Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
International Student Mobility: The Nordic Experience.

La cooperation entre le Danemark, la Finlande, l'Islande, la Norvege et la Suede s'appuie sur des racines culturelles, linguistiques, economiques et politiques communes. L'A. etudie le programme d'echanges des etudiants NORDPLUS, une version nordique du programme europeen ERASMUS
Honey Sheets: What Happens to Leaked Google Spreadsheets?

Cloud-based documents are inherently valuable, due to the volume and nature of sensitive personal and business content stored in them. Despite the importance of such documents to Internet users, there are still large gaps in the understanding of what cybercriminals do when they illicitly get access to them by for example compromising the account credentials they are associated with. In this paper, we present a system able to monitor user activity on Google spreadsheets. We populated 5 Google spreadsheets with fake bank account details and fake funds transfer links. Each spreadsheet was configured to report details of accesses and clicks on links back to us. To study how people interact with these spreadsheets in case they are leaked, we posted unique links pointing to the spreadsheets on a popular paste site. We then monitored activity in the accounts for 72 days, and observed 165 accesses in total. We were able to observe interesting modifications to these spreadsheets performed by illicit accesses. For instance, we observed deletion of some fake bank account information, in addition to insults and warnings that some visitors entered in some of the spreadsheets. Our preliminary results show that our system can be used to shed light on cybercriminal behavior with regards to leaked online documents.
A Reconciliation of the Evidence on Eyewitness Testimony: Comments on McCloskey and Zaragoza

Loftus and her colleagues demonstrated distorted reports of memory for an event in the direction of postevent misleading information. McCloskey and Zaragoza argued that these results do not necessarily imply a weakening of the memory for the original event. They obtained evidence supporting their position by using a modified recognition test. In this experiment we introduced still another modification to the recognition test ("Yes'VNo" instead of forced choice) to answer McCloskey and Zaragoza's objections to Loftus and her colleagues' procedures. We obtained evidence for distorted reports of original information as a consequence of the misleading information. Memory and confidence data support an interference or inaccessibility interpretation of the memory errors but cannot rule out overwriting of the original information in some cases. In a series of studies that can by now be considered classic, Loftus and her colleagues (e.g., Loftus, 1979; Loftus, Miller, & Burns, 1978) showed that misleading postevent information impairs memory report of an original event. The fate of the memory for the original event has become a matter of debate; some say that it is overwritten, others say that it is rendered less accessible, and still others say that there is no evidence that anything has happened to it at all. In all of the experiments, subjects first viewed a sequence
Infectious diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean: are they really emerging and increasing?

During 1995, infectious disease epidemics in Latin America and the Caribbean received wide publicity: dengue throughout the region, Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) in Venezuela and Colombia, and hemorrhagic fever in Nicaragua. Increased awareness of these diseases followed extensive reports in the scientific community about the threat of emerging infections (1,2). Are infectious diseases increasing in the region or are we simply seeing the results of better reporting of persistent problems? Analysis suggests that both factors are at work.
Bacterial Contamination of Blood Components

