Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interferometric imaging with terahertz pulses

We demonstrate a new reflection imaging technique using single-cycle pulses, in which the sample to be imaged is placed at the focus of a lens in one arm of a Michelson interferometer. The detected signal is the superposition of the pulses from the two arms of the interferometer, one with a sample and one with a reference mirror. Because of the Gouy phase shift from the lens in the sample arm, these two pulses are nearly /spl pi/ out of phase, and can destructively interfere. This leads to a strong cancellation of the measured waveform and a nearly background-free imaging method. We demonstrate the technique using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and show that the destructive interference provides enhanced sensitivity to features in the sample that are much thinner than the coherence length of the radiation. This technique could be valuable in any low-coherence tomographic measurement in which the reflected electric field can be measured directly.
INHIBITORY ACTIVITY OF MANGIFERIN ON HELICOBACTER PYLORI-INDUCED INFLAMMATION IN HUMAN GASTRIC CARCINOMA AGS CELLS

Background: Gastric cancer is a serious health issue caused by H. pylori and claims more lives in developing and undeveloped countries. Hence, the need for a natural drug with several pharmacological activities with no adverse effect are highly recommended. The target of this study was to verify the anti-H. pyloric efficacy of mangiferin (MF) on H. pylori-infected AGS cells. Materials and methods: AGS cells were co-cultured with H. pylori and incubated with increased concentration of MF (10, 20, 50 and 100 μg/mL) or amoxicillin (AMX) and DMSO (control) group to assess its anti-H. pyloric effect by checking inhibitory zone, bacterial drug sensitivity test (MIC and MBC), adhesion and invasive property and various inflammatory markers. Results: Co-culturing of H. pylori-infected AGS cells with MF (100 μg) considerably increased (p<0.05) the inhibitory zone as well as substantially lowered (p<0.05) in the levels of MBC and MIC with decreased adhesion and invasive property in a dose-dependent manner and thus endorsing its anti H. pyloric activity and are almost equivalent to antibiotic AMX. Meanwhile, inflammatory markers such as NF-κΒ subunit p65, interleukins-1β, IL-8, and TNF-α were also markedly suppressed (p<0.01) on treatment with MF. In addition, the protein expression of inflammatory enzymes like COX-2 and iNOS were notably downregulated (p<0.05) in AGS cells incubated with MF. Conclusion: We, concluded that MF treatment with H. pylori-infected AGS cells significantly suppressed the adhesion and invasion process as well as deactivated NF-p65 thereby blocking inflammatory response and thus lower the incidence of gastric carcinoma.
Clear waters and muddied histories: environmental history and the politics of community in Zimbabwe's Eastern highlands

This article examines competing struggles over the demarcation, implementation and multiple meanings of the proposed Kaerezi River Protected Area in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands. It focuses on the micro‐politics within a state‐administered resettlement scheme bordering Nyanga National Park, whose 1987 extension precipitated the conflicts. Countering a tendency within environmental history to assume a monolithic ‘state’ in opposition to an undifferentiated ‘community’, the analysis emphasises shifting political alliances within, among and between state representatives and rural actors. Competing agendas among various ministries within the Zimbabwean government have encountered the salient differences of gender, generation, class, education and ‘traditional’ authority in Kaerezi. The analysis attends to grounded livelihood practices as well as the cultural idioms and historical resonances that affix particular meanings to the landscape and environmental resources. In particular, resettlement farmers deploye.
Reviewing and Ethics in the Online Academy

Abstract This commentary paper reflects on what I have recently learned from being involved in the Editorial Development Group established by the journal EPAT (Educational Philosophy and Theory) and its owners, the learned society of PESA (the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia). Besides disseminating the experience of this group, the paper suggests there is a link between the ideas of ‘netiquette’, the online academy, and the ethics of reviewing.
Similarity Computation Based on Feature Extraction for Off-line Chinese Signature Verification

In this paper we present a new method for off-line Chinese signature verification. The approach is based on feature extraction of every segment segmented from the signature image. After preprocessed and segmented, the signature image is segmented to some segments. Every segment is represented by a set of seven features. By using these segments and its features, the degree of similarity between the questioned sample and the n genuine signature samples is computed. Only a little number (3 to 5) of genuine samples for each writer is needed by using a simplified version of question document expert’s classifier. Experimental results show our approach is promising to distinguish random and simple forgeries from genuine signatures effectively.
Experiences evaluating personal metasearch

