Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploiting the Semantic Web for Unsupervised Natural Language Semantic Parsing

In this paper, we propose to bring together the semantic web experience and statistical natural language semantic parsing modeling. The idea is that, the process for populating knowledge-bases by semantically parsing structured web pages may pro-vide very valuable implicit annotation for language understanding tasks. We mine search queries hitting to these web pages in order to semantically annotate them for building statistical unsupervised slot ﬁlling models, without even a need for a semantic annotation guideline. We present promising results demon-strating this idea for building an unsupervised slot ﬁlling model for the movies domain with some representative slots. Fur-thermore, we also employ unsupervised model adaptation for cases when there are some in-domain unannotated sentences available. Another key contribution of this work is using im-plicitly annotated natural-language-like queries for testing the performance of the models, in a totally unsupervised fashion. We believe, such an approach also ensures consistent semantic representation between the semantic parser and the backend knowledge-base.
Cyber Security Risks Assessment with Bayesian Defense Graphs and Architectural Models

To facilitate rational decision making regarding cyber security investments, decision makers need to be able to assess expected losses before and after potential investments. This paper presents a model based assessment framework for analyzing the cyber security provided by different architectural scenarios. The framework uses the Bayesian statistics based Extended Influence Diagrams to express attack graphs and related countermeasures. In this paper it is demonstrated how this structure can be captured in an abstract model to support analysis based on architectural models. The approach allows calculating the probability that attacks will succeed and the expected loss of these given the instantiated architectural scenario. Moreover, the framework can handle the uncertainties that are accompanied to the analyses. In architectural analysis there are uncertainties acquainted both to the scenario and its properties, as well as to the analysis framework that stipulates how security countermeasures contribute to cyber security.
An Argonaute Transports siRNAs from the Cytoplasm to the Nucleus

Ribonucleoprotein complexes consisting of Argonaute-like proteins and small regulatory RNAs function in a wide range of biological processes. Many of these small regulatory RNAs are predicted to act, at least in part, within the nucleus. We conducted a genetic screen to identify factors essential for RNA interference (RNAi) in nuclei of Caenorhabditis elegans and identified the Argonaute protein NRDE-3. In the absence of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), NRDE-3 resides in the cytoplasm. NRDE-3 binds siRNAs generated by RNA-dependent RNA polymerases acting on messenger RNA templates in the cytoplasm and redistributes to the nucleus. Nuclear redistribution of NRDE-3 requires a functional nuclear localization signal, is required for nuclear RNAi, and results in NRDE-3 association with nuclear-localized nascent transcripts. Thus, specific Argonaute proteins can transport specific classes of small regulatory RNAs to distinct cellular compartments to regulate gene expression.
Selectivity and Sparseness in Randomly Connected Balanced Networks

Neurons in sensory cortex show stimulus selectivity and sparse population response, even in cases where no strong functionally specific structure in connectivity can be detected. This raises the question whether selectivity and sparseness can be generated and maintained in randomly connected networks. We consider a recurrent network of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons with random connectivity, driven by random projections from an input layer of stimulus selective neurons. In this architecture, the stimulus-to-stimulus and neuron-to-neuron modulation of total synaptic input is weak compared to the mean input. Surprisingly, we show that in the balanced state the network can still support high stimulus selectivity and sparse population response. In the balanced state, strong synapses amplify the variation in synaptic input and recurrent inhibition cancels the mean. Functional specificity in connectivity emerges due to the inhomogeneity caused by the generative statistical rule used to build the network. We further elucidate the mechanism behind and evaluate the effects of model parameters on population sparseness and stimulus selectivity. Network response to mixtures of stimuli is investigated. It is shown that a balanced state with unselective inhibition can be achieved with densely connected input to inhibitory population. Balanced networks exhibit the “paradoxical” effect: an increase in excitatory drive to inhibition leads to decreased inhibitory population firing rate. We compare and contrast selectivity and sparseness generated by the balanced network to randomly connected unbalanced networks. Finally, we discuss our results in light of experiments.
Flood peak distributions for the eastern United States

