Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interleukin (IL)-23 mediates Toxoplasma gondii–induced immunopathology in the gut via matrixmetalloproteinase-2 and IL-22 but independent of IL-17

Peroral infection with Toxoplasma gondii leads to the development of small intestinal inflammation dependent on Th1 cytokines. The role of Th17 cells in ileitis is unknown. We report interleukin (IL)-23–mediated gelatinase A (matrixmetalloproteinase [MMP]-2) up-regulation in the ileum of infected mice. MMP-2 deficiency as well as therapeutic or prophylactic selective gelatinase blockage protected mice from the development of T. gondii–induced immunopathology. Moreover, IL-23–dependent up-regulation of IL-22 was essential for the development of ileitis, whereas IL-17 was down-regulated and dispensable. CD4+ T cells were the main source of IL-22 in the small intestinal lamina propria. Thus, IL-23 regulates small intestinal inflammation via IL-22 but independent of IL-17. Gelatinases may be useful targets for treatment of intestinal inflammation.
A Modifier-Adaptation Strategy towards Offset-Free Economic MPC

We address in the paper the problem of designing an economic model predictive control (EMPC) algorithm that asymptotically achieves the optimal performance despite the presence of plant-model mismatch. To motivate the problem, we present an example of a continuous stirred tank reactor in which available EMPC and tracking model predictive control (MPC) algorithms do not reach the optimal steady state operation. We propose to use an offset-free disturbance model and to modify the target optimization problem with a correction term that is iteratively computed to enforce the necessary conditions of optimality in the presence of plant-model mismatch. Then, we show how the proposed formulation behaves on the motivating example, highlighting the role of the stage cost function used in the finite horizon MPC problem.
Analysis of Equivalent Circuit of the Utility Scale Battery for Wind Integration

This paper provides steady-state and transient analysis of the equivalent circuit of the 1 MWh battery tied to the grid for wind integration. It also discusses the installation of a 1 MWh battery system at Reese Technology Center (RTC) in Lubbock, Texas. The research involves deploying energy storage devices for application with wind turbine model to understand the transient behavior of the system under three phase fault conditions. A 1 MW/1 MWh battery storage system at the RTC is connected to the South Plains Electric Cooperative (SPEC) grid. The batteries are used for energy storage and for mitigation of transient conditions grid dynamics. In this paper, the equivalent circuit of the 1 MWh battery is modeled in PSCAD and analyzed for its charge and discharge characteristics under transient fault conditions when it is tied to the grid for wind integration.
Distributed image coding in wireless multimedia sensor networks: A survey

There are a large number of video data have to be processed and transmitted in resource-constrained wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSN). One possible way of achieving maximum utilization of those resources is to apply an adaptive image coding scheme, which must consider the trade-off between energy consumption and image quality. The the major research challenges and objectives of image coding for WMSN are discussed. Distributed image coding schemes especially designed for WMSN and some theoretical explorations are investigated and classified, including Wyner-Ziv coding and collaborative coding.
The Big Flow

The late infall of cold dark matter onto an isolated galaxy, such as our own, produces streams and caustics in its halo. The outer caustics are topological spheres whereas the inner caustics are rings. The self‐similar model of galactic halo formation predicts that the caustic ring radii an follow the approximate law an ∼ 1/n. In a study of 32 extended and well‐measured external galactic rotation curves evidence was found for this law. In the case of the Milky Way, the locations of eight sharp rises in the rotation curve fit the prediction of the self‐similar model at the 3% level. Moreover, a triangular feature in the IRAS map of the galactic plane is consistent with the imprint of a ring caustic upon the baryonic matter. These observations imply that the dark matter in our neighborhood is dominated by a single flow. Estimates of that flow’s density and velocity vector are given.
Quantum Chaos at Finite Temperature - a New Approach via the Quantum Action

We address the problem of quantum chaos: Is there a rigorous, physically meaningful definition of chaos in quantum physics? Can the tools of classical chaos theory, like Lyapunov exponents, Poincar\'e sections etc. be carried over to quantum systems? Can quantitative predictions be made? We show that the recently proposed quantum action is well suited to answer those questions. As an example we study chaotic behavior of the 2-D anharmonic oscillator and compare classical with quantum chaos. Moreover, we study quantum chaos as function of temperature (the classical system can be considered as the limit where temperature goes to infinity).
Perceptions and determinants of healthy eating in high performing male adolescent rugby players : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics, Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

