Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Animal-to-robot social attachment: initial requisites in a gallinaceous bird

Animal–Robot Interaction experiments have demonstrated their usefulness to understand the social behaviour of a growing number of animal species. In order to study the mechanisms of social influences (from parents and peers) on behavioural development, we design an experimental setup where young quail chicks, after hatching, continuously live with autonomous mobile robots in mixed triadic groups of two chicks and one robot. As precocial birds are subject to imprinting, we compare groups where chicks meet the robot as their very first social partner, on their first day after hatching (R chicks), with groups where chicks meet a real conspecific first (C chicks), and the robot later (on the second day after hatching). We measured the behavioural synchronization between chicks and robot over three days. Afterwards, we directly tested the existence of a possible social bond between animal and robot, by performing separation–reunion behavioural tests. R chicks were more synchronized with the robot in their daily feeding–resting activities than C chicks. Moreover, R chicks emitted numerous distress calls when separated from the robot, even in the presence of another chick, whereas C chicks emitted calls only when separated from the other chick. Whether the observed chick–robot attachment bond reflects filial, or sibling-imprinting of chicks towards the robot remains unclear, as the latter process is not fully understood in natural familial groups. Still, these results reveal the necessary initial conditions for stable, cohesive mixed groups of chicks and robots, a promising tool to experiment on the long-term dynamics of social behaviour.
Tracking benchmark and evaluation for manipulation tasks

In this paper we present a public dataset to evaluate trackers used for human and robot manipulation tasks. For these tasks both high DOF motion and high accuracy is needed. We describe in detail, both the process of recording the sequences and how ground truth data was generated for the videos. The videos are tagged with challenges that a tracker would face while tracking the object. As an initial example, we evaluate the performance of six published trackers [5], [11], [12], [13], [15], [6] and analyse their result. We describe a new evaluation metric to test sensitivity of trackers to speed. A total of 100 annotated and tagged sequences are reported. All the videos, ground truth data, original implementation of trackers and evaluation scripts are made publicly available on the website so others can extend the results on their trackers and evaluation.
Claustrum projections to prefrontal cortex in the capuchin monkey (Cebus apella)

We examined the pattern of retrograde tracer distribution in the claustrum following intracortical injections into the frontal pole (area 10), and in dorsal (area 9), and ventral lateral (area 12) regions of the rostral prefrontal cortex in the tufted capuchin monkey (Cebus apella). The resulting pattern of labeled cells was assessed in relation to the three-dimensional geometry of the claustrum, as well as recent reports of claustrum-prefrontal connections in other primates. Claustrum-prefrontal projections were extensive, and largely concentrated in the ventral half of the claustrum, especially in the rostral 2/3 of the nucleus. Our data are consistent with a topographic arrangement of claustrum-cortical connections in which prefrontal and association cortices receive connections largely from the rostral and medial claustrum. Comparative aspects of claustrum-prefrontal topography across primate species and the implications of claustrum connectivity for understanding of cortical functional networks are explored, and we hypothesize that the claustrum may play a role in controlling or switching between resting state and task-associated cortical networks.
A phase 2 study of vorinostat for treatment of relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma: Southwest Oncology Group Study S0517

Abstract We performed a phase II study of oral vorinostat (200 mg twice daily, days 1–14 of a 21-day cycle), a histone and protein deacetylase inhibitor, to examine efficacy and tolerability in patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) with ≤ 5 prior therapies. The primary endpoint was the objective response rate (ORR), with secondary endpoints of progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), safety and tolerability. A two-stage design was used for patient accrual. Twenty-five eligible patients were accrued in the first stage. Median time on treatment was 3.8 months. The ORR was 4% (one partial response). Median PFS was 4.8 months. The drug was well tolerated. The second stage of accrual was not opened due to few objective responses. Oral vorinostat has limited single-agent activity in relapsed/refractory HL. There was one partial response, while seven other patients had stable disease for > 1 year, including two with stable disease for nearly 3 years, suggesting that further studies in combination with other active agents in this setting may be warranted.
Protein Sub-Nuclear Localization Based on Effective Fusion Representations and Dimension Reduction Algorithm LDA

