Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Multi-agent Approach to the Design of Peer-help Environments

This paper presents a multi-agent approach to design of adaptive distributed collaborative and peer help environments, which addresses a number of challenges: locating appropriate human and electronic resources depending on the help-request, motivating users to help each other, providing design approaches that are easily extendible "in-depth" and "in-breadth". We explore the notion of modelling user social characteristics, that is a "social user model", which is as important as a cognitive user model in supporting user collaboration and peer help. We show how adaptive behaviour (location of resources) of the heterogeneous distributed system I-Help can arise as a result of negotiation of goal-oriented autonomous cognitive agents. We are introducing an economic model in order to motivate users to collaborate and provide peer help while protecting helpers from getting overloaded with requests. Finally, we propose using multi-agent based simulation tools to simulate and test various economic models with respect to their appropriateness in the context of a learning environment.
Effects of Ginseng Treatment on Neutrophil Chemiluminescence and Immunoglobulin G Subclasses in a Rat Model of Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pneumonia

ABSTRACT Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients is almost impossible to eradicate with antibiotic treatment. In the present study, the effects of treatment with the Chinese herbal medicine ginseng on blood polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) chemiluminescence and serum specific antibody responses were studied in a rat model of chronic P. aeruginosapneumonia mimicking CF. An aqueous extract of ginseng was administered by subcutaneous injection at a dosage of 25 mg/kg of body weight/day for 2 weeks. Saline was used as a control. Two weeks after the start of ginseng treatment, significantly increased PMN chemiluminescence (P ≤ 0.001) and a decreased level in serum of immunoglobulin G (IgG) against P. aeruginosa(P < 0.05) were found. Furthermore, a higher IgG2a level (P < 0.04) but lower IgG1 level (P < 0.04) were found in the ginseng-treated infected group than in the control group. In the ginseng-treated group the macroscopic lung pathology was milder (P = 0.0003) and the percent PMNs in the cells collected by bronchoalveolar lavage was lower (P = 0.0006) than in the control group. However, the alveolar macrophage (AM) chemiluminescence values were not significantly different in the two groups infected with P. aeruginosa. The differences between the ginseng-treated noninfected rats and the control group (without P. aeruginosa lung infection) for the PMN chemiluminescence and AM chemiluminescence were not significant. These results suggest that ginseng treatment leads to an activation of PMNs and modulation of the IgG response to P. aeruginosa, enhancing the bacterial clearance and thereby reducing the formation of immune complexes, resulting in a milder lung pathology. The changes in IgG1 and IgG2a subclasses indicate a possible shift from a Th-2-like to a Th-1-like response. These findings indicate that the therapeutic effects of ginseng may be related to activation of a Th-1 type of cellular immunity and down-regulation of humoral immunity.
Monitoring Notch1 activity in development: Evidence for a feedback regulatory loop

Signaling through Notch receptors, which regulate cell fate decisions and embryonic patterning, requires ligand‐induced receptor cleavage to generate the signaling active Notch intracellular domain (NICD). Here, we show an analysis at specific developmental stages of the distribution of active mouse Notch1. We use an antibody that recognizes N1ICD, and a highly sensitive staining technique. The earliest N1ICD expression was observed in the mesoderm and developing heart, where we detected expression in nascent endocardium, presumptive cardiac valves, and ventricular and atrial endocardium. During segmentation, N1ICD was restricted to the presomitic mesoderm. N1ICD expression was also evident in arterial endothelium, and in kidney and endodermal derivatives such as pancreas and thymus. Ectodermal N1ICD expression was found in central nervous system and sensory placodes. We found that Notch1 transcription and activity was severely reduced in zebrafish and mouse Notch pathway mutants, suggesting that vertebrate Notch1 expression is regulated by a positive feedback loop. Developmental Dynamics 236:2594–2614, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Learning Computer: Low Bandwidth Tool that Bridges Digital Divide

