Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asymptotic genealogy of a critical branching process

Consider a continuous-time binary branching process conditioned to have population size n at some time t, and with a chance p for recording each extinct individual in the process. Within the family tree of this process, we consider the smallest subtree containing the genealogy of the extant individuals together with the genealogy of the recorded extinct individuals. We introduce a novel representation of such subtrees in terms of a point-process, and provide asymptotic results on the distribution of this point-process as the number of extant individuals increases. We motivate the study within the scope of a coherent analysis for an a priori model for macroevolution.
Numerical Simulation of Three-Dimensional Mesoscopic Grain Evolution: Model Development, Validation, and Application to Nickel-Based Superalloys

The mesoscopic grain model is a multiscale model which takes into account both the dendrite growth mechanism and the vast numerical computation of the actual castings. Due to the pursuit of efficient computation, the mesoscopic grain calculation accuracy is lower than that of dendrite growth model. Improving the accuracy of mesoscopic grain model is a problem to be solved urgently. In this study, referring to the calculation method of solid fraction in microscopic dendrite growth model, a cellular automata model of 3D mesoscopic grain evolution for solid fraction calculated quantitatively at the scale of cell is developed. The developed model and algorithm validation for grain growth simulation is made by comparing the numerical results with the benchmark experimental data and the analytical predictions. The results show that the 3D grain envelopes simulated by the developed model and algorithm are coincident with the shape predicted by the analytical model to a certain extent. Then, the developed model is applied to the numerical simulation of solidification process of nickel-based superalloys, including equiaxed and columnar dendritic grain growth. Our results show good agreement with the related literature.
Correlation between Lethal Toxin-Neutralizing Antibody Titers and Protection from Intranasal Challenge with Bacillus anthracis Ames Strain Spores in Mice after Transcutaneous Immunization with Recombinant Anthrax Protective Antigen

ABSTRACT Transcutaneous immunization of mice with recombinant protective antigen (rPA) of Bacillus anthracis resulted in significantly higher lethal toxin-neutralizing antibody titers than did intramuscular injection of alum-adsorbed rPA. Immunized mice were partially protected against intranasal challenge with 235,000 (10 50% lethal doses) Ames strain B. anthracis spores. A highly significant correlation was observed between toxin-neutralizing antibody titer and survival after challenge. Future experiments with rabbits and nonhuman primates should confirm the significance of protection by this vaccine strategy.
Randomized phase II study evaluating veliparib (ABT-888) with temozolomide in patients with metastatic melanoma.

BACKGROUND Veliparib (ABT-888) is a potent, orally bioavailable, small-molecule inhibitor of the DNA repair enzymes poly ADP-ribose polymerase-1 and -2. Veliparib enhances the efficacy of temozolomide (TMZ) and other cytotoxic agents in preclinical tumor models. PATIENTS AND METHODS In this multicenter, double-blind trial, adults with unresectable stage III or IV metastatic melanoma were randomized 1:1:1 to TMZ plus veliparib 20 or 40 mg, or placebo twice daily. Efficacy end points included progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and objective response rate (ORR). RESULTS Patients (N = 346) were randomized between February 2009 and January 2010. Median [95% confidence interval (CI)] PFS was 3.7 (3.0-5.5), 3.6 (1.9-4.1), and 2 (1.9-3.7) months in the 20-mg, 40-mg, and placebo arms, respectively. Median (95% CI) OS was 10.8 (9.0-13.1), 13.6 (11.4-15.9), and 12.9 (9.8-14.3) months, respectively; ORR was 10.3%, 8.7%, and 7.0%. Exploratory analyses showed patients with low ERCC1 expression had longer PFS when TMZ was combined with veliparib. Toxicities were as expected for TMZ. The frequencies of thrombocytopenia, neutropenia, and leukopenia were significantly increased in the veliparib groups. Grade 3 or 4 adverse events, mainly hematologic toxicities, were seen in 55%, 63%, and 41% of patients in the 20-mg, 40-mg, and placebo arms, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Median PFS with 20 and 40 mg veliparib almost doubled numerically compared with placebo, but the improvements did not reach statistical significance. OS was not increased with veliparib. Toxicities were similar to TMZ monotherapy, but with increased frequency.
Tamoxifen versus the newer SERMs: what is the evidence?

