Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing Self-Injurious Behaviors on a College Campus

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence, as well as perceived positive and negative consequences, of a wide range of risky and self-injurious behaviors (SIB). Participants were 215 undergraduate students (56.3% female), who were administered the Self-Injurious Behavior Risk Assessment (SIBRA), which was designed for this study; and the Eysenck Impulsiveness Scale (EIS; Eysenck, 1985). To compare behaviors viewed as having benefits which outweigh risks, a reward/risk ratio was rank ordered. Correlations were computed between item-total frequency, perceived consequences, the reward/risk ratio, and the EIS. Results found a variety of behaviors being endorsed by students, as well as eleven significant gender differences. Perceived benefits, gender, impulsiveness, venturesomeness, and empathy were all found to be related to SIB. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Psychology First Advisor Steven Huprich, PhD Second Advisor Alida Westman, PhD
Tomato Ringspot Virus Proteins Containing the Nucleoside Triphosphate Binding Domain Are Transmembrane Proteins That Associate with the Endoplasmic Reticulum and Cofractionate with Replication Complexes

ABSTRACT Replication of all known positive-strand RNA viruses occurs in replication complexes associated with intracellular membranes. The putative nucleoside triphosphate binding (NTB) protein of Tomato ringspot virus (ToRSV) contains a stretch of hydrophobic residues at its C terminus, suggesting that it may act as a membrane anchor for the replication complex. Anti-NTB antibodies detected two predominant proteins in membrane-enriched fractions (the 66-kDa NTB and 69-kDa NTB-VPg proteins) along with other, larger proteins. The proteins containing the NTB domain cofractionated with markers of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and with ToRSV-specific RNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity in sucrose gradients. ToRSV infection induced severe changes in the morphology of the ER in plants expressing an ER-targeted green fluorescent protein (ER-GFP), and proteins containing the NTB domain colocalized with ER-GFP in indirect immunofluorescence assays. The proteins containing the NTB domain have properties of integral membrane proteins. Proteinase K protection assays using purified membranes from infected plants revealed that although the central portion of the NTB domain is exposed to the cytoplasmic face of the membranes, an 8-kDa fragment, recognized by anti-VPg antibodies, is protected by the membranes. This fragment probably consists of the 3-kDa VPg and the 5-kDa stretch of hydrophobic residues at the C terminus of the NTB protein, suggesting a luminal location for the VPg in at least a portion of the molecules. These results provide evidence that proteins containing the NTB domain are transmembrane proteins associated with ER-derived membranes and support the hypothesis that one or several of the proteins containing the NTB domain anchor the replication complex to the ER.
Specific detection of multidrug resistance proteins MRP1, MRP2, MRP3, MRP5, and MDR3 P-glycoprotein with a panel of monoclonal antibodies.

Tumor cells may display a multidrug resistance phenotype by overexpression of ATP binding cassette transporter genes such as multidrug resistance (MDR) 1 P-glycoprotein (P-gp) or the multidrug resistance protein 1 (MRP1). MDR3 P-gp is a close homologue of MDR1 P-gp, but its role in MDR is probably minor and remains to be established. The MRP1 protein belongs to a family of at least six members. Three of these, i.e., MRP1, MRP2, and MRP3, can transport MDR drugs and could be involved in MDR. The substrate specificity of the other family members remains to be defined. Specific monoclonal antibodies are required for wide-scale studies on the putative contribution of these closely related transporter proteins to MDR. In this report, we describe the extensive characterization of a panel of monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) detecting several MDR-related transporter proteins in both human and animal tissues. The panel consists of P3II-1 and P3II-26 for MDR3 P-gp; MRPr1, MRPm6, MRPm5, and MIB6 for MRP1; M2I-4, M2II-12, M2III-5 and M2III-6 for MRP2; M3II-9 and M3II-21 for MRP3; and M5I-1 and M5II-54 for MRP5. All Mabs in the panel appeared to be fully specific for their cognate antigens, both in Western blots and cytospin preparations, as revealed by lack of cross-reactivity with any of the other family members. Indeed, all Mabs were very effective in detecting their respective antigens in cytospins of transfected cell lines, whereas in flow cytometric and immunohistochemical analyses, distinct differences in reactivity and suitability were noted. These Mabs should become valuable tools in studying the physiological functions of these transporter proteins, in screening procedures for the absence of these proteins in hereditary metabolic (liver) diseases, and in studying the possible contributions of these molecules to MDR in cancer patients.
A simple two-dimensional model for IGFET operation in the saturation region

