Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Automatic Evaluation of Question/Answering Systems

This paper presents an innovative approach to the automatic evaluation of Question Answering systems. The methodology relies on the use of the Web, considered as an “oracle” containing all the information needed to check the relevance of a candidate answer with respect to a given question. The procedure is completely automatic (i.e. no human intervention is required) and it is based on the assumption that the answers’ relevance can be assessed from a purely quantitative perspective. The methodology is based on a Web search using patterns derived both from the question and from the answer. Different kinds of patterns have been identified, ranging from “lenient” (i.e. boolean combinations of single words), to “strict” patterns (i.e. whole sentences or combinations of phrases). A statistically-based algorithm has been developed which considers both the kinds of patterns used in the search and the number of documents returned from the Web. Experiments carried out on the TREC-10 corpus show that the approach achieves a high level of performance (i.e. 80% success
Martensitic transformations in titanium-tantalum alloys

Abstract The transformations produced by quenching from the equilibrium β-phase region have been studied in a range of titanium alloys with 5·8-53 w/o tantalum. The martensitic phase is h.c. p. (α′) with up to 22 w/o Ta, and orthorhombic (α″) with 23-53 w/o Ta. In alloys with up to 32 w/o Ta, the product is finely twinned on { 101}α′, or { 11}α″, but the orthorhombie structures at higher tantalum contents are untwinned. In addition to the transformation twins, which are class A in the Mackenzie and Bowles (1957) notation, some adjacent product regions in Ti-32 w/o Ta were found to correspond to type II twins with η1 = α″ and K 2 = α″; this mode is the conjugate of class A. The presence or absence of internal twinning correlates with the magnitude of the smallest principal strain of the lattice deformation. At a sufficiently high tantalum content, this principal strain is zero so that there is then an irrational plane of lattice fit and the lattice invariant deformation of the crystallographic theories vani.
Association of a PDCD1 polymorphism with renal manifestations in systemic lupus erythematosus.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the association of the PD-1.3 polymorphism within the PDCD1 gene in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from the homogeneous population in northern Sweden. The PD-1.3A allele was analyzed in relation to disease manifestations and severity representing various phenotypes of SLE. METHODS The study group comprised 260 patients fulfilling at least 4 of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria for SLE during 1 year. The Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) and the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/ACR damage index scores were recorded. Population-based, randomly selected individuals (n = 670) from the same geographic area served as controls. DNA was extracted from blood samples from both patients and controls and was genotyped for the PD-1.3 A/G polymorphism, using an ABI Prism 7900HT Sequence Detection System. RESULTS The frequency distribution of alleles, carriers, or genotypes did not differ between patients and controls. The PD-1.3A allele and carriage of the A allele were highly associated with renal disorder (ACR criterion 7) (P = 0.005, odds ratio [OR] 2.71 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.32-5.55] and P = 0.012, OR 2.62 [95% CI 1.28-5.35], respectively). In regression analysis adjusted for sex and age at disease onset, carriage of the A allele remained significantly associated with renal disorder (P = 0.002, OR 3.54 [95% CI 1.56-8.01]). The presence of proteinuria, as measured by the SLEDAI score, and the presence of renal damage were also significantly associated with carriage of the A allele (P = 0.007, OR 3.88 [95% CI 1.44-10.47] and P = 0.021, OR 2.98 [95% CI 1.18-7.54], respectively). CONCLUSION The PD-1.3A allele is associated with renal manifestations in SLE patients from northern Sweden but not with susceptibility to SLE per se.
Invited Re vie W Histology and Histopathology Epidermal Langerhans cells in infectious diseases

