Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phasic Pupil Dilation Response to Noxious Stimulation

Abstract The pupil dilation response (PDR) to a painful stimulus is a subtle, event-related increase in pupil diameter that occurs following brief noxious stimulation. It varies in amplitude with increasing stimulus intensity. Two competing hypotheses for the PDR are that (1) it reflects event-related cognitive efforts largely independent of pain, such as the task demand of discriminating intensity and readying a subjective report; and (2) like the pupillary light reflex, it is a simple reflexive response. In this study 21 subjects (11 male, 10 female) experienced painful stimuli matched in subjective intensity at two sites: finger tip and ear lobe, but they produced no subjective reports. If the PDR is a product of discriminating stimulus intensity levels and forming a report, then it should be minimal or nonexistent when subjects have no choices and make no overt judgments. On the other hand, if it is primarily a simple sympathetic reflex, then onset and peak latency should be longer for finger tip than.
HIV/AIDS and the family: a review of research in the first decade

Most studies of the psychosocial implications of HIV/AIDS have been focused on the individual. This paper reviews the small but growing body of research into the impact of HIV/AIDS on the family system. Special reference is made to definitions of the family, same-sex relationships and the African family. The impact of HIV/AIDS on the family is discussed in terms of social stigma, isolation and secrecy, stress and coping, social support, communication and disclosure, responses to illness, and changing structure and roles in families. It is anticipated that in the 1990s, the study of the family will become a dominant topic in HIV/AIDS-related research.
Adaptive minimum bit-error-rate filtering

Adaptive filtering has traditionally been developed based on the minimum mean square error (MMSE) principle and has found ever-increasing applications in communications. The paper develops adaptive filtering based on an alternative minimum bit error rate (MBER) criterion for communication applications. It is shown that the MBER filtering exploits the non-Gaussian distribution of filter output effectively and, consequently, can provide significant performance gain in terms of smaller bit error rate (BER) over the MMSE approach. Adopting the classical Parzen window or kernel density estimation for a probability density function (pdf), a block-data gradient adaptive MBER algorithm is derived. A stochastic gradient adaptive MBER algorithm is further developed for sample-by-sample adaptive implementation of the MBER filtering. Extension of the MBER approach to adaptive nonlinear filtering is also discussed.
Endogenizing Corporate Identities: the Next Step in Constructivist IR Theory

In recent years, constructivists in International Relations have been attempting to `seize the middle ground' between positivist objectivism and postmodernist relativism. Yet, while useful in rendering the approach more palatable to mainstream researchers, these efforts risk leading to premature ontological closure. We therefore propose that constructivist research be extended to a `sociational' research agenda. Based on Georg Simmel's process theory of Vergesellschaftung, it joins contemporary constructivists on the epistemological middle ground while liberating itself from some of their ontological restrictions. The sociational perspective endogenizes the actors' corporate identities as a way to trace `entity processes' such as the creation and dissolution of actors as well as boundary change. Such an analytical shift makes it possible to imagine, and thus also to analyze, past, present and even future worlds constituted by co-evolving social formations, such as nations, ethnic groups, supranational organizations and states. We show how sociational analysis complements and surpasses conventional explanations of cooperation and conflict as applied to the democratic peace and ethnic conflict.
Conditions for the career entry of Swiss sports science graduates

The differentiation and commercialization of the sports domain means that graduates with sports science degrees have more and more occupational fields to choose from. On the other hand, formal admissions criteria are becoming less important in sports-related occupations. This means that graduates need to pursue specific strategies to successfully embark on a career. This article examines which factors determine the career entry of sports science graduates in Switzerland. Aside from the starting salary, non-monetary aspects such as appropriateness of the job for the level of education and job stability were also considered. The empirical study draws on data from a sample of n = 1054 graduates from all Swiss universities, analysing the career entry of sports science graduates. The results show that education-related aspects (e.g. university degree) lead to higher incomes and jobs that are appropriate to one's academic education; however, differences exist between the diverse occupational domains of sport. Furthermore, additional qualifications obtained by sports science graduates and voluntary activities in the field of sport are both associated with higher incomes, particularly in occupations outside sport. However, other factors (e.g. social networks, internships) produce no relevant effects.
A lightweight incremental analysis and profiling framework for embedded devices

