Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Re-analysis of Ranch Hand study supports reverse causation hypothesis between dioxin and diabetes

A dose-response relationship between serum 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (dioxin) and adult diabetes risk has been reported among U.S. Vietnam veterans in the Ranch Hand (RH) cohort. We examine the hypothesis that diabetes progression leads to higher serum dioxin (reverse causation) rather than higher serum dioxin leading to diabetes (causation) across the longitudinal medical monitoring data on these airmen. Lipid-adjusted serum dioxin levels and clinical parameters relating to diabetes progression were examined. Potential confounding due to age, race, diabetes family history, serum total lipid, and body mass index (BMI) was accounted for. The similar incidence of diabetes in RH and Comparison veterans, along with generally similar incidence trends with dioxin decile and lipid decile despite the large differential in serum dioxin, is evidence consistent with reverse causation. Of 135 RH diabetics with at least two dioxin measurements, 32.6% had a temporary serum dioxin increase more than a decade after Vietnam tour and another 22.2% had an interval of unusually slow half-life (>15.5 years); these diabetes-related changes shifted more diabetics into the higher dioxin deciles. Further, the increased diabetes odds ratio among the generally younger RH veterans in the highest dioxin decile is associated with a higher incidence of adult obesity in this RH subgroup, both at tour of duty and decades later. Change in serum dioxin levels is likely due to diabetes progression or poor control and is not independently related to serum dioxin concentrations. In summary, the data from the Ranch Hand studies does not indicate that dioxin increases adult diabetes risk.
Neural Plasticity as a Basis for Motor Learning and Neurorehabilitation

Abstract Skilled action is the end-product of learning processes that can improve several aspects of motor control such as strategic movement organisation, perceptual–motor associations, or muscle commands for basic components of sequentially evolving, complex movements. Experimental studies in healthy participants using functional imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation have identified separable processes that form cortical motor representations and that assist this formation of representations. These processes capitalise on use-dependent plasticity and changes in cortical excitability before and after practice. In terms of neural circuits, motor learning manifests measurably via structures that support transient phenomena, such as attentive error monitoring, or through continued activation of brain structures that support control processes still adapting. Specifically, movement guidance engages the dorsal premotor and parietal cortex along the intraparietal sulcus in addition to the supplementary motor area and the anterior cerebellum. Movement conception based on explicit experience of the movement task involves the inferior premotor cortex. Evidence in patients recovering from brain lesions such as stroke, suggests that similar principles hold for neurorehabilitation as well. The challenging issue is to what degree altered motor strategies afford improvement in function through relearning and neural plasticity.
Evaluation of antifungal activity in essential oil of the Syzygium aromaticum (L.) by extraction, purification and analysis of its main component eugenol

Antifungal properties of some essential oils have been well documented. Clove oil is reported to have strong antifungal activity against many fungal species. In this study we have evaluated antifungal potential of essential oil of Syzygium aromaticum (L.) against some common fungal pathogens of plants and animals namely, Fusarium moniliforme NCIM 1100, Fusarium oxysporum MTCC 284, Aspergillus sp. , Mucor sp. , Trichophyton rubrum and Microsporum gypseum. All fungal species were found to be inhibited by the oil when tested through agar well diffusion method. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined for all the species. Column chromatography was performed to separate the eugenol rich fraction from clove oil. Out of seven fractions maximum activity was obtained in column fraction II. TLC and HPLC data confirmed presence of considerable Eugenol in fraction II and clove oil. Microscopic study on effect of clove oil and column fraction II on spores of Mucor sp. and M. gypseum showed distortion and shrinkage while it was absent in other column fractions. So it can be concluded that the antifungal action of clove oil is due to its high eugenol content.
Configurable Analytics Framework for Management of Enterprise IT Systems

The large scale and complexity of today's enterprise systems demand automated solutions for proactive management. We present a solution to replace the manual, intuition-based, and experience-oriented approach with a fact-based, systematic, analytics-led approach for performance and capacity management of enterprise systems. We present the proposed approach using three building blocks viz. A scalable data-processing framework, an analysis engine, and a domain-aware rule-base. We demonstrate the proposed ideas using several real-world examples.
Preference Reversals in Decision Making Under Risk are Accompanied by Changes in Attention to Different Attributes

