Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
"Is it Safe?" Risk Perception and Drinking Water in a Vulnerable Population

Access to safe drinking water is a pressing social policy issue globally. Despite the milestones reached in this area of Canadian public health, marginalized and vulnerable populations, including those founded on racialized identity, such as First Nations, continue to be plagued by accessibility issues. This work sheds new perspective on the issue, arguing for a research and policy focus that is inclusive of risk perception. A model of risk perception of drinking water is developed and tested for First Nations on reserve in Canada using the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey. It is shown that the analytical use of racialized identity advances understanding of risk perception and the environment (water). Moreover, a large degree of heterogeneity within the First Nation population across a number of social determinants of risk perception illustrates the shortcomings of framing the issue in a simplistic manner (First Nation population versus general population). Implications for risk research, including risk communication & management, and policy are provided.
The Collaborative School: A Proposal for Authentic Partnership in a Professional Development School.

T H HOSE who are interested in establishing professional de velopment schools are right ly concerned with identifying ways of fostering school/uni versity collaboration. Our experience sug gests that two conditions are central to suc cessful collaboration: the participants must be equal in status, and they must have mu tually agreed-upon goals. When these two conditions are present, "authentic collab oration" becomes possible.
Salusins: Potential Use as a Biomarker for Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Diseases

Human salusin-α and salusin-β are related peptides produced from prosalusin. Bolus injection of salusin-β into rats induces more profound hypotension and bradycardia than salusin-α. Central administration of salusin-β increases blood pressure via release of norepinephrine and arginine-vasopressin. Circulating levels of salusin-α and salusin-β are lower in patients with essential hypertension. Salusin-β exerts more potent mitogenic effects on human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and fibroblasts than salusin-α. Salusin-β accelerates inflammatory responses in human endothelial cells and monocyte-endothelial adhesion. Human macrophage foam cell formation is stimulated by salusin-β but suppressed by salusin-α. Chronic salusin-β infusion into apolipoprotein E-deficient mice enhances atherosclerotic lesions; salusin-α infusion reduces lesions. Salusin-β is expressed in proliferative neointimal lesions of porcine coronary arteries after stenting. Salusin-α and salusin-β immunoreactivity have been detected in human coronary atherosclerotic plaques, with dominance of salusin-β in macrophage foam cells, VSMCs, and fibroblasts. Circulating salusin-β levels increase and salusin-α levels decrease in patients with coronary artery disease. These findings suggest that salusin-β and salusin-α may contribute to proatherogenesis and antiatherogenesis, respectively. Increased salusin-β and/or decreased salusin-α levels in circulating blood and vascular tissue are closely linked with atherosclerosis. Salusin-α and salusin-β could be candidate biomarkers and therapeutic targets for atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases.
Datorbaserad kognitiv beteendeterapi vid ångestsyndrom eller depression

Det finns begransat vetenskaplig stod for att datorbaserad KBT, pa kort sikt, har gynnsam effekt pa symtom vid behandling av paniksyndrom, social fobi respektive depression (Evidensstyrka 3). Det ar angelaget att klargora hur urvalet av patienter till behandlingen ska ga till och vilken plats datorbaserad KBT bor ha i forhallande till ovriga behandlingsalternnativ. Studier med ett mer representativt urval av deltagare och med langre uppfoljningstider behovs.
A study of applying the bounded Generalized Pareto distribution to the analysis of software fault distribution

Software is currently a key part of many safety-critical applications. But the main problem facing the computer industry is how to develop a software with (ultra) high reliability on time, and assure the quality of software. In the past, some researchers reported that the Pareto distribution (PD) and the Weibull distribution (WD) models can be used for software reliability estimation and fault distribution modeling. In this paper we propose a modified PD model to predict and assess the software fault distribution. That is, we suggest using a special form of the Generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) model, named the bounded Generalized Pareto distribution (BGPD) model. We will show that the BGPD model eliminates several modeling issues that arise in the PD model, and perform detailed comparisons based on real software fault data. Experimental result shows that the proposed BGPD model presents very high fitness to the actual fault data. In the end, we conclude that the distribution of faults in a large software system can be well described by the Pareto principle. *
Mathematical and Theoretical Systems Luce Mathematical Psychology and the Computer Revolution

As computers increasingly pervade science the question arises; Do psychologists have reason to study any more mathematics than is needed to program control of experiments, analyses of data, and theoretical ideas into a computer? And because of menu-driven programs to write programs, that soon will be mighty little mathematics. I argue that such a view is dangerously short sighted because, if adopted, it will seriously erode our somewhat fragde theoretical base. The problem is that many important and deep issues of theory construction simply cannot be touched by the kinds of ideas now embodied in or currently foreseen for computer simulations, including; our ability to reason about infinite systems; the fact infinite systems can relate effectively to empirical domains that are clearly finite in character; the frequent failure of finite mathematical approximations to reveal the simplicity and clarity found in infinite models; and the difficulty of understanding computational possibilities and problems without careful theoretical analyses. These points are illustrated in terms of specinc models that exhibit some major moss-cutting themes of mathematical psychology; independence, tradeoff, feedback, invariance, and representation.
The Mathematical Foundation of Distributed Interleaved Systems

