Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SYQ: Learning Symmetric Quantization for Efficient Deep Neural Networks

Inference for state-of-the-art deep neural networks is computationally expensive, making them difficult to deploy on constrained hardware environments. An efficient way to reduce this complexity is to quantize the weight parameters and/or activations during training by approximating their distributions with a limited entry codebook. For very low-precisions, such as binary or ternary networks with 1-8-bit activations, the information loss from quantization leads to significant accuracy degradation due to large gradient mismatches between the forward and backward functions. In this paper, we introduce a quantization method to reduce this loss by learning a symmetric codebook for particular weight subgroups. These subgroups are determined based on their locality in the weight matrix, such that the hardware simplicity of the low-precision representations is preserved. Empirically, we show that symmetric quantization can substantially improve accuracy for networks with extremely low-precision weights and activations. We also demonstrate that this representation imposes minimal or no hardware implications to more coarse-grained approaches. Source code is available at https://www.github. com/julianfaraone/SYQ.
Cryptic species unveiled: the case of the nematode Spauligodon atlanticus

The implementation of molecular tools in parasitology has led to the discovery of numerous cryptic species. However, detailed morphological studies are needed to evaluate the cryptic nature of such species, as well as to provide an appropriate and formal description. Recent phylogenetic analyses using mitochondrial and nuclear genes have revealed that the nematode Spauligodon atlanticus, parasite of lizards of the genus Gallotia endemic to the Canary Islands, consists of two highly divergent and unrelated lineages, one in the eastern islands and the other in the western ones. This study provides a detailed morphological analysis of the two S. atlanticus lineages characterized genetically, based on body measurements and scanning electron microscopy. This integrative approach revealed phenotypic differences between them, despite their overall morphological resemblance. As a result, the new species Spauligodon occidentalis sp. nov., from the formerly western lineage, is described. The morphological similarity between the two Spauligodon species is better explained on the basis of evolutionary convergence, since both species parasitize Gallotia lizards. In addition to delimiting the new nematode species, this study highlights the importance of combining genetic and morphological data with taxonomy to uncover the nature of cryptic species and decrease taxonomic uncertainty.
Expression of miR-652-3p and Effect on Apoptosis and Drug Sensitivity in Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) expression profiles were screened in plasma samples from pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and healthy controls, using qRT-PCR-based TaqMan low-density miRNA arrays. MiR-652-3p (a circulating miRNA) was downregulated in new diagnosis (ND) patients compared with healthy controls. The levels of miR652-3p were restored in complete remission (CR) but were downregulated again in disease relapse (RE). The expression pattern of miR-652-3p was validated in bone marrow (BM) samples from other pediatric ALL patients. MiR-652-3p was significantly upregulated in BM when the patients (n=86) achieved CR, as compared with the matched ND samples (p<0.001). Moreover, the miR-652-3p levels in BM decreased again in two patients at RE. In addition, the lymphoblastic leukemia cell lines Reh and RS4:11 were found to have lower levels of miR-625-3p than the normal B-cell line. Overexpression of miR-652-3p using agomir increased the sensitivity to vincristine and cytarabine (all p<0.05) and promoted apoptosis (both p<0.05) in Reh and RS4:11 cells. In conclusion, the results suggested that a low level of miR-652-3p might be involved in the pathogenesis of pediatric ALL. Overexpression of miR-652-3p might suppress lymphoblastic leukemia cells, promoting apoptosis and increasing sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs.
An Added Value Alternative to RAIN RFID Items Characterization in Retail

This paper deals with the difficulties of detecting UHF passive RFID tags in a RAIN RFID system implemented in a retail environment. The aim of this paper is to evolve from the notion of characterizing a tag to the approach of evaluating a tagged item in a system, in order to better understand the behavior of each item coming to life on the internet of things. To achieve this purpose, real store shelves are mounted and filled with 444 tagged products belonging to 24 different product families. Three automatic inventory systems are installed separately in order to perform two types of evaluation: first, the detectability of each product family and second the clustering of tagged items with similar performances in the same group regardless of their product family. Using inventory systems, this type of evaluation, eliminates the need to invest in characterization equipment and introduces a new way of reliably evaluating tagged items directly in the store. It enables the real-time detecting and targeting low-level tagging and arrangement problems without any prior knowledge of the tagged products present in the reading area and their initial quantities.
Niche segregation of sand lizard (Lacerta agilis) and green lizard (Lacerta viridis) in an urban semi-natural habitat