Recent work has shown that visual fixations reflect and influence trial-to-trial variability in people’s preferences between goods. Here we extend this principle to attribute weights during decision making under risk. We measured eye movements while people chose between two risky gambles or bid on a single gamble. Consistent with previous work, we found that people exhibited systematic preference reversals between choices and bids. For two gambles matched in expected value, people systematically chose the higher probability option but provided a higher bid for the option that offered the greater amount to win. This effect was accompanied by a shift in fixations of the two attributes, with people fixating on probabilities more during choices and on amounts more during bids. Our results suggest that the construction of value during decision making under risk depends on task context partly because the task differentially directs attention at probabilities vs. amounts. Since recent work demonstrates that neural correlates of value vary with visual fixations, our results also suggest testable hypotheses regarding how task context modulates the neural computation of value to generate preference reversals.
Dynamic Optimization with Applications to Dynamic Rate

This tutorial presents recent developments in the management of communications services and applies broadly to services involving the leasing of shared resources. These problems are more realistically modeled by queues with time-varying rates or more simply, dynamic rate queues. We first provide a review and summary of relevant results for various fundamental dynamic rate queues. The focus here is on approximations of these queueing models by low-dimensional dynamical systems. The dynamic optimization of constrained dynamical systems is based on the calculus of variations and its various incarnations over the past three centuries. We discuss these methods in the context of Lagrangians, Hamiltonians, and Bellman value functions. Finally, we provide examples where we apply these optimization techniques to dynamic rate queues motivated by communications decision problems.
Animacy Annotation in the Hindi Treebank

In this paper, we discuss our efforts to annotate nominals in the Hindi Treebank with the semantic property of animacy. Although the treebank already encodes lexical information at a number of levels such as morph and part of speech, the addition of animacy information seems promising given its relevance to varied linguistic phenomena. The suggestion is based on the theoretical and computational analysis of the property of animacy in the context of anaphora resolution, syntactic parsing, verb classification and argument differentiation.
Children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders and co-occurring anxiety symptoms: implications for assessment and treatment.

PURPOSE The purpose of this article is to provide guidance and recommendations for children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and anxiety, including suggestions for assessment and intervention. CONCLUSIONS Children with ASD are at increased risk for developing clinical anxiety symptoms. Anxiety symptoms can impact school performance, peer relationships, and family functioning. Emerging clinical research has demonstrated the potential positive impact of modified cognitive behavioral therapy to reduce anxiety symptoms in children with ASD. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Modifications necessary to make cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) protocols accessible to children with ASD are presented, along with specific suggestions for evaluating and treating anxiety symptoms.
Towards Analyzing the International Corpus of Arabic ( ICA ) : Progress of Morphological Stage

his paper sheds light on four axes. The first axis deals with the levels of corpus analysis e.g. morphological analysis, lexical analysis, syntactic analysis and semantic analysis. The second axis captures some attempts of Arabic corpora analysis. The third axis demonstrates different available tools for Arabic morphological analysis (Xerox, Tim Buckwalter, Sakhr and RDI). The fourth axis is the basic section in the paper; it deals with the morphological analysis of ICA. It includes: selecting and describing the model of analysis, pre-analysis stage and full text analysis stages.
The impact of body image experiences: development of the body image quality of life inventory.

OBJECTIVE Substantial research confirms that body image affects multiple aspects of psychosocial functioning, yet there is no direct assessment to quantify its impact on an individual's quality of life. METHOD In the present study, the Body Image Quality of Life Inventory was developed and empirically evaluated with 116 college women. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This 19-item assessment was internally consistent and stable over a 2- to 3 week period. It converged significantly with multiple measures of body image evaluation and investment and with body mass. The results further revealed that women in the sample reported more positive than negative consequences of their body image for various domains of life. The implications of these findings and directions for continued validation of this unique measure are considered.
Tracking players and estimation of the 3D position of a ball in soccer games

In soccer games, understanding the movement of players and the ball is essential for the analysis of matches or tactics. In this paper, we present a system to track the players and ball and to estimate their positions from video images. Our system tracks the players by extracting their shirt and pants regions and can cope with the posture change and occlusion by considering their colors, positions, and velocities in the image. The system extracts ball candidates by using the color and motion information, and determines the ball among them based on motion continuity. To determine the player who is holding the ball, the position of players on the field and the 3D position of the ball are estimated. The ball position is estimated by fitting a physical model of movement in 3D space to the observed ball trajectory. Experimental results on real image sequences show the effectiveness of the system.
Efecto de diversas actividades físicas y deportivas sobre la autoeficacia de estudiantes universitarios costarricense

