Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved and simplified in‐gel sample application using reswelling of dry immobilized pH gradients

A simple and inexpensive methacrylate rehydration chamber was built to accomodate ten immobilized pH gradient (IPG) strips. In the chamber, entire IPG gels were used for sample application, with the protein entering the gels during their rehydration. For rehydration, commercially available or laboratory‐made strips were positioned in the grooves with the gel in contact with 500 μL of sample for 6 h or overnight. This avoided the use of sample cups, eliminated precipitation at the sample application site, thus improving resolution over the entire pH range of the gels. It also allowed precise control of protein amounts and sample volumes loaded into the IPG gels, and also lowered costs of reagents during rehydration and equilibration owing to the reduced volumes. Up to 5 mg of protein can be loaded on wide IPG gels and up to 15 mg of some samples on narrow pH range gels.
Role of second- and third-order statistics in the discriminability of natural images

Several studies of natural-image statistics have concluded that the majority of structural image information is represented in the Fourier domain not by the power spectrum, which can be modeled with a power function of spatial frequency, but by the phase spectrum. Psychophysical experiments are described in which human observers were required to discriminate between visual stimuli differing only in their global second-order statistics. The patterns of sensitivity recorded were found to depend on whether these stimuli were natural images or images with random-phase spectra. These results suggest that discrimination performance is related to changes in higher-order image structure; a bandpass model observer based on third-moment statistics was applied to all stimulus images and was found to provide a good fit to the psychophysical data.
A Swarm Based Approach to Detect Hole In Wireless Sensor Network

A Sensor network is a network with large number of sensors in it. The broadcasting and the multicastin g are the major communication approaches used in such network to distribute some information over the network or the network part. Because of this the congestion over the network increases. A congested network is the reason of different securities flaws over the network. One of such flaw is the hole over the network; the hole can be because of low energy node or because of some selfish node or black hole attac k. In this present work we have defined a Swarm Based Intelligent approach to perform the reliable packet delivery over the network. Here we have defined an intelligent decision approach to select the next no de based on load and response time. The work is about to improve the network throughput as some bad node or the hole occur over the network. The swarm based approach will do the analysis based on the neighbor ing nodes and will select the effective path for the communication. Keyword: Swarm Based hole, Bad Node, Throughput, and WSN.
Needs Analysis for a Parenting App to Prevent Unintentional Injury in Newborn Babies and Toddlers: Focus Group and Survey Study Among Chinese Caregivers

Background With the growing popularity of mobile health technology, app-based interventions delivered by smartphone have become an increasingly important strategy toward injury prevention. Objective This study aimed to develop a framework supporting the design of an app-based intervention to prevent unintentional injury, targeted for caregivers of Chinese children aged 0 to 6 years. Methods A theory-based mixed-method study, including focus groups and Web-based quantitative survey, was performed. Adult caregivers who care for children aged 0 to 6 years and own a smartphone were recruited into 2 sequential stages of research. First, focus groups were conducted among the caregivers at community health care centers and preschools from December 2015 to March 2016. Focus groups (8-10 participants per group) explored awareness, experiences, and opinions of caregivers toward using an app to prevent unintentional injury among children. Second, based on the focus groups findings, a Web-based quantitative survey was designed and distributed to caregivers in November 2016; it collected information on specific needs for the app-based intervention. Thematic analysis and quantitative descriptive analyses were performed. Results In total, 12 focus groups were completed, involving 108 caregivers. Most participants expressed a strong desire to learn knowledge and skills about unintentional child injury prevention and held positive attitudes toward app-based interventions. Participants expressed multiple preferences concerning the app-based intervention, including their contents, functions, interactive styles, installation and registration logistics, and privacy protection and information security. Following the focus groups, 1505 caregivers completed a WeChat-based quantitative survey, which generated roughly similar results to those of focus groups and added numerical metrics concerning participants’ preferences on what to learn, when to learn it, and how to learn it. A detailed framework was established involving 5 components: (1) content design, (2) functional design, (3) interactive style, (4) installation and registration logistics, and (5) privacy protection and information security, and 15 specific requirements. Conclusions We developed a framework that can be used as a guide to design app-based interventions for parents and caregivers, specifically for unintentional injury prevention of children aged 0 to 6 years.
A new observation algorithm for nonlinear systems with unknown inputs

This paper provides some new developments in the design of unknown input observers for nonlinear systems. This note is a generalization to nonlinear system of an algorithm for linear systems that states if it is possible to design or not an observer for systems subject to unknown inputs. The algorithm for nonlinear systems with unknown inputs is derived and a step by step sliding mode observer is built. An example is given in order to highlight the efficiency of the proposed method.
Impact of institutional review board practice variation on observational health services research.

