Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fitness Landscape and the Behavior of Heuristics

This paper focuses on using the tness landscape paradigm in order to gain a better understanding of the behavior of local search heuristics in order to solve NP-hard problems. We concentrate ourselves on the symmetric planar TSP and we compare experimental facts about landscapes associated with the well-known 2-change and city-swap operators. We measure the \\tness-distance correlation" (FDC), i.e. the correlation between the tness of sampled points and their distance to a global optimum. We show that the 2-change landscapes have greater FDC values than the city-swap. We relate this with the fact that 2-change hill-climbers walks terminate on solutions quite close to the global optimum, whereas city-swap walks are unable to reduce the distance to the optimum (distances are measured in terms of operator metric). This connrms former propositions about the importance of a good FDC, and examplify the existence of non artiicial problems exhibiting this property. The diierence in FDC seems to be an alternative explanation to the usual auto-correlation measures when it comes to explain the diierence in performance between these two operators. Furthermore, an operator showing a good FDC value points to the possible use of intensifying search techniques, relying on a reened use of the operator itself.
Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test.

An implicit association test (IAT) measures differential association of 2 target concepts with an attribute. The 2 concepts appear in a 2-choice task (2-choice task (e.g., flower vs. insect names), and the attribute in a 2nd task (e.g., pleasant vs. unpleasant words for an evaluation attribute). When instructions oblige highly associated categories (e.g., flower + pleasant) to share a response key, performance is faster than when less associated categories (e.g., insect & pleasant) share a key. This performance difference implicitly measures differential association of the 2 concepts with the attribute. In 3 experiments, the IAT was sensitive to (a) near-universal evaluative differences (e.g., flower vs. insect), (b) expected individual differences in evaluative associations (Japanese + pleasant vs. Korean + pleasant for Japanese vs. Korean subjects), and (c) consciously disavowed evaluative differences (Black + pleasant vs. White + pleasant for self-described unprejudiced White subjects).
Kawasaki Disease with Fever and Cervical Lymphadenopathy as the Sole Initial Presentation

Background and Objectives Some patients with Kawasaki disease (KD) present with fever and cervical lymphadenopathy alone. The purpose of this study was to characterize the clinical features of these unusual KD patients and determine whether this is a severe form of KD associated with increased risks of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) resistance and coronary artery lesions (CALs). Subjects and Methods A total of 146 children with KD were reviewed retrospectively, and classified into two groups according to initial clinical features. Those presenting with only fever and cervical lymphadenopathy (LKD) were classified as LKD patients. Other-KD patients included all except the LKD patients. Results Among 146 KD patients, 13 (8.9%) were classified as LKD patients. The LKD patients were significantly older and admitted earlier. The duration between fever onset and KD diagnosis was significantly longer in the LKD patients (5.9 days vs. 4.9 days, p=0.023). The frequency of IVIG resistance was not different between the two groups. , In the LKD patients, the incidence of CALs was significantly higher in the acute phase, and without significant difference in the convalescent phase. The percentage of neutrophils and C-reactive protein, albumin, and total bilirubin levels were significantly higher in LKD patients. Conclusion Even though LKD patients were older, admitted earlier, and had higher inflammatory marker levels, they did not have a greater risk of CALs or IVIG resistance. However, echocardiography may be helpful in the acute stage if patients have only fever and cervical lymphadenopathy and are unresponsive to empirical antibiotics.
Logic Synthesis with Nanowire Crossbar: Reality Check and Standard Cell-based Integration

Nanowire crossbar is one of the most promising circuit solutions for nanoelectronics. We show nanowire crossbars do not scale well in terms of logic density and speed. We consequently propose a crossbar cell design based on judicious use of silicon nanowire crossbars with microscale pitches and small dimensions. The crossbar cell is compatible with the conventional MOSFET fabrication and standard cell-based integration. We evaluate logic circuits using crossbar cells and show that they can improve density by more than fourfold over the traditional MOSFET circuits with the same process technology, while achieving close performance and over threefold power reduction.
T-cell-mediated suppression of anti-tumor immunity. An explanation for progressive growth of an immunogenic tumor

The results of this paper are consistent with the hypothesis that progressive growth of the Meth A fibrosarcoma evokes the generation of a T-cell-mediated mechanism of immunosuppression that prevents this highly immunogenic tumor from being rejected by its immunocompetent host. It was shown that it is possible to cause the regression of large, established Meth A tumors by intravenous infusion of tumor- sensitized T cells from immune donors, but only if the tumors are growing in T-cell-deficient recipients. It was also shown that the adoptive T-cell-mediated regression of tumors in such recipients can be prevented by prior infusion of splenic T cells from T-cell-intact, tumor-bearing donors. The results leave little doubt that the presence of suppressor T cells in T-cell-intact, tumor-bearing mice is responsible for the loss of an earlier generated state of concomitant immunity, and for the inability of intravenously infused, sensitized T cells to cause tumor regression. Because the presence of suppressor T cells generated in response to the Meth A did not suppress the capacity of Meth A-bearing mice to generate and express immunity against a tumor allograft, it is obvious that they were not in a state of generalized immunosuppression.
Improving dependency label accuracy using statistical post-editing: A cross-framework study