Breast cancer remains the most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in women in the US and Europe [1]. A substantial body of experimental, clinical and epidemiological evidence indicates that steroid hormones play a major role in the aetiology of breast cancer. Endogenous oestrogens support the development and growth of the breast and breast tumour cells, they also have profound beneficial and carefully regulated effects on other tissues such as the endometrium, vagina, bone, liver and vessels of the cardiovascular system as summarised in Table 1. The clinical responsiveness of the breast to oestrogen deprivation was first demonstrated over 100 years ago [2]. Pharmacological inhibition of the tumour stimulatory effects of physiological oestrogen concentrations was first reported using high dose stilboestrol, triphenylchloroethylene and triphenylbromoethylene [3]. Anti-oestrogen therapy since the 1940s, and tamoxifen in particular, has revolutionised the treatment of breast cancer. Today, tamoxifen (Nolvadex, ICI 147,741) is the anti-oestrogen of choice for adjuvant therapy after surgery and for recurrent breast cancer. Coupled to this, however, are the general issues surrounding the health of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women in whom reduced oestrogens levels are associated with skeletal problems resulting from reduced bone density (osteoporosis) and increased cardiovascular risk. Many of the modulators of oestrogen action, such as tamoxifen, have a beneficial effect on bone density and serum lipids, but have adverse effects on the uterus. Thus, an anti-oestrogen breast cancer therapy which safely eliminates the negative effects of the menopause on women's health in the absence of toxicity is the challenge for the new millennium. The term 'anti-oestrogen' refers to agents which block the effects of physiological concentrations of oestrogen at the oestrogen receptor (ER). Selective Oestrogen Receptor Modulator (SERM) was a term coined to describe the phenomenon of apparent blocking of the ER at one site (e.g., the tumour) and stimulatory activity at another site (e.g., bone). Thus, a single drug could have both agonist and antagonist activity depending on the cell type. SERMs were then divided into SERM 1 (tamoxifen), SERM 2 (raloxifene) and SERM 3 (a compound with no other common name closely related structurally to
Optimal path planning for motion robots based on bees pollen optimization algorithm

ABSTRACT Due to interference phenomena among unnatural dimensions of the motion robots’ operations space, optimal path planning of them has to satisfy not just one criterion, but rather multi-objects. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-object approach for optimal mobile robot path planning, based on bees pollen optimizer (BPO). We consider two objects of distance and smooth path of the special plan for motion robots for constructing a minimization one. In operation environment for action robots, the location of the target and the obstacles are set up for the solution of BPO. The selected sequence of the mobile robot is a set of the chosen global best settlement in each iteration, which updates its archived data throughout the movement for motion robots in order. A series of simulations are executed in some environments for the best pathway once the robot reaches its goal. The results indicate that the proposed approach offered the robot path to its target without touching the obstacles, and the proposed method may be an alternative approach to optimize the motion robot path planning.
Study of volumetric origami structure with highly anisotropic and tunable load carrying capacity

