Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Information bottleneck based age verification

Word N-gram models can be used for word-based age-group verification. In this paper the Agglomerative Information Bottleneck (AIB) approach is used to tackle one of the most fundamental drawbacks of word N-gram models: its abundant amount of irrelevant information. It is demonstrated that irrelevant information can be omitted by joining words to form word-clusters; this provides a mechanism to transform any sequence of words to a sequence of word-cluster labels. Consequently, word N-gram models are converted to wordcluster N-gram models which are more compact. Age verification experiments were conducted on the Fisher corpora. Their goal was to verify the age-group of the speaker of an unknown speech segment. In these experiments an Ngram model was compressed to a fifth of its original size without reducing the verification performance. In addition, a verification accuracy improvement is demonstrated by disposing irrelevant information.
Allosteric Modulation of Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptors

An allosteric modulator is a ligand that binds to an allosteric site on the receptor and changes receptor conformation to produce increase (positive cooperativity) or decrease (negative cooperativity) in the binding or action of an orthosteric agonist (e.g., acetylcholine). Since the identification of gallamine as the first allosteric modulator of muscarinic receptors in 1976, this unique mode of receptor modulation has been intensively studied by many groups. This review summarizes over 30 years of research on the molecular mechanisms of allosteric interactions of drugs with the receptor and for new allosteric modulators of muscarinic receptors with potential therapeutic use. Identification of positive modulators of acetylcholine binding and function that enhance neurotransmission and the discovery of highly selective allosteric modulators are mile-stones on the way to novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders involving impaired cognitive function.
The local practices of assessment

It is argued that assessment discourses are essentially local discourses. Assessment warrants, such as certificates and diplomas, are essentially local creations. They ought not to be treated as valid and reliable descriptions of general achievement. The case is developed by distinguishing between three forms of assessment and arguing that different forms of assessment support different degrees of confidence in our judgements of achievement.
Selective Attention to Words and Colours

In the Stroop test it is found that the presence of words interferes with the task of naming colours. The usual account of this phenomenon is that the names of words are more readily obtained than are the names of colours and that the production of the latter is interfered with by the spontaneous occurrence of the former. Treisman and Fearnley (1969) have suggested a modification of the usual account such that stress is laid on the correspondence between the nature of the response (“verbal”) and that feature of a stimulus which will dominate. The present experiments seem to demonstrate that the data which Treisman and Fearnley use in support of their claim can be attributed to the strategy which their subjects adopted in their task. Some further observations are made concerning the different levels at which comparisons can be made between two stimuli.
Organizing heterogeneous scene collections through contextual focal points

We introduce focal points for characterizing, comparing, and organizing collections of complex and heterogeneous data and apply the concepts and algorithms developed to collections of 3D indoor scenes. We represent each scene by a graph of its constituent objects and define focal points as representative substructures in a scene collection. To organize a heterogeneous scene collection, we cluster the scenes based on a set of extracted focal points: scenes in a cluster are closely connected when viewed from the perspective of the representative focal points of that cluster. The key concept of representativity requires that the focal points occur frequently in the cluster and that they result in a compact cluster. Hence, the problem of focal point extraction is intermixed with the problem of clustering groups of scenes based on their representative focal points. We present a co-analysis algorithm which interleaves frequent pattern mining and subspace clustering to extract a set of contextual focal points which guide the clustering of the scene collection. We demonstrate advantages of focal-centric scene comparison and organization over existing approaches, particularly in dealing with hybrid scenes, scenes consisting of elements which suggest membership in different semantic categories.
A Morphological Study of the Cochlear Nuclei of the Pigeon (Columba livia)

The pigeon cochlear nucleus angularis (NA) and nucleus magnocellularis (NM) were analyzed with Golgi and Nissl techniques. NA was divided into a medial NAm and NA proper, which could be subdivided further into an intermediate NAi and lateral NAl. NAm contained a mostly homogeneous population of a unique multipolar cell type with very short dendrites and large somatic spines. NA proper contained four cell types: large, medium, and small multipolars, and medium bipolar. The medium multipolar cells were most common, and resembled the multipolar cells of the mammalian ventral cochlear nucleus. NM presented a homogenous appearance with a mediolateral gradient of cell size and shape. Medially located higher best frequency NM principal cells had round cell bodies with small somatic spines and few dendrites. By comparison, laterally located low best frequency NM stellate cells had more dendrites and spindle shaped cell bodies. The similarities between the cell types of NA and the cell types in the cochlear nuclei of other amniote vertebrates may be due to homology or convergent evolution.
Preliminary Development of a Measure to Assess Children's Trauma Attributions

