Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Video Analysis for Includification Requirements

In extensive trials we asked participants with disabilities to play a set of computer games, demanding a variety of cognitive and physical skills. In particular we presented a Tetris variant we developed ourselves, which follows various includification guidelines. Participants were recorded on video in order to identify strengths and weaknesses in coping with the presented game challenges. In the videos we recorded the game screen, a frontal video of the participants showing emotional responses, and eye gaze. Post processing tasks are used to analyze and retrieve data from the videos. This helps to build up a video database for later analysis and answer questions raised after the recordings were taken.
Scalable, distributed cycle-breaking algorithms for gigabit Ethernet backbones

"http://www.osa-jon.org/virtual_issue. cfm? vid=7" Feature Issue on Optical Ethernet (OE)Ethernet networks rely on the so-called spanning-tree protocol (IEEE 802.1d) to break cycles, thereby avoiding the possibility of infinitely circulating packets and deadlocks. This protocol imposes a severe penalty on the performance and scalability of large gigabit Ethernet backbones since it makes inefficient use of fibers and may lead to bottlenecks. We propose a significantly more scalable cycle-breaking approach based on the theory of turn prohibition. Specifically, we introduce, analyze, and evaluate an algorithm called tree-based turn prohibition (TBTP). We show that this polynomial-time algorithm maintains backward compatibility with the IEEE 802.1d standard and never prohibits more than half the turns in the network for any given graph and any given spanning tree. We further introduce a distributed version of the algorithm that nodes in the network can run asynchronously. Through extensive simulations on a variety of graph topologies, we show that the TBTP algorithm can lead to an order of magnitude improvement over the spanning-tree protocol with respect to throughput and end-of-end delay metrics. In addition, we propose and evaluate heuristics to determine the replacement order of legacy switches that results in the fastest performance improvement.
A Study of an Approach to the Collective Iterative Task Allocation Problem

A major challenge in the field of multi-agent systems is to enable autonomous agents to allocate tasks efficiently. This paper extends previous work on an approach to the collective iterative task allocation problem where a group of agents endeavours to make the best allocations possible over multiple iterations of proposing, selection and learning. We offer an algorithm capturing the main aspects of this approach, and then show analytically and empirically that the agents' estimations of the performance of a task and the type of group decision policy play an important role in the performance of the algorithm.
Influence des TIC sur l'apprentissage des étudiants à l'Université de Yaoundé 1 Influence of ICT on student learning at the Yaounde 1 university campus

Resume Dans cet article nous voulons mieux comprendre l’impact des TIC sur l’apprentissage d’etudiants universitaires du Cameroun. Certains chercheurs comme Fourgous(2010) demontrent que les TIC ont un effet positif sur l’apprentissage. Barrette (2004) signalait deja que la problematique de l’impact des TIC sur l’apprentissage academique se pose avec beaucoup plus d’acuite et de complexite. Dans le cadre du contexte camerounais avec un acces peu developpe aux TIC, notre etude veut repondre a la question : quelles sont les habiletes developpees chez les etudiants lors de leurs apprentissages qui, sans les TIC, n’auraient pas lieu, en posant comme hypothese de depart : le recours aux TIC ameliore l’apprentissage chez les etudiants. Nous faisons une analyse qui se decline en deux axes : d’abord decrire les activites pedagogiques reliees a l'utilisation des TIC chez les etudiants en faculte, ensuite etudier l’influence des technologies sur les apprentissages de ces etudiants. L’analyse qualitative revele que tous les groupes d’etudiants observes sont favorables a un apprentissage avec les TIC.Les analyses statistiques demontrent que les impacts de l’usage des TIC sont perceptibles dans l’apprentissagedes etudiants. Mots cles : technologie educatives, apprentissage, TIC Abstract In this article we want to better understand the impact of ICT on the learning of Cameroonian university students. Some researchers like Fourgous (2010) show that ICT have a positive effect o.
GATA2 Mediates Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone-Induced Transcriptional Activation of the Thyrotropin β Gene

Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) activates not only the secretion of thyrotropin (TSH) but also the transcription of TSHβ and α-glycoprotein (αGSU) subunit genes. TSHβ expression is maintained by two transcription factors, Pit1 and GATA2, and is negatively regulated by thyroid hormone (T3). Our prior studies suggest that the main activator of the TSHβ gene is GATA2, not Pit1 or unliganded T3 receptor (TR). In previous studies on the mechanism of TRH-induced activation of the TSHβ gene, the involvements of Pit1 and TR have been investigated, but the role of GATA2 has not been clarified. Using kidney-derived CV1 cells and pituitary-derived GH3 and TαT1 cells, we demonstrate here that TRH signaling enhances GATA2-dependent activation of the TSHβ promoter and that TRH-induced activity is abolished by amino acid substitution in the GATA2-Zn finger domain or mutation of GATA-responsive element in the TSHβ gene. In CV1 cells transfected with TRH receptor expression plasmid, GATA2-dependent transactivation of αGSU and endothelin-1 promoters was enhanced by TRH. In the gel shift assay, TRH signal potentiated the DNA-binding capacity of GATA2. While inhibition by T3 is dominant over TRH-induced activation, unliganded TR or the putative negative T3-responsive element are not required for TRH-induced stimulation. Studies using GH3 cells showed that TRH-induced activity of the TSHβ promoter depends on protein kinase C but not the mitogen-activated protein kinase, suggesting that the signaling pathway is different from that in the prolactin gene. These results indicate that GATA2 is the principal mediator of the TRH signaling pathway in TSHβ expression.
Evaluation and Comparison of Using Low-Dose Aprotinin and Tranexamic Acid in CABG: a Double Blind Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Cardiovascular operations are associated with an inherent bleeding tendency that sometimes leads to severe bleeding and transfusion requirement. Pharmacological intervention to minimize post-bypass bleeding and blood product transfusions has received increasing attention from both medical and economic viewpoints. Methods: This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial recruited three groups of patients (each group consisting of 50 patients) undergoing on-pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) and blindly randomized them to receive either low aprotinin, tranexamic acid, or placebo. The results were, subsequently, evaluated and compared between the groups. All the patients were operated on by one surgeon and the same surgery team. Results: The following variables were similar between the groups, and there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of these variables: age (p value = 0.308), sex (p value = 0.973), hyperlipidemia (p value = 0.720), hypertension (p value = 0.786), smoking (p value = 0.72), and diabetes (p value = 0.960). The amounts of drainage from chest tubes were less in the aprotinin and tranexamic acid groups than the amount in the placebo group; the difference was statistically important (p value < 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference with respect to need for reoperation for bleeding between the three groups (p value = 0.998). Complications following surgery in the three groups were statistically the same and not significantly different. All the complications (myocardial infarction, pericardial effusion, neurological complication and renal complication) had a good course, and all the patients were discharged from the hospital uneventfully. There was no mortality in any group. Conclusion: Low-dose aprotinin and tranexamic acid can significantly reduce blood loss and transfusion requirement in CABG without importantly increasing mortality and morbidity.
Automatic parallelization of embedded software using hierarchical task graphs and integer linear programming

The last years have shown that there is no way to disregard the advantages provided by multiprocessor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) architectures in the embedded systems domain. Using multiple cores in a single system enables to close the gap between energy consumption, problems concerning heat dissipation, and computational power. Nevertheless, these benefits do not come for free. New challenges arise, if existing applications have to be ported to these multiprocessor platforms. One of the most ambitious tasks is to extract efficient parallelism from these existing sequential applications. Hence, many parallelization tools have been developed, most of them are extracting as much parallelism as possible, which is in general not the best choice for embedded systems with their limitations in hardware and software support. In contrast to previous approaches, we present a new automatic parallelization tool, tailored to the particular requirements of the resource constrained embedded systems. Therefore, this paper presents an algorithm which automatically steers the granularity of the generated tasks, with respect to architectural requirements and the overall execution time reduction. For this purpose, we exploit hierarchical task graphs to simplify a new integer linear programming based approach in order to split up sequential programs in an efficient way. Results on real-life benchmarks have shown that the presented approach is able to speed sequential applications up by a factor of up to 3.7 on a four core MPSoC architecture.
Developing Clinically Suitable Measures of Social Cognition for Children: Initial Findings from a Normative Sample

