Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cold Rolled Steel and Knowledge: What Can Higher Education Learn About Productivity?

director of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the co-director of OLnet and serves as a redesign scholar for NCAT, as a fellow of International Society for Design and Development in Education, and on the Global Executive Advisory board for HP’s Catalyst Initiative. She worked with the US Dept. of Education on the 2010 National Education Technology Plan. Joel Smith is vice provost and chief information officer at Carnegie Mellon University. He also directs Carnegie Mellon’s Office of Technology for Education and is co-PI on the OLI.
A natural language processor for querying CINDI

In this thesis we present our work in designing and implementing a Natural Language Processor for querying Cindi, the Concordia Virtual Library System. The Natural Language Processor, named NLPQC, semantically parses natural language questions and builds corresponding SQL queries for the database. This makes the NLPQC system a Natural Language interface to relational databases. Our contribution to the field of the Natural Language interfaces is done through the reuse of WordNet and of the Link Parser, which are two proven tools from the Open Source domain, and through the introduction of a pre-processor that generates rules and templates for the semantic parsing. The NLPQC system is designed to be platform independent and can accept any database schema.
Small Integrin-Binding Proteins as Serum Markers for Prostate Cancer Detection

Purpose: The small integrin-binding ligand N-linked glycoprotein (SIBLING) gene family includes bone sialoprotein (BSP), dentin matrix protein 1 (DMP1), dentin sialophosphoprotein (DSPP), matrix extracellular phosphoglycoprotein (MEPE), and osteopontin (OPN). Previous studies have separately reported elevated expression of BSP, OPN, or DSPP in prostate tumor paraffin sections. We hypothesized that SIBLINGs may be informative serum markers for subjects with prostate cancer. Methods: Expression levels of SIBLINGs in biopsies of normal tissue and tumors from prostate were determined by cDNA array and by immunohistochemical staining with monoclonal antibodies. Competitive ELISAs for measuring total BSP, DSPP, MEPE, and OPN were applied to a test group of 102 subjects with prostate cancer and 110 normal subjects and a validation group of 90 subjects. Results: BSP, DMP1, DSPP, and OPN exhibited elevated mRNA expression and protein levels in biopsies. BSP, DSPP, and OPN were elevated in serum from prostate cancer subjects, with serum DSPP exhibiting the greatest difference, yielding an area under the receiver operator characteristic curve value of 0.98. Serum BSP and OPN levels were significantly elevated only in late stages, whereas DSPP was significantly elevated at all stages. Optimal serum value cutoff points derived for BSP, OPN, and DSPP were applied as a validation test to a new group of 90 subjects and DSPP yielded a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 100%. Conclusion: Of the SIBLING gene family members, DSPP appears to be a strong candidate for use in serum assays for prostate cancer detection. (Clin Cancer Res 2009;15(16):5199–207)
The adoption of management paradigms in Finnish management research 1937-2007

Purpose – This paper aims to examine when and how the main management paradigms have emerged and prevailed in Finnish management research. It seeks to offer a country-specific case on the diffusion of management paradigms in the field of management research. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a historical study that uses quantitative content analysis as a methodology. The data consist of research proposals funded by eight of the largest Finnish funding agencies during the period 1937-2007. The results obtained from these data are compared to the emergence and prevalence of the paradigms in Finnish academic management education, as depicted by course descriptions obtained from the study guides of eight main Finnish academic institutions that provide graduate level education in management. Findings – Management research and management education do not seem to follow the same patterns of adopting different management paradigms. Management paradigms seem to experience upswings in their patterns of use, on average a decade earlier in management research than in education. Originality/value – As the position of formal scientific management knowledge varies greatly across countries and historical periods, the study contributes to this line of research by giving a descriptive account of the paradigmatic development of management research schemes in Finland which can be compared and contrasted to the development of management research in other countries. The relevance of the study for management theory-building is in contemplating the relationships between the actors creating, diffusing and using managerial knowledge.
Soft-thresholding for spectrum sensing with coprime samplers

