Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
No-reference Video Quality Assessment for Noise , Blur , and MPEG 2 Natural Videos

In this paper, we propose a new no-reference VQA metric, called Video Hybrid No-reference (VHNR) method. It is based on natural video statistics built from the coefficients of 3D curvelet and cosine transforms. VHNR can blindly predict the quality of noisy, blurry, or MPEG2 compressed videos and requires no original reference video. The 3D curvelet transform is known to be sensitive to surface singularities, generated by noise or blur artifacts in the videos. On the other hand, the cosine transform is well-suited to detect MPEG2 compression artifacts. No-reference works because we studied tens of thousands of distorted videos and obtained a statistical relation between the video quality, the specific video characteristics in the transformed spaces, and the video motion speed. Intensive computations are required to analyze tens of thousands of simulated high resolution videos. Since 3D curvelet transform of each video requires 6GB memory and large amounts of computation time, the algorithm is implemented on the FSU High-Performance Computing (HPC) using MPI. The parallelism reduces the computational time of the whole experiment from 118 days to 9 days (a speedup of 13). Introduction of Video Quality Assessment When taking videos by a digital camcorder, there are always video distortions, for example, noise, blur, compression, or some combination thereof. How does one quantify such distortions, or the video quality? A video quality assessment (VQA) metric analyzes the video and assigns a numerical score to the video quality. There are three categories of VQA metrics: full-reference, reduced-reference, and no-reference. Full-reference methods, such as PSNR, compare the full set or subset of original high quality video and the distorted video. However, the original video often does not exist, such as YouTube videos or video taken by low quality camcorders. In such cases, no-reference VQA is the only method to give the quality score. Most no-reference VQA analyze the artifact patterns in the video; therefore the methods usually only work for one particular type of filter. The proposed algorithm has been applied successfully to images filtered by noise, blur, or MPEG2. Introduction of 3D Curvelet Transform We transform the videos into curvelet space to retrieve the features for each video. The curvelet transform is a recent transform which has been proved to have the best convergence properties when representing the surface-like singularities. In a 3D Cartesian grid, the 3D curvelet transform [1, 2] is defined as where and . We can think of the 3D curvelet transform as a convolution of the curvelet function and the video function. A curvelet decays along two axes and is oscillatory along the third orthogonal axis. And it has multi-scale, multi-angle, and multi-location. If a curvelet overlaps a surface singularity whose shape, angle and location correlates well with the curvelet, the corresponding curvelet coefficient is large; otherwise, the coefficient is nearly zero. This property is used to advantage when analyzing filtered videos.
Geographical Statistics and Characteristics of P2P Query Strings

P2P file-sharing applications are quickly being adopted by a wider and more mainstream audience. There is much to be learned from keyword searches users perform in order to retrieve content from these networks. This paper presents a large-scale measurement study of search terms in the modern Gnutella network. We developed a highly parallelized architecture capable of capturing an unprecedented amount of geographical-identified queries. We applied this architecture to generate daily logs of search queries. We collected over 25 such daily Gnutella logs, with more than 15 millions unique queries in each, over a three month period. We analyzed both static snapshots of the Gnutella networks, as well as the dynamics of the network over time. In particular, we look at the geographic location and the trends of searches to better understand the dynamics.
FDAE: A f̲ailure d̲etector for a̲synchronous e̲vents

Detecting element failures is a relevant issue in distributed systems. A fault tolerant system needs to detect a failure and recover from it promptly. In fact, traditional approaches to fault tolerance are usually not completely free from errors during the failure detection phase; a good failure detector is thus a very important component of them to minimize these errors. In this paper we present a failure detector able to monitor both asynchronous and synchronous elements of a distributed system by exchanging messages with the monitored elements. In order to assess the health status of monitored elements our failure detector relies on a simple query/ACK mechanism, which however requires a reliable timeout estimate in order to properly set the monitoring interval. To this purpose our failure detector uses the history of past estimates to compute new values for both quantities. The model proposed here introduces a new label to tag monitored elements, besides those used in traditional failures detectors. To evaluate this work, we compared it with two other algorithms by computing performance metrics, such as specificity and sensitivity, and by considering the number of required control packets. We also compared the performance of the failure detectors by computing their detection time.
FBXO7 Y52C Polymorphism as a Potential Protective Factor in Parkinson's Disease

Mutations in the F-box only protein 7 gene (FBXO7), the substrate-specifying subunit of SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, cause Parkinson's disease (PD)-15 (PARK15). To identify new variants, we sequenced FBXO7 cDNA in 80 Taiwanese early onset PD patients (age at onset ≤50) and only two known variants, Y52C (c.155A>G) and M115I (c.345G>A), were found. To assess the association of Y52C and M115I with the risk of PD, we conducted a case–control study in a cohort of PD and ethnically matched controls. There was a nominal difference in the Y52C G allele frequency between PD and controls (p = 0.045). After combining data from China [1], significant difference in the Y52C G allele frequency between PD and controls (p = 0.012) and significant association of G allele with decreased PD risk (p = 0.017) can be demonstrated. Upon expressing EGFP-tagged Cys52 FBXO7 in cells, a significantly reduced rate of FBXO7 protein decay was observed when compared with cells expressing Tyr52 FBXO7. In silico modeling of Cys52 exhibited a more stable feature than Tyr52. In cells expressing Cys52 FBXO7, the level of TNF receptor-associated factor 2 (TRAF2) was significantly reduced. Moreover, Cys52 FBXO7 showed stronger interaction with TRAF2 and promoted TRAF2 ubiquitination, which may be responsible for the reduced TRAF2 expression in Cys52 cells. After induced differentiation, SH-SY5Y cells expressing Cys52 FBXO7 displayed increased neuronal outgrowth. We therefore hypothesize that Cys52 variant of FBXO7 may contribute to reduced PD susceptibility in Chinese.
c-Fms and the αvβ3 integrin collaborate during osteoclast differentiation