ii Acknowledgements . iii List of Tables . vi List of Figures . vi Abbreviations . vi Chapter One: Introduction . 1 1.1 Background and Justification for the Research . 1 1.2 Research Aim, Objectives and Hypothesis . 2 1.3 Structure of the Thesis . 3 1.4 Researchers’ Contributions . 4 Chapter Two: Literature Review. 5 2.1 Healthy Eating . 5 2.1.1 What is considered healthy eating? 5 2.1.2 Perceptions of healthy eating . 6 2.1.3 Adolescents’ perceptions of healthy eating . 6 2.1.4 Athletes’ perceptions of healthy eating . 8 2.2 Facilitators and Barriers to Healthy Eating . 8 2.2.1 Facilitators and barriers to healthy eating for adolescents . 12 2.2.2 Facilitators and barriers to healthy eating for athletes . 17 2.3 Nutrition Practices . 24 2.3. 1 Nutrition practices of adolescents living in New Zealand . 24 2.3. 2 Nutrition practices of rugby players and adolescent rugby players . 26 2.4 Adolescent Rugby Players’ Supplement Use . 29 2.5 Conclusion . 29 Chapter Three: Research Study Manuscript. 31 Abstract . 3
Learners' self-assessment and metacognition when using an open learner model with drill down

Metacognition is ‘thinking on thinking’. It is important to educational practices for learners/teachers, and in activities such as formative-assessment and self-directed learning. The ability to perform metacognition is not innate and requires fostering, and self-assessment contributes to this. Literature suggests proven practices for promoting metacognitive opportunities and ongoing enquiry about how technology best supports these. This thesis considers an open learner model (OLM) with a drill-down approach as a method to investigate support for metacognition and self-assessment. Measuring aspects of metacognition without unduly influencing it is challenging. Direct measures (e.g. learners ‘thinking-aloud’) could distort/disrupt/encourage/effect metacognition. The thesis develops methods to evaluate aspects of metacognition without directly affecting it, relevant to future learning-analytics research/OLM design. It proposes a technology specification/implementation for supporting metacognition research and highlights the relevance of using a drill-down approach. Using measures that correspond to post-hoc learner accounts, this thesis identifies a baseline of student activity that is consistent with important regulation of cognition tasks and students’ specific interest in problems. Whilst this does not always influence self-assessment accuracy, students indicating their self-assessment ability can be used as a proxy measure to identify those who will improve. Evidence supports claims that OLMs remain relevant in metacognition research.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRACTIVE PERFORMANCE PREDICTION FOR FLEXIABLE WHEEL

Planetary rovers are typically developed for high-risk missions to operate in difficult terrains, including slopes, terrains with obstacles and on soft and hard soils. In soft soils, traction is limited by the mechanical properties of the soil therefore lack of traction and wheel slippage cause difficulties during the operation of the rover. Operating the vehicle on a soft ground is different than operating it on a prepared firm road. Locomotion requires traction to provide forward thrust on the ground. Traction force is the main force in the terrain, not only available to accelerate the vehicle but also to climb up slopes or to run over obstacles. One possibility to raise the traction is to increase the wheel-ground contact area size. Flexible wheels provide this as they increase the contact length due to the wheel’s deformation under load and hence decrease ground pressure on soil surface. Rigid wheels have been extensively studied in the past and important theories have been established and validated through simulations and experiments. Little, however, has been done on developing theory for flexible wheels for quantifying the performance. In this study the Bekker theory has been extended by developing analytical models that predict the tractive performance for a flexible metal wheel by using the geometric model of the wheel in deformation.
Exploiting Linked Data For Building Web Applications

Semantic Web technologies are around now for a while, already. However, in the development of real-world Web applications these technologies have considerable little impact to date. With linked data this situation has changed dramatically in the past couple of months. This article shows how linked datasets can be exploited to build rich Web applications with little effort. Many Web-developers nowadays use APIs such as offered by Google, Facebook, etc. to build and enhance their Web application. Due to the many ways these APIs are typically designed (proprietary XML formats, JSON, etc. ) the development of applications based on Web 2.0 mashups usually is burdensome and does not scale well. Beside the effort to learn new interfaces over and over again, the so created data is locked in the respective platform. The Web of Data—also known as the Semantic Web—has promised for a long time to resolve these issues. To date, however, only partially solutions to real-world problems exist, many of them addressing rather toy datasets. With a recent initiative, the “Linked Data” community project, the situation has changed dramatically: based on simple Semantic Web technologies such as RDF and URIs along with a set of so called “linked data” principles, a number of data sources such as Wikipedia have been made available on the Web of Data. Developers can now readily benefit from the linked datasets based on a common data model [1]. This article shows how to exploit the available linked datasets in order to build rich Web applications with little effort. Example Usage of Linked Data Before we tackle the technical challenges of linked data we have a look at some exemplary usages of linked datasets. For example, Faviki, a social bookmarking tool allows to tag Web-pages with “semantic tags” stemming from Wikipedia. Here, the main purpose of Web of Data technologies and data is providing unambiguous space for identifying concepts. The tool, shown in Fig. 1, uses URIs 1 http://www.w3. org/TR/rdf-concepts/ 2 http://www.faviki. com/
Fun and games in higher education: an analysis of UK student perspectives