We present a statistical post-editing method for modifying the dependency labels in a dependency analysis. We test the method using two English datasets, three parsing systems and three labelled dependency schemes. We demonstrate how it can be used both to improve dependency label accuracy in parser output and highlight problems with and differences between constituency-to-dependency conversions.
Experimental hypersensitivity pneumonitis: influence of Th2 bias

Cultured murine CD4+ cells from Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula sensitized C3H/HeJ (Th1 bias) donors can adoptively transfer murine experimental hypersensitivity pneumonitis (EHP). We sensitized BALB/c mice (Th2 bias) with S. rectivirgula, obtained spleen and lung associated lymph node (LALN) cells, cultured the cells with specific antigen, and attempted adoptive transfer of EHP. We also treated both C3H/HeJ and BALB/c donor mice with IL4 and anti‐IFNγ before exposure to S. rectivirgula and then cultured cells from both spleen and LALN before attempted transfer of EHP. We found that cultured spleen and lung associated lymph node cells can adoptively transfer EHP in both C3H/HeJ and BALB/c mice as demonstrated by infiltration of the recipient lungs with CD4+ lymphocytes. Treatment of both mouse strains with IL4 and anti‐IFNγ did not change the ability of cultured cells to adoptively transfer EHP. We conclude that EHP induced by S. rectivirgula can occur in animals with either a Th1 or a Th2 bias and is not altered by treatment with IL4 and anti‐IFNγ. This suggests that attributes of the antigen and not genetic background or cytokine environment at the site of initial sensitization determines the results of exposure to S. rectivirgula.
A new hybrid algorithm for optimization based on artificial fish swarm algorithm and cellular learning automata

In this article, a new algorithm which is obtained by hybridizing cellular learning automata and artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA) is proposed for optimization in continuous and static environments. In the proposed algorithm, each dimension of search space is assigned to one cell of cellular learning automata and in each cell a swarm of artificial fishes are located which have the optimization duty of that specific dimension. In fact, in the proposed algorithm for optimizing D-dimensional space, there are D one-dimensional swarms of artificial fishes that each swarm is located in one cell and they contribute with each other to optimize the D-dimensional search space. The learning automata in each cell is responsible for making diversity in artificial fishes swarm of that dimension and equivalence between global search and local search processes. The proposed algorithm with standard AFSA, Cooperative Particle swarm optimization (PSO) and global version of PSO in 10 and 30-dimensional spaces are practiced on six standard fitness functions. Experimental results show that presented method has an acceptable performance.
Character-Based Pivot Translation for Under-Resourced Languages and Domains

In this paper we investigate the use of character-level translation models to support the translation from and to under-resourced languages and textual domains via closely related pivot languages. Our experiments show that these low-level models can be successful even with tiny amounts of training data. We test the approach on movie subtitles for three language pairs and legal texts for another language pair in a domain adaptation task. Our pivot translations outperform the baselines by a large margin.
Selection and Verification of Candidate Reference Genes for Mature MicroRNA Expression by Quantitative RT-PCR in the Tea Plant (Camellia sinensis)

Quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) is a rapid and sensitive method for analyzing microRNA (miRNA) expression. However, accurate qRT-PCR results depend on the selection of reliable reference genes as internal positive controls. To date, few studies have identified reliable reference genes for differential expression analysis of miRNAs among tissues, and among experimental conditions in plants. In this study, three miRNAs and four non-coding small RNAs (ncRNA) were selected as reference candidates, and the stability of their expression was evaluated among different tissues and under different experimental conditions in the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) using the geNorm and NormFinder programs. It was shown that miR159a was the best single reference gene in the bud to the fifth leaf, 5S rRNA was the most suitable gene in different organs, miR6149 was the most stable gene when the leaves were attacked by Ectropis oblique and U4, miR5368n and miR159a were the best genes when the leaves were treated by methyl jasmonate (MeJA), salicylic acid (SA) and abscisic acid (ABA), respectively. Our results provide suitable reference genes for future investigations on miRNA functions in tea plants.
Active caspases‐8 and −3 in circulating human erythrocytes purified on immobilized annexin‐V: A cytometric demonstration