beta(3) integrin-null osteoclasts are dysfunctional, but their numbers are increased in vivo. In vitro, however, the number of beta(3)(-/-) osteoclasts is reduced because of arrested differentiation. This paradox suggests cytokine regulation of beta(3)(-/-) osteoclastogenesis differs in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, additional MCSF, but not receptor activator of NF-kappaB ligand (RANKL), completely rescues beta(3)(-/-) osteoclastogenesis. Similarly, activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs) and expression of c-Fos, both essential for osteoclastogenesis, are attenuated in beta(3)(-/-) preosteoclasts, but completely restored by additional MCSF. In fact, circulating and bone marrow cell membrane-bound MCSFs are enhanced in beta(3)(-/-) mice, correlating with the increase in the osteoclast number. To identify components of the MCSF receptor that is critical for osteoclastogenesis in beta(3)(-/-) cells, we retrovirally transduced authentic osteoclast precursors with chimeric c-Fms constructs containing various cytoplasmic domain mutations. Normalization of osteoclastogenesis and ERK activation, in beta(3)(-/-) cells, uniquely requires c-Fms tyrosine 697. Finally, like high-dose MCSF, overexpression of c-Fos normalizes the number of beta(3)(-/-) osteoclasts in vitro, but not their ability to resorb dentin. Thus, while c-Fms and alpha(v)beta(3) collaborate in the osteoclastogenic process via shared activation of the ERK/c-Fos signaling pathway, the integrin is essential for matrix degradation.
Spot shape modelling and data transformations for microarrays

MOTIVATION To study lowly expressed genes in microarray experiments, it is useful to increase the photometric gain in the scanning. However, a large gain may cause some pixels for highly expressed genes to become saturated. Spatial statistical models that model spot shapes on the pixel level may be used to infer information about the saturated pixel intensities. Other possible applications for spot shape models include data quality control and accurate determination of spot centres and spot diameters. RESULTS Spatial statistical models for spotted microarrays are studied including pixel level transformations and spot shape models. The models are applied to a dataset from 50mer oligonucleotide microarrays with 452 selected Arabidopsis genes. Logarithmic, Box-Cox and inverse hyperbolic sine transformations are compared in combination with four spot shape models: a cylindric plateau shape, an isotropic Gaussian distribution and a difference of two-scaled Gaussian distribution suggested in the literature, as well as a proposed new polynomial-hyperbolic spot shape model. A substantial improvement is obtained for the dataset studied by the polynomial-hyperbolic spot shape model in combination with the Box-Cox transformation. The spatial statistical models are used to correct spot measurements with saturation by extrapolating the censored data. AVAILABILITY Source code for R is available at http://www.matfys. kvl.dk/~ekstrom/spotshapes/
Medical Advances and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Cancer Survival

Background: Although advances in early detection and treatment of cancer improve overall population survival, these advances may not benefit all population groups equally and may heighten racial/ethnic differences in survival. Methods: We identified cancer cases in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program, who were ages ≥20 years and diagnosed with one invasive cancer in 1995 to 1999 (n = 580,225). We used 5-year relative survival rates to measure the degree to which mortality from each cancer is amenable to medical interventions (amenability index). We used Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate survival differences between each racial/ethnic minority group relative to Whites, by the overall amenability index, and three levels of amenability (nonamenable, partly amenable, and mostly amenable cancers, corresponding to cancers with 5-year relative survival rate <40%, 40-69%, and ≥70%, respectively), adjusting for gender, age, disease stage, and county-level poverty concentration. Results: As amenability increased, racial/ethnic differences in cancer survival increased for African Americans, American Indians/Native Alaskans, and Hispanics relative to Whites. For example, the hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for African Americans versus Whites from nonamenable, partly amenable, and mostly amenable cancers were 1.05 (1.03-1.07), 1.38 (1.34-1.41), and 1.41 (1.37-1.46), respectively. Asians/Pacific Islanders had similar or longer survival relative to Whites across amenability levels; however, several subgroups experienced increasingly poorer survival with increasing amenability. Conclusions: Cancer survival disparities for most racial/ethnic minority populations widen as cancers become more amenable to medical interventions. Efforts in developing cancer control measures must be coupled with specific strategies for reducing the expected disparities. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(10):2701–8)
Incorporating Rule-based and Statistic-based Techniques for Coreference Resolution

