Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sex roles in nest keeping – how information asymmetry contributes to parent‐offspring co‐adaptation

Abstract Parental food provisioning and offspring begging influence each other reciprocally. This makes both traits agents and targets of selection, which may ultimately lead to co‐adaptation. The latter may reflect co‐adapted parent and offspring genotypes or could be due to maternal effects. Maternal effects are in turn likely to facilitate in particular mother‐offspring co‐adaptation, further emphasized by the possibility that mothers are sometimes found to be more responsive to offspring need. However, parents may not only differ in their sensitivity, but often play different roles in postnatal care. This potentially impinges on the access to information about offspring need. We here manipulated the information on offspring need as perceived by parents by playing back begging calls at a constant frequency in the nest‐box of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). We measured the parental response in provisioning to our treatment, paying particular attention to sex differences in parental roles and whether such differences alter the perception of the intensity of our manipulation. This enabled us to investigate whether an information asymmetry about offspring need exists between parents and how such an asymmetry relates to co‐adaptation between parental provisioning and offspring begging. Our results show that parents indeed differed in the frequency how often they perceived the playback due to the fact that females spent more time with their offspring in the nest box. Correcting for the effective exposure of an adult to the playback, the parental response in provisioning covaried more strongly (positive) with offspring begging intensity, independent of the parental sex, indicating coadaptation on the phenotypic level. Females were not more sensitive to experimentally increased offspring need than males, but they were exposed to more broadcasted begging calls. Therefore, sex differences in access to information about offspring need, due to different parental roles, have the potential to impinge on family conflicts and their resolution.
Association of erythropoietin gene rs576236 polymorphism and risk of adrenal tumors in a Chinese population

Abstract Erythropoietin (EPO) is a circulating glycosylated protein hormone and has been implicated in the development and progression of non-hematopoietic tissue tumors. The objective of the present study was to determine if the EPO rs576236 polymorphism was associated with the risk of adrenal tumors. We genotyped the EPO rs576236 polymorphism in a case-control study of 288 adrenal tumor patients and 456 cancer-free controls by using the TaqMan method, and assessed the association between the polymorphism and the adrenal tumor risk by logistic regression. Furthermore, 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to assess the genetic association between the polymorphism and the risk of adrenal tumor. Compared with the TT genotype, the TC genotype had a significantly increased risk of adrenal tumor [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.12–2.22]. Furthermore a significantly increased risk of adrenal tumor was found in the combined variant genotypes TC+CC compared with the TT genotype (adjusted OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.12–2.21). Our present study suggests that the rs576236 polymorphism of EPO confers susceptibility to adrenal tumor in the Chinese population.
Victims and Not Violators: Scapegoat Theory and 3 Maccabees 7.10–17

The aim of this article is to read 3 Mace. 7.10–17 thorough the lens of René Girard's four stereotypes of scapegoating. The aim is to show that there is a way to make sense of the gratuitous violence in the scene, other than the explanation provided by the text. Interpreting the story in light of a scapegoating act not only helps to explain the disproportionate degree of punishment suffered by the apostates, but also uncovers a possible literary function for this inexplicable slaughter within the context of the narrative's conclusion. Read along the lines of sacrificial victims, the execution of the apostates makes certain that Philopator and the faithful Jews stand on the same side by story's end. While the execution of the traitors signifies the transference of Philopator's blame from one Jewish group to another, the willingness of the faithful Jews to put to death their own demonstrates once and for all their unyielding loyalty to the crown.
Social Disconnectedness, Perceived Isolation, and Health among Older Adults∗

Previous research has identified a wide range of indicators of social isolation that pose health risks, including living alone, having a small social network, infrequent participation in social activities, and feelings of loneliness. However, multiple forms of isolation are rarely studied together, making it difficult to determine which aspects of isolation are most deleterious for health. Using population-based data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, we combine multiple indicators of social isolation into scales assessing social disconnectedness (e.g., small social network, infrequent participation in social activities) and perceived isolation (e.g., loneliness, perceived lack of social support). We examine the extent to which social disconnectedness and perceived isolation have distinct associations with physical and mental health among older adults. Results indicate that social disconnectedness and perceived isolation are independently associated with lower levels of self-rated physical health. However, the association between disconnectedness and mental health may operate through the strong relationship between perceived isolation and mental health. We conclude that health researchers need to consider social disconnectedness and perceived isolation simultaneously.
Design of a switch for network on chip applications

