Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolving edited k-Nearest Neighbor Classifiers

The k-nearest neighbor method is a classifier based on the evaluation of the distances to each pattern in the training set. The edited version of this method consists of the application of this classifier with a subset of the complete training set in which some of the training patterns are excluded, in order to reduce the classification error rate. In recent works, genetic algorithms have been successfully applied to determine which patterns must be included in the edited subset. In this paper we propose a novel implementation of a genetic algorithm for designing edited k-nearest neighbor classifiers. It includes the definition of a novel mean square error based fitness function, a novel clustered crossover technique, and the proposal of a fast smart mutation scheme. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, results using the breast cancer database, the diabetes database and the letter recognition database from the UCI machine learning benchmark repository have been included. Both error rate and computational cost have been considered in the analysis. Obtained results show the improvement achieved by the proposed editing method.
High-frequency-variation speed control of spindle motor for chatter vibration suppression in NC machine tools

This paper proposes a spindle motor control method for self-excited chatter vibration suppression in numerical control (NC) machine tools. In conventional NC machine tools, spindle speed is set to constant value during machining, and the spindle speed is determined according to analysis or operator's experience. The proposed method reduces self-excited chatter vibration by varying spindle speed with high frequency during machining. This method can also suppress the disturbance derived from cutting resistance by repetitive control, and achieve spindle speed variation with high frequency by perfect tracking control. Finally, we show the advantages of the proposed method by simulations and experiments.
The Blind Passenger and the Assignment Problem

We introduce a discrete random process which we call the passenger model, and show that it is connected to a certain random model of the assignment problem and in particular to the so-called Buck–Chan–Robbins urn process. We propose a conjecture on the distribution of the location of the minimum cost assignment in a cost matrix with zeros at specified positions and remaining entries of exponential distribution. The conjecture is consistent with earlier results on the participation probability of an individual matrix entry. We also use the passenger model to verify a conjecture by V. Dotsenko on the assignment problem.
Exploration of Binary Virus–Host Interactions Using an Infectious Protein Complementation Assay*

A precise mapping of pathogen–host interactions is essential for comprehensive understanding of the processes of infection and pathogenesis. The most frequently used techniques for interactomics are the yeast two-hybrid binary methodologies, which do not recapitulate the pathogen life cycle, and the tandem affinity purification mass spectrometry co-complex methodologies, which cannot distinguish direct from indirect interactions. New technologies are thus needed to improve the mapping of pathogen–host interactions. In the current study, we detected binary interactions between influenza A virus polymerase and host proteins during the course of an actual viral infection, using a new strategy based on trans-complementation of the Gluc1 and Gluc2 fragments of Gaussia princeps luciferase. Infectious recombinant influenza viruses that encode a Gluc1-tagged polymerase subunit were engineered to infect cultured cells transiently expressing a selected set of Gluc2-tagged cellular proteins involved in nucleocytoplasmic trafficking pathways. A random set and a literature-curated set of Gluc2-tagged cellular proteins were tested in parallel. Our assay allowed the sensitive and accurate recovery of previously described interactions, and it revealed 30% of positive, novel viral–host protein–protein interactions within the exploratory set. In addition to cellular proteins involved in the nuclear import pathway, components of the nuclear pore complex such as NUP62 and mRNA export factors such as NXF1, RMB15B, and DDX19B were identified for the first time as interactors of the viral polymerase. Gene silencing experiments further showed that NUP62 is required for efficient viral replication. Our findings give new insights regarding the subversion of host nucleocytoplasmic trafficking pathways by influenza A viruses. They also demonstrate the potential of our infectious protein complementation assay for high-throughput exploration of influenza virus interactomics in infected cells. With more infectious reverse genetics systems becoming available, this strategy should be widely applicable to numerous pathogens.
Felix: A Topology Based Framework for Visual Exploration of Cosmic Filaments

