Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Properties of the low threshold Ca current in single frog atrial cardiomyocytes. A comparison with the high threshold Ca current

The properties of the low threshold Ca current (ICaT) in bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) isolated atrial cardiomyocytes were studied using the whole-cell recording patch-clamp technique and compared with those of the high threshold Ca current (ICaL). In 91% of atrial cells we observed both ICaT and ICaL when collagenase and trypsin were used to dissociate the cells. But when pronase was used, only 30% of the cells exhibited ICaT. ICaT was never found in ventricular cells. ICaT could be investigated more easily when ICaL was inhibited by Cd ions (50 microM). Its kinetics were unchanged by substituting Ba for Ca, or in the presence of high concentrations of Ba. Both ICaT and ICaL exhibited reduced inactivation after high depolarizing prepulses. ICaT was found to be sensitive to dihydropyridines: 1 microM nifedipine decreased this current while 1 microM BAY K 8644 increased it; this occurred without significant variations in the steady-state inactivation curve. ICaT was more sensitive than ICaL to alpha 1-adrenergic and P2-purinergic stimulations, while ICaL was more sensitive to beta-adrenergic stimulation. Isoproterenol was still able to increase ICaT in the presence of high intracellular cAMP. Both currents were increased by 1 microM ouabain (although ICaL only transiently) and decreased by 10 microM ouabain. It is concluded that the two types of Ca channels can be observed in bullfrog atrial cells and that they are specifically altered by pharmacological agents and neuromediators. This may have implications for cardiac behavior.
Constitutive Trafficking—More Than Just Running in Circles?

The CB1 cannabinoid receptors are among the most highly expressed G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the brain. Their activation has been associated with a wide range of behaviors, including cognition, pain perception, drug addiction, and memory consolidation, and they have been pharmaceutically targeted for pain therapies, smoking cessation, and appetite control. The CB1 receptor has been challenging to study at the molecular level given the hydrophobic nature of its lipid-based agonists and difficulties expressing the recombinant cDNA in cellular cultures. Early transfection studies in cell cultures revealed predominantly intracellular localization of the CB1 receptor and it was not clear whether this was the “normal” distribution or whether this was some artifact of the cellular model systems. However, studies of the endogenously expressed CB1 receptors using specific antibodies have shown that the there is usually a distinct intracellular, vesicular localization of the CB1 receptor. Confocal microscopy analysis reveals that the intracellular CB1 receptors are localized to vesicles, which implies that the receptors are “trafficking” or undergoing a continuous cycle of internalization and membrane relocalization. The article by McDonald et al. (p. 976) in this issue of Molecular Pharmacology addresses whether this constitutive trafficking is related to the activation state of the receptor and whether it plays a role in axonal versus somatodendritic receptor localization.
A Geometric Presentation of Probabilistic Satisfiability

By considering probability distributions over the set of assignments the expected truth values assignment to propositional variables are extended through linear operators, and the expected truth values of the clauses at any given conjunctive form are also extended through linear maps. The probabilistic satisfiability problems are discussed in terms of the introduced linear extensions. The case of multiple truth values is also discussed.
A dynamic broadband reflector built from microscopic silica spheres in the ‘disco’ clam Ctenoides ales

The ‘disco’ or ‘electric’ clam Ctenoides ales (Limidae) is the only species of bivalve known to have a behaviourally mediated photic display. This display is so vivid that it has been repeatedly confused for bioluminescence, but it is actually the result of scattered light. The flashing occurs on the mantle lip, where electron microscopy revealed two distinct tissue sides: one highly scattering side that contains dense aggregations of spheres composed of silica, and one highly absorbing side that does not. High-speed video confirmed that the two sides act in concert to alternate between vivid broadband reflectance and strong absorption in the blue region of the spectrum. Optical modelling suggests that the diameter of the spheres is nearly optimal for scattering visible light, especially at shorter wavelengths which predominate in their environment. This simple mechanism produces a striking optical effect that may function as a signal.
ReuseECOS: An Approach to Support Global Software Development through Software Ecosystems

