Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Longer Telomere Length and its Association with Lower Levels of C-Peptide

Background Telomeres undergo shortening with each cell division, which could be accelerated by increase obesity and is also related to endocrinology systems. In this study, we aimed to examine the complex association between telomere, C-peptide, and obesity as well as chronic inflammation in a large population-based cross-sectional survey. Methods We used data from a community-based population study, where around 1,382 participants were recruited and had telomere length measured. The association of telomere length with C-peptide was studied using multiple linear regression models. We also examined if obesity, measured by body mass index (BMI), and inflammation could affect this observed association. Results Around 48% of these participants were men and 52% were women. The average ages were 51.7 years old for men and 49.1 years old for women. After controlling for age and sex, 1 U increase of telomere length was associated with −0.17 (−0.28, −0.06) unit decrease of C-peptide. Additionally controlling for BMI, the association magnitude was decreased to −0.13 (−0.23, −0.04). Further adjusting for inflammation biomarker did not change the effect estimates. Conclusion Longer telomere was associated with lower levels of C-peptide. This association could be attenuated by adjusting for obesity.
Comparative study of PMSM Drive systems based on current control and direct torque control in flux-weakening control region

This paper examines the control performance of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive systems based on current control and direct torque control (DTC) when flux-weakening control is applied. The control law in the M-T frame, which is used in the DTC, requires only armature resistance, whereas the control law in the d-q frame, which is used in current control, requires many motor parameters for flux-weakening control. The experimental results clarify the influence of parameter variation on the control characteristics of flux-weakening and torque limiting. The DTC-based motor drive system combined with the control laws in the M-T frame has several advantages, including insensitivity to parameter variation, simplicity of calculation, and stable control.
Genes and bacteria for automatic test cases optimization in the .NET environment

The level of confidence in a software component is often linked to the quality of its test cases. This quality can in turn be evaluated with mutation analysis: faulty components (mutants) are systematically generated to check the proportion of mutants detected ("killed") by the test cases. But while the generation of basic test cases set is easy, improving its quality may require prohibitive effort. We focus on the issue of automating the test optimization. We looked at genetic algorithms to solve this problem and modeled it as follows: a test case can be considered as a predator while a mutant program is analogous to a prey. The aim of the selection process is to generate test cases able to kill as many mutants as possible. To overcome disappointing experimentation results on the studied . NET system, we propose a slight variation on this idea, no longer at the "animal" level (lions killing zebras) but at the bacteriological level. The bacteriological level indeed better reflects the test case optimization issue: it introduces a memorization function and suppresses the crossover operator. We describe this model and show how it behaves on the case study.
Designing high-speed, low-power full adder cells based on carbon nanotube technology

This article presents novel high speed and low power full adder cells based on carbon nanotube field effect transistor (CNFET). Four full adder cells are proposed in this article. First one (named CN9P4G) and second one (CN9P8GBUFF) utilizes 13 and 17 CNFETs respectively. Third design that we named CN10PFS uses only 10 transistors and is full swing. Finally, CN8P10G uses 18 transistors and divided into two modules, causing Sum and Cout signals are produced in a parallel manner. All inputs have been used straight, without inverting. These designs also used the special feature of CNFET that is controlling the threshold voltage by adjusting the diameters of CNFETs to achieve the best performance and right voltage levels. All simulation performed using Synopsys HSPICE software and the proposed designs are compared to other classical and modern CMOS and CNFET-based full adder cells in terms of delay, power consumption and power delay product.
The Modula-2* environment for parallel programming

Presents a portable parallel programming environment for Modula-2*, an explicitly parallel machine-independent extension of Modula-2. Modula-2* offers synchronous and asynchronous parallelism, a global single address space, and automatic data and process distribution. The Modula-2* system consists of a compiler, a debugger, a cross-architecture make, graphical X Windows control panel, run-time systems for different machines, and sets of scalable parallel libraries. The existing implementation targets the MasPar MP series of massively parallel processors (SIMD), the KSR-1 parallel computer (MIMD), heterogeneous LANs of workstations (MIMD), and single workstations (SISD). We describe the important components of the Modula-2* environment, and discuss selected implementation issues. We focus on how we achieve a high degree of portability for our system, while at the same time ensuring efficiency. <<ETX>>
Leading with Emotional Intelligence

This Leading with Emotional Intelligence (“EI”) course focuses on the development of emotional intelligence to drive the performance and achieve business results. This course focuses on practical application that blends theory and practice for: • Increasing self-awareness of emotions and how to manage them • Controlling and managing your emotions to drive results • Developing empathy and seeing from another person’s perspective • Improving relationships with others
Where Does Issue Ownership Come From? From the Party or from the Media? Issue-party Identifications in Belgium, 1991-2005