Coprime Sampling has been recently proposed to efficiently estimate the spectrum of wideband signals, using sampling rates which can be significantly lower than the Nyquist rate. While the method has been shown to work well when large number of samples are available for estimating the autocorrelation, the effect of fewer samples on the performance of coprime spectrum estimation has not been addressed so far. This paper addresses this issue by employing a denoising scheme on the spectral estimates, as a l1 norm penalized quadratic program. The solution to this problem results in the so-called soft thresholding operator on the spectral estimates, which inherently promotes sparsity. It also helps to combat the effect of spurious peaks resulting from the finite sample averaging. The probabilities of detecting active and inactive bands are also explicitly characterized and they converge to unity by increasing the number (L) of sub Nyquist samples available to compute the estimates. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through numerical examples.
A review of research on flower-colored mutants of fragrant cyclamens induced by ion-beam irradiation

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com main component of flower color is anthocyanin, a type of flavonoid [1]. Numerous genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis have been analyzed in various plants, and their biosynthesis pathways determined [2,3]. In addition to anthocyanins, flavonols and organic acids also play a role in flower color as ‘co-pigments’ [4]. Fragrant cyclamen cultivars were previously created using embryo rescue and chromosome doubling to perform interspecific hybridization between Cyclamenpurpurascens as the pollen parent and cultivars of C. persicum [5]. Initially, the fragrant cyclamen series consisted of purple or pink flowers only and increased variations in flower color were desired. Our overall aim, therefore, is to identify the genes related to cyclamen flower color with the goal of creating different flower-color mutants by using ion-beam irradiation. Here, we summarize the results so far and consider future development of this research. The main component of cyclamen flower color is anthocyanin, with certain flavonols also involved in co-pigmentation [6]. Approximately 20 homologues of flavonoid biosynthesis-related genes have so far been isolated from C. purpurascens and expression patterns examined by RT-PCR [7]. As a result, expression of a number of genes was confirmed in the slip and eye, with lower expression in the leaves. In addition, two flavonol synthase genes (CpurFLS1 and CpurFLS2) were also isolated and detailed analyses performed. As a result, CpurFLS2 is thought to play a role in flower color [8]. However, further clarification of direct involvement in flower color is required. For example, 3-O-glucosyltransferase (5GT) not only target anthocyanidin, but is also thought to act as a glycosidase of other flavonoids in freesia [9]. In the future, clarification of the enzyme genes directly related to flower color is therefore required via comparative analysis using flower-colored mutants and identification of the mutant factors.
Linguistic Knowledge and Subject Knowledge: How Does Bilingualism Contribute to Subject Development?

Experiments in bilingual education in Europe increasingly appear under the abbreviation ‘CLIL’ (Content and Language Integrated Learning). The main concept in it seems to be that of integration, as yet little described in research and insufficiently made conscious and explicit in the teaching process. This paper aims at studying the modes of integration between language and content by identifying different types of knowledge at the crossroads between the linguistic paradigm and the subject paradigm. It is based on discourse and interaction analysis of classroom interaction sequences in various subjects. It proposes elements for a basic theoretical framework designed to sustain the view of CLIL as an alternative not only in second language didactics, but also in the didactics of non-linguistic subjects.
Approximating entropy for a class of $\zz^2$ Markov Random Fields and pressure for a class of functions on $\zz^2$ shifts of finite type

For a class of $\zz^2$ Markov Random Fields (MRFs) $\mu$, we show that the sequence of successive differences of entropies of induced MRFs on strips of height $n$ converges exponentially fast (in $n$) to the entropy of $\mu$. These strip entropies can be computed explicitly when $\mu$ is a Gibbs state given by a nearest-neighbor interaction on a strongly irreducible nearest-neighbor $\zz^2$ shift of finite type $X$. We state this result in terms of approximations to the (topological) pressures of certain functions on such an $X$, and we show that these pressures are computable if the values taken on by the functions are computable. Finally, we show that our results apply to the hard core model and Ising model for certain parameter values of the corresponding interactions, as well as to the topological entropy of certain nearest-neighbor $\zz^2$ shifts of finite type, generalizing a result in \cite{Pa}.
Declínio cognitivo e demência associados à doença de Parkinson: características clínicas e tratamento Cognitive impairment and dementia in Parkinson's disease: clinical characteristics and treatment

Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is a progressive illness of undetermined cause with characteristic motor findings that include rest tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural disturbance. But cognitive impairment is common even in nondemented. In addition PD has been associated with an increased risk of developing dementia. Objectives: This review provides an analysis of the cognitive impairment associated with PD, about its aspects, risk factors, pathophysiology, and treatment. Methods: The current review incorporates articles obtained through Medline. Results: Non-demented and demented patients with Parkinson’s disease are impaired in several cognitive tasks. These impairments may be attributed to dysfunction the circuits connecting the frontal cortical regions and the basal ganglia. Mild cognitive dysfunctions may progress to dementia in some patients. Some risk factors for the development of dementia were identified and aspects of pathophysiology were disclosed. Conclusion: Neuropsychological profile of PD, which predominantly reflects frontal dysfunction, may be attributed to disruption of the frontoestriatal circuitry. But the pathophysiology underlying dementia in PD is not completely understood. Cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine have a modest effect against cognitive symptoms. Early detection of risk factors for development of dementia may help to create preventive strategies.
Contrasted Patterns of Crossover and Non-crossover at Arabidopsis thaliana Meiotic Recombination Hotspots

The vast majority of meiotic recombination events (crossovers (COs) and non-crossovers (NCOs)) cluster in narrow hotspots surrounded by large regions devoid of recombinational activity. Here, using a new molecular approach in plants, called “pollen-typing”, we detected and characterized hundreds of CO and NCO molecules in two different hotspot regions in Arabidopsis thaliana. This analysis revealed that COs are concentrated in regions of a few kilobases where their rates reach up to 50 times the genome average. The hotspots themselves tend to cluster in regions less than 8 kilobases in size with overlapping CO distribution. Non-crossover (NCO) events also occurred in the two hotspots but at very different levels (local CO/NCO ratios of 1/1 and 30/1) and their track lengths were quite small (a few hundred base pairs). We also showed that the ZMM protein MSH4 plays a role in CO formation and somewhat unexpectedly we also found that it is involved in the generation of NCOs but with a different level of effect. Finally, factors acting in cis and in trans appear to shape the rate and distribution of COs at meiotic recombination hotspots.
Woodchuck Hepatitis Virus Contains a Tripartite Posttranscriptional Regulatory Element