Economic and social issues were pointed out as Software Engineering (SE) challenges for the next years, since the field needs to treat issues beyond the technical side, which requires observing it in another perspective. In this sense, Software Ecosystems (SECOs) have emerged as an approach to improve software reuse in global software development (GSD) industry considering relations among companies and stakeholders around the world. Companies and organizations have opened up their platforms and artifacts to others, including partners and third-part developers. This scenario changes the traditional software industry and requires mature research in software architecture, component-based software engineering and software product line (SPL) in a global market and business environment. So, GSD requires linking an architectural, a business and a social-based environment in an integrated way, as well as a focus on SECO-based management and engineering. This concern motivated a proposal of a "3+1" framework for SECOs management and engineering called Reuse ECOS. The approach aims at outlining a set of steps that combines those three dimensions and joins different perspectives in SECOs literature from a survey through a research strategy and a solution proposal for GSD with SECO and SPL. It was observed that SECO concepts can be merged in a broader GSD approach in SE industry.
A FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLOITING TEMPORAL VARIATIONS IN RELATIONAL DOMAINS

Sharan, Umang. M.S., Purdue University, August, 2008. A Framework for Exploiting Temporal Variations in Relational Domains . Major Professor: Jennifer Neville. Many relational domains contain temporal information and dynamics that are important to model. As an example, consider scientific publication networks—paper publication events occur over time and coauthor relationships form and develop over time. The temporal aspects of such data can reveal relevant relationships and indicate relationship strength. In this work, we focus on incorporating temporally-varying relationship information in predictive models of attributes. By analyzing the temporal dynamics, we aim to identify and emphasize more influential relationships, thus improving the performance of models that consider the characteristics of related entities during prediction. We present a framework that models dynamic relational data with a two-phase process, first summarizing the temporal-relational information with kernel smoothing, and then moderating attribute dependencies with the summarized relational information. We evaluate our approach on three real-world datasets and show that it results in significant performance gains compared to two baseline approaches that ignore the temporal aspects of the data.
An apparatus and method for stacked sheet counting with camera array

There is an emerging requirement for quality control like sheet-counting in printing and packaging industry, where machine vision methods are widely adopted due to their nondestructive and real-time merits. However, the conventional single-camera scanning systems often suffer from insufficient resolution while handling the sheet-counting issue of ultrahigh stacks. To solve the problem, we present a new apparatus using camera array and advanced image processing algorithms. In this paper, the system architecture of the apparatus is briefly described. Much emphasis is exerted on the line detection of images based on an improved Canny edge algorithm. Particularly, the fusion of results from multi-camera imaging is described in details. Through more than one year's test in factory production lines, it is demonstrated that our apparatus can satisfy the high-accuracy requirement of real-time sheet-counting task with an error less than 6%.
Werkdruk in cijfers : feiten en fabels op een rij

Is werkdruk werkelijk een probleem of is het modieus gezeur dat overdreven aandacht krijgt? Moeten we ons wel zo druk maken over werkdruk? Als antwoord op deze vragen wordt in dit artikel een overzicht gegeven van cijfermatige trends, risicogroepen, maatschappelijke en bedrijfskosten. De conclusie luidt dat werkdruk een serieus probleem is. Daarom worden ook in cijfers aangegeven die antwoord geven op de vraag: welke maatregelen treffen bedrijven om werkdruk en stress te bestrijden?
Health Benefits of Roadside Healthcare Services Econometric Institute Report 2014-01

Providing long distance truck drivers with adequate access to prevention, testing, and treatment services for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria is suggested to be an extremely effective way to reduce the burden and the spread of these diseases. However, truck drivers need to overcome large barriers in order to obtain these services at the traditional healthcare system. To reduce these barriers, several NGOs locate healthcare facilities along the major African trucking routes. Scientific research on the impact of these facilities in terms of health outcomes is lacking. This paper investigates this issue in two steps. First, we analyze how roadside healthcare services can diminish the barriers truck drivers face to access (effective) healthcare. Next, we review scientific literature to investigate the possible health outcomes of diminishing these barriers. Our findings suggest that roadside healthcare services can have a significant health impact by decreasing treatment delay, improving treatment adherence, and decreasing disease transmission.
The Globalization of Everything or Ge-stell by Other Name: A Phenomenological Analysis of Information Technology

