Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Stylistic Composition of Bach Chorales with Deep LSTM

This work was done as part of the Cambridge lab’s involvement in Cambridge University’s MPhil in Machine Learning, Speech, and Language Technology program, and was carried out by two students (under our supervision) named Feynman Liang and Martin Tomczak. In this research project we set out to build an AI system based upon LSTMs that was able to compose music like Johann Sebastian Bach. This presented some challenges: How do you represent music for use in AI? How is music composed, and can an AI reproduce that process? How do you determine if a piece of generated music is “in the style” of a composer, i.e. Bach? Addressing each of these was an interesting challenge that required expertise both from inside the lab and without. One of the key collaborators, Mark Gotham, is a computational musicologist. He helped us answer questions (1) and (2) by introducing us to notations that were amenable to machine learning, and by walking us through how students in musical composition learn to compose music in the style of certain composers. In particular, he introduced us to the task of “completing music”, where one or more parts are provided and the student has to complete the other parts for the music. In this context, we applied our AI know-how to train a deep LSTM model to compose and complete musical compositions. Really intriguingly, analysis of the trained model provided evidence of neurons specializing without prior knowledge or explicit supervision to detect common music-theoretic concepts such as tonics, chords, and cadences. This left us with the problem of how to evaluate it, and for this we created a website, http://bachbot.com (try it out yourself! ) and used it to conduct one of the largest musical discrimination tests ever performed involving 2,336 participants. Among the results, the proportion of responses correctly differentiating BachBot from Bach was only 1% better than random guessing.
Impacts of Biodiversity Loss Escalate Through Time as Redundancy Fades

Give It Time Experimental ecological studies in recent years have provided a great deal of insight into how species diversify and influence ecosystem properties, but in most cases the experiments have been relatively brief (up to ∼5 years). Reich et al. (p. 589; see the Perspective by Cardinale) performed two 13- and 15-year grassland experiments and found that the effects of plant species richness on community-level processes like biomass production tend to be saturating at early stages but that those impacts grow stronger and more linear as experiments run longer. Stronger influences through time were largely driven by increasing amounts of “complementarity” among species, and these trends were correlated with greater expression of functional diversity in multispecies assemblages. Thus, the effects of diversity grow stronger through time as species gain more and more opportunity to vary in their use of the limiting biological resources in their environment, which emphasizes the functional importance of maintaining diversity in ecosystems. Long-term grassland experiments show that high-diversity species combinations become more functionally diverse with time. Plant diversity generally promotes biomass production, but how the shape of the response curve changes with time remains unclear. This is a critical knowledge gap because the shape of this relationship indicates the extent to which loss of the first few species will influence biomass production. Using two long-term (≥13 years) biodiversity experiments, we show that the effects of diversity on biomass productivity increased and became less saturating over time. Our analyses suggest that effects of diversity-dependent ecosystem feedbacks and interspecific complementarity accumulate over time, causing high-diversity species combinations that appeared functionally redundant during early years to become more functionally unique through time. Consequently, simplification of diverse ecosystems will likely have greater negative impacts on ecosystem functioning than has been suggested by short-term experiments.
Incentives for large peer-to-peer systems

We consider problems of provisioning an excludable public good amongst n potential members of a peer-to-peer system who are able to communicate information about their private preferences for the good. The cost of provisioning the good in quantity Q depends on Q, and may also depend on n, or on the final number of participating peers m. Our aim is to maximize the expected social welfare in a way that is incentive compatible, rational and budget-balanced. Although it is unfortunately almost never possible to calculate or implement a truely optimal mechanism design, we show that as the number of participants becomes large the expected social welfare that can be obtained by the optimal design is at most a factor 1+O(1/n) or 1+O(1//spl radic/n) greater than that which can be obtained with a very simple scheme that requires only payment of a fixed contribution from any agent who joins the system as a participating peer. Our first application is to a model of file sharing, in which the public good is content availability; the second concerns a problem of peering wireless local area networks, in which the public good is the availability of connectivity for roaming peers. In both problems, we can cope with the requirement that the payments be made in kind, rather than in cash.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PHOTOTROPHIC AND NON--PHOTOTROPHIC LAGOONS FOR SWINE MANURE