El presente articulo fue realizado con estudiantes universitarios matriculados en el curso de “Actividad Deportiva” de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Los propositos fueron: (1) comprobar si existe relacion significativa entre el nivel de autoeficacia, entendida como la confianza en si mismo para iniciar y mantenerse en un plan de ejercicio, y la cantidad de actividad fisica que reporta el estudiantado al inicio del curso; (2) establecer si existe un efecto significativo de las diversas actividades fisicas y deportivas en el nivel de autoeficacia, tanto para efectuar ejercicio como para no abandonarlo; y (3) comprobar si los cambios en la autoeficacia son influenciados por el genero o el tipo de actividad fisica realizada (cursos de acondicionamiento fisico versus cursos de deportes). Se trabajo con 211 estudiantes matriculados en el III ciclo de 2009, durante el verano. Al estudiantado se le aplico, antes de iniciar el curso y una vez finalizado, la encuesta de autoeficacia para comportamiento de ejercicio y el Cuestionario Internacional de Actividad Fisica (IPAQ), con el fin de medir el nivel de actividad fisica. Los resultados mostraron una asociacion positiva entre el nivel de actividad fisica reportada por el(la) estudiante y el nivel de autoeficacia (p<0.001). En cuanto a este ultimo, las mujeres presentaron niveles inferiores que los varones (p<0.001), asimismo el nivel de autoeficacia aumento significativamente (p<0.05) independientemente del genero y del tipo de actividad fisica. En conclusion, los cursos de actividad deportiva produjeron efectos positivos en la autoeficacia de los participantes, ademas, los estudiantes mas activos presentaron mayores niveles de ella.
How resilient are individual ASes against AS-level link failures?

Most ISPs rely on their upstream providers in achieving global reachability, thus they tend to make backup upstream links for the purpose of improving their own resilience. Yet, the Internet AS topology does not entail as much redundancy as it is widely thought, e.g., in our observation, 23.6% of all ASes only have single provider. Moreover, even though an AS has multiple upstream links, if all its upstream paths share a common link, the failure on the shared link may destroy its global reachability. This raises the question, how resilient are individual ASes against AS-level link failures? In this paper, we investigate the connectivity resilience for individual ASes from a global perspective. We identify the main factor that affects the resilience of individual ASes-the number of edge-disjoint uphill paths to Tier-1 they hold. To this end, we propose algorithms to quantify the resilience for individual ASes against AS-level link failures. We apply our methods on large-scale AS relationships data sets in order to study the resilience properties of the actual Internet. Our findings reveal that a considerable proportion (29.9%) of ASes are vulnerable to even one link failure in their upstream.
A Review of Transformational School Leadership Research 1996–2005

This paper uses evidence about transformational forms of leadership in schools provided by 32 empirical studies published between 1996 and 2005 to answer questions about the nature of such leadership, its antecedents, and the variables that both moderate and mediate its effects on students. Results indicate significant, primarily indirect effects of this form of leadership on both student achievement and engagement in school. These effects are mediated by school culture, teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction, and a small number of other variables. Few studies have examined the antecedents or moderators of transformational school leadership.
Enhancement of visual evoked potentials

The primary goal of this work is to introduce temporal artifact detection strategy to detect non responsive channels and trials in evoked potentials by tracing out the signals with very low energy and to remove artifacts in multichannel evoked potentials. The non responsive channels and trials are identified by calculating the energy of the average evoked potential of each channel, and the energy of the average evoked potential of each trial. Then channel wise and trial wise median test is conducted to detect and remove non-responsive channels and trials. Temporal domain artifact detection tests include: a clipping (CL) test detect amplitude clipped EPs in each channel, a standard deviation (STD) test that can detect signals with little or abnormal variations in each channel, a kurtosis (KU) test to detect unusual signals that are not identified by STD and CL tests, mode deviation test to detect the signals with large mode deviation and correlation test to detect the signals with less correlation. An attempt has been made to apply these techniques to 14-channel visual evoked potentials (VEPs) obtained from different subjects.
Silodosin Inhibits Noradrenaline-Activated Transcription Factors Elk1 and SRF in Human Prostate Smooth Muscle

