Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistical modeling and EM clustering of white matter fiber tracts

A statistical model of the fiber bundles is calculated as the average and standard deviation of a parametric representation of the fiber tracts, using the coefficients of the 3D quintic B-spline representation of the tracts. An atlas of the fiber tracts is constructed by averaging the bundle models over a population with the fiber tracts mapped onto the atlas coordinate. Using the model representation and with the atlas as the prior map, expectation-maximization (EM) is performed to cluster the fiber tracts in a mixture model framework. As an application, the method is applied to cluster the corpus callosum fiber tracts into its subdivisions and to calculate quantitative parameters for each region
Augmented Tele-robotic Control : Advantages of Multi-touch vs . Joystick Control Systems

The focus of this research was to test whether a multi-touch interface is more effective than a joystick controller for telerobotic control. Customarily, joysticks are used with tele-robotic operations. However, multi-touch interfaces can potentially create a natural experience for the operator, causing an improvement in his/her performance during complicated tasks. Our participants completed search tasks using the two interfaces and we compared the resulting data. Initial results show that the multi-touch interface is helpful in controlling the robot’s path.
A Novel Approach to Extract Speed Pattern from VTDR Data

This paper describes a novel technique to analyze newly available Vehicle Traveling Data Recorder (VTDR) data from Passenger Transport Company. To help us be more conducive to study, we preprocessed the VTDR data firstly. 1) Algorithm that detects highway range in the VTDR data is proposed. 2) We transformed VTDR data from their original Time based Speed Series (TSS) to Location based Speed Series (LSS), which makes a link between road location and speed. 3) Then, we applied a self-training technique to distinguish two route directions of the VTDR data. After preprocessing, we extracted general speed pattern from the VTDR data. This information greatly improves our understanding on the road traffic influence to speed. In addiction, based on this, novel driver behavior analysis and outlier analysis are given.The technique introduced in this paper utilizes the huge amount of VTDR data to extract useful information, so that enhances transportation safety management.
Shape Invariant Potentials in “Discrete Quantum Mechanics”

Abstract Shape invariance is an important ingredient of many exactly solvable quantum mechanics. Several examples of shape invariant “discrete quantum mechanical systems” are introduced and discussed in some detail. They arise in the problem of describing the equilibrium positions of Ruijsenaars-Schneider type systems, which are “discrete” counterparts of Calogero and Sutherland systems, the celebrated exactly solvable multi-particle dynamics. Deformed Hermite and Laguerre polynomials are the typical examples of the eigenfunctions of the above shape invariant discrete quantum mechanical systems.
Epstein-Barr Virus Nuclear Antigen 1 : from Immunologically Invisible to a Promising T Cell Target

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1)— the one EBV antigen that is expressed in all EBV-associated malignancies—has long been thought to go undetected by the cell-mediated immune system. However, recent studies show that EBNA1 can be presented to both CD4 ϩ and CD8 ϩ T cells, making it a potential new target for immunotherapy of EBV-related cancers. EBV, which infects Ͼ 90% of the human adult population , is considered to be the classic example for immune surveillance of persistent viral infections in humans (1). The virus establishes lifelong latency in memory B cells (2). Different EBV latency programs are associated with many important tumors, like Hodgkin's disease and nasopharyn-geal carcinoma, and also the EBV-transformed B cell lines (lymphoblastoid cell lines [LCLs]) that are so often used in human immunological research (3). Despite its significant transforming capacity, EBV causes tumors only in a small subset of infected individuals and is under effective immune control in most EBV carriers (4). In this respect, EBV is quite the opposite of HIV, which after establishing lifelong latency in memory T cells is controlled only in a small subset of infected individuals, the so-called long-term non-progressors, and causes AIDS in most infected individuals. Understanding the mechanisms of EBV-specific immune control might lead to the identification of crucial principles of immune surveillance failing in other persistent viral infections. EBNA1 Maintains EBV Latency in Proliferating Cells. EBV DNA only infrequently integrates into the host cell genome and is usually carried as circular DNA or episomes in latently infected cells (5). Therefore, EBV requires a mechanism for replicating viral DNA before mitosis and distributing episomes into progeny cells during cell division. EBNA1 fulfills these tasks by initiating replication through binding to the episome with its COOH-terminal domain and then cross-linking the episome to mitotic chromosomes as a protein anchor (3). Therefore, EBNA1 is expressed in all EBV-associated tumors (4) and EBV-positive proliferating cells in healthy EBV carriers (6). Expression of all other EBV-latent antigens can be absent in EBV ϩ tumors, like Burkitt's lymphoma, and in EBV ϩ-replicating memory B cells. These features would make EBNA1 a potential tumor rejection antigen for EBV-associated malignancies and a target for EBV immune control in asymptomatic carriers. However, since Burkitt's lymphoma cells, which express EBNA1 as their only EBV latency antigen, are poorly immunogenic (7) and only EBNA1 and LMP2A mRNAs are detected in peripheral blood B cells (8), …
Effect of L-carnitine on acetyl-CoA content and activity of blood platelets in healthy and diabetic persons.

