Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Cognitive Task Analysis to Probe Option-Generation in Law Enforcement

Option-generation paradigms have been employed successfully to investigate skill-based differences in performance, particularly in complex, dynamic, and/or uncertain domains. However, although knowledge of option-generation behavior (e.g., number of options generated, frequency with which the criterion best option is selected) is informative, the underlying basis for the observed option-generation behavior is not always apparent. To address this issue, we probed option-generation behavior using cognitive task analysis. Experienced and less-experienced law enforcement officers first observed temporally-occluded video simulations, and then completed an option-generation task. The cognitive task analysis comprised elicitation of retrospective verbal reports of thinking, followed by video-stimulated recall; analysis of these data revealed information that potentially explains the observed option-generation behavior and provided information relevant to the design of decision-making training.
Recurrence quantification analysis reveals interaction partners in paramyxoviridae envelope glycoproteins

The paramyxovirus envelope fuses with the host cell membrane by cooperative interaction of two transmembrane glycoproteins: the hemagglutinin neuraminidase (HN) and the fusion (F) glycoprotein. The interaction appears to be finely regulated, as both proteins must derive from the same viral species to obtain a functional interaction. Because HN and F do not form stable complexes, this interaction is poorly characterized. This article demonstrates that a modification of a classical bioinformatic method based on the co‐evolution of interacting partners can detect the specificity of the HN and F interaction. The proposed approach relies on a relatively new nonlinear signal analysis technique, recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), applied to the hydrophobicity sequences of viral proteins. This technique is able to shed light on the interaction between HN and F proteins in the virus–cell fusion and, more generally, permits the quantitative comparison of nonhomologue protein systems. On the contrary, the same co‐evolution approach, based on the classical sequence alignment procedure, was unable to discriminate interacting partners from the general strict correlation existing between the evolution of viral proteins as a whole. The cooperation between HN and F in the fusion process is thus demonstrated by a bioinformatic, purely sequence‐dependent, perspective. Proteins 2002;46:171–176. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Identification and open-loop tracking control of a piezoelectric tube scanner for high-speed scanning-probe microscopy

Fast and precise positioning is a basic requirement for nanotechnology applications. Many scanning-probe microscopes (SPM) use a piezoelectric tube scanner for actuation with nanometer resolution in all three spatial directions. Due to the dynamics of the actuator, the imaging speed of the SPM is limited. By applying model-based open-loop control, the dynamic behavior of the scanner can be compensated, reducing the displacement error, topographical artifacts, modulation of the interaction force, and modulation of the relative tip-sample velocity. The open-loop controlled system enables imaging of up to 125-/spl mu/m-sized samples at a line scan rate of 122 Hz, which is about 15 times faster than the commercial system.
Expression profiles analysis of pancreatic cancer.

BACKGROUND [Corrected] Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer-related deaths across the globe and has a poor prognosis. AIM To investigate the characteristics of genomic expression profiles of pancreatic cancer and screen differentially expressed genes. MATERIALS AND METHODS Using GSE16515 dataset downloaded from GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus) database, we first screened the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in pancreatic cancer by packages in R language. The key functions of DEGs were investigated by GO (Gene Ontology) and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathway enrichment analysis. The potential functionally important SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) was selected from the dbSNP database. RESULTS A total of 1270 DEGs were identified. Most of them were predicted to be involved in pancreatic cancer development by sequence variant. Six genes (CDC42, STAT1, RALA, BCL2L1, TGFA, and EGF) were enriched in the known pancreatic cancer pathway. All these six genes had SNP, usually mutation at A/G and C/T point. CONCLUSIONS Our results provide some underlying biomarkers for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Inversion of electromagnetic well-log data at microwave frequencies

