Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A self-organizing scale-sensitive neural network

Three adaptive rules are combined in a neural network simulation: an anti-Hebbian inhibitory learning rule, a variant of a Hebbian excitatory learning rule, and a Weber law neuron-growth rule. The neuron-growth rule permits the network to learn and classify input patterns despite variations in their spatial scale. The inhibitory learning rule permits superposition of multiple simultaneous neural activations (multiple winners) under strictly regulated circumstances, instead of forcing winner-take-all pattern classifications. The selected multiple activations can represent uncertainty or multiplicity in perception and pattern recognition. Such behavior is useful in representing visual ambiguity in the aperture problem, determining visual depth from motion parallax, forming a category-recognition network in a complex environment, and representing visual transparency. The techniques illustrate how higher-level pattern sensitivities may self-organize in complex perceptual environments in the presence of multiple scales, multiple patterns, and uncertainty
Experimental Age Discrimination Evidence and the Heckman Critique

We design and implement a large-scale field experiment on age discrimination to address limitations of past research that may bias their results. One limitation is the practice of giving older and younger applicants similar experience in the job to which they are applying, to make them "otherwise comparable. " The second limitation is ignoring the likelihood of greater variation in unobserved differences among older workers owing to human capital investment. Based on evidence from over 40,000 job applications, we find robust evidence of age discrimination in hiring against older women, but considerably less evidence of age discrimination against older men.
Evolution und Planung: Überlegungen zur Wirtschafts- und Friedensordnung

Abstract Although individuals cannot desist from planning, social processes cannot be commanded and controlled successfully. The shortcomings and disadvantages of holistic planning and the likelihood of plan failure can be explained: Scattered knowledge can be mobilized, innovation and effort can be elicited only where planning does not displace economic freedom and competition. The positive effects of freedom and competition and the negative effects of constraining plans can be demonstrated empirically. But freedom and competition require an institutional framework. There is no need to leave the establishment of this framework only to evolution because evolution does not necessarily lead to efficient solutions. That is why some kinds of planning may have a useful, though modest role to play at the rule-making level. Since planners remain fallible in planning constitutions and institutions, competition and some room for evolution remain desirable at this level, too.
The Research of Multicultural Course in China: Its Present Situation and Developing Strategies

The research of the multicultural courses is an innovative job with a great significance in our education administration and education reform.At present,there some problems in the process of carrying out the multicultural courses.First,there is not a specialized course plan or curriculum for the minority education.Second,the course structure of minority education is not flexible.Third,there is a lack of nationality in the contents of the course in minority education.The development of the multicultural courses in China is a systematic project in a long term,whose final result depends much on the joints efforts of policies and supply of money from the educational circles and other fields.It is necessary to take such primary measures as: to establish the basic idea of the coexistence of multiculture and the basic principles of designing the multicultural courses,to rearrange the contents of multicultural courses,to set up the basic developing modes of multicultural courses,form an effective ensuring mechanism for the development of the multicultural courses,and to foster teachers' qualification and multicultural awareness.
Intravenous nicotine and caffeine: subjective and physiological effects in cocaine abusers.