OBJECTIVE To describe, qualitatively and quantitatively, the impact of a review by multiple institutional review boards (IRBs) on the conduct of a multisite observational health services research study. DATA SOURCE AND SETTING: Primary data collection during 2002, 2003, and 2004 at 43 United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care clinics. DESIGN Explanatory sequential mixed methods design incorporating qualitative and quantitative elements in sequence. DATA COLLECTION AND ABSTRACTION METHODS: Field notes and documents collected by research staff during a multisite observational health services research study were used in thematic analysis. Themes were quantified descriptively and merged with timeline data. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Approximately 4,680 hours of staff time over a 19-month period were devoted solely to the IRB process. Four categories of phenomena impacting research were observed: (1) Recruitment, retention, and communication issues with local site principal investigators (PIs). Local PIs had no real role but were required by IRBs. Twenty-one percent of sites experienced turnover in local PIs, and local PI issues added significant delay to most sites. (2) Wide variation in standards applied to review and approval of IRB applications. The study was designed to be qualified under U.S. government regulations for expedited review. One site exempted it from review (although it did not qualify for exemption), 10 granted expedited review, 31 required full review, and one rejected it as being too risky to be permitted. Twenty-three required inapplicable sections in the consent form and five required HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) consent from physicians although no health information was asked of them. Twelve sites requested, and two insisted upon, provisions that directly increased the risk to participants. (3) Multiple returns for revision of IRB applications, consent documents, and ancillary forms. Seventy-six percent of sites required at least one resubmission, and 15 percent of sites required three or more (up to six) resubmissions. Only 12 percent of sites required any procedural or substantive revision; most resubmissions were editorial changes to the wording of the consent document. (4) Process failures (long turnaround times, lost paperwork, difficulty in obtaining necessary forms, unavailability of key personnel at IRBs). The process required from 52 to 798 (median 286) days to obtain approval at each site. CONCLUSIONS Several features of the IRB system as currently configured impose costly burdens of administrative activity and delay on observational health services research studies, and paradoxically decrease protection of human subjects. Central review with local opt-out, cooperative review, or a system of peer review could reduce costs and improve protection of human subjects.
Pathways between early visual processing and functional outcome in schizophrenia

Background Early visual processing deficits are reliably detected in schizophrenia and show relationships to poor real-world functioning. However, the nature of this relationship is complex. Theoretical models and recent studies using statistical modeling approaches suggest that multiple intervening factors are involved. We previously reported that a direct and significant association between visual processing and functional status was mediated by a measure of social perception. The present study examined the contribution of negative symptoms to this model. Method We employed structural equation modeling (sem) to test several models of outcome, using data from 174 schizophrenia out-patients. Specifically, we examined the direct and indirect relative contributions of early visual processing, social perception and negative symptoms to functional outcome. Results First, we found that, similar to social perception, a measure of negative symptoms mediated the association between visual information processing and functional status. Second, we found that the inclusion of negative symptoms substantially enhanced the explanatory power of the model. Notably, it was the experiential aspect of negative symptoms (avolition and anhedonia) more than the expressive aspect (affective flattening and alogia) that accounted for significant variance in functional outcome, especially in the social component of the construct of functional outcome. Conclusions Social perception and negative symptoms play relevant roles in functional impairment in schizophrenia. Both social perception and negative symptoms statistically mediate the connection between visual processing and functional outcome. However, given the lack of association between social perception and negative symptoms, these constructs appear to have an impact on functioning through separate pathways.
Portfolio Use in Twenty-Four Teacher Education Programs.

Currently there are many teacher educators who are using and studying portfolios (Barton & Collins, 1993; Carroll, Potthoff & Huber, 1996; McLaughlin VMokhtari, Yellin, Bull & Montgomery, 1996;Morin, 1995; Ryan & Kuhs, 1993; Wilcox, 1996; Wolf, 1989; Wolf & Siu „ . „ , , , Runyan, 1996). The majority of this work describes Rebecca S. Anderson and . , . , _ „ how portfolios are used, why they are used, and how Lisa DeMeulle are . n . :' . , . , . , they are put together. During a relatively short period assistant professors in the r, . , , . , , . „ r, or time, we as teacher educators have learned much Department of Instruction . , » , „ ■ , about portfolios. The time has come, however, for us and Curriculum , . 5, . e to shift our attention away from how to put a ea ers ip att e portfolio together" toward a systematic look at the University of Memphis, . ^ , , ,. implications of portfolio use in teacher education Memphis, Tennessee. The (Herman & Wmtcrs> i994). What are teacher educa tors learning from using portfolios in their pro grams? This study was designed to answer this question. research reported here was funded in part by the Center for Research on Educational Policy and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research at Research Design the University of We mailed an open-ended questionnaire to 127 Memphis. teacher educators around the country asking them to
Identification and characterization of the dTDP-rhamnose biosynthesis and transfer genes of the lipopolysaccharide-related rfb locus in Leptospira interrogans serovar Copenhageni