Study of volumetric origami structure with highly anisotropic and tunable load carrying capacity Balakumaran Gopalarethinam Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Jinkyu Yang Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Deployable structures have been of great interest for applications like space structures and portable architectures. However, these deployable structures often suffer from the lack of capabilities to support external load on their own. Thus, there is a high demand for a deployable yet rigid, load supporting structure. Here, I investigate analytically and experimentally the ability of an origami-based structure called the Tachi Miura Polyhedron (TMP), which can be used as deployable yet rigid structure. The TMP is a three dimensional origami structure representing bellows in appearance. It exhibits some unique mechanical properties, and here in particular, its force-displacement response is studied to establish its novel response mathematically. First, the force-displacement relations for the single TMP cell are developed in three mutually perpendicular directions of compression and are verified by experiments on paper prototypes. It is found that the single TMP exhibits a highly tunable load carrying ability under compression in one direction and tunable anisotropic behavior, i.e. variable load capacity depending on the loading directions and initial postures. This makes it a suitable choice for deployable yet rigid structures. Then the force displacement relations are extended to a multi-TMP structure in which multiple TMP cells are combined to form a cellular structure. It is found that the multi-TMP also exhibits tunable load capacity and tunable anisotropic behavior. Conclusively highly tunable and anisotropic load carrying mechanisms of the TMP are understood and established mathematically through this work, and the ability of this structure to be deployable yet load supporting is showcased by simple prototypes.
MARVELD1 inhibited cell proliferation and enhance chemosensitivity via increasing expression of p53 and p16 in hepatocellular carcinoma

We have previously found that expression of MARVELD1 was remarkably downregulated in multiple tumor tissues, but unclear in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its function has not been explored yet. In the present study, to uncover the underlying mechanism of MARVELD1 in the pathogenesis and development of HCC, we investigated the expression pattern of MARVELD1 and its effect on tumor proliferation in HCC. The results indicated the frequent downregulation of MARVELD1 in clinic samples and cell lines of HCC resulted from promoter methylation, as well as genetic deletion. Furthermore, treatment of MARVELD1 unexpressing Hep3B2.1‐7 and PLC/PRF/5 cells with the demethylating agent 5‐aza‐2′ deoxycytidine restored its expression. Overexpression of MARVELD1 suppressed the proliferation of HCC cells in vitro and in vivo, whereas downregulation of endogenous MARVELD1 by shRNAs significantly enhanced these characters. MARVELD1 overexpression could enhance chemosensitivity of HCC cells to epirubicin and 10‐hydroxycamptothecin. Corresponding to these results, the expression of p‐ERK1/2 and cyclin D1 were decreased, whereas p16 and p53 were increased in MARVELD1‐transfected cells. We also demonstrated that knockdown of MARVELD1 resulted in upregulation of p‐ERK1/2 and cyclin D1, and downregulation of p16 and p53. Moreover, the effect of the decreased cell growth rate was significantly reversed when MARVELD1‐overexpressing cells were trasfected with p53 or p16 siRNA. Our findings suggest that MARVELD1 is a tumor suppressor by negatively regulating proliferation, tumor growth and chemosensitivity of HCC cells via increasing p53 and p16 in vitro and in vivo. MARVELD1 may be a potential target for HCC therapy. (Cancer Sci 2012; 103: 716–722)
A New Log Gabor Approach for Text Detection from Video

Text information embedded in video frames play an important role in content-based multimedia indexing and retrieval, as a result the automatic detection of texts from videos has gained wide attention in recent years. However,large variations in size, color, orientation and background complexity makes video text detection and extraction a challenging problem. In this paper an effective method for text detection and localization approach based on Log Gabor filter and Block Eigen map analysis is proposed. Log Gabor filter response is used to identify candidate text regions and Block wise Eigen map analysis is used to classify pixels as true text pixels. Finally,a heuristic based on gray scale pixel co-occurrence to eliminate false positives from the frame is used. Experimental results show the promising overall performance of the proposed method against the best features reported in the literature for the standard databases.
The Egocentric Nature of Action-Sound Associations

