Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Streptococcal cysteine proteinase releases kinins: a virulence mechanism

Previous work has indicated a crucial role for the extracellular cysteine proteinase of Streptococcus pyogenes in the pathogenicity and virulence of this important human pathogen. Here we find that the purified streptococcal cysteine proteinase releases biologically active kinins from their purified precursor protein, H-kininogen, in vitro, and from kininogens present in the human plasma, ex vivo. Kinin liberation in the plasma is due to the direct action of the streptococcal proteinase on the kininogens, and does not involve the previous activation of plasma prekallikrein, the physiological plasma kininogenase. Judged from the amount of released plasma kinins the bacterial proteinase is highly efficient in its action. This is also the case in vivo. Injection of the purified cysteine proteinase into the peritoneal cavity of mice resulted in a progressive cleavage of plasma kininogens and the concomitant release of kinins over a period of 5 h. No kininogen degradation was seen in mice when the cysteine proteinase was inactivated by the specific inhibitor, Z-Leu-Val-Gly- CHN2, before administration. Intraperitoneal administration into mice of living S. pyogenes bacteria producing the cysteine proteinase induced a rapid breakdown of endogenous plasma kininogens and release of kinins. Kinins are hypotensive, they increase vascular permeability, contract smooth muscle, and induce fever and pain. The release of kinins by the cysteine proteinase of S. pyogenes could therefore represent an important and previously unknown virulence mechanism in S. pyogenes infections.
Transactions with Consistency Choices on Geo-Replicated Cloud Storage

Pileus is a replicated and scalable key-value storage system that features geo-replicated transactions with varying degrees of consistency chosen by applications. Each transaction reads from a snapshot selected based on its requested consistency, from strong to eventual consistency or intermediate guarantees such as read-my-writes, monotonic, bounded, and causal.
Implementing and Monitoring the Response to Intervention Process: The Special Educator Perspective.

As a result of the varied implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) and uneven occurrence of professional development, special education teachers struggle to adapt to new roles and responsibilities. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the role of special education teachers in implementing and monitoring RTI, the role change of special education teachers as a result of RTI, and the professional development required to support special education teachers implementing RTI. The results suggest a need for greater collaboration between general and special educators in the areas of implementation, fidelity monitoring, and professional development. Implementing and Monitoring the Response to Intervention Process: The Special Educator Perspective The 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) permits states, districts, and schools to use Response to Intervention (RTI) for determining eligibility for special education. This change in federal legislation spurred a ripple effect impacting the roles of administrative, related service, and instructional personnel (The National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities [NJCLD], 2005). For example, special education teachers’ roles evolved to support general education students and teachers during the RTI process. As a result, special educators struggle to develop strong implementation and monitoring skills to ensure the fidelity of effective programming in the general education setting (Kovaleski, 2007). In addition, professional development is needed to train and support special education teachers in building and maintaining skills needed to implement and monitor RTI with fidelity (Hoover & Patton, 2008). Whereas teachers are the lynchpin of educational change (Fullan, 2001), the purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of special educators related to role change, job-related responsibilities, and professional development needs in a mid-sized school district in the fifth year of RTI implementation. Specifically, it will explore areas for professional development that can enhance fidelity of implementation at the school and district levels. According to the National Center on Response to Intervention (NCRTI, n.d.), RTI is a school improvement effort
The Possible Laws on Digital/Electronic Signature: On the Proposed UNCITRAL Model

What is the connection between the UNCITRAL model for electronic commerce laws and the U.S. 2000 presidential election imbroglio? How does this connection, if recognized, resonates certain milestones of our civilization's heritage, legacies from the Phoenicians and from the Roman empire? There is something basic about human communication and reasoning which weaves through these themes, in the way our languages work: trust. And the moment seems ripe for reflecting upon the weaving of trust thus produced. This article offers some personal views on an astonishingly neglected dimension of the virtualization of our social processes, set in motion by the digital revolution, in which the underlying texture of trust ceases to be treated as a transparent veil.
A Wireless Body Sensor Network and Its Applications: Rehearsal with a Smartphone