ABSTRACT The Trauma Attribution Checklist (TAC) is a brief self-report measure of children's trauma-related attributions. A preliminary study with school-aged children, 12 months after exposure to a series of tornadoes, demonstrated significant correlations between TAC items and the Reaction Index, a measure of posttraumatic distress. Children with higher posttraumatic distress scores made more attributions of responsibility for negative tornado-related events, were more concerned with making attributions, had higher expectations of a tornado recurrence, and were more hypervigilant than children with less severe symptoms. Regression analyses indicated that items addressing expectations of recurrence and hypervigilance explained 53.3% of the variance in posttraumatic distress, with having made an attribution of responsibility for a tornado-related event accounting for an additional 5.6% of the variance.
A 10 G NetFPGA Prototype for In-Network Aggregation

An emerging class of distributed applications such as graph processing and key-value store require fine grained non-uniform memory access and communication, which commodity networking infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle. By batching messages on the end host we can increase bandwidth utilization at the cost of latency and memory. However, by batching messages in the network instead of exclusively at the end hosts, it is possible to reduce these memory and latency penalties. We introduce a 10G NetFPGA prototype that performs in-network message aggregation which for commodity systems can offer increased throughput at minimal latency and memory increases.
A score to predict early risk of recurrence after ischemic stroke

Background: There is currently no instrument to stratify patients presenting with ischemic stroke according to early risk of recurrent stroke. We sought to develop a comprehensive prognostic score to predict 90-day risk of recurrent stroke. Methods: We analyzed data on 1,458 consecutive ischemic stroke patients using a Cox regression model with time to recurrent stroke as the response and clinical and imaging features typically available to physician at admission as covariates. The 90-day risk of recurrent stroke was calculated by summing up the number of independent predictors weighted by their corresponding β-coefficients. The resultant score was called recurrence risk estimator at 90 days or RRE-90 score (available at: http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/RRE-90/). Results: Sixty recurrent strokes (54 had baseline imaging) occurred during the follow-up period. The risk adjusted for time to follow-up was 6.0%. Predictors of recurrence included admission etiologic stroke subtype, prior history of TIA/stroke, and topography, age, and distribution of brain infarcts. The RRE-90 score demonstrated adequate calibration and good discrimination (area under the ROC curve [AUC] = 0.70–0.80), which was maintained when applied to a separate cohort of 433 patients (AUC = 0.70–0.76). The model's performance was also maintained for predicting early (14-day) risk of recurrence (AUC = 0.80). Conclusions: The RRE-90 is a Web-based, easy-to-use prognostic score that integrates clinical and imaging information available in the acute setting to quantify early risk of recurrent stroke. The RRE-90 demonstrates good predictive performance, suggesting that, if validated externally, it has promise for use in creating individualized patient management algorithms and improving clinical practice in acute stroke care.
Using a Nominal Group Process to Plan Educational Outreach for a Bahamas Park

A needs assessment for an education and outreach program for Abaco National Park in the Bahamas used a nominal group process to collect data from seven key stakeholder groups: neighboring residents, community leaders, teachers, hunters, environmental group members, tourism industry representatives, and international biologists. Stakeholders identified primary threats to Abaco National Park and its endangered Bahama parrots, prioritized benefits that park resources could provide, and ranked potential educational techniques. These results were combined with ecological information to provide educators with priority strategies and content for materials targeting teachers, local communities, and the tourism industry.
Pillbox organizers are associated with improved adherence to HIV antiretroviral therapy and viral suppression: a marginal structural model analysis.

BACKGROUND Pillbox organizers are inexpensive and easily used; however, their effect on adherence to antiretroviral medications is unknown. METHODS Data were obtained from an observational cohort of 245 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected subjects who were observed from 1996 through 2000 in San Francisco, California. Adherence was the primary outcome and was measured using unannounced monthly pill counts. Plasma HIV RNA level was considered as a secondary outcome. Marginal structural models were used to estimate the effect of pillbox organizer use on adherence and viral suppression, adjusting for confounding by CD4+ T cell count, viral load, prior adherence, recreational drug use, demographic characteristics, and current and past treatment. RESULTS Pillbox organizer use was estimated to improve adherence by 4.1%-4.5% and was associated with a decrease in viral load of 0.34-0.37 log10 copies/mL and a 14.2%-15.7% higher probability of achieving a viral load < or = 400 copies/mL (odds ratio, 1.8-1.9). All effect estimates were statistically significant. CONCLUSION Pillbox organizers appear to significantly improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy and to improve virologic suppression. We estimate that pillbox organizers may be associated with a cost of approximately $19,000 per quality-adjusted life-year. Pillbox organizers should be a standard intervention to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy.
A DNA Pooling Strategy for Family-Based Association Studies