Earth formations can be modeled as a layered medium with each layer having its own electromagnetic properties (e.g., conductivity, permittivity). In a typical well-logging operation, a hole - about 15 to 30 cms in diameter - is drilled through the Earth formation to a depth that may extend to a few kilometers. To measure conductivity and permittivity of the formation, a sensor, consisting of an array of transmitters and receivers, is lowered in the borehole. We consider an antenna array, with two transmitters and two receivers, symmetrically located, operating at 1 GHz. The transmitters are sequentially energized and the phase and attenuation between receivers are measured. The measured phase and attenuation are then inverted for formation properties, namely layer-thickness, conductivity and dielectric constant. We describe a multi-channel Wiener deconvolution method to extract formation properties from the measured phase shift and attenuation. A nonlinear anisotropic diffusion filter to smooth intra-layer variations follows the deconvolved results.
Yersinia adhesins: An arsenal for infection

The Yersiniae are a group of Gram‐negative coccobacilli inhabiting a wide range of habitats. The genus harbors three recognized human pathogens: Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis, which both cause gastrointestinal disease, and Y. pestis, the causative agent of plague. These three organisms have served as models for a number of aspects of infection biology, including adhesion, immune evasion, evolution of pathogenic traits, and retracing the course of ancient pandemics. The virulence of the pathogenic Yersiniae is heavily dependent on a number of adhesin molecules. Some of these, such as the Yersinia adhesin A and invasin of the enteropathogenic species, and the pH 6 antigen of Y. pestis, have been extensively studied. However, genomic sequencing has uncovered a host of other adhesins present in these organisms, the functions of which are only starting to be investigated. Here, we review the current state of knowledge on the adhesin molecules present in the Yersiniae, and their functions and putative roles in the infection process.
Epstein-Barr virus interactions with the Bcl-2 protein family and apoptosis in human tumor cells

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a human gammaherpesvirus carried by more than 90% of the world’s population, is associated with malignant tumors such as Burkitt’s lymphoma (BL), Hodgkin lymphoma, post-transplant lymphoma, extra-nodal natural killer/T cell lymphoma, and nasopharyngeal and gastric carcinomas in immune-compromised patients. In the process of infection, EBV faces challenges: the host cell environment is harsh, and the survival and apoptosis of host cells are precisely regulated. Only when host cells receive sufficient survival signals may they immortalize. To establish efficiently a lytic or long-term latent infection, EBV must escape the host cell immunologic mechanism and resist host cell apoptosis by interfering with multiple signaling pathways. This review details the apoptotic pathway disrupted by EBV in EBV-infected cells and describes the interactions of EBV gene products with host cellular factors as well as the function of these factors, which decide the fate of the host cell. The relationships between other EBV-encoded genes and proteins of the B-cell leukemia/lymphoma (Bcl) family are unknown. Still, EBV seems to contribute to establishing its own latency and the formation of tumors by modifying events that impact cell survival and proliferation as well as the immune response of the infected host. We discuss potential therapeutic drugs to provide a foundation for further studies of tumor pathogenesis aimed at exploiting novel therapeutic strategies for EBV-associated diseases.
Review of Naglieri and Ford (2003): Does the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test Identify Equal Proportions of High-Scoring White, Black, and Hispanic Students?

In a recent article in this journal, Naglieri and Ford (2003) claimed that Black and Hispanic students are as likely to earn high scores on the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT; Naglieri, 1997a) as White students. However, the sample that Naglieri and Ford used was not representative of the U.S. school population as a whole and was quite unrepresentative of ethnic subgroups within that population. For example, only 5.6% of the children in their sample were from urban school districts, and both Black and Hispanic students were relatively more likely to be from high socioeconomic status (SES) families than were White families. Further, the mean and standard deviation in the sample differed significantly from the NNAT fall test norms, which were based on the same data. Finally, White-Black and White-Hispanic differences reported by Naglieri and Ford were smaller than those reported by Naglieri and Ronning (2000a) in a previous analysis of the same data set in which students were first matched on several demographic variables. For these reasons, I argue that the authors’ claims are not supported by the data they present.
Bifidobacterium bifidum Lacto-N-Biosidase, a Critical Enzyme for the Degradation of Human Milk Oligosaccharides with a Type 1 Structure