The large-scale structure of the universe is comprised of virialized blob-like clusters, linear filaments, sheet-like walls and huge near empty three-dimensional voids. Characterizing the large scale universe is essential to our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies. The density range of clusters, walls and voids are relatively well separated, when compared to filaments, which span a relatively larger range. The large scale filamentary network thus forms an intricate part of the cosmic web. In this paper, we describe Felix, a topology based framework for visual exploration of filaments in the cosmic web. The filamentary structure is represented by the ascending manifold geometry of the 2-saddles in the Morse-Smale complex of the density field. We generate a hierarchy of Morse-Smale complexes and query for filaments based on the density ranges at the end points of the filaments. The query is processed efficiently over the entire hierarchical Morse-Smale complex, allowing for interactive visualization. We apply Felix to computer simulations based on the heuristic Voronoi kinematic model and the standard ACDM cosmology, and demonstrate its usefulness through two case studies. First, we extract cosmic filaments within and across cluster like regions in Voronoi kinematic simulation datasets. We demonstrate that we produce similar results to existing structure finders. Second, we extract different classes of filaments based on their density characteristics from the ACDM simulation datasets. Filaments that form the spine of the cosmic web, which exist in high density regions in the current epoch, are isolated using Felix. Also, filaments present in void-like regions are isolated and visualized. These filamentary structures are often over shadowed by higher density range filaments and are not easily characterizable and extractable using other filament extraction methodologies.
Efficient graph based spatial face context representation and matching

In this paper, we propose a novel orientation-aware Urquhart graph based spatial face context representation method to efficiently describe the spatial relationship among faces in group photos. We combine graph matching with orientations of graph edges to assess the similarity of spatial face contexts from different group photos. The experimental results show that our method can find more structurally similar group photos compared to the state-of-the-art spatial face context representation methods.
Multi-Swarm That Learns

Recent research in applications of modern meta-heuristics to non-stationary optimization tasks showed high efficiency of multi-swarm approach. In this paper the multi-swarm approach extended with memory structure is discussed. The structure stores complete solutions found during the search process and is common for all the sub-swarms. The algorithm is tested in a real-valued 5-dimensional search space where the fitness landscape is built of a set of unimodal functions. The version of the algorithm with memory shows improvement on the versions without memory for the case where the number of moving peaks is much higher than the number of sub-swarms. However, for the case where the number of sub-swarms is the same as the number of moving peaks application of memory decreases quality of the results.
Interpretation and Expectations Among Mothers of Children with Anxiety Disorders: Associations With Maternal Anxiety Disorder

Models of the development and maintenance of childhood anxiety suggest an important role for parent cognitions: that is, negative expectations of children's coping abilities lead to parenting behaviors that maintain child anxiety. The primary aims of the current study were to (1) compare expectations of child vulnerability and coping among mothers of children with anxiety disorders on the basis of whether or not mothers also had a current anxiety disorder, and (2) examine the degree to which the association between maternal anxiety disorder status and child coping expectations was mediated by how mothers interpreted ambiguous material that referred to their own experience.
Comparison of Serum Cystatin C and Creatinine Level Changes for Prognosis of Patients After Peripheral Arterial Angiography

We compared changes in serum cystatin C (Cys C) and creatinine (sCr) levels for detecting contrast-induced acute kidney injury; 350 consecutive patients who underwent peripheral arterial angiography were prospectively enrolled. Serum Cys C and sCr levels were assayed at predefined time points after contrast-media exposure. During 1-year follow-up, major adverse events (MAEs) including all-cause mortality and dialysis were assessed. A sCr increase ≥25% was not associated with MAEs, whereas a serum Cys C increase ≥5% at 24 hours was associated with higher probability of MAEs (P = .010). The independent predictors of 1-year MAEs were older age (P = .004), lower prealbumin levels (P = .022), and serum Cys C increase ≥5%. In patients who underwent peripheral angiography, a serum Cys C increase ≥5% was an independent predictor of 1-year MAEs.
Joint decoding and carrier phase recovery algorithm for turbo codes