Odors are a major result of inadequately sized and mismanaged anaerobic lagoons. However, purple or pink colored lagoons, indicating the presence of phototrophic purple bacteria, are less likely to be an odor nuisance than are non-purple lagoons. Eight swine lagoons were studied to quantify critical parameters thought to allow purple lagoons to be a more reliable odor control alternative. Bacteriochlorophyll a (Bchl a), which indirectly measures the abundance of phototrophic bacteria, was greater in purple lagoons than in non-purple lagoons (P = 0.01). Oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) was less negative for purple lagoons than for non-purple lagoons in both spring (lagoon temperatures of 6.7C to 8.8C) and during summer (temperatures of 22C to 25C), indicating conditions favoring phototrophism (P = 0.04). Dissolved oxygen levels were near zero and light penetration was minimal in all lagoons. Average sulfide concentrations of all the lagoons were in the range of 1.6 to 6.5 mg/L, which is below the preferred range for purple sulfur bacteria (PSB) growth. Purple lagoons appeared to have lower concentrations of ammonia, alkalinity, chemical oxygen demand, and electrical conductivity among the lagoons studied. Copper and zinc concentrations of all lagoons were not in the range considered to be toxic for anaerobic bacteria. Calculated volatile solids loading rates did not explain differences in Bchl a levels in the lagoons.
Total Soluble and Endogenous Secretory Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products as Predictive Biomarkers of Coronary Heart Disease Risk in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE Circulating levels of soluble receptor for advanced glycation end products (sRAGE) likely comprise both a secreted isoform (esRAGE) and wild-type RAGE cleaved from the cell membrane. Both sRAGE and esRAGE have been proposed as biomarkers of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but prospective data are limited. We examined the relationship of sRAGE and esRAGE to incident coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in type 2 diabetic patients followed for 3.9 years in a trial of atorvastatin: the Collaborative Atorvastatin Diabetes Study (CARDS). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We used a nested case-control design sampling all incident cases of CVD with available plasma and randomly selecting three control subjects, who were free of CVD throughout follow-up, per case. Analysis was by Cox regression with adjustment for treatment allocation and relevant covariates. RESULTS sRAGE and esRAGE were strongly correlated (ρ = 0.88) and were both higher in those with lower BMI (P < 0.001), higher adiponectin (P < 0.001), lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (P = 0.009), and white ethnicity (P < 0.001). Both sRAGE and esRAGE were associated with incident CHD events, independently of treatment allocation and the above factors; hazard ratio (HR) = 1.74 (95% CI 1.25–2.41; P = 0.002) for a doubling of the sRAGE level; HR = 1.45 (1.11–1.89; P = 0.006) for a doubling of the esRAGE level. There was no significant association with stroke; HR for sRAGE = 0.66 (0.38–1.14). Atorvastatin, 10 mg daily, did not alter sRAGE. CONCLUSIONS Higher levels of sRAGE and esRAGE are associated with incident CHD but not stroke in type 2 diabetes.
Diagnostic Yield of Microscopic Colitis in Open Access Endoscopy Center.

