Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Pathogenesis of Lupus Nephritis

Lupus nephritis is a serious potential feature of systemic lupus erythematous (SLE). Though SLE typically cycles through periods of flares and remission, patients often eventually succumb to end-stage kidney or cardiovascular damage. This review of the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis examines the role of the complement cascade; the significance of autoantibodies, the breaking of tolerance, and the implications of altered apoptosis in breaking tolerance; and the contributions of adaptive immunity and cross-talk with the innate immune system in driving renal damage. Delineation of basic mechanisms underlying the development of acute and chronic renal damage in lupus nephritis can result in the continued development of more specific and effective treatments.
The CFHT Open Star Cluster Survey. IV. Two Rich, Young Open Star Clusters: NGC 2168 (M35) and NGC 2323 (M50)

We continue our study of rich Galactic clusters by presenting deep CCD observations of both NGC 2168 (M35) and NGC 2323 (M50). Both clusters are found to be rich (NGC 2168 contains at least 1000 stars brighter than V = 22, and NGC 2323 contains ∼2100 stars brighter than our photometric limit of V ∼ 23) and young (NGC 2168 age = 180 Myr and for NGC 2323 age = 130 Myr). The color-magnitude diagrams for the clusters exhibit clear main sequences stretching over 14 mag in the (V, B-V)-plane. Comparing these long main sequences with those of earlier clusters in the survey, as well as with the Hyades, has allowed for accurate distances to be established for each cluster (for NGC 2168 d = 912 pc and for NGC 2323 d = 1000 pc). Analysis of the luminosity and mass functions suggests that, despite their young ages, both clusters are somewhat dynamically relaxed, exhibiting signs of mass segregation. This is especially interesting in the case of NGC 2323, which has an age of only 1.3 times the dynamical relaxation time. The present photometry is also deep enough to detect all of the white dwarfs in both clusters. We discuss some interesting candidates that may be the remnants of quite massive (M ≥ 5 M⊙) progenitor stars. The white dwarf cooling age of NGC 2168 is found to be in good agreement with the main-sequence turnoff age. These objects are potentially very important for setting constraints on the white dwarf initial-final mass relationship and the upper mass limit for white dwarf production.
Effectiveness of cigarette advertisements on women: an experimental study.

We investigated three factors that could influence subjects' reactions to print advertisements for cigarettes. A total of 115 college women were shown cigarette ads that varied on two dimensions: whether an attractive model was shown and whether a general or specific warning label was shown. One half of the women were pretested on their beliefs about the hazards of smoking prior to seeing the ads; all of the women completed a posttest beliefs measure. Ratings of the attractiveness, persuasiveness, and credibility of the ads were collected, and the smoking status of subjects was assessed. Results indicated that specific warnings on ads can act as a counterinfluence to an ads' appeal by making it appear less attractive and less persuasive than if the ad contained only a general warning. This etfect was especially true for smokers. Subjects also rated an ad as more attractive, more persuasive, and less credible when it showed an attractive model than when it did not. Being pretested on their beliefs about the hazards of smoking resulted in high attractiveness and persuasion ratings and in smokers' recalling and recognizing more of the specific warnings that appeared on ads. Practical and theoretical implications for the results are discussed.
Joint rate-distortion coding of multiple videos

Some communications applications involve the simultaneous transmission of multiple videos from one source location. We consider the optimal bandwidth allocation and coding of such co-located multiple videos for transmission over one constant bit rate channel. It turns out that a major issue consists in proper setting of target buffer levels, which arises due to the possibly large variation in the rate-distortion relations of the aggregate video material in a short time period. In fact, this is also an issue in MPEGx coding whose I, P, and B frames possess different rate-distortion characteristics. We outline an approach to optimal solutions under several common types of distortion measures. We present two simplified techniques and some preliminary simulation results. The simulation results show that such joint bit allocation can significantly enhance the average coding performance over multiple videos.
Role of Innovation in Emerging Markets

The word innovation simply means introducing something new. But business has a more complicated relationship with it. Most firms would claim to see innovation as an opportunity. Many reputations have been won on a single great idea and all will invest in it to some degree. But for the complacent, or the unlucky, it can be the lone sniper’s bullet that brings down a mighty corporation. Generation of idea is just the tip of the ice berg but to successfully implement the idea into a business model followed by people is a herculean task. Innovation in technology, by the time they reach, the small business become dilute, so hence learning organization shall always encourage small and even crazy idea to be born and brought up, these small ideas can then serve us in our future endeavor.
Low-frequency normal modes that describe allosteric transitions in biological nanomachines are robust to sequence variations