As discussed in one of the companion articles, significant progress has been made in reducing the transfusion transmission of viral infections such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV. Serologic testing of donors has decreased the risk for acquiring some viral diseases to less than one in a million. Now however, bacterial contamination of blood products has assumed a major role as a cause of morbidity and mortality in recipients of blood products.1,2 Although overall risk for acquiring a transfusion-transmitted bacterial infection is still relatively low, methods to detect infected donors are not available as they are for detection of virally-infected donors. Therefore, detection of bacterial contamination is more problematic and is usually recognized only when the recipient has a severe reaction following administration of the blood component. In fact, after acute hemolytic transfusion reactions, bacterial sepsis is the next most frequent causes of transfusion related fatalities.3,4 In this article we will discuss the major organisms associated with bacterial contamination of blood components, studies of prevalence of bacterial contamination and transfusion associated sepsis, and the methods developed or in development to detect and/or prevent contamination. BACTERIAL CONTAMINATION Bacterial contamination of blood units occurs at any one of the following points: collection, processing, pooling of components, or transfusion. Infrequently, it may be due to transient bacteremia in the donor.5-7 High bacterial concentrations are often responsible for a serious septic or fatal reaction in the recipient with most of these reactions occurring in the elderly, neonates, or patients immunocompromised by illness or… ABBREVIATIONS: AABB = American Association of Blood Banks; BaCon = bacterial contamination associated with transfusion reactions); CFU = colony forming units; RBC = red blood cell; SHOT = serious hazards of transfusion; UVA = ultraviolet A light.
Strategies for adaptation of Suaeda physophora, Haloxylon ammodendron and Haloxylon persicum to a saline environment during seed-germination stage.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Germination is very important for plant establishment in arid regions. The strategies taken by halophytes during the seed germination stage to adapt to saline environments in an arid zone were investigated in Suaeda physophora (euhalophyte), Haloxylon ammodendron (xero-halophyte) and Haloxylon persicum (xerophyte). METHODS Seeds of S. physophora, H. ammodendron and H. persicum were exposed to a range of iso-osmotic NaCl and PEG solutions. Seed germination in, and recovery germination from, high NaCl were recorded. The effects of iso-osmotic NaCl and PEG on seed water uptake and changes in ion content were measured. In addition, the structure of seeds and Na+ distribution in the seed coat and embryos of dry seeds were investigated. KEY RESULTS The relative increase in fresh weight of germinating seeds was markedly reduced in -2.24 MPa PEG compared with that in -2.24 MPa NaCl, while the opposite trend was found in concentration of K+ during the initial 9 h for all species. Haloxylon ammodendron and S. physophora had a higher recovery germination from -3.13 MPa NaCl compared with H. persicum. Seeds of all species had no endosperm. More Na+ was compartmentalized in the seed coats of the two halophytic species compared with that in the xerophyte H. persicum. CONCLUSIONS The effect of NaCl on seed germination was due to both osmotic stress and ion toxicity for the three species. High soil salinity and a high content of Na+ in seeds may induce more seeds to remain ungerminated in S. physophora and H. ammodendron. Morphological structure and adaptation to salinity during seed germination may determine the geographical distribution of H. ammodendron and S. physophora in certain saline regions.
Application and a proposed modification of the 2010 McDonald criteria for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in a Canadian cohort of patients with clinically isolated syndromes

Background: The 2005 and 2010 McDonald criteria utilize magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to provide evidence of disease dissemination in space (DIS) and time (DIT) for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) in patients who have clinically isolated syndromes (CIS). Methods: Data from 109 CIS patients not satisfying the 2005 criteria at entry into a randomized controlled minocycline trial were analyzed to determine the proportion who would have been diagnosed with MS at screening based on 2010 criteria. The impact of including symptomatic, as well as asymptomatic, MRI lesions to confirm DIT was also explored. Results: Thirty percent (33/109) of patients, retrospectively, met the 2010 criteria for a diagnosis of MS at baseline. When both symptomatic and asymptomatic lesions were used to confirm DIT, three additional patients met the 2010 criteria. There was a significant 10.1% increase in the proportion of patients who met the 2010 DIS criteria, compared with the 2005 DIS criteria; however, two patients satisfied the 2005 DIS but not 2010 DIS criteria. Conclusion: Using 2010 McDonald criteria, 30% of the CIS patients could be diagnosed with MS using a single MRI scan. Inclusion of symptomatic lesions in the DIT criteria further increases this proportion to 33%.
My double unveiled