Many current evaluation techniques for information retrieval, such as test collections and simulations, are difficult to apply in situations where queries and preferred results are context-dependent. This is particularly true in personal metasearch applications, which provide a person with unified search access to all their usual online sources. A recently-proposed technique, based on presenting two or more search results sets in a single comparison interface, offers an alternative. We have embedded this technique in a working personal metasearch tool which we have distributed to volunteers. Initial experiments with server selection suggest that the technique is accepted by users, can operate over diverse and unarticulated contexts, and that the data it provides can provide a useful comparison to that from test collections. Further experimentation with the technique is continuing.
Collecting the traces: an archivist's perspective

Abstract The phenomenon of artists drawing on their own and other archives is not a new one, but over the past few years there has undoubtedly been a significant increase in attention, among both artist and art historians, given to the archive as part of the creative process, as well as to archive practice. Archives have also become contested territory, caught up in discourses about the nature of museums and individual anxieties about the significance and preservation of documentation. From an archivist's point of view, archives have a positive and fertile role as both a resonant collective memory resource and a site of creative regeneration through revisiting the traces of earlier ideas and actions. Archive theory also emphasizes the importance of context in the assessment of the meaning of a document within a body of archive material. Consideration of the archives of Prunella Clough and Helen Chadwick within this wider context of archival theory and practice reveals in both cases a distinctly archival attitude to the documentation of the creative process, one which provides a rewarding insight into their work.
Impact of age on outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention in acute coronary syndromes patients

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a safe and effective procedure to reconstitute myocardial perfusion and has been demonstrated to improve prognosis in patients with acute coronary syndrome. With advancing age, PCI carries a higher risk for acute coronary and other vascular complications. Periprocedural mortality risk after PCI demonstrates a curvilinear relationship with age, with the highest mortality rates in the elderly. However, the magnitude of risk depends strongly on the presence and severity of additional clinical, angiographic and procedural factors. Among patients with acute coronary syndrome, the most meaningful mortality predictors are hemodynamic instability and acute ST elevation myocardial infarction. In addition, comorbidities such as renal insufficiency, diffuse and calcified coronary pathology and procedural complications increase the risk for death. Therefore, decision-making in interventional procedures is not solely dependent on the numerical age but mainly on additional fa.
Registered Replication Report

Trying to remember something now typically improves your ability to remember it later. However, after watching a video of a simulated bank robbery, participants who verbally described the robber were 25% worse at identifying the robber in a lineup than were participants who instead listed U.S. states and capitals—this has been termed the “verbal overshadowing” effect (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990). More recent studies suggested that this effect might be substantially smaller than first reported. Given uncertainty about the effect size, the influence of this finding in the memory literature, and its practical importance for police procedures, we conducted two collections of preregistered direct replications (RRR1 and RRR2) that differed only in the order of the description task and a filler task. In RRR1, when the description task immediately followed the robbery, participants who provided a description were 4% less likely to select the robber than were those in the control condition. In RRR2, when the description was delayed by 20 min, they were 16% less likely to select the robber. These findings reveal a robust verbal overshadowing effect that is strongly influenced by the relative timing of the tasks. The discussion considers further implications of these replications for our understanding of verbal overshadowing.
Malaria circumsporozoite protein inhibits the respiratory burst in Kupffer cells

After transmission by infected mosquitoes, malaria sporozoites rapidly travel to the liver. To infect hepatocytes, sporozoites traverse Kupffer cells, but surprisingly, the parasites are not killed by these resident macrophages of the liver. Here we show that Plasmodium sporozoites and recombinant circumsporozoite protein (CSP) suppress the respiratory burst in Kupffer cells. Sporozoites and CSP increased the intracellular concentration of cyclic adenosyl mono‐phosphate (cAMP) and inositol 1,4,5‐triphosphate in Kupffer cells, but not in hepatocytes or liver endothelia. Preincubation with cAMP analogues or inhibition of phosphodiesterase also inhibited the respiratory burst. By contrast, adenylyl cyclase inhibition abrogated the suppressive effect of sporozoites. Selective protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitors failed to reverse the CSP‐mediated blockage and stimulation of the exchange protein directly activated by cAMP (EPAC), but not PKA inhibited the respiratory burst. Both blockage of the low‐density lipoprotein receptor‐related protein (LRP‐1) with receptor‐associated protein and elimination of cell surface proteoglycans inhibited the cAMP increase in Kupffer cells. We propose that by binding of CSP to LRP‐1 and cell surface proteoglycans, malaria sporozoites induce a cAMP/EPAC‐dependent, but PKA‐independent signal transduction pathway that suppresses defence mechanisms in Kupffer cells. This allows the sporozoites to safely pass through these professional phagocytes and to develop inside neighbouring hepatocytes.
Visualization of Graphs and Trees for Software Analysis