An effective representation of a protein sequence plays a crucial role in protein sub-nuclear localization. The existing representations, such as dipeptide composition (DipC), pseudo-amino acid composition (PseAAC) and position specific scoring matrix (PSSM), are insufficient to represent protein sequence due to their single perspectives. Thus, this paper proposes two fusion feature representations of DipPSSM and PseAAPSSM to integrate PSSM with DipC and PseAAC, respectively. When constructing each fusion representation, we introduce the balance factors to value the importance of its components. The optimal values of the balance factors are sought by genetic algorithm. Due to the high dimensionality of the proposed representations, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is used to find its important low dimensional structure, which is essential for classification and location prediction. The numerical experiments on two public datasets with KNN classifier and cross-validation tests showed that in terms of the common indexes of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and MCC, the proposed fusing representations outperform the traditional representations in protein sub-nuclear localization, and the representation treated by LDA outperforms the untreated one.
Decoding interleaved Gabidulin codes and multisequence linearized shift-register synthesis

An interleaved Gabidulin code is the direct sum of ℓ Gabidulin codes. We propose an efficient decoding algorithm that corrects with high probability errors of rank up to ℓ over ℓ+1(d−1), where d is the rank distance of the interleaved code. The probability of decoding failure is estimated. The proposed decoding is based on a multisequence linearized shift-register synthesis algorithm, given in the paper. The time complexity of the decoding algorithm is O(ℓd2).
Immunotherapy in acute myeloid leukemia

Despite the remarkable progress made in some leukemias such as CML and CLL, cytotoxic treatment for AML remains essentially unchanged over the last 4 decades. Several lines of evidence, including the graft versus leukemia effect associated with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), suggest that immunotherapy is an active modality in AML. Given the lack of progress for chemotherapy in this disease, many novel immunologic treatment approaches have been explored. The goals of non‐transplant‐based immune approaches have largely consisted of the stimulation or restoration of endogenous immune responses or the targeting of specific tumor antigens by immune cells. These strategies have been associated with less toxicity than allogeneic HSCT but typically have inferior efficacy. Allogeneic HSCT exploits major and minor histocompatibility differences between the donor and recipient in order to recognize and eradicate malignancy. With the recognition that the immune system itself provides a basis for treating AML, immunotherapy continues to be an attractive modality to exploit in the treatment of this disease. Cancer 2015;121:2689‐2704. © 2015 American Cancer Society
Prion infection promotes extensive accumulation of α-synuclein in aged human α-synuclein transgenic mice

In neurodegenerative disorders of the aging population, misfolded proteins, such as PrPSc, α-synuclein, amyloid β protein and tau, can interact resulting in enhanced aggregation, cross seeding and accelerated disease progression. Previous reports have shown that in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and scrapie, α-synuclein accumulates near PrPSc deposits. However, it is unclear if pre-existing human α-synuclein aggregates modified prion disease pathogenesis, or if PrPSc exacerbates the α-synuclein pathology. Here, we inoculated infectious prions into aged α-synuclein transgenic (tg) and non-transgenic littermate control mice by the intracerebral route. Remarkably, inoculation of RML and mNS prions into α-synuclein tg mice resulted in more extensive and abundant intraneuronal and synaptic α-synuclein accumulation. In addition, infectious prions led to the formation of perineuronal α-synuclein deposits with a neuritic plaque-like appearance. Prion pathology was unmodified by the presence of α-synuclein. However, with the mNS prion strain there was a modest but significant acceleration in the time to terminal prion disease in mice having α-synuclein aggregates as compared with non-tg mice. Taken together, these studies support the notion that PrPSc directly or indirectly promotes α-synuclein pathology.
Dominant determinants in hen eggwhite lysozyme correspond to the cryptic determinants within its self-homologue, mouse lysozyme: implications in shaping of the T cell repertoire and autoimmunity