BACKGROUND Excessive blood platelet activity contributes to vascular complications in diabetic persons. Increased acetyl-CoA in platelets from diabetic persons has been suggested to be a cause of this hyperactivity. We therefore investigated whether L-carnitine, which up-regulates metabolism of acetyl-CoA in muscles and brain, may affect platelet function in healthy and diabetic individuals. METHODS We obtained platelets from healthy and diabetic persons and measured acetyl-CoA concentrations, malonyl dialdehyde (MDA) synthesis, and platelet aggregation in the absence and presence of L-carnitine. Activities of selected enzymes involved in glucose and acetyl-CoA metabolism were also assessed. RESULTS Fasting glucose, fructosamine, and hemoglobin A1c were present in significantly higher amounts in the blood of diabetic patients than in healthy individuals. Activities of carnitine acetyltransferase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, oxoglutarate dehydrogenase, and fatty acid synthase were 17%-62% higher in platelets from diabetic patients. Mitochondrial acetyl-CoA was increased by 98% in platelets from diabetic patients, MDA synthesis was increased by 73%, and platelet aggregation by 60%. L-Carnitine had no or only a slight effect on these indices in platelets from healthy individuals, but in platelets from diabetic patients, L-carnitine caused a 99% increase in acetyl-CoA in the cytoplasmic compartment along with increases in MDA synthesis and platelet aggregation. CONCLUSIONS Excessive platelet activity in persons with diabetes may result from increased acetyl-CoA, which apparently increases synthesis of lipid activators of platelet function. L-Carnitine may aggravate platelet hyperactivity in diabetic persons by increasing the provision of surplus acetyl-CoA to the cytoplasmic compartment.
Simplification/complication of the basis of prime Boolean ideal

Prime Boolean ideal has the basis of the form (x1 + e1, ., xn + en) that consists of linear binomials. Its variety consists of the point (e1, ., en). Complication of the basis is changing the simple linear binomials by non-linear polynomials in such a way, that the variety of ideal stays fixed. Simplification of the basis is obtaining the basis that consists of linear binomials from the complicated one that keeps its variety. Since any ideal is a module over the ring of Boolean polynomials, the change of the basis is uniquely determined by invertible matrix over the ring. Algorithms for invertible simplifying and complicating the basis of Boolean ideal that fixes the size of basis are proposed. Algorithm of simplification optimizes the choose of pairs of polynomials during the Groebner basis computation, and eliminates variables without using resultants.
The bacterial antitoxin HipB establishes a ternary complex with operator DNA and phosphorylated toxin HipA to regulate bacterial persistence

Nearly all bacteria exhibit a type of phenotypic growth described as persistence that is thought to underlie antibiotic tolerance and recalcitrant chronic infections. The chromosomally encoded high-persistence (Hip) toxin–antitoxin proteins HipASO and HipBSO from Shewanella oneidensis, a proteobacterium with unusual respiratory capacities, constitute a type II toxin–antitoxin protein module. Here we show that phosphorylated HipASO can engage in an unexpected ternary complex with HipBSO and double-stranded operator DNA that is distinct from the prototypical counterpart complex from Escherichia coli. The structure of HipBSO in complex with operator DNA reveals a flexible C-terminus that is sequestered by HipASO in the ternary complex, indicative of its role in binding HipASO to abolish its function in persistence. The structure of HipASO in complex with a non-hydrolyzable ATP analogue shows that HipASO autophosphorylation is coupled to an unusual conformational change of its phosphorylation loop. However, HipASO is unable to phosphorylate the translation factor Elongation factor Tu, contrary to previous reports, but in agreement with more recent findings. Our studies suggest that the phosphorylation state of HipA is an important factor in persistence and that the structural and mechanistic diversity of HipAB modules as regulatory factors in bacterial persistence is broader than previously thought.
Essay on Managing the Self

Self-management is an important element especially for people who live with chronic conditions or personality issues, for example, low self-esteem. Self management is the kind of support and skill that assists the people with chronic conditions to understand their conditions and become more concerned about the management of their health and well-being (McConnell, 2011 p.3). The objective of educating people with chronic and conditions or personality problems about proper self-management is to make them more aware about their problems. In addition, the education aims at teaching the people the relevant skills and tools that they need to manage their conditions in a better way, teach them to cooperate with the healthcare professionals, and, generally, to take charge about their conditions. Loriq and Holman (2003, p.1) state that self management imparts skills like “Problem solving, decision-making, Resource-utilization, the formation of patient-provider partnership, action-planning, and selftailoring. ” The skills are the learning outcomes that self-management education must achieve in the people with chronic conditions.
Cold hardening and transcriptional change in Drosophila melanogaster

