Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The gap between knowledge and ability

We present the results of an investigation on how well students are able to understand object-oriented programming (OOP) when learning with only very minimal guidance. We analyzed the source code that the students of a preparatory course produced during the course as well as concept maps that they were asked to draw before and after the course. Our findings show, that there are observable differences between what students know about some concepts and what they're able to do with it. Generally speaking, it seems that several OOP related concepts can be applied successfully without fully understanding the underlying concepts, while others are hard to understand and apply without a significant amount of prior knowledge. This gives rise to the suspicion that it might be possible to apply a concept without having understood it, at least with respect to some algorithmic concepts of CS.
LIBOR, foreign exchange and the illusion of liquidity

The LIBOR and FX controversies revealed that prices and benchmarks related to money and currencies were highly susceptible to manipulative and collusive practices. The reform process since has strived to ensure that market participants and end-users can rely on a fair price determination process. Put differently, the emphasis has been on the price-aspects of LIBOR and FX. However, when studying market liquidity, the price always needs to be put into a broader context. This article uses two case studies to illustrate how ignoring other dimensions of market liquidity, such as volume and speed, can result in misleading assessments of the state of the market. At worst, it can lead to, and perhaps even sustain, an illusion of liquidity. This is of particular relevance for OTC markets, which ultimately depend on human relationships and trust.
Wideband microstrip bandpass filters with asymmetrically-loaded interdigital coupled lines

Asymmetrically-loaded interdigital coupled lines are proposed for innovative design of wideband microstrip bandpass filters with excellent out-of-band performance in both lower and upper stopbands. It is realized by properly terminating one of outer coupling lines with a two-stage open-ended stub. In this way, the lower and upper stopbands can be greatly enhanced by adjusting the stepped-impedance ratio of such a stub. Based on the analysis for a six-port three-line network, the resultant two- port network of the proposed interdigital coupled-lines can be derived in terms of the simple impedance or admittance parameters. Taking advantage of their tightened coupling degree and self-inclusive transmission zeros, they are utilized to implement a class of compact wideband filters. Two filters with one and two half-wavelength resonators are designed, aiming at achieving a desired passband in the frequency range 2.8 to 5.1 GHz and good out-of-band rejection in DC to 2.8 GHz and 5.1 to 10.0 GHz. Measured results of the two fabricated filters have evidently verified the predicted wideband filtering performance.
Collision detection, localization & classification for industrial robots with joint torque sensors

High dynamic capabilities of industrial robots make them dangerous for humans and environment. To reduce this factor and advance collaboration between human and manipulator fast and reliable collision detection algorithm is required. To overcome this problem, we present an approach allowing to detect collision, localize action point and classify collision nature. Internal joint torque and encoder measurements were used to determine potential collisions with the robot links. This work proposes two ways of solving this problem: using classical analytical approach and learning approach implemented with neural network. The suggested algorithms were examined on the industrial robotic arm Kuka iiwa LBR 14 R820, ground truth information on the contact nature and its location were obtained with 3D LIDAR and camera.
The study of pressure distribution in sitting position on cushions for patient with SCI (Spinal Cord Injury)

Pressure sore is a serious problem for patients with spinal cord injuries (SCI). Many kinds of pressure-relieving cushions have been developed to distribute the weigh evenly and widely. We measured the buttock pressure distribution on five kinds of wheelchair cushions in six SCI patients using the Tekscan pressure measurement system. We calculated total weight, high-pressure area, and maximum and average pressure to evaluate the function of the cushions. As for pressure distribution, the air cushion is the best of the five cushions. In the air cushion, the maximum pressure is influenced by the total weight, contact area, and the quantity of air in the cushion. Further, we measured the buttock pressure distribution on the air cushion in 13 SCI patients. The maximum pressure is one of the most important parameters in the adjustment of the air quantity in the air cushion. After using the multiple regression analysis, it has been shown that the maximum pressure is influenced by both the total weight and the total area.
MicroRNA-200c Represses Migration and Invasion of Breast Cancer Cells by Targeting Actin-Regulatory Proteins FHOD1 and PPM1F