We have studied the mouse lysozyme (ML) peptide-specific T cell repertoire in mice of five different major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II haplotypes. 14 ML peptides were tested in a lymph node T cell proliferation assay. Upon immunization of diverse mouse strains with native ML, there was no response to any of the ML peptides tested. However, nine peptides were immunogenic, although there was no consistent pattern of reactivity toward any peptide among these strains. Thus, an autoreactive T cell repertoire directed against cryptic self(ML)-determinants exists, and it is different in mice of different MHC haplotypes. Moreover, our results demonstrate that crypticity is MHC associated and not merely a structural attribute of the determinant. On comparison of the pattern of response of various peptides of ML and that of its foreign homologue, hen eggwhite lysozyme (HEL) in H-2k, H-2b, and H-2d strains of mice, a striking correlation was evident. The stretches of amino acid sequences of determinants within HEL that were dominant in each of these three strains, almost exactly overlapped in position with those of the cryptic ML determinants against which self-reactivity was demonstrated in the same strain. These results demonstrate that the dominance-crypticity relationship between HEL and ML resulting from differential processing of these two proteins is critical in determining the response to HEL rather than the degree of sequence difference between them. These observations have important implications in the shaping of the T cell repertoire for foreign proteins and in the pathogenesis of autoimmunity.
Improved Statistical Machine Translation Using Paraphrases

Parallel corpora are crucial for training SMT systems. However, for many language pairs they are available only in very limited quantities. For these language pairs a huge portion of phrases encountered at run-time will be unknown. We show how techniques from paraphrasing can be used to deal with these otherwise unknown source language phrases. Our results show that augmenting a state-of-the-art SMT system with paraphrases leads to significantly improved coverage and translation quality. For a training corpus with 10,000 sentence pairs we increase the coverage of unique test set unigrams from 48% to 90%, with more than half of the newly covered items accurately translated, as opposed to none in current approaches.
Process Studies on the Generation of Near-Inertial Internal Gravity Waves by Wind

The generation of internal gravity waves in the ocean associated to wind stress forcing is studied with the aid of two numerical models. In a non-linear, axisymmetric and Boussinesq model the response to an idealized stationary wind stress pulse is investigated. The major generation mechanisms for internal gravity waves, inertial pumping, excites radially outward propagating low mode wave packets. The energy radiated relative to the wind work is found to be only about 0.02%, which is 2− 3 orders of magnitude lower than generally observed. In addition to the detailed axisymmetric simulation, a simplified hybrid slab model based on the classical slab model of Pollard and Millard (1970) is considered. In particular, the inertial pumping resulting from the divergent, horizontal, near-inertial response of the surface slab is regarded the boundary condition to the internal gravity wave field below the mixed layer. In a set of idealized experiments, laterally moving wind stress fronts are the most efficient driver for vertical motion depending on their translation speed. The application of the hybrid slab model to the North Atlantic for the years 1989 and 1996 as examples of opposite phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation shows latitude bands with characteristic ratio of energy radiated as internal gravity waves to the wind work. These are partly associated to the wind field structure in these meridional regimes. The ratio of total energies transferred equals to 9% for both years. In an application of the hybrid slab model to the axisymmetric setup it is found that the structure of the inertial oscillations of the axisymmetric simulation are well reproduced. However, the near-inertial response of the hybrid slab model has an 8 times larger amplitude and does not include non-linear effects. The ratio of radiated energy to the wind work for the stationary storm estimated with the hybrid slab model is about 1%. This ratio is increased by a factor 30 when the same wind stress structure is moving across the domain with 21 kmh−1.
Can we improve early mortality in patients receiving renal replacement therapy?

