Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Attitudes Toward Illegal Immigration: A Cross-National Methodological Comparison

Abstract This research is an examination of the generalizability of a Likert-type scale originally devised to measure attitudes toward illegal immigrants (IA) in the United States. The current authors administered this scale across 4 national samples using several methodological procedures. Undergraduate students (631) responded to the IA scale (R. Ommundsen & K. S. Larsen, 1997) at the University of Oslo, Oregon State University, the University of Copenhagen, and Vrije University of Amsterdam. The authors' main purpose was to evaluate the adequacy of the 20-item IA scale by examining possible problems with method and translation. A translation study carried out with the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch samples (N = 299) showed that the various national versions were fairly accurate and contained largely the same meanings. The use of procrustes analysis of the IA scale yielded 3 factors in all 4 national samples. The coefficient of congruence of these 3 orthogonally rotated factor matrices, with the U.S. factor matrix as target, varied from . 80 to . 95. supporting the cross-national robustness of the scale. In the search for a more economical cumulative scale, a Mokken analysis yielded a S-item scale that represented the aforementioned 3 factors and was stable across national samples.
From linear time to branching time

Model checking is a method for the verification of systems with respect to their specifications. Symbolic model-checking, which enables the verification of large systems, proceeds by calculating fixed-point expressions over the system's set of states. The μ-calculus is a branching-time temporal logic with fixed-point operators. As such, it is a convenient logic for symbolic model-checking tools. In particular, the alternation-free fragment of μ-calculus has a restricted syntax, making the symbolic evaluation of its formulas computationally easy. Formally, it takes time that is linear in the size of the system. On the other hand, specifiers find the μ-calculus inconvenient. In addition, specifiers often prefer to use linear-time formalisms. Such formalisms, however, cannot in general be translated to the alternation-free μ-calculus, and their symbolic evaluation involves nesting of fixed-points, resulting in time complexity that is quadratic in the size of the system. In this article, we characterize linear-time properties that can be specified in the alternation-free μ-calculus. We show that a linear-time property can be specified in the alternation-free μ-calculus iff it can be recognized by a deterministic Büchi automaton. We study the problem of deciding whether a linear-time property, specified by either an automaton or an LTL formula, can be translated to an alternation-free μ-calculus formula, and describe the translation, when possible.
A new class of microwave filters using vertically stacked coupled open loop resonators

A new flexible miniaturization technique for designing microwave bandpass filters was proposed. It was based on multilayer ring resonators. The ring in this paper was a square open loop. It can be any loop shape in general. In order to achieve different order the arrangement of the resonators were explained. A large variety of filtering functions from narrowband to ultra-wideband characteristics are achievable using the suggested structure. Electromagnetic full wave simulated scattering parameters of different prototypes were demonstrated. A sample filter was implemented and the measured performance was presented. The structure is also capable of designing various microwave passive devices.
n-3 Fatty Acids in the Treatment of Diabetic Patients

The current interest for the use of n-3 (polyunsaturated) fatty acids in vascular disease can be originally tracked to observations in Greenland Inuits (Eskimos), revealing a lower prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in these populations compared with Scandinavian control subjects (1–4). In a series of pioneering studies, Dyerberg and Bang (5,6) originally showed that Inuits had an attenuated platelet reactivity and a prolonged bleeding time compared with Scandinavian control subjects. This was attributed to the Eskimo diet, with an extremely high content of fish or of fish-derived products (such as seal), abundant in n-3 fatty acids, mainly eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (7). In other populations with a high consumption of fish, such as the Japanese (8,9) and the Alaskans (10), a similar inverse correlation between fish consumption and mortality from CHD has been subsequently found. However, in Western populations with a generally low intake of n-3 fatty acids, both protective effects (11–16) and no effects (17–20) of n-3 fatty acids on CHD have been reported. There are good explanations for the lack of uniformity in the epidemiological data, including the difficulty in maintaining constant feeding habits in a population during long observational studies and the influence of other dietary principles, including the simultaneous ingestion of saturated or other unsaturated fatty acids. Overall, the bulk of epidemiological data suggests the existence of favorable associations between fish consumption and mortality from CHD (21–24), as reflected in a recent health statement from the American Heart Association (25). In addition, a host of in vitro and in vivo studies have provided possible biological explanations for the epidemiological observations. Such studies have demonstrated that 1 ) diets rich in n-3 fatty acids partially replace n-6 with n-3 fatty acids in …
Development of a MOOC management system