ABSTRACT The hepatitis B virus posttranscriptional regulatory element (HBVPRE) is a cis-acting RNA element that partially overlaps with enhancer I and is required for the cytoplasmic accumulation of HBV surface RNAs. We find that the closely related woodchuck hepatitis virus (WHV), which has been shown to lack a functional enhancer I, also contains a posttranscriptional regulatory element (WPRE). Deletion analysis suggests that the WPRE consists of three independent subelements. Comparison of the bipartite HBVPRE and tripartite WPRE activities reveals that the tripartite WPRE is two to three times more active than the bipartite HBVPRE. Mutation of a single WPRE subelement decreases WPRE activity to the level of the HBVPRE. Bipartite and tripartite chimeras of the WPRE and HBVPRE possess activities which suggest that elements containing three subelements are posttranscriptionally stronger than those containing two. These data demonstrate that the posttranscriptional regulatory element is conserved within the mammalian hepadnaviruses and that its strength is determined by the number of subelements within the RNA.
Unilateral postural control of the functionally dominant and nondominant extremities of healthy subjects.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether a difference in unilateral postural stability exists between the functionally dominant and nondominant legs of a healthy population. DESIGN AND SETTING The unilateral postural control of both legs of healthy subjects was tested using a force plafform. Before the postural control examination, each subject performed a series of functional tests to determine functional leg dominance. SUBJECTS Ten healthy young adults with a mean age of 19.2 +/- 3.2 years volunteered for this study. MEASUREMENTS Functional leg dominance was determined through the use of a battery of tests that included 3 separate evaluations of lower extremity dominance for functional activity. Two measures of postural control, sway area (SA) and sway path length (SPL), were collected for both the dominant and nondominant legs of all subjects. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether a difference in postural control between the 2 legs was present. RESULTS A subject x leg repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted on both dependent variables, SA and SPL. The SA ANOVA value was not significant. The mean value for the dominant-leg SA measurement was 9737.43 +/- 303.36 mm(2), whereas the mean SA for the nondominant leg was 9431.74 +/- 349.97 mm(2). The SPL ANOVA also showed no significant difference in the bilateral comparison. The mean SPL for the dominant leg was 4321.57 +/- 630.0 mm, and the mean SPL for the nondominant leg was 4341.88 +/- 1,013.31 mm. CONCLUSIONS We found no difference in unilateral postural stability between the functionally dominant and nondominant lower limbs in a healthy population of young adults. This is of particular interest to the clinician who commonly uses singleleg postural control evaluations in the assessment of an athlete's level of progress in the rehabilitation setting.
Impacto de Treinamento no Trabalho: um estudo de caso na Fundação Hemominas

Este artigo teve como objetivo analisar o processo de treinamento e seu impacto no trabalho, em uma organizacao publica. Adotou-se o conceito de treinamento como um processo que ocorre em quatro etapas: levantamento de necessidades, planejamento, execucao e avaliacao. Para a etapa de avaliacao, foi utilizado o modelo IMPACT para avaliar o impacto do treinamento no trabalho. As etapas foram investigadas na pesquisa empirica, de natureza descritiva e explicativa e de carater quantitativo e qualitativo, desenvolvida em uma unidade da Fundacao Hemominas. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de questionarios aplicados a uma amostra de 153 treinandos e por entrevistas com 11 pessoas chave, ligadas ao processo de treinamento. Os dados quantitativos foram submetidos a analise estatistica descritiva e multivariada e os dados qualitativos, a tecnica de construcao da explanacao. As analises estatisticas indicaram escalas uni fatoriais e psicometricamente validas. A partir dos resultados, verificou-se a existencia de falhas nas etapas de levantamento de necessidades e de planejamento do treinamento, que comprometeram a etapa de execucao. Na percepcao dos respondentes, o impacto do treinamento no trabalho foi avaliado como bom, verificando-se que a qualidade do trabalho melhorou com a aplicacao dos conhecimentos adquiridos no treinamento. Entretanto, o suporte gerencial e social foi avaliado como pouco frequente, indicando a falta de planejamento e de apoio da chefia e da equipe para o uso das novas habilidades, o que influencia negativamente a transferencia do aprendido para a pratica de trabalho em longo prazo.
Fuzzy-Clustering-Based Decision Tree Approach for Large Population Speaker Identification

In this paper, we address the problem of large population speaker identification under noisy conditions. Major techniques for speaker identification is based on Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and Universal Background Model (UBM) which we call MFCC+GMM and MFCC+GMM+UBM. The approaches are known to perform very well for small population identification under low-noise conditions. However, the increase of population size can cause performance degradation of these schemes under noisy conditions. To mitigate this limitation, we propose a fuzzy-clustering-based decision tree approach. The key idea of our approach is to 1) use a decision tree to hierarchically partition the whole population into groups of small size, and determine which speaker group at the leaf node a speaker under test belongs to, and 2) apply MFCC+GMM to the selected speaker group for speaker identification. The advantage of our approach is that we use features that are independent from MFCC to partition speakers into groups and only apply MFCC+GMM to speaker groups at the leaf level. The key challenge in our design is how to achieve a low error probability of decision-tree-based classification. To address this, we adopt fuzzy clustering in constructing the tree for population partitioning, i.e., at each level, a speaker may belong to multiple groups. Such redundancy increases the probability of classifying a speaker under test into a correct group/node on the tree. Another novelty of this paper is that we use pitch and five vocal source features to construct a six-level decision tree. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach outperforms MFCC+ GMM and MFCC+ GMM+ UBM with higher accuracy and lower complexity for large population identification under additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) conditions.
Species Diversity Improves the Efficiency of Mercury-Reducing Biofilms under Changing Environmental Conditions