Although widely used in political science to tackle voting behavior and campaign strategy, the issue-ownership thesis remains untested when it comes to the origins of parties’ identification with specific issues. This article explores where issue ownership comes from and/or how it is maintained. The authors test two possible avenues of issue ownership: the party and the mass media. On one hand, parties’ own external communication may stress specific issues, claiming to be best placed to solve these issues. On the other hand, parties could be identified by the media with certain issues, leading to an implicit association between issue and party. The authors test both propositions, drawing on the case of Belgium, a small consociational democracy in Western Europe. Belgium is a good case to examine issue ownership, as its many parties are identified with many issues. Relying on extensive media data and party evidence, they find that issue ownership is related both to party communications and media coverage. This applies in particular to newer, challenging parties that are strongly identified with their core issues. In general, parties’ older communications are drivers of issue ownership; in contrast, recent media coverage contributes to issue ownership. The direction of the causal arrow remains unsure.
Construction of a remote class support system with humanoid robot

Due to advances in network and information terminal device technologies and the development of larger and higher-resolution display devices, it has become possible to teach classes remotely in a realistic and interactive manner using real-time video transmission. However, there are times when communication is not sufficient due to constraints imposed by the characteristics of the media used between remote locations, and this is causing problems in presenting the lessons. In this paper, we discuss the results of a study of a method of solving the above problem by using a robot instead of the video image of the teacher, which has conventionally been used as the communication medium between remote locations. By having a humanoid robot in the classroom with the students, a system that allows teaching a class with a manageable extra operational load on the teacher at a remote location was constructed. We showed that the problems with a conventional remote class support system can be solved in a remote class taught using this system. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 38(6): 21–33, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20472
A thin-shelled reptile from the Late Triassic of North America and the origin of the turtle shell

A new, thin-shelled fossil from the Upper Triassic (Revueltian: Norian) Chinle Group of New Mexico, Chinlechelys tenertesta, is one of the most primitive known unambiguous members of the turtle stem lineage. The thin-shelled nature of the new turtle combined with its likely terrestrial habitat preference hint at taphonomic filters that basal turtles had to overcome before entering the fossil record. Chinlechelys tenertesta possesses neck spines formed by multiple osteoderms, indicating that the earliest known turtles were covered with rows of dermal armour. More importantly, the primitive, vertically oriented dorsal ribs of the new turtle are only poorly associated with the overlying costal bones, indicating that these two structures are independent ossifications in basal turtles. These novel observations lend support to the hypothesis that the turtle shell was originally a complex composite in which dermal armour fused with the endoskeletal ribs and vertebrae of an ancestral lineage instead of forming de novo. The critical shell elements (i.e. costals and neurals) are thus not simple outgrowths of the bone of the endoskeletal elements as has been hypothesized from some embryological observations.
Static Detection of Access Control Vulnerabilities in Web Applications

Access control vulnerabilities, which cause privilege escalations, are among the most dangerous vulnerabilities in web applications. Unfortunately, due to the difficulty in designing and implementing perfect access checks, web applications often fall victim to access control attacks. In contrast to traditional injection flaws, access control vulnerabilities are application-specific, rendering it challenging to obtain precise specifications for static and runtime enforcement. On one hand, writing specifications manually is tedious and time-consuming, which leads to non-existent, incomplete or erroneous specifications. On the other hand, automatic probabilistic-based specification inference is imprecise and computationally expensive in general. This paper describes the first static analysis that automatically detects access control vulnerabilities in web applications. The core of the analysis is a technique that statically infers and enforces implicit access control assumptions. Our insight is that source code implicitly documents intended accesses of each role and any successful forced browsing to a privileged page is likely a vulnerability. Based on this observation, our static analysis constructs sitemaps for different roles in a web application, compares per-role sitemaps to find privileged pages, and checks whether forced browsing is successful for each privileged page. We implemented our analysis and evaluated our tool on several real-world web applications. The evaluation results show that our tool is scalable and detects both known and new access control vulnerabilities with few false positives.
The Growing Phenomenon of Private Tutoring: Does it Deepen Human Capital, Widen Inequalities, or Waste Resources?

