Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Encouraging Behavior: A Foray into Persuasive Computing

Whereas longer queries have been shown to produce better results for information seeking tasks, people tend to type short queries. We created an interface designed to encourage people to construct longer queries, and evaluated it via an exploratory Mechanical Turk experiment. Results suggest that our interface manipulation may be effective for eliciting longer queries, but the effect is compromised when instructions to create longer queries are given.
Targeted Therapy for HM1.24 (CD317) on Multiple Myeloma Cells

Multiple myeloma (MM) still remains an incurable disease, at least because of the existence of cell-adhesion mediated drug-resistant MM cells and/or continuous recruitment of presumed MM cancer stem cell-like cells (CSCs). As a new alternative treatment modality, immunological approaches using monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and/or cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) are now attracting much attention as a novel strategy attacking MM cells. We have identified that HM1.24 [also known as bone marrow stromal cell antigen 2 (BST2) or CD317] is overexpressed on not only mature MM cells but also MM CSCs. We then have developed a humanized mAb to HM1.24 and defucosylated version of the mAb to adapt to clinical practice. Moreover, we have successfully induced HM1.24-specific CTLs against MM cells. The combination of these innovative therapeutic modalities may likely exert an anti-MM activity by evading the drug resistance mechanism and eliminating presumed CSCs in MM.
RollingLight: Enabling Line-of-Sight Light-to-Camera Communications

Recent literatures have demonstrated the feasibility and applicability of light-to-camera communications. They either use this new technology to realize specific applications, e.g., localization, by sending repetitive signal patterns, or consider non-line-of-sight scenarios. We however notice that line-of-sight light-to-camera communications has a great potential because it provides a natural way to enable visual association, i.e., visually associating the received information with the transmitter's identity. Such capability benefits broader applications, such as augmented reality, advertising, and driver assistance systems. Hence, this paper designs, implements, and evaluates RollingLight, a line-of-sight light-to-camera communication system that enables a light to talk to diverse off-the-shelf rolling shutter cameras. To boost the data rate and enhance reliability, RollingLight addresses the following practical challenges. First, its demodulation algorithm allows cameras with heterogeneous sampling rates to accurately decode high-order frequency modulation in real-time. Second, it incorporates a number of designs to resolve the issues caused by inherently unsynchronized light-to-camera channels. We have built a prototype of RollingLight with USRP-N200, and also implemented a real system with Arduino Mega 2560, both tested with a range of different camera receivers. We also implement a real iOS application to examine our real-time decoding capability. The experimental results show that, even to serve commodity cameras with a large variety of frame rates, RollingLight can still deliver a throughput of 11.32 bytes per second.
Functions of Yeast Hsp40 Chaperone Sis1p Dispensable for Prion Propagation but Important for Prion Curing and Protection From Prion Toxicity

Replication of amyloid-based yeast prions [PSI+], [URE3], and [PIN+] depends on the protein disaggregation machinery that includes Hsp104, Hsp70, and Hsp40 molecular chaperones. Yet, overexpressing Hsp104 cures cells of [PSI+] prions. An Hsp70 mutant (Ssa1-21p) antagonizes propagation of [PSI+] in a manner resembling elevated Hsp104. The major cytosolic Hsp40 Sis1p is the only Hsp40 required for replication of these prions, but its role in [PSI+] curing is unknown. Here we find that all nonessential functional regions of Sis1p are dispensable for [PSI+] propagation, suggesting that other Hsp40’s might provide Hsp40 functions required for [PSI+] replication. Conversely, several Sis1p functions were important for promoting antiprion effects of both Ssa1-21p and Hsp104, which implies a link between the antiprion effects of these chaperones and suggests that Sis1p is a specific Hsp40 important for [PSI+] curing. These contrasting findings suggest that the functions of Hsp104 that are important for propagation and elimination of [PSI+] are either distinct or specified by different Hsp40's. This work also uncovered a growth inhibition caused by [PSI+] when certain functions of Sis1p were absent, suggesting that Sis1p protects cells from cytotoxicity caused by [PSI+] prions.
The diversity and abundance of ants in relation to forest disturbance and plantation establishment in southern Cameroon