BACKGROUND Approximately one in eight patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) die within the first three months of starting renal replacement therapy (RRT). We investigated which factors might improve this early mortality. METHODS We performed a prospective nationwide study of all patients commencing RRT for ESRD in Scotland over one year. Patients were classified according to how they presented to start RRT, their burden of comorbid diseases, access prepared for dialysis, and duration of care by a nephrologist prior to commencing RRT. Those factors most strongly associated with death within 90 days of commencing treatment were determined by logistic regression analysis. RESULTS Patients with an acute unexpected element to their presentation for RRT had early mortality rates between 6.0 and 8.9 times greater than those who commenced RRT electively after a period of care from a nephrologist. Patients in high and medium comorbidity risk groups had early mortality rates of 4.7 and 2.2 times greater than those in the low-risk group. Low serum albumin had a significant association with early death. Patients who progressed steadily to ESRD, who had a planned start to dialysis, and who had mature access were 3.6 times more likely to survive beyond three months than those with no access; they were, however, also younger with less comorbidity. CONCLUSIONS The factors principally associated with early mortality are nonelective presentation for RRT, comorbid illness, and low serum albumin. Patients cared for by a nephrologist before requiring RRT who have mature access have better short-term survival than those without access. They are also younger with less comorbidity. It may be possible to improve short-term survival in this "unplanned" group if referred early to facilitate reducing cardiovascular risk factors and preparation for RRT.
A new class of Steiner tree heuristics with good performance: the iterated 1-Steiner approach

Virtually all previous methods for the rectilinear Steiner tree problem begin with a minimum spanning tree topology and rearrange edges to induce Steiner points. This study presents a more direct approach: the authors iteratively find optimal Steiner points to be added to the layout. The method gives improved average-case performance, and also avoids the worst-case examples of existing approaches. Sophisticated computational geometry techniques allow efficient and practical implementation, and the method is naturally suited to real-world VLSI regimes where, e.g., via costs can be high. Extensive performance results show almost 3% wirelength reduction over the best existing methods. A number of variants and extensions are described. <<ETX>>
Small-scale changes in wealth and attitudes toward risk

This paper reports on an experiment designed to examine the effects of small-scale changes in wealth on risk attitudes. We find that the money given prior to risky choices does not induce a change of subjects' risk preferences. This result supports a key assumption in a recent literature over calibration critique of decision theories. Furthermore, as the money given to subjects in our experiment is administered in between risky tasks and framed as a reward rather than a windfall gain, our result suggests that experimental findings reporting that a prior monetary gain induces individuals to take more risks (house-money effect) may be more sensitive to prior experience with the risk-elicitation task or framing of the money than previously thought.
Functional evidence that a recently evolved Drosophila sperm-specific gene boosts sperm competition

In many species, both morphological and molecular traits related to sex and reproduction evolve faster in males than in females. Ultimately, rapid male evolution relies on the acquisition of genetic variation associated with differential reproductive success. Many newly evolved genes are associated with novel functions that might enhance male fitness. However, functional evidence of the adaptive role of recently originated genes in males is still lacking. The Sperm dynein intermediate chain multigene family, which encodes a Sperm dynein intermediate chain presumably involved in sperm motility, originated from complex genetic rearrangements in the lineage that leads to Drosophila melanogaster within the last 5.4 million years since its split from Drosophila simulans. We deleted all the members of this multigene family resident on the X chromosome of D. melanogaster by chromosome engineering and found that, although the deletion does not result in a reduction of progeny number, it impairs the competence of the sperm in the presence of sperm from wild-type males. Therefore, the Sperm dynein intermediate chain multigene family contributes to the differential reproductive success among males and illustrates precisely how quickly a new gene function can be incorporated into the genetic network of a species.
Immunological blockade of adipocyte inflammation caused by increased matrix metalloproteinase‐cleaved osteopontin in obesity

Osteopontin (OPN) is upregulated in adipose tissue (AT) in obesity and contributes to subclinical inflammation, adipocyte dysfunction, and insulin resistance. OPN effects can be increased by cleavage by matrix metalloproteinases (MMP). This study aimed at investigating the presence of OPN cleavage products in human AT in obesity and their impact on adipocyte function and immunological blockade of these effects.
Proteinase K from Tritirachium album Limber.