Wireless body sensor network (WBSN) technologies are considered one of attracting research areas in computer science. When combined with the healthcare application, it provides high value technology of comprehensive healthcare monitoring solution in extreme situations including high altitude or disaster area enabling the ground controller to monitor remote pilots or earthquake victims in real time by combination of wireless sensors and sensor networks. Sensor networks are irregular clusters of communicating sensor nodes, which collect and process information from onboard sensors, and they can share some of this information with neighboring nodes. By recent technological advances in the integration of ultra-low power networks of miniatured sensors, embedded microcontrollers and radio interfaces on an all-in-one chip can collect important physiologic informations from the surrounding environment efficiently. In addition, the sensed physiological data transmitted to a remote healthcare provider can be modulated and fed back by processing software such as artificial intelligence system enriching capability of the sensor network. In this study, we develop a wireless body sensor network which integrates different physiological sensors with radiointerface to sense physiological data from a human body, and then rehearses to transmits the data to a remote healthcare cloud through a smartphone as an interface. Test results for simulated measurements of wireless transmission and emulation in a smartphone are given and discussed.
Dentofacial abnormalities among adolescents: A study on the prevalence and severity

Background The objectives of this investigation were to assess prevalence and severity of dentofacial abnormalities and orthodontic treatment need among adolescents in Mangalore taluk. Material and Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1340 children from randomly selected high schools. A proforma was used to record demographic data and components of the Dental Aesthetic Index [DAI] for each subject. The Chi squared test was used for analysis with p-value of < 0.05 considered statistically significant. Results Dentofacial abnormalities (DAI scores ≥ 26) were recorded in 38.5% subjects. Mean DAI score of the study population was 24.59 ± 6.09. Female subjects presented with higher prevalence and higher mean DAI scores than their male counterparts (p > 0.05). Assessment of severity of malocclusion between age groups revealed no differences (p > 0.05). Orthodontic treatment was highly desirable in 11% and mandatory in 5.2% subjects. Conclusions A high prevalence of dentofacial abnormalities was found among adolescents in Mangalore taluk pointing towards a need for designing effective programs for early diagnosis and treatment of this condition, especially among adolescents. Key words:Adolescents, Dental Aesthetic Index [DAI], dentofacial abnormalities, malocclusion, orthodontic treatment need, prevalence, severity.
Low cost token maintains ring-like P2P network

In order to solve the problem of maintenance messages increased linearly with the number of neighbors in the ring-like P2P network and traditional token mechanism could not control the token number, we propose method of control speed token to maintain the ring-like P2P network. Token transmit in ring-link P2P network in the form of message, and node information could record in token in order to keep the structure of network for other nodes. P2P network use control speed parameter to reduce the number of tokens. Simulation shows that control speed parameter could effectively reduce the number of token in P2P network; with the increasing scale of the network, the average maintenance costs of node remain unchanged.
Exploring the Benefits of Using Redundant Responses in Crowdsourced Evaluations

Crowd sourcing can be an efficient and cost-effective way to evaluate software engineering research, particularly when the evaluation can be broken down into small, independent tasks. In prior work, we crowd sourced evaluations for a refactoring technique for web mashups and for a source code search engine, both using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. In the refactoring study, preference information was gathered when comparing a refactored with an unrefactored pipe, in addition to a free-text justification. In the code search study, information was gathered about whether a code snippet was relevant to a programming task and why. In both studies, we used redundant metrics and gathered quantitative and qualitative data in an effort to control response quality. Our prior work only analyzed the quantitative results. In this work, we explore the value of using such redundant metrics in crowd sourced evaluations. We code the free-text responses to unveil common themes among the responses and then compare those themes with the quantitative results. Our findings indicate high similarity between the quantitative and free-text responses, that the quantitative results are sometimes more positive than the free-text response, and that some of the qualitative responses point to potential inadequacies with the quantitative questions from the studies.
Evaluation of the Antimicrobial Effect of Conventional and Nanosilver-Containing Varnishes on Oral Streptococci

Statement of the Problem: Nanosilver particles have the potential to serve as a bactericidal agent because of the inherent antimicrobial influences of silver ion. The literature confirmed that specific micro-organisms, especially streptococci, have an important role as an etiological factor for caries. Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial effect of conventional and nanosilver-containing varnishes on oral streptococci. Materials and Method: Pure cultivations of Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus salivarius were prepared on blood agar media. Thereafter, 0.5 McFarland standard of recently grown bacteria in normal saline was prepared and the bacteria were cultivated monotonously on the culture medium surface by applying a swab. Different concentrations of nanosilver varnishes were prepared in the Mueller- Hinton broth medium in the test tubes and equal amounts of 0.5 McFarland suspension of all the tested bacteria were added separately to all test tubes. A tube without varnish was included as the control sample. The tubes were kept at 37°C for 24 hours, then cultured to determine the numbers of bacteria in each tube by counting colonies. The numbers of bacteria in tubes with varnish were compared to the numbers of bacteria in the tube without varnish. In the instance of observing any reduction in the growth, the minimum inhibitory concentration for growth in the tube with varnish was determined. Results: Nanosilver varnish had an antimicrobial effect on S. mutans and S. salivarius. S. salivarius was more susceptible than S. mutans to the nanosilver varnish. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, nanosilver varnishes can be used under amalgam restorations to reduce microbial population and subsequently preventing the recurrent caries.
The Imperative Paradigm of Korowai, a language of West Papua