Summary 1. Tropical biodiversity is seriously threatened by deforestation but few studies have quantified its impact. We aimed to measure the impact of forest clearance and different methods of establishing Terminalia ivorensis (Combretaceae) forest plantations on the abundance, richness and composition of ants, the most abundant group of arthropods in tropical forest canopies, in the Mblamayo Forest Reserve in Cameroon. For canopy ants, we quantified the effects of different methods of plantation establishment by sampling two sets of plots subjected to complete clearance, partial mechanical clearance and partial manual clearance relative to uncleared forest reference plots. For leaf-litter ants, we quantified the impacts of different levels of forest disturbance along a gradient from near primary forest to complete forest clearance. 2. A total of 97 ant species was recorded from the canopy (from approximately 48 500 individuals), at an average of 213 ( ∠ 45) ants m ‐2 . Jack-knife estimates of species richness showed that at one site, Bilik, 87% more species occurred in the partial manual clearance plot than the complete clearance plot, with the partial mechanical clearance plot intermediate. At the other site, Ebogo, ant richness did not vary between treatments. Ants were 20 times more abundant in the partial manual clearance plot in Ebogo than the partial manual clearance plot in Bilik, largely due to a numerous Technomyrmex species that might have reduced ant richness on this plot. 3. Cluster analysis of the similarities in ant species composition between plots, calculated by the Morisita index, showed that site and treatment affected species composition. Neither treatment nor site affected the relative number of species in different nesting categories. 4. A total of 111 ant species (from 3650 individuals) was recorded from the leaf litter, at an average of 52 ( ∠ 4·6) ants m ‐2 . Species numbers were greatest in the two partial clearance plots in Ebogo (52‐53 species), lowest in the two complete clearance plots (37), and intermediate and most variable in the three uncleared forest plots (40‐52). Cluster analysis showed that species composition was not affected by treatment, while neither treatment nor site affected the relative number of ant species in different feeding categories. 5. Despite some local effects by dominant species, our results support the view that deforestation can reduce arthropod species richness. This study is unique in showing that reforestation methods (using a single tree species) can have a marked effect on arthropod species richness and composition. Specifically, it reveals that ant species richness can be greater in plantations established after partial manual clearance than complete clearance.
Measuring the Welfare Gain from Personal Computers

The welfare gain to consumers from the introduction of personal computers is estimated here. A simple model of consumer demand is formulated that uses a slightly modified version of standard preferences. The modification permits marginal utility, and hence total utility, to be finite when the consumption of computers is zero. This implies that the good won't be consumed at a high enough price. It also bounds the consumer surplus derived from the product. The model is calibrated/estimated using standard national income and product account data. The welfare gain from the introduction of personal computers is in the range of 2 to 3 percent of consumption expenditure.
A new higher-order subgridding method for finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm

In this paper the authors present a general subgridding scheme for enhancing the finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm. It is different from the conventional approaches in that it does not employ weighted averages of the electric or magnetic fields in the transition zone from the coarse to the fine grid regions, but employs a novel procedure instead for transferring the information between these two regions. We illustrate the application of the subgridding algorithm by considering refinement factor of 5, and provide validation of the results obtained for this case.
Odontogenic cysts- A clinicopathological study of 120 cases

Odontgenic cysts are pathological lesions originating from tooth forming structures and they deserve critical attention due to the complications they cause. We report a study of 120 cases of dontogenic cysts with the features recorded as age, sex, site, etiology, incidence, radiological features and histological features for confirmative diagnosis.
Enabling dynamic content caching for database-driven web sites

Web performance is a key differentiation among content providers. Snafus and slowdowns at major web sites demonstrate the difficulty that companies face trying to scale to a large amount of web traffic. One solution to this problem is to store web content at server-side and edge-caches for fast delivery to the end users. However, for many e-commerce sites, web pages are created dynamically based on the current state of business processes, represented in application servers and databases. Since application servers, databases, web servers, and caches are independent components, there is no efficient mechanism to make changes in the database content reflected to the cached web pages. As a result, most application servers have to mark dynamically generated web pages as non-cacheable. In this paper, we describe the architectural framework of the CachePortal system for enabling dynamic content caching for database-driven e-commerce sites. We describe techniques for intelligently invalidating dynamically generated web pages in the caches, thereby enabling caching of web pages generated based on database contents. We use some of the most popular components in the industry to illustrate the deployment and applicability of the proposed architecture.
Forecasting the Change of Reservoir Water Level Stage Using Neural Network

The reservoir is one of the structural defenses that function to reduce the negative effect of flood and drought. The decision of water release is very critical in both situations where it is influenced by changes of reservoir water level. In this study, the potential of neural network model for forecasting the change of reservoir water level stage is studied. Six neural network models have been developed and tested. Sliding windows have been used to segment the data into various ranges. The finding shows that 2 days of delay have affected the change in stage of the reservoir water level. The finding was achieved through 4-17-1 neural network architecture.
Holmium: YAG lithotripsy: photothermal mechanism.

