Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UXO detection at Jefferson Proving Ground using ground-penetrating radar

Abstract : Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) was used to detect UXO and nonordnance on the 40-acre site (lot 54) of Jefferson Proving Ground, Indiana. The UXO are buried about 1 m deep in a clayey silt for which the soil water content ranged from moist near the surface to near saturation at about 1 m. A 16-bit radar was used to profile along previously established lines and transects over emplaced artificial targets. Data were recorded at 48-64 traces/s with minimal towing speeds during both dry and rainy weather. Target responses at both 300 (time range of 50 ns) and 600 MHz (30 ns) ranged from discrete diffractions to short reflection segments. Soil loss greatly attenuated diffraction hyperbolas. Theoretical analyses of these hyperbolas give an average soil dielectric constant of 10 at both 300 and 600 MHz. The phase polarity of many of the reflected and diffracted wavelets indicate targets with wave impedances higher than that of the soil. It is therefore assumed that these targets are metallic and the responses of some, whose locations correlate with the position of UXO on burial maps, are shown in detail. Theoretical modeling of wavelet propagation for this soil confirms the high rate of attenuation (47-66 dB/m round-trip), the maintenance of waveform, a shift in wavelet local frequency, and response to a typical UXO. It is concluded that GPR is effective for finding targets in this type of soil to no more than 2-m depth. It is recommended that future surveys utilize high trace acquisition rates to capture the fill target responses, and a prowed, heavy dielectric antenna sled to improve antenna-to-ground coupling and to deflect surface obstacles such as vegetation. Broadband, three-dimensional numerical modeling of scattering from UXO-shaped targets in soil, with diverse orientations of antenna and target relative to one another, suggests that target length and diameter may be inferred from resonance patterns in backscattered signals.
Constructing special Lagrangian m-folds in C^m by evolving quadrics

This is the second in a series of papers constructing explicit examples of special Lagrangian submanifolds in C^m. The first paper was math.DG/0008021, which studied special Lagrangian m-folds with large symmetry groups. The third is math.DG/0010036, which uses ideas from this paper to construct families of special Lagrangian 3-folds in C^3. This paper describes a construction of special Lagrangian m-folds in C^m which are fibred by (m-1)-submanifolds which are quadrics in Lagrangian planes R^m in C^m. Generically they have only discrete symmetry groups. Some of our examples have been previously constructed by Lawlor and Harvey, using different methods. The principal motivation for these papers is to lay the foundations for the study of singularities of compact special Lagrangian m-folds in Calabi-Yau m-folds. Understanding such singularities will be important in resolving the SYZ conjecture on Mirror Symmetry of Calabi-Yau 3-folds. The special Lagrangian m-folds in C^m we construct here include many cones on S^a x S^b x S^1 for a+b=m-2, which are local models for singularities of special Lagrangian m-folds in Calabi-Yau m-folds.
Kalman filter-based tracking of a device-free passive entity in wireless environments

Device-free passive (DfP) localization has been recently proposed to allow localizing a stationary entity that neither carries a device nor participates actively in the localization process. In this paper, we present a Kalman filter-based system that enables tracking a continuously moving entity in a typical wireless environment rich in multipath. The concept behind DfP tracking is that the received signal strength at monitoring points in a wireless environment is influenced by any changes in the environment. These changes include the movement of an entity, such as a human being, within the environment. This can be utilized to track an entity in many military and civil applications. We evaluate the performance of our system by conducting experiments in a typical office environment rich in multipath. Our results show that we were able to track a passive entity in a long corridor with a 1.2m median distance error and a less than 4.6m distance error with probability one.
KDM4B is a Master Regulator of the Estrogen Receptor Signalling Cascade

The importance of the estrogen receptor (ER) in breast cancer (BCa) development makes it a prominent target for therapy. Current treatments, however, have limited effectiveness, and hence the definition of new therapeutic targets is vital. The ER is a member of the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily of transcription factors that requires co-regulator proteins for complete regulation. Emerging evidence has implicated a small number of histone methyltransferase (HMT) and histone demethylase (HDM) enzymes as regulators of ER signalling, including the histone H3 lysine 9 tri-/di-methyl HDM enzyme KDM4B. Two recent independent reports have demonstrated that KDM4B is required for ER-mediated transcription and depletion of the enzyme attenuates BCa growth in vitro and in vivo. Here we show that KDM4B has an overarching regulatory role in the ER signalling cascade by controlling expression of the ER and FOXA1 genes, two critical components for maintenance of the estrogen-dependent phenotype. KDM4B interacts with the transcription factor GATA-3 in BCa cell lines and directly co-activates GATA-3 activity in reporter-based experiments. Moreover, we reveal that KDM4B recruitment and demethylation of repressive H3K9me3 marks within upstream regulatory regions of the ER gene permits binding of GATA-3 to drive receptor expression. Ultimately, our findings confirm the importance of KDM4B within the ER signalling cascade and as a potential therapeutic target for BCa treatment.
Does bundling add-ins help consumers?