Annual maximum peak discharge time series from 572 stations with a record of at least 75 years in the eastern United States are used to examine flood peak distributions from a regional perspective. The central issues of this study are (1) “mixtures” of flood peak distributions, (2) upper tail properties of flood peaks, (3) scaling properties of flood peaks, (4) spatial heterogeneities of flood peak distributions, and (5) temporal nonstationarities of annual flood peaks. Landfalling tropical cyclones are an important element of flood peak distributions throughout the eastern United States, but their relative importance in the “mixture” of annual flood peaks varies widely, and abruptly, in space over the region. Winter‐spring extratropical systems and warm season thunderstorm systems also introduce distinct flood peak populations, with spatially varying control of flood frequency distributions over the eastern United States. We examine abrupt changes in the mean and variance of flood peak distributions through change point analyses and temporal trends in the flood peak records through nonparametric tests. Abrupt changes, rather than slowly varying trends, are typically responsible for nonstationarities in annual flood peak records in the eastern United States, and detected change points are often linked to regulation of river basins. Trend analyses for the 572 eastern United States gaging stations provide little evidence at this point (2009) for increasing flood peak distributions associated with human‐induced climate change. Estimates of the location, scale, and shape parameters of the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution provide a framework for examining scaling properties of flood peaks and upper tail properties of flood distributions. It is shown that anomalously large values of the GEV shape parameter estimates are linked to the role of tropical cyclones in controlling the upper tail of flood distributions. Scaling analyses of flood peaks highlight the heterogeneities in flood magnitudes over the region with maxima in scaled flood magnitudes in the high‐elevation Appalachian Mountains and minima in the low‐gradient Coastal Plain.
Pulse Shape Discrimination in Polysiloxane-Based Liquid Scintillator

The time response of a recently developed polysiloxane based liquid scintillator has been analyzed for the first time: a special focus on the pulse shape discrimination capability of this material, which is characterized by low toxicity and low volatility, has been addressed. Fluorescence lifetime and scintillation pulses have been studied at different primary dye concentrations, with the aim of optimizing the neutron/gamma discrimination, connecting the results to the energy transfer and to the formation of excimers inside the scintillating solution. Pulse shape analysis performed during the irradiation of the samples with a pulsed neutron beam allowed the definition of a figure of merit as an indicative parameter for the neutron/gamma discrimination. The dependence of this parameter from radiation energy and PPO concentration has been analyzed in order to optimize the performances of the material in view of its possible use in environments with high gamma-ray radiation background.
Reactive Sintering of ZrC-TiC Composites

Inherently, zirconium carbide (ZrC) suffers from low fracture toughness (~3 MPa*m1/2) and excessive porosity when sintered in vacuum. One way to improve ZrC’s sinterability and fracture toughness is the addition of binder metal or other carbides to increase densification. Using mechanical activated synthesis (MAS) to homogenously mix ZrC and titanium carbide (TiC) powders, followed by sintering at 1900 °C, produces a ZrC-TiC composite with hardness and fracture toughness at 20 GPa & ~7 MPa*m1/2, respectively. 80ZrC-20TiC (wt%) gave the highest fracture toughness value compared to other ratios. Varying TiC ratio from 20 - 50 wt% does little to affect mechanical hardness or densification of the composite. However, fracture toughness appears to increase marginally with decreasing TiC concentration down to ~20 wt%.
Progressive Linear Precoder Optimization for MIMO Packet Retransmissions Exploiting Channel Covariance Information

This work investigates the design of linear precoders for ARQ packet retransmissions in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. We consider transmitter precoder design based on partial MIMO channel information in the form of their covariance feedback. Our objective is to maximize the ergodic mutual information provided by multiple (re)transmissions of a packet subject to transmission power constraint. We propose a set of near-optimal successive linear ARQ precoders for flat fading MIMO channels. This progressive linear ARQ precoder combines the appropriate power loading and the reverse-order pairing of singular values in the current retransmission with previous transmissions. This reverse-order pairing is a special feature unique to our sequential ARQ preceding approach with demonstrated performance gains.
Cognitive and linguistic factors affecting subject/object asymmetry: An eye-tracking study of prenominal relative clauses in Korean

Object relatives (ORs) have been reported to cause heavier processing loads than subject relatives (SRs) in both pre- and postnominal position (prenominal relatives: Miyamoto & Nakamura 2003, Kwon 2008, Ueno & Garnsey 2008; postnominal relatives: King & Just 1991, King & Kutas 1995, Traxler et al. 2002). In this article, we report the results of two eye-tracking studies of Korean prenominal relative clauses that confirm a processing advantage for subject relatives both with and without supporting context. These results are shown to be compatible with accounts involving the accessibility hierarchy (Keenan & Comrie 1977), phrase-structural complexity (O’Grady 1997), and probabilistic structural disambiguation (Mitchell et al. 1995, Hale 2006), partially compatible with similarity-based interference (Gordon et al. 2001), but incompatible with linear/temporal analyses of filler-gap dependencies (Gibson 1998, 2000, Lewis & Vasishth 2005, Lewis et al. 2006).
K65R mutation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase encodes cross-resistance to 9-(2-phosphonylmethoxyethyl)adenine