The subjective and physiological effects of intravenously administered caffeine and nicotine were compared in nine subjects with histories of using caffeine, tobacco, and cocaine. Subjects abstained from tobacco cigarette smoking for at least 8 h before each session. Dietary caffeine was eliminated throughout the study; however, to maintain consistency with the nicotine intake, subjects were administered caffeine (150 mg/70 kg b.i.d.) in capsules, with the last dose administered 15 to 18 h before each session. Under double-blind conditions, subjects received placebo, caffeine (100, 200, and 400 mg/70 kg), and nicotine (0.75, 1.5, and 3.0 mg/70 kg) in mixed order. Physiological and subjective data were collected before and repeatedly after drug or placebo administration. Compared with the highest dose of caffeine, the highest dose of nicotine produced greater subjective ratings on a number of scales. At doses that produced comparable ratings of drug effect (1.5 mg/70 kg of nicotine and 400 mg/70 kg of caffeine), both drugs produced similar increases in ratings of good effect, liking, high, stimulated, and bad effect. Nicotine showed a somewhat faster time to peak subjective effects than caffeine (2 versus 4 min). Subjective ratings that differentiated caffeine and nicotine were ratings of rush, blurry vision, and stimulant identification (elevated by nicotine) and ratings of unusual smell and/or taste (elevated by caffeine). Both caffeine and nicotine decreased skin temperature and increased diastolic blood pressure; however, caffeine decreased whereas nicotine increased heart rate. The study documents both striking similarities and some notable differences between caffeine and nicotine, which are among the most widely used mood-altering drugs.
A Comparison of In-Class Learner Engagement Across Lecture, Problem-Based Learning, and Team Learning Using the STROBE Classroom Observation Tool

Background: Having recently introduced team learning into the preclinical medical curriculum, evidence of the relative impact of this instructional method on in-class learner engagement was sought. Purpose: To compare patterns of engagement behaviors among learners in class sessions across 3 distinct instructional methods: lecture, problem-based learning (PBL), and team learning. Methods: Trained observers used the STROBE classroom observation tool to measure learner engagement in 7 lecture, 4 PBL, and 3 team learning classrooms over a 12-month period. Proportions of different types of engagement behaviors were compared using chi-square. Results: In PBL and team learning, the amount of learner-to-learner engagement was similar and much greater than in lecture, where most engagement was of the learner-to-instructor and self-engagement types. Also, learner-to-instructor engagement appeared greater in team learning than in PBL. Conclusions: Observed engagement behaviors confirm the potential of team learning to foster engagement similar to PBL, but with greater faculty input.
Circadian distribution of rest/activity in narcoleptic and control dogs: assessment with ambulatory activity monitoring

Like human narcoleptics, narcoleptic dogs display cataplexy, fragmented sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness. Cataplexy in dogs can easily be quantified using a simple behavioural bioassay, the Food Elicited Cataplexy Test. In contrast, daytime sleepiness and fragmented sleep are more difficult to measure, as long‐term, labour‐intensive polygraphic recordings in surgically‐implanted animals are needed. In the current study, 24‐h rest/activity patterns in genetically narcoleptic, asymptomatic heterozygous and control Dobermans were compared using small sized ambulatory activity monitoring devices under 12‐h light/dark conditions. Control and heterozygous dogs were found to be more active during the light period than during the dark period, thus demonstrating a clear 24‐h rest/activity cycle. In contrast, narcoleptic dogs were relatively inactive during the light period and did not show a clear rest/activity pattern, a result similar to that of human narcoleptics. Considering the fact that narcoleptic dogs show shorter sleep latency and sleep significantly more during the daytime than control dogs, the decrease in activity in narcoleptic dogs during the daytime is most likely a reflection of increased daytime napping in these animals. Ambulatory activity monitoring may be a useful non‐invasive method for future pharmacological and developmental studies in the narcoleptic canine model.
The Law of Comparative Advantage without Social Utility Functions

This paper derives sufficient conditions under which the Law of Comparative Advantage and the General Law of Comparative Advantage are true when the preferences of the trading countries may not be represented by "well-behaved" social utility functions. It shows that in the neoclassical framework with convex technologies, profit maximization and Walrus' Law, the laws of comparative advantage under a natural trade are still valid if either the General Law of Demand or the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference holds, or if losers are compensated using lump-sum transfers or consumption taxes. Copyright 1998 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Blogs in teacher education: Knowledge sharing among pre-service teachers on a group course blog

