Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On becoming and being a musician : a mixed methods study of musicianship in children and adults

Studies comparing musically trained and untrained children and adults provide evidence of structural, functional and behavioural changes associated with experience-specific adaptation within the cortical and subcortical sensory-motor neural networks. Researchers have suggested that changes associated with musical learning may transfer to near domains (e.g. fine motor ability) and/or far domains, such as general intelligence. However, few studies have considered the concomitant development of a range of cognitive, behavioural and socio-emotional measures reflecting emerging musicianship. No other study has attempted to situate these findings within the context of adult musicians’ experience. Two studies are presented here; firstly a quantitative longitudinal quasi-experimental investigation of multiple measures of musicianship. 19 children received only statutory school music group lessons over one academic year, and another 19 children received additional extracurricular musical instrument lessons for the first time during that year. A battery of tests included measures of aptitude, intelligence, memory, motor abilities and parental and teacher reports of socio-emotional behaviours. Results showed musical training enhanced hand-eye coordination and fluid intelligence, replicating and extending previous studies. The second study is a qualitative grounded theory investigation of a range of 28 adult musicians reflecting contemporary working musicians in the U.K. This includes nonconformist and popular musicians as well as conductors and music producers. They reflected upon what it is to be a musician, and what qualities they were aware their experiences had brought to their lives. A musicians’ model of musicianship emerged which challenges assumptions relating to the concept of transfer effects. The data generates new hypotheses that musical learning supports and encourages flexible cognitive and behavioural skills and creativity that are further enhanced by the concomitant experience of nonverbal communications encompassing music and socialisation.
Effective Lifestyle Habits and Coping Strategies for Stress Tolerance Among College Students

Abstract Background: Stress among college students is a major problem, impacting their overall health. Students, especially freshmen, are expected to handle difficult academic workloads at a faster pace while adapting to new social situations. In addition, findings from new stress data purport that stress responses might vary by gender and race. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine effectiveness of lifestyle habits and coping strategies on stress tolerance among college students, specific to race and gender. Methods: College students (N=459) completed a stress inventory, which was comprised of three established surveys of stressors, symptoms and coping strategies. Stress tolerance ratios (STRs) were calculated, and subjects divided into high or low stress tolerance groups. Statistical differences were determined by chi-square estimates and odds ratio calculations (95%CI). Results: Seven lifestyle/coping factors (out of 20) were significantly associated with high stress tolerance (HST) for males, 13 for females, and five were commonly shared (P<0.05). Whites had 13 significantly factors associated with HST while Blacks had only three (P<0.05). Discussion: The findings of this study support those from previous research studies wherein it was found that college students are “overwhelmed,” “suffer from emotional ups and downs,” “have difficulty falling asleep,” and “feelings of anxieties. ” Translation to Health Education Practice: Differences in effectiveness of coping strategies among students strongly suggest that genders and races cope differently and that “one size fits all” health education stress intervention programs may not be effective for college students.
Function and Regulation Domains of a Newly Isolated Putative β-Actin Promoter from Pacific White Shrimp

Current development of transgenic shrimp research has been hampered due to the lack of the suitable promoters and efficient transfection methods for crustaceans. A 1642 bp sequence, containing 5’-upstream sequence, exon 1, intron 1 and partial exon 2, which is responsible for transcriptional initiation of the newly reported shrimp β-actin (actinT1), has been isolated from the Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) and named as SbaP. To determine its function and potential application in marine biotechnology, the sequence and functional domains were examined by constitutive expression of the luciferase reporter gene. We have identified 5’ regions that play a central role in the expression of the β-actin gene. The proximal promoter (-1642/-1325) contains two highly conserved transcriptional sites, CCAAT box and CArG motif. Two negative (-1140/-924, -222/-21) and one positive (-810/-425) regulatory elements have been identified in intron1. Transient transfection assay with a construct containing proximal promoter and enhancer (SbaPΔ-222/+1Δ-1325/-924) regions of the shrimp β-actin coupled with luciferase and EGFP (enhanced green fluorescent protein) showed that the promoter was not only functional in sf21 cells, but promoter activity was more than 8-fold higher than a viral-origin promoter (ie1, white spot syndrome virus immediate early gene promoter). Furthermore, SbaPΔ-222/+1Δ-1325/-924 drove a successful expression of luciferase injection assay in vivo injection and also showed higher promoter activity than the ie1 promoter, suggesting that the expression vectors constructed with SbaPΔ-222/+1Δ-1325/-924 have important potential in gene transfer studies for shrimp and other crustacean species.
A SEDA-based framework for building big web service