Embedded systems such as mobile devices are currently ubiquitous. The performance potential of these devices is rapidly improving by incorporating multi-core and GPU technologies, and is rapidly catching up with the workstation platforms. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of the underlying hardware as well as the low-power constraints severely limit performance portability. In this paper we consider the case of leveraging JIT compilers to provide portable parallelization while hiding the corresponding expensive runtime analysis. We propose a novel lightweight JIT framework that exploits the device idle time and the large storage space generally available on these devices. The framework performs 'incremental' analysis while the processor is idle (such as during charging time), and exploits the storage space to cache intermediate analysis results. Such approach requires reengineering existing complex optimization analysis methods. For this paper, we focus on the traditional loop parallelization analysis, and implement a working prototype into the LLVM framework, integrating a lightweight dynamic profiling method to identify hotspots. Initial results demonstrate the low overhead of our method for parallelizing simple loops on an embedded GPU.
Physical-Layer Security for Full Duplex Communications With Self-Interference Mitigation

In this paper, we design transmit beamforming for a full duplex base station (FD-BS) considering both self-interference mitigation and physical-layer security. The proposed design is formulated as minimizing the power consumption of FD-BS under different signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR) constraints. Semidefinite relaxation (SDR) is used to convert the initial nonconvex optimization to be a convex semidefinite programming (SDP) problem. Then the optimality of SDR is strictly proved by showing the existence of the rank-one optimal solutions. To reduce the computational complexity, we develop zero forcing beamforming-based suboptimal algorithms, where the solutions can be obtained using golden search and closed-form solutions can be derived in each step. Simulation results are then provided to verify the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.
The Levels of a Universally Conserved tRNA Modification Regulate Cell Growth*

Background: Post-transcriptional modification of N6-threonylcarbamoyl-adenosine (t6A) is required for decoding function of tRNAs that pair A-starting codons. Results: t6A-modified tRNAs are required for growth, to modulate TOR activity and translation efficiency. Conclusion: Levels of t6A-modified tRNAs establish growth potential in eukaryotes. Significance: Recognition in eukaryotes of a conserved mechanism of growth control that relies on tRNA post-transcriptional modification. N6-Threonylcarbamoyl-adenosine (t6A) is a universal modification occurring at position 37 in nearly all tRNAs that decode A-starting codons, including the eukaryotic initiator tRNA (tRNAiMet). Yeast lacking central components of the t6A synthesis machinery, such as Tcs3p (Kae1p) or Tcs5p (Bud32p), show slow-growth phenotypes. In the present work, we show that loss of the Drosophila tcs3 homolog also leads to a severe reduction in size and demonstrate, for the first time in a non-microbe, that Tcs3 is required for t6A synthesis. In Drosophila and in mammals, tRNAiMet is a limiting factor for cell and animal growth. We report that the t6A-modified form of tRNAiMet is the actual limiting factor. We show that changing the proportion of t6A-modified tRNAiMet, by expression of an un-modifiable tRNAiMet or changing the levels of Tcs3, regulate target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase activity and influences cell and animal growth in vivo. These findings reveal an unprecedented relationship between the translation machinery and TOR, where translation efficiency, limited by the availability of t6A-modified tRNA, determines growth potential in eukaryotic cells.
Resilience in the chronic illness experience

This article advances the consideration of resilience as an important concept in the transitional process of learning to adapt to life with chronic illness, by utilising interactional processes inherent in participatory action research (PAR) that may strengthen a person’s capacity to live well with long‐term illness. Sharing experiences and narratives through reflection may strengthen resilience and hence have timely relevance for weathering the uncertainties facing people who are learning to live with chronic illness. The authors draw on a subset of data from longitudinal research with men and women living with chronic illness. Data were generated using email correspondence in between participants’ discussion groups. Analysis of data revealed three themes which further understanding of the transitional process of resilience: constructions of resilience in the illness experience, reconciling and reconstructing, and connecting with others. Participants began to identify personal benefit through reflection on, interpretation and validation of their experiences with illness. It was revealed that resilience was about having a strong sense of self‐worth, the ability to learn from experiences and to develop the capacity to be adaptable. Central to living well with illness is the concept of adaptation. The PAR group process may strengthen resilience because the group provides an enabling environment to address confronting life issues.
Racial Diversity, Legitimacy, and the Citizenry: The Impactof Affirmative Action Bans on Graduate School Enrollment

This study uses data from the CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees and a methodology that supports causal inference to examine the effects of affirmative action bans in Texas, California, Washington, and Florida on graduate student of color enrollment. The findings show that the bans have reduced by 12.2% the average proportion of graduate students who are underrepresented students of color. Given that graduate education is an important pathway for positions of power and influence in our nation, these findings have broad implications for higher education policies that seek to further national educational and democratic goals. They should also help inform legal determinations in cases concerning the constitutionality of affirmative action-related policies.
Multi-core architecture for AUTOSAR based on virtual Electronic Control Units