This chapter examines the content of written blog postings of students enrolled in a face-to-face course focusing on literacy assessment methods and practice for Pre-Service Teachers (PST) seeking elementary teaching certification. The purpose of the study was to examine the transcription of the students’ postings and Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) to look for the three types of elements that comprise the Community of Inquiry according to Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001) as well as the examination of broader themes and trends across the data (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Data included blog posts from a 15-week semester with a total of 702 combined posts and comments from a total of 40 undergraduate students. Data were analyzed using the constant-comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and the framework of the Community of Inquiry Model (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Students engaged in various levels of cognitive stages of inquiry while also building on and developing social presence throughout the course. Teacher presence also guided the social construction of knowledge throughout the course. Examination of the teacher presence suggests that the instructor needed to provide more scaffolding in modeling evidence-based practice and problem-solving on the blog as students did not always connect their practice to evidence-based or text-based support.
Calcium levels measured in a presynaptic neurone of Aplysia under conditions that modulate transmitter release.

We have utilized the Ca2+ indicator dye, Arsenazo III, to examine the role of presynaptic Ca2+ concentration in two types of synaptic plasticity observed at the synapses of cell L10 in Aplysia californica; post‐tetanic potentiation (p.t.p. ‐ the increased transmitter release which follows high frequency stimulation), and resting membrane potential modulation of release. Intracellular Ca2+ was monitored in the cell body and main neurites of L10 injected with Arsenazo III. Tetanic stimulation caused an increase in intracellular Ca2+ concentration that decayed, after tetanus, with fast and slow time constants which paralleled the time course of decay of p.t. p. When the voltage‐sensitive Ca2+ current was reduced by removing external Ca2+ (0 mM‐Ca2+, 4 mM‐EGTA) or by blocking Ca2+ channels with divalent cation channel blocker (4 mM‐Cd2+), tetanic stimulation did not cause increases in Arsenazo absorbance even when Na+ currents were not blocked. This finding suggests that Ca2+ entering the cell through voltage‐dependent Ca2+ channels was the major source of Ca2+ which accumulated during the tetanus. Transmitter release is increased when L10 is maintained at a depolarized membrane potential, and is decreased when L10 is hyperpolarized. We found that the base‐line Arsenazo absorbance signal in L10 increased when L10 was depolarized from ‐60 to ‐40 mV and decreased when L10 was hyperpolarized. This finding supports the idea that the steady‐state Ca2+ concentration contributes to the membrane‐potential modulation of transmitter release. These results support the idea that transmitter release can be modulated by the residual or resting Ca2+ concentration of the presynaptic cell.
Daily food intake and digestibility in rats

The present work with growing rats was undertaken to study the effect of daily food intake (DFI) on true protein digestibility (TD), and apparent digestibility of dry matter (DM), energy (DE), starch, soluble dietary fibre (SDF) and insoluble dietary fibre (IDF). The design involved two different dietary combinations, barley + rapeseed meal (diet 1) and oats + wheat bran (diet 2). A slight but significantly negative relationship was seen between DFI and TD on diet 1 while no such relationship was found on diet 2. Although significant, DFI influenced DM digestibility of both diets only slightly. A similar situation could also be seen for the effect of DFI on DE. The digestibility of starch was significantly affected by DFI on both diets even though the lowest values were as high as 0.994. SDF digestibility (fermentability) was not influenced by DFI when the rats were given diet 1, while there was a significant negative effect of DFI on digestibility of SDF when diet 2 was given. The digestibility (fermentability) of IDF was not affected by DFI on either of the two diets. The results confirm the existence of a weak negative relationship between DFI and digestibility of a range of nutrients although the effect seems to be only marginal and of no importance under practical feeding conditions
Promoter suppression in cultured mammalian cells can be blocked by the chicken beta-globin chromatin insulator 5'HS4 and matrix/scaffold attachment regions.