ABSTRACT Breast-fed infants often have intestinal microbiota dominated by bifidobacteria in contrast to formula-fed infants. We found that several bifidobacterial strains produce a lacto-N-biosidase that liberates lacto-N-biose I (Galβ1,3GlcNAc; type 1 chain) from lacto-N-tetraose (Galβ1,3GlcNAcβ1,3Galβ1,4Glc), which is a major component of human milk oligosaccharides, and subsequently isolated the gene from Bifidobacterium bifidum JCM1254. The gene, designated lnbB, was predicted to encode a protein of 1,112 amino acid residues containing a signal peptide and a membrane anchor at the N and C termini, respectively, and to possess the domain of glycoside hydrolase family 20, carbohydrate binding module 32, and bacterial immunoglobulin-like domain 2, in that order, from the N terminus. The recombinant enzyme showed substrate preference for the unmodified β-linked lacto-N-biose I structure. Lacto-N-biosidase activity was found in several bifidobacterial strains, but not in the other enteric bacteria, such as clostridia, bacteroides, and lactobacilli, under the tested conditions. These results, together with our recent finding of a novel metabolic pathway specific for lacto-N-biose I in bifidobacterial cells, suggest that some of the bifidobacterial strains are highly adapted for utilizing human milk oligosaccharides with a type 1 chain.
Daily physical activity impact in old women bone density and grip strength

Introduction: Being physically active is related to a better physical functioning in older people, but daily physical activity impact in specific outcomes such as osteoporosis or sarcopenia is still not clear. Objective: The main objective of this study is to determine the impact of daily physical activity (DPA) in the bone mineral density and grip strength of old women. The secondary objective is to distinguish between weekday and weekend day scores. Methods:Forty-two women between 65 and 79 years participated. DPA was monitored with the accelerometer ActiGraph GT3X (Pensacola, FL, USA) placed on the dominant hand wrist. Bone mineral density was measured with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (AccuDEXA, SHICK, USA) in the central finger of the dominant hand; and grip strength, with a Takei dynamometer (TKK 5001). Results: There were statistical differences between moderate and vigorous DPA in age, T-score, physical activity counts/min and min/day, and grip strength. Weekend minutes correlated significantly with all the variables. Age was a confounding factor. Conclusions: Higher DPA intensities accomplished by our old women sample preserve T-score (bone standard deviations respect to young, healthy people) and grip strength in a normal range. These results are strongly influenced by weekend scores. Age should be controlled by shorter ranks.
Increased corticospinal excitability after 5 Hz rTMS over the human supplementary motor area

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can produce effects not only at the site of stimulation but also at distant sites to which it projects. Here we examined the connection between supplementary motor area (SMA) and the hand area of the primary motor cortex (M1Hand) by testing whether prolonged repetitive TMS (rTMS) over the SMA can produce changes in excitability of the M1Hand after the end of the stimulus train. We evaluated motor‐evoked potentials (MEPs) and the cortical silent period (CSP) evoked by a single‐pulse TMS, short‐interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) and intracortical facilitation (ICF) produced by a paired‐pulse TMS, and forearm flexor H reflexes before and after 750 pulses of 5 Hz rTMS over SMA at an intensity of 110% active motor threshold (AMT) for the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle. The amplitude of MEPs recorded from the right FDI muscle at rest as well as during voluntary contraction increased for at least 10 min after the end of rTMS, although the duration of the CSP, SICI and ICF did not change. There was no effect on H reflexes in the flexor carpi radialis muscle, even though the amplitude of the MEP obtained from the same muscle increased after rTMS. The effects on MEPs depended on the intensity of rTMS and were spatially specific to the SMA proper. We suggest that 5 Hz rTMS over SMA can induce a short‐lasting facilitation in excitability of the M1Hand compatible with the anatomical connections between SMA and the M1Hand.
An enhanced generic pipeline model for code clone detection