Paul Langerhans was one of the most brilliant scientific observers of his time, contributing considerably not only to medicine but also to zoology by describing new species of invertebrates (De Panfilis, 1988). He was a medical student at the Berlin Pathological Institute when he discovered in 1868 the epidermal cells that bear his name. He believed that these gold chloride-positive midepidermis dendritic cells were intra-epidermal receptors for extracutaneous signals to the nervous system (Langerhans, 1868). This neural hypothesis prevailed for almost a century. Not until 1965, when the morphological identity between Langerhans cells (LC) and histiocytes X cells was described, was a possible mesenchymal derivation for LC postulated (Basset and Turiaf, 1965). In 1966, Campo-Aasen and Pearse demonstrated cytochemically that epidermal LC share specific enzymes with macrophages. Further accumulated evidence supported the striking similarities between LC and macrophage/monocytes, including the expression of Fc and C3 receptors (Stingl et al., 1977), expression of Major Histocompatibility Complex class I1 (Ia) molecules (Klareskog et al., 1977; Rowden et al., 1977), ability to migrate (Silberberg, 1973) and the in vitro ability to stimulate allogeneic T-cells (Stingl e t al., 1978). LC also produce interleukin-1 (IL-l), previously denoted in the skin as epidermal cell-derived thymocyte-activating factor (ETAF) (Sauder et al., 1984). The IL-1 serves as the second signal in triggering the production of interleukin-2 (IL-2) by T-helper cells, thus amplifying ongoing T-cell responses.
Disruption of adaptor protein 2μ (AP‐2μ) in cochlear hair cells impairs vesicle reloading of synaptic release sites and hearing

Active zones (AZs) of inner hair cells (IHCs) indefatigably release hundreds of vesicles per second, requiring each release site to reload vesicles at tens per second. Here, we report that the endocytic adaptor protein 2μ (AP‐2μ) is required for release site replenishment and hearing. We show that hair cell‐specific disruption of AP‐2μ slows IHC exocytosis immediately after fusion of the readily releasable pool of vesicles, despite normal abundance of membrane‐proximal vesicles and intact endocytic membrane retrieval. Sound‐driven postsynaptic spiking was reduced in a use‐dependent manner, and the altered interspike interval statistics suggested a slowed reloading of release sites. Sustained strong stimulation led to accumulation of endosome‐like vacuoles, fewer clathrin‐coated endocytic intermediates, and vesicle depletion of the membrane‐distal synaptic ribbon in AP‐2μ‐deficient IHCs, indicating a further role of AP‐2μ in clathrin‐dependent vesicle reformation on a timescale of many seconds. Finally, we show that AP‐2 sorts its IHC‐cargo otoferlin. We propose that binding of AP‐2 to otoferlin facilitates replenishment of release sites, for example, via speeding AZ clearance of exocytosed material, in addition to a role of AP‐2 in synaptic vesicle reformation.
SemEval-2010 Task 3: Cross-lingual Word Sense Disambiguation

We propose a multilingual unsupervised Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) task for a sample of English nouns. Instead of providing manually sensetagged examples for each sense of a polysemous noun, our sense inventory is built up on the basis of the Europarl parallel corpus. The multilingual setup involves the translations of a given English polysemous noun in five supported languages, viz. Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Italian. The task targets the following goals: (a) the manual creation of a multilingual sense inventory for a lexical sample of English nouns and (b) the evaluation of systems on their ability to disambiguate new occurrences of the selected polysemous nouns. For the creation of the hand-tagged gold standard, all translations of a given polysemous English noun are retrieved in the five languages and clustered by meaning. Systems can participate in 5 bilingual evaluation subtasks (English -- Dutch, English -- German, etc.) and in a multilingual subtask covering all language pairs. As WSD from cross-lingual evidence is gaining popularity, we believe it is important to create a multilingual gold standard and run cross-lingual WSD benchmark tests.
Higher dimensional spacetimes with a geodesic, shearfree, twistfree and expanding null congruence

We present the complete family of higher dimensional spacetimes that admit a geodesic, shearfree, twistfree and expanding null congruence, thus extending the well-known D=4 class of Robinson-Trautman solutions. Einstein's equations are solved for empty space with an arbitrary cosmological constant and for aligned pure radiation. Main differences with respect to the D=4 case (such as the absence of type III/N solutions, related to ``violations'' of the Goldberg-Sachs theorem in D>4) are pointed out, also in connection with other recent works. A formal analogy with electromagnetic fields is briefly discussed in an appendix, where we demonstrate that multiple principal null directions of null Maxwell fields are necessarily geodesic, and that in D>4 they are also shearing if expanding.
Bacteriophages and genetic mobilization in sewage and faecally polluted environments