By representing the high-resolution crystal structures of a number of enzymes using the elastic network model, it has been shown that only a few low-frequency normal modes are needed to describe the large-scale domain movements that are triggered by ligand binding. Here we explore a link between the nearly invariant nature of the modes that describe functional dynamics at the mesoscopic level and the large evolutionary sequence variations at the residue level. By using a structural perturbation method (SPM), which probes the residue-specific response to perturbations (or mutations), we identify a sparse network of strongly conserved residues that transmit allosteric signals in three structurally unrelated biological nanomachines, namely, DNA polymerase, myosin motor, and the Escherichia coli chaperonin. Based on the response of every mode to perturbations, which are generated by interchanging specific sequence pairs in a multiple sequence alignment, we show that the functionally relevant low-frequency modes are most robust to sequence variations. Our work shows that robustness of dynamical modes at the mesoscopic level is encoded in the structure through a sparse network of residues that transmit allosteric signals.
Chitosan-Graft-Polyethylenimine/DNA Nanoparticles as Novel Non-Viral Gene Delivery Vectors Targeting Osteoarthritis

The development of safe and efficient gene carriers is the key to the clinical success of gene therapy. The present study was designed to develop and evaluate the chitosan-graft-polyethylenimine (CP)/DNA nanoparticles as novel non-viral gene vectors for gene therapy of osteoarthritis. The CP/DNA nanoparticles were produced through a complex coacervation of the cationic polymers with pEGFP after grafting chitosan (CS) with a low molecular weight (Mw) PEI (Mw = 1.8 kDa). Particle size and zeta potential were related to the weight ratio of CP:DNA, where decreases in nanoparticle size and increases in surface charge were observed as CP content increased. The buffering capacity of CP was significantly greater than that of CS. The transfection efficiency of CP/DNA nanoparticles was similar with that of the Lipofectamine™ 2000, and significantly higher than that of CS/DNA and PEI (25 kDa)/DNA nanoparticles. The transfection efficiency of the CP/DNA nanoparticles was dependent on the weight ratio of CP:DNA (w/w). The average cell viability after the treatment with CP/DNA nanoparticles was over 90% in both chondrocytes and synoviocytes, which was much higher than that of PEI (25 kDa)/DNA nanoparticles. The CP copolymers efficiently carried the pDNA inside chondrocytes and synoviocytes, and the pDNA was detected entering into nucleus. These results suggest that CP/DNA nanoparticles with improved transfection efficiency and low cytotoxicity might be a safe and efficient non-viral vector for gene delivery to both chondrocytes and synoviocytes.
Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition predicts local grassland primary production worldwide

Humans dominate many important Earth system processes including the nitrogen (N) cycle. Atmospheric N deposition affects fundamental processes such as carbon cycling, climate regulation, and biodiversity, and could result in changes to fundamental Earth system processes such as primary production. Both modelling and experimentation have suggested a role for anthropogenically altered N deposition in increasing productivity, nevertheless, current understanding of the relative strength of N deposition with respect to other controls on production such as edaphic conditions and climate is limited. Here we use an international multiscale data set to show that atmospheric N deposition is positively correlated to aboveground net primary production (ANPP) observed at the 1-m 2 level across a wide range of herbaceous ecosystems. N deposition was a better predictor than climatic drivers and local soil conditions, explaining 16% of observed variation in ANPP globally with an increase of 1 kg Nha � 1 � yr � 1 increasing ANPP by 3%. Soil pH explained 8% of observed variation in ANPP while climatic drivers showed no significant relationship. Our results illustrate that the incorporation of global N deposition patterns in Earth system models are likely to substantially improve estimates of primary production in herbaceous systems. In herbaceous systems across the world, humans appear to be partially driving local ANPP through impacts on the N cycle.
Query-based occupancy map for SVM-CBIR on mobile robot image database

A set of images taken by a mobile robot during navigation can be viewed as a large-scale image database, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is an effective approach to image retrieval on such large-scale image databases. For the aim of human-robot interface, CBIR on the robot image database would be very useful, to train the robot to learn features (e.g. color, texture) of the relevant objects (e.g. book, chair) that a human user is interested in. To achieve CBIR, a small but sufficient member of relevant objects' features are required. We will propose a novel CBIR method that efficiently searches such relevant objects based not only on their features, but also on their locations with respect to the robot's workspace. To combine both of the feature and the location information, a novel 2D occupancy map called query based occupancy map (QOM) is presented.
Digital Media and Youth: Unparalleled Opportunity and Unprecedented Responsibility