BACKGROUND The diagnostic yield in open access endoscopy has been evaluated which generally support the effectiveness and efficiency of open access endoscopy. With a few exceptions, diagnostic yield studies have not been performed in open access endoscopy for more specific conditions. Therefore, we conducted a study to determine the efficiency of open access endoscopy in the detection of microscopic colitis as compared to traditional referral via a gastroenterologist. METHODS A retrospective search of the pathology database at the University of Missouri for specimens from a local open access endoscopy center was conducted via SNOMED code using the terms: "microscopic", "lymphocytic", "collagenous", "spirochetosis", "focal active colitis", "melanosis coli" and "histopathologic" in the diagnosis line for the time period between January 1, 2004 and May 25, 2006. Specimens and colonoscopy reports were reviewed by a single pathologist. RESULTS Of 266 consecutive patients with chronic diarrhea and normal colonoscopies, the number of patients with microscopic disease are as follows: Lymphocytic colitis (n = 12, 4.5%), collagenous colitis (n = 17, 6.4%), focal active colitis (n = 15, 5.6%), and spirochetosis (n = 2, 0.4%). CONCLUSIONS The diagnostic yield of microscopic colitis in this study of an open access endoscopy center does not differ significantly from that seen in major medical centers. In terms of diagnostic yield, open access endoscopy appears to be as effective in diagnosing microscopic colitis.
Epitope Analysis of the Malaria Surface Antigen Pfs48/45 Identifies a Subdomain That Elicits Transmission Blocking Antibodies*

Pfs48/45, a member of a Plasmodium-specific protein family, displays conformation-dependent epitopes and is an important target for malaria transmission-blocking (TB) immunity. To design a recombinant Pfs48/45-based TB vaccine, we analyzed the conformational TB epitopes of Pfs48/45. The Pfs48/45 protein was found to consist of a C-terminal six-cysteine module recognized by anti-epitope I antibodies, a middle four-cysteine module recognized by anti-epitopes IIb and III, and an N-terminal module recognized by anti-epitope V antibodies. Refolding assays identified that a fragment of 10 cysteines (10C), comprising the middle four-cysteine and the C-terminal six-cysteine modules, possesses superior refolding capacity. The refolded and partially purified 10C conformer elicited antibodies in mice that targeted at least two of the TB epitopes (I and III). The induced antibodies could block the fertilization of Plasmodium falciparum gametes in vivo in a concentration-dependent manner. Our results provide important insight into the structural organization of the Pfs48/45 protein and experimental support for a Pfs48/45-based subunit vaccine.
Decoding Buffer Management in Practical Wireless Network Coding

In a practical wireless network, the coding opportunities may be reduced by limited decoding buffers. In this paper, we introduce a new scheme called decoding buffer management (DBM) in practical wireless network coding. The DBM is composed of two parts named respectively decoding buffer filtering and packet information distributing. By decoding buffer filtering, the packets invaluable for future coding/decoding are filtered instead of storing in decoding buffer. Meanwhile, through packet information distributing, the overhead brought by packet information announcing is further reduced. We evaluate the proposed scheme on a regular 4×4 grid wireless network. Comparing with COPE, the simulation results show that when decoding buffers are limited, the DBM has up to 6.7 times coding opportunities while the amount of the packets stored in decoding buffers is reduced by up to 88% and the amount for packet information announcing is reduced by over 95%.
Low Impact Artificial Intelligences

There are many goals for an AI that could become dangerous if the AI becomes superintelligent or otherwise powerful. Much work on the AI control problem has been focused on constructing AI goals that are safe even for such AIs. This paper looks at an alternative approach: defining a general concept of `low impact'. The aim is to ensure that a powerful AI which implements low impact will not modify the world extensively, even if it is given a simple or dangerous goal. The paper proposes various ways of defining and grounding low impact, and discusses methods for ensuring that the AI can still be allowed to have a (desired) impact despite the restriction. The end of the paper addresses known issues with this approach and avenues for future research.
Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor 1 Signaling Resistance in the Female Myocardium During Ischemia