Message-based Networks-on-a-Chip (NoC) provide significant advantages with respect to temporal predictability, fault isolation and energy efficiency. However, the AUTOSAR standard for multi-core operating systems focuses only on multi-core platforms with shared memories. In order to obtain the benefits of message-based interactions, this paper maps an AUTOSAR system to a multi-core platform with a time-triggered NoC. Cores serve as virtual Electronic Control Units (ECUs), each containing a lightweight AUTOSAR operating system and a Run-Time Environment (RTE). Virtual ECUs provide meaningful units of abstraction and ensure freedom of inference from other cores. Computationally expensive functionality of the basic software is delegated to system cores, which serve as hardware accelerators for the application cores.
Plasma homocysteine level and its genotypes as a risk factor for coronary artery disease in patients undergoing coronary angiography

Background: Hyperhomocysteinemia has recently been identified as a risk factor for coronary artery disease. Some genetic variants (such as C677T polymorphism) are postulated in this regard. We studied the relation between hyperhomocysteinemia and the above genetic variant and risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) and also the number of involved vessels. Materials and Methods: From a total of 90 patients, 45 showed angiographically documented CAD and 45 had clinical manifestations of CAD but a negative angiography. Blood homocysteine level and C677T polymorphism were evaluated by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) respectively. Results: Homocysteine level was significantly higher in the case group (P < 0.001) but no correlation was found between its level and extent of CAD. More homozygote cases of C677T allele were detected in the case group which was not related to the extent of CAD either. Conclusion: Presence of hyperhomocysteinemia increases the risk of CAD but does not predict the extent of it.
Staphylococcus and biofilms

The genetic and molecular basis of biofilm formation in staphylococci is multifaceted. The ability to form a biofilm affords at least two properties: the adherence of cells to a surface and accumulation to form multilayered cell clusters. A trademark is the production of the slime substance PIA, a polysaccharide composed of β‐1,6‐linked N‐acetylglucosamines with partly deacetylated residues, in which the cells are embedded and protected against the host’s immune defence and antibiotic treatment. Mutations in the corresponding biosynthesis genes (ica operon) lead to a pleiotropic phenotype; the cells are biofilm and haemagglutination negative, less virulent and less adhesive on hydrophilic surfaces. ica expression is modulated by various environmental conditions, appears to be controlled by SigB and can be turned on and off by insertion sequence (IS) elements. A number of biofilm‐negative mutants have been isolated in which polysaccharide intercellular adhesin (PIA) production appears to be unaffected. Two of the characterized mutants are affected in the major autolysin (atlE) and in D‐alanine esterification of teichoic acids (dltA). Proteins have been identified that are also involved in biofilm formation, such as the accumulation‐associated protein (AAP), the clumping factor A (ClfA), the staphylococcal surface protein (SSP1) and the biofilm‐associated protein (Bap). Concepts for the prevention of obstinate polymer‐associated infections include the search for new anti‐infectives active in biofilms and new biocompatible materials that complicate biofilm formation and the development of vaccines.
Multilinguals and their sociolinguistic profiles: observations on language use amongst three vintages of migrants in Melbourne

This paper presents profiles of eight multilinguals and examines the circumstances that determine their continued use, in addition to English, of at least two of their ‘home’ languages. I attempt to identify in which domains this occurs, whether there are established patterns of domain-specific language use and whether these patterns are maintained or altered to encompass informants' continued multilingualism. Further, the three vintages of informants offer cross-generational comparison. Findings reveal that informants have been able to establish social networks similar to those that they have been part of before arrival in Australia. This has been instrumental for them to remain multilingual. These social networks are primarily family- and friend-based, together with the neighbourhood and workplace domains. There are few cross-vintage differences in the importance and function of these networks to informants. Further, informants' self-descriptions of a mono-, bi- or multicultural identity may change after arrival in Melbourne. However, these self-descriptions need not have synonymous effects on linguistic behaviour and language choice.
Estrogenic activity of friedelin rich fraction (IND-HE) separated from Cissus quadrangularis and its effect on female sexual function