With the sudden explosion of digital media content and access devices in the last generation, there is now more information available to more people from more sources than at any time in human history. Pockets of limited availability by geography or status notwithstanding, people now have ready access to almost inconceivably vast information repositories that are increasingly portable, accessible, and interactive in both delivery and formation. Basic human activities have changed as a result, and new possibilities have emerged. For instance, the process by which people locate, organize, and coordinate groups of individuals with shared interests, the number and nature of information and news sources available, and the ability to solicit and share opinions and ideas across myriad topics have all undergone dramatic change as a result of interconnected digital media. One result of this contemporary media landscape is that there exist incredible opportunities for learning, social connection, and individual entertainment and enhancement in a wide variety of forms. Indeed, recent evidence indicates that 45 percent of users in the United States say that the Internet played a crucial or important role in at least one major decision in their lives in the last two years, such as attaining additional career training, helping themselves or someone else with a major illness or medical condition, or making a major investment or financial decision. 1 Enhanced connectivity and information availability have changed not only what people know, but how they know what they know. However, the wide-scale access and multiplicity of sources that ensure vast information availability also make assessing the credibility of information extremely complex. The origin of information, its quality, and its veracity are now in many cases less clear than ever before, resulting in an unparalleled burden on individuals to locate appropriate information and assess its meaning and relevance accurately. Doing so is highly consequential: assessing credibility inaccurately can have serious social, personal, educational, relational, health, and financial consequences. As a result, determining trust, believability, and information bias— key elements of credibility—become critical as individuals process the information in their lives gleaned from digital media. Understanding credibility in this environment is also important because it is a concern that cuts across personal, social, and political domains. For instance, digital media increasingly deliver information that results (or fails to result) in an informed citizenry that, in turn, drives the pursuit of particular social agendas, the degree and nature of engagement …
Modelling cardiac calcium sparks in a three‐dimensional reconstruction of a calcium release unit

• We have developed a detailed computational model of a cardiac Ca2+ spark based on a three dimensional reconstruction of electron tomograms. • Our model predicts near total junctional Ca2+ depletion after the spark, while regional Ca2+ reserve is preserved. The local Ca2+ gradient inferred by these findings reconciles previous model predictions with experimental measurements. • Differences in local distribution of calsequestrin have a profound impact on spark termination time, as reported by Fluo5, solely based on its Ca2+ buffering capacity. • The SERCA pump can prolong spark release time by pumping Ca2+ back into the junctional SR during the spark.
Efficient Implementation of McEliece Cryptosystem on Graphic Processing Unit

McEliece is a public-key cryptosystem based on error correcting codes. It has the ability to resist quantum-computer attacks which can break different modern public key cryptosystems such as RSA. Further more, it's encryption and decryption are very fast and have good characteristics for data parallel processing. Nowadays, modern graphic processing units (GPUs) are available in almost all hardware platforms. GPUs can comprise many compute cores which can process a huge data in parallel. In this paper, different implementations of McEliece cryptosystem are explored on NVIDIA GTX780 GPU using OpenCL framework. Our implementation results show that GPU is 331x faster than CPU when apply local memory with vector data-type to encrypt 216 messages.
Combination of self organizing maps and feedforward nets inspired by population coding

Self-organizing feature maps and feedforward nets trained with the backpropagation algorithm are the most common used and the most analyzed artificial neural nets. Although a combination of them, called counterpropagation, already had been proposed, its full capabilities had not been recognized. In this paper an extension of this net structure is proposed, which takes into account the whole activity pattern of the self-organizing feature mappsilas competitive layer. It is inspired by both neurological studies about information coding in the human brain and the psychological thesis of H. Benesch, who states that each information processing system is based on the triple of medium, pattern and meaning. A practical example using situations in robot soccer games is given and the results are analyzed.
Portuguese quality wine and the region-of-origin effect: consumers' and retailers' perceptions

This study investigates the relative importance of region of origin associated with extrinsic (price, brand, promotion) and intrinsic (grape, type of wine, colour, age, special references) cues in the decisions of final consumers and small retailers to buy Portuguese quality wine. In order to attain this goal we conducted a survey through face-to-face interviews in the Minho region. The results show that the dominant factor of influence in the acquisition of wine is the region of origin, both for final consumers and small retailers. Despite its importance, brand was not the principal variable to influence consumers’ wine choice, while price has been regarded as a less important extrinsic quality cue. One interesting result is the type of wine (“maduro” or “verde”) which seems to be the most preferred intrinsic cue for final consumers and small retailers. The findings also indicate that the regions of Alentejo, Douro and Verde are clearly the leaders in terms of customer acceptance.
Plasticity in Recovery and Persistence of Stuttering

Many individuals who suffer from stuttering in childhood recover. This suggests that there is plasticity in the process leading to the disorder. This article summarizes the results of comparisons between fluent speakers and speakers who stutter (recovered and persistent) that were intended to elucidate details of this process. Socio-demographic, family history, speech and language, and imaging data are reported.
Multi-instance graphical transfer clustering for traffic data learning