Cold hardening treatment – a brief exposure to low temperatures – can protect certain insects against subsequent exposure to temperatures sufficiently low to cause damage or lethality. Microarray analysis to examine the changes in transcript abundance associated with cold hardening treatment (0 °C for 2 h followed by 30 min recovery at 25 °C) was undertaken in Drosophila melanogaster in order to gain insight into this phenomenon. Transcripts associated with 36 genes were identified, a subset of which appeared to be also differentially expressed after heat shock treatment. Quantitative RT‐PCR was used to independently determine transcript abundance of a subset of these sequences. Taken together, these assays suggest that stress proteins, including Hsp23, Hsp26, Hsp83 and Frost as well as membrane‐associated proteins may contribute to the cold hardening response.
Cisplatin in 5% Ethanol Eradicates Cisplatin-Resistant Lung Tumor by Killing Lung Cancer Side Population (SP) Cells and Non-SP Cells

Cancer side population (SP) cells with cancer stem cell-like properties are thought to be responsible for lung cancer chemotherapy resistance and currently no drug can efficiently target them. Breast cancer resistance protein (BRCP/ABCG2) is a major drug transporter in protecting lung cancer SP cells from cytotoxic agents. We showed that a low concentration of ethanol, which inhibits many membrane proteins, inhibits ABCG2 in lung cancer SP cells. Furthermore, cytotoxic cisplatin (DDP) in 5% (vol/vol) ethanol kills SP plus non-SP cancer cells better than either treatment alone in eradicating chemoresistant lung tumors. We found that 5% ethanol did not reduce ABCG2 protein levels, but significantly reduced ABCG2 protein function by a Hoechst 33342 extrusion assay, an ATPase activity assay, and transmission electron microscopy. Further, DDP in 5% ethanol (5% ethanol–DDP) induced apoptosis of the SP plus non-SP cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. In DDP-resistant A549/DDP lung tumor-bearing Balb/C nude mice, intratumoral injection of 5% ethanol–DDP regressed tumors and significantly improved survivals compared with 5% ethanol, DDP alone, or control. Intratumoral injection of 5% ethanol–DDP helped eradicate tumors in 30% (3/10) of the mice after 4 weeks treatment. By killing SP and non-SP cancer cells, 5% ethanol–DDP could eradicate DDP-resistant lung tumor and extend survival, providing a novel way to improve chemoresistant lung cancer survival for clinic.
RiskRank: Security risk ranking for IP flow records

This paper considers the monitoring of large volumes of IP flow records, typically encountered on large ISP backbone/edge routers. The approach described in our paper aims to detect relevant flow records, where relevancy is related to overall traffic activity and associated applications. The core contribution of the paper consists in a dependency graph that leverages relationships between hosts, as well as flow-specific risk modeling. The risk model is constructed using well-known link analysis algorithms and application-specific signatures.
Opportunistic Access of TV Spectrum Using Cognitive-Radio-Enabled Cellular Networks

Motivated by the Federal Communications Commission's recent approval of commercial unlicensed operations of some television (TV) spectrum, we propose to integrate cognitive radios (CRs) that operate on unoccupied TV bands with an existing cellular network to increase bandwidth for mobile users. The existing cellular infrastructure is used to enable the operation of such CRs. Because base stations (BSs) can sense spectrum and exchange the sensed information for the reliable detection of primary users (PUs) and white spaces, we propose a collaborative sensing mechanism based on cell topology, where the BS declares its cell to be PU-free when neither the BS nor its neighboring BSs detect any PU. This way, in a PU-free cell, the following two types of channels are available: 1) channels that are originally licensed for the cellular system and 2) CR channels that are discovered through spectrum sensing. Because the CR channels that operate on TV bands usually suffer less path loss than the cellular channels, we derive two important results. First, each user gains more capacity when accessing a cellular channel than an empty TV channel, as long as intercell interferences are caused by the same sources. Second, assigning TV bands to cell-edge users is better in maximizing cell capacity. These two effects and the performance of the proposed sensing mechanism are verified through numerical evaluation.
Drugs Policy: What Should We Do About Cannabis?