Our understanding of children's social competence has increased tremendously over the past two decades. There is increasing evidence to suggest that social–cognitive impairments are not restricted to children on the autistic spectrum, but rather may be associated with a host of developmental and acquired neurological conditions including learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. Although many investigators have begun to bridge the gap between clinical practice and research by applying experimental tasks to clinical populations, few tools are available for the clinical evaluation of social competence, particularly in children. This study marks a series of first steps in the development of measures suitable for the assessment of children between 6 and 12 years of age. The results of the study provide data for a number of experimental tasks that have been adapted with clinical practice in mind. A discussion of the developmental progressions and the relationships among the measures is also included.
An improved mouse model that rapidly develops fibrosis in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Non‐alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a progressive fibrotic disease, the pathogenesis of which has not been fully elucidated. One of the most common models used in NASH research is a nutritional model where NASH is induced by feeding a diet deficient in both methionine and choline. However, the dietary methionine‐/choline‐deficient model in mice can cause severe weight loss and liver atrophy, which are not characteristics of NASH seen in human patients. Exclusive, long‐term feeding with a high‐fat diet (HFD) produced fatty liver and obesity in mice, but the HFD for several months did not affect fibrosis. We aimed to establish a mouse model of NASH with fibrosis by optimizing the methionine content in the HFD. Male mice were fed a choline‐deficient, L‐amino acid‐defined, high‐fat diet (CDAHFD) consisting of 60 kcal% fat and 0.1% methionine by weight. After 1–14 weeks of being fed CDAHFD, the mice were killed. C57BL/6J mice maintained or gained weight when fed CDAHFD, while A/J mice showed a steady decline in body weight (of up to 20% of initial weight). In both strains of mice, plasma levels of alanine aminotransferase increased from week 1, when hepatic steatosis was also observed. By week 6, C57BL/6J mice had developed enlarged fatty liver with fibrosis as assessed by Masson's trichrome staining and by hydroxyproline assay. Therefore, this improved CDAHFD model may be a mouse model of rapidly progressive liver fibrosis and be potentially useful for better understanding human NASH disease and in the development of efficient therapies for this condition.
Clinical Pharmacology: Advances and Applications Dovepress Effect of Food on the Pharmacokinetics of Dronabinol Oral Solution versus Dronabinol Capsules in Healthy Volunteers

you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms Abstract: Dronabinol is a pharmaceutical tetrahydrocannabinol originally developed as an oral capsule. A dronabinol oral solution was recently approved, and the effects of food on absorption and bioavailability of the oral solution versus capsules were compared in an open-label, single-dose, 3-period crossover study. Healthy volunteers were randomized to either dronabinol oral solution 4.25 mg (fed) or dronabinol capsule 5 mg (fed or fasted). Dosing was separated by a 7-day washout period. Plasma pharmacokinetics were evaluated for dronabinol and its major metabolite, 11-hydroxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (11-OH-∆9-THC). Pharmacokinetic data were available for analysis in 54 volunteers. In the fed state, initial dronabinol absorption was faster with oral solution versus capsule (mean time to the first measurable concentration, 0.15 vs 2.02 hours, respectively), with 100% and 15% of volunteers, respectively, having detectable plasma dronabinol levels 30 minutes postdose. There was less interindividual variability in plasma dronabinol concentration during early absorption with oral solution versus capsule. Compared with the fasted state, mean area under the plasma concentration–time curve from time zero to the last measurable concentration (AUC 0-t) increased by 2.1-and 2.4-fold for dronabinol oral solution and capsule, respectively, when taken with food. Mean time to maximum plasma concentration was similarly delayed for dronabinol oral solution with food (7.7 hours) and capsule with food (5.6 hours) versus capsule with fasting (1.7 hours). Under fed conditions, AUC 0–t and area under the plasma concentration–time curve from time zero to infinity were similar for the oral solution versus capsule based on 11-OH-∆9-THC levels. An appreciable food effect was observed for dronabinol oral solution and capsules. Dronabinol oral solution may offer therapeutic benefit to patients, given its rapid and lower interindividual absorption variability versus dronabinol capsule.
Secretory Leukoprotease Inhibitor Augments Hepatocyte Growth Factor Production in Human Lung Fibroblasts

Secretory leukoprotease inhibitor (SLPI), an 11.7-kD nonglyco-sylated serine protease inhibitor, is produced and released into the fluids of mucosal surfaces including human lung. It comprises two domains with homologous amino acid sequences: the N-terminal domain possessing antibacterial activity, and the C-terminal domain with antiprotease activity. Here we report the positive regulation of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) production in human lung fibroblasts exerted by SLPI or its C-terminal domain under physiologic concentrations (1 to 10 ␮ M). This HGF production by SLPI was unaffected by the addition of interleukin (IL)-1 receptor antagonist. In contrast, human skin fibroblasts exerted no SLPI-stimulated increase in HGF production, despite the fact that IL-1 ␤ increased HGF production with an intensity similar to that of human lung fi-broblasts. Both the time-course and dose-response studies in human lung fibroblasts revealed that the induction of HGF messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein occurred in parallel, indicating that the mechanism existed at the steady-state mRNA level. A synthetic elastase inhibitor failed to induce HGF, but ␣ 1-antitrypsin also stimulated HGF production in lung fibro-blasts. Inactivation of the antiprotease activity of SLPI or its C-terminal domain by an oxidizing agent (N-chlorosuccinimide) abolished their stimulatory effect on HGF production. These findings demonstrate that SLPI exerts a novel HGF induction and functions as an anti-inflammatory and regenerative factor in addition to its role in protease inhibition. Secretory leukoprotease inhibitor (SLPI) is an 11.7-kD, nonglycosylated, single-chain serine protease inhibitor consisting of 107 amino acids (1). It inhibits several serine pro-teases such as elastase and cathepsin G from neutrophils, trypsin and chymotrypsin from pancreatic acinar cells, and chymase and tryptase from mast cells (1). A major physio-logic role of SLPI has been considered as protection against neutrophil elastase (NE) at inflammatory sites. This speculation is based on the biochemical and cell-biologic characteristics of SLPI as follows: (1) a higher association rate constant for NE (‫ف‬ 10 7 M Ϫ 1 s Ϫ 1) than for other proteases (2), (2) its concentration in the local milieu (nearly 10 ␮ M in respiratory epithelial lining fluid) (3, 4), and (3) the cell sources for its production and secretion are restricted to epithelial cells such as secretory cells in respiratory, genital, and lacrimal glands, but do not include the skin, endocrine glands, or hematologic system (5). However, recent advances in elucidating the new functions of SLPI have revealed that this protein exerts its anti-inflammatory effects through a larger …
Regulation of Dendritic Spine Density in Cultured Rat Hippocampal Neurons by Steroid Hormones

