering methods such as k-means, and can therefore produce a consistent number of stable centroids. Using scene tokens, the topological structure of the environment can be composed into sequences of tokens. These sequences are then learnt and stored in memory units in an LTM architecture, which is able to continuously and robustly recognize the visual input stream. The design of memory units addresses two critical problems in spatio-temporal learning, namely error tolerance and memory forgetting. The primary objective of this work is to explore the synergy between the strength of KFLANN and LTM models to address the visual topological localization problem. We demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of the proposed framework on the challenging COsy Localization Dataset.
Predicting levels of basic functional mobility, as assessed by the Timed “Up and Go” test, for individuals with stroke: discriminant analyses

Purpose: To compare stroke subjects with different levels of functional mobility, as determined by the Timed “Up and Go” (TUG) test, with controls and outline which clinical functional measures could be combined to predict functional mobility. Method: Twenty-two chronic stroke (54.7 ± 15.4 years) and 22 healthy subjects (54.7 ± 15.4 years) performed the TUG and were assessed regarding the paretic or non-dominant quadriceps strength, maximal gait speed, and quality of life (QL). Each group was divided into fast, intermediate, and slow sub-groups regarding their TUG performances. ANOVAs were employed to investigate the main and interaction effects between the groups and sub-groups and discriminant analyses to predict group membership. Results: For both groups, the three sub-groups were significantly different regarding their TUG scores (26.21 < F < 32.73; p < 0.006). The significant interactions indicated that faster stroke subjects demonstrated similar TUG scores, compared to those of all the healthy sub-groups. Maximal gait speed and QL showed significant discriminant functions and correctly classified 86.4% of the original grouped cases. Conclusions: Fast stroke subjects demonstrated similar TUG performances compared to those of healthy subjects. Group membership was correctly classified for the majority of subjects, except for the fast stroke sub-group, but only for the variables related to gait speed and QL. Implications for Rehabilitation Some individuals with stroke do not demonstrate poorer level of basic functional mobility, as assessed by the Timed “Up and Go” test, when compared to healthy subjects When taken together with other variables which could determine functional mobility, muscular strength of the paretic quadriceps muscle (body structure and function measure) did not appear to be an important predictor of basic functional mobility levels in subjects with stroke Measures of activity (gait speed) and participation (quality of life) may be more useful to predict levels of basic functional mobility in subjects with stroke
Technical Report: MapReduce-based Similarity Joins

Cloud enabled systems have become a crucial component to efficiently process and analyze massive amounts of data. One of the key data processing and analysis operations is the Similarity Join, which retrieves all data pairs whose distances are smaller than a predefined threshold e. Even though multiple algorithms and implementation techniques have been proposed for Similarity Joins, very little work has addressed the study of Similarity Joins for cloud systems. This paper focuses on the study, design and implementation techniques of cloudbased Similarity Joins. We present MRSimJoin, a MapReduce based algorithm to efficiently solve the Similarity Join problem. This algorithm efficiently partitions and distributes the data until the subsets are small enough to be processed in a single node. The proposed algorithm is general enough to be used with data that lies in any metric space. The algorithm can also be used with multiple data types, e.g., numerical data, vector data, text, etc. We present multiple guidelines to implement the algorithm in Hadoop, a highly used open-source cloud system. The extensive experimental evaluation of the implemented operation shows that it has very good execution time and scalability properties.
Market-Oriented Cloud Computing : Vision , Hype , and Reality for Delivering IT Services as Computing

This keynote paper: presents a 21 st century vision of computing; identifies various computing paradigms promising to deliver the vision of computing utilities; defines Cloud computing and provides the architecture for creating market-oriented Clouds by leveraging technologies such as VMs; provides thoughts on marketbased resource management strategies that encompass both customer-driven service management and computational risk management to sustain SLA-oriented resource allocation; presents some representative Cloud platforms especially those developed in industries along with our current work towards realising market-oriented resource allocation of Clouds by leveraging the 3 rd generation Aneka enterprise Grid technology; reveals our early thoughts on interconnecting Clouds for dynamically creating an atmospheric computing environment along with pointers to future community research; and concludes with the need for convergence of competing IT paradigms for delivering our 21 st century vision.
Survival rates of patients with metastatic malignant melanoma