The imperative paradigm of Korowai, a Papuan language of West Papua, is the richest independent verb paradigm of Korowai: it makes more tense, aspect, mood, person and number distinctions than all other verb paradigms. This formal richness is matched by functional richness: imperatives are used in a typologically striking range of contexts, for example in bridging constructions (tail-head linkage), in the domain of inner states (through quotative framing of emotion, thoughts and intentions) and in both addressee-inclusive and addressee-exclusive contexts (in the case of first person plural imperatives). Although the imperative paradigm may express the widest range of TAM distinctions of all verb forms, the only obligatory distinctions are for those for person and number, with its own set of person and number suffixes. Diachronically, the Korowai imperative paradigm developed from a basic injunctive zero paradigm of proto Greater Awyu that has reflexes in all branches and languages of the Greater Awyu family, but with different ranges of grammatical meanings, all in a broad domain of unactualised events, covering both non-directive (irrealis) and directive meanings (imperative, hortative, desiderative, jussive) .
Somatosensory Findings of Pusher Syndrome in Stroke Patients

Objective To investigate the somatosensory findings of pusher syndrome in stroke patients. Methods Twelve pusher patients and twelve non-pusher patients were enrolled in this study. Inclusion criteria were unilateral stroke, sufficient cognitive abilities to understand and follow instructions, and no visual problem. Patients were evaluated for pusher syndrome using a standardized scale for contraversive pushing. Somatosensory finding was assessed by the Cumulative Somatosensory Impairment Index (CSII) and somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) at 1 and 14 weeks after the stroke onset. Data of SEPs with median and tibial nerve stimulation were classified into the normal, abnormal, and no response group. Results In the baseline characteristics (sex, lesion character, and side) of both groups, significant differences were not found. The score of CSII decreased in both groups at 14 weeks (p<0.05), but there were no significant differences in the CSII scores between the two groups at 1 and 14 weeks. There were no significant differences in SEPs between the two groups at 1 and 14 weeks after the stroke onset. Conclusion It appears that somatosensory input plays a relatively minor role in pusher syndrome. Further study will be required to reveal the mechanism of pusher syndrome.
to the activation mechanism

Nicolas Le NoveÁ re, Pierre Jean Corringer, Stuart Edelstein, and Jean-Pierre Changeux, Institut Pasteur, URA 2182 CNRS `ReÂcepteurs et Cognition', DeÂpartement des Biotechnologies, 25 rue du Dr Roux, 75724 Paris cedex 15, UniversiteÂ Pierre et Marie Curie, UMR 7102 CNRS `Neurobiologie des Processus Adaptatifs', 7 quai St Bernard, 75005 Paris, France and DeÂpartement de Biochimie, UniversiteÂ de GeneÁve, 30 quai Ernest-Ansermet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
TagRadar: locating objects using a smart phone accessory

TagRadar is a smart phone accessory that helps users to locate objects with radio frequency tags. We employ a directional antenna and combine signal strength readings with headings obtained from the compass of the smart phone. While scanning a space by waving the smart phone, the aggregated data is presented on an on-screen polar graph that dynamically reveals the most likely heading of the target object. A user test showed that users favor TagRadar and that it is both faster and has a higher accuracy compared to using only signal strength.
Detecting Wikipedia Vandalism using WikiTrust - Lab Report for PAN at CLEF 2010