In this letter, we investigate the sensitivity of the iterative maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) decoder to carrier phase offsets and propose simple carrier phase recovery algorithms operating within the iterative MAP decoding iterations. The algorithms exploit the information contained in the extrinsic values generated within the iterative MAP decoder to perform carrier recovery, thus requiring low hardware complexity.
Central Nervous Effects of Manganese in Rats Investigated by Repeated Simultaneous Electrophysiological and Behavioral Recording the Applicant's Relevant Publications Manganese Treatment Number of Rats Evaluated Substance Dose Time Open Field and General Tox. Ecog Treated Control Treated Control

s: Takács Sz, Bankó S, Nagymajtényi L, Papp A (2009) Acute and subacute functional neurotoxicity of manganese in rats. FEPS 2009, Ljubljana, Szlovénia, 2009. november 12-15. Book of Abstracts p. 254. Takács Sz, Papp A (2010) Changes of cortical electrical activity and open field motility in WAG rats during several weeks of oral manganese exposure. IBRO International Workshop 2010, Pécs, 2010. január 21-23. Frontiers in Neuroscience DOI 10.3389/conf.fnins. 2010.10. 00067. Takács Sz, Papp A (2010) Antiepileptikumok és anesztetikum hatása a kérgi alapaktivitásra és a spontán motilitásra egy epilepszia hajlamos patkánytörzsben. Magyar Élettani Társaság LXXIV. Vándorgyűlése és a Magyar Kísérletes és Klinikai Farmakológiai Társaság II. közös konferenciája, Szeged, 2010. június 16-18. Acta Physiologica Hungarica 97, 480-481. Papp A, Takács Sz (2010) Cortical electrical activity and open field motility of WAG rats during subacute oral manganese exposure. 7th Forum of European Neuroscience, Amszterdam, 2010. július 3-7. FENS Abstracts vol.5, 164.26. Takács Sz, Máté Zs, Horváth E, Papp A (2010) Behavioral and electrophysiological effects of intratracheal manganese exposure recorded in rats with chronically implanted cortical electrodes. 11 th International Symposium Interdisciplinary Regional Research, Szeged, 2010. október 13-15. Abstracts p.108. Takács Sz, Papp A (2011) Elektrokortikogram és open field motilitás változások patkányban 8 hetes orális mangán expozíció során. Magyar Farmakológiai, Anatómus, Mikrocirkulációs, Élettani Társaságok Közös Tudományos Konferenciája (FAMÉ), Pécs 2011. június 8-11. Acta Physiologica 202 Suppl 684, 116-117.
Severance Pay or Pension Funds

The paper aims to analyze the determinants of the individual choice of con- tributing to pension funds, particularly by focusing on individual preferences towards the annuitization of the accumulated pension capital. The analysis is performed in the light of the latest reform of social security in Italy, convert- ing the severance pay scheme (the so-called TFR) into a fully funded scheme of pension funds. The model describes the behavior of a representative agent belonging to a representative generation in steady state, in a partial equilibrium setting with mortality risk as well as uncertainty on wages and financial market returns. Investing in riskier but potentially more rewarding pension funds, paying out annuities from retirement onwards, turns out to be slightly welfare improving with respect to contributing to a severance pay scheme eventually paying out a lump-sum amount. Nonetheless, the welfare-based value of insurance provided by private annuities from pension funds is relatively low, mainly due to a) the pre-existence of (sizeable) public annuities, and b) constraints imposed by annuitization on both saving and consumption behavior after retirement. These findings provide further insights into the Oannuity puzzleO issue.
Evidence for Optimal Integration of Visual Feature Representations across Saccades

