Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive color claddification with gaussian mixture model

In this paper we present an adaptive color classification algorithm for RoboCup. Color-based vision faces the challenge of perceived color being variant to illumination. We propose a color classification algorithm that is robust and reliable under dynamic lighting conditions. Supported by the dichromatic reflectance model, we use a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) of two components to represent the distribution of a color class of interest in the YUV space. The color model is continuously updated to achieve adaptation. We show experimentally that a GMM with two components can be used as an accurate and complete representation of a dichromatic surface, and that our algorithm is capable of adapting and classifying color classes in real time
Salmonella enterica Serovars Enteritidis Infection Alters the Indigenous Microbiota Diversity in Young Layer Chicks

Avian gastrointestinal (GI) tracts are highly populated with a diverse array of microorganisms that share a symbiotic relationship with their hosts and contribute to the overall health and disease state of the intestinal tract. The microbiome of the young chick is easily prone to alteration in its composition by both exogenous and endogenous factors, especially during the early posthatch period. The genetic background of the host and exposure to pathogens can impact the diversity of the microbial profile that consequently contributes to the disease progression in the host. The objective of this study was to profile the composition and structure of the gut microbiota in young chickens from two genetically distinct highly inbred lines. Furthermore, the effect of the Salmonella Enteritidis infection on altering the composition makeup of the chicken microbiome was evaluated through the 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. One-day-old layer chicks were challenged with S. Enteritidis and the host cecal microbiota profile as well as the degree of susceptibility to Salmonella infection was examined at 2 and 7 days post infection. Our result indicated that host genotype had a limited effect on resistance to S. Enteritidis infection. Alpha diversity, beta diversity, and overall microbiota composition were analyzed for four factors: host genotype, age, treatment, and postinfection time points. S. Enteritidis infection in young chicks was found to significantly reduce the overall diversity of the microbiota population with expansion of Enterobacteriaceae family. These changes indicated that Salmonella colonization in the GI tract of the chickens has a direct effect on altering the natural development of the GI microbiota. The impact of S. Enteritidis infection on microbial communities was also more substantial in the late stage of infection. Significant inverse correlation between Enterobacteriaceae and Lachnospiraceae family in both non-infected and infected groups, suggested possible antagonistic interaction between members of these two taxa, which could potentially influences the overall microbial population in the gut. Our results also revealed that genetic difference between two lines had minimal effect on the establishment of microbiota population. Overall, this study provided preliminary insights into the contributing role of S. Enteritidis in influencing the overall makeup of chicken’s gut microbiota.
We've got you covered: Failure recovery with backup tunnels in traffic engineering

We present Sentinel, a novel failure recovery system for traffic engineering that pre-computes and installs backup tunnels to improve the robustness of software defined wide area networks (WANs). When a link fails, switches locally redirect traffic to backup tunnels and recover immediately in the data plane, thus substantially reducing the transient congestion compared to reactive rescaling. On the other hand Sentinel completely avoids the bandwidth headroom required by existing proactive approaches like FFC, and improves efficiency of operating the expensive WAN. We make several technical contributions in designing Sentinel. We formulate traffic engineering with backup tunnels (TE-BT) as optimization programs. We propose an approximation algorithm to efficiently solve the problem. We further present a concrete design and implementation of the system based on Openflow group tables for backup tunnels. Extensive experiments on Mininet and numerical simulations show that similar to FFC, Sentinel reduces congestion by 45% compared with rescaling, and its algorithm runs much faster than FFC. Sentinel only introduces a small number of additional forwarding rules and can be readily implemented on today's Openflow switches.
Molecular, Cellular, and Neuroanatomical Substrates of Place Learning

Learning and remembering the location of food resources, predators, escape routes, and immediate kin is perhaps the most essential form of higher cognitive processing in mammals. Two of the most frequently studied forms of place learning are spatial learning and contextual conditioning. Spatial learning refers to an animal's capacity to learn the location of a reward, such as the escape platform in a water maze, while contextual conditioning taps into an animal's ability to associate specific places with aversive stimuli, such as an electric shock. Recently, transgenic and gene targeting techniques have been introduced to the study of place learning. In contrast with the abundant literature on the neuroanatomical substrates of place learning in rats, very little has been done in mice. Thus, in the first part of this article, we will review our studies on the involvement of the hippocampus in both spatial learning and contextual conditioning. Having demonstrated the importance of the hippocampus to place learning, we will then focus attention on the molecular and cellular substrates of place learning. We will show that just as in rats, mouse hippocampal pyramidal cells can show place specific firing. Then, we will review our evidence that hippocampal-dependent place learning involves a number of interacting physiological mechanisms with distinct functions. We will show that in addition to long-term potentiation, the hippocampus uses a number of other mechanisms, such as short-term-plasticity and changes in spiking, to process, store, and recall information. Much of the focus of this article is on genetic studies of learning and memory (L&M). However, there is no single experiment that can unambiguously connect any cellular or molecular mechanism with L&M. Instead, several different types of studies are required to determine whether any one mechanism is involved in L&M, including (i) the development of biologically based learning models that explain the involvement of a given mechanism in L&M, (ii) lesion experiments (genetics and pharmacology), (iii) direct observations during learning, and (iv) experiments where learning is triggered by turning on the candidate mechanism. We will show how genetic techniques will be key to unraveling the molecular and cellular basis of place learning.
Global Multimodal News Frames on Climate Change