This article reports on a project that explores strategies for narrowing the digital divide by providing a practicable e-learning option for the millions living outside the ambit of high performance computing and communication technology. The concept is introduced of a learning computer, a low bandwidth tool that provides a simplified, specialised e-learning environment which works with or without an internet connection. This concept is contrasted with the Learning Management System model widely adopted by universities, in which teaching material is accessed as web pages from a central repository. The development of an initial prototype and its field testing under realistic conditions is reviewed, and plans for future work outlined.
Solid‐Solution Phase Formation Rules for Multi‐component Alloys

The factors of the atomic size difference Delta and the enthalpy of mixing ΔH mιx of the multi-component alloys were summarized from the literatures. The formation zones of solid-solution phases, intermediate phases, and bulk metallic glasses were determined and the validity was verified by experimental results. For forming the solid solution, the alloys should have high entropy of mixing, lower Delta, and not too negative and positive enthalpy of mixing.
Improving Color Modeling for Alpha Matting

This paper addresses the problem of extracting an alpha matte from a single photograph given a user-defined trimap. A crucial part of this task is the color modeling step where for each pixel the optimal alpha value, together with its confidence, is estimated individually. This forms the data term of the objective function. It comprises of three steps: (i) Collecting a candidate set of potential foreand background colors; (ii) Selecting high confidence samples from the candidate set; (iii) Estimating a sparsity prior to remove blurry artifacts. We introduce novel ideas for each of these steps and show that our approach considerably improves over state-of-the-art techniques by evaluating it on a large database of 54 images with known high-quality ground truth.
Falcon: On-line monitoring for steering parallel programs

Advances in high performance computing, communications, and user interfaces enable developers to construct increasingly interactive high performance applications. The Falcon system presented in this paper supports such interactivity by providing runtime libraries, tools, and user interfaces that permit the on-line monitoring and steering of large-scale parallel codes. The principal aspects of Falcon described in this paper are its abstractions and tools for capture and analysis of application-speci c program information, performed on-line, with controlled latencies and scalable to parallel machines of substantial size. In addition, Falcon provides support for the on-line graphical display of monitoring information, and it allows programs to be steered during their execution, by human users or algorithmically. This paper presents our basic research motivation, outlines the Falcon system's functionality, and includes a detailed evaluation of its performance characteristics in light of its principal contributions. Falcon's functionality and performance evaluation are driven by our experiences with large-scale parallel applications being developed with end users in physics and in atmospheric sciences. The sample application highlighted in this paper is a molecular dynamics simulation program (MD) used by physicists to study the statistical mechanics of liquids. Index Terms { Parallel processing, program steering, program adaptation, on-line monitoring, instrumentation, trace analysis, perturbation, performance evaluation, performance displays, molecular dynamics simulation.
Wavelet Fusion on Ratio Images for Change Detection in SAR Images

This letter presents a novel method based on wavelet fusion for change detection in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The proposed approach is applied to generate the difference image (DI) by using complementary information from mean-ratio and log-ratio images. To restrain the background (unchanged areas) information and enhance the information of changed regions in the fused DI, fusion rules based on weight averaging and minimum standard deviation are chosen to fuse the wavelet coefficients for low- and high-frequency bands, respectively. Experiments on real SAR images confirm that the proposed approach does better than the mean-ratio, log-ratio, and Rayleigh-distribution-ratio operators.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Convergence Rates for Least-Squares Regression

We consider the optimization of a quadratic objective function whose gradients are only accessible through a stochastic oracle that returns the gradient at any given point plus a zero-mean finite variance random error. We present the first algorithm that achieves jointly the optimal prediction error rates for least-squares regression, both in terms of forgetting of initial conditions in O(1/n 2), and in terms of dependence on the noise and dimension d of the problem, as O(d/n). Our new algorithm is based on averaged accelerated regularized gradient descent, and may also be analyzed through finer assumptions on initial conditions and the Hessian matrix, leading to dimension-free quantities that may still be small while the " optimal " terms above are large. In order to characterize the tightness of these new bounds, we consider an application to non-parametric regression and use the known lower bounds on the statistical performance (without computational limits), which happen to match our bounds obtained from a single pass on the data and thus show optimality of our algorithm in a wide variety of particular trade-offs between bias and variance.
Maternal serum progesterone, estradiol and estriol levels in successful dinoprostone-induced labor