WikiTrust is a reputation system for Wikipedia authors and content. WikiTrust computes three main quantities: edit quality, author reputation, and content reputation. The edit quality measures how well each edit, that is, each change introduced in a revision, is preserved in subsequent revisions. Authors who perform good quality edits gain reputation, and text which is revised by several high-reputation authors gains reputation. Since vandalism on the Wikipedia is usually performed by anonymous or new users (not least because long-time vandals end up banned), and is usually reverted in a reasonably short span of time, edit quality, author reputation, and content reputation are obvious candidates as features to identify vandalism on the Wikipedia. Indeed, using the full set of features computed by WikiTrust, we have been able to construct classiﬁers that identify vandalism with a recall of 83.5%, a precision of 48.5%, and a false positive rate of 8%, for an area under the ROC curve of 93.4%. If we limit our-selves to the set of features available at the time an edit is made (when the edit quality is still unknown), the classiﬁer achieves a recall of 77.1%, a precision of 36.9%, and a false positive rate of 12.2%, for an area under the ROC curve of 90.4%. Usingthese classiﬁers, we have implemented a simple Web API that provides the vandalism estimate for every revision of the English Wikipedia. The API can be used both to identify vandalism that needs to be reverted, and to select high-quality, non-vandalized recent revisions of any given Wikipedia article. These recent high-quality revisions can be included in static snapshots of the Wikipedia, or they can be used whenever tolerance to vandalism is low (as in a school setting, or whenever the material is widely disseminated).
On Two Problems in the Generation of Program Test Paths

In this paper we analyze the complexity of algorithms for two problems that arise in automatic test path generation for programs: the problem of building a path through a specified set of program statements and the problem of building a path which satisfies impossible-pairs restrictions on statement pairs. These problems are both reduced to graph traversal problems. We give an efficient algorithm for the first, and show that the second is NP-complete.
Commentary on: Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research

Background This paper is a commentary to the article entitled: “Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research”, by Billieux, Schimmenti, Khazaal, Maurage and Heeren (2015). Methods and Aims In this manuscript, we commented on two aspects developed by the authors. Billieux et al. (2015) propose that the recent development of propositions of behavioral addiction is driven by an unwise application of an addiction model to excessive behaviors and rests on a confirmatory research strategy that does not question the psychological processes underlying the development of the conduct. They also show that applying a process driven strategy leads to a more appropriate description of the reality of the behavior and conduct, in particular by describing a variety of motivations for the excessive behavior, which is central to understanding the nature of the conduct. We believe that this new approach, which is fruitful to the emerging domain of behavioral addictions, could also apply to the domain of addictions in general. The latter is characterized by the application of a generic biological model, largely influenced by animal models, focusing on neurophysiological determinants of addiction. This approach may have decreased the attention paid to dimensions of addictions that are more specifically human. We will firstly briefly argue on the limitation of this neurophysiological addiction model for the field of excessive behavioral conducts. Secondly, we will argue for an approach centered on the differentiation of motivations and on the adaptive dimension of the behavior when it first developed and on the evocation of a transition where the conduct became independent of its original function. Conclusions The emerging domain of behavioral addictions, where no animal model has been developed so far, may bring a new reflection that may apply to the domain of addictions in general, with a specific attention to human questions.
COMPLEX-COEFFICIENT POLYNOMIAL ROOTS BY A STABILITY CRITERION

Computation of polynomial roots is a problem that arises in various domains of science and engineering, and has thus received much attention in years, with marked recent progress. This paper introduces a new numerical algorithm for computing the roots of a complex-coefficient polynomial of degree n. The method is based on bracketing, in the spirit of Lehmer-Schur [1], but uses a robust stability criterion from system theory due to Agashe [2], which generalizes the Routh-Hurwitz criterion. The algorithm is simple to implement, and its accuracy is tested using both welland ill-conditioned polynomials. The results show excellent convergence, as compared to the companion-matrix eigenvalues method used often in numerical packages, such as MATLAB [3]. The algorithm is also flexible: precision can be tuned, and custom search regions can be specified.
VARIUS: A Model of Process Variation and Resulting Timing Errors for Microarchitects

Within-die parameter variation poses a major challenge to high-performance microprocessor design, negatively impacting a processor's frequency and leakage power. Addressing this problem, this paper proposes a microarchitecture-aware model for process variation-including both random and systematic effects. The model is specified using a small number of highly intuitive parameters. Using the variation model, this paper also proposes a framework to model timing errors caused by parameter variation. The model yields the failure rate of microarchitectural blocks as a function of clock frequency and the amount of variation. With the combination of the variation model and the error model, we have VARIUS, a comprehensive model that is capable of producing detailed statistics of timing errors as a function of different process parameters and operating conditions. We propose possible applications of VARIUS to microarchitectural research.