The distribution and interleaving (D&I) of signals is a common method for ripple attenuation in various engineering applications in such areas as control, communication, and power electronics. Similarities to this technique may also been found in nonengineering fields such as biology and medicine. This paper presents a mathematical exploration of distributed interleaved systems along with a simple frequency-domain model of interleaving. We are hoping that the insights provided by this mathematical framework and the newly proposed model for interleaved systems will lead to enhanced techniques for evaluating D&I processes, and facilitate the design of better systems. In particular, we hope this work results in new approaches to low-pass filtering that will exhibit fast dynamics and very efficient ripple attenuation (in theory, this can produce complete ripple removal in some cases)
Understanding the discrimination power of facial regions in forensic casework

This paper focuses on automatic facial regions extraction for forensic applications. Forensic examiners compare different facial areas of face images obtained from both uncontrolled and controlled environments taken from the suspect. In this work, we study and compare the discriminative capabilities of 15 facial regions considered in forensic practice such as full face, nose, eye, eyebrow, mouth, etc. This study is useful because it can statistically support the current practice of forensic facial comparison. It is also of interest to biometrics because a more robust general-purpose face recognition system can be built by fusing the similarity scores obtained from the comparison of different individual parts of the face. To analyse the discrimination power of each facial region, we have randomly defined three population subsets of 200 European subjects (male, female and mixed) from MORPH database. First facial landmarks are automatically located, checked and corrected and then 15 forensic facial regions are extracted and considered for the study. In all cases, the performance of the full face (faceISOV region) is higher than the one achieved for the rest of facial regions. It is very interesting to note that the nose region has a very significant discrimination efficiency by itself and similar to the full face performance.
Emerging multidrug-resistant Candida species

Purpose of review To describe the epidemiology, strategies for early detection, and clinical management of infections caused by the most commonly found multidrug-resistant (MDR) Candida spp. Recent findings Increasing numbers of reports describing invasive infections by MDR Candida auris and Candida glabrata has been reported in medical centers worldwide. Summary We checked all papers published along the last 10 years describing epidemiological, diagnostic, and clinical aspects of infections by MDR Candida spp. , with emphasis on C. auris and C. glabrata spp. C. auris has been reported in 15 countries and multidrug resistance rates is usually above 30%. Horizontal transmission is a great concern regarding C. auris. C. glabrata ranks the second most reported Candida spp. in deep-seated infections from United States and some European Centers, although multidrug resistance rates above 10% are restricted to some US centers. Candida haemulonii complex isolates with poor susceptibility to azoles and amphotericin B have been isolated in superficial and deep-seated infections, whereas Candida guilliiermondii complex isolates with poor susceptibility to azoles and echinocandins have been recovered from catheter-related bloodstream infections. Other potential MDR Candida species are Candida krusei, Candida lusitaniae, Candida kefyr, Yarrowia (Candida) lypolitica, and Candida rugosa.
The Effect of Effort: An analysis of Killeen's (1994) Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement

Mathematical Principles of Reinforcement (MPR, Killeen, 1994) is a mathematical model comprising three main concepts; an animal’s arousal to behaviour based on its motivation for a particular reinforcer, time and energy constraints on responding, and coupling between a response class and reinforcer. This experiment tested the ability of MPR to predict response rates when the minimum force requirement and topography of response was changed. Increasing the minimum force requirement was expected to increase the value of δ, the parameter related to response constraint. Altering the topography of the response was expected to also alter the δ value, as different response forms were expected to take different lengths of time to perform. There were four conditions; low force key, low force door, high force key and high force door, and 6 hens responded under each of these conditions in an ascending geometric series of Fixed Ratio (FR) values. It was shown that hens responded at a faster rate and to higher FR values when responding on the key than on the door, and for both apparatus, the hens stopped responding at lower FR values when weights were added. Unexpectedly, there were no statistically significant differences in the value of δ across conditions, but the values for a, meant to represent the animals’ arousal, did change. It was suggested that the changes in a reflected changes in the animals’ motivation to perform the different responses, probably due to rewarding or aversive properties of the operant response related to the different response forms.
Evidence of the Oral Absorption of Chondroitin Sulfate as Determined by Total Disaccharide Content After Oral and Intravenous Administration to Horses