Women experience menopause differently across the world, in terms of their symptomology. Many experience symptoms of menopause like hot flashes, joint pain and loss of libido. Estrogen replacement is the prescribed therapy for most of the sexual dysfunction observed in menopausal women. Many women are reluctant to use exogenous hormone therapy for treatment of menopausal symptoms and are turning to botanical and dietary supplements for relief. In the present study IND-HE (friedelin rich fraction) was studied for estrogenic activity as well as its effect on sexual behavior in overiectomized female Wistar rats. The rats were divided into 4 groups of six rats each. The Group 1 received distilled water, Group II - IND-HE (75 mg/kg p. o.), Group III - IND-HE (100 mg/kg p. o.) and Group IV received estrogen (estradiol) (1 mg/kg in olive oil suspension, s.c. bi-weekly). The treatment period was 8 weeks. On 1 day, one month and two month of treatment the sexual behavior was studied. At the end of the treatment the blood was withdrawn from retro-orbital plexus. The animals were sacrificed and uterus was removed, weighed and histology was studied. In different group of rats estrous cycle was studied which indicate estrogenic activity and for progestogenic activity of deciduoma formation was studied. The result indicated that IND-HE (75 and 100 mg/kg p.o.) improved sexual behavior parameters. IND-HE (75 and 100) significantly (P< 0.01) decreased darting and hopping latency. The darting frequency and hopping frequency was significantly (P< 0.01) improved in IND-HE (75 and100 mg/kg p.o.) as well as estrogen group. Lordosis interval (LI) was increased significantly in estrogen group after 1st month (P< 0.05), and after 2nd month (P< 0.01). IND-HE (100) treatment showed increase in LI after 1st month (P< 0.05) remained during 2nd month (P< 0.01). While IND-HE (75) treatment increased LI only after 2nd month (P< 0.05). IND-HE (75 and 100 mg/kg p.o.) showed estrogenic activity as indicated by vaginal cornification, increase in uterine weight and rise in serum estrogen.
The Stars Are Not Enough: Scientists--Their Passions and Professions

Based on 60 interviews with physicists at Universities across the United States, from young graduate students to older professionals well into their careers, this text offers an account of the worlds in which scientists work. These scientists reveal their dreams of fame and glory whilst also discussing the meaning of success and failure. Their stories are of aspiration and anxiety, disappointment and tragedy, hope and achievment. As the scientists age in their profession the spectre of failure often visits them and they have to accept something less than scientific immortality or even the Nobel Prize. The stories examine ambition by uncovering the forces that drive people and describe how these forces persist or fade over time.
Boosting constraint satisfaction using decision trees

Constraint satisfaction is becoming the paradigm of choice for solving many real-world problems. To date, most approaches to constraint satisfaction have focused on solving a problem using some form of backtrack search. Furthermore, the typical view is that a constraint satisfaction problem will be solved only once. However, in many real-world contexts, problems are solved repeatedly over time. Also such problems often exhibit some structure. This motivates the application of some form of learning to improve the performance of search from previously discovered solutions. We present an approach that uses knowledge about known solutions to a problem to improve search. The approach we present is based on a combination of decision tree learning and constraint satisfaction. We demonstrate that significant improvements, almost an order-of-magnitude, in search effort can be achieved using this hybrid approach over traditional search. We also show that the space complexity using this approach is almost negligible. This work is of interest in domains such as product configuration, and interactive constraint solving in general where the system takes the initiative by asking questions.
Moral Internationalism and the Responsibility to Protect

The post-Cold War era has seen the increased significance of moral argument as a force in international relations. Arguments such as those developed in Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars have shaped debates about the relative weights to be given to non-intervention and human rights as core values of international law over the past three decades. This article analyses the form of moral internationalism that is exemplified by Walzer's work, and the ways in which that moral internationalism has sought to justify humanitarian intervention, foreign involvement in civil wars, regime change, and, most recently, the responsibility to protect concept. It concludes by exploring the political stakes of the turn to what Walzer calls "practical morality" as a basis for reforming international institutions and laws, and the ways in which new forms of internationalism are redrawing the realism/moralism map.
License Plate Recognition System

This paper presents a novel method of identifying and recognizing license plates, required by an automatic vehicle identification system. The main challenge was the isolation of the car’s license plate, from the digital image acquired by the video system, under different illumination conditions and various angles. Thus, we have established the required preprocessing operations leading to successful plate identification. The string recognition stage is straightforward, after the completion of the character extraction process. Tested on Romanian plate images, the system performance was 93% of correct identified plates and 88.57% of correct recognized characters. Suggestion for further improvements are presented, as well as further related project developpment.
MIDAS: An Information-Extraction Approach to Medical Text Classification

This article describes MIDAS, an advanced expert system that is able to suggest medical diagnosis from the radiological/clinical patient records, based on information extraction and machine learning from clinical histories of previously diagnosed patients. MIDAS was designed to participate in the 2007 Medical Natural Language Processing Challenge. Specifically, it automates the assignment of ICD-9-CM codes to radiology reports, achieving good precision rates.