System on Chip (SoC) design in the forthcoming billion transistor era will involve the integration of numerous heterogeneous semiconductor intellectual property (IP) blocks. Some of the main problems in the ultra deep sub micron technologies characterized by gate lengths in the range of 50-100 nm arise from non-scalable global wire delays, failure to achieve global synchronization, errors due to signal integrity issues, and difficulties associated with non-scalable bus-based functional interconnect. These problems are addressed in this paper by introducing a new design methodology. A switch-based network-centric architecture to interconnect IP blocks is proposed. We introduce a butterfly fat tree architecture as an overall interconnect template. In this new interconnect architecture, switches are used to transfer data between IP blocks. To reduce overall latency and hardware overhead, wormhole routing is adopted. The proposed switch architecture supports this routing method. Initial implementation of the switch reveals that the total switch area is expected to amount to less than 2% of a large SoC.
Analysis of low rank matrix recovery via Mendelson's small ball method

We study low rank matrix recovery from undersampled measurements via nuclear norm minimization. We aim to recover an n<sub>1</sub> x n<sub>2</sub> matrix X from m measurements (Frobenius inner products) 〈X, A<sub>j</sub>〉, j = 1.m. We consider different scenarios of independent random measurement matrices A<sub>j</sub> and derive bounds for the minimal number of measurements sufficient to uniformly recover any rank r matrix X with high probability. Our results are stable under passing to only approximately low rank matrices and under noise on the measurements. In the first scenario the entries of the A<sub>j</sub> are independent mean zero random variables of variance 1 with bounded fourth moments. Then any X of rank at most r is stably recovered from m measurements with high probability provided that m ≥ Cr max{n<sub>1</sub>, n<sub>2</sub>}. The second scenario studies the physically important case of rank one measurements. Here, the matrix X to recover is Hermitian of size n × n and the measurement matrices A<sub>j</sub> are of the form A<sub>j</sub> = a<sub>j</sub>a*<sub>j</sub> for some random vectors a<sub>j</sub>. If the a<sub>j</sub> are independent standard Gaussian random vectors, then we obtain uniform stable and robust rank-r recovery with high probability provided that m ≥ crn. Finally we consider the case that the a<sub>j</sub> are independently sampled from an (approximate) 4-design. Then we require m ≥ crn log n for uniform stable and robust rank-r recovery. In all cases, the results are shown via establishing a stable and robust version of the rank null space property. To this end, we employ Mendelson's small ball method.
Efficient protection of kernel data structures via object partitioning

Commodity operating system kernels isolate applications via separate memory address spaces provided by virtual memory management hardware. However, kernel memory is unified and mixes core kernel code with driver components of different provenance. Kernel-level malicious software exploits this lack of isolation between the kernel and its modules by illicitly modifying security-critical kernel data structures. In this paper, we design an access control policy and enforcement system that prevents kernel components with low trust from altering security-critical data used by the kernel to manage its own execution. Our policies are at the granularity of kernel variables and structure elements, and they can protect data structures dynamically allocated at runtime. Our hypervisor-based design uses memory page protection bits as part of its policy enforcement. The granularity difference between page-level protection and variable-level policies challenges the system's ability to remain performant. We develop kernel data-layout partitioning and reorganization techniques to maintain kernel performance in the presence of our protections. We show that our system can prevent malicious modifications to security-critical kernel data with small overhead. By offering protection for critical kernel data structures, we can detect unknown kernel-level malware and guarantee that security utilities relying on the integrity of kernel-level state remain accurate.
Hemichannels: new roles in astroglial function

The role of astrocytes in brain function has evolved over the last decade, from support cells to active participants in the neuronal synapse through the release of “gliotransmitters. ”Astrocytes express receptors for most neurotransmitters and respond to them through Ca2+ intracellular oscillations and propagation of intercellular Ca2+ waves. While such waves are able to propagate among neighboring astrocytes through gap junctions, thereby activating several astrocytes simultaneously, they can also trigger the release of gliotransmitters, including glutamate, d-serine, glycine, ATP, adenosine, or GABA. There are several mechanisms by which gliotransmitter release occurs, including functional hemichannels. These gliotransmitters can activate neighboring astrocytes and participate in the propagation of intercellular Ca2+ waves, or activate pre- and post-synaptic receptors, including NMDA, AMPA, and purinergic receptors. In consequence, hemichannels could play a pivotal role in astrocyte-to-astrocyte communication and astrocyte-to-neuron cross-talk. Recent evidence suggests that astroglial hemichannels are involved in higher brain functions including memory and glucose sensing. The present review will focus on the role of hemichannels in astrocyte-to-astrocyte and astrocyte-to neuron communication and in brain physiology.
Reliability of serial urine HCG as a biomarker to detect early pregnancy loss.