Rationale: Malignant melanoma (MM) is the cutaneous neoplasia with the greatest mortality rates and one of the malignancies with the highest potential of dissemination. The prognosis of patients with metastatic MM is grim, with a 5-years survival rate between 5-19%, and is dictated by the location and the number of metastases. Objective: We aimed to estimate the survival of patients with metastatic MM from our study and find out if the metastasis’ location influences survival. Methods and results: Between 2008 and 2013, 155 patients with cutaneous MM were diagnosed in our clinic. All the patients were staged according to 2009 AJCC staging system. The median follow-up period was of 24 months. Survival was calculated by using the Kaplan-Meier method with a confidence level of 95%. 40.5% of the patients developed metastases in different organs, especially the brain. 80.6% of those with metastases died during the study. The median overall survival, estimated for the entire group of patients who developed metastases, was of 5.3 months. Discussion: The influence of metastases distribution on the overall survival was examined and it was noticed that there were statistically significant differences between the risks of death of various groups of patients, depending on metastasis topography. Thus, the death probability of a patient with brain metastases is twice that of a patient with digestive metastasis, about 7 times higher than that of a patient with lung metastasis (p = 0.0004) and 12 times higher than the death risk of a patient with extra-regional lymph nodes or subcutaneous metastasis (p = 0.0000).
Role for DNA Damage Signaling in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background— Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is associated with sustained inflammation known to promote DNA damage. Despite these unfavorable environmental conditions, PAH pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) exhibit, in contrast to healthy PASMCs, a pro-proliferative and anti-apoptotic phenotype, sustained in time by the activation of miR-204, nuclear factor of activated T cells, and hypoxia-inducible factor 1-&agr;. We hypothesized that PAH-PASMCs have increased the activation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1), a critical enzyme implicated in DNA repair, allowing proliferation despite the presence of DNA-damaging insults, eventually leading to PAH. Methods and Results— Human PAH distal pulmonary arteries and cultured PAH-PASMCs exhibit increased DNA damage markers (53BP1 and &ggr;-H2AX) and an overexpression of PARP-1 (immunoblot and activity assay), in comparison with healthy tissues/cells. Healthy PASMCs treated with a clinically relevant dose of tumor necrosis factor-&agr; harbored a similar phenotype, suggesting that inflammation induces DNA damage and PARP-1 activation in PAH. We also showed that PARP-1 activation accounts for miR-204 downregulation (quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) and the subsequent activation of the transcription factors nuclear factor of activated T cells and hypoxia-inducible factor 1-&agr; in PAH-PASMCs, previously shown to be critical for PAH in several models. These effects resulted in PASMC proliferation (Ki67, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, and WST1 assays) and resistance to apoptosis (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling and Annexin V assays). In vivo, the clinically available PARP inhibitor ABT-888 reversed PAH in 2 experimental rat models (Sugen/hypoxia and monocrotaline). Conclusions— These results show for the first time that the DNA damage/PARP-1 signaling pathway is important for PAH development and provide a new therapeutic target for this deadly disease with high translational potential.
Segment routing based traffic engineering for energy efficient backbone networks

Energy consumption has become a limiting factor for deploying large-scale distributed infrastructures. This work1 seeks to improve the energy efficiency of backbone networks by providing an intra-domain Software Defined Network (SDN) approach to selectively turn off a subset of links. We propose the STREETE framework (SegmenT Routing based Energy Efficient Traffic Engineering) that dynamically adapts the number of powered-on links to the traffic load. The core of the solution relies on SPRING, a novel protocol being standardized by IETF. It is also known under the name of Segment Routing. The algorithms have been implemented and evaluated using the OMNET++ simulator. Experimental results show that the consumption of 44% of links can be reduced while preserving good quality of service.
EAAC1, a high-affinity glutamate tranporter, is localized to astrocytes and gabaergic neurons besides pyramidal cells in the rat cerebral cortex.