Disaccharides formed specifically from the breakdown of chondroitin sulfate were found in horse plasma samples after the oral dosing of an 8.0 and 16.9 kDa molecular weight chondroitin sulfate. These results suggest that chondroitin sulfate, or fragments of this molecule, are absorbed after oral administration. Authors’ addresses: Pharmacokinetics-Biopharmaceutics Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, 100 Penn Street, AHB 540A, Baltimore, MD 21201 (Eddington and Du) and Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center, Leesburg, VA 20177 (White). © 2001 AAEP.
Transcriptional Repression of Hox Genes by C. elegans HP1/HPL and H1/HIS-24

Elucidation of the biological role of linker histone (H1) and heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) in mammals has been difficult owing to the existence of a least 11 distinct H1 and three HP1 subtypes in mice. Caenorhabditis elegans possesses two HP1 homologues (HPL-1 and HPL-2) and eight H1 variants. Remarkably, one of eight H1 variants, HIS-24, is important for C. elegans development. Therefore we decided to analyse in parallel the transcriptional profiles of HIS-24, HPL-1/-2 deficient animals, and their phenotype, since hpl-1, hpl-2, and his-24 deficient nematodes are viable. Global transcriptional analysis of the double and triple mutants revealed that HPL proteins and HIS-24 play gene-specific roles, rather than a general repressive function. We showed that HIS-24 acts synergistically with HPL to allow normal reproduction, somatic gonad development, and vulval cell fate decision. Furthermore, the hpl-2; his-24 double mutant animals displayed abnormal development of the male tail and ectopic expression of C. elegans HOM-C/Hox genes (egl-5 and mab-5), which are involved in the developmental patterning of male mating structures. We found that HPL-2 and the methylated form of HIS-24 specifically interact with the histone H3 K27 region in the trimethylated state, and HIS-24 associates with the egl-5 and mab-5 genes. Our results establish the interplay between HPL-1/-2 and HIS-24 proteins in the regulation of positional identity in C. elegans males.
Intracellular posttranslational modifications of S1133 avian reovirus proteins

Avian reovirus S1133 specifies at least 10 primary translation products, eight of which are present in the viral particle and two of which are nonstructural proteins. In the work presented here, we studied the covalent modifications undergone by these translation products in the infected cell. The structural polypeptide mu2 was shown to be intracellularly modified by both myristoylation and proteolysis. The site-specific cleavage of mu2 yielded a large carboxy-terminal fragment and a myristoylated approximately 5,500-Mr peptide corresponding to the amino terminus. Both mu2 and its cleavage products were found to be structural components of the reovirion. Most avian reovirus proteins were found to be glycosylated and to have a blocking group at the amino terminus. In contrast to the mammalian reovirus system, none of the avian reovirus polypeptides was found to incorporate phosphorus during infection. Our results add to current understanding of the similarities and differences between avian and mammalian reoviruses.
Deletion of DOCK2, a regulator of the actin cytoskeleton in lymphocytes, suppresses cardiac allograft rejection

Allograft rejection is induced by graft tissue infiltration of alloreactive T cells that are activated mainly in secondary lymphoid organs of the host. DOCK2 plays a critical role in lymphocyte homing and immunological synapse formation by regulating the actin cytoskeleton, yet its role in the in vivo immune response remains unknown. We show here that DOCK2 deficiency enables long-term survival of cardiac allografts across a complete mismatch of the major histocompatibility complex molecules. In DOCK2-deficient mice, alloreactivity and allocytotoxicity were suppressed significantly even after in vivo priming with alloantigens, which resulted in reduced intragraft expression of effector molecules, such as interferon-γ, granzyme B, and perforin. This is mediated, at least in part, by preventing potentially alloreactive T cells from recruiting into secondary lymphoid organs. In addition, we found that DOCK2 is critical for CD28-mediated Rac activation and is required for the full activation of alloreactive T cells. Although DOCK2-deficient, alloreactive T cells were activated in vitro in the presence of exogenous interleukin-2, these T cells, when transferred adoptively, failed to infiltrate into the allografts that were transplanted into RAG1-deficient mice. Thus, DOCK2 deficiency attenuates allograft rejection by simultaneously suppressing multiple and key processes. We propose that DOCK2 could be a novel molecular target for controlling transplant rejection.
Towards an active network architecture

Active networks allow their users to inject customized programs into the nodes of the network. An extreme case, in which we are most interested, replaces packets with "capsules" - program fragments that are executed at each network router/switch they traverse. Active architectures permit a massive increase in the sophistication of the computation that is performed within the network. They enable new applications, especially those based on application-specific multicast, information fusion, and other services that leverage network-based computation and storage. Furthermore, they will accelerate the pace of innovation by decoupling network services from the underlying hardware and allowing new services to be loaded into the infrastructure on demand. In this paper, we describe our vision of an active network architecture, outline our approach to its design, and survey the technologies that can be brought to bear on its implementation. We propose that the research community mount a joint effort to develop and deploy a wide area ActiveNet.
SIGIR 2015 Workshop on Reproducibility, Inexplicability, and Generalizability of Results (RIGOR)