A software architecture is an abstraction of a software system, which is indispensable for many software engineering tasks. Unfortunately, in many cases information pertaining to the software architecture is not available, outdated, or inappropriate for the task at hand. The RECONSTRUCTOR project focuses on software architecture reconstruction, i.e., obtaining architectural information from an existing system. Our research, which is part of RECONSTRUCTOR, focuses on interactive visualization and tries to answer the following question: How can users be enabled to understand the large amounts of information relevant for program understanding using visual representations? To answer this question, we have iteratively developed a number of techniques for visualizing software systems. A large number of these cases consists of hierarchically organized data, combined with adjacency relations. Examples are function calls within a hierarchically organized software system and correspondence relations between two different versions of a hierarchically organized software system. Hierarchical Edge Bundles (HEBs) are used to visualize adjacency relations in hierarchically organized data, such as the aforementioned function calls within a software system. HEBs significantly reduce visual clutter by visually bundling relations together. Massive Sequence Views (MSVs) are used in conjunction with HEBs to enable analysis of sequences of relations, such as function-call traces. HEBs are furthermore used to visually compare hierarchically organized data, e.g., two different versions of a software system. HEBs visually emphasize splits, joins, and relocations of subhierarchies and provide for interactive selection of sets of relations. Since HEBs require a hierarchy to perform the bundling, we present Force-Directed Edge Bundles (FDEBs) as an alternative to visually bundle relations together in the absence of a hierarchical component. FDEBs use a self-organizing approach to bundling in which edges are modeled as flexible springs that can attract each other. As a result, visual clutter is reduced and high-level edge patterns are better visible. Finally, in all these methods, a clear depiction of the direction of edges is important. We have therefore performed a separate study in which we evaluated ten representations (including the standard arrow) for depicting directed edges in a controlled user study.
Multi-robot coverage to locate fixed targets using formation structures

This paper develops an algorithm that guides a multi-robot system in an unknown environment in search of fixed targets. The area to be scanned contains an unknown number of convex obstacles of unknown size and shape. The algorithm covers the entire free space in a sweeping fashion and as such relies on the use of robot formations. The geometry of the robot group is a lateral line formation, which is allowed to split and rejoin when passing obstacles. It is our main goal to exploit this formation structure in order to reduce robot resources to a minimum. Each robot has a limited and finite amount of memory available. No information of the topography is recorded. Communication between two robots is only possible up to a maximum inter-robot distance, and if the line-of-sight between both robots is not obstructed. Broadcasting capabilities and indirect communication are not allowed. Supervisory control is prohibited. The number of robots equipped with GPS is kept as small as possible. Applications of the algorithm are mine field clearance, search-and-rescue missions, and intercept missions. Simulations are included and made available on the internet, demonstrating the flexibility of the algorithm.
Endometrioid Adenocarcinoma Arising from Endometriosis of the Uterine Cervix: A Case Report

Endometrioid adenocarcinoma arising from endometriosis of the uterine cervix is rare in premenopausal woman. We describe here a patient with this condition and review the clinical and pathological features of these tumors. A 48-yr-old woman complaining of severe dysmenorrhea was referred for investigation of a pelvic mass. Total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy were performed. Histological examination revealed an endometrioid adenocarcinoma directly adjacent to the endometriosis at the uterine cervix, with a transition observed between endometriosis and endometrioid adenocarcinoma. The patient was diagnosed as having endometrioid adenocarcinoma arising from endometriosis of the uterine cervix and underwent postoperative chemotherapy. Gynecologists and pathologists should be aware of the difficulties associated with a delay in diagnosis of endometrioid adenocarcinoma arising from endometriosis when the tumor presents as a benign looking endometrioma.
Learning to Teach Offshore: Pre-Departure training for lecturers in transnational programs

The internationalisation of higher education in Australia over the past two decades has brought about dramatic changes in Australian universities. Growing numbers of international students have enrolled in Australian universities and the number of students studying offshore has also increased dramatically. While considerable material has been published on the ramifications of the increased numbers of onshore international students studying at Australian universities, there is relatively little published research on the specific challenges facing academics participating in offshore programs. The aim of this project was to examine the current pre-departure cross-cultural training taking place in the business faculties of three Australian universities in order to gain a better understanding of the adequacy of the support given to Australian academics teaching offshore. Twenty staff involved in offshore education were interviewed as part of this project, including academics with considerable offshore teaching experience, senior academic managers and cross-cultural trainers. While these institutions engage in little formal preparation for offshore teaching, a great deal of informal mentoring and briefing is taking place. We consider the implications of the new quality assurance framework for Australian universities, which requires that institutions be able to demonstrate the ways in which they ensure the quality of teaching and learning. Under this new system, universities are bound by the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee's guidelines for the provision of education to international students. It appears that Australian universities will need to establish more formal mechanisms to ensure that offshore staff are adequately prepared for offshore teaching posts.
Forced Retirement From Elite Football In Australia