This paper presents a phenomenologic al attempt at clarifying the relations between information technology (IT) and globalization. It relies on Heidegger’s (1977) grounding notion of Ge-stell, as the essence of modern technology, and phenomenologically works it out in the realms of IT. I submit and hopefully show that within the ontological ordering of Ge-stell, IT reveals the earth as the globe. The globe, nowadays both a ready-to-hand entity and a constitutive element of being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1962), is a technological being in that literally and ontologically it is an outcome of the IT apparatus. This paper argues that the phenomenon of globalization belongs to the essential unfolding of IT and as such it is not a phenomenon of the markets, politics or of any other particular activity. Globalization is rather a fundamental stand on the basis of which each and every human activity gains its meaning in our epoch.
Distributed Pilots for Channel Estimation in Single Frequency Networks

In this paper, the instantaneous capacity of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) in frequency-selective Rayleigh fading is evaluated, based on constrained capacity arguments, to account for the signal constellations used on the sub-carriers, and on a form of the central limit theorem suitable for correlated random variables. If the number of sub-carriers is large, the overall capacity is shown to be Gaussian-distributed, and its mean and variance are derived, as well as their dependence on the selected constellation, the signal-to-noise ratio and the channel parameters. The results show the separation between constrained and unconstrained capacity, and indicate the usefulness of adaptive modulation in exploiting all the signal-to-noise ratio range. Furthermore, the statistical characterization of the instantaneous capacity is instrumental in defining the outage capacity for OFDM systems.
Optimal Control of Uncertain Stochastic Systems Subject to Total Variation Distance Uncertainty

This paper is concerned with optimization of uncertain stochastic systems, in which uncertainty is described by a total variation distance constraint between the measures induced by the uncertain systems and the measure induced by the nominal system, while the payoff is a linear functional of the uncertain measure. Robustness at the abstract setting is formulated as a minimax game, in which the control seeks to minimize the payoff over the admissible controls while the uncertainty aims at maximizing it over the total variation distance constraint. It is shown that the maximizing measure in the total variation distance constraint exists, while the resulting payoff is a linear combination of $L_1$ and $L_\infty$ norms. Further, the maximizing measure is characterized by a linear combination of a tilted measure and the nominal measure, giving rise to a payoff which is a nonlinear functional on the space of measures to be minimized over the admissible controls. The abstract formulation and results are subsequ.
"Willing to Pay?" Tax Compliance in Britain and Italy: An Experimental Analysis

As shown by the recent crisis, tax evasion poses a significant problem for countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy. While these societies certainly possess weaker fiscal institutions as compared to other EU members, might broader cultural differences between northern and southern Europe also help to explain citizens’ (un)willingness to pay their taxes? To address this question, we conduct laboratory experiments in the UK and Italy, two countries which straddle this North-South divide. Our design allows us to examine citizens’ willingness to contribute to public goods via taxes while holding institutions constant. We report a surprising result: when faced with identical tax institutions, redistribution rules and audit probabilities, Italian participants are significantly more likely to comply than Britons. Overall, our findings cast doubt upon “culturalist” arguments that would attribute cross-country differences in tax compliance to the lack of morality amongst southern European taxpayers.
Understanding the Construction Mechanism of Botnets

The botnet construction mechanism (BCM) is one of the key technologies of the botnets and the most important issue to both the attackers and the defenders. To the best of our knowledge, although the BCM has been mentioned in many researching papers, it has not been systemically studied. In this paper, we attempt to discuss the BCM methodically.We first give both the definition and its formalized definition of the BCM, and then address the BCM through four components: the bot propagating mechanism, the bot joining mechanism, the construction mechanism of topology and the performances of the botnet. We further detail the elements of the four components and study the compatibilities between those elements. Finally we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each element.
Les approches quasi expérimentales d’une nouvelle génération d’études pour évaluer les effets des politiques de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique

L’evaluation des effets d’une politique publique permet de conclure sur le role effectif d’une politique publique dans la reduction de polluants atmospheriques et sur les benefices sanitaires y etant possiblement associes. Cet article vise a introduire la notion d’inference causale et le modele contrefactuel dans le contexte de l’evaluation des politiques de lutte contre la pollution atmospherique. Puis nous presentons differentes approches quasi experimentales qui sont jusqu’a present tres peu utilisees en ce qui concerne les politiques de lutte contre la pollution atmospherique. Nous detaillons ainsi les approches de variables instrumentales et de regression avec discontinuite avec des exemples, afin d’encourager l’utilisation de ce type d’approche pour qu’une nouvelle generation d’etudes pour evaluer les effets des politiques de lutte contre la pollution atmospherique voie le jour.
The Role of Philosophy in Enhancing the Quality of Human Resource in Indonesia

