Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Excessive Appetite for Pornography: Development and Evaluation of the Pornography Craving Questionnaire (PCQ-12)

Harold Rosenberg, Advisor Despite the prevalence of pornography use, and recent conceptualization of excessive, problematic use as an addiction, I could find no published scale to measure craving for pornography. Therefore, I conducted three studies employing young male pornography users to develop and evaluate such a questionnaire. In Study 1, I had participants rate their agreement with 20 potential craving items after reading a control script or a script designed to induce craving to watch pornography. I dropped eight items because of low endorsement and found that the craving script did not yield higher mean scores across the remaining 12 items. In Study 2, I revised both the questionnaire and cue exposure stimuli, and then evaluated several psychometric properties of the modified questionnaire. Item loadings from a principal components analysis, a high internal consistency reliability coefficient, and a moderate mean inter-item correlation supported interpreting the 12 revised items as a single scale. Correlations of craving scores with selected sexual history and personality variables provided support for criterion validity and discriminant validity, respectively. The enhanced imagery script did not impact reported craving; however, more frequent users of pornography reported higher craving than less frequent users regardless of script condition. In Study 3, craving scores demonstrated good one-week test-retest reliability and predicted the number of times participants used pornography during the following week. The questionnaire could be applied in clinical and research settings to plan and evaluate treatment and to assess the prevalence of craving among recreational and problematic users of pornography. Excessive Appetite for Pornography iii
Mouse Hepatitis Coronavirus RNA Replication Depends on GBF1-Mediated ARF1 Activation

Coronaviruses induce in infected cells the formation of double membrane vesicles, which are the sites of RNA replication. Not much is known about the formation of these vesicles, although recent observations indicate an important role for the endoplasmic reticulum in the formation of the mouse hepatitis coronavirus (MHV) replication complexes (RCs). We now show that MHV replication is sensitive to brefeldin A (BFA). Consistently, expression of a dominant-negative mutant of ARF1, known to mimic the action of the drug, inhibited MHV infection profoundly. Immunofluorescence analysis and quantitative electron microscopy demonstrated that BFA did not block the formation of RCs per se, but rather reduced their number. MHV RNA replication was not sensitive to BFA in MDCK cells, which are known to express the BFA-resistant guanine nucleotide exchange factor GBF1. Accordingly, individual knockdown of the Golgi-resident targets of BFA by transfection of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) showed that GBF1, but not BIG1 or BIG2, was critically involved in MHV RNA replication. ARF1, the cellular effector of GBF1, also appeared to be involved in MHV replication, as siRNAs targeting this small GTPase inhibited MHV infection significantly. Collectively, our results demonstrate that GBF1-mediated ARF1 activation is required for efficient MHV RNA replication and reveal that the early secretory pathway and MHV replication complex formation are closely connected.
Moderate Caloric Restriction during Gestation in Rats Alters Adipose Tissue Sympathetic Innervation and Later Adiposity in Offspring

Maternal prenatal undernutrition predisposes offspring to higher adiposity in adulthood. Mechanisms involved in these programming effects, apart from those described in central nervous system development, have not been established. Here we aimed to evaluate whether moderate caloric restriction during early pregnancy in rats affects white adipose tissue (WAT) sympathetic innervation in the offspring, and its relationship with adiposity development. For this purpose, inguinal and retroperitoneal WAT (iWAT and rpWAT, respectively) were analyzed in male and female offspring of control and 20% caloric-restricted (from 1–12 d of pregnancy) (CR) dams. Body weight (BW), the weight, DNA-content, morphological features and the immunoreactive tyrosine hydroxylase and Neuropeptide Y area (TH+ and NPY+ respectively, performed by immunohistochemistry) of both fat depots, were studied at 25 d and 6 m of age, the latter after 2 m exposure to high fat diet. At 6 m of life, CR males but not females, exhibited greater BW, and greater weight and total DNA-content in iWAT, without changes in adipocytes size, suggesting the development of hyperplasia in this depot. However, in rpWAT, CR males but not females, showed larger adipocyte diameter, with no changes in DNA-content, suggesting the development of hypertrophy. These parameters were not different between control and CR animals at the age of 25 d. In iWAT, both at 25 d and 6 m, CR males but not females, showed lower TH+ and NPY+, suggesting lower sympathetic innervation in CR males compared to control males. In rpWAT, at 6 m but not at 25 d, CR males but not females, showed lower TH+ and NPY+. Thus, the effects of caloric restriction during gestation on later adiposity and on the differences in the adult phenotype between internal and subcutaneous fat depots in the male offspring may be associated in part with specific alterations in sympathetic innervation, which may impact on WAT architecture.
Composite Neuroendocrine Carcinoma with Adenocarcinoma of the Stomach Misdiagnosed as a Giant Submucosal Tumor