With the maturity of SO A and rapid development of Internet, more and more enterprises will open their resources to public using SOAP-based web service. Because SOAP protocol is based on XML-format data, parsing and generating SOAP message spends much time and consumes a vast of resources. Moreover, complex network environment poses challenge of extreme concurrent, dynamic contents, continuous high available, etc to build Internet services. Both problems mentioned above need to be considered in the design. Staged Event-Driven Architecture (SEDA) is intended to support massive concurrency requirements and make the construction of well-conditioned services simpler. This paper proposes a new type of framework to build SOAP-based web service utilizing the concept of SEDA and using configuration management to choose reasonable XML operation algorithm. At the same time, the architecture model of the framework is also described in detail. In SEDA model, a stage is basic unit. In the end, stages of the service framework are analyzed.
Euclidean reconstruction from constant intrinsic parameters

A new method for Euclidean reconstruction from sequences of images taken by uncalibrated cameras, with constant intrinsic parameters, is described. Our approach leads to a variant of the so called Kruppa equations. It is shown that it is possible to calculate the intrinsic parameters as well as the Euclidean reconstruction from at least three images. The novelty of our approach is that we build our calculation on a projective reconstruction obtained without the assumption on constant intrinsic parameters. This assumption simplifies the analysis, because a projective reconstruction is already obtained and we need "only" to find the correct Euclidean reconstruction among all possible projective reconstructions.
A reinforcement learning agent for personalized information filtering

This paper describes a method for learning user's interests in the Web-based personalized information filtering system called WAIR. The proposed method analyzes user's reactions to the presented documents and learns from them the profiles for the individual users. Reinforcement learning is used to adapt the term weights in the user profile so that user's preferences are best represented. In contrast to conventional relevance feedback methods which require explicit user feedbacks, our approach learns user preferences implicitly from direct observations of user behaviors during interaction. Field tests have been made which involved 7 users reading a total of 7,700 HTML documents during 4 weeks. The proposed method showed superior performance in personalized information filtering compared to the existing relevance feedback methods.
Disk I/O based load balancing in VOD system

Video-on-Demand (VOD) has been gaining increasing popularity in recent years. Previous load balancing algorithms in video servers mainly focus on two resources: storage and network bandwidth. However, with better network and cheaper disk, disk I/O becomes more critical in reducing user-perceived latency. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for disk I/O balancing in centralized video servers. Analytically and by simulations we show that our algorithm decreases total disk I/O amount by 30% to 50% and provides better load balancing performance and higher cache hit ratio compared with round-robin and random selection algorithm.
The HECATE genes regulate female reproductive tract development in Arabidopsis thaliana

Successful fertilization in plants requires the properly coordinated development of female reproductive tissues, including stigma, style, septum and transmitting tract. We have identified three closely related genes, HECATE1 (HEC1), HECATE2 (HEC2) and HECATE3 (HEC3), the expression domains of which encompass these regions of the Arabidopsis gynoecium. The HEC genes encode putative basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors with overlapping functionality. Depending on the amount of HEC function missing, plants exhibit varying degrees of infertility, defects in septum, transmitting tract and stigma development and impaired pollen tube growth. The observed phenotypes are similar to those reported for mutations in the SPATULA (SPT) gene, which also encodes a bHLH transcription factor required for development of the same female tissues. We show that the HEC proteins can dimerize with SPT in a yeast two-hybrid system, indicating that the HEC genes work in concert with SPT to coordinately regulate development of the female reproductive tract. Furthermore, when the HEC genes are ectopically expressed from the CaMV 35S promoter, some of the resulting transgenic plants show pin-shaped inflorescences, suggesting that the HEC genes are probably involved in auxin-mediated control of gynoecium patterning.
CTRP3 Stimulates Proliferation and Anti-Apoptosis of Prostate Cells through PKC Signaling Pathways

