Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exaggerated head motions for game viewpoint control

In this paper, we present an evaluation of exaggerated headcoupled camera motions in a game-like 3D object movement. Three exaggeration levels were compared to determine if the exaggeration was more beneficial than a realistic 1:1 mapping. The results suggest that there is some user preference for this type of exaggeration; however, no significant differences by the experimental conditions were found, other than a learning effect.
Priming cues in online product displays : exploring the effect of visual depiction on online purchase intention

This research investigates the difference in effect between a congruent and an incongruent condition of product depiction and hand usage during internet shopping. This research investigates the difference in effect on three variables: attitude towards the product, mental simulation of using the product and purchase intention. This research uses a 2x2x2 mixed subjects design, with visual depiction and hand usage as between subject factors and product type as within factor. A survey sample of 115 participants were exposed to two product images that were either depicted congruent or incongruent to the hand usage during the experiment. All participants were exposed to one commonly online sold product and one commonly offline sold product. The depiction and congruency remained the same throughout the experiment. The results show that a congruent condition of hand usage and depiction has a significantly higher positive effect on mental simulation, as opposed to an incongruent condition. The same effect occurred for purchase intention; however, this effect was only marginally significant. Further results highlight a significant difference between the two product types - pen/book and ice-cream/computer mouse. However, this could be explained by the limitations regarding the price difference between the products and the image used to represent a match or mismatch. These findings have managerial implications in the form of web improvement to increase online product experience.
Web usage prediction and recommendation using web session clustering

In recent years, a strong interest has been given to web usage prediction and recommendation methods to improve e-commerce, search engines and other online applications. There have been various efforts carried out in this field, particularly focused on using recordings of web user interactions with websites. In this context, our research focuses on developing a novel approach for web prediction and recommendation. The proposed method relies on hierarchical session clustering by sequence similarity measure and takes advantage of access activity time and access position in prediction session to make a recommendation. The performed experiments reveal that hierarchical parameter and prediction accuracy are relevant. In addition, the paper introduces cost estimation to adapt web visitor behavior to web business purposes using prediction ansd recommendation results.
Abnormal methylation of the common PARK2 and PACRG promoter is associated with downregulation of gene expression in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and chronic myeloid leukemia

The PARK2 gene, previously identified as a mutated target in patients with autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism (ARJP), has recently been found to be a candidate tumor suppressor gene in ovarian, breast, lung and hepatocellular carcinoma that maps to the third common fragile site (CFS) FRA6E. PARK2 is linked to a novel described PACRG gene by a bidirectional promoter containing a defined CpG island in its common promoter region. We have studied the role of promoter hypermethylation in the regulation of PARK2 and PACRG expression in different tumor cell lines and primary patient samples. Abnormal methylation of the common promoter of PARK2 and PACRG was observed in 26% of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and 20% of patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in lymphoid blast crisis, but not in ovarian, breast, lung, neuroblastoma, astrocytoma or colon cancer cells. Abnormal methylation resulted in downregulation of PARK2 and PACRG gene expression, while demethylation of ALL cells resulted in demethylation of the promoter and upregulation of PARK2 and PACRG expression. By FISH, we demonstrated that a lack of PARK2 and PACRG expression was due to biallelic hypermethylation and not to deletion of either PARK2 or PACRG in ALL. In conclusion, our results demonstrate for the first time that the candidate tumor suppressor genes PARK2 and PACRG are epigenetically regulated in human leukemia, suggesting that abnormal methylation and regulation of PARK2 and PACRG may play a role in the pathogenesis and development of this hematological neoplasm. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The value relevance of net income vs. impairment items in Chinese listed agribusinesses

This paper examines the value relevance of net income vs. impairment in Chinese listed agribusinesses. By linking valuation analysis with earnings time-series properties, we present additional evidence to support value relevance for listed agribusinesses: An earnings component is impounded in stock prices as long as it is persistent and no persistent impairment are value irrelevant. However, the time-series properties of earnings components are not fully priced by the market. The component items of net income, especially the impairments are found to be more effective in explaining the return and the stock price. The earnings response coefficients are larger for impairment than for net income, although impairment are less persistent and have lower predictive power. In discussing this pricing anomaly, we identify some unique institutional factors that may be responsible for the results.
Heterogeneous Disease Modeling for Hardy‐Weinberg Disequilibrium in Case‐Control Studies: Application to Renal Stones and Calcium‐Sensing Receptor Polymorphisms