Studies have indicated that two transcriptionally active units can repress one another when they lie adjacent in head-to-tail tandem on a chromosome. Repression of a downstream (3') unit by an upstream (5') unit is known as "transcriptional interference", whereas repression of a 5' unit by a 3' unit is termed "promoter suppression". These two processes can occur between head-to-tail tandem copies of a transgene, or between transgenes and adjacent chromosomal genes. Interference can be blocked by inserting a transcription terminator between adjacent units. Here, we report that "promoter suppression" could be blocked by the insulator 5' DNaseI hypersensitive site 4, or matrix/scaffold attachment regions (MAR/SARs), when these elements were interposed between adjacent units. Because intergenic spacers of many repeated eukaryotic genes contain MAR/SARs and insulators, our observations suggest that these elements have the ability to segregate repeated genes into domains that act independently of one another. Our observations also suggest strategies to design transgenes that can act as autonomous units of expression.
Novel disease targets and management approaches for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) responds well to treatment with CHOP and the R-CHOP regimen, but a subset of patients still fail to achieve complete or durable responses. Recent advances in gene expression profiling have led to the identification of three different subtypes of DLBCL, and confirmed that patients with the activated B-cell (ABC) disease subtype are less likely to respond well to CHOP-based regimens than those with germinal centre B-cell-type (GCB) disease. This discovery could herald the use of gene expression profiling to aid treatment decisions in DLBCL, and help identify the most effective management strategies for patients. Treatment options for patients with relapsed or refractory DLBCL are limited and several novel agents are being developed to address this unmet clinical need. Novel agents developed to treat plasma cell disorders such as multiple myeloma have shown promising activity in patients with NHL. Indeed, the immunomodulatory agent lenalidomide and the proteasome inhibitors bortezomib and carfilzomib, as single agents or in combination with chemotherapy, have already demonstrated promising activity in patients with the ABC subtype of DLBCL. One should not be complacent however when applying these agents to new disease types, because dose and drug scheduling can have marked effects on the responses achieved with investigational agents. As more targeted agents are developed, the timing of administration with other agents in clinical trials will become increasingly important to ensure maximal efficacy while minimizing side effects.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Esc2p Interacts with Sir2p through a Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO)-binding Motif and Regulates Transcriptionally Silent Chromatin in a Locus-dependent Manner*

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Esc2p is a member of a conserved family of proteins that contain small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO)-like domains. It has been implicated in transcriptional silencing and shown to interact with the silencing protein Sir2p in a two-hybrid analysis. However, little is known about how Esc2p regulates the structure of silent chromatin. We demonstrate here that ESC2 differentially regulates silent chromatin at telomeric, rDNA, and HM loci. Specifically, ESC2 is required for efficient telomeric silencing and Sir2p association with telomeric silent chromatin and for silencing and maintenance of silent chromatin structure at rDNA. On the other hand, ESC2 negatively regulates silencing at HML and HMR and destabilizes HML silent chromatin without affecting Sir2p association with chromatin. We present evidence that Esc2p is associated with both transcriptionally silent and active loci in the genome, and the abundance of Esc2p is not correlated with the chromatin state at a particular locus. Using affinity pull-down analyses, we show that Esc2p and Sir2p interact in vivo, and recombinant Esc2p and Sir2p interact directly. Moreover, we dissect Esc2p and identify a putative SUMO-binding motif that is necessary and sufficient for interacting with Sir2p and SUMO and is required for the function of Esc2p in transcriptional silencing.
Stabilometric assessment in the anterior cruciate ligament-reconstructed knee.