Bacteriophages are one of the most abundant entities on the planet and are present in high concentrations within humans and animals, mostly in the gut. Phages that infect intestinal bacteria are released by defecation and remain free in extra‐intestinal environments, where they usually persist for longer than their bacterial hosts. Recent studies indicate that a large amount of the genetic information in bacterial genomes and in natural environments is of phage origin. In addition, metagenomic analysis reveals that a substantial number of bacterial genes are present in viral DNA in different environments. These facts support the belief that phages can play a significant role in horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. Bacteriophages are known to transfer genes by generalized and specialized transduction and indeed there are some examples of phages found in the environment carrying and transducing genes of bacterial origin. A successful transduction in the environment requires certain conditions, e.g. phage and bacterial numbers need to exceed certain threshold concentrations, the bacteria need to exist in an infection‐competent physiological state, and lastly, the physical conditions in the environment (pH, temperature, etc. of the supporting matrix) have to be suitable for phage infection. All three factors are reviewed here, and the available information suggests: (i) that the number of intestinal bacteria and phages in faecally contaminated environments guarantees bacteria–phage encounters, (ii) that transduction to intestinal bacteria in the environment is probable, and (iii) that transduction is more frequent than previously thought. Therefore, we suggest that phage‐mediated horizontal transfer between intestinal bacteria, or between intestinal and autochthonous bacteria in extra‐intestinal environments, might take place and that its relevance for the emergence of new bacterial strains and potential pathogens should not be ignored.
Learning Finite-State Controllers for Partially Observable Environments

Reactive (memoryless) policies are sufficient in completely observable Markov decision processes (MDPS), but some kind of memory is usually necessary for optimal control of a partially observable MDP. Policies with finite memory can be represented as finite-state automata. In this paper, we extend Baird and Moore's VAPS algorithm to the problem of learning general finite-state automata. Because it performs stochastic gradient descent, this algorithm can be shown to converge to a locally optimal finitestate controller. We provide the details of the algorithm and then consider the question of under what conditions stochastic gradient descent will outperform exact gradient descent. We conclude with empirical results comparing the performance of stochastic and exact gradient descent, and showing the ability of our algorithm to extract the useful information contained in the sequence of past observations to compensate for the lack of observability at each time-step.
A comparative clinical study of the failure rate of orthodontic brackets bonded with two adhesive systems: conventional and self-etching primer (SEP).

OBJECTIVE This study compared the clinical performance of orthodontic brackets bonded with Transbond adhesive paste after two primer systems: a two-stage conventional system (acid etching + Transbond XT adhesive primer) and a single-stage self-etching primer (SEP) (Transbond Plus). METHODS The sample comprised 480 metal brackets bonded to the teeth of 24 consecutive patients treated for 36 to 48 months. A split-mouth design was used for bonding, and both systems were used in each patient. Bracket failure rates for each system were analyzed; and failure causes as reported by the patients and the quadrant of teeth for which brackets failed were recorded. RESULTS The conventional system group had a failure rate of 5.41%, whereas the rate for SEP was 4.58%. In this group, there were 5 failures (38.4%) in the right maxillary quadrant, 2 (15.4%) in the left maxillary quadrant, 4 (30.8%) in the right mandibular quadrant, and 2 (15.4%) in the left mandibular quadrant. In the SEP group, there were 4 (36.4%) failures in the right maxillary quadrant, 1 (9%) in the left maxillary quadrant, 3 (27.3%) in the right mandibular quadrant, and 3 (27.3%) in the left mandibular quadrant. Results of descriptive statistical analysis and odds ratio did not show any significant differences between rates (p = 0.67). CONCLUSIONS The clinical efficiency of SEP was similar to that of the conventional system.
Convergence results for compound Poisson distributions and applications to the standard Luria-Delbrück distribution