Does private tutoring increase parental choice and improve student achievement, or does it exacerbate social inequalities and impose heavy costs on households, possibly without improving student outcomes? Private tutoring is now a major component of the education sector in many developing countries, yet education policy too seldom acknowledges or makes use of it. This survey of the literature examines the extent of private tutoring, identifies the factors that explain its growth, and analyzes its cost-effectiveness in improving student academic performance. It also presents a framework for assessing the efficiency and equity effects of tutoring. The results suggest that even taking equity concerns into account, tutoring can raise the effectiveness of the education system under certain reasonable assumptions. Guidance is offered for attacking corruption and other problems that diminish the benefits of private tutoring.
HugMe: An interpersonal haptic communication system

Traditional teleconferencing multimedia systems have been limited to audio and video information. However, human touch, in the form of handshake, encouraging pat, comforting hug, among other physical contacts, is fundamental to physical and emotional development between persons. This paper presents the motivation and design of a synchronous haptic teleconferencing system with touch interaction to convey affection and nurture. We present a preliminary prototype for an interpersonal haptic communication system called HugMe. Examples of potential applications for HugMe include the domains of physical and/or emotional therapy, understaffed hospitals, remote children caring and distant loverspsila communication. This paper is submitted for demonstration.
Critical assessment of methods of protein structure prediction (CASP)‐round V

This article provides an introduction to the special issue of the journal Proteins dedicated to the fifth CASP experiment to assess the state of the art in protein structure prediction. The article describes the conduct, the categories of prediction, and the evaluation and assessment procedures of the experiment. A brief summary of progress over the five CASP experiments is provided. Related developments in the field are also described. Proteins 2003;53:334–339. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Learning Part-Based Models for Animation from Surface Motion Capture

Surface motion capture (Surf Cap) enables 3D reconstruction of human performance with detailed cloth and hair deformation. However, there is a lack of tools that allow flexible editing of Surf Cap sequences. In this paper, we present a Laplacian editing technique that constrains the mesh deformation to plausible surface shapes learnt from a set of examples. A part-Based representation of the mesh enables learning of surface deformation locally in the space of Laplacian coordinates, avoiding correlations between body parts while preserving surface details. This extends the range of animation with natural surface deformation beyond the whole-body poses present in the Surf Cap data. We illustrate successful use of our tool on three different characters.
The content and development of mobbing at work

Abstract In this article the concept of mobbing is introduced. Mobbing means harassing, ganging up on someone, or psychologically terrorizing others at work. Although mobbing is a very old phenomenon, it was not described and systematically researched until the early 1980s. The article begins with a case example, some historical notes, and a definition of mobbing, and then regards mobbing in the context of medical and psychological stress research. Several stages in the development of mobbing are described, based on about 800 case studies. Some epidemiological findings from a representative sample of the Swedish work population are reported. Causes and consequences of mobbing are discussed, and conclusions for prevention and intervention are drawn.
Feature Based Visualization Algorithm for Large-Scale Flow Data

To analyze large amounts of numerical data, one of the most useful approaches is to use scientific visualization to transform them into graphical images. Flow visualization as one of the challenging topics has played important roles in oceanic data analysis. There are many techniques have been presented in the past decade, but most of them can’t get high performance to visualize large-scale flow data in real time. To deduce the computational complexity brought by large flow dataset, feature-based expression will be a helpful way. However, how to get the result images quickly without costing much time for feature extraction and analysis is a very important problem to deal. Based on the common characteristic of flow and the unchangeable scale feather of spiral line, we present a new distributing strategy which needn’t locate feature points very accurately and didn’t rely on the type of feature fields. The visualization procedure not only can straight forward automatically but also can be changed with user’s interactive command. The flow data obtained from the South Sea of China was verified and simulated. The result shows that this method using spiral strategy not templates to setting the seeds to emphasize the interesting fields is much faster and flexible, especially in large-scale flow data visualization.
THE LOCAL ENSEMBLE KALMAN FILTER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

The time has come when ensemble-based Kalman filter data assimilation schemes can be considered for implementation on operational weather forecast systems in the foreseeable future. For the first time, an ensemble Kalman filter has been reported to break even with a sophisticated operational 3DVar system (Houtekamer et al 2004), to outperform the NCEP 3D-Var in reconstructing the state of the mid-troposphere from surface pressure observations (Whitaker et al. 2004), and to be efficient in assimilating simulated and real Dopplerradar observations of convective systems (Snyder and Zhang 2003; Zhang et al 2004; Dowell et al 2004). The present paper reports on the current status of the 4-dimensional Local Ensemble Kalman Filter data assimilation system (4D LEKF) developed by our interdisciplinary team at the University of Maryland. Our plan has been to develop a largely model independent analysis system through completation of the following tasks:
Moving Toward Inclusion: Lessons From the Maldives