The cDNA and the chromosomal gene encoding proteinase K from Tritirachium album Limber have been cloned in Escherichia coli and the entire nucleotide sequences of the coding region, as well as 5′- and 3′-flanking regions have been determined. The deduced primary translation product consisting of 384 amino acid residues (molecular mass = 40 231 Da) contains an N-terminal region of 105 amino acids not present in the mature protein. By analogy to the evolutionary-related bacterial subtilisins and other serine proteinases it is inferred that the primary secreted product is a zymogen containing a 15-amino-acid signal sequence and a 90-amino-acid propeptide. The propeptide is presumably removed in the later steps of the secretion process or upon secretion into the medium. The nucleotide-sequence analysis of the gene and its flanking regions has revealed that the proteinase-K gene is composed of two exons and one 63-bp-long intron located in the proregion. Furthermore, a putative promoter sequence and a capping site have been identified, suggesting that the transcription-start site is located 103-bp upstream of the ATG initiation codon. To express the proproteinase-K gene in E. coli, proproteinase-K cDNA was cloned in a plasmid vector under control of the tac promoter. The hybrid plasmid pSPPRO, constructed for this purpose, contained the cDNA coding for proproteinase K [from Ala (-91) to the C-terminal Ala (279)] fused to the N-terminal-signal-peptide sequence of the alkaline-phosphatase gene preceded by the tac promoter. E. coli BMH71-18, harbouring this plasmid, exhibited slight proteolytic activity when tested on skimmed-milk plates, suggesting that some fusion proteins were correctly secreted into the periplasm and processed to the mature proteinase K.
Immigrants Equilibrate Local Labor Markets: Evidence from the Great Recession

This paper demonstrates that low-skilled Mexican-born immigrants' location choices in the U.S. respond strongly to changes in local labor demand, and that this geographic elasticity helps equalize spatial differences in labor market outcomes for low-skilled native workers, who are much less responsive. We leverage the substantial geographic variation in employment losses that occurred during Great Recession, and our results confirm the standard finding that high-skilled populations are quite geographically responsive to employment opportunities while low-skilled populations are much less so. However, low-skilled immigrants, especially those from Mexico, respond even more strongly than high-skilled native-born workers. Moreover, we show that natives living in metro areas with a substantial Mexican-born population are insulated from the effects of local labor demand shocks compared to those in places with few Mexicans. The reallocation of the Mexican-born workforce reduced the incidence of local demand shocks on low-skilled natives' employment outcomes by more than 50 percent.
Second Language Experience Can Hinder the Discrimination of Nonnative Phonological Contrasts

Abstract Background/Aims: Many studies have shown that experienced second language (L2) learners are more skilled than novice L2 learners at a variety of L2 tasks, including auditory discrimination between members of L2 phonological contrasts. In this paper we argued that while L2 experience is typically beneficial when comparing the effects of more versus less experience, it is not necessarily beneficial when comparing the effects of some experience versus none. Methods: We compared the perceptual assimilation and discrimination of the Korean sibilant fricatives /sh/ and /s*/ by 3 native Mandarin populations: naïve listeners, novice L2 learners (4-6 weeks of experience), and advanced L2 learners (over 2 years of experience). Results: The perceptual assimilation of /sh/ changed as a result of L2 experience, but only in the /a/ context. It is also shown that novice L2 learners were less accurate than the naïve listeners at discriminating between /sh/ and /s*/ but, crucially, only in the /a/ context. Conclusion: The perception of /sh/ by L2 learners may be affected by knowledge of the L2 unavailable to naïve listeners, and some aspects of this knowledge may result in a decline in discrimination accuracy after even a very short period of L2 experience.