C1q/TNF-related protein-3 (CTRP3) is a novel adipokine with roles in multiple cellular processes. However, little is known about its function in prostate cells. This study investigated the effects and mechanisms of CTRP3 in prostate cells. We first generated and purified CTRP3 protein in HEK 293T cells. Proliferation of RWPE-1 prostate cells was evaluated by MTT analyses under treatment with different concentrations of CTRP3 for various exposure times. The results revealed maximum enhancement of proliferation with 10 μg/mL CTRP3 for 72 h. Cell apoptosis and cell cycle were determined by TUNEL staining and flow cytometry analysis. TUNEL assay showed decreased TUNEL-positive cells in RWPE-1 prostate cells treated with CTRP3, and flow cytometry showed significantly decreased apoptotic cells upon CTRP3 treatment (treated cells, 8.34±1.175 vs. controls, 20.163±0.35) (P < 0.01). Moreover, flow cytometry analysis also showed a significant decrease of cells in the G1 phase and an increase of cells in the S and G2 phase upon CTRP3 treatment (treated cells, 42.85±1.40 vs. control, 52.77±0.90; 28.41±0.57 vs. 23.49±1.13; 27.08±1.97 vs. 22.20±1.32, respectively) (all P < 0.05). Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry identified differentially expressed proteins, including cytokeratin-19, GLRX3 and DDAH1, which were upregulated in CTRP3 treated cells, and cytokeratin-17 and 14-3-3 sigma, which were downregulated. GLRX3, DDAH1 and 14-3-3 sigma were confirmed using western blot analysis. A PKC inhibitor, staurosporine, was used to inhibit PKC activity in CTRP3 treated RWPE-1 cells. Staurosporine completely abolished the CTRP3-induced increased phosphorylation of intracellular PKC substrates and CTRP3-stimulated effect by RWPE-1 cells. Our results provide the first evidence for a physiological role of the novel adipokine, CTRP3, in prostate cells. Our findings suggest that CTRP3 could improve proliferation and anti-apoptosis of prostate cells through protein kinase C signaling pathways.
Disturbances of Sperm Maturation and Minipuberty: Is There a Connection?

Male reproductive function in the general population raises an increased attention due to reports indicating declining sperm counts, increased occurrence of testicular cancer, cryptorchidism, and hypospadias. It is also hypothesized that prolonged exposure of the developing male, during both fetal and postnatal life, to exogenous estrogens could reduce Sertoli cell number and thus reduce sperm output (and sperm counts) in adult life. Fact is that infertility, which is defined as the inability to conceive after 1 year of unprotected intercourse, has a global prevalence of 9%. A male contributory factor is involved in approximately half of these cases, but most of the causes of reduced semen quality and other disturbances of male reproductive function are unknown. In the most affected men (azoospermic men) 15–20% had a prior history of cryptorchidism. The association between the cryptorchidism and infertility is one of the most studied potential causes of infertility. There are numerous studies that accentuate the importance of minipuberty for future fertility. Is it possible that a normal minipuberty ensures normal fertility despite malpositioned testes? And to move away from cryptorchidism, could impaired minipuberty be responsible for fertility problems in men who were born with both testes in their scrotal sacs?
Diagnosis of male depression in the community and its correlation with cortisol and testosterone

Background: Gender (sex) differences have been prominent in epidemiological studies of mood disorders with female preponderance in depression and anxiety and male preponderance in externalizing symptoms, conduct disorder and alcohol and/or substance abuse. Furthermore, a recent study showed, when traditional and alternative symptoms were combined in detection of depression, the gender differences in prevalence rate were eliminated. On the other hand suicide rate has been much higher for males, but the suicide act is believed to be a form of inward aggression and related to mental disorders in the majority of cases. A specific “male depressive syndrome” has been suggested with symptoms of low stress tolerance, acting-out behaviour, low impulse control and substance abuse. The involvement of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis has also been suggested in a paradigm called “anxiety/aggressive driven depression” in relation with elevation of cortisol and lowering of serotonin levels. The involvement of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and thus testosterone has also been related to male depression but the relationship has been less clear. Little is still known about psychotropic drug use by gender or if the same trend for female/male (F/M) odds ratios would be observed as in epidemiological studies. Aims: The main overall aim of this thesis was to improve detection and thus treatment of depression among males. Firstly, by investigating psychotropic drug use by gender compared to drugs for acid related disorders and nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use (Study II). Secondly, by testing the sensitivity and specificity of the Gotland Male Depression Scale (GMDS) in a community study (Study I). Furthermore, to test the validity of the GMDS with comparison to both the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) and MDD diagnosis according to (DSM-IV). Thirdly, by exploring in community settings, a possible correlation between male depression and the hormones cortisol and testosterone (Study I). Material and methods: In a national prescription database study all those persons who purchased psychotropic drugs in pharmacies for the period 2004-2013 were selected (Study II). Data for psychotropic drug use were extracted along with data on drugs for acid related disorders and NSAID drug use for comparison. The study base contained 255.662 individuals and
Retrieval of 3 D Models using Partial Matching