Background The transcription factors Elk1 and serum response factor (SRF) are central regulators of cell cycle and phenotype in various cell types. Elk1 is activated by phosphorylation (serine-383), while activation of SRF requires its co-factor, myocardin. Activation of Elk1 and SRF results in binding to specific DNA sequences in promoter regions, and may be induced by adrenergic receptor activation in different organs. Objective To examine the effects of adrenergic stimulation on Elk1 and SRF in the human prostate and the ability of the highly selective α1A-adrenoceptor antagonist, silodosin, on transcription factor activation. Methods Prostate tissue was obtained from patients undergoing radical prostatectomy. Expression of Elk1, SRF, and myocardin was estimated by Western blot and immunohistochemistry. Colocalizations were studied by double immunofluorescence staining. Noradrenaline- (NA-) and phenylephrine- (PE-) induced phosphorylation of Elk1 was assessed by Western blot analysis using a phospho-specific antibody. NA-induced activation of Elk1 and SRF was investigated by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). Results Immunoreactivity for Elk1, SRF, and myocardin was observed in stromal cells of tissues from each patient. In fluorescence stainings, SRF colocalized with myocardin and α-smooth muscle actin (αSMA). Stimulation of prostate tissues with PE (10 µM) or NA (30 µM) increased the phosphorylation of Elk1 at serine-383. NA-induced Elk1 activation was confirmed by EMSA, where a NA-induced binding of Elk1 to the DNA sequence TTTGCAAAATGCAGGAATTGTTTTCACAGT was observed. Similarly, NA caused SRF binding to the SRF-specific DNA sequence CCATATTAGGCCATATTAGG. Application of silodosin (3 µM) to prostate tissues reduced the activity of Elk1 and SRF in NA-stimulated tissues. Conclusions Silodosin blocks the activation of the two transcription factors, Elk1 and SRF, which is induced by noradrenaline in the human prostate. A role of α1-adrenoceptors beyond smooth muscle contraction may be considered, which includes a function in transcriptional regulation.
Changing organisms in rapidly changing anthropogenic landscapes: the significance of the ‘Umwelt’-concept and functional habitat for animal conservation

There is a growing recognition for the significance of evolutionary thinking in ecology and conservation biology. However, ecology and conservation studies often work with species‐specific, fixed traits that ignore intraspecific variation. The way the habitat of a species is considered is an example of typological thinking biased by human perception. Structural habitat units (e.g., land cover types) as perceived by humans may not represent functional habitat units for other organisms. Human activity may also interfere with the environmental information used by organisms. Therefore, the Umwelt‐concept from ethology needs to be integrated in the way we think about habitat and habitat selection. It states that different organisms live in different perceptual worlds dealing with specific subsamples of the environment as a result of their evolutionary and developmental history. The resource‐based habitat concept is a functional habitat model based on resource distributions (consumables and conditions) and individual movements. This behavioural approach takes into account aspects that relate to the perceptual world of organisms. This approach may offer new opportunities for conservation and may help avoid failures with habitat restoration. Perceptual ability may be subject to adaptive change, but it may also constrain organisms from showing adaptive behaviours in rapidly changing environments.
Low Power Flash ADC

In this project, a new design for a low power CMOS flash Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) is proposed. A 6-bit flash ADC, with a maximum acquisition speed of 1 GHz, is implemented in a 1.2 V analog supply voltage. Microwind simulation results for the proposed flash ADC verifying the analytical results are also given. It shows that the proposed 6-bit flash ADC consumes about 72 mW in a commercial 90 nm CMOS process. The new design offers lower number of comparators and lower power consumption compared with the traditional flash ADC.
Combining trust with location information for routing in wireless sensor networks

As the applications of wireless sensor networks proliferate, the efficiency in supporting large sensor networks and offering security guarantees becomes an important requirement in the design of the relevant networking protocols. Geographical routing has been proven to efficiently cope with large network dimensions while trust management schemes have been shown to assist in defending against routing attacks. Once trust information is available for all network nodes, the routing decisions can take it into account, i.e. routing can be based on both location and trust attributes. In this paper, we investigate different ways to incorporate trust in location-based routing schemes and we propose a novel way of balancing trust and location information. Computer simulations show that the proposed routing rule exhibits excellent performance in terms of delivery ratio, latency time and path optimality. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.