BACKGROUND To examine the reliability of HCG as a biomarker for early pregnancy loss, five experienced researchers independently assessed data from 153 menstrual cycles, determining whether each cycle represented 'no conception,' a 'continuing conception' or a 'conception lost. ' METHODS Urine samples were analysed by immunoradiometric assay using a combination of capture antibodies for the intact heterodimer (B109) and for an epitope common to the beta subunit and the beta core fragment (B204). For each cycle, HCG data were presented as graphs of daily assay results. Summary statistics for HCG assays from 46 women who had undergone bilateral tubal ligation represented baseline values. RESULTS Pairwise agreement among the assessors for any of the three options ranged from 78-89%. At least three experts agreed for 147 cycles (96%), accounting for 28 conception losses and 19 continuing conceptions. The multi-rater kappa was 0.62 for the conception lost category and 0.68 for continuing conceptions, indicating substantial agreement. CONCLUSION The main sources of disagreement involved deciding whether there was sufficient information for assessment, interpreting cycle parameters such as cycle length or bleeding event, and interpreting a distinct HCG rise pattern that does not exceed the baseline value obtained from the sterilized women.
Cayley graphs and symmetric interconnection networks

These lecture notes are on automorphism groups of Cayley graphs and their applications to optimal fault-tolerance of some interconnection networks. We first give an introduction to automorphisms of graphs and an introduction to Cayley graphs. We then discuss automorphism groups of Cayley graphs. We prove that the vertex-connectivity of edge-transitive graphs is maximum possible. We investigate the automorphism group and vertex-connectivity of some families of Cayley graphs that have been considered for interconnection networks; we focus on the hypercubes, folded hypercubes, Cayley graphs generated by transpositions, and Cayley graphs from linear codes. New questions and open problems are also discussed.
Analyzing and Preventing MAC-Layer Denial of Service Attacks for Stock 802 . 11 Systems

Network survivability is fundamental to information security. Adversaries could compromise network functionality by attacking the physical layer, the medium access control (MAC) layer, or the network layer. Even though security mechanisms for the network layer have been extensively discussed, MAC layer security has not been deeply explored. Leveraging security flaws in the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol and the salient features of a Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET), even an average person with limited knowledge of wireless networks can launch MAClayer denial of service (DOS) attacks. In this paper, we study two types of MAC layer DOS attacks that can be easily employed by an average person: attacks launched from a single adversary by injecting enormous data flows into the network, and attacks launched from two colluding adversaries by sending enormous data flows directly to each other. We propose new counter measures to defend against these two types of DOS attacks. Since this paper focuses on MAC layer DOS attacks that could be easily executed by an average person, and compromising legitimate nodes is not an easy task, we only consider DOS attacks launched directly from adversaries, instead of from compromised nodes.
ON THE EXISTENCE OF A FACTOR OF DEGREE ONE OF A CONNECTED RANDOM GRAPH

Note that the limits on the right of (0. 4) are the terms of a Poisson distribution with mean value e~2c, and thus their sum for /с = 0, 1, . equals 1. Thus in case N —\ n log n + 0(n) the random graph r nN consists with probability tending to 1 of a connected component and a certain number of isolated points. A graph G is said to have a factor of degree one if one can select such a subset S of the edges of G that each point P of G is the endpoint of one and only one edge
A smooth approximation of mobile platform displacement for Mobile Haptic Interfaces

One of most interesting aspects in haptic research deals with the extension of application workspace, thus allowing haptic simulation within large virtual environments. Several devices have been realized that allow this kind of interaction, in particular our interest focuses on mobile haptic interfaces, realized by combining classic grounded haptic devices with mobile platforms. While grounded haptic interfaces feature fast sampling rate and finest quantization, mobile haptic interfaces are multirate devices where the displacement sampling of mobile platform may affect the quality of haptic rendering. In this paper we introduce a simple smoothing algorithm that allows to approximate a slow-rate and roughquantized sampled signal representing mobile robot displacement with a fast rate and smooth signal. Evaluation experiments confirmed that the proposed algorithm allows to preserve a good quality of haptic rendering.
SOMBA - automated anomaly detection for Cloud quality of service

Cloud computing has transformed the standard model of service provisioning, allowing the delivery of on-demand services over the Internet. With its inherent requirements for elastic scalability and a pay-as-you-go pricing model, an additional level of complexity is added to its Quality of Service (QoS) management. This has made service provisioning more prone to performance anomalies due to the large-scale and evolving nature of Clouds. Existing methods for anomaly detection based on QoS monitoring in the Cloud rely on probabilistic methods, which are not computationally easy and are often valid for very short times before system dynamics change. We posit that more minimalistic approaches including automated techniques are needed for effective anomaly detection to support QoS enforcement in Clouds. In this paper, we present an automated anomaly detection scheme that recognises and adapts to changes in Clouds for efficient multi-metric performance anomaly detection to guarantee service quality. It includes a monitoring tool for collating performance data in real time for analysis and an anomaly detection technique based on an unsupervised machine learning strategy. Based on a Cloud service provisioning use case scenario, we evaluate our anomaly detection technique and compare it against two statistical anomaly detection approaches to demonstrate its efficiency.
The Alteration and Clinical Significance of Th22/Th17/Th1 Cells in Patients with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