Genome-wide association scans for disease susceptibility genes of complex diseases require genotyping on a massive scale. A DNA pooling strategy for family-based association studies is described, which is robust to population stratification biases and to errors in pooling. It can achieve a statistical efficiency of 0.95 with ∼1 of 8 or fewer genotyping efforts, and an efficiency of 0.90 with ∼1 of 16 or fewer efforts compared with individual genotyping. The pooling method described in this article provides a tradeoff between genotyping efforts and subject recruitment efforts.
Research on service positioning of logistics enterprises

This paper describes diverse logistics enterprises from a different point of view — service positioning. Logistics is an aggregate industry which covers industries ranging from transportation, storage, distribution processing, service integration, information management to design consultation. On basis of that, it's necessary for every logistics enterprise to identify self-positioning in market competition, which, for example, includes selection on targeting area, operational commodity category and service program together with its level of difficulty. The factors affecting service positioning of logistics enterprises and its possible trends are discussed in this article. In addition, the article reveals the fact that the precise positioning is the crucial issue needed to be considered by our domestic logistics enterprises, the result of which may exert great impact on the competitive advantages and sustainable development of logistics enterprises.
A Comparison of Four Catholic Groups on Well-Being and Religiosity

Abstract The current study analyzed the relationship between well-being and (1) marital status, and (2) religion among a sample of Catholics. We predicted that married Catholics would have the highest rates of well-being while the divorced would have the lowest rates. Those currently in a cohabitating relationship and who are remarried were predicted to fall in-between the married and divorced samples. We also predicted that the married would be the most integrated into the church while the cohabitants would be least. A total of 420 Catholic respondents were recruited from local church bulletins and Family Life groups. Results indicated support for the hypotheses. The married sample was much less likely to have seen a therapist and to feel that they were a failure. They had the greatest percentage agreeing that they were just as happy now as when they were younger and that they were satisfied with their mental and emotional health. The divorced scored lowest on five of the six measures of well-being. Results also were in line with the prediction that the cohabitants would score lowest on our measures of integration. We argued that this is due to the fact that cohabitants, by virtue of breaking the religious dictates of sex only within the marital bonds, are lower in religious involvement.
A large deletion of the long arm of chromosome No. 4 in a child with limb abnormalities.

No caseofcomplete monosomyfora human autosome hasasyetbeenreported. Examples of thetrisomic condition whichisproduced bythe samemechanism ofnon-disjunction are,however, relatively frequent. Itmustbeassumed, therefore, thatthemonosomic state islessviable thanthe trisomic. Partial monosomic conditions havebeen described, someofwhicharerelated toadefinite syndrome spectrum, buteventhese arerareinthe population. Themostauthenticated caseofpartial monosomywasthatfirst described byLejeune, Lafourcade, Berger, Vialatte, Boeswillwald, Seringe, andTurpin (1963) andtermed 'cri-du-chat' because
An evaluation of erasure decoding algorithms for Gabidulin codes

Gabidulin codes are linear block codes over an extension field that can be seen as the analogs of Reed-Solomon codes for the rank metric. Important applications of Gabidulin codes include the areas of network coding and distributed storage, particularly for the problem of rank erasure correction. This paper studies the complexity of erasure decoding algorithms for Gabidulin codes with short-to-moderate (not asymptotically long) block lengths. The two fastest known algorithms are compared in detail (in terms of exact number of operations) and it is shown for which parameter values one algorithm is superior to the other.
Acoustic comparison of CV syllables in French-speaking children with normal hearing, moderate-to-severe and profound hearing impairment

Acoustic measures of (1) syllable duration, (2) voice onset time, (3) fundamental frequency (F0) and (4) the first three formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3) of vowels were provided for a speech corpus produced by 10 French-speaking children (five boys, five girls, with an average age of 9;4 years) with profound hearing impairment (i.e. pure tone averages of more than 100 dB HL.) These data were then compared with previously published data for children with moderate-to-severe hearing impairment (i.e. pure tone averages of more than 60 dB HL) and normally hearing children. The children with profound hearing loss were significantly different in all measures from peers with moderate-to-severe hearing loss and normally hearing peers, while children with moderate-to-severe hearing impairment were not significantly different from their normally hearing peers.
The formative and summative uses of a Professional Development Portfolio: a Maltese case study

The paper examines the rationale and the uses of portfolios in initial teacher education. This rationale is then applied to explore the development and implementation of the Professional Development Portfolio (PDP) as an integral part of the initial teacher education programme offered by the Faculty of Education, University of Malta. The paper considers the responses of students and lecturers to this mode of assessment; in particular, how the tensions between the formative and summative functions of portfolios were experienced and responded to at institutional level. The paper is the result of the debates and discussions among the three authors. Deborah Chetcuti and Grace Grima were directly involved in the development of the assessment innovation, Patricia Murphy was a visiting academic and external examiner during the period.
Postoperative pain management: new, convenient analgesic therapies