In recent years, a set of distance learning initiatives have emerged under the name of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), whose goal is to offer informal online training opened to any individual and without any limit concerning the number of enrolled students. The characteristics that define the MOOCs make them different from traditional distance education, requiring new tools to carry out their management. In this paper, we present a MOOC management system that has been developed in the Computer Science School at Complutense University of Madrid.
Regional inventory of nitric oxide and nitrous oxide emissions for forest soils of southeast Germany using the biogeochemical model PnET‐N‐DNDC

Though it has been shown recently that forest ecosystems affected by high rates of atmospheric N input are significant sources of N trace gases, reliable regional estimates of the source strength of such forests are missing. In this study, the biogeochemical model Photosynthesis and Evapotranspiration-Nitrification-Denitrification and Decomposition (PnET-N-DNDC), which simulates processes involved in N trace gas production and emission in forest soils on a daily scale, was used to calculate a regional inventory of N trace gas emissions from forest soils in southeast Germany for the year 1997. Prior to its use the model was further validated for climate and site sensitivity using multiyear observations of N trace gas fluxes at the Hoglwald Forest site, Germany, and at forest sites in the Netherlands. On a regional scale the model estimates for Bavaria, Germany, that NO and N2O emissions from forest ecosystems in the year 1997 were ∼4.21 kt NO-N yr−1 and ∼6.64 kt N2O-N yr−1, respectively. Compared with total annual NOx emissions from combustion processes in Bavaria, total emissions of NO from forest soils are of minor importance [4.6%]. However, in summer, NO emissions from forest soils were of significant importance [8.8–22.0%] for the total regional NOx burden, since NO emissions showed a strong seasonal pattern with highest emissions during summer. Also, with regard to N2O, huge seasonal variations were found. Because of high N2O emissions during periods of freezing and thawing of forest soils, N2O fluxes in the winter period of 1997 also contributed significantly on the regional scale to total annual N2O emissions [∼38%]. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the accuracy of the N trace gas inventory strongly depended on the quality of regional input data, since the regional estimates of N trace gas fluxes calculated by PnET-N-DNDC were very sensitive to changes in soil texture, soil carbon content, site fertility, and, especially for NO emissions, to changes in soil pH.
The Missing Link : Commentary on LaBerge ' s Triangular Circuit

LaBerge (1997) proposes that underlying attention and self-awareness is a triangular circuit involving interconnected posterior cortical, thalamic and prefrontal neural ensembles. While the target paper makes only passing reference to it, the reticular nucleus of the thalamus is an integral part of the triangular circuit he posits. Indeed, it is essential to a complete understanding of his model.
Lack of Evidence for Apoptosis as a Cause of Delayed Onset Paraplegia After Spinal Cord Ischemia in Rabbits

The mechanisms for delayed onset paraplegia after transient spinal cord ischemia are not fully understood. We investigated whether apoptotic motor neuron death is involved in its development. Spinal cord ischemia was induced for 15 min by occlusion of the abdominal aorta in rabbits. At 8, 24, or 48 h after reperfusion, hind limb motor function was assessed, and the lumbar spinal cord was examined morphologically (hematoxylin-eosin and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate-biotin nick-end labeling staining) and biochemically (breakdown products of &agr;-fodrin and patterns of DNA changes). At each time point, 14 rabbits were studied (7 for histopathology and 7 for biochemical analysis). Six rabbits served as sham controls. Delayed motor dysfunction developed in two thirds of the rabbits. The motor neurons in the rabbits with motor dysfunction (not paraplegia) showed swelling and a finely granular dispersed Nissl substance. In paraplegic rabbits, destruction of the gray matter and prominent inflammatory cell infiltration were observed. No apoptotic motor neuron was found in any rabbit. There was neither detectable increase in a caspase-3-mediated breakdown product of &agr;-fodrin, nor DNA laddering in any rabbit. The results suggest that apoptosis has a negligible role in the pathophysiology of delayed paraplegia in the spinal cord ischemia model examined.
Evidence for a Gender-Specific Protective Role of Innate Immune Receptors in a Model of Perinatal Brain Injury