Third party developed software add-ins enhance the functionality of a large variety of base software such as operating systems, word processors, spread sheets, graphics software and games. Base software producers often bundle some of these add-ins in new versions of base software. This kind of bundling has come under increased scrutiny of regulators in US and Europe. We construct a model of the add-in market to show that it is possible for the consumers to benefit from bundling of add-ins and base software as the price of the bundled software is often much less than the sum of prices of the base software and add-ins. This result is validated with some empirical data.
Spreading the Wealth

ONE OF THE MAIN CLAIMS of the antiglobalization movement is that globalization is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It benefits the rich and does little for the poor, perhaps even making their lot harder. As union leader Jay Mazur put it in these pages, "globalization has dramatically increased inequality between and within nations" ("Labor's New Internationalism," January/February 2000). The problem with this new conventional wisdom is that the best evidence available shows the exact oppo site to be true. So far, the current wave of globalization, which started around 1980, has actually promoted economic equality and reduced poverty. Global economic integration has complex effects on income, culture, society, and the environment. But in the debate over globalization's merits, its impact on poverty is particularly important. If international trade and investment primarily benefit the rich, many people will feel that restricting trade to protect jobs, culture, or the environment is worth the costs. But if restricting trade imposes further hardship on poor people in the developing world, many of the same people will think otherwise. Three facts bear on this question. First, a long-term global trend toward greater inequality prevailed for at least 200 years; it peaked around 1975. But since then, it has stabilized and possibly even reversed. The chief reason for the change has been the accelerated growth of two large and initially poor countries: China and India.
Spin glass models for a network of real neurons

Ising models with pairwise interactions are the least structured, or maximum-entropy, probability distributions that exactly reproduce measured pairwise correlations between spins. Here we use this equivalence to construct Ising models that describe the correlated spiking activity of populations of 40 neurons in the salamander retina responding to natural movies. We show that pairwise interactions between neurons account for observed higher-order correlations, and that for groups of 10 or more neurons pairwise interactions can no longer be regarded as small perturbations in an independent system. We then construct network ensembles that generalize the network instances observed in the experiment, and study their thermodynamic behavior and coding capacity. Based on this construction, we can also create synthetic networks of 120 neurons, and find that with increasing size the networks operate closer to a critical point and start exhibiting collective behaviors reminiscent of spin glasses. We examine closely two such behaviors that could be relevant for neural code: tuning of the network to the critical point to maximize the ability to encode diverse stimuli, and using the metastable states of the Ising Hamiltonian as neural code words.
Serum complement factor H is associated with clinical and pathological activities of patients with lupus nephritis.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate serum complement factor H (CFH) and its associations with clinical and pathological features in patients with LN. METHODS Serum CFH was detected in 241 LN patients, 38 active and 11 inactive patients with SLE without clinical evidence of renal involvement and 51 normal controls. Serum CFH autoantibodies and CFH Tyr402His were screened in the 241 LN patients. CFH deposition in kidneys was detected in some patients. RESULTS Serum CFH levels in patients with LN at active phase were significantly lower than in 38 SLE patients or in normal controls. No serum anti-CFH autoantibodies were detected in patients with LN, and there was no significant difference in CFH Tyr402His distribution between patients with LN and normal controls. Glomerular expression of CFH was stronger than in normal controls. Serum CFH levels were mildly negatively associated with SLEDAI scores (r = -0.204, P = 0.001) and positively associated with serum C3 (r = 0.367, P < 0.001) and haemoglobulin levels (r = 0.193, P = 0.003). Patients with LN class III, subclass IV-S and those with thrombotic microangiopathy had the lowest serum CFH. CONCLUSION Serum CFH levels were associated with disease activity of LN.
Measuring depth accuracy in RGBD cameras

This paper presents the comparison between the Microsoft Kinect depth sensor and the Asus Xtion for computer vision applications. Depth sensors, known as RGBD cameras, project an infrared pattern and calculate the depth from the reflected light using an infrared sensitive camera. In this research, we compare the depth sensing capabilities of the two sensors under various conditions. The purpose is to give the reader a background to whether use the Microsoft Kinect or Asus Xtion sensor to solve a specific computer vision problem. The properties of the two depth sensors were investigated by conducting a series of experiments evaluating the accuracy of the sensors under various conditions, which shows the advantages and disadvantages of both Microsoft Kinect and Asus Xtion sensors.
Tapeworm Diphyllobothrium dendriticum (Cestoda)—Neglected or Emerging Human Parasite?