Different types of semi natural habitats has important role in long-term survival and maintenance of reptile species in urban environments. Heterogeneous urban green islands can provide conditions that enable competing species to live together in relatively small areas. However, the key mechanism of coexistence could vary from types of habitats and taxa. We investigated the population structure, the fine scale habitat segregation and diel activity pattern of two lizard species ( Lacerta viridis and L. agilis ) coexisting populations in a town cemetery. We hypothesized, that fine scale habitat segregation is a more important factor in coexistence than differences in diel activity pattern, because of the environmental dependent thermoregulation constrain. During the study, 178 L. agilis and 79 L. viridis occurrences were recorded. The daily activity patterns of both species were very similar, with peaks found in the forenoon and afternoon. Lizards were found to be the most active at 31-32°C. The probability of occurrence of the species was influenced more by the differences in the random selection of parcels rather than the random differences in the survey days. Around the proximate observation point the bush covered areas was significantly higher than average in the parcels. Our results showed that niche segregation based on fine scale habitat patches had a fundamental role in the coexistence of the two lizard species. L. agilis preferred the more open spaces, whereas L. viridis preferred areas with more bushes, but there was no difference in the daily activity pattern of the two species.
Complex patterns of genetic diversity within Lacerta (Teira) perspicillata: Preliminary evidence from 12S rRNA sequence data

Lacerta (Teira) perspicillata (Dumeril and Bibron, 1839) is a small montane rockdwelling lizard, occurring in the western Maghreb (Morocco and Northwest Algeria) and in Menorca, where it has probably been introduced anthropogenically (Mayol, 1997). Intraspeci c morphological variation is considerable. Some authors accept the existence of three subspecies, L. p. perspicillata, L. p. pellegrini and L. p. chabanaudi (Bons, 1968) but others consider them only morphotypes (Mayol, 1997). Although its phylogenetic relationships have been highly debated, mitochondrial sequence data suggest it is sister taxon to the Madeiran lizard Lacerta (Teira) dugesii (Harris et al., 1998; Oliverio et al., 2000). To investigate genetic diversity within L. perspicillata we sequenced part of the 12S rRNA gene from individuals from several populations including all three forms, and compared this to subspeci c status.
A Simple but Effective Classification Model for Grammatical Error Correction

We treat grammatical error correction (GEC) as a classification problem in this study, where for different types of errors, a target word is identified, and the classifier predicts the correct word form from a set of possible choices. We propose a novel neural network based feature representation and classification model, trained using large text corpora without human annotations. Specifically we use RNNs with attention to represent both the left and right context of a target word. All feature embeddings are learned jointly in an end-to-end fashion. Experimental results show that our novel approach outperforms other classifier methods on the CoNLL-2014 test set (F0.5 45.05%). Our model is simple but effective, and is suitable for industrial production.
Oxidative Stress: A Major Player in Cerebrovascular Alterations Associated to Neurodegenerative Events

The brain is one of the most exquisite organs in the body with high metabolic demands, and requires a tight regulation of the surrounding environment. This tight control is exerted by the neurovascular unit (NVU) comprising different cell types, where endothelial cells play the commander-in-chief role. Thus, it is assumable that even slight perturbations in NVU might affect, in some cases irreversibly, brain homeostasis and health. In this line, recent findings support the two-hit vascular hypothesis for neurodegenerative conditions, where vascular dysfunction underlies the development of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Knowing that endothelial cells are rich in mitochondria and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidases, two major reactive oxygen species (ROS) sources, this review aims to gather information on how oxidative stress is in the front line of vascular alterations observed in brain aging and neurodegenerative conditions, particularly AD. Also, a brief discussion about the therapeutic strategies aimed to protect against cerebrovascular diseases is included.
Sample Efficient Semantic Segmentation using Rotation Equivariant Convolutional Networks

We propose a semantic segmentation model that exploits rotation and reflection symmetries. We demonstrate significant gains in sample efficiency due to increased weight sharing, as well as improvements in robustness to symmetry transformations. The group equivariant CNN framework is extended for segmentation by introducing a new equivariant (G->Z2)-convolution that transforms feature maps on a group to planar feature maps. Also, equivariant transposed convolution is formulated for up-sampling in an encoder-decoder network. To demonstrate improvements in sample efficiency we evaluate on multiple data regimes of a rotation-equivariant segmentation task: cancer metastases detection in histopathology images. We further show the effectiveness of exploiting more symmetries by varying the size of the group.
Co-Training of Audio and Video Representations from Self-Co-Training of Audio and Video Representations from Self-Supervised Temporal Synchronization Supervised Temporal Synchronization

There is a natural correlation between the visual and auditive elements of a video. In this work, we use this correlation in order to learn strong and general features via cross-modal self-supervision with carefully chosen neural network architectures and calibrated curriculum learning. We suggest that this type of training is an effective way of pretraining models for further pursuits in video understanding, as they achieve on average 14.8% improvement over models trained from scratch. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these general features can be used for audio classiﬁcation and perform on par with state-of-the-art results. Lastly, our work shows that using cross-modal self-supervision for pretraining is a good starting point for the development of multi-sensory models.
Generalized Characteristic-Mode Formulation for Composite Structures With Arbitrarily Metallic–Dielectric Combinations