Hypoxia–ischemia is a common cause of neurological impairments in newborns, but little is known about how neuroinflammation contributes to the long-term outcome after a perinatal brain injury. In this study, we investigated the role of the fractalkine receptor chemokine CX3C motif receptor 1 (CX3CR1) and of toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling after a neonatal hypoxic–ischemic brain injury. Mice deficient in the TLR adaptor proteins Toll/interleukin-1 receptor-domain-containing adaptor protein inducing interferon β (TRIF) or myeloid differentiation factor-88 (MyD88) and CX3CR1 knock-out (KO) mice were subjected to hypoxia–ischemia at postnatal day 3. In situ hybridization was used to evaluate the expression of TLRs during brain development and after hypoxic–ischemic insults. Behavioral deficits, hippocampal damage, reactive microgliosis, and subplate injury were compared among the groups. Although MyD88 KO mice exhibited no differences from wild-type animals in long-term structural and functional outcomes, TRIF KO mice presented a worse outcome, as evidenced by increased hippocampal CA3 atrophy in males and by the development of learning and motor deficits in females. CX3CR1-deficient female mice showed a marked increase in brain damage and long-lasting learning deficits, whereas CX3CR1 KO male animals did not exhibit more brain injury than wild-type mice. These data reveal a novel, gender-specific protective role of TRIF and CX3CR1 signaling in a mouse model of neonatal hypoxic–ischemic brain injury. These findings suggest that future studies seeking immunomodulatory therapies for preterm infants should consider gender as a critical variable and should be cautious not to abrogate the protective role of neuroinflammation.
Integration of a food distribution routing optimization software with an enterprise resource planner

i3FR is a system for optimizing the distribution of fresh goods, using a fleet of vehicles, which must be integrated with an existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, while avoiding disruption of established schedules and procedures. In terms of delivery optimization, the most similar problem in literature is the well-established and experimented Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW), which is, by nature, a multiple objective problem where the number of vehicles and the total traveled distance must be minimized. In this paper, the overall architecture of the i3FR system is presented, which includes several modules and services (such as ERP, routing optimization and data acquisition modules), and the communication between them. The novelty in the proposed architecture comprises: (i) the application to a fresh goods distribution network, with multiple restrictions on goods' acclimatization; (ii) a data acquisition system which includes vehicle data and environmental data from the vehicles' refrigerated volumes, such as temperature; and (iii) the integration of the VRPTW optimization system with an existing ERP. A case-study is described and validates the overall implementation. The main contribution of paper is the proposal of a multi-layered architecture to integrate existing ERP software with a route optimization and a temperature data acquisition module.
Interplay of a Way of Knowing among Mexican-Origin Transnationals: Chaining to the Border and to Transnational Communities

Background/Context Transnational Mexican-origin youth comprise a large and increasing number of students in U.S. schools, yet their teachers have often misunderstood their backgrounds and the conditions related to their transnational movement over borders. With such a large number of immigrant/transnational youth in the U.S. of Mexican origin, it is important for educators to begin to understand their ways of knowing. Purpose I describe chained knowing, a way of knowing of transnational Mexican-origin families. Family members were chained to the border and to their extended family and communities across borders, with the latter way of knowing as an ends in itself. I offer implications for educators, curriculum, and considerations surrounding immigration policy. Setting Washington, DC area and two rural immigrant-sending communities in Mexico in the states of Jalisco and Michoacán. Participants Four working-class Mexican-origin families whose primary residence was in the Washington, DC area and who made return trips to Mexico at least every 2 years. Research Design This multi-sited, critical ethnographic work draws from participant observation and interviews with four families who were situated in the Washington, DC area. The research was collected over 3 years. Data Collection and Analysis Through the interwoven lenses of border theory and Chicana feminism, the data were collected over 3 years and then analyzed and coded for emergent themes in an iterative process. The data were member checked with participants from each of the four participating families and also coded by an outside researcher. Findings Mexican-origin transnationals in this study demonstrated an interconnected way of knowing as chained knowing: chained to both the border and to their extended communities spanning borders. Conclusions The ways of knowing of transnational families should be understood by educators, researchers, and policy makers in order to help the curriculum better reflect the increasingly global context all students engage and the ways we understand the struggles of people across border.
Phosphorylation of FAK on Ser 732 is induced by ROCK and is essential for Pyk 2-mediated phosphorylation of FAK on Tyr 407 in response to VEGF

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is phosphorylated on tyrosine and serine residues following cell activation. In the present work, we investigated the relationship between tyrosine and serine phosphorylation of FAK in promoting endothelial cell migration in response to VEGF. We found that VEGF induces the activation of the RhoA-dependant kinase ROCK downstream from VEGFR2. In turn, activated ROCK directly phosphorylates FAK on Ser732. Proline-rich tyrosine kinase-2 (Pyk2) is also activated in response to VEGF. Its activation requires the clustering of integrin αvβ3 and triggers directly the phosphorylation of Tyr407 within FAK, an event necessary for cell migration. Interestingly, ROCK-mediated phosphorylation of Ser732 is essential for Pyk2dependent phosphorylation of Tyr407 since the latter is abrogated in cells expressing a FAK mutant that is non-phosphorylatable on Ser732. We suggest that VEGF elicits the activation of the VEGFR2-ROCK pathway leading to phosphorylation of Ser732 within FAK. In turn, phosphorylation of Ser732 would change the conformation of FAK making it accessible to Pyk2 activated in response to its association with integrin β3. Then, activated Pyk2 triggers the phosphorylation of FAK on Tyr407 promoting cell migration.
Multigranular Thread Support in WaveScalar