A model is developed for an IGFET operating in saturation and accounting for the two-dimensional potential distribution in the section of the surface space-charge region adjacent to the drain. This section is treated as a volume obeying Gauss's law, thereby enabling the charge contained in it to be related to the integral of the electric displacement density normal to its surface without the need to consider the detailed distribution of charge inside. The resulting model shows, explicitly, the dependence of device output characteristics on applied potentials, geometric and processing parameters. It is also shown that by making adequate approximations, simple yet accurate forms of the model are obtained. The accuracy of the model is demonstrated by comparisons between calculated and measured device output characteristics.
Expression of the p56lckY505F Mutation in CD45-Deficient Mice Rescues Thymocyte Development

ABSTRACT Mice deficient in the transmembrane protein tyrosine phosphatase CD45 exhibit a block in thymocyte development. To determine whether the block in thymocyte development was due to the inability to dephosphorylate the inhibitory phosphorylation site (Y505) in p56 lck (Lck), we generated CD45-deficient mice that express transgenes for the Lck Y505F mutation and the DO11.10 T-cell antigen receptor (TCR). CD4 single-positive T cells developed and accumulated in the periphery. Treatment with antigen resulted in thymocyte apoptosis and the loss of transgenic-TCR-bearing cells. Peripheral CD45-deficient T cells from the mice expressing both transgenes responded to antigen by increasing CD69 expression, interleukin-2 production, and proliferation. These results indicate that thymocyte development requires the dephosphorylation of the inhibitory site in Lck by CD45.
Los nuevos Estatutos de Autonomía y las relaciones de colaboración: un nuevo escenario, ¿una nueva etapa?

Los nuevos Estatutos disenan un nuevo marco normativo para las relaciones de colaboracion de las Comunidades Autonomas con el Estado y con las demas Comunidades Autonomas. En este estudio transversal se contemplan tres cuestiones: en primer lugar, se examina el conjunto de instrumentos y procedimientos de relacion entre el Estado y las Comunidades Autonomas y entre Comunidades Autonomas que preven los nuevos textos en titulos especificos y fuera de ellos; en segundo termino, se contemplan las vias de cambio que pueden abrir la suma de reformas estatutarias contempladas en su conjunto, y, en tercer lugar, se examinan cambios que se estan produciendo al margen de dichas reformas, pero paralelamente a las mismas. Las relaciones de colaboracion en Espana son un sector con problemas identificados que los Estatutos por si solos no pueden resolver. Pueden introducir mejoras tecnicas y generar un impulso politico que sera decisivo para iniciar dinamicas distintas. Por el momento, hay mas expectativas de cambio que cambios reales que solo el tiempo, con hechos, podra determinar si representan un nuevo inicio de etapa en las relaciones cooperativas del Estado autonomico.
Sound and tangible interface for shape evaluation and modification

One of the recent research topics in the area of design and virtual prototyping is offering designers tools for creating and modifying shapes in a natural and interactive way. Multimodal interaction is part of this research. It allows conveying to the users information through different sensory channels. The use of more modalities than touch and vision augments the sense of presence in the virtual environment and can be useful to present the same information in various ways. In addition, multimodal interaction can sometimes be used to augment the perception of the user by transferring information that is not generally perceived in the real world, but which can be emulated by the virtual environment. The paper presents a prototype of a system that allows designers to evaluate the quality of a shape with the aid of touch, vision and sound. Sound is used to communicate geometrical data, relating to the virtual object, which are practically undetectable through touch and vision. In addition, the paper presents the preliminary work carried out on this prototype and the results of the first tests made in order to demonstrate the feasibility. The problems related to the development of this kind of application and the realization of the prototype itself are highlighted. This paper also focuses on the potentialities and the problems relating to the use of multimodal interaction, in particular the auditory channel.
Reliable Event Dissemination over Wide-Area Networks without Severe Performance Fluctuations