Renal stone formation due to hypercalciuria is a relatively common disorder with clear evidence for genetic predisposition, but cryptic phenotypic heterogeneity has hampered identification of candidate genes. The R990G single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the calcium sensing receptor (CASR) gene has been associated with hypercalciuria in stone formers and shows the appropriate functional phenotype in cell culture. In our preliminary association analysis of a case‐control cohort, however, we observed significant Hardy‐Weinberg disequilibrium (HWD) for the cases (n= 223), but not controls (n= 676) at the R990G locus, pointing us toward the general disease model incorporating HWD. Because there is an adjacent CASR SNP, A986S, which is in negative linkage disequilibrium with R990G, we extended the general disease model to enable testing of a two‐site hypothesis. In our data set, there is no lack of fit (P= .345) for the single‐locus model for the R990G genotype, and likelihood ratio testing favors a recessive effect with an eight‐fold increase in risk (P < .001) for GG homozygotes, relative to wild‐type, based on a population prevalence of 2%. Addition of the A986S genotype provides no additional information either by itself or when included in our two‐site model.
Early Signaling by Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Placental Growth Factor in Human Bone Marrow-Derived Endothelial Cells Is Mediated by Superoxide

Aims: We investigated the role of superoxide O2– during the initiation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)- and placental growth factor (PlGF)-mediated signal transduction in bone marrow-derived endothelial cells. Methods: BMhTERT cells were treated with VEGF or PlGF in the presence or absence of antioxidants. The signaling pathways downstream were analyzed by immunoprecipitation and Western blotting. Superoxide and reactive oxygen species (ROS) were measured using Superluminol or 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescein fluorescence measurements. Results: We show here that VEGF and PlGF generate extracellular and intracellular O2– that regulates their downstream signaling transduction pathways. Indeed, the extracellular O2– generated treatment of endothelial cells (using hypoxanthine/xanthine oxidase) was sufficient to initiate receptor phosphorylation of VEGF receptor 2. The PlGF treatment of endothelial cells increased the generation of intracellular ROS in an extracellular O2– dependent manner. Quenching of intracellular ROS by resveratrol inhibits PlGF- and VEGF-dependent induction of MAP kinase phosphorylation. Additionally, we found that the interaction of VEGF and PlGF with their specific receptors generates O2– in a cell-free system. Endothelial cells treated with VEGF stop proliferation in the presence of extracellular catalase, superoxide dismutase or peroxiredoxin IV. Conclusion: Our studies underscore the role of O2– as a critical regulator of VEGF and PlGF signal transduction initiation in endothelial cells.
Alpha-Melanocyte–Stimulating Hormone Suppresses Oxidative Stress through a p53-Mediated Signaling Pathway in Human Melanocytes

Epidermal melanocytes are skin cells specialized in melanin production. Activation of the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) on melanocytes by α-melanocyte–stimulating hormone (α-MSH) induces synthesis of the brown/black pigment eumelanin that confers photoprotection from solar UV radiation (UVR). Contrary to keratinocytes, melanocytes are slow proliferating cells that persist in the skin for decades, in an environment with high levels of UVR-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS). We previously reported that in addition to its role in pigmentation, α-MSH also reduces oxidative stress and enhances the repair of DNA photoproducts in melanocytes, independent of melanin synthesis. Given the significance of ROS in carcinogenesis, here we investigated the mechanisms by which α-MSH exerts antioxidant effects in melanocytes. We show that activation of the MC1R by α-MSH contributes to phosphorylation of p53 on serine 15, a known requirement for stabilization and activation of p53, a major sensor of DNA damage. This effect is mediated by the cAMP/PKA pathway and by the activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) ATR and DNA protein kinase (DNA-PK). α-MSH increases the levels of 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase (OGG1) and apurinic apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 (APE-1/Ref-1), enzymes essential for base excision repair. Nutlin-3, an HDM2 inhibitor, mimicked the effects of α-MSH resulting in reduced phosphorylation of H2AX (γ-H2AX), a marker of DNA damage. Conversely, the p53 inhibitor pifithrin-α or silencing of p53 abolished the effects of α-MSH and augmented oxidative stress. These results show that p53 is an important target of the downstream MC1R signaling that reduces oxidative stress and possibly malignant transformation of melanocytes. Mol Cancer Res; 10(6); 778–86. ©2012 AACR.
A Distributed Context-Aware Trust Management Architecture

The realization of a pervasive context-aware service platform imposes new challenges for the security and privacy aspects of the system in relation to traditional service platforms. One important aspect is related with the management of trust relationships, which is especially hard in a pervasive environment because users are supposed to interact with entities unknown before hand in an ad-hoc and dynamic manner. Current trust management solutions do not adapt nor scale well in this dynamic service provisioning scenario because they require previously defined trust relationships in order to operate. The objective of this thesis is to design, prototype and validate a context-aware distributed trust management architecture in order to address: (a) the lack of integration between available trust solutions and security and privacy management languages, and (b) the dynamic characteristics of a context-aware service platform.
Food intake monitoring: an acoustical approach to automated food intake activity detection and classification of consumed food