Hormone-mediated quiescence involves the maintenance of a decreased inflammatory responsiveness. However, no study has investigated whether labor induction with prostanoids is associated with changes in the levels of maternal serum hormones. The objective of this study was to determine whether labor induction with dinoprostone is associated with changes in maternal serum progesterone, estradiol, and estriol levels. Blood samples were obtained from 81 pregnant women at term. Sixteen patients had vaginal birth after spontaneous labor, 12 required cesarean section after spontaneous labor and 16 underwent elective cesarean. Thirty-seven patients had labor induction with dinoprostone. Eligible patients received a vaginal insert of dinoprostone (10 mg) and were followed until delivery. Serum progesterone (P4), estradiol (E2) and estriol (E3) levels and changes in P4/E2, P4/E3 and E3/E2 ratios were monitored from admission to immediately before birth, and the association of these measures with the resulting clinical classification outcome (route of delivery and induction responsiveness) was assessed. Progesterone levels decreased from admission to birth in patients who underwent successful labor induction with dinoprostone [vaginal and cesarean birth after induced labor: 23% (P < 0.001) and 18% (P < 0.025) decrease, respectively], but not in those whose induction failed (6.4% decrease, P > 0.05). Estriol and estradiol levels, P4/E2, P4/E3 and E3/E2 ratios did not differ between groups. Successful dinoprostone-induced labor was associated with reduced maternal progesterone levels from induction to birth. While a causal relationship between progesterone decrease and effective dinoprostone-induced labor cannot be established, it is tempting to propose that dinoprostone may contribute to progesterone withdrawal and favor labor induction in humans.
Fbxo 2 Regulates APP Levels and Processing 1 F-box only protein 2 ( Fbxo 2 ) Regulates Amyloid Precursor Protein Levels and Processing *

The Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) is an integral membrane glycoprotein whose cleavage products, particularly Amyloid-β, accumulate in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). APP is present at synapses and is thought to play a role in both the formation and plasticity of these critical neuronal structures. Despite the central role suggested for APP in AD pathogenesis, the mechanisms regulating APP in neurons and its processing into cleavage products remain incompletely understood. Fbox only protein 2 (Fbxo2), a neuron-enriched ubiquitin ligase substrate adaptor that preferentially binds high-mannose glycans on glycoproteins, was previously implicated in APP processing by facilitating the degradation of the APP-cleaving beta-secretase, BACE1. Here we sought to determine whether Fbxo2 plays a similar role for other glycoproteins in the amyloid processing pathway. We present in vitro and in vivo evidence that APP is itself a substrate for Fbxo2. APP levels were decreased in the presence of Fbxo2 in non-neuronal cells, and increased in both cultured hippocampal neurons and brain tissue from Fbxo2 knockout mice. The processing of APP into its cleavage products was also increased in hippocampi and cultured hippocampal neurons lacking Fbxo2. In hippocampal slices, this increase in cleavage products was accompanied by a significant reduction in APP at the cell surface. Taken together, these results suggest that Fbxo2 regulates APP levels and processing in the brain and may play a role in modulating AD
Discrimination of sepsis stage metabolic profiles with an LC/MS-MS-based metabolomics approach