Publish/subscribe middleware is being increasingly used to devise large-scale critical systems. Although several reliable publish/subscribe solutions have been proposed, none of them properly address the problem of assuring message dissemination even if network omissions happen without breaking any temporal constraints. In order to fill this gap, we have investigated how to guarantee a resilient and timely event dissemination despite of message losses. The contribution of this paper is on proposing a FEC approach, where encoding functionality is placed at the root and on a subset of interior nodes in the multicast tree, combined to a gossiping algorithm. Simulation-based experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach allows all the interested subscribers to receive all the published messages and the adopted resiliency mean does not affect the timeliness of the multicast protocol.
Does transparency strengthen legitimacy?

Does enhanced transparency, through the Internet, boost the legitimacy of the EU? In this paper we present a critical perspective on the assumptions underlying the relation between transparency and legitimacy. We reconstruct three assumptions from EU policy documents - transparency strengthens input legitimacy, output legitimacy and social legitimacy - and then highlight several weaknesses. We conclude that transparency is a key element of democratic institutions but naive assumptions about the relation between transparency and legitimacy can and should be avoided. We warn against a simplified trust in the benefits of the Internet: enhancing legitimacy is much more complicated than creating fancy websites.
Processing of Complex Stock Market Events Using Background Knowledge

Usage of background knowledge about events and their relations to other concepts in the application domain, can improve the quality of event processing. In this paper, we describe a system for knowledge-based event detection of complex stock market events based on available background knowledge about stock market companies. Our system profits from data fusion of live event streams and background knowledge about companies which are stored in a knowledge base. Users of our system can express their queries in a rule language which provides functionalities to specify semantic queries about companies in the RDF SPARQL language for querying the external knowledge base and combine it with event data streams. Background makes it possible to detect stock market events based on companies attributes and not only based on syntactic processing of stock price and volume.
The Electron-Cloud Effect in the Arcs of the LHC

We present an update of our estimates for the power deposition arising from the electroncloud effect in the dipole bending magnets in the arcs of the LHC. In addition, we present the estimate of the power deposition in the field-free regions in the arcs. We hold the number of particles per bunch and the bunch spacing fixed at their nominal values, and we assume throughout a high photon reflectivity. We explore the dependence of the power deposition on the photoelectric efficiency and on secondary emission yield parameters. We find a marked sensitivity to parameters that characterize secondary emission on the scale of 5− 10 eV. ∗Member of the US collaboration to the LHC project. †MAFurman@lbl.gov. Center for Beam Physics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. ‡Work supported by the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC03-76SF00098. §Also published as LBNL-41482/CBP Note 247. Administrative Secretariat LHC Division CERN CH-1211 Geneva 23 Switzerland Geneva, May 20, 1998
Stable AQM Algorithm Based on AdaptiveWavelet Neural Network Controller

In this paper, we present the adaptive wavelet neural network (WNN) controller, which is trained by adaptive learning rates (ALRs), as an active queue management(AQM) in end-to-end TCP network. In TCP network, AQM is important to regulate the queue length and short round trip time by passing or dropping the packets at the intermediate routers. RED and PI algorithms have been used for AQM formerly. But these algorithms show weakness in the detection and control of the congestion under dynamically changing network situations. In our method, the WNN controller using ALRs is designed to overcome the problems, which adaptively controls the dropping probability of the TCP network and is trained by gradient-descent algorithm. We apply Lyapunov theorem to verify the stability of our proposed WNN controller. The simulation results show that the performance of WNN controller using ALRs is superior to that of PI controller
Identifying Ligand Binding Conformations of the β2-Adrenergic Receptor by Using Its Agonists as Computational Probes