Two types of generalized characteristic-mode (CM) formulations are proposed for the modal analysis of composite structures with arbitrarily metallic–dielectric combinations. The contact-region modeling (CRM) technique is introduced to conveniently model an arbitrary composite electromagnetic (EM) structure as a combination of relatively simple single region. The proposed generalized CM formulations eliminate many difficulties in previously published CM theories, where PEC bodies should be fully coated with dielectric layers or dielectric layers must be infinitely large in the 2-D plane. Specially, the CRM technique allows flexibly modeling arbitrarily combined metallic and dielectric regions using the electric-field integral equation (EFIE) and the PMCHWT equation, respectively. By enforcing field continuity conditions on various region interfaces, the EFIE-PMCHWT surface integral equation results in two generalized eigenvalue equations for characterizing the resonant behaviors of arbitrarily composite structures. It is demonstrated that the resultant eigenvalues indicate the ratio of the stored and radiated power of each CM. Moreover, the corresponding modal currents and modal fields clearly explain the underlying radiation or scattering mechanisms of EM problems. The numerical results for typical composite metallic–dielectric structures are presented to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed CM formulations.
Policy Optimization With Penalized Point Probability Distance: An Alternative To Proximal Policy Optimization

As the most successful variant and improvement for Trust Region Policy Optimization (TRPO), proximal policy optimization (PPO) has been widely applied across various domains with several advantages: efficient data utilization, easy implementation, and good parallelism. In this paper, a first-order gradient reinforcement learning algorithm called Policy Optimization with Penalized Point Probability Distance (POP3D), which is a lower bound to the square of total variance divergence is proposed as another powerful variant. Firstly, we talk about the shortcomings of several commonly used algorithms, by which our method is partly motivated. Secondly, we address to overcome these shortcomings by applying POP3D. Thirdly, we dive into its mechanism from the perspective of solution manifold. Finally, we make quantitative comparisons among several state-of-the-art algorithms based on common benchmarks. Simulation results show that POP3D is highly competitive compared with PPO. Besides, our code is released in this https URL.
2.4-GHz-Band High-Power and High-Efficiency Solid-State Injection-Locked Oscillator

There is increasing research interest in the development of solid-state devices to provide intelligent uniform heating, spot heating, and so on. However, the use of the solid-state devices to realize the same 1-kW output power as a conventional microwave oven requires configuration complexity that, for the moment, prevents its wider adoption. Although there is a demand for microwave generators with average output power of several tens to several hundreds of watts, existing solid-state solutions cannot produce this level of power. These problems prompted us to investigate, both by analysis and prototyping, small injection-locked oscillators that use high-efficiency microwave generators to provide several hundred watts of output power. Using an imbalanced coupling resonator in the feedback circuit, we were able to achieve an output power of 210 W and an efficiency of 51% at 2.45 GHz, when injecting a reference signal at a level of less than 1/10 000 of the output power. The high-power and high-efficiency solid-state injection-locked oscillators described in this paper have the advantages of long life, tunable frequency and phase, and low-voltage operation. These characteristics are potentially useful for realizing precise temperature control in chemical reactions, as well as spot and uniform heating by microwave ovens.
Mobile data collection on different transmission rate in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of sensor nodes and are able to provide wide applications. The data generated by each sensor should be forwarded to the sink node. There have been a large number of researches developing the data forwarding schemes. However, nodes closer to the sink node will consume more energy than others because of the data forwarding load. Recently, some studies use mobile sink to visit all sensors and collect their data for energy balancing. However, there exists problems such as long latency and incompleteness of data collection. This paper proposes an efficient mechanism for mobile sink to construct a path for visiting all sensors using multi-rate scheme. Performance study show that our scheme can completely collect all data while the delay latency is acceptable.
Interacting Effect of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT) and Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Gene Polymorphisms, and Stressful Life Events on Aggressive Behavior in Chinese Male Adolescents