We explore the visual world through saccadic eye movements, but saccades also present a challenge to visual processing by shifting externally stable objects from one retinal location to another. The brain could solve this problem in two ways: by overwriting preceding input and starting afresh with each fixation or by maintaining a representation of presaccadic visual features in working memory and updating it with new information from the remapped location. Crucially, when multiple objects are present in a scene the planning of eye movements profoundly affects the precision of their working memory representations, transferring limited memory resources from fixation toward the saccade target. Here we show that when humans make saccades, it results in an update of not just the precision of representations but also their contents. When multiple item colors are shifted imperceptibly during a saccade the perceived colors are found to fall between presaccadic and postsaccadic values, with the weight given to each input varying continuously with item location, and fixed relative to saccade parameters. Increasing sensory uncertainty, by adding color noise, biases updating toward the more reliable input, which is consistent with an optimal integration of presaccadic working memory with a postsaccadic updating signal. We recover this update signal and show it to be tightly focused on the vicinity of the saccade target. These results reveal how the nervous system accumulates detailed visual information from multiple views of the same object or scene. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT This study examines the consequences of saccadic eye movements for the internal representation of visual objects. A saccade shifts the image of a stable visual object from one part of the retina to another. We show that visual representations are built up over these different views of the same object, by combining information obtained before and after each saccade. The weights given to presaccadic and postsaccadic information are determined by the relative reliability of each input. This provides evidence that the visual system combines inputs over time in a statistically optimal way.
Psychophysical and Patient Factors as Determinants of Pain, Function and Health Status in Shoulder Disorders

Objective: To estimate the extent to which psychophysical quantitative sensory test (QST) and patient factors (gender, age and comorbidity) predict pain, function and health status in people with shoulder disorders. To determine if there are gender differences for QST measures in current perception threshold (CPT), vibration threshold (VT) and pressure pain (PP) threshold and tolerance. Design: A cross-sectional study design. Setting: MacHAND Clinical Research Lab at McMaster University. Subjects: 34 surgical and 10 nonsurgical participants with shoulder pain were recruited. Method: Participants completed the following patient reported outcomes: pain (Numeric Pain Rating, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, Shoulder Pain and Disability Index) and health status (Short Form-12). Participants completed QST at 4 standardized locations and then an upper extremity performance-based endurance test (FIT-HaNSA). Pearson r’s were computed to determine the relationships between QST variables and patient factors with either pain, function or health status. Eight regression models were built to analysis QST’s and patient factors separately as predictors of either pain, function or health status. An independent sample t-test was done to evaluate the gender effect on QST. Results: Greater PP threshold and PP tolerance was significantly correlated with higher shoulder functional performance on the FIT-HANSA (r =0.31-0.44) and lower self-reported shoulder disability (r = -0.32 to -0.36). Higher comorbidity was consistently correlated (r =0.31-0.46) with more pain, and less function and health status. Older age was correlated to more pain intensity and less function (r =0.31-0.57). In multivariate models, patient factors contributed significantly to pain, function or health status models (r2 =0.19-0.36); whereas QST did not. QST was significantly different between males and females [in PP threshold (3.9 vs. 6.2, p < .001) and PP tolerance (7.6 vs. 2.6, p < .001) and CPT (1.6 vs. 2.3, p =.02)]. Conclusion: Psychophysical dimensions and patient factors (gender, age and comorbidity) affect self-reported and performance-based outcome measures in people with shoulder disorders.
Indian hedgehog signals independently of PTHrP to promote chondrocyte hypertrophy

