Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Base Class Boost for Multi-class Classification

We develop the concept of ABC-Boost (Adaptive Base Class Boost) for multi-class classification and present ABC-MART, a concrete implementation of ABC-Boost. The original MART (Multiple Additive Regression Trees) algorithm has been very successful in large-scale applications. For binary classification, ABC-MART recovers MART. For multi-class classification, ABC-MART considerably improves MART, as evaluated on several public data sets.
Certificateless Public Key Authenticated Encryption With Keyword Search for Industrial Internet of Things

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) integrates various types of intelligent terminals, mobile devices, and communication technologies to enable the upgrade of traditional industries to intelligent industries. IIoT relies on the powerful data processing capabilities of cloud computing to reduce the cost of various on-demand services as per the requirements of users. However, the privacy and confidentiality of the outsourced data should be protected in this environment because the data are typically “handled” by a third-party service provider. An encryption technique can guarantee the confidentiality of the data but it limits data retrieval due to its innate “all-or-nothing” decryption feature. To apply encryption to privacy-preserving data retrieval, many public key encryption techniques with keyword search systems have been proposed in the literature. However, most of the existing schemes are vulnerable to inside keyword guessing attack (IKGA), which is caused by a small keyword space. To address this problem, we propose a certificateless public key authenticated encryption with keyword search scheme, which is provably secure against IKGA. A performance analysis of the proposed scheme demonstrates that it is more secure and effective compared with other certificateless public key encryption with keyword search schemes.
Using agile methods for the development of green and sustainable software: Success factors for GSD vendors

Over the last decade, the use of agile methods has grown dramatically for software development. Agile methods guarantee to accelerate the delivery of remarkable software with increased user satisfaction and reduced cost. However, in recent years, due to the emergence of green software engineering, software developers are compelled to focus more on green and sustainable aspects of software. Green software engineering aims to design, develop, and use the software with confined energy and computing resources. Recently, software engineers in global software development have adapted agile methods for quick, interactive, and environment‐friendly software development.
Patterns of i.i.d. Sequences and Their Entropy - Part I: General Bounds

Tight bounds on the block entropy of patterns of sequences generated by independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) sources are derived. A pattern of a sequence is a sequence of integer indices with each index representing the order of first occurrence of the respective symbol in the original sequence. Since a pattern is the result of data processing on the original sequence, its entropy cannot be larger. Bounds derived here describe the pattern entropy as function of the original i.i. d. source entropy, the alphabet size, the symbol probabilities, and their arrangement in the probability space. Matching upper and lower bounds derived provide a useful tool for very accurate approximations of pattern block entropies for various distributions, and for assessing the decrease of the pattern entropy from that of the original i.i. d. sequence.
Emergence of African Swine Fever in China, 2018.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious disease manifesting clinical symptoms of hemorrhagic fever caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV) and leads to almost 100% mortality in domestic pigs (Galindo and Alonso, 2017, Quembo et al., 2018). Since ASF was first identified in Kenya in the 1920s, it has rapidly spread in Africa and Eurasia and presented as 24 genotypes (Galindo and Alonso, 2017, Quembo et al., 2018). For instance, a genotype II ASFV derived from eastern Africa has resulted in substantial economic losses in many Eastern and Western European countries (van Heerden et al., 2017). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Towards Audio to Scene Image Synthesis Using Generative Adversarial Network

Humans can imagine a scene from a sound. We want machines to do so by using conditional generative adversarial networks (GANs). By applying the techniques including spectral norm, projection discriminator and auxiliary classifier, compared with naive conditional GAN, the model can generate images with better quality in terms of both subjective and objective evaluations. Almost three-fourth of people agree that our model have the ability to generate images related to sounds. By inputting different volumes of the same sound, our model output different scales of changes based on the volumes, showing that our model truly knows the relationship between sounds and images to some extent.
Reliability Study of Large Fan-Out BGA Solution on FinFET Process