WaveScalar is a recently proposed scalable microarchitecture. The original WaveScalar research developed and evaluated an ISA and microarchitecture that efficiently executes a single, coarse-grain thread. In this paper, we expand that design to support multiple, simultaneously executing threads. Four mechanisms make this possible: (1) instructions that enable and disable wave-ordered memory; (2) additional memory access instructions that bypass wave-ordered memory, exposing additional parallelism; (3) lightweight, interthread synchronization that models hardware queue locks; and (4) a simple, intrathread fence instruction that allows applications to handle relaxed memory consistency. We combine these primitives to create a multigranular threading system. By using the expanded memory interface and both synchronization mechanisms, we build a coarse-grain, pthread-style library and execute the Splash2 benchmark suite. These programs achieve a 30-80× performance gain over a single thread on aWaveScalar processor, providing running times that are 10-20× faster than a CMP. Then, using the intra-thread fence and the new memory access instructions, we build very fine-grain threads that achieve 7-14 multiply-accumulates per cycle for well-known kernels. Finally, we show that the two approaches can be combined effectively by using them to parallelize equake. The integration improved equake’s performance by 9× over an optimized serial version.
Low inductive test bench for resonant converters

Resonant converters which have high power density are highly sensitive to tank circuit tuning. The Class E converter prototype developed in this work shows the detrimental effects that arise with stray components during load connection and thus proposes a test circuit which minimizes its effect on the tank circuit tuning. The experimental results obtained validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution showing an improvement in the converter efficiency.
A Method for Trajectory Planning of Mobile Robot in Random Obstacles Environment

This paper presents an improved method for trajectory planning of mobile robot in random obstacle environments. A combination of first local then global path planning is used in the real-time planning system modeling. The global path planning method adopting target direction angle tracking strategy is formulated. The local trajectory planning method is implemented by a quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization algorithm which was developed in our previous work. The software is coded in Matlab frame. The results from simulations demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of current method for trajectory planning of mobile robot in random obstacles environments.
Dynamic Self-Organizing Generation Algorithm of Complex Assembly Network Model

In this paper, a model was proposed to describe the structure and the assembly mechanism of assembly network based on six principles: (1) the network has fixed number of vertices; (2) each v ertex has limited degree; (3) the network shows clustering; (4) linking take place between pairs of vertices at a rate which is high if the degre e limitation of this pair is large and the distance is close and low otherwise; (5) many sub-networks are growing in the same time and connected together at last; (6) there is relatively stable structure. Using computer simulations, the model which was proposed in this paper and incorporated all of these features can reproduce many of the features of real assembly network, including high level of clustering, the feature which is partially consistent with the scale-free network, and local-world growing.
Effects of 1 and 3 g cinnamon on gastric emptying, satiety, and postprandial blood glucose, insulin, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, glucagon-like peptide 1, and ghrelin concentrations in healthy subjects.

BACKGROUND A previous study of healthy subjects showed that intake of 6 g cinnamon with rice pudding reduced postprandial blood glucose and the gastric emptying rate (GER) without affecting satiety. OBJECTIVE The objective was to study the effect of 1 and 3 g cinnamon on GER, postprandial blood glucose, plasma concentrations of insulin and incretin hormones [glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1)], the ghrelin response, and satiety in healthy subjects. DESIGN GER was measured by using real-time ultrasonography after ingestion of rice pudding with and without 1 or 3 g cinnamon. Fifteen healthy subjects were assessed in a crossover trial. RESULTS The addition of 1 or 3 g cinnamon had no significant effect on GER, satiety, glucose, GIP, or the ghrelin response. The insulin response at 60 min and the area under the curve (AUC) at 120 min were significantly lower after ingestion of rice pudding with 3 g cinnamon (P = 0.05 and P = 0.036, respectively, after Bonferroni correction). The change in GLP-1 response (DeltaAUC) and the change in the maximum concentration (DeltaC(max)) were both significantly higher after ingestion of rice pudding with 3 g cinnamon (P = 0.0082 and P = 0.0138, respectively, after Bonferroni correction). CONCLUSIONS Ingestion of 3 g cinnamon reduced postprandial serum insulin and increased GLP-1 concentrations without significantly affecting blood glucose, GIP, the ghrelin concentration, satiety, or GER in healthy subjects. The results indicate a relation between the amount of cinnamon consumed and the decrease in insulin concentration.