ABSTRACT MicroRNA-200c (miR-200c) has been shown to suppress epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is attributed mainly to targeting of ZEB1/ZEB2, repressors of the cell-cell contact protein E-cadherin. Here we demonstrated that modulation of miR-200c in breast cancer cells regulates cell migration, cell elongation, and transforming growth factor β (TGF-β)-induced stress fiber formation by impacting the reorganization of cytoskeleton that is independent of the ZEB/E-cadherin axis. We identified FHOD1 and PPM1F, direct regulators of the actin cytoskeleton, as novel targets of miR-200c. Remarkably, expression levels of FHOD1 and PPM1F were inversely correlated with the level of miR-200c in breast cancer cell lines, breast cancer patient samples, and 58 cancer cell lines of various origins. Furthermore, individual knockdown/overexpression of these target genes phenocopied the effects of miR-200c overexpression/inhibition on cell elongation, stress fiber formation, migration, and invasion. Mechanistically, targeting of FHOD1 by miR-200c resulted in decreased expression and transcriptional activity of serum response factor (SRF), mediated by interference with the translocation of the SRF coactivator mycocardin-related transcription factor A (MRTF-A). This finally led to downregulation of the expression and phosphorylation of the SRF target myosin light chain 2 (MLC2) gene, required for stress fiber formation and contractility. Thus, miR-200c impacts on metastasis by regulating several EMT-related processes, including a novel mechanism involving the direct targeting of actin-regulatory proteins.
Frontal Network Syndrome Testing

Background: Dementia diagnosis and the various subtypes are challenging in the absence of biomarkers. Aim: To examine available tests and neuroimaging procedures that may help distinguish these disorders. Methods: Alzheimer’s disease (AD), cognitive vascular disorder (CVD), and Frontotemporal lobe disorders (FTLD) were tested with a hierarchical neuropsychological battery that included the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale, Mini-Mental State Examination, Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test, and subtests. All patients had multimodality magnetic resonance imaging and 18F fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) brain scans. Results: Of the 161 patients evaluated for dysmemory and cognitive impairment, 31 satisfied the full protocol. The mean T scores for the 3 principal frontal system syndromes for the AD group were all abnormal save disinhibition. For the CVD and FTLD groups, all the 4 subcategory scores were abnormal. Disinhibition differed significantly between the AD and FTD group (analysis of variance [ANOVA], P = .02) and there was a strong association between the memory for 5 words test and a significant difference in the word list generation test score among the 3 groups (ANOVA, P = .0233). There was a strong association between the FDG-PET and the disease subtype (P < .0001). Conclusion: Evaluation for disinhibition, word list generation, 5-word memory testing and PET brain imaging may help distinguish the 3 most common dementia subtypes.
Use of Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction or Wall‐Motion Score Index in Predicting Arrhythmic Death in Patients Following an Acute Myocardial Infarction

All‐cause mortality and morbidity following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are correlated to LV systolic dysfunction. The correlation is closest with mortality and morbidity associated with congestive heart failure (CHF). Prediction of arrhythmic death in patients with AMI relies on the correlation between arrhythmic death and “sudden unexpected death” defined as death within 1 hour of onset of new symptoms. Assessment of late potentials, heart rate variability (HRV), T wave alternans, arrhythmias seen on Holter monitoring or during exercise testing, electrophysiological testing, and baroreceptor assessment have all proven to be useful in the prediction of sudden death even when LV systolic function is known. In selected populations HRV is superior to LV systolic function assessment in predicting sudden death and/or arrhythmic events, and may even predict all‐cause mortality with the same precision. Comparisons of other methods with LV function assessment should be interpreted with care because most methods have been evaluated in subgroups of infarct patients with a low risk of death. Results from a large series of high risk patients with AMI (the TRAndolapril Cardiac Evaluation study) have shown that even in patients with severe depressed LV systolic function around one‐third of the patients will die suddenly. The current situation is that LV function appears to be the best method of predicting death whereas other methods appear very promising for detecting arrhythmic death in more selected populations. The optimal method for selecting patients at high risk of arrhythmic death has not yet been developed, but a combination of LV function and another method, i.e., HRV, appears promising. This may ensure that the enrolled patients have an increased risk of death and that this risk will be due to arrhythmic events. Patients with LVEF of 10% or less can be excluded as they will most likely not die suddenly.
Piceatannol is more effective than resveratrol in restoring endothelial cell dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase expression and activity after high-glucose oxidative stress

Abstract Glucose-induced oxidative stress is involved in endothelial dysfunction. Dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH) and arginase are regulators of the endothelial NO synthase (eNOS). This study aimed to compare the effect of two polyphenolic antioxidants, resveratrol and piceatannol, on DDAH and arginase pathways in bovine aortic endothelial cells under 25 mM glucose for 24 h. DDAH activity and expression were decreased in these cells as compared to control cells, whereas arginase activity was unchanged. DDAH inhibition led to intracellular accumulation of asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), a natural inhibitor of eNOS. Under these conditions, cell pre-treatment with resveratrol (0.1–10 μM) restored basal DDAH activity and ADMA level with a dose-dependent effect. Piceatannol acted as resveratrol on DDAH pathway but at 10-fold lower concentrations. Resveratrol and piceatannol restored DDAH activity even in the presence of splitomicin, a specific inhibitor of Sirtuin 1. These results suggest potential therapeutic intervention targeting resveratrol or piceatannol administration to improve endothelial dysfunction.
Cat intraamygdaloid inhibitory network: Ultrastructural organization of parvalbumin‐immunoreactive elements