Public policy has failed to prevent large-scale consumption of cannabis in most developed countries. So what, if anything, should we do to change the policy environment? Cannabis consumption is unambiguously harmful in several ways, but this does not automatically justify the prohibitionist policy dictated by the international drugs conventions. This paper sets out the arguments for policy intervention in the cannabis market and reviews the directions of policy change that have been called for. We argue that existing theoretical insights and empirical evidence give little compelling reason to prefer prohibition to the alternative of legalization of cannabis with harms controlled by regulation and taxation. Given this conclusion and the much wider prevalence of cannabis than of harder drugs, a reasonable way forward is to remove cannabis production and consumption (but not trade) from the current prohibitionist UN drug control treaties, to allow countries to adopt their own policies, thus generating new evidence on the potential impacts of a wider range of policy.
From Campus to Capitol: The Role of Government Relations in Higher Education

From Campus to Capitol takes a comprehensive look at how governments affect institutions of higher learning, in the process illuminating the role of the government relations officer. All institutions of higher learning, from large state universities to community and private colleges, benefit from strong relationships with local, state, and federal governments. This book examines the importance of government relations officers and discusses how they can most effectively negotiate a tangled web of political entities-from community associations to mayors to lobbyists-while ensuring that their institution's best interests are met. In an era of declining state appropriations, increasing economic instability, and surging enrollments, successful interaction with government representatives is crucial. Whether securing a million-dollar federal earmark or helping to support the local economy, the government relations officer's influence is essential, both where it shows and behind the scenes. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience, William McMillen offers an insider's account of this major player in American higher education. Anecdotes and interviews with other government relations officers illustrate the challenges they face on and off campus.
Associations between active school transport and physical activity, body composition, and cardiovascular fitness: a systematic review of 68 studies.

BACKGROUND The impact of active school transport (AST) on daily physical activity (PA) levels, body composition and cardiovascular fitness remains unclear. METHODS A systematic review was conducted to examine differences in PA, body composition and cardiovascular fitness between active and passive travelers. The Medline, PubMed, Embase, PsycInfo, and ProQuest databases were searched and 10 key informants were consulted. Quality of evidence was assessed with GRADE and with the Effective Public Health Practice Project tool for quantitative studies. RESULTS Sixty-eight different studies met the inclusion criteria. The majority of studies found that active school travelers were more active or that AST interventions lead to increases in PA, and the quality of evidence is moderate. There is conflicting, and therefore very low quality evidence, regarding the associations between AST and body composition indicators, and between walking to/from school and cardiovascular fitness; however, all studies with relevant measures found a positive association between cycling to/from school and cardiovascular fitness; this evidence is of moderate quality. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that AST should be promoted to increase PA levels in children and adolescents and that cycling to/ from school is associated with increased cardiovascular fitness. Intervention studies are needed to increase the quality of evidence.
A 3D-Stacked Architecture for Secure Memory Acquisition

Many security and forensic analyses rely on the ability to fetch memory snapshots from a target machine. To date, the security community has relied on virtualization, external hardware or trusted hardware to obtain such snapshots. We show that these prior techniques either sacrifice snapshot consistency or impose a performance penalty on applications executing atop the target. We present a new snapshot acquisition system based on emerging 3D-stacked architectures that offers snapshot consistency without impacting the performance of the target’s applications. We have implemented our system in a hardware simulation infrastructure and report on our evaluation with several data intensive workloads.
Euro and Trade Flows in Central Europe

In this paper we estimate the trade effects of the euro adoption in Central European countries using a modified gravity model. In particular, we analyze the ex post implications of accession of Slovenia and Slovakia to the Eurozone. We employ a gravity model that controls for an extended set of trade theory and policy variables. Trade theory variables include both the country size and factor proportion variables. Trade policy variables include the membership in GATT/WTO, CEFTA, OECD, EU and Europe Agreements. The gravity model is estimated using the panel data approach on a sample of CEE countries trading with the rest of the world during the period 1992-2009 using the fixed effects, random effects and Hausman-Taylor estimators. It seems that elimination of exchange rate volatility resulted in trade expansion for the CEE countries but the accession to the Eurozone did not have any significant effects on exports of Slovakia and Slovenia.
Comparing interactive information retrieval systems across sites: the TREC-6 interactive track matrix experiment

This is a case study in the design and analysis of a g-site TREC-6 experiment aimed at comparing the performance of 12 interactive information retrieval (IR) systems on a shared problem: a question-answering task, 6 statements of information need, and a collection of 210,158 articles from the Financial Times of London 1991-1994. The study discusses the application of experimental design principles and the use of a shared control IR system in addressing the problems of comparing experimental interactive IR systems across sites: isolating the effects of topics, human searchers, and other site-specific factors within an affordable design. The results confirm the dominance of the topic effect, show the searcher effect is almost as often absent as present, and indicate that for several sites the a-factor interactions are negligible. An analysis of variance found the system effect to be significant, but a multiple comparisons test found no significant pairwise differences.