Immunity to leptospirosis is principally humorally mediated and involves opsonization of leptospires for phagocytosis by macrophages and neutrophils. The only protective antigen identified to date is the leptospiral lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which biochemically resembles typical gram-negative LPS but has greatly reduced endotoxic activity. Little is known about the structure of leptospiral LPS. A 2.1-kb EcoRI fragment from the chromosome of serovar Copenhageni was cloned in pUC18 in Escherichia coli, after which flanking regions were cloned from a genomic library constructed in bacteriophage lambda GEM12. Sequence analysis identified four open reading frames which showed similarity to the rfbC, rfbD, rfbB, and rfbA genes, transcribed in that order, which encode the four enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of dTDP-rhamnose for the assembly of LPS in Salmonella enterica, E. coli, and Shigella flexneri. An additional open reading frame downstream of the rfbCDBA locus showed similarity with the rhamnosyltransferase genes of Shigella and Yersinia enterocolitica but not Salmonella. Comparison of deduced amino acid sequences showed up to 85% similarity of the leptospiral proteins with those of other gram-negative bacteria. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of recombinant clones identified the putative RfbCDBA proteins, while reverse transcriptase-mediated PCR analysis indicated that the rfbCDBA gene cluster was expressed in Leptospira. Moreover, it could restore normal LPS phenotype to a defined rfbB::Tn5 mutant of S. flexneri which was deficient in all four genes, thereby confirming the functional identification of a part of the leptospiral rfb locus.
Chemotaxis to aromatic and hydroaromatic acids: comparison of Bradyrhizobium japonicum and Rhizobium trifolii

Rhizobia are bacteria well known for their ability to fix nitrogen in symbiosis with leguminous plants. Members of diverse rhizobial species grow at the expense of hydroaromatic and aromatic compounds commonly found in plant cells and plant litter. Using a quantitative capillary assay to measure chemotaxis, we tested the ability of hydroaromatic acids, selected aromatic acids, and their metabolites to serve as chemoattractants for two distantly related rhizobial species, Bradyrhizobium japonicum and Rhizobium trifolii. Slow-growing B. japonicum I-110 demonstrated positive chemotaxis to shikimate, quinate, protocatechuate, and vanillate; threshold concentrations for the compounds were as low as 10(-6) M. The dicarboxylic acids succinate and beta-ketoadipate, metabolites in the catabolism of many aromatic compounds, were positive chemoattractants with low threshold concentrations as well. Taxis to beta-ketoadipate occurred constitutively and, of the tested compounds, beta-ketoadipate gave the strongest peak response. Taxis to shikimate or quinate was induced by growth on either substrate but not by growth on protocatechuate or succinate. In contrast, fast-growing R. trifolii 2066 was only weakly attracted to quinate and other aromatic and dicarboxylic acids that were strong attractants for B. japonicum. The R. trifolii strain exhibited positive chemotaxis to shikimate, but the threshold concentration of shikimate required to elicit a response (10(-4) M) was 2 orders of magnitude higher than that for the B. japonicum strain.
Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World

Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World. Stephen D. Reese, Oscar H. Gandy Jr., and August E. Grant, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. 399 pp. $99.95 hbk. When I conduct content analyses of transcripts, media content, and government documents with students and other faculty, I often advocate combining the study of agenda setting with the study of framing. Especially when I will not be the one doing the work. Conceptually, the pairing of issue salience with issue portrayal is a natural: just as the agenda-setting process can be studied as diffusion or social change involving institutional actors and nascent groups, through media attention, and on to the actions and nonactions of bureaucrats and elected officials, so too can framing provide a compelling and malleable lens through which to understand political jockeying and media access, issue portrayal in media, and the meanings assigned to media content by members of the public. But operationalization is another matter. Whereas the means of studying agenda setting are rather delimited (parsimony certainly accounted for part of its initial attractiveness to media scholars), approaches to framing analysis suggest a bit of a free-for-all. Especially when quantification of frames is attempted, I find the effort less than optimum in terms of what we usually learn. Even when we are trying not to, we tend to mistakenly weed out and discard the substance of frames (meanings, associations, metaphors, interests)in our pursuit of inter-coder reliability. I have found the study of framing to be more difficult and oftentimes more insightful than the study of agenda setting, and, when paired, a perfect example of the advantages of multi-method research designs. Framing Public Life is a very useful book for providing guidance about conceptual and operational alternatives and procedures concerning framing. Faced with a loose and complex paradigm of research, the editors have spent far more than the average amount of time pulling together themes across contributed chapters, carefully constructing prologues and epilogues, allowing time for contributors to react to the editors' own claims and positions about framing and the study of media, and commissioning chapters that were not originally presented at the 1997 University of South Carolina conference that served as the basis for this volume. The collection is just that: not a unified approach to framing, but rather a well-integrated and diverse set of perspectives on framing. Mapping out a citation analysis based on the references cited in these collected chapters would be interesting; I expect that while cliques of researchers focusing, for example, on social movements would be discernible, an overall network among framing scholars could be demonstrated. …
Dopamine Neurons Make Glutamatergic Synapses In Vitro