A composite glandular/exocrine-endocrine carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract is characterized by the co-existence of two adjacent, but histologically-distinct tumors in an organ. Composite glandular/exocrine-endocrine carcinomas are a special type of tumor comprised of common adenocarcinomas and neuroendocrine components that account for at least one-third of the entire tumor area. Composite tumors have been reported in a range of organs, but are relatively rare in the stomach. We report a case of a composite neuroendocrine carcinoma with an adenocarcinoma of the stomach (mixed exocrine-endocrine carcinoma), which was misdiagnosed as a giant submucosal tumor preoperatively based on esophagogastroduodenoscopy and a contrast-enhanced axial computed tomographic scan.
Combustion Fundamentals

To understand the fonnation of pollutants in combustion systems, we must first understand the nature of the fuels being burned, the thennodynamics of the combustion process , and some aspects of flame structure. In this chapter we discuss fundamental aspects of hydrocarbon fuel combustion that relate directly to the fonnation of pollutants or to the control of emissions. Questions of flame stability, detonations, and several other important aspects of combustion science are beyond the scope of the present discussion and will not be treated. Specific pollution control problems will be addressed in detail in later chapters. 2.1 FUELS Of the spectrum of fuels currently in widespread use, the simplest in composition is natural gas, which consists primarily of methane but includes a number of other constituents as well. The compositions of other gaseous fuels are generally more complex, but they are, at least, readily detennined. Table 2.1 illustrates the range of compositions encountered in gaseous fuels, both natural and synthetic. Infonnation on the composition of liquid or solid fuels is generally much more limited than that for gaseous fuels. Rarely is the molecular composition known since liquid fuels are usually complex mixtures of a large number of hydrocarbon species. The most commonly reported composition data are derived from the ultimate analysis, which consists of measurements of the elemental composition of the fuel, generally presented as mass fractions of carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen, and ash, where appro-59
A New Similarity Measure for the Anomaly Intrusion Detection

This paper introduces a new similarity measure that can be applied for the anomaly intrusion detection by using weighted complete bipartite graphs. The first set of nodes represents users, while the second set depicts the characteristics defining his profile. The weight on each edge is computed from the frequency of appearances of characteristics for a given user. We demonstrate the validity of our measure by fulfilling the set of rules defined for any similarity measure.
Academic Writing in a Second Language: Essays on Research and Pedagogy

ISSUES When Practice Doesn't Make Perfect: The Case of a Graduate ESL Student Good Writing: I Know it When I See It Redefining the Task: An Ethnographic Examination of Writing and Response in Graduate Seminars Local Interactions: Constructing Contexts for Composing in a Graduate Sociology Program RESEARCH Writing in the Natural Sciences and Engineering. Writing Critically Across the Curriculum Writing from Sources: Case Studies of Graduate Students in Business Management Consciousness Raising and Article Pedagogy Holistic Scoring in ESL Writing Assessment: What Does an Analysis of Rhetorical Features Reveal? A Comparison of the Use of Citations in Chinese and English Academic Discourse PEDAGOGY Teaching Classroom and Authentic Genres: Initiating Students into Academic Cultures and Discourses Common-core and Specific Approaches to the Teaching of Academic Writing The ESL Technical Expert: Writing Processes and Classroom Practices Negotiating the Syllabus: A Learning-Centered, Interactive Approach to ESL Graduate Writing Course Design A Genre-Based Developmental Writing Course for Undergraduate ESL Science Majors Fostering Writing Expertise in ESL Composition Instruction: Modeling and Evaluation Author Index Subject Index
Parsimonious Higher-Order Hidden Markov Models for Improved Array-CGH Analysis with Applications to Arabidopsis thaliana

Array-based comparative genomic hybridization (Array-CGH) is an important technology in molecular biology for the detection of DNA copy number polymorphisms between closely related genomes. Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are popular tools for the analysis of Array-CGH data, but current methods are only based on first-order HMMs having constrained abilities to model spatial dependencies between measurements of closely adjacent chromosomal regions. Here, we develop parsimonious higher-order HMMs enabling the interpolation between a mixture model ignoring spatial dependencies and a higher-order HMM exhaustively modeling spatial dependencies. We apply parsimonious higher-order HMMs to the analysis of Array-CGH data of the accessions C24 and Col-0 of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We compare these models against first-order HMMs and other existing methods using a reference of known deletions and sequence deviations. We find that parsimonious higher-order HMMs clearly improve the identification of these polymorphisms. Moreover, we perform a functional analysis of identified polymorphisms revealing novel details of genomic differences between C24 and Col-0. Additional model evaluations are done on widely considered Array-CGH data of human cell lines indicating that parsimonious HMMs are also well-suited for the analysis of non-plant specific data. All these results indicate that parsimonious higher-order HMMs are useful for Array-CGH analyses. An implementation of parsimonious higher-order HMMs is available as part of the open source Java library Jstacs (www.jstacs.de/index.php/PHHMM).
Two-phase distributed observation problems