We provide a scaling for compound Poisson distributions that leads (under certain conditions on the Fourier transform) to a weak convergence result as the parameter of the distribution tends to infinity. We show that the limiting probability measure belongs to the class of stable Cauchy laws with Fourier transform t exp(-c|t| - iat log |t|). We apply this convergence result to the standard discrete Luria-Delbriick distribution and derive an integral representation for the corresponding limiting density, as an alternative to that found in a closely related paper of Kepler and Oprea. Moreover, we verify local convergence and we derive an integral representation for the distribution function of the limiting continuous Luria-Delbruck distribution.
Random mappings with exchangeable in‐degrees

In this article we introduce a new random mapping model, $T_n^{\hat D}$, which maps the set {1,2,…,n} into itself. The random mapping $T_n^{\hat D}$ is constructed using a collection of exchangeable random variables $\hat{D}_1, \ldots. ,\hat{D}_n$ which satisfy $\sum_{i=1}^n\hat{D}_i=n$. In the random digraph, $G_n^{\hat D}$, which represents the mapping $T_n^{\hat D}$, the in‐degree sequence for the vertices is given by the variables $\hat{D}_1, \hat{D}_2, \ldots, \hat{D}_n$, and, in some sense, $G_n^{\hat D}$ can be viewed as an analogue of the general independent degree models from random graph theory. We show that the distribution of the number of cyclic points, the number of components, and the size of a typical component can be expressed in terms of expectations of various functions of $\hat{D}_1, \hat{D}_2, \ldots, \hat{D}_n$. We also consider two special examples of $T_n^{\hat D}$ which correspond to random mappings with preferential and anti‐preferential attachment, respectively, and determine, for these examples, exact and asymptotic distributions for the statistics mentioned above. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. , 2008
The organization of behavior.

Some people may be laughing when looking at you reading in your spare time. Some may be admired of you. And some may want be like you who have reading hobby. What about your own feel? Have you felt right? Reading is a need and a hobby at once. This condition is the on that will make you feel that you must read. If you know are looking for the book enPDFd the organization of behavior as the choice of reading, you can find here.
Monocular‐SLAM–based navigation for autonomous micro helicopters in GPS‐denied environments

Autonomous micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) will soon play a major role in tasks such as search and rescue, environment monitoring, surveillance, and inspection. They allow us to easily access environments to which no humans or other vehicles can get access. This reduces the risk for both the people and the environment. For the above applications, it is, however, a requirement that the vehicle is able to navigate without using GPS, or without relying on a preexisting map, or without specific assumptions about the environment. This will allow operations in unstructured, unknown, and GPS‐denied environments. We present a novel solution for the task of autonomous navigation of a micro helicopter through a completely unknown environment by using solely a single camera and inertial sensors onboard. Many existing solutions suffer from the problem of drift in the xy plane or from the dependency on a clean GPS signal. The novelty in the here‐presented approach is to use a monocular simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework to stabilize the vehicle in six degrees of freedom. This way, we overcome the problem of both the drift and the GPS dependency. The pose estimated by the visual SLAM algorithm is used in a linear optimal controller that allows us to perform all basic maneuvers such as hovering, set point and trajectory following, vertical takeoff, and landing. All calculations including SLAM and controller are running in real time and online while the helicopter is flying. No offline processing or preprocessing is done. We show real experiments that demonstrate that the vehicle can fly autonomously in an unknown and unstructured environment. To the best of our knowledge, the here‐presented work describes the first aerial vehicle that uses onboard monocular vision as a main sensor to navigate through an unknown GPS‐denied environment and independently of any external artificial aids. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Potentiation of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)-Specific CD4+ and CD8+ T Cell Responses by a DNA-SIV and NYVAC-SIV Prime/Boost Regimen