This paper presents the first fully integrated analysis of multimodal news frames. A standardized content analysis of text and images in newspaper articles from Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States covering the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conferences 2010–2013 was conducted using a subset of photo-illustrated articles (n = 432) as well as the entire conference coverage (n = 1,311). In the photo-illustrated articles, four overarching multimodal frames were identified: global warming victims, civil society demands, political negotiations, and sustainable energy frames. The distribution of these global frames across the five countries is relatively similar, and a comparison of frames emerging from the national subsets also reveals a strong element of cross-national frame convergence. This is explained by the news production context at global staged political events, which features uniform media access rules and similar information supplies, as well as strong interaction between journalists from different countries and between journalists and other actors. Event-related frame convergence across vastly different contexts is interpreted as one mechanism by which truly transnational media debate can be facilitated that can potentially serve to legitimize global political decisions. In conclusion, perspectives for future qualitative and quantitative multimodal framing research are discussed.
Complexity on Small Scales III: Iron and alpha Element Abundances in the Carina Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

We have obtained high-resolution spectroscopy of ten red giants in the Carina dwarf spheroidal (dSph) with UVES at the ESO/VLT. Here we present the abundances of O,Na,Mg,Si,Ca,Ti and Fe. By comparing the iron abundances [Fe/H] with calcium triplet (CaT) metallicities we show that the empirical CaT technique yields good agreement with the high-resolution data for [Fe/H]>-2 dex, but tends to deviate at lower metallicities. We identify two metal poor stars with iron abundances of -2.72 and -2.50 dex. These stars are found to have enhanced [alpha/Fe] ratios similar to those of stars in the Milky Way halo. However, the bulk of the Carina red giants are depleted in the [alpha/Fe] abundance ratios with respect to the Galactic halo at a given metallicity. One of our targets, with a [Fe/H] of -1.5 dex, is considerably depleted in almost all of the alpha-elements by ~0.5 dex compared to the solar values. Such a low [alpha/Fe] can be produced by stochastical fluctuations in terms of an incomplete mixing of single Type Ia and II SNe events into the ISM. Our derived element ratios are consistent with the episodic and extended SF in Carina known from its color-magnitude diagram. We find a considerable star-to-star scatter in the abundance ratios. This suggests that Carina's SF history varies with position within the galaxy, with incomplete mixing. Alternatively, the SF rate is so low that the high-mass stellar IMF is sparsely populated, as statistically expected in low-mass star clusters, leading to real scatter in the resultant mass-integrated yields. Both ideas are consistent with slow stochastic SF in dissolving associations, so that one may not speak of a single SF history at a detailed level (Abridged).
A syntactic approach for opinion mining on Spanish reviews

Abstract We describe an opinion mining system which classifies the polarity of Spanish texts. We propose an NLP approach that undertakes pre-processing, tokenisation and POS tagging of texts to then obtain the syntactic structure of sentences by means of a dependency parser. This structure is then used to address three of the most significant linguistic constructions for the purpose in question: intensification, subordinate adversative clauses and negation. We also propose a semi-automatic domain adaptation method to improve the accuracy of our system in specific application domains, by enriching semantic dictionaries using machine learning methods in order to adapt the semantic orientation of their words to a particular field. Experimental results are promising in both general and specific domains.
ABL Tyrosine Kinase Inhibition Variable Effects on the Invasive Properties of Different Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Lines