We introduce and study problems of distributed observation with bounded or unbounded memory. We are given a system modeled as a finite-word language L over some finite alphabet /spl Sigma/ and subalphabets /spl Sigma//sub 1/,. , /spl Sigma//sub n/ of /spl Sigma/ modeling n distinct observation points. We want to build (when there exist) n observers which collect projections of a behavior in L onto /spl Sigma//sub 1/,. , /spl Sigma//sub n/, then send them to a central decision point. The latter must determine whether the original behavior was in a given K /spl sube/ L. In the unbounded-memory case, observers record the entire sequence they observe. In the bounded-memory case, they are required to be finite-state automata. We show that, when L is trace-closed with respect to the usual dependence relation induced by /spl Sigma//sub 1/,. , /spl Sigma//sub n/, unbounded-memory observability is equivalent to K being centrally observable and trace-closed, thus decidable. When L is not trace-closed, the problem is undecidable, even if K and L are regular. We also show that bounded-memory observability is equivalent to unbounded-memory observability (thus decidable) when L is trace-closed and /spl Sigma//sub i/ are pairwise disjoint. Otherwise, the problem remains open. In the decidable cases, observers and decision function can be automatically synthesized.
Multi-label Active Learning with Auxiliary Learner

Multi-label active learning is an important problem because of the expensive labeling cost in multilabel classification applications. A state-of-the-art approach for multi-label active learning, maximum loss reduction with maximum confidence (MMC), heavily depends on the binary relevance support vector machine in both learning and querying. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the heavy dependence is necessary or unrivaled. In this work, we extend MMC to a more general framework that removes the heavy dependence and clarifies the roles of each component in MMC. In particular, the framework is characterized by a major learner for making predictions, an auxiliary learner for helping with query decisions and a query criterion based on the disagreement between the two learners. The framework takes MMC and several baseline multi-label active learning algorithms as special cases. With the flexibility of the general framework, we design two criteria other than the one used by MMC. We also explore the possibility of using learners other than the binary relevance support vector machine for multi-label active learning. Experimental results demonstrate that a new criterion, soft Hamming loss reduction, is usually better than the original MMC criterion across different pairs of major/auxiliary learners, and validate the usefulness of the proposed framework.
Magnetic fluid hyperthermia inhibits the growth of breast carcinoma and downregulates vascular endothelial growth factor expression

The application of magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) with nanoparticles has been shown to inhibit tumor growth in several animal models. However, the feasibility of using MFH in vivo to treat breast cancer is uncertain, and the mechanism is unclear. In the present study, it was observed that the intratumoral administration of MFH induced hyperthermia significantly in rats with Walker-265 breast carcinomas. The hyperthermia treatment with magnetic nanoparticles inhibited tumor growth in vivo and promoted the survival of the tumor-bearing rats. Furthermore, it was found that MFH treatment downregulated the protein expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the tumor tissue, as observed by immunohistochemistry. MFH treatment also decreased the gene expression of VEGF and its receptors, VEGF receptor 1 and 2, and inhibited angiogenesis in the tumor tissues. Taken together, these results indicate that the application of MFH with nanoparticles is feasible for the treatment of breast carcinoma. The MFH-induced downregulation of angiogenesis may also contribute to the induction of an anti-tumor effect.
Oxidative effects of heme and porphyrins on proteins and lipids.

Heme and porphyrins catalyze the formation of various reactive oxygen species under widely different conditions. Porphyrins are potent photosensitizers capable of transferring the energy of their excited state to oxygen, forming 1O2. Heme, by virtue of its iron content, is not a photosensitizer, but it can react with H2O2 forming reactive oxygen intermediates whose nature depends on the oxidation state of the iron. Ferric heme gives rise to a porphyrin cation radical, while ferrous heme catalyzes the formation of OH. The reactive species formed by heme and porphyrins oxidize susceptible functional groups on protein and lipid components of membranes as well as serum and cytosolic proteins. Oxidation of membrane-bound proteins occurs independently of lipid peroxidation and it is characterized by extensive cross-linking, which takes place subsequent to amino acid oxidation. Serum and cytosolic proteins that bind and may transport heme and porphyrins are of special interest since they can modulate their toxicity by affecting their availability and reactivity. In addition, these proteins are particularly susceptible to oxidation, especially by heme, due to their proximity to the oxidizing species that are formed.
Effect of aging on risk for hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic hepatitis C virus infection