Interactions between dopamine and glutamate play prominent roles in memory, addiction, and schizophrenia. Several lines of evidence have suggested that the ventral midbrain dopamine neurons that give rise to the major CNS dopaminergic projections may also be glutamatergic. To examine this possibility, we double immunostained ventral midbrain sections from rat and monkey for the dopamine-synthetic enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase and for glutamate; we found that most dopamine neurons immunostained for glutamate, both in rat and monkey. We then used postnatal cell culture to examine individual dopamine neurons. Again, most dopamine neurons immunostained for glutamate; they were also immunoreactive for phosphate-activated glutaminase, the major source of neurotransmitter glutamate. Inhibition of glutaminase reduced glutamate staining. In single-cell microculture, dopamine neurons gave rise to varicosities immunoreactive for both tyrosine hydroxylase and glutamate and others immunoreactive mainly for glutamate, which were found near the cell body. At the ultrastructural level, dopamine neurons formed occasional dopaminergic varicosities with symmetric synaptic specializations, but they more commonly formed nondopaminergic varicosities with asymmetric synaptic specializations. Stimulation of individual dopamine neurons evoked a fast glutamatergic autaptic EPSC that showed presynaptic inhibition caused by concomitant dopamine release. Thus, dopamine neurons may exert rapid synaptic actions via their glutamatergic synapses and slower modulatory actions via their dopaminergic synapses. Together with evidence for glutamate cotransmission in serotonergic raphe neurons and noradrenergic locus coeruleus neurons, the present results suggest that glutamatergic cotransmission may be the rule for central monoaminergic neurons.
Detection of Trending Topic Communities: Bridging Content Creators and Distributors

The rise of a trending topic on Twitter or Facebook leads to the temporal emergence of a set of users currently interested in that topic. Given the temporary nature of the links between these users, being able to dynamically identify communities of users related to this trending topic would allow for a rapid spread of information. Indeed, individual users inside a community might receive recommendations of content generated by the other users, or the community as a whole could receive group recommendations, with new content related to that trending topic. In this paper, we tackle this challenge, by identifying coherent topic-dependent user groups, linking those who generate the content (creators) and those who spread this content, e.g., by retweeting/reposting it (distributors). This is a novel problem on group-to-group interactions in the context of recommender systems. Analysis on real-world Twitter data compare our proposal with a baseline approach that considers the retweeting activity, and validate it with standard metrics. Results show the effectiveness of our approach to identify communities interested in a topic where each includes content creators and content distributors, facilitating users' interactions and the spread of new information.
Where Do GUIs Come From ? And How Can We Make Them Better ? Course Project

" On my honor as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment " 1 Executive Summary With the advent of window based operating system interfaces, Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) have emerged as the de facto means by which users employ computer programs. Nonetheless, GUIs represent only a single interface – that between the user and other software. In the field of Computer Science, designers, developers and programmers are schooled primarily in the implementation of algorithms in order to solve problems. In many instances, the concerns of the users are considered only as an afterthought to the development of a code base designed to address a problem or provide utility to users. At best, user interfaces are addressed by programmers or designers other than those responsible for core algorithms or processes. We explore two prominent platforms by which many computer scientists gain their first experience in developing a GUI – JavaSwing and Tcl/Tk (pronounced tickle/tee-kay). Sun Microsystems has provided an extensive, web-based tutorial for JavaSwing in order to assist programmers and developers in the design and implementation of GUIs for their Java code. On the other hand, Tcl/Tk is not a proprietary product, except as distributed by vendors, therefore there is no foremost authority to provide a tutorial for it. A handful of tutorials have emerged as a primary means for developers to obtain elementary skill in employing Tcl/Tk, as well as a freely distributed computer-based training application called TclTutor. We asses how well the JavaSwing and Tcl/Tk tutorials and freeware address GUI design principles, demonstrate where this foundational instruction falls short of addressing critical human factors concerns, and discuss some of the fundamentals of GUI design. We propose how these tools can be improved to include elements of design crucial to users.