The non-receptor tyrosine kinase ABL drives myeloid progenitor expansion in human chronic myeloid leukemia. ABL inhibition by the tyrosine kinase inhibitor nilotinib is a first-line treatment for this disease. Recently, ABL has also been implicated in the transforming properties of solid tumors, including triple negative (TN) breast cancer. TN breast cancers are highly metastatic and several cell lines derived from these tumors display high invasive activity in vitro. This feature is associated with the activation of actin-rich membrane structures called invadopodia that promote extracellular matrix degradation. Here, we investigated nilotinib effect on the invasive and migratory properties of different TN breast cancer cell lines. Nilotinib decreased both matrix degradation and invasion in the TN breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB 231 and MDA-MB 468. However, and unexpectedly, nilotinib increased by two-fold the invasive properties of the TN breast cancer cell line BT-549 and of Src-transformed fibroblasts. Both display much higher levels of ABL kinase activity compared to MDA-MB 231. Similar effects were obtained by siRNA-mediated down-regulation of ABL expression, confirming ABL central role in this process. ABL anti-tumor effect in BT-549 cells and Src-transformed fibroblasts was not dependent on EGF secretion, as recently reported in neck and squamous carcinoma cells. Rather, we identified the TRIO-RAC1 axis as an important downstream element of ABL activity in these cancer cells. In conclusion, the observation that TN breast cancer cell lines respond differently to ABL inhibitors could have implications for future therapies.
Global, voxel, and cluster tests, by theory and permutation, for a difference between two groups of structural MR images of the brain

The authors describe almost entirely automated procedures for estimation of global, voxel, and cluster-level statistics to test the null hypothesis of zero neuroanatomical difference between two groups of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Theoretical distributions under the null hypothesis are available for (1) global tissue class volumes; (2) standardized linear model [analysis of variance (ANOVA and ANCOVA)] coefficients estimated at each voxel; and (3) an area of spatially connected clusters generated by applying an arbitrary threshold to a two-dimensional (2-D) map of normal statistics at voxel level. The authors describe novel methods for economically ascertaining probability distributions under the null hypothesis, with fewer assumptions, by permutation of the observed data. Nominal Type I error control by permutation testing is generally excellent; whereas theoretical distributions may be over conservative. Permutation has the additional advantage that it can be used to test any statistic of interest, such as the sum of suprathreshold voxel statistics in a cluster (or cluster mass), regardless of its theoretical tractability under the null hypothesis. These issues are illustrated by application to MRI data acquired from 18 adolescents with hyperkinetic disorder and 16 control subjects matched for age and gender.
Processing instructions

Instructions play an important role in everyday communication, e.g. in task-oriented dialogs. Based on a (psycho-)linguistic theoretical background, which classifies instructions as requests, we conducted experiments using a cross-modal experimental design in combination with a reaction time paradigm in order to get insights in human instruction processing. We concentrated on the interpretation of basic single sentence instructions. Here, we especially examined the effects of the specificity of verbs, object names, and prepositions in interaction with factors of the visual object context regarding an adequate reference resolution. We were able to show that linguistic semantic and syntactic factors as well as visual context information context influence the interpretation of instructions. Especially the context information proves to be very important. Above and beyond the relevance for basic research, these results are also important for the design of human-computer interfaces capable of understanding natural language. Thus, following the experimentalsimulative approach, we also pursued the processing of instructions from the perspective of computer science. Here, a natural language processing interface created for a virtual reality environment served as basis for the simulation of the empirical findings. The comparison of human vs. virtual system performance using a local performance measure for instruction understanding based on fuzzy constraint satisfaction led to further insights concerning the complexity of instruction processing in humans and artificial systems. Using selected examples, we were able to show that the visual context has a comparable influence on the performance of both systems, whereas this approach is limited when it comes to explaining some effects due to variations of the linguistic structure. In order to get deeper insights into the timing and interaction of the sub-processes relevant for instruction understanding and to model these effects in the computer simulation, more specific data on human performance are necessary, e.g. by using eye-tracking techniques. In the long run, such an approach will result in the development of a more natural and cognitively adequate human-computer interface.
‘Teaching’ the path towards university: understanding student access through storied-futures and meritocratic grand narratives

Abstract The notion that the stories of our lives shape dispositions towards imagined futures is another lens through which university underrepresentation should be viewed. A storied lens attends to how futures, like university attendance, are storied during childhood to the extent that some youth imagine, and therefore plan, these futures as natural progression. Such was the case for study participants, indicating that childhood stories contain answers for mitigating social reproduction connected to parental education and cultural forces within the home. Examining social mobility through the underexplored storied-futures grand narrative presents unique solutions that lay hidden within the dominant meritocratic grand narrative.
A place for Big Data: Close and distant readings of accessions data from the Arnold Arboretum