An increase in the aging population is an impending problem. A large cohort study was carried out to determine the influence of aging and other factors on hepatocarcinogenesis in patients treated with interferon. Biopsy‐proven 2547 chronic hepatitis C patients registered at our referral center since 1992 were included. Of these, 2166 were treated with interferon‐based therapy. Incidences of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with interferon were analyzed by Kaplan‐Meier and person‐years methods for an average follow‐up of 7.5 years. Factors associated with HCC risk were determined by Cox proportional hazard analysis. HCC developed in 177 interferon‐treated patients. The risk for HCC depended on age at primary biopsy and increased more than 15‐fold after 65 years of age. Even when stratified by stage of fibrosis, the cumulative and annual incidences of HCC were significantly higher in older patients than in younger patients (P < 0.001) at the same stage of fibrosis, except for cirrhosis. Progression of fibrosis over time was significantly accelerated in older patients. The impact of viral eradication on HCC prevention was less significant in older patients than in younger patients. Multivariate analysis confirmed that age, gender, liver fibrosis, liver steatosis, total cholesterol level, fasting blood sugar level, baseline and postinterferon alpha‐fetoprotein level, and virological response to interferon were independent risk factors associated with HCC. Aging was the strongest risk factor for a nonvirological response to interferon‐based antiviral therapy. Conclusion: Elderly patients are at a higher risk for HCC. Hepatitis C viral eradication had a smaller effect on hepatocarcinogenesis in older patients. Patients should therefore be identified at an earlier age and treatment should be initiated. HEPATOLOGY 2010
In silico target network analysis of de novo-discovered, tick saliva-specific microRNAs reveals important combinatorial effects in their interference with vertebrate host physiology

The hard tick Ixodes ricinus is an important disease vector whose salivary secretions mediate blood-feeding success on vertebrate hosts, including humans. Here we describe the expression profiles and downstream analysis of de novo-discovered microRNAs (miRNAs) expressed in I. ricinus salivary glands and saliva. Eleven tick-derived libraries were sequenced to produce 67,375,557 Illumina reads. De novo prediction yielded 67 bona fide miRNAs out of which 35 are currently not present in miRBase. We report for the first time the presence of microRNAs in tick saliva, obtaining furthermore molecular indicators that those might be of exosomal origin. Ten out of these microRNAs are at least 100 times more represented in saliva. For the four most expressed microRNAs from this subset, we analyzed their combinatorial effects upon their host transcriptome using a novel in silico target network approach. We show that only the inclusion of combinatorial effects reveals the functions in important pathways related to inflammation and pain sensing. A control set of highly abundant microRNAs in both saliva and salivary glands indicates no significant pathways and a far lower number of shared target genes. Therefore, the analysis of miRNAs from pure tick saliva strongly supports the hypothesis that tick saliva miRNAs can modulate vertebrate host homeostasis and represents the first direct evidence of tick miRNA-mediated regulation of vertebrate host gene expression at the tick–host interface. As such, the herein described miRNAs may support future drug discovery and development projects that will also experimentally question their predicted molecular targets in the vertebrate host.
The Performance Analysis of New Routing Protocol in Sensor Networks Useful in Ubiquitous Home Network Applications

In ubiquitous home networks, sensors collect various home environment data in the home. Since the sensor nodes are equipped with small, often irreplaceable, batteries with limited power capacity, it is essential that the network be energy-efficient in order to maximize the lifetime and to minimize the hop count. However, since the use of sensors embedded in consumer electronics devices is increasing, we consider two types of sensor nodes, the wireless sensor node type, where the distance between the sensor nodes is limited by their transmission range and the wireless embedded sensor node(WEN) type, where the distance between the sensor nodes can be much longer. In this paper, we present a new sensor routing scheme that provides power-centric data delivery from sensors to the home base station. The proposed scheme divides the home into areas such as rooms and deploys relay nodes to each area. The WENs collect data from the sensors and deliver the data only to the home base station. Sensors deliver their data to the relay nodes or the home base station through the sensor with the strongest power. The performance results show that the proposed scheme is more efficient in wireless home networks than existing schemes.
La empresa social como modelo organizativo para la implicación de la universidad en iniciativas de cooperación al desarrollo

En la actualidad el Grupo de Investigacion en Organizaciones Sostenibles (GIOS) de la Universidad Politecnica de Madrid ha puesto en marcha una linea de investigacion sobre empresa social como posible formula organizativa para la lucha contra la pobreza. La empresa social propuesta por Muhammad Yunus se define como una unidad productiva autosostenible cuyo objetivo es la optimizacion de beneficios sociales en la realizacion de una actividad orientada a posibilitar el desarrollo economico y humano de colectivos excluidos. Este modelo puede ayudar a resolver algunas problematicas recurrentes de iniciativas de cooperacion al desarrollo en paises pobres y presenta un alto potencial de transformacion economica y social. El articulo, a traves de la caracterizacion del concepto y su aplicacion a un caso concreto, muestra las oportunidades que ofrece este modelo para estimular la colaboracion estrategica entre diferentes actores, incluida la universidad, en la que los primeros resultados alcanzados se estan transfiriendo a la docencia.