Background To identify metabolic biomarkers that can be used to differentiate sepsis from systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), assess severity and predict outcomes. Methods 65 patients were involved in this study, including 35 patients with sepsis, 15 patients with SIRS and 15 normal patients. Small metabolites that were present in patient serum samples were measured by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry techniques and analysed using multivariate statistical methods. Results The metabolic profiling of normal patients and patients with SIRS or sepsis was markedly different. A significant decrease in the levels of lactitol dehydrate and S-phenyl-d-cysteine and an increase in the levels of S-(3-methylbutanoyl)-dihydrolipoamide-E and N-nonanoyl glycine were observed in patients with sepsis in comparison to patients with SIRS (p<0.05). Patients with severe sepsis and septic shock displayed lower levels of glyceryl-phosphoryl-ethanolamine, Ne, Ne dimethyllysine, phenylacetamide and d-cysteine (p<0.05) in their sera. The profiles of patients with sepsis 48 h before death illustrated an obvious state of metabolic disorder, such that S-(3-methylbutanoyl)-dihydrolipoamide-E, phosphatidylglycerol (22:2 (13Z, 16Z)/0:0), glycerophosphocholine and S-succinyl glutathione were significantly decreased (p<0.05). The receiver operating characteristic curve of the differential expression of these metabolites was also performed. Conclusions The body produces significant evidence of metabolic disorder during SIRS or sepsis. Seven metabolites may potentially be used to diagnose sepsis. Trial registration number ClinicalTrial.gov identifier NCT01649440.
Characterization and Mutational Analysis of Three Allelic lsc Genes Encoding Levansucrase inPseudomonas syringae

ABSTRACT In the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringaepv. glycinea PG4180 and other bacterial species, synthesis of the exopolysaccharide levan is catalyzed by the extracellular enzyme levansucrase. The results of Southern blotting and PCR analysis indicated the presence of three levansucrase-encoding genes in strain PG4180: lscA, lscB, andlscC. In this study, lscB andlscC were cloned from a genomic library of strain PG4180. Sequence analysis of the two lsc genes showed that they were virtually identical to each other and highly similar to the previously characterized lscA gene.lscA and lscC had a chromosomal location, whereas lscB resided on an indigenous plasmid of PG4180. Mutants with impaired expression of individual lsc genes and double mutants were generated by marker exchange mutagenesis. Determination of levansucrase activities in these mutants revealed that the lscB gene product was secreted but not that oflscA or lscC. Our results indicated thatlscB and lscC but not lscAcontributed to periplasmic levan synthesis of PG4180. The lscB lscC double mutant was completely defective in levan formation and could be complemented by either lscB orlscC. Our data suggested a compartment-specific localization of two lsc gene products, with LscB being the secreted, extracellular enzyme and LscC being the predominantly periplasmic levansucrase. Results of Western blot analyses indicated that lscA was not expressed and that lscAwas not associated with levansucrase activities in any particular protein fraction. LscA could be detected in PG4180 only when transcribed from the vector-borne Placpromoter. PCR screening in various P. syringae strains with primers derived from the three characterized lscgenes demonstrated the presence of multiple Lsc isoenzymes in otherP. syringae pathovars.
Early Appearance of Functional Deficits after Neonatal Excitotoxic and Hypoxic-Ischemic Injury: Fragile Recovery after Development and Role of the NMDA Receptor

We sought to determine whether neonatal rats that sustain unilateral cerebral hypoxic-ischemic or excitotoxic insults (1) manifest contralateral sensorimotor deficits during development or in adulthood and (2) recover from those deficits. Seven-day-old (P7) rats received a right intrastriatal injection of the glutamate analog N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA). Unilateral hypoxia-ischemia (HI) was induced by right carotid ligation followed by 1.5 h in 8% O2. Both procedures produce neuronal loss in the striatum and sensorimotor cortex. Nonlesioned controls were included. We scored percent forepaw placement on the edge of a horizontal surface, with lateral vibrissa stimulation, from P9 to P19, and at P33 and P50. Then, on P50, rats were treated with the NMDA antagonist MK-801 to determine whether deficits could be reinstated. NMDA- and HI-lesioned rats exhibited a deficit in contralateral vibrissa-stimulated forepaw placing that emerged during the second week of life. Yet, by P33 and P50, the lesioned groups and controls were indistinguishable. MK-801 injection on P50 resulted in transient reinstatement of the placing deficit. After unilateral neonatal excitotoxic or HI brain injury, contralateral sensorimotor deficits are detected, but in many animals, these deficits have resolved by adulthood. Thus, timing of sensorimotor tests may influence their sensitivity for detection of focal neuropathology originating in the neonatal period.
Evaluation of a compact tinnitus therapy by electrophysiological tinnitus decompensation measures