Actions that produce sounds infuse our daily lives. Some of these sounds are a natural consequence of physical interactions (such as a clang resulting from dropping a pan), but others are artificially designed (such as a beep resulting from a keypress). Although the relationship between actions and sounds has previously been examined, the frame of reference of these associations is still unknown, despite it being a fundamental property of a psychological representation. For example, when an association is created between a keypress and a tone, it is unclear whether the frame of reference is egocentric (gesture-sound association) or exocentric (key-sound association). This question is especially important for artificially created associations, which occur in technology that pairs sounds with actions, such as gestural interfaces, virtual or augmented reality, and simple buttons that produce tones. The frame of reference could directly influence the learnability, the ease of use, the extent of immersion, and many other factors of the interaction. To explore whether action-sound associations are egocentric or exocentric, an experiment was implemented using a computer keyboard’s number pad wherein moving a finger from one key to another produced a sound, thus creating an action-sound association. Half of the participants received egocentric instructions to move their finger with a particular gesture. The other half of the participants received exocentric instructions to move their finger to a particular number on the keypad. All participants were performing the same actions, and only the framing of the action varied between conditions by altering task instructions. Participants in the egocentric condition learned the gesture-sound association, as revealed by a priming paradigm. However, the exocentric condition showed no priming effects. This finding suggests that action-sound associations are egocentric in nature. A second part of the same session further confirmed the egocentric nature of these associations by showing no change in the priming effect after moving to a different starting location. Our findings are consistent with an egocentric representation of action-sound associations, which could have implications for applications that utilize these associations.
Rural-rural Migration and Land Conflicts: Implications on Agricultural Productivity in Uganda

We use community and household data with plot-level information to explore the determinants of different forms of land conflicts and the conflicts’ impact on agricultural productivity in Uganda. Tracing rural-rural migration patterns, we find that communities that receive/host more immigrants (and thus have many coexisting tribes) tend to have more land conflicts than those sending migrants out. Unbundling conflicts by type reveals that the number of tribes and being in a ‘receiving’ community are associated with a higher probability of eviction conflicts than ‘sending’ communities and those with fewer tribes. Turning to conflict impact, we find that plots with conflicts have 17% lower yield than those without conflicts. Moreover, breaking down conflicts by type reveals that plots with eviction conflicts have 36% lower yield than those with inheritance conflicts. Our results suggest that rural-rural migration weakens community-specific informal land arrangements and conflict resolution mechanisms, which, in the absence of formal institutions, result in eviction conflicts that, in turn, hurt productivity.
Cadmium disrupts behavioural and physiological responses to alarm substance in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

SUMMARY Alarm substance is a chemical signal released from fish skin epithelial cells after a predator causes skin damage. When other prey fish detect alarm substance by olfaction, they perform stereotypical predator-avoidance behaviours to decrease predation risk. The objective of this study was to explore the effect of sublethal cadmium (Cd) exposure on the behavioural and physiological responses of juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to alarm substance. Waterborne exposure to 2 μg Cd l–1 for 7 days eliminated normal antipredator behaviours exhibited in response to alarm substance, whereas exposures of shorter duration or lower concentration had no effect on normal behaviour. Furthermore, dietary exposure to 3 μg Cd g–1 in the food for 7 days, which produced the same whole-body Cd accumulation as waterborne exposure to 2 μg l–1, did not alter normal behaviour, indicating that an effect specific to waterborne exposure alone (i.e. Cd accumulation in the olfactory system) results in behavioural alteration. Whole-body phosphor screen autoradiography of fish exposed to 109Cd demonstrated that Cd deposition in the olfactory system (rosette, nerve and bulb) during waterborne exposure was greater than in all other organs of accumulation except the gill. However, Cd could not be detected in the brain. A short-term elevation in plasma cortisol occurred in response to alarm substance under control conditions. Cd exposures of 2 μg l–1 waterborne and 3 μg g–1 dietary for 7 days both inhibited this plasma cortisol elevation but did not alter baseline cortisol levels. Our results suggest that exposure to waterborne Cd at environmentally realistic levels (2 μg l–1) can disrupt the normal behavioural and physiological responses of fish to alarm substance and can thereby alter predator-avoidance strategies, with potential impacts on aquatic fish communities.
Guaranteed Voronoi Diagrams of Uncertain Sites

