Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Internet and Democratic Discourse: Exploring The Prospects of Online Deliberative Forums Extending the Public Sphere

Three prominent 'camps' have emerged within Internet democracy rhetoric and practice, each drawing upon different models of democracy: communitarian, liberal individualist and deliberative. Much interest has been shown in the former two camps by researchers and policy makers. This paper turns to an examination of the possible realization of the third camp's vision - that the public sphere of rational-critical discourse will be extended through cyberspace. This paper's method is to compare existing online discourse with a set of requirements of the public sphere developed from the work of Jürgen Habermas. Previous research of cyber-interactions reveals a number of factors limiting the expansion of the public sphere online. Toexplore how these limitations may be overcome, the paper examines an online democracy project that explicitly attempts to foster deliberation. It is shown how this initiative has been able to successfully surmount many of the impediments identified in less structured online deliberations, but that it has, along with similar projects, failed to gain a representative sample of the population and is increasingly marginalized by commercial sites, virtual communities of common interest, and liberal individualist political practices. The paper concludes that the expansion of the public sphere through the Internet requires not only developing deliberative spaces but also attracting participation from citizens who have been socialized within a commercialized and individualized culture hostile towards public deliberation.
Inhibitor of DNA Binding 4 (ID4) Is Highly Expressed in Human Melanoma Tissues and May Function to Restrict Normal Differentiation of Melanoma Cells

Melanoma tissues and cell lines are heterogeneous, and include cells with invasive, proliferative, stem cell-like, and differentiated properties. Such heterogeneity likely contributes to the aggressiveness of the disease and resistance to therapy. One model suggests that heterogeneity arises from rare cancer stem cells (CSCs) that produce distinct cancer cell lineages. Another model suggests that heterogeneity arises through reversible cellular plasticity, or phenotype-switching. Recent work indicates that phenotype-switching may include the ability of cancer cells to dedifferentiate to a stem cell-like state. We set out to investigate the phenotype-switching capabilities of melanoma cells, and used unbiased methods to identify genes that may control such switching. We developed a system to reversibly synchronize melanoma cells between 2D-monolayer and 3D-stem cell-like growth states. Melanoma cells maintained in the stem cell-like state showed a striking upregulation of a gene set related to development and neural stem cell biology, which included SRY-box 2 (SOX2) and Inhibitor of DNA Binding 4 (ID4). A gene set related to cancer cell motility and invasiveness was concomitantly downregulated. Intense and pervasive ID4 protein expression was detected in human melanoma tissue samples, suggesting disease relevance for this protein. SiRNA knockdown of ID4 inhibited switching from monolayer to 3D-stem cell-like growth, and instead promoted switching to a highly differentiated, neuronal-like morphology. We suggest that ID4 is upregulated in melanoma as part of a stem cell-like program that facilitates further adaptive plasticity. ID4 may contribute to disease by preventing stem cell-like melanoma cells from progressing to a normal differentiated state. This interpretation is guided by the known role of ID4 as a differentiation inhibitor during normal development. The melanoma stem cell-like state may be protected by factors such as ID4, thereby potentially identifying a new therapeutic vulnerability to drive differentiation to the normal cell phenotype.
Poster abstract: Understanding city dynamics by manifold learning correlation analysis

Cities have long been considered as complex entities with nonlinear and dynamic properties. Pervasive urban sensing and crowd sourcing have become prevailing technologies that enhance the interplay between the cyber space and the physical world. In this paper, a spectral graph based manifold learning method is proposed to alleviate the impact of noisy, sparse and high-dimensional dataset. Correlation analysis of two physical processes is enhenced by semi-supervised machine learning. Preliminary evaluations on the correlation of traffic density and air quality reveal great potential of our method in future intelligent evironment study.
A reconfigurable hardware approach to network simulation

Providing Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees in a broadband Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network places stringent demands on the network switches. Although analytical techniques may be used to bound the worst-case performance of traffic scheduling and congestion control algorithms, these are often inadequate for modeling the switch algorithms at the needed level of detail. Simulation is often the only alternative for evaluating the actual performance of the network. However, owing to the small size of the ATM cell and the high link-speeds, simulation of ATM switches and networks in a computationally demanding problem. To address this problem, we have developed a flexible hardware testbed for simulation of ATM-based networks. The testbed, called FAST (FPGA-based ATM simulation testbed), uses high-density field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to allow implementation of the key algorithms in an ATM switch in hardware. The first version of the testbed (FAST-1) consists of a set of boards, each providing a total of 336,000 usable gates and 17 Mbytes of static RAM. Each board can be used to simulate an ATM switch, and multiple boards may be interconnected to simulate networks of ATM switches. Software tools have been developed for specifying the components of the switch model and algorithms, configuring the testbed for simulation, and monitoring the simulation process. This article provides an overview of the architecture of the FAST-1 board, describes its key components, and discusses some example simulation models of traffic scheduling algorithms using the board.
The Effect of the Visual 1 Running head : EFFECT VISUAL MODALITY MUSICAL SYNCHRONIZATION The Effect of the Visual Modality on Musical Ensemble Synchronization