Driven by aggressive product roadmap of high performance and low power IC, the complexity of both design and interconnection has significantly increased for field requirements. Unlike single-die FCBGA area limitation (generally within 600 mm2), fan-out technology significantly extends the die scale far beyond and largely improves both SI and PI requirements. To name a few, networking product is one of the specific applications; wired-ASIC would be another. However, fan-out structure inherently exhibits weaker mechanical properties due to its substrate-less process. As a consequence, study on the high latent risk of chip-to-package interaction (CPI) becomes important for the success of this technology. In this work, the reliability of CPI was experimentally investigated at 16nm FinFET process node on a large scale die size (~860mm2) and FOBGA package size (67.5mm*67.5mm). The result shows no CPI induced defect was found owing to specific RDL pattern was designed. Also the heat spreader type (including ring, lid, and without spreader) were studied, and the result shows that the stiffener ring could help on reducing overall package warpage by 20% as compared with the one without ring. And the lid type heat spreader having highest stiffness performed the best warpage behavior. Furthermore, it was revealed that optimizing ring type spreader width effectively reduces the deformation variation in the temperature range from 25 °C to 150 °C. Moreover, the board level reliability, including temperature cycling and drop tests, for the FOBGA was evaluated experimentally with daisy-chain PCB. Despite the low risk exhibited by board-level mechanical stress tests, e.g. shock and monotonic bend tests, on die bump and fan-out RDL, the BGA ball lifetime seemed to be inevitably getting worse under thermal gradient stress (temperature cycling). This was majorly due to the warpage behavior induced by large package size. It has been well known that PCB design variation causes dynamic and fatigue failure discrepancies. In this paper, through-hole design (Cu plating or Cu paste filling) and core material were studied on the effects of PCB design variants on board level thermal stress. The result shows the PCB with high Tg core or with Cu-paste filled through hole, has much better temperature cycling reliability than the one with Cu-plated-through-hole PCB. And there was no failure which relevant to CPI issue was found even after 2500-cycle TCT. Moreover, the board level dropping results reveal that the large FOBGA passed the drop test.
Interpretive Impacts of Text Visualization

Information visualizations are often evaluated as a tool in terms of their ability to support performance of a specific task. This article argues that value can be gained by instead evaluating visualizations from a communicative perspective. Specifically, it explores how text visualization can influence the impacts that framing has on the perception of political issues. Using data from a controlled laboratory study, the results presented here demonstrate that exposure to a text visualization can mitigate framing effects. Furthermore, it also shows a transfer effect, where participants who saw the visualization remained uninfluenced by framing in subsequent texts, even when the visualization was absent. These results carry implications for the methods used to evaluate information visualization systems, for understanding the cognitive and interpretive mechanisms by which framing effects occur, and for exploring the design space of interactive text visualization.
Effects of oral metaphors and allegories on programming problem solving

Metaphors of ordinary concepts are intensively used in computer science for naming abstract concepts and for designing users interfaces. Metaphors are mappings from a source domain (e.g., a stream) to a target domain (e.g., a sequence of bytes). Typically computing phenomena are explained using incoherent discourses at the source domain, formed by metaphors taken from a diversity of origins. Nonetheless, versatility of metaphors allows for the creation of coherent discourses in the origin domain that map the target computing discourse, and we call them allegories. The limited number of existing studies about this topic has compared only textual allegories, visual allegories, and the traditional unconnected metaphors. Although their findings are heterogeneous, equal effectiveness is the most frequent empirical result between these three types of metaphors. Furthermore, we have not found any study about oral allegories, in spite of oral being the most used modality for metaphors in computer science education. This article experimentally compares the effects of oral allegories and oral metaphors on a complex problem‐solving task. As in previous studies, our results did not find any significant differences on support or detriment of oral allegories. Our results support new metaphor theories posing that the context significantly influences the metaphors’ efficacy, and encourages future research about the interaction between context and allegories.
Regulator of G protein signaling 2 differentially regulates nicotine‐induced anxiolytic‐ and antidepressant‐like effects in mice