Projection neurons of the basolateral (BL) amygdaloid complex are regulated by an intrinsic inhibitory network. To improve our understanding of this inhibitory circuit, we studied the synaptology of parvalbumin‐immunopositive (PV+) elements as this calcium‐binding protein is localized in a subpopulation of γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)‐ergic interneurons.
Distributed Online Optimization of Wireless Optical Networks With Network Coding

Recently, the hybrid wireless-optical broadband network integrating optical backbone networks, passive optical networks (PON), and wireless access networks have been proposed to provide the high-bandwidth, low-cost, and ubiquitous communication connections. In this paper, we consider the design of network coding-based multicast applications in such networks with the objective of maximizing the total network utility and minimizing the deployment cost, subject to QoS constraints. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem and the exact solution is prohibitively complex. In order to make the problem more tractable, we develop a two-step optimization procedure that iteratively selects the optical network unit and gateways for the multicast sessions. During each iteration, two subproblems are solved, i.e., a network coding design problem for the optical network, and a user assignment and bandwidth allocation problem for the wireless network. The former is solved in a distributed way based on the Lagrangian-dual decomposition; the latter is solved based on the generalized bender decomposition. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed solutions.
Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care

At the height of the opiate epidemic, Tennessee lawmakers made it a crime for a pregnant woman to transmit narcotics to a fetus. They promised that charging new mothers with this crime would help them receive the treatment and support they often desperately need. In Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care, Wendy Bach describes the law's actual effect through meticulous examination of the cases of 120 women who were prosecuted for this crime. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, Bach demonstrates that both prosecuting 'fetal assault', and institutionalizing the all-too-common idea that criminalization is a road to care, lead at best to clinically dangerous and corrupt treatment, and at worst, and far more often, to an insidious smokescreen obscuring harsh punishment. Urgent, instructive, and humane, this retelling demands we stop criminalizing care and instead move towards robust and respectful systems that meet the real needs of families in poor communities.
Coagulation Factor VII Gln100 → Arg

We have used recombinant mammalian expression and purification of the factor VII (FVII) variant Gln100→ Arg (Q100RFVII) to study FVII deficiency in subjects with this mutation. Q100RFVII was secreted poorly in comparison with wild-type FVII (WTFVII) in a stable mammalian expression system, and purified variant protein was found to have undetectable clotting activity. Following activation by immobilized factor Xa, Q100RFVIIa had amidolytic activity similar to WTFVIIa in the absence of soluble tissue factor (sTF); however, unlike WTFVIIa no typical increase in activity was seen after addition of sTF. In a factor X activation assay using relipidated transmembrane truncated tissue factor (residues 1–243), Q100RFVIIa showed less than 5% of the ability of WTFVIIa to activate factor X. We performed direct binding analysis of WT and Q100RFVII/FVIIa to immobilized sTF using surface plasmon resonance, and severely reduced binding of both non-activated and activated Q100RFVII to sTF was seen, indicating a pronounced defect in tissue factor (TF) interaction with this variant. In the sTF-FVIIa crystal structure the candidate residue Gln100 is not in contact with TF but is at the epidermal growth factor 2-protease domain interface. We suggest that the mutation results in a global fold change severely reducing tissue factor interaction; mutation of FVII residues not directly involved in the interaction with TF may still result in variant FVII unable to take part in the initiation of coagulation.
Novel microstrip realization and straightforward design of fully canonical Cul-de-Sac coupling bandpass filters

A novel planar-filter realization of a fully canonical Nth-order Cul-de-Sac coupling matrix that can produce the maximum number of transmission zeros (TZs) is proposed in this paper. It is known that in general, a transversal array coupling topology that offers a generalized Chebyshev function response is hard to design in a physical structure, owing to simultaneous parallel excitation of resonators. To overcome such a drawback, this paper introduces a fully canonical Cul-de-Sac coupling that can be obtained with mathematical transformation from a transversal array coupling. The proposed filter structure for the Cul-de-Sac coupling has two resonator blocks, which are excited by two-branch lines: one is a block of even-mode half-wavelength resonators arranged in parallel to input/output lines, and the other is a block of odd-mode ones. The filter can be easily designed by coupling coefficients between two adjacent resonators without any cross couplings. The effectiveness of the proposed filter is verified with synthesis, design, and test of a 2-GHz fourth-order microstrip filter with four TZs.
Teaching the Millennial Generation: Considerations for Nurse Educators

A particular challenge for nurse educators has always been to discover the most relevant ways to promote student learning. Each generation of students presents with unique circumstances. The predominant characteristics of the current generation of nursing students are presented in this article. Suggestions are given regarding strategies to strengthen and maintain the characteristics that will be beneficial to students when they become RNs, while at the same time modifying or diminishing those that will not.
The effect of corporate governance's application on banks' performance: empirical study of banks listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange

This study aimed to examine the effect of corporate governance indicators, e.g., the board of directors, audit committee, and audit quality on bank's performance. This study used 30 banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in the year of 2009-2010 as samples. The results reveal that the board of directors as one of the corporate governance indicators has a significantly positive correlation to banks' performance. As for the audit committee indicator, the result reveals a positive but insignificant effect on banks' performance. Meanwhile, a corporate governance indicator of audit quality has a significant positive relationship to the performance of the bank. This is consistent with the previous studies. It is concluded that the higher or better functioning the board of directors, audit committee and audit quality in the bank, the better the performance of the bank.
Immunoglobulin allotypes and immunoreactivity in chronic liver disease.

The immunoglobulin allotypes Gm (a; x; f) and Km 1 have been estimated in 194 patients with chronic liver disease, and compared with the frequency distribution of a representative reference group (Gm : n = 2171; Km : n = 2179). In relation to the Gm phenotypes we have investigated the cell-mediated immunoreactivity by the E rosette test, lymphocyte transformation test and migration inhibition test. Virus-induced chronic liver disease showed significantly higher prevalence of the phenotypes Gm a+x-f+ and Gm a+x+f+ as well as of the marker Km + 1 (p less than or equal to 5%; chi 2-test). In auto-immune chronic liver disease we observed a decrease in the phenotype Gm a+x-f+ while the factor Km + 1 was significantly multiplied. Patients with cryptogenic and alcoholic hepatopathy showed no differences in comparison with the reference group. In the progressive forms of the chronic liver disease (chronic active hepatitis, liver cirrhosis) Gm a+x+f+ was significantly more frequent. The investigations concerning cell-mediated immunity in different Gm allotypes generally showed a trend to increased reactivity in Gm a+x+ in comparison with Gm a-x- in non-alcoholic liver disease. It is possible to presume different genetic and immunologic situations in the various liver diseases as endogenous factors promoting the disease.
Design and Evaluation of Hybrid Digital-Analog Transmission Outperforming Purely Digital Concepts

Efficient digital transmission of analog speech, audio or video requires source coding which introduces unavoidable quantization errors. The bit stream produced by the source encoder needs to be protected against transmission errors by channel coding. The split of a given gross bit rate between source and channel coding is a compromise taking into account the design target of the worst case channel. Thus, even in clear channel conditions the quality of the decoded source signal is limited because of the quantization errors. Hybrid digital-analog (HDA) codes address this limitation by additionally transmitting the quantization error with quasi-analog methods (discrete-time, quasi-continuous-amplitude) with neither increasing the transmit power, nor the occupied frequency bandwidth on the radio channel. However, the decoding complexity of existing HDA codes is infeasible for the required block lengths. In this paper, the decoding complexity problem is solved by a new design approach. These HDA codes benefit from well-known digital codes. Furthermore, theoretical bounds are derived and explicit guidelines for the design of superior HDA systems are given. By experimental verification it is shown that the HDA concept may outperform conventional purely digital transmission systems at all channel qualities while additionally eliminating the quality saturation effect.
Fibulin-2 Binds to the Short Arms of Laminin-5 and Laminin-1 via Conserved Amino Acid Sequences*

Epithelial cell-specific laminin-5, consisting of three chains, α3, β3, and γ2, is a component of the anchoring filament that traverses the lamina lucida beneath the hemidesmosomes of epidermal cells and functions to link these cells to the basement membrane. We have studied the molecular interaction between laminin-5 and extracellular matrix proteins using recombinant proteins and synthetic peptides. Affinity chromatography assays with recombinant fragments of the laminin γ2 short arm identified a 195-kDa binding protein in the conditioned media from the mouse epidermal cell line Pam 212 and from primary dermal fibroblasts. This molecule was identified by Western blotting as fibulin-2, a recently identified extracellular matrix protein. Using deletion mutants and various synthetic peptides in competition assays, the 9-amino acid sequence SADFSVHKI (residues 199-207) in domain IV of the γ2 chain was defined as a critical site for fibulin-2 binding. An anti-γ2 antibody co-immunoprecipitated fibulin-2 from the conditioned media, further confirming the interaction of fibulin-2 with laminin-5. Fibulin-2 was also found to interact with laminin-1 (α1β1γ1) through a region (residues 654-665) of the α1 chain short arm whose sequence is similar to that of the fibulin-2 binding site of the γ2 chain. Together these results suggest that fibulin-2 functions to bridge laminin-1 and laminin-5 with other extracellular matrix proteins, providing a linkage between the cell surface and the basement membrane.