Inter-player rhythmic synchronization is a fundamental task in ensemble music, and although music is primarily an auditory art, vision also plays a role in music and in inter-player communication. It is possible, therefore, that ensemble musicians use information obtained from the visual modality to improve inter-player synchronization. In this study, we collected onsettiming data from an expert and a novice drumming ensemble to investigate the effect of the visual modality on ensemble synchronization. Different members of the ensemble were asked to invent rhythmic patterns, and the other members were asked to synchronize to these invented patterns to the best of their abilities. Analysis of the absolute asynchronies between pairs of musicians shows that the expert musicians are significantly more synchronized when they are able to see each other, while the novice musicians are significantly less synchronized when they are able to see each other, perhaps indicating that expert musicians take advantage of visual information to improve synchronization. The Effect of the Visual 3
Rho Controls Cortical F-actin Disassembly in Addition to, but Independently of, Secretion in Mast Cells*

Localized disassembly of cortical F-actin has long been considered necessary for facilitation of exocytosis. Exposure of permeabilized mast cells to calcium/ATP induces cortical F-actin disassembly (calmodulin-dependent) and secretion (calmodulin-independent). The delay in the onset of secretion is characteristic for the calcium/ATP response and is abolished by GTP. Here we report that a constitutively active mutant of Rho (V14RhoA) enhanced both secretion and cortical F-actin disassembly. In addition, V14RhoA mimicked GTP by abolishing the delay in secretion. Inhibition of Rho by C3 transferase prevented both secretion (∼80%) and F-actin disassembly (∼20%). Thus, both Rho GTPase and calcium/calmodulin contribute to the control of cortical F-actin disassembly. Stabilization of actin filaments by high concentrations of phalloidin or by a calmodulin-inhibitory peptide (based on the calmodulin-binding domain of myosin light chain kinase) did not affect the extent of secretion or the secretion-enhancing effects of V14RhoA. These results further support the existence of divergent, Rho-dependent, pathways regulating actin and exocytosis. Furthermore, compound Y-27632, a specific inhibitor of Rho-associated protein kinase (p160 ROCK ), attenuated the Rho-induced loss of cortical F-actin without affecting secretion. A model is presented in which Rho regulates secretion and cortical F-actin in a manner dependent on and/or synergistic with calcium.
Foster Dams Rear Fighters: Strain-Specific Effects of Mice

It is well known that genes and environment interact to produce behavioral phenotypes. One environmental factor with long-term effects on gene transcription and behavior is maternal care. A classic paradigm for examining maternal care and genetic interactions is to foster pups of one genetic strain to dams of a different strain ("between-strain fostering"). In addition, fostering to a dam of the same strain ("within-strain fostering") is used to reduce indirect effects, via behavioral changes in the dams, of gestation treatments on offspring. Using within-and between-strain fostering we examined the contributions of genetics/prenatal environment, maternal care, and the effects of fostering per se, on adult aggressive behavior in two inbred mouse strains, C57BL/6J (B6) and DBA/2J (DBA). We hypothesized that males reared by dams of the more aggressive DBA strain would attack intruders faster than those reared by B6 dams. Surprisingly, we found that both methods of fostering enhanced aggressive behavior, but only in B6 mice. Since all the B6 offspring are genetically identical, we asked if maternal behavior of B6 dams was affected by the relatedness of their pups. In fact, B6 dams caring for foster B6 pups displayed significantly reduced maternal behaviors. Finally, we measured vasopressin and corticotrophin releasing hormone mRNA in the amygdalae of adult B6 males reared by foster or biological dams. Both genes correlated with aggressive behavior in within-strain fostered B6 mice, but not in mice reared by their biological dams. In sum, we have demonstrated in inbred laboratory mice, that dams behave differently when rearing their own newborn pups versus pups from another dam of the same strain. These differences in maternal care affect aggression in the male offspring and transcription of Avp and Crh in the brain. It is likely that rearing by foster dams has additional effects and implications for other species.
Extraction of urban impervious surface from hyperspectral remote sensing image

Taking Xuzhou city as the case study area, EO-1 Hyperion hyperspectral remote sensing image captured in 2004 was chosen as the data source to extract impervious surface area (ISA) by spectral mixture analysis using LSMM model. In order to demonstrate the advantages of hyperspectral images and LSMM for ISA extraction, hyperspectral image was compared with multispectral Landsat TM image, and LSMM was compared with traditional hard classifiers, indicating that hyperspectral image is more effective than multispectral data for urban impervious surface extraction, and unmixing is superior to hard classification methods.
Equations of Motion from a Data Series