This introduction to the dissipative quantum model of brain and to its possible implications for consciousness studies is addressed to a broad interdisciplinary audience. Memory and consciousness are approached from the physicist point of view focusing on the basic observation that the brain is an open system continuously interacting with its environment. The unavoidable dissipative character of the brain functioning turns out to be the root of the brain’s large memory capacity and of other memory features such as memory association, memory confusion, duration of memory. The openness of the brain implies a formal picture of the world which is modeled on the same brain image: a sort of brain copy or “Double”, where world objectiveness and the brain implicit subjectivity are conjugated. Consciousness is seen to arise from the permanent “dialogue” of the brain with its Double. The author’s narration of his (re-)search gives a cross-over of the physics of elementary particles and condensed matter, and the brain’s basic dynamics. This dynamic interplay makes for a “satisfying feeling of the unity of knowledge”. (Series A)
Towards a model of agent-assisted team search

This paper is the first step in our research plan towards addressing the fundamental question of how software agents can best aid distributed human teams performing time-stressed critical tasks in uncertain and dynamic environments. Based on prior work, we hypothesize that to improve the performance of human teams, agents must do some combination of the following: (1) reduce the cost of the humans? information processing; (2) decrease uncertainty in the task; (3) improve coordination between team members; (4) directly assist in task completion. In order to (a)establish an experimental baseline of the performance of human-only teams for some particular task domain, and (b) best understand where agents can provide best utility in supporting human teamwork, we designed scenarios and performed experiments with human teams performing a time-stressed, collaborative search task in a multi-player gaming environment. The collaborative search task recreates some of the challenges faced by human teams during search and rescue operations, such as the one described in the Holistan scenario. In our experiments, we analyze (1) verbal communication between team members and (2) the effects of presenting or omitting task progress information. By ascertaining the information processing and coordination requirements of this team task, we expect to identify "insertion points" for agent assistance to human teams. Agent assistance will be particularly critical to military teams as their operations become more agile and situation specific. As unfamiliar forces are brought together for different coalition missions, agent support of teamwork becomes crucial.
Effect of splenectomy on slowing human immunodeficiency virus disease progression.

BACKGROUND Lymphoreticular tissue is the most important site for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication in HIV-infected individuals. OBJECTIVE To compare the long-term effect of splenectomy on survival and time to development of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in subjects who had undergone splenectomy with subjects who had not undergone splenectomy. DESIGN A cohort study with a follow-up of up to 13.4 years. SETTING Subjects were recruited from a hospital outpatient clinic population and a multicenter study of patients with hemophilia. PARTICIPANTS Forty-five HIV-infected individuals were observed prospectively for up to 13.4 years (17 had undergone splenectomy and 28 had not undergone splenectomy). Five subjects underwent splenectomy before acquiring HIV infection and 12 underwent splenectomy during the asymptomatic phase of HIV infection. The group who did not undergo splenectomy consisted of HIV-infected individuals who were asymptomatic at study enrollment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES A Cox proportional hazards model was used to test the effects of splenectomy on survival and time to development of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome when adjusting for potential confounders (age, initial CD4+ cell count, and treatment with antiretroviral drugs). Splenectomy was treated as a time-dependent covariate to account for the variation in its timing. RESULTS During the average follow-up of 8.6 years, 9 (53%) of the 17 subjects who underwent splenectomy and 23 (82%) of the 28 subjects who did not undergo splenectomy died; acquired immunodeficiency syndrome developed in 6 (35%) of the subjects who underwent splenectomy and 23 (82%) of the subjects who did not undergo splenectomy. Splenectomy was associated with a significant reduction of risk of developing acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (adjusted relative risk [RR] <0.4, P<.05), whereas the effect on risk of mortality approached, although it did not reach, significance (adjusted RR approximately 0.5, P approximately .10). CONCLUSION The absence of a spleen during the asymptomatic phase of HIV infection seems to have a beneficial effect on HIV disease progression.
Analysing Frequent Sequential Patterns of Collaborative Learning Activity Around an Interactive Tabletop. Nominee for Best Paper Award