Abstract Retirement from sport poses a major socioemotional threat to elite athletes. The present study builds on a growing body of literature examining the vacuum created in an athlete's life after retirement. Grounded theory was used to construct how elite football players dealt with forced retirement owing to injury and deselection. Recursive in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 recently retired players who had competed at the highest level in Australian Rules football. The data were characterized by a rich array of personal reflections of loss and grief that reflected four themes: loss of identity, perceived control, financial issues, and social support. Interviewees typically told stories that were tinged with shock, regret, bitterness, distress, and perceived loss of status.
Steroids and other lipids of pregnant goat's urine.

This work was undertaken in association with Dr S. J. Folley, F.R. S. , and Dr A. T. Cowie at the National Institute for Research in Dairying, Shinfleld, to study the steroids of pregnant goat's urine with particular attention to oestrogens and pregnanediol. It was intended to provide a basis for studies on the metabolism of administered steroids and on pathological conditions. It has also served as a preliminary to similar work on pregnant cow's urine. Preliminary accounts of this work have been given already (Wright & Klyne, 1955; 'Klyne & Wright, 1956a). Previous work
Design of radial basis function network as classifier in face recognition using eigenfaces

In this paper we investigate alternative designs of a radial basis function network acting as classifier in a face recognition system. The inputs to the RBF network are the projections of a face image over the principal components. A database of 250 facial images of 25 persons is used for training and evaluation. Two RBF designs are studied: the forward selection and the Gaussian mixture model. Both designs are also compared to the conventional Euclidean and Mahalanobis classifiers. A set of experiments evaluates the recognition rate of each method as a function of the number of principal components used to characterize the image samples. The results of the experiments indicate that the Gaussian mixture model RBF achieves the best performance while allowing less neurons in the hidden layer. The Gaussian mixture model approach shows also to be less sensitive to the choice of the training set.
Induction of initial heart α‐actin, smooth muscle α‐actin, in chick pregastrula epiblast: The role of hypoblast and fibroblast growth factor‐8

During heart development at the gastrula stage, inhibition of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) activity affects the heart specification but does not impair the expression of smooth muscle α‐actin (SMA), which is first expressed in the heart mesoderm and recruited into initial heart myofibrils. Interaction of tissues between posterior epiblast and hypoblast at the early blastula stage is necessary to induce the expression of SMA, in which Nodal and Chordin are thought to be involved. Here we investigated the role of fibroblast growth factor‐8 (FGF8) in the expression of SMA. In situ hybridization and reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction showed that Fgf8b is expressed predominantly in the nascent hypoblast. Anti‐FGF8b antibody inhibited the expression of SMA, cTNT, and Tbx5, which are BMP‐independent heart mesoderm/early cardiomyocyte genes, but not Brachyury in cultured posterior blastoderm, and combined FGF8b and Nodal, but neither factor alone induced the expression of SMA in association with heart specific markers in cultured epiblast. Although FGF8b did not induce the upregulation of phospho‐Smad2, anti‐FGF8b properties suppressed phospho‐Smad2 in cultured blastoderm. FGF8b was able to reverse the BMP‐induced inhibition of cardiomyogenesis. The results suggest that FGF8b acts on the epiblast synergistically with Nodal at the pregastrula stage and may play a role in the expression of SMA during early cardiogenesis.
Searching large hypothesis spaces by asking questions

One way people deal with uncertainty is by asking questions. A showcase of this ability is the classic 20 questions game where a player asks questions in search of a secret object. Previous studies using variants of this task have found that people are effective question-askers according to normative Bayesian metrics such as expected information gain. However, so far, the studies amenable to mathematical modeling have used only small sets of possible hypotheses that were provided explicitly to participants, far from the unbounded hypothesis spaces people often grapple with. Here, we study how people evaluate the quality of questions in an unrestricted 20 Questions task. We present a Bayesian model that utilizes a large data set of object-question pairs and expected information gain to select questions. This model provides good predictions regarding people’s preferences and outperforms simpler alternatives.
Incremental development productivity decline

Incremental models are now being used by many organizations in order to reduce development risks while trying to deliver the product on time. It has become the most common method of software development with characteristics that influences the productivity of projects. This paper introduces a phenomenon called Incremental Development Productivity Decline (IDPD) that is presumed to be present in all incremental software projects to some extent. Different ways of measuring productivity are presented and evaluated in order to come to a definition or set of definitions that is suitable to these kinds of projects. Based on their coherence and other common characteristics, incrementally developed projects are split into several major categories. Following this, several major projects are used as case studies in order to find out whether IDPD can be proven to exist.