High-affinity uptake of glutamate from the synaptic cleft plays a crucial role in regulating neuronal activity in physiological and pathological conditions. We have used affinity-purified specific polyclonal antibodies raised against a synthetic peptide corresponding to the C-terminal region of rabbit and rat EAAC1, a glutamate (Glu) transporter believed to be exclusively neuronal, to investigate its cellular and subcellular localization and whether it is expressed exclusively in glutamatergic cells of infragranular layers, as suggested by previous studies. Light microscopic studies revealed that EAAC1 immunoreactivity (ir) is localized to neurons and punctate elements in the neuropil. EAAC1-positive neurons were more numerous in layers II-III and V-VI, i.e. throughout all projection layers. Most EAAC1-positive neurons were pyramidal, although nonpyramidal cells were also observed. Some EAAC1-positive non-pyramidal neurons stained positively with an antiserum to GAD, thus demonstrating that EAAC1 is not confined to glutamatergic neurons. Non-neuronal EAAC1-positive cells were also observed in the white matter, and some of them stained positively with an antiserum to GFAP. Ultrastructural studies showed that EAAC1-ir was in neuronal cell bodies, dendrites and dendritic spines, but not in axon terminals, i.e. exclusively postsynaptic. Analysis of the type of axon terminals synapsing on EAAC1-ir profiles showed that 97% of them formed asymmetric contacts, thus indicating that EAAC1 is located at the very sites of excitatory amino acid release. Unexpectedly, EAAC1-ir was also found in a few astrocytic processes located in both the gray and the white matter. The localization of EAAC1 may explain the pathological symptoms that follow EAAC knockout (seizures and mild toxicity), as seizures could be due to the loss of EAAC1-mediated fine regulation of neuronal excitability at axodendritic and axospinous synapses, whereas the mild toxicity may be related to the functional inactivation of astrocytic EAAC1.
PARP1-dependent Kinetics of Recruitment of MRE11 and NBS1 Proteins to Multiple DNA Damage Sites*

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) is a nuclear enzyme that is rapidly activated by DNA strand breaks and signals the presence of DNA lesions by attaching ADP-ribose units to chromatin-associated proteins. The therapeutic applications of PARP inhibitors in potentiating the killing action of ionizing radiation have been well documented and are attracting increasing interest as a cancer treatment. However, the initial kinetics underlying the recognition of multiple DNA lesions by PARP1 and how inhibition of PARP potentiates the activity of DNA-damaging agents are unknown. Here we report the spatiotemporal dynamics of PARP1 recruitment to DNA damage induced by laser microirradiation in single living cells. We provide direct evidence that PARP1 is able to accumulate at a locally induced DNA double strand break. Most importantly, we observed that the rapid accumulation of MRE11 and NBS1 at sites of DNA damage requires PARP1. By determining the kinetics of protein assembly following DNA damage, our study reveals the cooperation between PARP1 and the double strand break sensors MRE11 and NBS1 in the close vicinity of a DNA lesion. This may explain the sensitivity of cancer cells to PARP inhibitors.
College Completion: Comparing AP®, Dual-Enrolled, and Nonadvanced Students

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world's leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT ® and the Advanced Placement Program ®. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators, and schools. For further information, visit www.collegeboard. org. Executive Summary The study presented here is an investigation and comparison of the relationships between the Advanced Placement Program ® (AP ®) and dual-enrolled high school courses and college outcomes. Previous research provides evidence that participation in AP, and subsequent success on AP Exams, is positively related to various college outcomes including an increased likelihood of graduating from college and better preparation for the academic rigor of the college classroom. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the value of advanced course work in high school in preparing students for higher education success by investigating the relationships between participation and performance in AP courses and exams, dual enrollment courses, and regular courses and four different college outcomes including first-year subject-specific GPA, final subject-specific GPA, calendar time to bachelor's degree, and credit hours attempted. Results indicated that higher performance on AP Exams was related to higher college performance in the subject area, as well as fewer credit hours taken to bachelor's degree. Most dual enrollment course grades were at a C or higher, and students taking these courses tended to graduate from college in fewer calendar terms than other groups.