Despite the potential benefits to patient health that can result from effective pain management, survey results continue to indicate that acute postoperative pain remains inadequately managed worldwide. The development of novel analgesics and advanced analgesic delivery techniques has the potential to improve current strategies for postoperative pain management. This article outlines the pharmacological principles and clinical utility of recently developed agents and a novel drug delivery device indicated for the management of moderate-to-severe acute postoperative pain.
Calcium-Activated Tension of Skinned Muscle Fibers of the Frog

The influence of MgATP on the Ga++-activated isometric tension of skinned frog muscle fibers was examined in solutions containing: Mg++ = 5 mM, creatine phosphate (CP) = 14.5 mM, creatinephosphokinase (CPK) = 1 mg/ml, total EGTA = 7 mM, CaCl2, KCl, imidazole ≥ 20 mM so that ionic strength = 0.15, pH = 7.00, and MgATP = 2 mM, 0.1 mM, or 20 µM. CP and CPK were necessary for these experiments as determined experimentally by their effect on the tension-Ca++ relation, which was saturated for CP ≥ 14.5 mM. This was interpreted to mean that sufficient CP was present to effectively buffer MgATP intracellularly. Decreasing MgATP shifts the tension-pCa curve to higher pCa (-log Ca++) so that, for half-maximal tension: pCa1/2 = 4.5 for MgATP = 2 mM, pCa1/2 = 5.1 for MgATP = 0.1 mM, and pCa1/2 = 5.8 for MgATP = 20 µM; maximum isometric tension is the same in all cases, however. If MgATP was decreased to 1 µM, tension at Ga++ > 10–8 M was 84% of the maximum Ca-+-activated tension in 2 mM MgATP and increased only slightly to 90% for pCa = 4.5. Weber (1970, In The Physiology and Biochemistry of Muscle as Food, Volume 2, E. J. Briskey, R. G. Cassens, and B. B. Marsh, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wis.), using similar solutions, observed similar shifts in half-maximal calcium activation of rabbit myofibril ATPase rates. In explanation, Weber and Bremel (1971, In Contractility of Muscle Cells and Related Processes, R. J. Podolsky, editor, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Bremel and Weber, 1972, Nat. New Biol., 238:97) have described a mechanism whereby, at low ATP, "rigor complexes" are formed between myosin and thin filament actin and, in turn, alter the calcium affinity of one class of the two Ca++-binding sites on troponin, so that the thin filament is "turned on" for contraction at lower Ca++ levels. Tension data from skinned fibers substantially supports this hypothesis. A stability constant for CaEGTA of 2.62 x 1010 M–1 was determined, with the help of F. N. Briggs, in solutions similar to those used for skinned fibers and was the same for 100 and 300 mM KCl.
A Translational View of the Molecular Pathogenesis of Lung Cancer

Molecular genetic studies of lung cancer have revealed that clinically evident lung cancers have multiple genetic and epigenetic abnormalities, including DNA sequence alterations, copy number changes, and aberrant promoter hypermethylation. Together, these abnormalities result in the activation of oncogenes and inactivation of tumor-suppressor genes. In many cases these abnormalities can be found in premalignant lesions and in histologically normal lung bronchial epithelial cells. Findings suggest that lung cancer develops through a stepwise process from normal lung epithelial cells towards frank malignancy, which usually occurs as a result of cigarette smoking. Lung cancer has a high morbidity because it is difficult to detect early and is frequently resistant to available chemotherapy and radiotherapy. New, rationally designed early detection, chemoprevention, and therapeutic strategies based on the growing understanding of the molecular changes important to lung cancer are under investigation. For example, methylated tumor DNA sequences in sputum or blood are being investigated for early detection screening, and new treatments that specifically target molecules such as vascular endothelial growth factor and the epidermal growth factor receptor are becoming available. Meanwhile, global gene expression signatures from individual tumors are showing potential as prognostic and therapeutic indicators, such that molecular typing of individual tumors for therapy selection is not far away. Finally, the recent development of a model system of immortalized human bronchial epithelial cells, along with a paradigm shift in the conception of cancer stem cells, promises to improve the situation for patients with lung cancer. These advances highlight the translation of molecular discoveries on lung cancer pathogenesis from the laboratory to the clinic.
Web-based metadata retrieval tool for fine art and games artwork

Developers in art sector are faced with many problems during development of a new product (e.g. game). Resourcing of existing artworks, planning of the product development and commercialisation of their artworks are sources of wastes in the product development processes. Developers usually use multiple software and tools to perform these tasks; however, integration between these tools represents a major issue. In this paper, a web-based product improvement tool is presented. The tool provides developers with one-stop shop for them to resource their artworks, using Metadata, from a centralized web-based server; plan and optimise their production development using Lean principles; advertise and commercialise their artworks to potential customers and other developers.