Background— Tumor necrosis factor-&agr; (TNF) is increased in myocardial tissue after ischemia and reperfusion (I/R). TNF contributes to postischemic myocardial dysfunction and induces proinflammatory signaling, which may be mediated by the 55-kDa TNF receptor (TNFR1). In humans, there is a direct correlation between functional capacity, survival, and circulating TNF levels. Although decreasing the TNF level in animals was beneficial after myocardial ischemia, simply decreasing the bioavailability of TNF in humans with heart failure was not beneficial. This led to the important appreciation that TNF may have beneficial or deleterious effects in the heart, depending on which of its receptors is activated. Females have a lower incidence of heart failure and a higher heart failure survival than males. We hypothesized that TNFR1 signaling resistance occurs in the female myocardium during ischemia. Methods and Results— Hearts from male and female TNFR1-knockout and wild-type (WT) mice were subjected to I/R. Female WT mice had better postischemic recovery than did male WT mice, an effect that appeared to be due to TNFR1 signaling resistance in females. Female WT mice had less myocardial depression after TNF infusion despite equivalent TNFR1 expression. Interestingly, TNFR1 ablation improved postischemic myocardial function, decreased activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, and reduced expression of interleukins-1&bgr; and -6 in males but not in females. Furthermore, WT females expressed more of the suppressor of cytokine signaling protein 3 after I/R, which may in part explain TNFR1 signaling resistance in the female myocardium. Conclusions— This study demonstrates that sex differences exist in myocardial TNF signaling by TNFR1 after I/R.
Influenza A Virus Inhibits Type I IFN Signaling via NF-κB-Dependent Induction of SOCS-3 Expression

The type I interferon (IFN) system is a first line of defense against viral infections. Viruses have developed various mechanisms to counteract this response. So far, the interferon antagonistic activity of influenza A viruses was mainly observed on the level of IFNβ gene induction via action of the viral non-structural protein 1 (NS1). Here we present data indicating that influenza A viruses not only suppress IFNβ gene induction but also inhibit type I IFN signaling through a mechanism involving induction of the suppressor of cytokine signaling-3 (SOCS-3) protein. Our study was based on the observation that in cells that were infected with influenza A virus and subsequently stimulated with IFNα/β, phosphorylation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription protein 1 (STAT1) was strongly reduced. This impaired STAT1 activation was not due to the action of viral proteins but rather appeared to be induced by accumulation of viral 5′ triphosphate RNA in the cell. SOCS proteins are potent endogenous inhibitors of Janus kinase (JAK)/STAT signaling. Closer examination revealed that SOCS-3 but not SOCS-1 mRNA levels increase in an RNA- and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB)-dependent but type I IFN-independent manner early in the viral replication cycle. This direct viral induction of SOCS-3 mRNA and protein expression appears to be relevant for suppression of the antiviral response since in SOCS-3 deficient cells a sustained phosphorylation of STAT1 correlated with elevated expression of type I IFN-dependent genes. As a consequence, progeny virus titers were reduced in SOCS-3 deficient cells or in cells were SOCS-3 expression was knocked-down by siRNA. These data provide the first evidence that influenza A viruses suppress type I IFN signaling on the level of JAK/STAT activation. The inhibitory effect is at least in part due to the induction of SOCS-3 gene expression, which results in an impaired antiviral response.
Feeding wet corn gluten feed to reduce subacute acidosis in cattle.

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of feeding wet corn gluten feed (WCGF) on subacute acidosis in cattle. In Exp. 1, 60 individually fed yearling steers (270 +/- 22 kg BW) were used in a 5 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Steers were assigned to one of five dietary treatments: 1) dry-rolled corn (DRC), 2) 35% WCGF fed d 1 to 132, 3) 86.5% WCGF fed d 1 reduced to 35% WCGF by d 19 and increasing the proportion of DRC, 4) 86.5% WCGF fed d 1 to 132, or 5) 94.5% WCGF fed d 1 to 132. Final diets for Treatments 1 through 4 contained 92% concentrate and 8% alfalfa hay (DM basis). Treatment 5 was a 100% concentrate diet. All diets were fed with or without the addition of escape protein. During d 19 to 24, steers fed WCGF had less (P < .05) DMI variation than steers fed the control diet. Steers fed 86.5 and 94.5% WCGF had lower (P < .05) DMI and ADG than steers fed TReatments 1 through 3, although gain/feed was mot different (P > .10) In Exp. 2, three ruminally fistulated steers (615 +/- 36 kg BW) were used in a repeated 3 x 3 Latin square design. On d 14 of each period, 7.9 kg (DM) of 100% DRC, 50% DRC:50% WCGF, of 100% WCGF was intraruminally dosed as an acidosis challenge. Area within the curve below ruminal pH 6.0 was greater (P < .05) over a 24-h period for steers dosed with 100% DRC than for steers dosed with 50% DRC: 50% WCGF or 100% WCGF. In addition, more (P < .05) ruminal VFA accumulated over 24 h for steers dosed with 100% DRC. These data suggest that feeding WCGF does nor eliminate ruminal acidosis but may reduce the length of time cattle are exposed to the insult.
Investigation of Low-Frequency Noise Behavior After Hot-Carrier Stress in an n-Channel Junctionless Nanowire MOSFET