OBJECTIVE To examine the hypotheses that anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction improves the proprioception of the knee beyond the level of ACL-deficient knees, and that proprioception of the knee correlates well with knee function after ACL reconstruction. PATIENTS Fifty-three patients with ACL-reconstructed knees (22 men and 31 women), 30 physically active healthy volunteers with normal knees (15 men and 15 women), and 30 patients with chronic ACL-deficient knees (15 men and 15 women). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES A stabilometric assessment, which is considered to be a useful method for evaluating proprioception objectively, was used to compare the one-leg standing balance among three groups; and the relationship between subjective knee function, satisfaction, hop index, knee laxity, isokinetic thigh muscle strength, and one-leg standing balance in the ACL-reconstructed patients was also analyzed. RESULTS The one-leg standing balance of the patients with ACL-reconstructed knees was still impaired compared with that of healthy volunteers (men, p < 0.05; women, p < 0.01), but significantly better than that of the patients with ACL-deficient knees (men, p < 0.001; women, p < 0.001). The one-leg standing balance of the patients with ACL-reconstructed knees correlated well with their functional outcomes such as subjective knee function (men, p < 0.001; women, p < 0.01), satisfaction (men, p < 0.01; women, p < 0.001), and hop index (men, p < 0.001; women, p < 0.001), whereas poor correlation was seen between functional outcomes and mechanical stability. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that knee function after ACL-reconstruction should be closely related with knee proprioception, and indicate that the usefulness of stabilometric assessment in the evaluation of the function of ACL-reconstructed knees.
Cultural persuasive affordances in advergaming design across cultures: a conceptual model

This paper presents a discussion on across-cultural design and persuasive gaming, particularly for advertising purposes. The concept of advergaming is related to the integration of the brand attributes and the creation of persuasive messages inside the advergame. From a design perspective, aspects that are part of persuasive design across cultures are examined. Following this, a conceptual framework with the integration of cultural persuasive affordances that could be considered in studies involving persuasion, gaming, branding and cross-cultural consumer behavior is presented.
Clausius-Mossotti approximation for a family of nonlinear composites.

A generalization of the Clausius-Mossotti approximation is proposed to describe the bulk effective dielectric constant, or electric conductivity, of a family of nonlinear composite media. These composites are composed of nonlinear spherical or ellipsoidal inclusions embedded in a uniform linear matrix. The nonlinearity of the inclusions may be of arbitrary form. Explicit results are obtained for strong and weak power-law nonlinearities. Our approach is also extended to random resistor network made of a uniform linear network in which nonlinear resistors are randomly distributed
MD-Miner: Behavior-Based Tracking of Network Traffic for Malware-Control Domain Detection

Malicious domains are basic tools in the hands of cybercriminals. Once a victim is malware-infected, malware will tend to connect malicious domains to do internet crime such as awaiting the remote control command or delivering the malware reported feedback. Recent studies have paid much effort on detecting malicious domains, but still have room to improve. For the purpose of detecting malicious domains efficiently and accurately, we propose MD-Miner, a novel scalable system that tracks new malicious domains in large-volume of network traffic data. MD-Miner monitors the network traffic to build a process-domain bipartite graph representing who is connecting what. After labeling nodes in this process-domain graph that are known to be either benign or malicious-related, we propose a novel approach to accurately detect previously unknown malicious domains. In this paper, we implemented a proof-of-concept version of MD-Miner with assistance of MapReduce architecture. The experiment results show that MD-Miner can achieve AUC as good as 95% and find new malicious domain which cannot be identified by other reputation system. In addition, the scalability and applicability of MD-Miner is demonstrated by experiments on the real-world enterprise network traffic.
On Environmental Regulation and the Green Industrial Total Factor Productivity——Empirical Analysis Based on the Data of 30 Provinces in China

Based on directional distance function, this paper employs the Malmquist-Luenberger Index to calculate the green industrial total factor productivity(GITFP) of 30 provinces in China between 2001and 2011. Then the paper analyzes the influence of environmental regulation on GITFP by the panel data regression analysis. Based on these analyses, the paper finds that GITFP is lower than the traditional industrial total factor productivity of China, for every province has negative impact on the environment when they develop economy. The decline of GITFP in the western part of China is much more quickly than those in the central and eastern parts. Environmental regulation has positive effect on GITFP, and the effect gets smaller when GITFP becomes higher. Technology innovation and foreign direct investment are also important variables for GITFP.