Maintainability is an important attribute when developing software. One of the factors that negatively affect maintainability of software is cloning. Cloning is identical copies of the same instances or fragments. Code cloning happens due to rapid changes when programmers perform clone instances and copy-paste technique. Although copy and paste is widely used in code reusability approach, it significantly increases maintenance cost. Current code clone research focuses in detection and analysis of code clones in order to help software developers to identify code clones in a source code and reuse the source code in order to decrease the maintenance cost. Necessary measures needed in order to reduce issues caused by cloning during implementation. Therefore, there is a need in exploring problems and possibilities associated in code cloning. This paper proposes an enhancement of a generic pipeline model for code clone detection. With the support of a tool, we implement and apply the proposed approach.
Beta vulgaris : A dearth of antidepressant activity in mice

The present study was undertaken to investigate antidepressant activity of ethanolic extract of Beta vulgaris [BV], by using forced swim test [FST] and tail suspension test [TST] in mice. Imipramine [10 mg/kg, i.p.] used as the standard drug significantly decreased immobility time in both TST and FST, while BV [50 and 100 mg/kg, i.p.] significantly increased immobility time in TST and FST. This suggests that BV has depressant activity and not antidepressant activity.
Collaborative Driving Support System in Mobile Pervasive Environments

The Bluetooth protocol can be used for inter-vehicle communication equipped with Bluetooth devices. This work investigates the challenges and feasibility of developing intelligent driving system providing time-sensitive information about traffic conditions and roadside facilities. The architecture for collaborative vehicle communication system is presented using the concepts of wireless networks and Bluetooth protocol. We discuss how vehicles can form mobile ad-hoc networks and exchange data by the on-board Bluetooth sensors. The key design concepts of the intelligent driving service infrastructure are analyzed showing collaborative fusion of multiple positional data could give a better understanding of the surrounding traffic conditions for collaborative driving. The technical feasibility of using Bluetooth for data exchange among moving vehicles is evaluated.
A Vehicle License Plate Detection and Recognition System

Problem statement: Automatic vehicle license plate detection and recog nition is a key technique in most of traffic related applications a nd is an active research topic in the image process ing domain. Different methods, techniques and algorithms have been developed for license plate detection and recognitions. Approach: Due to the varying characteristics of the license p late from country to country like numbering system, colors, language of characters, style (font) and sizes of license plate , further research is still needed in this area. Results: In most of the middle East countries, they use the combination of Arabic and English letters, plus th eir countries logo. Thus, it makes the localization of plate number, the differentiation between Arabic an d English letters and logo's object and finally the recognition of those characters become more challen ging research task. The use of artificial neural network has proved itself beneficial for plate reco gnition, but it has not been applied for the plate detection. Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural netwo rk is used both for the detection and recognition of Saudi Arabian license plate. Conclusion/Recommendations: The proposed approach has been tested on 200 front images of national license pla te of Saudi Arabia. A higher percentage of accuracy has been obtained to show that the significant of t his approach. The study could be further investigat ed on other middle east countries.
On Computation of Combined IVS EOP Series

Three topics related to computation of the combined IVS EOP series are discussed. The first one is the consistency of the VLBI EOP series with the IERS reference frames ITRF and ICRF. Not all IVS analysis centers use ITRF/ICRF as reference system for EOP solutions. Some of them realize global solution for simultaneous determination of CRF, TRF and EOP with no-net-rotation constrains w.r. t. ITRF/ICRF. Analysis shows that such a method can hardly provide consistency of computed EOP series with the IERS reference frames with sufficient accuracy. Direct use of ITRF and ICRF for computation of EOP series submitted to the IERS seems preferable. Second problem is the long-time stability of the IVS EOP series. Analysis of yearly biases w.r. t. C04 and NEOS is presented. A possible ways are proposed to save long time stability of the combined IVS EOP series. At last, various strategies of computation of weighted mean value are considered. It's shown that usual methods used for this purpose do not provide satisfactory result for the error of the mean. A new method is proposed.
A New Approach for Scholars Matching Using Universal Quantifier Queries