In order to better model complex real-world data and to develop robust features that capture relevant information, we usually employ unsupervised feature learning to learn a layer of features representations from unlabeled data. However, developing domain-specific features for each task is expensive, time-consuming and requires expertise of the data. In this paper, we introduce multi-instance clustering and graphical learning to unsupervised transfer learning. For a better clustering efficient, we proposed a set of algorithms on the application of traffic data learning, instance feature representation, distance calculation of multi-instance clustering, multi-instance graphical cluster initialisation, multi-instance multi-cluster update, and graphical multi-instance transfer clustering (GMITC). In the end of this paper, we examine the proposed algorithms on the Eastwest datasets by couples of baselines. The experiment results indicate that our proposed algorithms can get higher clustering accuracy and much higher programming speed.
Lifting Wavelet-Based Two-Dimensional Scalar Field Simulation for Underwater Navigation Application

The lack of reference maps has been the constraint factor in underwater geophysical field of earth (GFE) aided navigation research, because the developed positioning algorithms can not be verified by accurate GFE-distribution patterns enough. After analysis of positioning modes in underwater navigation, two-dimensional scalar field can be concluded as the common mathematical fundamental. Combined with the requirements of references' diversity, this paper proposes lifting wavelet-based distribution-detail simulation algorithm, which combines with improved random-relation skeleton generation method. The efficient-generated two-dimensional scalar fields can help test matching algorithms' validity to references' diversity, and can also determine interpolation methods' applicability based on statistical analysis.
Mismatch Recognition and DNA-dependent Stimulation of the ATPase Activity of hMutSα Is Abolished by a Single Mutation in the hMSH6 Subunit*

The most abundant mismatch binding factor in human cells, hMutSα, is a heterodimer of hMSH2 and hMSH6, two homologues of the bacterial MutS protein. The C-terminal portions of all MutS homologues contain an ATP binding motif and are highly conserved throughout evolution. Although the N termini are generally divergent, they too contain short conserved sequence elements. A phenylalanine → alanine substitution within one such motif, GXFY(X)5DA, has been shown to abolish the mismatch binding activity of the MutS protein ofThermus aquaticus (Malkov, V. A., Biswas, I., Camerini-Otero, R. D., and Hsieh, P. (1997) J. Biol. Chem. 272, 23811–23817). We introduced an identical mutation into one or both subunits of hMutSα. The Phe → Ala substitution in hMSH2 had no effect on the biological activity of the heterodimer. In contrast, the in vitro mismatch binding and mismatch repair functions of hMutSα were severely attenuated when the hMSH6 subunit was mutated. Moreover, this variant heterodimer also displayed a general DNA binding defect. Correspondingly, its ATPase activity could not be stimulated by either heteroduplex or homoduplex DNA. Thus the N-terminal portion of hMSH6 appears to impart on hMutSα not only the specificity for recognition and binding of mismatched substrates but also the ability to bind to homoduplex DNA.
Iterative multiuser detection with physical layer network coding for multi-pair communications

The physical layer network coding (PNC) technique has been utilized for increasing the system throughput in a two-way relay channel (TWRC) where the two users exchange their information via a relay node. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of increasing the number of users for the PNC technique where multiple pairs of users swap their information simultaneously through a single relay node for TWRC. This scheme relies on the iterative multiuser technique for detection of users at the receiver. Moreover, a common chip-level interleaver is shared for each pair of users wanting to exchange information. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated in term of bit error rate (BER) for iterative manner compared without iterative detection and the system shows the ability to increase the number of users. Moreover, the new scheme offers improved performance about 10 dB of signal to noise ratio (SNR) compared to the scheme without iterative detection to achieve a target BER of 10-3 over Rayleigh fading channel.
Comparative evaluation of the recent Linux and Solaris kernel architectures

The paper compares core kernel architecture and functionality of two modern open source systems. The subsystems examined are scheduling, memory management, and file system architecture. These subsystems are common to any operating system (not just Unix and Unix-like systems), and they tend to be the most well-understood components of the operating system. One of the more interesting aspects concerning the Linux and Solaris Operating Systems (OS), is the amount of similarities between them. Ignoring the different naming conventions, both of them utilize similar approaches toward implementing the different concepts. Each OS supports time-shared scheduling of threads, demand paging with a not-recently-used page replacement algorithm, and a virtual file system layer to allow the implementation of different file system architectures. The paper concludes that both the Linux and the OpenSolaris kernel can offer robust and powerful computing environments both at the server application areas and as well at the desktop and workstation ones.