Human red blood cells (RBCs) have a normal life span of 120 days in vivo and might be primed in vitro to die in response to apoptotic stimuli through a caspase‐independent pathway. It is well known that, in vivo, aging RBCs externalize phosphatidylserine residues but is unknown whether these cells express active caspases at this stage. We isolated RBCs expressing phosphatidylserine on their surface from human blood by applying an original method of affinity chromatography using annexin‐V fixed on gelatin or on magnetic beads. The isolated RBCs were then analyzed by flow cytometry for morphological changes (dot‐plot forward scatter versus side scatter), phosphatidylserine externalization (annexin‐V test), cell viability (calcein‐AM test), and caspase activities using fluorescent substrates specific for caspases‐3 and −8. In addition, cells were systematically visualized using phase contrast, fluorescence, and confocal microscopy. We found that the population of RBCs fixed on annexin‐V is a mixture of discocytes and shrunken cells. This annexin‐V‐positive population showed a dramatic loss of viability based on esterase activity determination (calcein‐AM test). Moreover, we demonstrated that circulating RBCs express both active caspases‐8 and −3 in half of the annexin‐V‐positive cells. All of these results were confirmed by phase contrast, fluorescence, and confocal microscopy. Our results demonstrate active caspases in RBC isolated from blood suggesting that caspases may participate in the regulation of in vivo RBC half‐life. This finding open the door to fruitful investigations in the field of RBC pathology. © 2008 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Large Scale Comparison of Innate Responses to Viral and Bacterial Pathogens in Mouse and Macaque

Viral and bacterial infections of the lower respiratory tract are major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Alveolar macrophages line the alveolar spaces and are the first cells of the immune system to respond to invading pathogens. To determine the similarities and differences between the responses of mice and macaques to invading pathogens we profiled alveolar macrophages from these species following infection with two viral (PR8 and Fuj/02 influenza A) and two bacterial (Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Francisella tularensis Schu S4) pathogens. Cells were collected at 6 time points following each infection and expression profiles were compared across and between species. Our analyses identified a core set of genes, activated in both species and across all pathogens that were predominantly part of the interferon response pathway. In addition, we identified similarities across species in the way innate immune cells respond to lethal versus non-lethal pathogens. On the other hand we also found several species and pathogen specific response patterns. These results provide new insights into mechanisms by which the innate immune system responds to, and interacts with, invading pathogens.
Nonlinear projection methods for visualizing Barcode data and application on two data sets

Developing tools for visualizing DNA sequences is an important issue in the Barcoding context. Visualizing Barcode data can be put in a purely statistical context, unsupervised learning. Clustering methods combined with projection methods have two closely linked objectives, visualizing and finding structure in the data. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Self‐organizing maps (SOM) are unsupervised statistical tools for data visualization. Both algorithms map data onto a lower dimensional manifold: MDS looks for a projection that best preserves pairwise distances while SOM preserves the topology of the data. Both algorithms were initially developed for Euclidean data and the conditions necessary to their good implementation were not satisfied for Barcode data. We developed a workflow consisting in four steps: collapse data into distinct sequences; compute a dissimilarity matrix; run a modified version of SOM for dissimilarity matrices to structure the data and reduce dimensionality; project the results using MDS. This methodology was applied to Astraptes fulgerator and Hylomyscus, an African rodent with debated taxonomy. We obtained very good results for both data sets. The results were robust against unbalanced species. All the species in Astraptes were well displayed in very distinct groups in the various visualizations, except for LOHAMP and FABOV that were mixed up. For Hylomyscus, our findings were consistent with known species, confirmed the existence of four unnamed taxa and suggested the existence of potentially new species.
Computing Semantic Relatedness using DBPedia

Extracting the semantic relatedness of terms is an important topic in several areas, including data mining, information retrieval and web recommendation. This paper presents an approach for computing the semantic relatedness of terms using the knowledge base of DBpedia - a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia. Several approaches to extract semantic relatedness from Wikipedia using bag-of-words vector models are already available in the literature. The research presented in this paper explores a novel approach using paths on an ontological graph extracted from DBpedia. It is based on an algorithm for finding and weighting a collection of paths connecting concept nodes. This algorithm was implemented on a tool called Shakti that extract relevant ontological data for a given domain from DBpedia using its SPARQL endpoint. To validate the proposed approach Shakti was used to recommend web pages on a Portuguese social site related to alternative music and the results of that experiment are reported in this paper.
Expression of AKR murine leukemia virus gp71-like and BALB(X) gp-71- like antigens in normal mouse tissues in the absence of overt virus expression

By competition radioimmune assays with antisera against AKR murine leukemia virus (MuLV) gp 71 or antisera against xenotropic virus, and iodinated AKR MuLV gp71 or BALB(X) gp71, antigens serologically indistinguishable from the viral antigens can be detected in tissues of normal mice in the absence of overt virus expression. An antigen serologically indistinguishable from AKR MuLV gp71 can be readily detected in normal bone marrow cells of the common strains of mice including NIH Swiss, 129/J, and SWR/J, as well as in Mus cervicolor and Mus musculus casteneus. In contrast, this antigen is not detected in normal spleen, thymus, lymph nodes, or serum. Similarly, an antigen serologically indistinguishable from BALB(X) gp71 was found in all normal mouse sera examined. This antigen was not present in fetal liver, perfused adult liver, thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, or bone marrow of the mice examined. An equivalent antigen was detected in sera from Mus musculus casteneus but not in sera from Mus cervicolor.
Competition in visual working memory for control of search