This study assessed the role of regulator of G protein signaling 2 (RGS2) in nicotine‐induced anxiolytic‐ and antidepressant‐like effects using RGS2 wildtype (WT) and RGS2 knockout (KO) mice. RGS2 negatively regulates monoaminergic neurotransmission, which is implicated in the pathology of anxiety and depression. We hypothesized that deletion of RGS2 would enhance nicotine‐induced anxiolytic‐ and antidepressant‐like effects, which were assessed using the elevated plus maze and tail suspension tests, respectively. Anxiolytic‐like effects were observed in both RGS2 WT and KO mice after administration of low dose of nicotine (0.05 mg/kg, base) compared to respective saline controls. Additionally, administration of nicotine (0.1 mg/kg, base) compared to saline resulted in anxiolytic‐like effects in RGS2 KO mice, but not RGS2 WT mice, suggesting genetic deletion of RGS2 facilitated anxiolytic‐like effects of nicotine. Administration of nicotine (0.5 and 1 mg/kg, base) compared to saline resulted in antidepressant‐like effects in RGS2 WT mice. Antidepressant‐like effects were observed in RGS2 KO mice only at the highest tested dose of nicotine (1 mg/kg, base) compared to saline controls, suggesting that genetic deletion of RGS2 decreased sensitivity to antidepressant‐like effects of nicotine. Together, the data suggest that RGS2 differentially regulated nicotine‐induced affective behavioral responses. These data suggest that individuals with RGS2 polymorphisms may experience differential affective responses to tobacco smoking, which may make them vulnerable to developing nicotine addiction.
Determinants of Behaviour Change in a Multi-Component Telemonitoring Intervention for Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Optimal diet quality and physical activity levels are essential for healthy ageing. This study evaluated the effects of a multi-component telemonitoring intervention on behavioural determinants of diet quality and physical activity in older adults, and assessed the mediating role of these determinants and two behaviour change techniques in the intervention’s effects. A non-randomised controlled design was used including 214 participants (average age 80 years) who were allocated to the intervention or control group based on municipality. The six-month intervention consisted of self-measurements of nutritional outcomes and physical activity, education, and follow-up by a nurse. The control group received regular care. Measurements took place at baseline, after 4.5 months and at the end of the study. The intervention increased self-monitoring and improved knowledge and perceived behavioural control for physical activity. Increased self-monitoring mediated the intervention’s effect on diet quality, fruit intake, and saturated fatty acids intake. Improved knowledge mediated the effect on protein intake. Concluding, this intervention led to improvements in behavioural determinants of diet quality and physical activity. The role of the hypothesised mediators was limited. Insight into these mechanisms of impact provides directions for future development of nutritional eHealth interventions for older adults, in which self-monitoring may be a promising behaviour change technique. More research is necessary into how behaviour change is established in telemonitoring interventions for older adults.
ETAS®50 Attenuates Ultraviolet-B-Induced Interleukin-6 Expression by Suppressing Akt Phosphorylation in Normal Human Dermal Fibroblasts

We recently reported that ETAS 50, a standardized extract from the Asparagus officinalis stem, exerted anti-inflammatory effects on ultraviolet-B- (UV-B-) irradiated normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDFs) by inhibiting nuclear factor-κB p65 nuclear import and the resulting interleukin-1β (IL-1β) expression. To further elucidate the antiphotoaging potency of ETAS 50, we examined the anti-inflammatory effects on UV-B-irradiated NHDFs by focusing on the stress-activated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and Akt signaling pathways. NHDFs were treated with 1 mg/mL of ETAS 50 or dextrin (vehicle control) after UV-B irradiation (20 mJ/cm2) for different time periods. Phosphorylation levels of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), p38 MAPK, and Akt were analyzed by western blotting. IL-6 mRNA levels were analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction. UV-B-irradiated NHDFs showed increased phosphorylation levels of JNK, p38 MAPK, and Akt, as well as increased mRNA levels of IL-6. ETAS 50 treatment after UV-B irradiation suppressed the increased phosphorylation levels of Akt without affecting those of JNK and p38 MAPK. ETAS 50 as well as Akt inhibitor Perifosine repressed UV-B irradiation-induced IL-6 mRNA expression. These results suggest that ETAS 50 treatment represses UV-B irradiation-induced IL-6 expression by suppressing Akt phosphorylation. The present findings demonstrate the potential of ETAS 50 to prevent photoaging by attenuating UV-B irradiation-induced proinflammatory responses in skin fibroblasts.
Tapping into technology and the biodiversity informatics revolution: updated terrestrial mammal list of Angola, with new records from the Okavango Basin