The growth of 3D object collections and their dissemination into a wide range of application domains originated the necessity of effective retrieval solutions, similar to those that exist for textual information. However, despite the efforts of researchers during the last years, such solution was not found yet. Most of the existing retrieval solutions only support queries by the complete object. Those that provide some way to search for a model using a partial query are either limited to small databases or index just a small portion of each model, discarding the so-called irrelevant parts. Indeed, the efficiency and success of such solutions are far from those obtained by their textual counterparts In this document we study the current state-of-the-art in retrieval of 3D shapes with partial matching and propose a research path that will focus on a novel approach to this topic. We think that transposing some ideas traditionally used in text information retrieval we will get closer to an effective solution for 3D shape retrieval. To that end and to overcome some problems faced by previous attempts to shape retrieval with partial matching, we suggest decomposing each object in the collection into its subparts considering for that matter all the other objects and then index these subparts using a shape thesaurus.
JAVA BEANS AND ENTERPRISE JAVA BEANS Tuukka Vartiainen

Java Beans is the standard component model for the Java language. The idea is to create pieces of software that can be assembled together to create various kinds of applications. Today Java Beans are widely used by the software industry to create user interfaces for all kinds of software. The newest Java component model is Enterprise Java Beans. Besides its name, the Java language and the idea of component based software re-use, it has little or no similarities with the Java Beans standard. Enterprise Java Beans are located on the server and they support a distributed programming model that could be described as a flexible, two-way, object-oriented version of traditional client-server programming.
Enriched p-partitions

An (ordinary) P -partition is an order-preserving map from a partially ordered set to a chain, with special rules specifying where equal values may occur. Examples include number-theoretic partitions (ordered and unordered, strict or unrestricted), plane partitions, and the semistandard tableaux associated with Schur’s S-functions. In this paper, we introduce and develop a theory of enriched P -partitions; like ordinary P -partitions, these are order-preserving maps from posets to chains, but with different rules governing the occurrence of equal values. The principal examples of enriched P -partitions given here are the tableaux associated with Schur’s Q-functions. In a sequel to this paper, further applications related to commutation monoids and reduced words in Coxeter groups will be presented. 0. Introduction This is the first of a series of related papers on the combinatorics of reduced expressions in Coxeter groups, pattern avoidance, commutation monoids, and P partitions. Our initial motivation for studying the title subject arose from investigations of symmetric functions associated with Coxeter groups, when it became apparent that this investigation involved fundamental combinatorial structures of independent interest. In retrospect, perhaps the best way to introduce this subject is as the completion of an analogy. One of the motivations guiding the development of Stanley’s theory of (ordinary) P -partitions has been the combinatorics of semistandard tableaux associated with Schur’s S-functions. Indeed, an (ordinary) P -partition can be viewed as a type of generalized tableau—a mapping that assigns entries to the elements of a poset—with various rules for specifying when equality of adjacent entries is allowed. On the other hand, although it did not exist at the time of Stanley’s monograph [St1], there is a combinatorial theory for Schur’s Q-functions that parallels in many ways the corresponding theory for Schur’s S-functions. In particular, Schur’sQ-functions are generating functions for a type of tableau attached to shifted Young diagrams, the entries being subjected to a different set of rules than those used for Schur’s S-functions. Enriched P -partitions are the generalized “tableaux” one obtains by keeping these new rules, but replacing the shifted Young diagrams with arbitrary partially ordered sets. Almost every aspect of the theory of ordinary P -partitions has an enriched counterpart. For example, in the ordinary theory, the descent set {i : wi > wi+1} of Received by the editors August 25, 1994. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 06A07, 05E05 . Partially supported by NSF Grants DMS–9057192 and DMS–9401575 . 1It would be better to refer to these as “poset partitions,” but we instead follow tradition. c ©1997 American Mathematical Society
Performance analysis of finite output-buffered multistage ATM switching fabrics

A new and accurate Markov chain model for evaluating the performance of multistage ATM switching fabrics with 2/spl times/2 finite output-buffered switching elements is proposed. By comparing the results obtained from the proposed model, existing models, and simulations, it has been shown that the proposed model is much more accurate than existing models in the presence of a non-uniform traffic in the switch. The results from existing models are unsatisfactory in the presence of an increased blocking in the switch arising due to a non-uniform traffic in the switch. On the contrary, the proposed model is very robust even under severe blocking inside the switch.
Spam intrusion detection in computer networks using intelligent techniques

Anomalies in computer networks has increased in the last decades and raised concern to create techniques to identify these unusual traffic patterns. This research aims to use data mining techniques in order to correctly identify these anomalies, particularly in spam detection, for it was applied an collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks and an dataset called SPAMBASE to identify the best techniques for this type of anomaly.