Temporal pattern learning, control and prediction, and chaotic data analysis share a common problem: deducing optimal equations of motion from observations of time-dependent behavior. Each desires to obtain models of the physical world from limited information. We describe a method to reconstruct the deterministic portion of the equations of motion directly from a data series. These equations of motion represent a vast reduction of a chaotic data set’s observed complexity to a compact, algorithmic specification. This approach employs an informational measure of model optimality to guide searching through the space of dynamical systems. As corollary results, we indicate how to estimate the minimum embedding dimension, extrinsic noise level, metric entropy, and Lyapunov spectrum. Numerical and experimental applications demonstrate the method’s feasibility and limitations. Extensions to estimating parametrized families of dynamical systems from bifurcation data and to spatial pattern evolution are presented. Applications to predicting chaotic data and the design of forecasting, learning, and control systems, are discussed.
Sparse graphs: Metrics and random models

Recently, Bollobás, Janson and Riordan introduced a family of random graph models producing inhomogeneous graphs with n vertices and Θ(n) edges whose distribution is characterized by a kernel, i.e., a symmetric measurable function κ: [0, 1]2 → [0, ∞). To understand these models, we should like to know when different kernels κ give rise to “similar” graphs, and, given a real‐world network, how “similar” is it to a typical graph G(n, κ) derived from a given kernel κ.
A Constrained-Dictionary version of LZ78 asymptotically achieves the Finite-State Compressibility for any Individual Sequence

The unrestricted LZ78 universal data-compression algorithm (as well as the LZ77 and LZW versions) achieves asymptotically, as the block-length tends to infinity, the FS compressibility, namely the best compression-ratio that may be achieved by any Information-lossless(IL) block-to-variable finite-state(FS) algorithm, for any infinitely-long individual sequence. The encoder parses the sequence into distinct phrases where each newly generated phrase is a past phrase which is already stored in a dictionary, extended by one letter. The newly generated phrase is then added to the updated, ever-growing dictionary. One heuristic approach is the "Least Recently Utilized" (LRU) deletion approach, where only the most recent D entries are kept in the dictionary, thus yielding a constrained-dictionary version of LZ78 denoted by LZ78(LRU). In this note, for the sake of completeness, it is demonstrated again via a simple proof that the unrestricted LZ78 algorithm asymptotically achieves the FS-Compressibility. Then, it is demonstrated that the LZ78(LRU) information-lossless data-compression algorithm also achieves the FS compressibility, as the dictionary size D tends to infinity. Although this is perhaps not surprising, it does nevertheless yield a theoretical optimality argument for the popular LZ78(LRU) algorithm (and similarly, for the LZW(LRU) algorithm). In addition, the finite-state compressibility of an individual sequence under a constrained allowable distance measure between the original sequence and the decompressed sequence is defined. It is demonstrated that a particular adaptive vector-quantizer that sequentially replaces clusters of L-vectors onto a single, cluster-representative L-vector, followed by a constrained D-entries-dictionary version of LZ78(LRU) as above, is asymptotically optimal as D tends to infinity and L= log D .
When Do Online Consumers Purchase?: Based on Inter-Purchase Time

This study is motivated by the premise that online consumers can make a purchase at any time of day if they have even a tiny time slot along with Internet access. To identify the increased shopping time flexibility, we first characterize the patterns of online purchase timing in comparison to those in the offline market. The results show (1) the breakdown of purchase timing regularity and (2) the change of weekly spike purchase occurrence. Second, we build online inter-purchase time model and estimate it with the data collected from one of the premier online vendors in Korea. We verify new theories in online consumers’ purchase timing, particularly, about (1) how online consumers’ hazard rates change, (2) how online consumers respond to price promotions, and (3) what factors affect online consumers’ purchasing timing decision. Both marketing researchers and practitioners can gain significant new insight to understanding the nature of online commerce on the time space.
Dynamical behaviour of Lotka-Volterra systems

We consider the(n 1)-dimensional Lotka-Volterra system (arising in biological modelling of species interactions) , and associate with it a family of n-dimensional systems having the same phase portrait. We obtain some results on global behaviour and convergence towards the equilibrium in the case where the LV system is “nearly symmetric” or “nearly cooperative” (that is, there exists a member of the equivalence class that is symmetric or cooperative). We apply these results to stabilize the system by controlling t he total or individual growth rates of the species.
AENEAS: An Energy-Aware Simulator of Automatic Weather Stations