Universal quantifier queries on recursive relation are defined as the set of queries that query the database to get pairs of records (r1, r2) from the same relation such that the second record of each pair must intersect with the first record in a set of required attributes. Such query remains to be an interesting type of queries specially today with the appearance of many applications that need them. Today there are many databases that include scholarly data like DBLP, those databases though include information about papers, conferences, authors, and many other useful information, they don't correlate authors with similar interests or research directions. Nevertheless, the current explosion in the amount of data has driven the need for new techniques and technologies as traditional database techniques are no longer adequate to manage, store, and query those large amounts of data. Thus, the use of cloud emerged as a solution for several big data problems. Using clusters of commodity machines turn to be an optimal solution. Recently, there has been considerable interest in designing new algorithms using inverted index to efficiently answer different types of queries over big data. In this paper, we present a new technique for evaluating universal quantifier queries on recursive relation on large scholarly datasets using the popular MapReduce framework and inverted index. In addition, we present experimental results that show the performance of our proposed technique over the famous scholarly DBLP data-set.
Complex dynamics and the structure of small neural networks

The discrete-time dynamics of small neural networks is studied empirically, with emphasis laid on non-trivial bifurcation scenarios. For particular two- and three-neuron networks interesting dynamical properties like periodic, quasi-periodic and chaotic attractors are observed, many of them co-existing for one and the same set of parameters. An appropriate equivalence class of networks is defined, describing them as parametrized dynamical systems with identical dynamical capacities. Combined symmetries in phase space and parameter space are shown to generate different representatives of such a class. Moreover, conditions on the connectivity structure are suggested, which guarantee the existence of complex dynamics for a considered equivalence class of network configurations.
Evaluating the data visualization for demanding marine operations

Complexity and specificity of monitoring sensor data from marine operations brought a majority of challenges of how to evaluate the visualizations of such sensor data. It's urgently needed to develop and implement new evaluation methods to assess the visualization of maritime data. In this paper, we explore both quantitative and qualitative evaluation approaches to define evaluative metrics of our interactive visualization techniques, and present a case study carrying out by domain researches in real setting. This work is an important part to complement the visual analytics for maritime operations.
MEKK2 Is Required for T-cell Receptor Signals in JNK Activation and Interleukin-2 Gene Expression*

The c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNKs) are members of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) gene family and are essential for cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. Previously we found that activation of JNK in T-cells required costimulation of both T-cell receptor and auxiliary receptors such as CD28. In this study, we cloned a full-length human MEK kinase (MEKK) 2 cDNA from Jurkat T-cells and demonstrated that it was a major upstream MAPK kinase kinase for the JNK cascade in T-cells. The human MEKK2 cDNA encoded a polypeptide of 619 amino acids and was the human counterpart of the reported murine MEKK2. It was 94% homologous with human and murine MEKK3 at the catalytic domains and 60% homologous at the N-terminal noncatalytic region. Northern blot analysis showed that MEKK2 was ubiquitously expressed, with the highest level in peripheral blood leukocytes. In T cells, MEKK2 was found to be a strong activator of JNK but not of extracellular signal-regulated kinase MAPKs and to activate JNK-dependent AP-1 reporter gene expression. MEKK2 also synergized with anti-CD3 antibody to activate JNK in T cells, and stimulation of T cells led to induction of MEKK2 tyrosine phosphorylation. Significantly, the JNK activation induced by anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 antibodies, but not by 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate and Ca2+ionophore A23187, was inhibited by dominant negative MEKK2 mutants. AP-1 and interleukin-2 reporter gene induction in T-cells was also inhibited by dominant negative MEKK2 mutants. Taken together, our results showed that human MEKK2 is a key signaling molecule for T-cell receptor/CD3-mediated JNK MAPK activation and interleukin-2 gene expression.