Numerous studies have demonstrated that both catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene have been involved in aggressive behavior, as have stressful life events (SLEs). However, most of available evidence was based upon single gene or single gene–environment design, which is limited in accounting for the variance of aggressive behavior, a complex phenotype. This study examined the possible gene × gene × environment interactions between SLE (interpersonal problems and academic pressure) and two genetic polymorphisms (MAOA T941G and COMT Ala22/72Ser) correlated with aggressive behaviors in a sample of 658 Chinese male adolescents. Mothers and teachers reported on adolescents’ aggressive behavior using Achenbach’s Child Behavior Checklist and Teacher Report Form, respectively. Adolescents completed Self-Rating Life Events Checklist. Saliva samples were collected for DNA analysis. The results revealed no main effects of MAOA T941G and COMT Ala22/72Ser polymorphisms on male adolescents’ aggressive behaviors. However, a two-way interactive effect of interpersonal problems and MAOA T941G genotype on teacher-reported aggressive behavior was observed: adolescents with lower activity of MAOA T allele, but not those with MAOA G allele, exhibited greater aggressive behavior with an increase in interpersonal problems. A three-way interaction among COMT Ala22/72Ser and MAOA T941G polymorphisms, and SLE in the academic pressure on aggressive behavior was also identified. Among adolescents with lower activity of COMT GT/TT genotype and MAOA T allele, the higher level of academic pressure was significantly linked with an amplification of aggressive behavior, whereas this association didn’t exist among those with other genotypes. The present study presents the first evidence of COMT × MAOA × SLE interaction effect on male adolescents’ aggressive behavior, highlights the importance of considering distinct domains of stressful events and information bias when examining the effect of MAOA and COMT on aggressive behavior, and thereby contributes to MAOA gene-aggression and COMT gene-aggression literature.
Interactive comment on “Hygroscopic growth of water soluble organic carbon isolated from atmospheric aerosol collected at U.S. national parks and Storm Peak Laboratory” by Nathan F. Taylor et al

Due to the atmospheric abundance and chemical complexity of water soluble organic carbon (WSOC), its contribution to the hydration behavior of atmospheric aerosol is both significant and difficult to assess. For the present study, the hygroscopicity and CCN activity of isolated atmospheric WSOC particulate matter was measured without the compounding effects of common, soluble inorganic aerosol constituents. WSOC was extracted with high purity water from daily high-volume PM2.5 filter samples and separated from water soluble inorganic constituents using solid-phase extraction. The WSOC filter extracts were concentrated and combined to provide sufficient mass for continuous generation of the WSOC-only aerosol over the combined measurement time of the tandem differential mobility analyzer and coupled scanning mobility particle sizer–CCN counter used for the analysis. Aerosol samples were taken at Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the summer of 2006 and fall–winter of 2007–2008; Mount Rainier National Park during the summer of 2009; Storm Peak Laboratory (SPL) near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, during the summer of 2010; and Acadia National Park during the summer of 2011. Across all sampling locations and seasons, the hygroscopic growth of WSOC samples at 90 % RH, expressed in terms of the hygroscopicity parameter, κ , ranged from 0.05 to 0.15. Comparisons between the hygroscopicity of WSOC and that of samples containing all soluble materials extracted from the filters implied a significant modification of the hydration behavior of inorganic components, including decreased hysteresis separating efflorescence and deliquescence and enhanced water uptake between 30 and 70 % RH.
Studying morphosis with a simulated model of the long-tailed lizard Takydromus sexlineatus : tail amputation

Abstract— Morphology is an important factor in locomotion. It may guide the control strategies that an animal or a robot uses for efficient locomotion. Based on our previous work for the modeling of the long-tailed lizard, in this paper we explore the effect of tail loss, a morphological feature that is particularly distinctive in this species. The main aim is to postulate and possibly predict the changes in the locomotor strategies and performance of an amputated long-tailed lizard. For our study we use optimization algorithms and we mainly focus on the results from the standard PSO (particle swarm optimization). Overall the effect of tail loss does not alter much the behavior of the model, both in terms of postural kinematics and speed performance. However some results show particular interest: first the amputated model uses half the power for achieving the same performance as the intact one, second the amputated model uses wider foot placement for the hind limbs and significantly smaller spinal oscillatory amplitudes. These results may predict that an amputated animal will experience stability problems at higher frequencies.
Functional Improvements in Parkinson's Disease Following a Randomized Trial of Yoga

Individuals with Parkinson's Disease (PD) experience significant limitations in motor function, functional gait, postural stability, and balance. These limitations often lead to higher incidences of falls, which have significant complications for individuals with PD. Yoga may improve these functional deficits in individuals with PD. The objective of this study was to determine changes in motor function, functional gait, postural stability, and balance control for community dwelling individuals with PD. This randomized, wait-list controlled pilot study examined the influence of an 8-week yoga intervention for people with PD who met the following inclusion criteria: endorsing a fear of falling, being able to speak English, scoring 4/6 on the minimental state exam, and being willing to attend the intervention twice weekly for 8-weeks. Participants in the yoga group (n=15) experienced improvements in motor function, postural stability, functional gait, and freezing gait, as well as reductions in fall risk. Participants in the wait-list control (n=12) also significantly improved in postural stability, although their fall risk was not reduced. Individuals in the yoga group significantly reduced their fall risk. An 8-week yoga intervention may reduce fall risk and improve postural stability, and functional and freezing gait in individuals with PD. This clinical trial is registered as protocol record Pro00041068 in clinicaltrials.gov.