________________________________________________________________________ Electronic traces of activity have the potential to be an invaluable source to understand the strategies followed by groups of learners working collaboratively around a tabletop. However, in tabletop and other co-located learning settings, high amounts of unconstrained actions can be performed by different students simultaneously. This paper introduces a data mining approach that exploits the log traces of a problem-solving tabletop application to extract patterns of activity in order to shed light on the strategies followed by groups of learners. The objective of the data mining task is to discover which frequent sequences of actions differentiate high achieving from low achieving groups. An important challenge is to interpret the raw log traces, taking the user identification into account, and pre-process this data to make it suitable for mining and discovering meaningful patterns of interaction. We explore two methods for mining sequential patterns. We compare these two methods by evaluating the information that they each discover about the strategies followed by the high and low achieving groups. Our key contributions include the design of an approach to find frequent sequential patterns from multiuser co-located settings, the evaluation of the two methods, and the analysis of the results obtained from the sequential pattern mining.
A Simple Model for Pulse Profiles from Precessing Pulsars, with Special Application to Relativistic Binary PSR B1913+16

We study the observable pulse profiles that can be generated from precessing pulsars. A novel coordinate system is defined to aid visualization of the observing geometry. Using this system we explore the different families of profiles that can be generated by simple, circularly symmetric beam shapes. An attempt is then made to fit our model to the observations of relativistic binary PSR B1913+16. It is found that while qualitatively similar pulse profiles can be produced, this minimal model is insufficient for an accurate match to the observational data. Consequently, we confirm that the emission beam of PSR B1913+16 must deviate from circular symmetry, as first reported by Weisberg and Taylor. However, the approximate fits obtained suggest that it may be sufficient to consider only minimal deviations from a circular beam in order to explain the data. We also comment on the applicability of our analysis technique to other precessing pulsars, both binary and isolated.
Episodic ataxia type 1 mutations differentially affect neuronal excitability and transmitter release

SUMMARY Heterozygous mutations of KCNA1, the gene encoding potassium channel Kv1.1 subunits, cause episodic ataxia type 1 (EA1), which is characterized by paroxysmal cerebellar incoordination and interictal myokymia. Some mutations are also associated with epilepsy. Although Kv1.1-containing potassium channels play important roles in neuronal excitability and neurotransmitter release, it is not known how mutations associated with different clinical features affect the input-output relationships of individual neurons. We transduced rat hippocampal neurons, which were cultured on glial micro-islands, with lentiviruses expressing wild-type or mutant human KCNA1, and injected either depolarizing currents to evoke action potentials or depolarizing voltage commands to evoke autaptic currents. α-Dendrotoxin and tetraethylammonium allowed a pharmacological dissection of potassium currents underlying excitability and neurotransmission. Overexpression of wild-type Kv1.1 decreased both neuronal excitability and neurotransmitter release. By contrast, the C-terminus-truncated R417stop mutant, which is associated with severe drug-resistant EA1, had the opposite effect: increased excitability and release probability. Another mutant, T226R, which is associated with EA1 that is complicated by contractures and epilepsy, had no detectable effect on neuronal excitability; however, in common with R417stop, it markedly enhanced neurotransmitter release. The results provide direct evidence that EA1 mutations increase neurotransmitter release, and provide an insight into mechanisms underlying the phenotypic differences that are associated with different mutations.
SIFT match verification by geometric coding for large-scale partial-duplicate web image search