The effects of gonadal steroid hormones on dendritic spines were studied in hippocampal neurons that were dissociated and grown in culture for 2–3 weeks. Exposure to estradiol caused up to a twofold increase in dendritic spine density in these neurons. The effect of estradiol was stereospecific and blocked by the steroid antagonist tamoxifen. The estradiol-induced rise in spine density was blocked by the NMDA antagonist APV, but not by the AMPA/KA antagonist DNQX. The estradiol-induced rise in spine density was blocked by the serine/threonine kinase inhibitor H7, but not by the tyrosine kinase inhibitor genestein, and was partially mimicked by PMA, an activator of protein kinase C. Estradiol also caused an increase in the fluorescence intensity of synaptophysin-immunoreactive terminals, corresponding to presynaptic boutons. Finally, estradiol caused a rise in [Ca]i reactivity of the cultured neurons to topical application of glutamate. These studies are the first to examine receptor and second messenger regulation of dendritic spines, and they illustrate the viability of cultured neurons as a powerful test system to address issues related to the regulation of dendritic spine maturation.
A comparison of sampling-based path planners for a grape vine pruning robot arm

We compare eight commonly used path planning algorithms on a robot arm for pruning grape vines. Pruning grape vines involves planning a path that reaches into cluttered regions and through narrow passages. These problems are known to be difficult for sampling based planners. We show that the choice of milestone expansion method has more of an effect on path planner performance than search directionality or laziness. We found the Rapidly Expanding Random Trees algorithm and its variations had the best overall performance.
haracterization of monolithic porous carbon prepared from esorcinol / formaldehyde gels with cationic surfactant

Monolithic polymer precursor of porous carbon was produced from polymerization of resorcinol–formaldehyde (RF) in the presence of cationic surfactant. The influence of concentration of the surfactant template, present in the sol–gel polymerization, on the electrochemical capacity was investigated by electrochemical impedance. It was found that a threshold concentration of surfactant is necessary to obtain sizable capacitance values. However, at higher concentrations of the surfactant,
Electron transport chains of lactic acid bacteria - walking on crutches is part of their lifestyle

A variety of lactic acid bacteria contain rudimentary electron transport chains that can be reconstituted by the addition of heme and menaquinone to the growth medium. These activated electron transport chains lead to higher biomass production and increased robustness, which is beneficial for industrial applications, but a major concern when dealing with pathogenic lactic acid bacteria.
Social work professionals’ management of institutional and professional responsibilities at the micro-level of welfare-to-work

ABSTRACT Tensions between professional knowledge and values, and institutional rules and regulations in welfare-to-work practices targeting vulnerable clients have been well established. How these tensions are managed at the frontlines of welfare services is crucial for the effects on both clients’ and frontline workers’ own professional roles. However, we have little insight into the ways this is actually done in routine practice. Based on a micro-discursive analysis of 97 team meetings in 3 Danish municipalities, I examine how social work professionals manage their professional responsibilities within the institutional context of welfare-to-work. Findings suggest that team members enact a dual orientation to professional and institutional responsibilities, characterised by the shifting between professional and institutional discourses. Second, when a dual orientation cannot be managed, the institutional obligations overrule the professional ones. This is characterised by contrasting discourses and giving primacy to ‘documenting’ the case. The findings suggest that the question of how frontline workers manage institutional/professional tensions is less about an inherent opposition between institutional and professional rationales than a matter of the structured enactment of these rationales in interactions between professionals within the institutional complex.