Recently available G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) structures and biophysical studies suggest that the difference between the effects of various agonists and antagonists cannot be explained by single structures alone, but rather that the conformational ensembles of the proteins need to be considered. Here we use an elastic network model-guided molecular dynamics simulation protocol to generate an ensemble of conformers of a prototypical GPCR, β2-adrenergic receptor (β2AR). The resulting conformers are clustered into groups based on the conformations of the ligand binding site, and distinct conformers from each group are assessed for their binding to known agonists of β2AR. We show that the select ligands bind preferentially to different predicted conformers of β2AR, and identify a role of β2AR extracellular region as an allosteric binding site for larger drugs such as salmeterol. Thus, drugs and ligands can be used as “computational probes” to systematically identify protein conformers with likely biological significance.
Amygdalar NMDA Receptors are Critical for New Fear Learning in Previously Fear-Conditioned Rats

NMDA receptors in the amygdala seem to be critical for fear conditioning in naive rats. Recent spatial-learning studies suggest that previous learning protected animals from the amnesic effect of NMDA antagonists on new learning (of a similar behavioral task). Therefore, the present study examined whether blocking of NMDA receptors in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) prevents new fear learning in previously fear-conditioned rats, as measured by freezing behavior. Intra-BLA infusions of the NMDA receptor antagonistdl-2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (APV) completely blocked fear conditioning to a tone stimulus in animals that had previously been fear-conditioned to a light stimulus. Similar results were obtained with intra-BLA infusions of APV before contextual fear conditioning in rats that had been fear-conditioned to a different context. Additional experiments showed that intra-BLA APV infusions substantially interfere with the expression and extinction of conditioned fear to tone, light, and context stimuli. Together, these results indicate that NMDA receptors in the BLA are crucial for the encoding of new fear memories (i.e., the formation of specific conditioned stimulus–unconditioned stimulus association), the expression of conditioned fear responses, and the extinction of acquired fear.
Rate-compatible punctured convolutional codes (RCPC codes) and their applications

The concept of punctured convolutional codes is extended by punctuating a low-rate 1/N code periodically with period P to obtain a family of codes with rate P/(P+l), where l can be varied between 1 and (N-1)P. A rate-compatibility restriction on the puncturing tables ensures that all code bits of high rate codes are used by the lower-rate codes. This allows transmission of incremental redundancy in ARQ/FEC (automatic repeat request/forward error correction) schemes and continuous rate variation to change from low to high error protection within a data frame. Families of RCPC codes with rates between 8/9 and 1/4 are given for memories M from 3 to 6 (8 to 64 trellis states) together with the relevant distance spectra. These codes are almost as good as the best known general convolutional codes of the respective rates. It is shown that the same Viterbi decoder can be used for all RCPC codes of the same M. the application of RCPC codes to hybrid ARQ/FEC schemes is discussed for Gaussian and Rayleigh fading channels using channel-state information to optimise throughput. >
Obstacle Avoidance for Visually Impaired Using Auto-Adaptive Thresholding on Kinect's Depth Image

Visually impaired people need assistance to navigate safely, especially in indoor environment. This research developed an obstacle avoidance system for visually impaired using Kinect's depth camera as the main vision device. A new approach called auto-adaptive thresholding is proposed to detect and to calculate the distance of obstacle from the user. The proposed method divides equally a depth image into three areas. It finds the most optimal threshold value automatically (auto) and vary among each of those areas (adaptive). Based on that threshold value, the distance of the closest obstacle for each area is determined by average function. To respond the existence of the obstacle, the system gives sound and voice feedback to the user through an earphone. The experimental result shows that execution time and error of the system in calculating the distance of the obstacle are 12.24 ms and 130.796 mm respectively. Evaluation with blind-folded persons indicates that the system could successfully guide them to avoid obstacles in real-time condition.
Zinc alpha‐2 glycoprotein is implicated in dyslipidaemia in HIV‐1‐infected patients treated with antiretroviral drugs