Chondrocyte hypertrophy is an essential process required for endochondral bone formation. Proper regulation of chondrocyte hypertrophy is also required in postnatal cartilage homeostasis. Indian hedgehog (Ihh) and PTHrP signaling play crucial roles in regulating the onset of chondrocyte hypertrophy by forming a negative feedback loop, in which Ihh signaling regulates chondrocyte hypertrophy by controlling PTHrP expression. To understand whether there is a PTHrP-independent role of Ihh signaling in regulating chondrocyte hypertrophy, we have both activated and inactivated Ihh signaling in the absence of PTHrP during endochondral skeletal development. We found that upregulating Ihh signaling in the developing cartilage by treating PTHrP-/- limb explants with sonic hedgehog (Shh) protein in vitro, or overexpressing Ihh in the cartilage of PTHrP-/- embryos or inactivating patched 1 (Ptch1), a negative regulator of hedgehog (Hh) signaling, accelerated chondrocyte hypertrophy in the PTHrP-/- embryos. Conversely, when Hh signaling was blocked by cyclopamine or by removing Smoothened (Smo), a positive regulator of Hh signaling, chondrocyte hypertrophy was delayed in the PTHrP-/- embryo. Furthermore, we show that upregulated Hh signaling in the postnatal cartilage led to accelerated chondrocyte hypertrophy during secondary ossification, which in turn caused reduction of joint cartilage. Our results revealed a novel role of Ihh signaling in promoting chondrocyte hypertrophy independently of PTHrP, which is particularly important in postnatal cartilage development and homeostasis. In addition, we found that bone morphogenetic protein (Bmp) and Wnt/β-catenin signaling in the cartilage may both mediate the effect of upregulated Ihh signaling in promoting chondrocyte hypertrophy.
Repertoires of Spike Avalanches Are Modulated by Behavior and Novelty

Neuronal avalanches measured as consecutive bouts of thresholded field potentials represent a statistical signature that the brain operates near a critical point. In theory, criticality optimizes stimulus sensitivity, information transmission, computational capability and mnemonic repertoires size. Field potential avalanches recorded via multielectrode arrays from cortical slice cultures are repeatable spatiotemporal activity patterns. It remains unclear whether avalanches of action potentials observed in forebrain regions of freely-behaving rats also form recursive repertoires, and whether these have any behavioral relevance. Here, we show that spike avalanches, recorded from hippocampus (HP) and sensory neocortex of freely-behaving rats, constitute distinct families of recursive spatiotemporal patterns. A significant number of those patterns were specific to a behavioral state. Although avalanches produced during sleep were mostly similar to others that occurred during waking, the repertoire of patterns recruited during sleep differed significantly from that of waking. More importantly, exposure to novel objects increased the rate at which new patterns arose, also leading to changes in post-exposure repertoires, which were significantly different from those before the exposure. A significant number of families occurred exclusively during periods of whisker contact with objects, but few were associated with specific objects. Altogether, the results provide original evidence linking behavior and criticality at the spike level: spike avalanches form repertoires that emerge in waking, recur during sleep, are diversified by novelty and contribute to object representation.
Amniotic Fluid Stem Cells: A Novel Source for Modeling of Human Genetic Diseases

In recent years, great interest has been devoted to the use of Induced Pluripotent Stem cells (iPS) for modeling of human genetic diseases, due to the possibility of reprogramming somatic cells of affected patients into pluripotent cells, enabling differentiation into several cell types, and allowing investigations into the molecular mechanisms of the disease. However, the protocol of iPS generation still suffers from technical limitations, showing low efficiency, being expensive and time consuming. Amniotic Fluid Stem cells (AFS) represent a potential alternative novel source of stem cells for modeling of human genetic diseases. In fact, by means of prenatal diagnosis, a number of fetuses affected by chromosomal or Mendelian diseases can be identified, and the amniotic fluid collected for genetic testing can be used, after diagnosis, for the isolation, culture and differentiation of AFS cells. This can provide a useful stem cell model for the investigation of the molecular basis of the diagnosed disease without the necessity of producing iPS, since AFS cells show some features of pluripotency and are able to differentiate in cells derived from all three germ layers “in vitro”. In this article, we describe the potential benefits provided by using AFS cells in the modeling of human genetic diseases.
Nonparametric nearest neighbor based empirical portfolio selection strategies

In recent years optimal portfolio selection strategies for sequential investment have been shown to exist. Although their asymptotical optimality is well established, finite sample properties do need the adjustment of parameters that depend on dimensionality and scale. In this paper we introduce some nearest neighbor based portfolio selectors that solve these problems, and we show that they are also log-optimal for the very general class of stationary and ergodic random processes. The newly proposed algorithm shows very good finite-horizon performance when applied to different markets with different dimensionality or scales without any change: we see it as a very robust strategy.