Place is a key concept in environmental studies and criticism. However, it is often overlooked as a dimension of situatedness in social studies of information. Rather, situatedness has been defined primarily as embodiment or social context. This paper explores place attachments in Big Data by adapting close and distant approaches for reading texts to examine the accessions data of the Arnold Arboretum, a living collection of trees, vines and shrubs established by Harvard University in 1872 (The original interactive data visualizations can be found online: http://www.lifeanddeathofdata.org). Although it is an early and unconventional example of the phenomenon, there are several reasons that the Arboretum is a useful site for investigating the relationship between Big Data and place. First, the category of place is embedded in a range of data fields used in the Arboretum’s records. Second, the Arboretum has long sought to be a place in which scientists and citizens alike can encounter large collections of data firsthand. Third, the place has shaped fluctuations in the daily production of data over the course of the Arboretum’s 144 year history. Furthermore, Arboretum data can help us see place in ways not necessarily tied to geolocation. Each of these place attachments suggests a different way in which data can be environmental: by being about, in, from, or generative of place. Taken together, these attachments offer a model for examining other data in relation to their environments. Moreover, the paper contends that rather than being detached from place, as prevailing discourses suggest, Big Data bring together more and further reaching place attachments than data sets of smaller sizes.
Dexmedetomidine infusion as a supplement to isoflurane anaesthesia for vitreoretinal surgery.

BACKGROUND We explored the sympatholytic property of dexmedetomidine, especially its role in intraocular pressure (IOP) reduction, haemodynamic stability, and attenuation of extubation response. METHOD In this double-blind, randomized, controlled trial approved by the Hospital Ethics Committee, 60 patients undergoing elective vitreoretinal surgery were allocated to two groups, receiving either placebo or dexmedetomidine. A loading dose of dexmedetomidine 2.5 microg kg(-1) h(-1) (or placebo in same volume) was infused for 10 min immediately before induction of anaesthesia with propofol, followed by a maintenance dexmedetomidine or placebo infusion at 0.4 microg kg(-1) h(-1) till 30 min before the end of the operation. Anaesthesia was maintained with isoflurane, oxygen, and air mixture. IOP was measured before the loading dose and 1 min after tracheal intubation. The mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) during loading, induction, maintenance, extubation, and recovery period were measured. The degree of strain on extubation was graded from 0 to 5. RESULTS The use of vasopressor/labetalol/atropine and the reduction in IOP were comparable between the two groups. There was a significant variation in MAP and HR over time within group, but not between groups. The median degree of strain was significantly lower (P = 0.049), and the time to reach Aldrete score of 10 shorter (P = 0.031) in the dexmedetomidine group. CONCLUSION Dexmedetomidine can be used without undue haemodynamic fluctuation and can decrease the excitatory response during extubation. The reduction in IOP with dexmedetomidine was comparable with placebo.
Efikasi Diri untuk Meningkatkan Optimisme terhadap Pencapaian Karir Karyawan Pkwt Perusahaan X

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji peningkatan optimisme pencapaian karir melalui pelatihan efikasi diri pada karyawan PKWT Perusahaan X. Hipotesis pada penelitian ini adalah ada peningkatan ptimisme pencapaian karir karyawan setelah diberikan pelatihan dengan konsep efikasi diri. Metode penelitian ini adalah eksperimen dengan desain one group pretest and posttest. Subjek penelitian ini adalah karyawan PKWT Perusahaan X berjumlah 50 responden, terdiri dari 29 laki-laki dan 21 perempuan. Alat ukur yang digunakan adalah Angket optimisme pencapaian karir pada aspek-aspek yang dikemukakan oleh Rottinghaus, Day, dan Borgen (2005) dan Angket efikasi diri dengan mengacu pada aspek-aspek yang dituliskan oleh Bandura (1982, 1993, 1997, 2006). Metode Analis data yang digunakan paired sample t-Test. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ada perbedaan yang signifikan terhadap peningkatan optimisme pencapaian karir sebelum dan sesudah diberikan pelatihan efikasi diri.
Androgen excess is associated with the increased carotid intima-media thickness observed in young women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

BACKGROUND We evaluated carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) as an early marker of atherosclerosis, as well as its main determinants among androgen excess, obesity and insulin resistance, in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). METHODS We selected 40 PCOS patients and 20 non-hyperandrogenic women who were similar in terms of age and grade of obesity. Complete clinical, metabolic and hormonal profiles and left common CIMT measurements were obtained. RESULTS Patients with PCOS presented with increased mean CIMT values when compared with controls (F = 8.575; P = 0.005), and this was independent of obesity. Five PCOS patients but no controls had increased CIMT values. CIMT correlated directly with serum total and free testosterone, androstenedione and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate levels and mean 24-h heart rate (HR), and inversely with the insulin sensitivity index (ISI), but no correlation was observed with the body mass index (BMI). Multiple stepwise linear regression models showed that in PCOS patients, the main determinants of CIMT were serum total testosterone or androstenedione concentrations, with no influence of ISI or the mean 24-h HR. CONCLUSIONS Compared with control women, PCOS patients present with an increased CIMT, independent of obesity and related directly to androgen excess; this suggests that hyperandrogenism is associated with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk in these women.