Obesity and nutrition-related diseases are currently growing challenges for medicine. A precise and timesaving method for food intake monitoring is needed. For this purpose, an approach based on the classification of sounds produced during food intake is presented. Sounds are recorded non-invasively by miniature microphones in the outer ear canal. A database of 51 participants eating seven types of food and consuming one drink has been developed for algorithm development and model training. The database is labeled manually using a protocol with introductions for annotation. The annotation procedure is evaluated using Cohen's kappa coefficient. The food intake activity is detected by the comparison of the signal energy of in-ear sounds to environmental sounds recorded by a reference microphone. Hidden Markov models are used for the recognition of single chew or swallowing events. Intake cycles are modeled as event sequences in finite-state grammars. Classification of consumed food is realized by a finite-state grammar decoder based on the Viterbi algorithm. We achieved a detection accuracy of 83% and a food classification accuracy of 79% on a test set of 10% of all records. Our approach faces the need of monitoring the time and occurrence of eating. With differentiation of consumed food, a first step toward the goal of meal weight estimation is taken.
Does higher education service quality effect student satisfaction, image and loyalty?: A study of international students in Malaysian public universities

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Malaysian public universities’ service quality on international student satisfaction, institutional image and loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – A total number of 400 questionnaires were distributed to international students, selected using convenience sampling technique, at three public Malaysian university campuses in Kuala Lumpur. Of this, 241 were deemed fit for analysis (60 per cent response rate). Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the collected data, assess the model and test hypotheses. Findings – The findings show that all the five dimensions of higher education service quality influence student satisfaction which in turn influences institutional image, and together, they influence student loyalty. Research limitations/implications – There are a number of limitations associated with this study. First, the findings of the study are based on data from international students at only three Mala.
Response to Burgman and Regan: the elephant in the rhetoric on info-gap decision theory.

The formal, rigorous assessment of IGDT in Sniedovich (2012) reveals that this theory's central pillar, namely its robustness model, is a reinvention of a well-established model of local robustness, known universally as radius of stability (circa 1960). As a matter of fact, this robustness model is a simple model derived from Wald's famous maximin paradigm (circa 1940). This means that had there been any gap in the state of the art that IGDT could have possibly presumed to fill, this gap had already been filled decades ago, well before IGDT was even contemplated. The conclusion therefore is that there is no gap in the state of the art that IGDT does fill, or can possibly fill, or is called upon to fill. Also, since IGDT is based on a definition of local robustness, the theory is unsuitable for the treatment of a severe uncertainty of the type that this theory claims to address. Therefore, since the theory claims to be particularly suitable for the treatment of a severe, unbounded uncertainty, the inevitable conclusion is that this theory constitutes a voodoo decision theory par excellence. Fig. 1 speaks for itself so that no amount of rhetoric can explain this fact away. The Letter's attempt to brush off valid, rigorous, well-documented criticism of IGDT as ". haggling over terminology . " is yet another attempt to avoid dealing with the elephant in the IGDT room. Nothing will be gained from the use of misleading rhetorics to argue that ideas, models, techniques, approaches, etc., that go back to the 1940s and 1960s, are IGDT innovations. But more than this, what good can come of misapplications of these ideas in applied ecology and conservation biology? In the Appendix, I address a more intriguing question, namely: QUESTION 2: What could possibly be the rationale that motivated a search for a (nonexistent) gap in the state of the art for IGDT to fill?
Charged-Particle Probing of X-ray–Driven Inertial-Fusion Implosions

Ignition Set to Go One aim of the National Ignition Facility is to implode a capsule containing a deuterium-tritium fuel mix and initiate a fusion reaction. With 192 intense laser beams focused into a centimeter-scale cavity, a major challenge has been to create a symmetric implosion and the necessary temperatures within the cavity for ignition to be realized (see the Perspective by Norreys). Glenzer et al. (p. 1228, published online 28 January) now show that these conditions can be met, paving the way for the next step of igniting a fuel-filled capsule. Furthermore, Li et al. (p. 1231, published online 28 January) show how charged particles can be used to characterize and measure the conditions within the imploding capsule. The high energies and temperature realized can also be used to model astrophysical and other extreme energy processes in a laboratory settings. Laser-driven temperatures and implosion symmetry are close to the requirements for inertial-fusion ignition. Measurements of x-ray–driven implosions with charged particles have resulted in the quantitative characterization of critical aspects of indirect-drive inertial fusion. Three types of spontaneous electric fields differing in strength by two orders of magnitude, the largest being nearly one-tenth of the Bohr field, were discovered with time-gated proton radiographic imaging and spectrally resolved proton self-emission. The views of the spatial structure and temporal evolution of both the laser drive in a hohlraum and implosion properties provide essential insight into, and modeling validation of, x-ray–driven implosions.
Cells and holograms : holograms and digital holographic microscopy as a tool to study the morphology of living cells

Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) is an emerging high-resolution imaging technique that offers real-time imaging and quantitative measurements of physiological parameters without any staining or labeling of cells. The first DHM images of living cells were obtained 8-10 years ago [1, 2]. Analysis of human hepatocytes showed that DHM was a versatile tool for in vivo cell analysis by using quantitative amplitude and phase-contrast imaging with very high resolution [1]. Another study showed that the quantitative distribution of the opti‐ cal path length created by transparent specimens contained information concerning both morphology and refractive index of the observed mouse cortical neurons [2]. This could on‐ ly be measured by DHM and not by phase contrast and Nomarski’s differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy. In addition, the high sensitivity of these phase-shift measure‐ ments enables sub-wavelength axial accuracy, offering attractive possibilities for the visuali‐ zation of cellular dynamics.
Effect of Cobalt substitution on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of BaTiO3 ceramics

Cobalt doped BaTiO3 (BaTi1-xCoxO3) with x = 0, 5, 7.5, 10% have been synthesized by solid state reaction method and their structural, electrical and magnetic properties have been investigated. Structural characterization show that a multiphase ceramic containing both tetragonal and hexagonal structures are obtained for Co compositions from x = 5% to x = 10%. Ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties have been observed in all the Co-doped BaTiO3 ceramics at room temperature. The ferromagnetic hysteresis loop at room temperature is due to the formation of oxygen vacancies and their associated exchange interaction. The saturation magnetization (Ms) was 0.010 emu/g for x = 5%. Further, at x = 7.5%, it decreases and again start increasing upto ~ 0.013 emu/g for x = 10% with Cobalt concentration. However, ferroelectric hysteresis loop (P-E) is deteriorated (lossy type) with the increase of Co concentration above x = 5%. The dielectric characterization with frequency has also been carried out for all samples. The dielectric constant decreases with increasing Cobalt concentration.
Capacity Regions and Sum-Rate Capacities of Vector Gaussian Interference Channels

The capacity regions of vector, or multiple-input multiple-output, Gaussian interference channels are established for very strong interference and aligned strong interference. Furthermore, the sum-rate capacities are established for Z interference, noisy interference, and mixed (aligned weak/intermediate and aligned strong) interference. These results generalize known results for scalar Gaussian interference channels.
Efficient Algorithms for Computing the Jacobi Symbol

We present two new algorithms for computing the Jacobi Symbol: the right-shift and left-shift k-ary algorithms. For inputs of at most n bits in length, both algorithms take O(n 2 = logn) time and O(n) space. This is asymptotically faster than the traditional algorithm, which is based in Euclid’s algorithm for computing greatest common divisors. In practice, we found our new algorithms to be about twice as fast for inputs of 100 to 1000 decimal digits in length. We also present parallel versions of both algorithms for the CRCW PRAM. One version takes O(n= log logn) time using O(n 1+ ) processors, giving the rst sublinear parallel algorithms for this problem. The other version takes polylog time using a subexponential number of processors. c 1998 Academic Press
Recurrent gene loss correlates with the evolution of stomach phenotypes in gnathostome history

The stomach, a hallmark of gnathostome evolution, represents a unique anatomical innovation characterized by the presence of acid- and pepsin-secreting glands. However, the occurrence of these glands in gnathostome species is not universal; in the nineteenth century the French zoologist Cuvier first noted that some teleosts lacked a stomach. Strikingly, Holocephali (chimaeras), dipnoids (lungfish) and monotremes (egg-laying mammals) also lack acid secretion and a gastric cellular phenotype. Here, we test the hypothesis that loss of the gastric phenotype is correlated with the loss of key gastric genes. We investigated species from all the main gnathostome lineages and show the specific contribution of gene loss to the widespread distribution of the agastric condition. We establish that the stomach loss correlates with the persistent and complete absence of the gastric function gene kit—H+/K+-ATPase (Atp4A and Atp4B) and pepsinogens (Pga, Pgc, Cym)—in the analysed species. We also find that in gastric species the pepsinogen gene complement varies significantly (e.g. two to four in teleosts and tens in some mammals) with multiple events of pseudogenization identified in various lineages. We propose that relaxation of purifying selection in pepsinogen genes and possibly proton pump genes in response to dietary changes led to the numerous independent events of stomach loss in gnathostome history. Significantly, the absence of the gastric genes predicts that reinvention of the stomach in agastric lineages would be highly improbable, in line with Dollo's principle.
The KLE's Subtopic Mining System for the NTCIR-9 INTENT Task

This paper describes our subtopic mining system for the NTCIR-9 INTENT task. We propose a method that mines subtopics for each topic only using the given Chinese query log. Our method finds possible subtopics and estimates scores of them based on interest and clearness. In the Chinese subtopic mining, our best values of D#-nDCG were 0.3823 for l = 10, 0.4413 for l = 20 and 0.4241 for l = 30.