Abstract Using various sources, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), published literature, recent (2015–2017) collections, as well as bat detector and camera trap surveys with opportunistic sightings and live capture in the upper Okavango catchment in central Angola, we present an updated mammal checklist of 275 species from 15 different orders for Angola (including the Cabinda region). Recent surveys (captures and bat detectors) of small mammals from the upper Okavango catchment yielded 46 species (33 species of bats, ten species of rodents and three species of shrews). One bat (Pipistrellusrusticus, rusty pipistrelle); two rodents (Mussetzeri, Setzer’s mouse and Zelotomyswoosnami, Woosnam’s broad-faced mouse) and one shrew (Suncusvarilla, lesser dwarf shrew) were captured for the first time, in Angola. While our species lists of bats conformed to predicted totals, terrestrial small mammals were under sampled, with only 13 species recorded by our trapping survey compared to a total of 42 shrew and rodent species expected based on GBIF records for the central Angolan highlands. Seven terrestrial small mammal species (one shrew and six rodents) are endemic to the central and western Angolan highlands but none of these were captured in our survey. The bat detector surveys added three further bat species to the country list: Pipistrellushesperidus, Kerivoulaargentata, and Mopsmidas. Camera trap surveys and opportunistic sightings in the upper Okavango catchment in 2016 yielded a total of 35 species of medium-large mammals, from 17 families, although all of these had been reported previously in Angola. GBIF proved to be an excellent source of biodiversity data for Angolan mammals, most importantly for documenting dramatic historical range changes of larger mammals such as the sable (Hippotragusnigerniger), Kirk’s sable (H.nigerkirkii) and the giant sable (H.nigervariani).
A comprehensive model for code readability

Unreadable code could compromise program comprehension, and it could cause the introduction of bugs. Code consists of mostly natural language text, both in identifiers and comments, and it is a particular form of text. Nevertheless, the models proposed to estimate code readability take into account only structural aspects and visual nuances of source code, such as line length and alignment of characters. In this paper, we extend our previous work in which we use textual features to improve code readability models. We introduce 2 new textual features, and we reassess the readability prediction power of readability models on more than 600 code snippets manually evaluated, in terms of readability, by 5K+ people. We also replicate a study by Buse and Weimer on the correlation between readability and FindBugs warnings, evaluating different models on 20 software systems, for a total of 3M lines of code. The results demonstrate that (1) textual features complement other features and (2) a model containing all the features achieves a significantly higher accuracy as compared with all the other state‐of‐the‐art models. Also, readability estimation resulting from a more accurate model, ie, the combined model, is able to predict more accurately FindBugs warnings.
The adhesion function of the sodium channel beta subunit (β1) contributes to cardiac action potential propagation

Computational modeling indicates that cardiac conduction may involve ephaptic coupling – intercellular communication involving electrochemical signaling across narrow extracellular clefts between cardiomyocytes. We hypothesized that β1(SCN1B) –mediated adhesion scaffolds trans-activating NaV1.5 (SCN5A) channels within narrow (<30 nm) perinexal clefts adjacent to gap junctions (GJs), facilitating ephaptic coupling. Super-resolution imaging indicated preferential β1 localization at the perinexus, where it co-locates with NaV1.5. Smart patch clamp (SPC) indicated greater sodium current density (INa) at perinexi, relative to non-junctional sites. A novel, rationally designed peptide, βadp1, potently and selectively inhibited β1-mediated adhesion, in electric cell-substrate impedance sensing studies. βadp1 significantly widened perinexi in guinea pig ventricles, and selectively reduced perinexal INa, but not whole cell INa, in myocyte monolayers. In optical mapping studies, βadp1 precipitated arrhythmogenic conduction slowing. In summary, β1-mediated adhesion at the perinexus facilitates action potential propagation between cardiomyocytes, and may represent a novel target for anti-arrhythmic therapies.
Impact of missing individual patient data on 18 meta-analyses of randomised trials in oncology: Gustave Roussy experience