Treated HIV‐1‐infected patients with lipodystrophy often develop insulin resistance and proatherogenic dyslipidaemia. Zinc alpha‐2 glycoprotein (ZAG) is a recently characterized adipokine which has been shown to be involved in the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome in uninfected subjects. We assessed the relationship between circulating ZAG levels and metabolic derangements in HIV‐1‐infected patients receiving antiretroviral drugs.
Chiral field theories from conifolds

We discuss the geometric engineering and large N transition for an = 1 U(N) chiral gauge theory with one adjoint, one conjugate symmetric, one antisymmetric and eight fundamental chiral multiplets. Our IIB realization involves an orientifold of a non-compact Calabi-Yau A2 fibration, together with D5-branes wrapping the exceptional curves of its resolution as well as the orientifold fixed locus. We give a detailed discussion of this background and of its relation to the Hanany-Witten realization of the same theory. In particular, we argue that the T-duality relating the two constructions maps the 2 orientifold of the Hanany-Witten realization into a 4 orientifold in type IIB. We also discuss the related engineering of theories with SO/Sp gauge groups and symmetric or antisymmetric matter.
Comparison of Methods Based on Different Molecular Epidemiological Markers for Typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex Strains: Interlaboratory Study of Discriminatory Power and Reproducibility

ABSTRACT In this study, the currently known typing methods forMycobacterium tuberculosis isolates were evaluated with regard to reproducibility, discrimination, and specificity. Therefore, 90 M. tuberculosis complex strains, originating from 38 countries, were tested in five restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing methods and in seven PCR-based assays. In all methods, one or more repetitive DNA elements were targeted. The strain typing and the DNA fingerprint analysis were performed in the laboratory most experienced in the respective method. To examine intralaboratory reproducibility, blinded duplicate samples were included. The specificities of the various methods were tested by inclusion of 10 non-M. tuberculosis complex strains. All five RFLP typing methods were highly reproducible. The reliability of the PCR-based methods was highest for the mixed-linker PCR, followed by variable numbers of tandem repeat (VNTR) typing and spoligotyping. In contrast, the double repetitive element PCR (DRE-PCR), IS6110 inverse PCR, IS6110 ampliprinting, and arbitrarily primed PCR (APPCR) typing were found to be poorly reproducible. The 90 strains were best discriminated by IS6110 RFLP typing, yielding 84 different banding patterns, followed by mixed-linker PCR (81 patterns), APPCR (71 patterns), RFLP using the polymorphic GC-rich sequence as a probe (70 patterns), DRE-PCR (63 patterns), spoligotyping (61 patterns), and VNTR typing (56 patterns). We conclude that for epidemiological investigations, strain differentiation by IS6110 RFLP or mixed-linker PCR are the methods of choice. A strong association was found between the results of different genetic markers, indicating a clonal population structure of M. tuberculosis strains. Several separate genotype families within the M. tuberculosis complex could be recognized on the basis of the genetic markers used.
Internet traffic classification based on flows' statistical properties with machine learning

Machine learning has recently entered the area of network traffic classification as an alternative to the deep packet inspection technique. It provides both unsupervised and supervised learning algorithms that are capable to put aside similar types of traffic or recognize Internet protocols based on some training, pre‐labeled samples. The current work proposes a new approach in the area of network traffic classification using machine learning. First, we extract the unidirectional and bidirectional flows from a traffic capture. A flow is a collection of packets that share sender and receiver IP address and port. Second, we select relevant statistical properties of these flows and use an unsupervised learning mechanism to group flows into clusters based on the similarities. Eventually, we use this classification as training input for a supervised learning engine that will have to properly determine the class of new, unseen traffic flows. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.