Automatic weather stations (AWSs) are widely used for an environmental sensing in harsh environments such as Antarctica, high mountains, and deserts. As these systems are often deployed far from mains power sources, they are usually equipped with rechargeable batteries and energy harvesting systems. Predeployment configuration of an AWS is a challenging task, as designers have to face with contrasting energy-related choices, the correct tradeoff of which determines the success of the AWS's mission and its survivability. Among them, the most effective are the energy harvesting technology, size of the battery, and frequency of sensing and communication. In this paper, we describe AENEAS, an energy-aware simulator of AWSs that allows designers to assess the impact of hardware and software choices on the energy evolution of the system. The tool is extensively configurable, thus enabling the simulation of a large number of hardware configurations as well as of the sensing and communication applications running on the AWS. The simulator has been validated by comparing results computed by AENEAS with data collected from two real-world AWSs installed on an alpine glacier and in a urban environment, obtaining a high accuracy in both cases. A number of use cases are discussed to demonstrate how AENEAS can be used to assess the impact on the energy behavior of the AWS of different batteries, energy harvesters, and application behaviors.
Eye movements can cause item-specific visual recognition advantages

ABSTRACT Prior research suggests that spontaneous saccades localized towards blank regions of space during memory storage and recall improve memory for items at the saccade locations. In the present study, we examined whether a recognition advantage can be observed when a single, exogenously directed saccade occurs during memory maintenance. We manipulated whether participants made a saccade to an item’s previous location or maintained fixation, as well as whether tested items reappeared in their original location or not. The results of three experiments showed that visual recognition was better after a saccade to the location of a probed object than after no saccade or after a saccade to the location of a non-probed object, so long as saccades went to the to-be-tested location more often than chance. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that eye movements can elicit an item-specific recognition advantage in visual working memory.
Learning from experience: A simple effective protocol to test footwear prescriptions for the Diabetic foot by using the Pedar system

Adherence of patients to treatment and appropriateness of prescribed footwear are mandatory for successful prevention of Diabetic foot ulceration. In a Public Healthcare Service, footwear approval is under the responsibility of the clinician. In some cases kinetic measurements are taken inside the shoes to support the clinical decision; however, an overall agreement is still missing with respect to a simple, reliable and effective test protocol based on proper threshold values. Authors’ past experiences, specific needs of the Diabetic outpatient service, and suggestions from valuable literature led to an instrumental test protocol based on reference peak pressure (PP) thresholds and gait line (GL) specific for each level of risk. Permission was obtained for one preliminary validation session at the Authors’ outpatient service, during which 11 patients at high/very high risk of ulceration were examined—9 for testing new footwear, 2 for monitoring 12-month-old footwear. The protocol was well accepted by patients and operators, fast and easy to be used. Based on the instrumental, clinical and visual inspection data; 4 new footwear did not pass the test; 5 passed the test but integration or minor changes were requested; the 2 old footwear were found no more effective. As a first positive feedback, after 4 months of wearing the modified prescriptions none of the patients had developed plantar ulcers or signs of tissue damage. Successive data processing proved that in all patients altered PPs and deviated GLs did correlate with alterations of other kinetic parameters. The protocol, which is proved to be sensitive and valuable for the Diabetic foot care, may have a general validity; the delivered specific PP thresholds and reference data, instead, can be reliably used if the test is performed with a calibrated Pedar Insole System and with the wide Insoles in the range UW-YW (EU size 36 - 45).
Psycho-Physiological Hypothesis about Visual Mental Images Projection

The investigation aims at analyzing some psychophysiological aspects concerning the visual projection phenomenon. We effectively define these aspects as the perception-like of a depictive mental image sent outside and localized in the external environment. This phenomenon has been studying in the literature on perception-imagery similarity and interaction. The similarity between these two processes poses some physiological questions that the current research aims at focusing on. We hypothesize that in the visual projection a physical component is present, probably consisting of weak electromagnetic waves (according to Bokkon). The investigation consists of two studies; the first one, in which 31 participants (undergraduates students of Psychology, both male and female) were asked to imagine a lit candle and to send this image, with open and closed eyes, towards two white not reflecting panels placed at 90° to each other. Then, the participants were asked to send, initially with closed eyes, the same mental image towards two mutually reflecting mirrors, whose presence they were not aware of, placed in the same position of the panels. A second study repeats the same experiment but in the dark. The participants were 67, both males and females, undergraduates students of Theatre and Literature. As the results of both the experiments have showed, when the mental image was projected on the mutually reflective mirrors, a duplication or a multiplication of the subjective perception-like mental image appeared. This phenomenon did not appear sending the image toward the two not reflecting panels. The mental image projected on the mirrors would act in a similar way to a light beam generating an optical reflection phenomenon.