Objective To compare the characteristics, quality and treatment effects of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) by individual patient data (IPD) availability, in trials eligible for 18 IPD meta-analyses (MA). Design Trial characteristics, risk of bias (RoB) and hazard ratio (HR) for overall survival were extracted from IPD-MA publications and/or RCTs publications. Data for the RoB assessment were extracted for a subset of 73 RCTs. Two investigators blinded to whether IPD was available or not evaluated the RoB for these trials. Treatment effects were compared using ratios of global HRs (RHRs) of IPD-unavailable trials and IPD-available trials. RHR were pooled using a fixed-effect model. Data sources We examined the IPD availability for each trial eligible for each IPD-MA; when the IPD was not available for a trial, we used information from published sources. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies We selected all published IPD-MAs conducted at Gustave Roussy and the RCTs eligible for each. Results 349 RCTs (73 018 patients) from 18 MAs were eligible: 60 RCTs (5890 patients) had unavailable IPD and 289 RCTs (67 128 patients) had available IPD. The main reason for IPD unavailability was data loss by investigators. IPD-unavailable trials were smaller (p<0.001), more often monocentric (p<0.001) and non-international (p=0.0004) than IPD-available trials. Geographical areas differed (p=0.054) between IPD-unavailable IPD-available trials. RoB was higher in IPD-unavailable RCTs for random sequence generation (p=0.007) and allocation concealment (p=0.006). The HR and 95% confidence interval (CI) for overall survival were extractable from publications in 23/60 IPD-unavailable trials included in 10 different MAs. Treatment effects were significantly greater for IPD-unavailable trials compared with IPD-available trials (RHR=0.86 (95% CI 0.75 to 0.98)). Conclusions IPD-unavailable RCTs were significantly different from IPD-available RCTs in terms of trial characteristics and were at greater RoB. IPD-unavailable RCTs had a significantly greater treatment effect.
A Novel Compensation Circuit of High-Efficiency Concurrent Dual-Band Class-E Power Amplifiers

A novel methodology for designing a compensation circuit of high-efficiency concurrent dual-band (DB) class-E power amplifiers (PAs) is presented in this letter. The DB harmonic compensation network is first adopted to compensate the excess output capacitances and extend the maximum operating frequency (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_{\mathbf {max}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) of class-E PA at two distinct communication bands. The DB class-E PA, whose <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_{\mathbf {max}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> increases from 0.54 to 1.72 and 2.14 GHz, shows high-performance results with the maximum output power of 40.5 and 40.9 dBm and peak power-added efficiency of 74.9% and 75.9% at the two frequency bands, respectively. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first compensation circuit of concurrent DB class-E PA reported in the literature, which extremely improves the performance of DB class-E PAs.
A Knowledge Fusion Approach for Context Awareness in Vehicular Networks

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are a challenging Internet of Things scenario. While research is proposing increasingly sophisticated hardware and software solutions for on-board context detection, probably high-level context information sharing has not been adequately addressed so far. This paper proposes a novel logic-based framework enabling a contextual data management and mining in VANETs. It grounds on a knowledge fusion algorithm based on nonstandard, nonmonotonic inference services in Description Logics, adopting standard Semantic Web languages. Ontology-referred context annotations produced by individual VANET nodes are merged with automatic reconciliation of inconsistencies. An efficient information dissemination protocol complements the proposal. The approach has been implemented in a vehicular network simulator and early experimental results proved its effectiveness and feasibility.