OBJECTIVE A series of experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that the mechanism of holmium:YAG lithotripsy is photothermal. METHODS AND RESULTS To show that holmium:YAG lithotripsy requires direct absorption of optical energy, stone loss was compared for 150 J Ho:YAG lithotripsy of calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) stones for hydrated stones irradiated in water (17+/-3 mg) and hydrated stones irradiated in air (25+/-9 mg) v dehydrated stones irradiated in air (40+/-12 mg) (P < 0.001). To show that Ho:YAG lithotripsy occurs prior to vapor bubble collapse, the dynamics of lithotripsy in water and vapor bubble formation were documented with video flash photography. Holmium:YAG lithotripsy began at 60 microsec, prior to vapor bubble collapse. To show that Ho:YAG lithotripsy is fundamentally related to stone temperature, cystine, and COM mass loss was compared for stones initially at room temperature (approximately 23 degrees C) v frozen stones ablated within 2 minutes after removal from the freezer. Cystine and COM mass losses were greater for stones starting at room temperature than cold (P < or = 0.05). To show that Ho:YAG lithotripsy involves a thermochemical reaction, composition analysis was done before and after lithotripsy. Postlithotripsy, COM yielded calcium carbonate; cystine yielded cysteine and free sulfur; calcium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate yielded calcium pyrophosphate; magnesium ammonium phosphate yielded ammonium carbonate and magnesium carbonate; and uric acid yielded cyanide. To show that Ho:YAG lithotripsy does not create significant shockwaves, pressure transients were measured during lithotripsy using needle hydrophones. Peak pressures were <2 bars. CONCLUSION The primary mechanism of Ho:YAG lithotripsy is photothermal. There are no significant photoacoustic effects.
AN IMPROVED PACKET LOSS RECOVERY IN VOIP USING COMBINED SOURCE AND RECEIVER BASED TECHNIQUE

Voice over Internet Protocol is an upcoming technology that enables voice communication through the Internet. The transmission of audio data over packet switched networks faces lot of difficulties by a variety of network impairments such as packet loss, delay, echo, network security and throughput. This paper focuses on packet loss which is a crucial problem to be addressed. A sender and receiver based repair technique is proposed to overcome the difficulties faced by voip. This paper also proposes an evaluation of speech quality by applying improved Packet Loss Concealment (PLC) algorithms with an end-to-end bidirectional transmission control scheme. It performs better quality monitoring of VoIP service both at the sender and the receiver side. This work is implemented in real time transmission control scheme. The obtained results suggest that the overall quality of voice can be quite beneficial for real time applications.
Relationship between Locus of Control and Chronological Age

A study was conducted to replicate and extend the findings of Lao (1974) which showed an increasing sense of personal efficacy from youth to adulthood, a stabilized sense of internal control through middle age, and no decrease in internality among elderly Ss. Current findings (100 college students, an occupational survey sample of 383) generally replicate these outcomes. Also, elderly Ss believed they were personally competent, and not at the mercy of powerful others or a capricious environment. Such findings question stereotypes of elderly as powerless and dependent on others to subsist in a threatening and unreliable environment.
Purity: Building Fast, Highly-Available Enterprise Flash Storage from Commodity Components

Although flash storage has largely replaced hard disks in consumer class devices, enterprise workloads pose unique challenges that have slowed adoption of flash in ``performance tier'' storage appliances. In this paper, we describe Purity, the foundation of Pure Storage's Flash Arrays, the first all-flash enterprise storage system to support compression, deduplication, and high-availability. Purity borrows techniques from modern database and key-value storage architectures, and introduces novel storage primitives that have wide applicability to data management systems. For instance, all writes in Purity are monotonic, and deletions are handled using an atomic predicate-based tuple elision primitive. Purity's redundancy mechanisms are optimized for SSD failure modes and performance characteristics, allowing for fast recovery from component failures and lower space overhead than the best hard disk systems. We built deduplication and data compression schemes atop these primitives. Flash changes storage capacity/performance tradeoffs: unlike disk-based systems, flash deployments are rarely performance bound. A single Purity appliance can provide over 7GiB/s of throughput on 32KiB random I/Os, even through multiple device failures, and while providing asynchronous off-site replication. Typical installations have 99.9% latencies under 1ms, and production arrays average 5.4x data reduction and 99.999% availability. Purity takes advantage of storage performance increasing more rapidly than computational performance to build a simpler (with respect to engineering, installation, and management) scale-up storage appliance that supports hundreds of terabytes of highly-available, high-performance storage. The resulting performance and capacity supports many customer deployments of multiple applications, including scale-out and parallel systems, such as MongoDB and Oracle RAC, on a single Purity appliance.
New Challenges in the Growth Field