Background A total number of 14 valid species of Diphyllobothrium tapeworms have been described in literature to be capable of causing diphyllobothriosis, with D. latum being the major causative agent of all human infections. However, recent data indicate that some of these infections, especially when diagnosed solely on the basis of morphology, have been identified with this causative agent incorrectly, confusing other Diphyllobothrium species with D. latum. Another widely distributed species, D. dendriticum, has never been considered as a frequent parasite of man, even though it is found commonly throughout arctic and subarctic regions parasitizing piscivorous birds and mammals. Recent cases of Europeans infected with this cestode called into question the actual geographic distribution of this tapeworm, largely ignored by medical parasitologists. Methodology and Results On the basis of revision of more than 900 available references and a description and revision of recent European human cases using morphological and molecular (cox1) data supplemented by newly characterized D. dendriticum sequences, we updated the current knowledge of the life-cycle, geographic distribution, epidemiological status, and molecular diagnostics of this emerging causal agent of zoonotic disease of man. Conclusions The tapeworm D. dendriticum represents an example of a previously neglected, probably underdiagnosed parasite of man with a potential to spread globally. Recent cases of diphyllobothriosis caused by D. dendriticum in Europe (Netherlands, Switzerland and Czech Republic), where the parasite has not been reported previously, point out that causative agents of diphyllobothriosis and other zoonoses can be imported throughout the world. Molecular tools should be used for specific and reliable parasite diagnostics, and also rare or non-native species should be considered. This will considerably help improve our knowledge of the distribution and epidemiology of these human parasites.
Positive narratives: the stories young people with Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD) tell about their futures

Abstract This research drew on positive psychology in order to offer an optimistic way of conceptualising the lives of young people who are often described as having ‘SEBD’ (social, emotional and behavioural difficulties), now SEMH (social, emotional, mental health) in the English 2014 Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice. Positive psychology places emphasis on: the future, strengths, resources and potential, and suggests that negative experiences can build positive qualities. The young people in this research identified a range of strengths and resources in their lives that they had built as a result of earlier negative experiences. Narrative Oriented Inquiry (NOI) was used to analyse the themes of potential and growth in their stories which reveal their hopes and aspirations for the future. By giving these young people the opportunity to tell their stories this research permitted them to focus on where they were going, rather than where they had been.
Molecular inventories and chemical evolution of low-mass protostellar envelopes

This paper presents the first substantial study of the chemistry of the envelopes around a sample of 18 low-mass pre- and protostellar objects for which physical properties have previously been derived from radiative transfer modeling of their dust continuum emission. Single-dish line observations of 24 transitions of 9 molecular species (not counting isotopes) including HCO + , N 2 H + , CS, SO, SO 2 , HCN, HNC, HC 3 N and CN are reported. The line intensities are used to constrain the molecular abundances by comparison to Monte Carlo radiative transfer modeling of the line strengths. In general the nitrogen-bearing species together with HCO + and CO cannot be fitted by a constant fractional abundance when the lowest excitation transitions are included, but require radial dependences of their chemistry since the intensity of the lowest excitation lines are systematically underestimated in such models. A scenario is suggested in which these species are depleted in a specific region of the envelope where the density is high enough that the freeze-out timescale is shorter than the dynamical timescale and the temperature low enough that the molecule is not evaporated from the icy grain mantles. This can be simulated by a “drop” abundance profile with standard (undepleted) abundances in the inner- and outermost regions and a drop in abundance in between where the molecule freezes out. An empirical chemical network is constructed on the basis of correlations between the abundances of various species. For example, it is seen that the HCO + and CO abundances are linearly correlated, both increasing with decreasing envelope mass. This is shown to be the case if the main formation route of HCO + is through reactions between CO and H$_3^+$, and if the CO abundance still is low enough that reactions between H$_3^+$ and N 2 are the main mechanism responsible for the removal of H$_3^+$. Species such as CS, SO and HCN show no trend with envelope mass. In particular no trend is seen between “evolutionary stage” of the objects and the abundances of the main sulfur- or nitrogen-containing species. Among the nitrogen-bearing species abundances of CN, HNC and HC 3 N are found to be closely correlated, which can be understood from considerations of the chemical network. The CS/SO abundance ratio is found to correlate with the abundances of CN and HC 3 N, which may reflect a dependence on the atomic carbon abundance. An anti-correlation is found between the deuteration of HCO + and HCN, reflecting different temperature dependences for gas-phase deuteration mechanisms. The abundances are compared to other protostellar environments. In particular it is found that the abundances in the cold outer envelope of the previously studied class 0 protostar IRAS 16293-2422 are in good agreement with the average abundances for the presented sample of class 0 objects.
Geographical, genetic and functional diversity of antiretroviral host factor TRIMCyp in cynomolgus macaque (Macaca fascicularis)