ABSTRACT In an increasingly neoliberal Higher Education sector, there is increased pressure on institutions to enhance learner engagement and student satisfaction. Many academics believe that students expect their university learning experiences to be enjoyable, and discourses of game-based learning reflect this, with a dominant narrative highlighting the fun of educational games. Whether students expect learning to be fun or see a relationship between fun and games is under-explored. To address this, we investigated student perceptions of fun in Higher Education using a thematic network analysis based on data from 37 in-depth interviews with undergraduate students. Here, we highlight five themes that encapsulate what students perceive to be a fun learning experience: stimulating pedagogy; lecturer engagement; a safe learning space; shared experience; and a low-stress environment. These aspects are not unique to games, and we conclude by considering the relationship between educational games and fun, and alternative playful approaches.
Health Systems and Commercialisation In Search of Good Sense

(UNRISD) is an autonomous agency engaging in multidisciplinary research on the social dimensions of contemporary problems affecting development. Its work is guided by the conviction that, for effective development policies to be formulated, an understanding of the social and political context is crucial. The Institute attempts to provide governments, development agencies, grassroots organizations and scholars with a better understanding of how development policies and processes of economic, social and environmental change affect different social groups. Working through an extensive network of national research centres, UNRISD aims to promote original research and strengthen research capacity in developing countries. This is not a formal UNRISD publication. The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed studies rests solely with their author(s), and availability on the UNRISD website (www.unrisd.org) does not constitute an endorsement by UNRISD of the opinions expressed in them. No citation, publication or distribution of these papers is permitted without the prior authorization of the author(s).
The Roles of Excitatory Amino Acids and Cytokines in Morphine Tolerance: Effect of Tricyclic Antidepressant Amitriptylin

Morphine is an effective analgesic in clinical practice; however, its long-term administration causes tolerance, thereby limiting its use. The development of opioid tolerance and its associated hyperalgesia has been associated with interactions between opioid receptors and excitatory amino acids or cytokines. Targeted inhibition of excitatory amino acid- and cytokine-mediated signaling pathways may allow development of novel therapeutic strategies for treating opioid tolerance. Recent studies showed that administration of amitriptyline (a tricyclic antidepressant widely used in the treatment of neuropathic pain) attenuated morphine tolerance and preserved the antinociceptive effect of morphine. This ability might be related to the effects of tricyclic antidepressants on pro-inflammatory cytokine release and glutamate transporter expression in dorsal horn during morphine tolerance. Here, we will review evidence for the role of excitatory amino acids and cytokines in the development of morphine tolerance and discuss potential mechanisms by which tricyclic antidepressants attenuate morphine tolerance.
Analysis of Qa-1bPeptide Binding Specificity and the Capacity of Cd94/Nkg2a to Discriminate between Qa-1–Peptide Complexes

The major histocompatibility complex class Ib protein, Qa-1b, serves as a ligand for murine CD94/NKG2A natural killer (NK) cell inhibitory receptors. The Qa-1b peptide-binding site is predominantly occupied by a single nonameric peptide, Qa-1 determinant modifier (Qdm), derived from the leader sequence of H-2D and L molecules. Five anchor residues were identified in this study by measuring the peptide-binding affinities of substituted Qdm peptides in experiments with purified recombinant Qa-1b. A candidate peptide-binding motif was determined by sequence analysis of peptides eluted from Qa-1 that had been folded in the presence of random peptide libraries or pools of Qdm derivatives randomized at specific anchor positions. The results indicate that Qa-1b can bind a diverse repertoire of peptides but that Qdm has an optimal primary structure for binding Qa-1b. Flow cytometry experiments with Qa-1b tetramers and NK target cell lysis assays demonstrated that CD94/NKG2A discriminates between Qa-1b complexes containing peptides with substitutions at nonanchor positions P4, P5, or P8. Our findings suggest that it may be difficult for viruses to generate decoy peptides that mimic Qdm and raise the possibility that competitive replacement of Qdm with other peptides may provide a novel mechanism for activation of NK cells.
Robot Enabled Service Personalisation Based On Emotion Feedback

In this paper, we describe the application of autonomous service personalisation used on a social robot in the context of health care, in particular for the elderly population. The intent is to design a framework where the robot can learn the user's preferences (likes and dislikes) over time based on facial expression as a form of feedback. By extracting emotional cues from facial expression, we can then compute the intensity of a given expression on the user and adapt the robot's services accordingly. To illustrate the application of this system, we use the case study of an emotion-aware music recommendation system.
Leptin in Immunology1

Leptin is an adipokine which conveys information on energy availability. In humans, leptin influences energy homeostasis and regulates neuroendocrine function primarily in states of energy deficiency. As a cytokine, leptin also affects thymic homeostasis and, similar to other proinflammatory cytokines, leptin promotes Th1 cell differentiation and cytokine production. We review herein recent advances on the role of leptin in the pathophysiology of immune responses.
Exosomes from Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Identification, Purification, and Biological Characteristics