Cloned variants of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 that contain the K65R mutation in reverse transcriptase have previously been shown to display approximately 10- to 30-fold resistance against 2',3'-dideoxycytidine, 2',3'-dideoxyinosine, and 2',3'-dideoxy-3'-thiacytidine. On the basis of tissue culture studies with both primary T cells and established cell lines, we now report that the K65R mutation confers approximately 12- to 15-fold resistance to 9-(2-phosphonylmethoxyethyl)adenine (PMEA). Likewise, a chain termination system revealed that mutated recombinant K65R reverse transcriptase displays resistance to PMEA diphosphate, the active metabolite of PMEA, in cell-free enzyme assays. Parallel studies have shown that the M184V mutation in reverse transcriptase, associated with high-level resistance against the (-) enantiomer of 2',3'-dideoxy-3'-thiacytidine, does not confer resistance to PMEA in tissue culture. Viruses and enzymes that included both the K65R and M184V mutations were resistant to PMEA and PMEa diphosphate, respectively, but only to the extent conferred by the K65R mutation alone.
Effect of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator on intra-abdominal abscess formation in rats with generalized peritonitis.

BACKGROUND During generalized peritonitis, intraabdominal fibrin deposition is stimulated whereas fibrinolytic activity is reduced, which predisposes intra-abdominal abscess formation. We investigated the effects of increasing the intra-abdominal fibrinolytic activity on abscess formation by intra-abdominal administration of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA). Potential side effects, such as bacteremia and bleeding, were also assessed. STUDY DESIGN A rat model of generalized peritonitis, induced by intraperitoneal injection of sterile feces contaminated with 10(4) cfu per mL Escherichia coli (E. coli) and 10(4) cfu per mL Bacteroides fragilis, was used. RESULTS Rats treated with rt-PA dissolved in methyl hydroxy propyl cellulose (MHPC) gel (0.5 mg per mL), had significantly less intra-abdominal abscesses than rats in the control group, treated with either Ringer's lactate solution or MHPC gel alone (p < 0.01). Other than E. coli, cultures of abscesses revealed species originating from the intestine, demonstrating bacterial translocation. The mortality rate was significantly higher in the rats treated with rt-PA as compared with rats in the control group (p < 0.01), which was surprising considering the absence of bacteremia. By challenging the rats with a higher dose of E. coli, early bacteremia was observed in the rats treated with rt-PA, not related to increased mortality rates. Intraabdominal use of rt-PA was not associated with an increased incidence of bleeding events. CONCLUSIONS Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator prevents abscess formation in rats with generalized peritonitis. However, early bacteremia and increased mortality rates are serious drawbacks of the intra-abdominal use of rt-PA in this rat model.
Increased cesarean section rate in Central Saudi Arabia: a change in practice or different maternal characteristics

Background Cesarean section (CS) rate has shown an alarming increase. We aimed in this work to identify factors contributing to the increasing rate of CS in central Saudi Arabia. Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted at King Abdulaziz Medical City. Two groups of women were included (G1 and G2). G1 had delivered by CS during the year 2002 (CS rate 12%), and G2 had delivered by CS during the year 2009 (CS rate 20%). We compared the included women’s characteristics, neonates, CS indications, and complications. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 15 program. Odds ratios and confidence intervals were calculated to report precision of categorical data results. A P-value of ≤0.05 was considered significant. Results A total of 198 women were included in G1 and 200 in G2. Both groups had comparable maternal and fetal characteristics; however, absence of antenatal care has resulted in 70% increase in CS deliveries for G2, P=0.008, OR =0.30, CI 0.12–0.76. Previous vaginal surgeries have contributed to tenfold increase in CS deliveries for G2, P=0.006, OR =10.37, CI 1.32–81.78. G2 had eight times increased CS deliveries than G1 due to intrauterine growth restriction, P=0.02, OR =8.21, CI 1.02–66.25, and 80% increased risk of CS was based on maternal demand, P=0.02, OR =0.20, CI 0.02–1.71. Decision taken by less-experienced staff was associated with 2.5-fold increase in CS deliveries for G2, P=0.002, OR =2.62, CI 1.39–4.93. There was a significant increase in CS deliveries under regional analgesia and shorter duration of hospital stay for G2, P=0.0001 and P=0.001, respectively. G2 women had 2.75-fold increase in neonatal intensive care unit admission, P=0.03, OR =2.75, CI 1.06–7.15. Conclusion CS delivery rate significantly increased within the studied population. The increased rate of CS may be related to a change in physician’s practice rather than a change in maternal characteristics, and it appears to be reducible.
Perceptions of Driver Distraction by Cellular Phone Users and Nonusers