Large-scale neural correlates of the tinnitus decompensation have been identified by using wavelet phase stability criteria of single sweep sequences of auditory late responses (ALRs). Our previous work showed that the synchronization stability in ALR sequences might be used for objective quantification of the tinnitus decompensation and attention which link to Jastreboff tinnitus model.
Cigarette Smoking and Sociodemographic, Military, and Health Characteristics of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans

Objective: We examined the sociodemographic, military, and health characteristics of current cigarette smokers, former smokers, and nonsmokers among Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) / Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans and estimated smoking prevalence to better understand cigarette use in this population. Methods: We analyzed data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 2009-2011 National Health Study for a New Generation of US Veterans. On the basis of a stratified random sample of 60 000 OEF/OIF veterans, we sought responses to a 72-item questionnaire via mail, telephone, or Internet. Cigarette smoking status was based on self-reported cigarette use in the past year. We used multinomial logistic regression to evaluate associations between smoking status and sociodemographic, military, and health characteristics. Results: Among 19 911 veterans who provided information on cigarette smoking, 5581 were current smokers (weighted percentage: 32.5%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 31.7-33.2). Current smokers were more likely than nonsmokers or former smokers to be younger, to have less education or income, to be separated/divorced or never married/single, and to have served on active duty or in the army. Comparing current smokers and nonsmokers, some significant associations from adjusted analyses included the following: having a Mental Component Summary score (a measure of overall mental health) above the mean of the US population relative to below the mean (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.73-0.90); having physician-diagnosed depression (aOR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.33-1.74), respiratory conditions (aOR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.04-1.30), or repeated seizures/blackouts/convulsions (aOR = 1.80, 95% CI: 1.22-2.67); heavy alcohol use vs never use (aOR = 5.49, 95% CI: 4.57-6.59); a poor vs excellent perception of overall health (aOR = 3.79, 95% CI: 2.60-5.52); and being deployed vs nondeployed (aOR = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.78-0.96). Using health care services from the VA protected against current smoking. Conclusion: Mental and physical health, substance use, and military service characteristics shape cigarette-smoking patterns in OEF/OIF veterans.
TANDEM-X forest height in mountainous terrain of BC, Canada

Forest height is a key measurement for determining aboveground carbon in forests and forest biomass. DLR's TANDEM-X mission provides paired scenes that can be used for forest height measurement. We have demonstrated this in [1,2,3] for scenes with some moderate topography. This paper discusses issues for estimating forest canopy heights in mountainous terrain. Multiple dates and baselines of TanDEM-X data were obtained for a study site with much more severe topography and taller trees in BC, Canada. The results of analysis of large-slope induced errors and mitigation of some of these effects are discussed below.
Message Deletion and Mobility Patterns for Efficient Message Delivery in DTNs

This paper discusses the efficient message deletion mechanism, which will be able to apply regardless of applied routing protocol, in DTNs (Delay Tolerant Networks). In order to achieve an acceptable quality of message delivery probability, we will need to allow the multiple message replicas in the system. In this context, the capability and capacity of store-carry-and-forward at the nodes is crucial. Since the mobile nodes' storage capacity is not infinite, but is rather limited, an efficient resource management mechanism, i.e., message management algorithm, has to be applied. In this paper, we propose an approach, where we design the message deletion algorithm, while take into account the heuristic knowledge of actual human mobility. Through the preliminary numerical evaluation in this paper, we show that the proposed approach will achieve an effective network resource utilization and good/acceptable message delivery probability, while reducing the system overhead and the message delivery latency. We evaluate the system performance related to several key parameters. We found and showed that the introduction of message deletion mechanism into Epidemic, PRoPHET, and Spray and Wait routing algorithm could achieve better performance.