ABSTRACT Six mercury-resistant environmental proteobacterial isolates and one genetically modified mercury-resistant Pseudomonas putida strain were analyzed for physiological traits of adaptive relevance in an environment of packed-bed bioreactors designed for the decontamination of mercury-polluted chlor-alkali wastewater. The strains displayed characteristic differences in each trait (i.e., biofilm formation capability, growth rate in mercury contaminated wastewaters, and mercury reduction efficiency). Subsequently, they were immobilized either as a monoculture or as a mixed culture on porous carrier material in packed-bed bioreactors through which different batches of filter-sterilized industrial chlor-alkali wastewater were pumped. In monospecies bioreactors, the mercury retention efficiency was sensitive to rapidly increasing mercury concentrations in the wastewater. Mixed culture biofilms displayed a high mercury retention efficiency that was not affected by rapid increases in mercury or continuously high mercury concentrations. The dynamic in the community composition of the mixed culture bioreactors was determined by ribosomal intergenic spacer polymorphism analysis. Mercury-mediated selective pressure decreased the number of prevalent strains. Microbial diversity was completely restored after easing of the selective pressure. Microbial diversity provides a reservoir of strains with complementary ecological niches that results in a superior bioreactor performance under changing environmental conditions.
Neurovascular function recovery after focal ischemic stroke by enhancing cerebral collateral circulation via peripheral stimulation-mediated interarterial anastomosis

Abstract. Current treatments for ischemic stroke have focused on the administration of a tissue plasminogen activator, although the associated side effects and subsequent reperfusion injury remain challenging. Peripheral electrical stimulation has shed light on therapeutic interventions for ischemia by increasing cerebral blood flow (CBF) to the target region through collateral circulation, although the mechanism remains elusive. Here, a focal photothrombotic ischemic (PTI) stroke was induced in the right hemispheric primary somatosensory forelimb cortex (S1FL) of rat brains, and the therapeutic effects of forelimb and hindlimb stimulation were characterized at the contralesional S1FL. We observed that PTI stroke rats that received forelimb stimulation exhibited significantly restored CBF of the ischemic penumbra (1.06±0.25 for the S1FL and 0.99±0.14 for the primary somatosensory hindlimb cortex, respectively), electrocorticography (ECoG) delta band coherence of the intercortical S1FL (0.93±0.04) at the 75th min poststroke and an ischemic infarct (7.3±0.2 mm3) via collateral circulation recruitment. Importantly, anterior cerebral artery/middle cerebral artery (ACA–MCA) interarterial anastomotic regulation occurred upon forelimb stimulation and played roles in the recovery of neurovascular functions. These results indicated that receptive field-specific stimulation further restores CBF, neuronal activities, and tissue viability through the enhancement of ACA–MCA interarterial anastomosis-mediated collateral circulation and provides a feasible therapeutic intervention for stroke recovery.
Rethinking the Network Stack for Rack-scale Computers

The rack is increasingly replacing individual servers as the basic building block of modern data centers. Future rack-scale computers will comprise a large number of tightly integrated systems-on-chip, interconnected by a switch-less internal fabric. This design enables thousands of cores per rack and provides high bandwidth for rack-scale applications. Most of the benefits promised by these new architectures, however, can only be achieved with adequate support from the software stack. In this paper, we take a step in this direction by focusing on the network stack for rack-scale computers. Using routing and rate control as examples, we show how the peculiarities of rack architectures allow for new approaches that are attuned to the underlying hardware. We also discuss other exciting research challenges posed by rack-scale computers.