The present study examined the perceptions of cellular phone users and nonusers on issues relating to vehicle control and driver distraction. Participants were asked if they own a cellular phone; if so, how much they use it; and their beliefs regarding cellular phone use while driving, including actions involving the use of cellular phones which could potentially cause vehicular accidents and the need for laws. A total of 330 individuals participated; 72% owned a cellular phone. The results indicate that nonusers of cellular phones believed more strongly than users that cellular phone use while driving negatively affects driving performance and that talking on the cellular phone could potentially cause an accident, and they also had a greater preference for new laws limiting such acts. Cellular phone users, more than nonusers, preferred no laws limiting cellular phone use and believed more strongly that other people driving while using a cellular phone were more dangerous than themselves doing the same. Implications of these results are discussed. Actual or potential applications of this research include interventions that limit driver distractibility.
Effective Optimization of Antibody Affinity by Phage Display Integrated with High-Throughput DNA Synthesis and Sequencing Technologies

Phage display technology has been widely used for antibody affinity maturation for decades. The limited library sequence diversity together with excessive redundancy and labour-consuming procedure for candidate identification are two major obstacles to widespread adoption of this technology. We hereby describe a novel library generation and screening approach to address the problems. The approach started with the targeted diversification of multiple complementarity determining regions (CDRs) of a humanized anti-ErbB2 antibody, HuA21, with a small perturbation mutagenesis strategy. A combination of three degenerate codons, NWG, NWC, and NSG, were chosen for amino acid saturation mutagenesis without introducing cysteine and stop residues. In total, 7,749 degenerate oligonucleotides were synthesized on two microchips and released to construct five single-chain antibody fragment (scFv) gene libraries with 4 x 106 DNA sequences. Deep sequencing of the unselected and selected phage libraries using the Illumina platform allowed for an in-depth evaluation of the enrichment landscapes in CDR sequences and amino acid substitutions. Potent candidates were identified according to their high frequencies using NGS analysis, by-passing the need for the primary screening of target-binding clones. Furthermore, a subsequent library by recombination of the 10 most abundant variants from four CDRs was constructed and screened, and a mutant with 158-fold increased affinity (Kd = 25.5 pM) was obtained. These results suggest the potential application of the developed methodology for optimizing the binding properties of other antibodies and biomolecules.
Increasing tolerance to Cry1Ac cotton from cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera, was confirmed in Bt cotton farming area of China

Abstract 1. Changes in the frequency of Cry1Ac resistance genes and shifts in tolerance of cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera, to the Cry1Ac toxin were assessed using bioassays of F1 and F2 offspring of isofemale lines from Anci County of Hebei Province (a multiple‐crop system including corn, soybean, peanut, and Bt cotton) and Xiajin County of Shandong Province (an intensive Bt cotton planting area) in Northern China during 2002–2005.
On a Path to Unfolding the Biological Mechanisms of Orthodontic Tooth Movement

Orthodontic forces deform the extracellular matrix and activate cells of the paradental tissues, facilitating tooth movement. Discoveries in mechanobiology have illuminated sequential cellular and molecular events, such as signal generation and transduction, cytoskeletal re-organization, gene expression, differentiation, proliferation, synthesis and secretion of specific products, and apoptosis. Orthodontists work in a unique biological environment, wherein applied forces engender remodeling of both mineralized and non-mineralized paradental tissues, including the associated blood vessels and neural elements. This review aims at identifying events that affect the sequence, timing, and significance of factors that determine the nature of the biological response of each paradental tissue to orthodontic force. The results of this literature review emphasize the fact that mechanoresponses and inflammation are both essential for achieving tooth movement clinically. If both are working in concert, orthodontists might be able to accelerate or decelerate tooth movement by adding adjuvant methods, whether physical, chemical, or surgical.
Effect of Age and Breeding Season on the Developmental Capacity of Oocytes from Unstimulated and Follicle-Stimulating Hormone-Stimulated Rhesus Monkeys1

Abstract Effects of age and season on the developmental capacity of oocytes from unstimulated and FSH-stimulated rhesus monkeys were examined. Immature cumulus-oocyte complexes were matured in vitro in modified CMRL-1066 medium containing 20% bovine calf serum and subjected to in vitro fertilization followed by embryo culture. After fertilization, ova from unstimulated prepubertal monkeys displayed lower development to morula (4%) than those from unstimulated adult females (18% in breeding season and 22% in nonbreeding season). No developmental difference was found between ova from unstimulated adult monkeys in breeding and nonbreeding seasons. However, ova from FSH-primed prepubertal monkeys displayed greater development to blastocyst stage (54%) than those from adult monkeys in the breeding season (16%) and nonbreeding season (0%); and ova from FSH-primed adult females in the breeding season had significantly (P < 0.05) greater developmental competence than those obtained in the nonbreeding season (≥morula stage, 54% vs. 3%; blastocyst stage, 16% vs. 0%). These data indicate that 1) rhesus monkey oocytes acquire developmental competence in a donor age-dependent manner, and 2) animal age and breeding season modulate the effect of FSH on oocyte developmental competence in the rhesus monkey.