Most large-scale image retrieval systems are based on the bag-of-visual-words model. However, the traditional bag-of-visual-words model does not capture the geometric context among local features in images well, which plays an important role in image retrieval. In order to fully explore geometric context of all visual words in images, efficient global geometric verification methods have been attracting lots of attention. Unfortunately, current existing methods on global geometric verification are either computationally expensive to ensure real-time response, or cannot handle rotation well. To solve the preceding problems, in this article, we propose a novel geometric coding algorithm, to encode the spatial context among local features for large-scale partial-duplicate Web image retrieval. Our geometric coding consists of geometric square coding and geometric fan coding, which describe the spatial relationships of SIFT features into three geo-maps for global verification to remove geometrically inconsistent SIFT matches. Our approach is not only computationally efficient, but also effective in detecting partial-duplicate images with rotation, scale changes, partial-occlusion, and background clutter. Experiments in partial-duplicate Web image search, using two datasets with one million Web images as distractors, reveal that our approach outperforms the baseline bag-of-visual-words approach even following a RANSAC verification in mean average precision. Besides, our approach achieves comparable performance to other state-of-the-art global geometric verification methods, for example, spatial coding scheme, but is more computationally efficient.
Robust 3D MIMO-OFDM channel estimation with hybrid analog-digital architecture

We consider the problem of 3D multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) channel estimation, a key for the future development of 3D beamforming techniques. Our main contribution is a novel algorithm, namely the adaptive-LASSO, that can jointly exploit the sparsity structure of the MIMO-OFDM channel in the spatial and delay domains. The algorithm is designed to handle large antenna arrays by means of a hybrid analog-digital architecture. In this regard, we describe an effective beam-switching strategy to sample the channel using a few analog beamformers. We investigate the impact of the signal bandwidth, antenna structures, line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions via ray-tracing based simulations. Also, we show that the A-LASSO can provide significant improvements with respect to the legacy methods, e.g. least-square technique.
Immune Deficiency State in a Girl with Eczema and Low Serum IgM

This report concerns an immune deficiency disorder in a girl with eczema. She has had recurrent infections including three severe attacks of herpes simplex and five attacks of pneumococcal meningitis. There is a moderate lymphopenia, dysgammaglobulinaemia with high IgG, high IgA, and low IgM; lymphocyte transformation with phytohaemagglutinin is impaired. Production of circulating antibody is abnormal, as are delayed hypersensitivity reactions. Although there is no thrombocytopenia, the resemblance to the Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome is discussed.
Genetics of primary glaucoma.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW To provide an overview of the genetics of the primary open-angle glaucomas with particular attention to congenital, infantile, and juvenile forms. RECENT FINDINGS Mutations in CYP1B1, in addition to being the most common identifiable cause of autosomal recessive primary congenital/infantile glaucoma, can infrequently underlie juvenile and even primary adult-onset open-angle glaucoma, particularly in certain consanguineous populations. In 2009, patients diagnosed with congenital/infantile glaucoma were found to have recessive mutations in a second gene, LTBP2, with a phenotypic spectrum that includes primary megalocornea, spherophakia with ectopia lentis, and lens-related glaucoma. The most common identifiable cause of primary juvenile open-angle glaucoma across most populations remains heterozygous (autosomal dominant) MYOC mutation, underlying up to one-third of cases and possibly sometimes involved in earlier and later onset glaucomas Although primary adult-onset open-angle glaucoma usually does not follow simple Mendelian genetics and is etiologically complex, genome-wide association studies are uncovering genetic susceptibility factors. In some cases, primary adult-onset open-angle glaucoma can be caused by heterozygous mutation in MYOC, OPTN, or WDR36. In addition, in 2009, heterozygous NTF4 mutation was associated with the phenotype in a small percentage of patients from a German cohort. SUMMARY Seemingly unaffected siblings of children with CYP1B1-related primary congenital/infantile glaucoma should undergo genetic testing because of variable expressivity for the phenotype; such testing should also be considered for other asymptomatic relatives, especially in consanguineous families. In western populations, dominant MYOC mutation remains a common cause of primary open-angle juvenile glaucoma and infrequently can be implicated in congenital/infantile or adult-onset forms; identified families should undergo genetic counseling. Primary adult-onset open-angle glaucoma rarely follows simple Mendelian genetics, but genomic studies in different populations are revealing potential genetic risk factors for the phenotype.