Recent perspectives on selective attention posit a central role for visual working memory (VWM) in the top‐down control of attention. According to the biased‐competition model (Desimone & Duncan, 1995), active maintenance of an object in VWM gives matching (Downing, 2000) or related (Moores, Laiti, & Chelazzi, 2003) objects in the environment a competitive advantage over other objects in gaining access to limited processing resources. Participants in this study performed a visual search task while simultaneously maintaining a second item in VWM. On half of the trials, this item appeared as a distractor item in the search array. We found no evidence that this item interferes with successful selection of the search target, as measured with response time in a target detection task and accuracy in a target discrimination task. These results are consistent with two general models: One in which a representation of the current task biases the competition between items in a unitary VWM, or one in which VWM is fractionated to allow for maintenance of critical items that are not immediately relevant to the task.
Implementation Issues for OFDM-Based Multihop Cellular Networks

In this article we present various issues that need careful design for the successful implementation of OFDMA-based multihop cellular networks which need incorporation of relay terminals. The first issue we present is synchronization. We show that it is not a problematic issue for infrastructure-based relaying, where the relay is deployed by a system operator at strategic points in the cell. Second, we focus on the advantage of adaptive relaying and provide a frame structure to enable adaptive relaying in a cellular network operating according to the IEEE 802.16e standard. The third issue we present is related to hardware implementation aspects. Hardware performance and resource usage analysis will show that cooperative diversity schemes increase hardware resource usage and power/energy consumption at mobile terminals. The last issue we present is within the context of link layer ARQ, where we propose a novel retransmission method, named local retransmission-ARQ (LR-ARQ), which is designed to take advantage of the multihop nature of the cellular network. Practically, we show that LR-ARQ improves performance with respect to its single-hop counterpart in terms of cell latency, goodput, and throughput.
Extraintestinal Helminth Infection Limits Pathology and Proinflammatory Cytokine Expression during DSS-Induced Ulcerative Colitis: A Role for Alternatively Activated Macrophages and Prostaglandins

Chronic inflammation of the intestinal mucosa is characteristic of inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Helminth parasites have developed immunomodulatory strategies that may impact the outcome of several inflammatory diseases. Therefore, we investigated whether Taenia crassiceps infection is able to decrease the inflammatory effects of dextran sulfate sodium- (DSS-) induced ulcerative colitis in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. Preinfection significantly reduced the manifestations of DSS-induced colitis, as weight loss and shortened colon length, and decreased the disease activity index independently of the genetic background of the mice. Taenia infection decreased systemic levels of proinflammatory cytokines while increasing levels of IL-4 and IL-10, and the inflammatory infiltrate into the colon was also markedly reduced. RT-PCR assays from colon showed that T. crassiceps-infected mice displayed increased expression of Arginase-1 but decreased expression of iNOS compared to DSS-treated uninfected mice. The percentages of T regulatory cells were not increased. The adoptive transfer of alternatively activated macrophages (AAMФs) from infected mice into mice with DSS-induced colitis reduced the severity of colon inflammation. Administration of indomethacin abrogated the anticolitic effect of Taenia. Thus, T. crassiceps infection limits the pathology of ulcerative colitis by suppressing inflammatory responses mechanistically associated with AAMФs and prostaglandins.
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: sibling sex ratio and birth rank--a catchment area study.

OBJECTIVES These were to determine (1) whether there is a birth rank effect in eating disorders, and (2) whether all-female sibships are overrepresented in the families of those with eating disorders. METHOD The study sample consisted of 293 female patients referred from a defined catchment area, the County of Leicester, United Kingdom, to an eating disorders clinic. Diagnoses were made using DSM-III and DSM-III-R. To discern birth rank effect, this core sample was expanded to one of 673 by adding published data sets to our own. RESULTS No evidence for either effect was found. DISCUSSION Biases which may have obscured genuine effects are discussed. A comment is made on the implication for family theories of causation of these negative findings.
Classification of Web documents using a graph model

In this paper we describe work relating to classification of Web documents using a graph-based model instead of the traditional vector-based model for document representation. We compare the classification accuracy of the vector model approach using the k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) algorithm to a novel approach which allows the use of graphs for document representation in the k-NN algorithm. The proposed method is evaluated on three different Web document collections using the leave-one-out approach for measuring classification accuracy. The results show that the graph-based k-NN approach can outperform traditional vector-based k-NN methods in terms of both accuracy and execution time.