T helper- (Th-) cell immunodeficiency plays important roles in tumor development and their effects in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) remain unclear. In the present study, we mainly investigated the role of Th22, Th17, and Th1 cell and their related cytokines (IL-22, IL-17, and IFN-r) in the pathophysiology of CML. Bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB) were extracted from newly diagnosed (ND), chronic phase- (CP-) CML patients, and controls. Th subsets were examined by flow cytometry. Plasma IL-22, IL-17, and IFN-r concentrations were measured by ELISA. AHR and RORC mRNA expressions were examined by RT-PCR. The frequencies of Th22, Th17, and Th1 cells, along with the expression of specific transcription factors RORC and AHR, were significantly decreased in ND patients compared with healthy controls, while all these abnormality recovered in CP patients. In addition, there existed a significantly positive relationship between Th22 and Th17 cells in PB or BM. A significantly negative relationship was found between Th cells (Th22, Th17, or Th1) and BCR-ABL (%) IS or the number of PB white blood cells. All these results demonstrated that Th22, Th17, and Th1 cells might be important therapeutic targets in CML and could facilitate a better outcome for tumor immunotherapy.
Basolateral Amygdala Inactivation Reduces Sexual Motivation in Male Rats during Performance of a T-Maze Task with a Sexual Reward

This study was aimed to determine the effect of amygdaline inactivation on the sexual motivation of male rats during a T-maze task with a sexual reward. Subjects were chronically implanted with two stainless-steel cannulae that enabled the infusion of tetrodotoxin, a sodium channel blocker, into the left and right basolateral amygdala (BLA). Animals were divided into 3 groups: saline (SS); TTX1 (tetrodotoxin at 2.5 ng); and TTX2 (tetrodotoxin at 5.0 ng). To induce a sexually-motivated state, all male rats were allowed to have an intromission with a receptive female before performing the T-maze task, after which their sexual motivation was evaluated during seven trials in which a receptive female was placed in one goal-box of the T-maze, and a non-receptive one in the other. Subjects were allowed an intromission as a sexual reward whenever they reached the goal-box containing the receptive female, but were returned to the start-box if they did not. At the end of the experiment, copulation until ejaculation was permitted. Both doses of TTX increased the time rats required to cross the maze stem during the final trials. In terms of sexual interaction, the high dose of TTX increased more markedly mount, intromission and ejaculation latencies and the number of mounts and intromissions. Overall, these results indicate that the BLA may play an important role in modulating sexual behavior, particularly in maintaining sexual motivation in successive trials in a T-maze task and during sexual interaction per se.
La servicisation des entreprises industrielles: Un changement majeur de business model

La servicisation designe la transition de l’entreprise manufacturiere de la vente de produits (biens) vers la vente d’offres integrees produit-service. Le terme lui-meme « servitization » apparait pour la premiere fois a la fin des annees 1980 dans les travaux de S. Vandemerwe et J. Rada (1988). Les auteurs parlent alors de « servitization of business » pour qualifier le mouvement de nombreuses entreprises manufacturieres cherchant a creer davantage de valeur en integrant des services dans leur offre traditionnelle de produits. Depuis lors, de tres nombreux travaux ont ete developpes sur ce theme, presentant souvent la servicisation comme un changement de business model. Curieusement pourtant, peu de travaux se sont centres ou ont utilises les outils et concepts de modele economique pour analyser la servicisation. Or, ces outils et concepts nous apparaissent comme particulierement pertinents, car ils permettent selon nous de faire le lien entre les dimensions strategiques de la servicisation et ses consequences organisationnelles.
Dataset Editing Techniques : A Comparative Study

Editing techniques remove examples from datasets with the goal to obtain more accurate and faster classifiers. The objective of this paper is to compare several popular dataset editing techniques with respect to classification accuracy and training set compression rate including Wilson editing, Citation editing, and Multi-edit. Moreover, supervised clustering editing is introduced which replaces examples belonging to a cluster by a cluster representative. Furthermore, we explore the benefits of replacing datasets by support vectors that are commonly used in Support Vector Machine (SVM). We also discuss the results of experiments that compare and analyze the relationships between the editing techniques investigated by using a benchmark consisting of UCI and artificial 2D spatial datasets. Our empirical evaluation shows that editing techniques, in general, improve the classification accuracy of a 1-NN classifier significantly, leading to more efficient and accurate classifiers for most of the datasets tested. The experimental results show a strong performance for Wilson, Citation, and supervised clustering editing and poor performance by Multi-edit and SVM editing with respect to classification accuracy. Furthermore, training set compression rates reported by supervised clustering editing were superior to all other editing techniques investigated.