Our and other groups have discovered that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived exosomes are a novel therapeutical modality for many diseases. In this study, we summarized a method to extract and purify hucMSCs-exosomes using ultrafiltration and gradient centrifugation in our laboratory and proved that hucMSCs-exosomes prepared according to our procedure were stable and bioactive. Results showed that exosomes derived from hucMSC were 40~100 nm and CD9 and CD81 positive. Functionally, hucMSCs-exosomes promoted cell proliferation and protected against oxidative stress-induced cell apoptosis in vitro by activation of ERK1/2 and p38. Interestingly, UV exposure abrogated the regulatory roles of exosomes under oxidative stress, indicating that hucMSCs-exosomes may regulate cell growth and apoptosis by exosomal shuttle of RNA. Furthermore, cytokine profile analysis revealed that hucMSCs-exosomes contained high dose of IL-6, IL-8, and other cytokines. The established method is practical and efficient, which provides a basis for further evaluating the potential of hucMSCs-exosomes as therapeutic agents.
A Low-Voltage High Linear Body-Driven Operational Transconductance Amplifier and Its Applications

Operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) is one of the most significant building-blocks in integrated continuous-time filters. In this paper, we present a body-driven CMOS triode-based fully balanced OTA powered by a single 1.8 V supply. It is linearly tunable with the feature of low distortion and high output impedance. It can achieve wide input range without compromising large transconductance tuning interval. Moreover, a new common-mode feedback scheme has been developed so that the common-mode voltage varies only 7 mV over the tuning range of 1.2 VlesVtuneles1.58 V. Using a 0.18 mum N-well CMOS process, we have implemented a third-order elliptic low-pass filter with the aid of the proposed OTA. The total harmonic distortion (THD) is more than -45 dB for fully differential input signals up to 0.8 V peak-peak (Vpp). Dynamic range of 45 dB is obtained under the OTA noise integrated over 1 MHz.
Increasing Readiness to Learn: Benefits of Executive Function Training in Kindergarten Carry over to First Grade

Executive Function skills such as focused attention, inhibition or self-control, and working memory in preschool and kindergarten predict reading and math achievement in elementary school and beyond. A growing body of research indicates that these skills can be improved by repetitive practice of progressively more difficult tasks that require Executive Function. We report that children who participated in an integrated program of computer presented and physical exercises to improve Executive Function when in kindergarten then entered first grade with greater attention and self-control skills than their first grade classmates who had not participated in the program.
Is Using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a Community Sample the Optimal Way to Assess Mental Health Functioning?

An important characteristic of a screening tool is its discriminant ability or the measure’s accuracy to distinguish between those with and without mental health problems. The current study examined the inter-rater agreement and screening concordance of the parent and teacher versions of SDQ at scale, subscale and item-levels, with the view of identifying the items that have the most informant discrepancies; and determining whether the concordance between parent and teacher reports on some items has the potential to influence decision making. Cross-sectional data from parent and teacher reports of the mental health functioning of a community sample of 299 students with and without disabilities from 75 different primary schools in Perth, Western Australia were analysed. The study found that: a) Intraclass correlations between parent and teacher ratings of children’s mental health using the SDQ at person level was fair on individual child level; b) The SDQ only demonstrated clinical utility when there was agreement between teacher and parent reports using the possible or 90% dichotomisation system; and c) Three individual items had positive likelihood ratio scores indicating clinical utility. Of note was the finding that the negative likelihood ratio or likelihood of disregarding the absence of a condition when both parents and teachers rate the item as absent was not significant. Taken together, these findings suggest that the SDQ is not optimised for use in community samples and that further psychometric evaluation of the SDQ in this context is clearly warranted.
Non-Volatile Unified Memory Page Management for Improving Performance

Newly emerging non-volatile memory's future is promising and challenging because its performance and power consumption has been improved significantly. The performance improvement triggers these to be a major part of the today's generation computer systems in replacing main memory specially. This research particularly focuses on the page fault and page swap management via Operating System (OS) in order to improve the performance by employing unified memory system (UMS). This proposes, merging of conventional main memory and storage into a single memory layer, called as Unified Memory System. Also the proposed module is designed virtually in two zones, static zone and dynamic zone to support conventional memory management. For this, we analyze the operating system memory management behavior and its tendency to manage the non-volatile UMS through OS kernel for improving system performance. Avoiding data duplication between main memory and storage and frequent page faults are the major concern of this research, unlike a conventional DRAM main memory based system. We utilize phase change memory (PCM) as a suitable candidate for constructing UMS, because of its high density and non-volatility features. We depict the significant number of reduced page faults and execution improvement which will support the fast booting of the systems in near future.