Abstract The main purpose of philosophy is to describe how people may live and grow in better ways (Husserl, E.)1. The facts have shown that, once philosophy is involved, the character of people is thereby developed, leading them to have a better life. It is not only important for people to know about philosophy, but it must go beyond that point and be deeply understood, internalised, and practiced frequently. This paper will discuss the role of philosophy in order to show how the quality of human resource may be enhanced, in particular in Indonesia, in short-and long-term plans. The role of philosophy will determine whether the ultimate goal of understanding philosophy – which is to stimulate people to have critical, logical, comprehensive, and in-depth ways of thinking in their own field of expertise, which enables them to solve problems raised and faced in life – is going to be achieved in improving the quality of human resource in Indonesia. In addition to that, the educational sector should also be taking part in reaching this goal. People as individuals, who possess a good character and are always thinking philosophically and practicing the concept of philosophy in their daily lives, will achieve an exceptional life that is not only responsible and beneficial to themselves but also to their environment, surroundings, and communities.
Toward a Bilingual Legal Term Glossary from Context Profiles

We propose an algorithm for the automatic acquisition of a bilingual lexicon in the legal domain. We make use of a parallel corpus of bilingual court judgments, aligned to the sentence level, and analyse the bilingual context profiles to extract corresponding legal terms in both languages. Our method is different from those in past studies as it does not require any prior knowledge source, and naturally extends to multi-word terms in either language. A pilot test was done with a sample of ten legal terms, each with ten or more occurrences in the data. Encouraging results of about 75% average accuracy were obtained. This figure does not only reflect the effectiveness of the method for bilingual lexicon acquisition, but also its potential for bilingual alignment at the word or expression level.
A Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effect of Tapentadol and Morphine on Conditioned Pain Modulation in Healthy Volunteers

Background Modulatory descending pathways, originating at supraspinal sites that converge at dorsal horn neurons, influence pain perception in humans. Defects in descending pain control are linked to chronic pain states and its restoration may be a valuable analgesic tool. Conditioned pain modulation (CPM) is a surrogate marker of descending inhibition that reduces the perception of pain from a primary test stimulus during application of a conditioning stimulus. Here the effects of the analgesics tapentadol, a combined mu-opioid receptor agonist and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, and morphine, a strong mu-opioid receptor agonist, were tested on CPM in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial in 12 healthy pain-free volunteers, to understand possible differences in mechanism of action between these opioids. Methods and Results On three occasions CPM responses were obtained 60-90 and 120-150 min following intake of tapentadol (100 mg immediate release tablet), morphine (40 mg immediate release tablet) or placebo. At both time points, CPM was detectable after treatment with placebo and tapentadol (peak pain ratings reduced by 20-30% after application of the conditioning stimulus) but not after morphine. Compared to placebo morphine displayed significantly less CPM: mean treatment difference 18.2% (95% CI 3.4 to 32.9%) at 60-90 min after drug intake and 19.5% (95% CI 5.7 to 33.2%) at 120-150 min after drug intake (p = 0.001). No difference in CPM between placebo and tapentadol was detected: mean treatment difference 1.5% (95% CI -11.6 to 14.6%) at 60-90 min after drug intake and 1.5% (95% CI -16.0 to 18.9%) at 120-150 min after drug intake (p = 0.60). Conclusions Our data show that in volunteers morphine affects CPM, while tapentadol was without effect despite identical experimental conditions. These data confirm that tapentadol’s main mechanism of action is distinct from that of morphine and likely related to the effect of adrenergic stimulation on descending controls. Trial Registration Netherlands Trial Register NTR2716
A Partial Test and Development of the DeLone and McLean Model of IS Success

DeLone and McLean's (1992) comprehensive review of different information system success measures concludes with a model of interrelationships between six IS Success constructs. This paper critically examines the meaning of four of these constructs and the evidence of relationships between them. It then provides results from an empirical test of these relationships. The empirical results provide substantial support for DeLone and McLean's model. Three factors, System Quality, Information Quality, and Usefulness, are found to explain 72% of the variance in the overall User Satisfaction measure. Three factors, System Quality, Information Quality, and a measure of the importance of the system to the user, User Involvement, are found to explain 56% of the variance in Usefulness. The paper concludes that of the four measures studied, the best "omnibus" measure of IS success is User Saisfacion. This can be measured using the simple four-question instrument presented in the study.