In this paper we investigate the Voronoi diagram that is induced by a set of sites in the plane, where each site's precise location is uncertain but is known to be within a particular region, and the cells of this diagram contain those points guaranteed to be closest to a particular site. We then examine the diagram for sites with disc-shaped regions of uncertainty, prove that it has linear complex- ity, and provide an optimal O(nlogn) algorithm for its construction. We also examine the diagram for polygo- nal regions of uncertainty, and prove that it has linear complexity as well. We then describe a generalization of these diagrams, in which each Voronoi cell is associ- ated with a subset of the sites, and each point in a cell is guaranteed to be closest to some site in the subset associated with the cell.
Detection of wood cell wall porosity using small carbohydrate molecules and confocal fluorescence microscopy

A novel approach to nanoscale detection of cell wall porosity using confocal fluorescence microscopy is described. Infiltration of cell walls with a range of nitrophenyl‐substituted carbohydrates of different molecular weights was assessed by measuring changes in the intensity of lignin fluorescence, in response to the quenching effect of the 4‐nitrophenyl group. The following carbohydrates were used in order of increasing molecular weight; 4‐nitrophenyl β‐D‐glucopyrano‐side (monosaccharide), 4‐nitrophenyl β‐D‐lactopyranoside (disaccharide), 2‐chloro‐4‐nitrophenyl β‐D‐maltotrioside (trisaccharide), and 4‐nitrophenyl α‐D‐maltopentaoside (pentasaccharide). This technique was used to compare cell wall porosity in wood which had been dewatered to 40% moisture content using supercritical CO2, where cell walls remain fully hydrated, with kiln dried wood equilibrated to 12% moisture content. Infiltration of cell walls as measured by fluorescence quenching, was found to decrease with increasing molecular weight, with the pentasaccharide being significantly excluded compared to the monosaccharide. Porosity experiments were performed on blocks and sections to assess differences in cell wall accessibility. Dewatered and kiln dried wood infiltrated as blocks showed similar results, but greater infiltration was achieved by using sections, indicating that not all pores were easily accessible by infiltration from the lumen surface. In wood blocks infiltrated with 4‐nitrophenyl α‐D‐maltopentaoside, quenching of the secondary wall was quite variable, especially in kiln dried wood, indicating limited connectivity of pores accessible from the lumen surface.
Spatial-and object-based attentional deficits in Alzheimer''s disease

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of compared with age-matched normal controls ( n 5 17) using a cued reaction time task based on Egly et al.(1994). Regions patients with Alzheimer’s disease to shift attention between spatial locations and between objects, and to examine the of interest were defined semi-automatically on SPECT, and were anatomically localized with the aid of co-registered MRI. brain regions involved in these cognitive operations using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) As hypothesized, in Alzheimer’s disease patients, reaction time costs of invalid targets eliciting shifts of attention between imaging. A recent study of patients with focal lesions provided evidence that the right and left parietal lobes are spatial locations were selectively correlated with SPECT hypoperfusion in the right superior parietal lobe; while differentially involved in shifting selective attention from invalidly cued spatial locations and objects, respectively (Egly reaction time costs of between-object shifts of attention were correlated with hypoperfusion in the left inferior parietal et al.J Exp Psychol Gen 1994; 123: 161–77). Accordingly, in Alzheimer’s disease patients, we hypothesized that right lobe. These results provide evidence for the specialized roles of the right and left parietal regions in the spatial parietal hypoperfusion on SPECT would be associated with deficits on the spatial-based component of a cued reaction and object components of attentional shifting respectively, and suggest that the cognitive profile associated with Alzheimer’s time task, and left parietal hypoperfusion would be associated with the deficits on the object-based component. Attentional disease includes both spatialand object-based attentional impairments. performance of Alzheimer’s disease patients ( n 5 29) was
Ensuring the Correctness of Cryptographic Protocols with Respect to Secrecy

This paper gives sufficient conditions to ensure secrecy property of cryptographic protocols that allow to share a session keys. Indeed, this paper proves that if within a protocol agents don’t decease or increase the security level of components, then this protocol respect the secrecy property. This sufficient condition holds even we change our context of verification (message algebra, intruder capacities or cryptographic assumptions). To verify this condition we use the notion of interpretation functions. An interpretation function is a safe way allowing an agent to appropriately estimate the security level of message components that he receives so that he can handle them correctly.