When unlimited supplies of biosynthetic human growth hormone (hGH) became available in the late 1980s, the envisaged potential of its therapeutic applications was enormous in that it was hoped that perhaps most short children would be able to be made taller. However, this seems to have been far too simplistic a view and certainly in those children with various growth disorders treated with pharmacological doses of growth hormone (GH), the potential for increased final height does not appear to be fulfilled, with the exception of girls with Turner's syndrome. Further challenges in the growth field involve the manipulation of pubertal development during concomitant GH therapy.
Periodic Configurations of Subshifts on Groups

We study the density of periodic configurations for shift spaces defined on (the Cayley graph of) a finitely generated group. We prove that in the case of a full shift on a residually finite group and in that of a group shift space on an abelian group, the periodic configurations are dense. In the one-dimensional case we prove the density for irreducible sofic shifts. In connection with this we study the surjunctivity of cellular automata and local selfmappings. Some related decision problems for shift spaces of finite type are also investigated.
An efficient algorithm for fingerprint matching

This paper proposes novel topology-based algorithms for fingerprint matching. Three major aspects of fingerprint matching are considered: local matching, tolerance to deformation and global matching. The approach improves both the accuracy and the speed of fingerprint identification. Computational geometry methods including Delaunay triangulation and spatial interpolation are used. The proposed methods are able to efficiently deal with the distortions of fingerprints. Experimental results confirm that the algorithms presented are effective and more efficient compared to other fingerprint matching algorithms
Bell-state diagonal entanglement witnesses for relativistic and nonrelativistic multispinor systems in arbitrary dimensions

Two kinds of Bell-state diagonal (BSD) entanglement witnesses (EWs) are constructed by using the algebra of Dirac $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ matrices in a space-time of arbitrary dimension $d$, where the first kind can detect some BSD relativistic and nonrelativistic $m$-partite multispinor bound entangled states in a Hilbert space of dimension ${2}^{m\ensuremath{\lfloor}d/2\ensuremath{\rfloor}}$, including the bipartite Bell-type and isoconcurrence-type states in four-dimensional space-time $(d=4)$. By using the connection between the Hilbert-Schmidt measure and the optimal EWs associated with the states, it is shown that, as far as the spin quantum correlations are concerned, the amount of entanglement is not a relativistic scalar and has no invariant meaning. The introduced EWs are manipulated via linear programming (LP) and can be solved exactly by using the simplex method. The decomposability or nondecomposability of these EWs is investigated, the region of nondecomposable EWs of the first kind is partially determined and it is shown that, all of the EWs of the second kind are decomposable. These EWs have the property that in bipartite systems they can determine the region of separable states, i.e., bipartite nondetectable density matrices of the same type as the EWs of the first kind are necessarily separable. Also, multispinor EWs with nonpolygon feasible regions are provided, where the problem is solved by approximate LP, and in contrast to the exactly manipulatable EWs, both the first and second kinds of the optimal approximate EWs can detect some bound entangled states.
Courtship American Style: Newspaper Ads*

This study investigated an increasing social phenomenon-newspaper advertising for dating or marital partners-in terms of the bargaining process involved. Content analysis of personal ads in a popular "respectable" singles newspaper revealed a pattern of offers and requests reminiscent of a heterosexual stock market. Exchange theory provided a theoretica! context for analyzing the personal ads. Findings confirmed expectations that advertisers sought to maximize their profit by presenting a positive image of themselves. In addition, traditionally sex-appropriate characteristics were claimed and desired, suggesting that shifting sex role expectations are not evident in this type of mate-selection.
Historical and Physical Account on Entropy and Perspectives on the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Astrophysical and Cosmological Systems

We performed an in depth analysis of the subjects of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics and how they are treated in astrophysical systems. These subjects are retraced historically from the early works on thermodynamics to the modern statistical mechanical approach and analyzed in view of specific practices within the field of astrophysics. As often happens in discussions regarding cosmology, the implications of this analysis range from physics to philosophy of science. We argue that the difficult question regarding entropy and the second law in the scope of cosmology is a consequence of the dominating paradigm. We further demonstrate this point by assuming an alternative paradigm, not related to thermodynamics of horizons, and successfully describing entropic behavior of astrophysical systems.
Towards optical biopsy of olfactory cells using concentric tube robots with follow-the-leader deployment

In this paper, we propose to take advantage of concentric tube robots (CTR) properties to design a robotic system for optical biopsies with fiber-based imaging modalities. Follow-the-leader (FTL) deployment, with CTR body following its tip, is being integrated as a design constraint in order to minimize the device invasiveness. A design procedure is proposed and developed in the context of olfactory cell inspection. Stability issues of CTR are considered with theoretical validation of FTL deployment. Finally, an experimental assessment in lab conditions is being conducted that includes the device deployment and the reproduction of scanning task for imaging. The whole surface to be inspected can be accessed, and 20 μm resolution of the CTR tip is observed.