T cell-mediated immune responses play an important role in the containment of HIV-1 replication. Therefore, an effective vaccine against HIV-1 should be able to elicit high frequencies of virus-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells. The highly attenuated poxvirus-based vaccine candidate, NYVAC-SIV-gag-pol-env (NYVAC-SIV-gpe), has been shown to induce and/or expand SIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in both naive and infected macaques. In this study, the immunogenicity of NYVAC-SIV-gpe alone was compared with a combination regimen where priming with an optimized DNA-SIV-gag-env vaccine candidate was followed by a NYVAC-SIV-gpe boost. In macaques immunized with the prime-boost regimen, the extent and durability of CD8+ T cell response to an immunodominant SIV gag epitope was increased and these animals recognized a broader array of subdominant SIV epitopes in the cytolytic assay. In addition, the prime-boost regimen significantly enhanced the proliferative responses to both SIV gag and env proteins. Thus, the combination of these vaccine modalities may represent a valuable strategy in the development of a vaccine for HIV.
BIOSURVEILLANCE AND OUTBREAK DETECTION USING THE ARIMA AND LOGISTIC PROCEDURES

The main objective of this paper is to show potential usefulness of the combination of autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models and logistic regression with automatic model selection (see our work presented at SUGI’28 and SUGI’29.) Timeseries analysis with ARIMA provides only one perspective of the information in the surveillance data (i.e. the number of patients as a function of time). The information about the geographical location of the patients provides a second perspective. We would like to combine both perspectives.
Results and Analysis of SyGuS-Comp'15

Syntax-Guided Synthesis (SyGuS) is the computational problem of finding an implementation f that meets both a semantic constraint given by a logical formula $\varphi$ in a background theory T, and a syntactic constraint given by a grammar G, which specifies the allowed set of candidate implementations. Such a synthesis problem can be formally defined in SyGuS-IF, a language that is built on top of SMT-LIB. The Syntax-Guided Synthesis Competition (SyGuS-comp) is an effort to facilitate, bring together and accelerate research and development of efficient solvers for SyGuS by providing a platform for evaluating different synthesis techniques on a comprehensive set of benchmarks. In this year's competition we added two specialized tracks: a track for conditional linear arithmetic, where the grammar need not be specified and is implicitly assumed to be that of the LIA logic of SMT-LIB, and a track for invariant synthesis problems, with special constructs conforming to the structure of an invariant synthesis problem. This paper presents and analyzes the results of SyGuS-comp'15.
Absence of Mature Peripheral B Cell Populations in Mice with Concomitant Defects in B Cell Receptor and BAFF-R Signaling1

Generation of mature B lymphocytes from early (T1) and late transitional (T2) precursors requires cooperative signaling through BCR and B cell-activating factor receptor 3 (BR3). Recent studies have shown that BCR signaling positively regulates NF-κB2, suggesting BCR regulation of BR3 signaling. To investigate the significance of signal integration from BCR and BR3 in B cell development and function, we crossed Btk-deficient mice (btk−/−), which are developmentally blocked between the T2 and the mature follicular B cell stage as a result of a partial defect in BCR signaling, and A/WySnJ mice, which possess a mutant BR3 defective in propagating intracellular signals that results in a severely reduced peripheral B cell compartment, although all B cell subsets are present in relatively normal ratios. A/WySnJ × btk−/− mice display a B cell-autonomous defect, resulting in a developmental block at an earlier stage (T1) than either mutation alone, leading to the loss of mature splenic follicular and marginal zone B cells, as well as the loss of peritoneal B1 and B2 cell populations. The competence of the double mutant T1 B cells to respond to TLR4 and CD40 survival and activation signals is further attenuated compared with single mutations as evidenced by severely reduced humoral immune responses in vivo and proliferation in response to anti-IgM, LPS, and anti-CD40 stimulation in vitro. Thus, BCR and BR3 independently and in concert regulate the survival, differentiation, and function of all B cell populations at and beyond T1, earliest transitional stage.