Many, if not most, published research papers in Information Retrieval (IR) describe the following process: the authors identify an opportunity to improve on a particular IR task, implement an experimental system, and compare its performance against one or more baselines (or a control condition, in the case of a user study). The quality of the research is judged based on the magnitude of the improvement and whether the methodological choices suggest external validity and generalizability, for example, whether the experimental setup is “realistic” or whether the baseline methods reflect the state of the art. Unfortunately, research demonstrating the failure to reproduce or generalize previous results does not have a similar publication venue. This sort of result—often referred to as a ‘negative result’—serves to control the quality of published research in a scientific discipline and to better understand the limits of previously published methods. Publication venues for such research exist in fields such as ecology, biomedicine, pharmacy,, and social science. The SIGIR 2015 Workshop on Reproducibility, Inexplicability, and Generalizability of Results (RIGOR) aims to provide a venue for publication and discussion of IR research that fails to reproduce a previously published result under the same or similar experimental conditions (e.g., same test collection and system configuration) and research that demonstrates the failure to generalize an existing approach to a new domain. To this end, we have developed a set of categories covering different ways in which a result may
Minimax Phase Error Design of IIR Digital Filters With Prescribed Magnitude and Phase Responses

Infinite impulse response (IIR) digital filters with prescribed magnitude and phase responses have been used in many applications. To approximate the prescribed magnitude and phase responses, we propose a new approach to the design of general IIR filters by minimizing the maximum phase error subject to a prescribed or simultaneously minimized maximum magnitude error, where the phase error and magnitude error are controlled by two elliptic constraints respectively with major and minor axes along the desired frequency response. The sequential constrained least-squares method and Levy-Sanathanan-Koerner strategy are used to convert the nonconvex constraints into convex ones, resulting in a series of convex optimization subproblems. Design examples and comparisons with recent methods demonstrate the flexibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Pulmonary alveolar epithelial inducible NO synthase gene expression: regulation by inflammatory mediators.

Nitric oxide (.NO) is a short-lived mediator that can be induced by different cytokines and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in a variety of cell types and produces many physiological and metabolic changes in target cells. In the current study, we show that a combination of cytokines, LPS, and zymosan-activated serum (ZAS; called for convenience cytomix Z) induces production of high concentrations of the NO oxidation products nitrite (NO2-) and nitrate (NO3-) by cultured rat fetal lung epithelial type II cells in a time-dependent fashion. Interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha alone did not significantly affect . NO synthesis, whereas ZAS, LPS, and interleukin-1 beta caused only a modest increase in formation of . NO oxidation products. Production of NO2- and NO3- was inhibited by NG-monomethyl-L-arginine and cyclohexmide. After exposure of these cells to a combination of the above cytokines, Escherichia coli LPS, and ZAS (cytomix Z), enhanced inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression was indicated by an elevation in steady-state mRNA specific for iNOS (via Northern blot analysis) and increased immunofluorescence for iNOS after cell permeabilization, incubation with anti-iNOS antibody, and treatment with Cy3.18-conjugated rabbit-specific antibody. The extent of inflammatory mediator-induced.NO production by alveolar epithelium, which exceeds that of other lung cell types, reveals new insight into mechanisms of pulmonary host defense and pathways of free radical-mediated lung injury.
Algebraization of Frobenius splitting via quantum groups

An important breakthrough in understanding the geometry of Schubert varieties was the introduction of the notion of Frobenius split varieties and the result that the flag varieties G/P are Frobenius split. The aim of this article is to give in this case a complete and self contained representation theoretic approach to this method. The geometric Frobenius method (in char k = p > 0) will here be replaced by Lusztig’s Frobenius maps for quantum groups at roots of unity (which exist not only for primes but any odd integer l > 1).
Characterization and Quantification of Livestock Odorants using Sorbent Tube Sampling and Thermal Desorption coupled with Multidimensional Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry–Olfactometry (TD-MDGC-MS-O)

Characterization and quantification of livestock odorants is one of the most challenging analytical tasks because odor-causing gases are very reactive, polar and often present at very low concentrations in a complex matrix of less important or irrelevant gases. The objectives of this research is to develop a novel analytical method for characterization of the livestock odorants including their odor character, odor intensity, and hedonic tone and further quantitative analysis of the key odorants responsible for livestock odor emissions. Sorbent tubes packed with Tenax TA were employed for sampling. The automated one-step thermal desorption coupled with multidimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry system was developed for simultaneous chemical and odor analysis. Fifteen odorants identified from different livestock species operations are quantified. In addition, odor character, odor intensity and hedonic tone associated with each of the target compounds are also analyzed. The method developed in this research is being used on a multistate, multispecies project focused on quantifying odor and chemical analysis of odor.