This article presents findings from a case study done in a school in the Maldives. Data collected included interviews with key members of the school community, recorded classroom observations, and document analysis. The study focused on the practices and participants’ experiences regarding inclusion. The findings revealed that a range of exclusionary practices have continued despite current efforts toward inclusion. At the time of the case study, the school's vision was to become a world-class school, and inclusion was one of the targets that it planned to achieve. The steps taken by the school to move it toward inclusion are discussed, followed by lessons learned.
Evaluation of NK Cell - Astrocyte Interactions: Potential Role in HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorders and HIV- Associated Dementia

NK cells play important roles in immunity against pathogens and cancer. NK cell functions are regulated by inhibitory and activating receptors binding corresponding ligands on the surface of target cells. During pathological conditions, NK cells were shown to be recruited to the CNS and could impact CNS physiology by killing glial cells and by secreting IFN-g. Astrocytes are intimately involved in immunological and inflammatory events occurring in the CNS and reactive astrogliosis is a key feature in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). There is little data on NK cell-astrocyte interactions and ligands expressed on astrocytes that could impact NK cell function. This study aimed to identify NK-associated ligands expressed by human astrocytes that confer this NK-directed cytotoxicity of astrocytes and assay the cytotoxicity differences in presence and absence of HIV 3S peptide. Using a fusion protein consisting of the extracellular domain of NKp44 fused to Fc portion of human IgG, we determined the expression of a novel ligand for NKp44 (NKp44L) on astrocytes. Incubation of astrocytes with 3S peptide downregulated NKp44L expression on astrocytes implicating protection from NK mediated killing. Thus, our study demonstrated that NKp44 has a protective effect on astrocytes from NK cell mediated killing during HIV infection. Astrocytes could also secrete cytokines that affect the expression of NK receptors on NK cells. We evaluated the expression of receptors on NK cells after co-culture with astrocytes. CD38 expression was increased on primary NK cells after incubation with astrocytes. CD38 is expressed on both NK cells and astrocytes and has an important implication in HIV-1 infection. Blocking CD38 signaling in our studies decreased astrocyte lysis, suggesting CD38 signaling has important implications in NK-astrocyte interactions. Future studies providing novel insights into the role of NK cells in the pathogenesis of HAND and other brain disorders might result in the development of NK cell based therapies for brain pathologies. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First I would like to thank Dr. Porunelloor Mathew for his guidance, time, and unlimited patience. I would also like to thank my committee member, Dr. Stephen Mathew, for acting as my co-mentor and always willing to extend a helping hand and answer my questions. I would like to extend my gratitude to the rest of my committee members, Dr. Lisa Hodge and Dr. Kunlin Jin for all of their helpful insight and for taking the time out of their busy schedules to meet with me. I wish to extend many thanks …
Secure equilibria in weighted games

We consider two-player non zero-sum infinite duration games played on weighted graphs. We extend the notion of secure equilibrium introduced by Chatterjee et al., from the Boolean setting to this quantitative setting. As for the Boolean setting, our notion of secure equilibrium refines the classical notion of Nash equilibrium. We prove that secure equilibria always exist in a large class of weighted games which includes common measures like sup, inf, lim sup, lim inf, mean-payoff, and discounted sum. Moreover we show that one can synthesize finite-memory strategy profiles with few memory. We also prove that the constrained existence problem for secure equilibria is decidable for sup, inf, lim sup, lim inf and mean-payoff measures. Our solutions rely on new results for zero-sum quantitative games with lexicographic objectives that are interesting on their own right.
A critical review of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor-associated bleeding: balancing the risk of treating hepatitis C-infected patients.

BACKGROUND Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are increasingly being used to treat interferon-associated side effects in patients receiving hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy. Because there is an increased risk of bleeding in HCV-infected patients who have developed cirrhosis and either portal hypertension or hepatic failure or both, we critically reviewed the literature on SSRI-associated bleeding. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SELECTION We performed a MEDLINE search of literature from 1966 to the present using hemorrhage, SSRI, and antidepressants as search terms and followed up on relevant citations. We reviewed 6 retrospective studies, 5 of which were case-control studies, and 18 case reports of bleeding in 37 people. Our review is supplemented with a case report of a possible connection between SSRI treatment and a fatal gastrointestinal bleed in an HCV-infected man. DATA SYNTHESIS Bleeding events in 12/18 reports (67%) describing 19/24 people (79%) were closely associated with the use of SSRIs. CONCLUSION Combining aspirin or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs with SSRIs for the treatment of interferon-associated neuropsychiatric side effects increases the risks of hemorrhage in patients with HCV who have developed cirrhosis and either portal hypertension or hepatic failure or both. We recommend that clinicians exercise caution when prescribing medications that can promote spontaneous bleeding to patients with multiple risk factors for internal hemorrhage.