The antiretroviral factor tripartite motif protein 5 (TRIM5) gene-derived isoform (TRIMCyp) has been found in at least three species of Old World monkey: rhesus (Macaca mulatta), pig-tailed (Macaca nemestrina) and cynomolgus (Macaca fascicularis) macaques. Although the frequency of TRIMCyp has been well studied in rhesus and pig-tailed macaques, the frequency and prevalence of TRIMCyp in cynomolgus macaques remain to be definitively elucidated. Here, the geographical and genetic diversity of TRIM5α/TRIMCyp in cynomolgus macaques was studied in comparison with their anti-lentiviral activity. It was found that the frequency of TRIMCyp in a population in the Philippines was significantly higher than those in Indonesian and Malaysian populations. Major and minor haplotypes of cynomolgus macaque TRIMCyp with single nucleotide polymorphisms in the cyclophilin A domain were also found. The functional significance of the polymorphism in TRIMCyp was examined, and it was demonstrated that the major haplotype of TRIMCyp suppressed human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) but not HIV-2, whilst the minor haplotype of TRIMCyp suppressed HIV-2 but not HIV-1. The major haplotype of TRIMCyp did not restrict a monkey-tropic HIV-1 clone, NL-DT5R, which contains a capsid with the simian immunodeficiency virus-derived loop between α-helices 4 and 5 and the entire vif gene. These results indicate that polymorphisms of TRIMCyp affect its anti-lentiviral activity. Overall, the results of this study will help our understanding of the genetic background of cynomolgus macaque TRIMCyp, as well as the host factors composing species barriers of primate lentiviruses.
Differential Spleen Remodeling Associated with Different Levels of Parasite Virulence Controls Disease Outcome in Malaria Parasite Infections

The spleen and its response to parasite infection are important in eliminating parasites in malaria. By comparing P. yoelii parasite lines with different disease outcomes in mice that had either intact spleens or had had their spleens removed, we showed that upon parasite infection, the spleen exhibits dramatic changes that can affect parasite clearance. The spleen itself directly impacts RBC deformability independently of parasite genetics. The data indicated that the changes in the biomechanical properties of malaria parasite-infected RBCs are the result of the complex interaction between host and parasite, and RBC deformability itself can serve as a novel predictor of clinical outcome. The results also suggest that early responses in the spleen are a key factor directing the clinical outcome of an infection. ABSTRACT Infections by malaria parasites can lead to very different clinical outcomes, ranging from mild symptoms to death. Differences in the ability of the spleen to deal with the infected red blood cells (iRBCs) are linked to differences in virulence. Using virulent and avirulent strains of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium yoelii, we investigated how parasite virulence modulates overall spleen function. Following parasite invasion, a difference in parasite virulence was observed in association with different levels of spleen morphology and iRBC rigidity, both of which contributed to enhanced parasite clearance. Moreover, iRBC rigidity as modulated by the spleen was demonstrated to correlate with disease outcome and thus can be used as a robust indicator of virulence. The data indicate that alterations in the biomechanical properties of iRBCs are the result of the complex interaction between host and parasite. Furthermore, we confirmed that early spleen responses are a key factor in directing the clinical outcome of an infection. IMPORTANCE The spleen and its response to parasite infection are important in eliminating parasites in malaria. By comparing P. yoelii parasite lines with different disease outcomes in mice that had either intact spleens or had had their spleens removed, we showed that upon parasite infection, the spleen exhibits dramatic changes that can affect parasite clearance. The spleen itself directly impacts RBC deformability independently of parasite genetics. The data indicated that the changes in the biomechanical properties of malaria parasite-infected RBCs are the result of the complex interaction between host and parasite, and RBC deformability itself can serve as a novel predictor of clinical outcome. The results also suggest that early responses in the spleen are a key factor directing the clinical outcome of an infection.
A dependence maximization view of clustering

We propose a family of clustering algorithms based on the maximization of dependence between the input variables and their cluster labels, as expressed by the Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion (HSIC). Under this framework, we unify the geometric, spectral, and statistical dependence views of clustering, and subsume many existing algorithms as special cases (e.g. k-means and spectral clustering). Distinctive to our framework is that kernels can also be applied on the labels, which can endow them with particular structures. We also obtain a perturbation bound on the change in k-means clustering.