The dc performance and low-frequency (LF) noise behaviors after hot-carrier (HC)-induced stress were compared for a junctionless nanowire transistor (JNT) and an inversion-mode nanowire transistor (INT). Less dc degradation was found in the JNT than in the INT. Due to the low lateral peak electric field (E-field) and electrons traveling through the center of the nanowire, the LF noise increment after HC-induced stress in the JNT is much lower than that in the INT. Furthermore, due to the higher lateral peak E-field located under the gate and the conduction path that occurs near the surface, the LF noise of the INT is very sensitive to HC stress.
Assets First Generation College Students Bring to the Higher Education Setting.

This qualitative research explored first generation college students (FGCS) from a holistic perspective. The study investigated students’ personal assets and provided the field of higher education an alternative to the pervasive deficit-orientation of this undersesourced population. Psychological capital (Luthans, et al., 2006), framed within positive psychology theory was the conceptual framework; and suggests psychological well-being can be enhanced through the identification and use of personal strengths. Other research has linked well-being to enhanced performance. Grounded theory methodology and appreciative inquiry were used to conduct three qualitative interviews of female, first generation college students. The data revealed that the first generation college students in this study have the following personal assets: proactivity, goal direction, optimism and reflexivity. There were 13 contributing strengths that supported the asset development: resourcefulness, strategic thinking, self-reliance, practical realism, flexibility, persistence, positivity, hopefulness, self-confidence, insightfulness, compassion, gratitude and balance. The development of the students’ assets was influenced by their lived experience and occurred in response to their marginalized soci-cultural positioning. The participants described long and varied use of their assets, through flexible curricula and reflexive assignments. Implications based on the study’s findings suggest higher education institutions could provide faculty development and augment student services to recognize first generation college students’ assets. Instructors could likewise help students identify and use their assets in order to promote well-being and enhanced performance. Finally, students could become attuned to their unique assets and strive to increase mindful use of their strengths. First-generation College Student Assets 3
Phg1/TM9 Proteins Control Intracellular Killing of Bacteria by Determining Cellular Levels of the Kil1 Sulfotransferase in Dictyostelium

Dictyostelium discoideum has largely been used to study phagocytosis and intracellular killing of bacteria. Previous studies have shown that Phg1A, Kil1 and Kil2 proteins are necessary for efficient intracellular killing of Klebsiella bacteria. Here we show that in phg1a KO cells, cellular levels of lysosomal glycosidases and lysozyme are decreased, and lysosomal pH is increased. Surprisingly, overexpression of Kil1 restores efficient killing in phg1a KO cells without correcting these lysosomal anomalies. Conversely, kil1 KO cells are defective for killing, but their enzymatic content and lysosomal pH are indistinguishable from WT cells. The killing defect of phg1a KO cells can be accounted for by the observation that in these cells the stability and the cellular amount of Kil1 are markedly reduced. Since Kil1 is the only sulfotransferase characterized in Dictyostelium, an (unidentified) sulfated factor, defective in both phg1a and kil1 KO cells, may play a key role in intracellular killing of Klebsiella bacteria. In addition, Phg1B plays a redundant role with Phg1A in controlling cellular amounts of Kil1 and intracellular killing. Finally, cellular levels of Kil1 are unaffected in kil2 KO cells, and Kil1 overexpression does not correct the killing defect of kil2 KO cells, suggesting that Kil2 plays a distinct role in intracellular killing.