This paper describes a coreference resolution system for CONLL 2012 shared task developed by HLT_HITSZ group, which incorporates rule-based and statistic-based techniques. The system performs coreference resolution through the mention pair classification and linking. For each detected mention pairs in the text, a Decision Tree (DT) based binary classifier is applied to determine whether they form a coreference. This classifier incorporates 51 and 61 selected features for English and Chinese, respectively. Meanwhile, a rule-based classifier is applied to recognize some specific types of coreference, especially the ones with long distances. The outputs of these two classifiers are merged. Next, the recognized coreferences are linked to generate the final coreference chain. This system is evaluated on English and Chinese sides (Closed Track), respectively. It achieves 0.5861 and 0.6003 F1 score on the development data of English and Chinese, respectively. As for the test dataset, the achieved F1 scores are 0.5749 and 0.6508, respectively. This encouraging performance shows the effectiveness of our proposed coreference resolution system.
Corneal endothelial toxicity of air and SF6.

PURPOSE The authors conducted in vivo assessment of corneal endothelial toxicity of air and SF6 in the feline model. This research was motivated by the increased use of air in anterior segment surgery in human subjects. METHODS This was a prospective masked study. The eyes of 16 healthy adult cats were randomly assigned for the injection of 0.7 mL air into the anterior chamber of one eye and SF6 in the contralateral eye. Daily examination included slit lamp photographs, pachymetry, and tonometry. Specular microscopy was performed before, 7 days after, and 10 days after injection. The animals were euthanatized, and the corneas were processed for alizarin red-trypan blue staining and for light and electron microscopy. RESULTS SF6 remained in the anterior chamber significantly longer than air. Both groups showed postinjection inflammation, which on average was maximal at day 2 and more severe with SF6. No difference in IOP was observed between the two groups. Specular microscopy showed significant endothelial cell loss in the SF6 group (mean postinjection cell loss, 132 ± 50 cells/mm(2)) but not in the group injected with air. Alizarin red staining revealed significant regional differences in cell density only in the SF6 group and more pronounced endothelial cell loss in the superior area. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that both air and SF6 injected into the anterior chamber of the eye can induce intraocular reaction in the feline model and that SF6 is more toxic than air in terms of endothelial cell loss and anterior chamber inflammation.
An Efficient Method for Lane-Mark Extraction in Complex Conditions

Lane-mark detection is one of the most important parts in intelligent transportation systems (ITS). In this paper, we propose a lane-mark detection system which can overcome a lot of difficult situations, such as bad weather conditions, shadow effect, or road sign on the road. After the region of interest (ROI) of a road image is determined, we apply the Canny edge detector to investigate boundaries. In order to remove the noise edges, we divide the boundary image into sub-images to calculate local edge-orientation of each block and remove the edge with abnormal orientation. In this step, we produce a table to store the blocks which satisfy the assumption of lane-mark edge-orientation and use this information as an adaptive ROI of lane-marks. We propose the edge-pair scanning method to verify the edges which belong to lane-marks by using the relationship of adjacent edges of lane-marks and the width between these two edges. In the local adaptive threshold finding method, we also divide the image into sub-images and apply the feature that road lane-marks are always painted with high contrast colors with the road surface. Then, we use multi-adaptive thresholding method for each block. The system can work robustly under the situation that different parts of the image have different contrast for lane-marks. After eliminate the noise edges, we apply Hough Transform to fit the lane-marks as straight line models. The experiment results show that the proposed method can detect the lane-marks in real-time for various different environments.
Quality indicators for general practice: which ones can general practitioners and health authority managers agree are important and how useful are they?

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to assess the face validity of quality indicators being proposed for use in general practice by health authorities. METHOD A national survey of health authorities was carried out to identify quality indicators being proposed for use in general practice. A two-stage Delphi process was used to establish general practitioners' (GPs') and health authority managers' views on the face validity of identified indicators. A total of 240 separate indicators identified by health authorities and the NHS Executive as potential markers of the quality of general practice care were assessed. Indicators related to access, organizational performance, preventive care, care for a small number of chronic diseases, prescribing and gatekeeping. The subjects were a purposive sample of 47 health authority managers and 57 general practice course organizers. RESULTS Thirty-six indicators received median validity scores of 8 or 9 out of a maximum possible score of 9. Of this set, 83 per cent was rated identically by both groups of respondents. Prescribing and gatekeeping indicators generally received low validity scores. CONCLUSION Acceptable face valid indicators were identified for all domains except gatekeeping. However, the indicators rated by the sample do not cover all aspects of care. No indicators were proposed for use by health authorities relating to effective communication, care of acute illness, health outcomes or patient evaluation. Although it is possible to develop indicators of general practice care which have face validity in the view of both GPs and managers, these will be very partial measures of quality. In the indicators used in this study, no explicit distinction was made between indicators designed to assess minimum standards with which all practices should comply, and indicators which could be used to reward higher levels of performance. Failure to separate these will result in antagonism from practitioners to quality improvement initiatives in the NHS, and a failure to engage the profession in improving quality of care.
Cellular and Molecular Requirements for Association of the Murine Cytomegalovirus Protein m4/gp34 with Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I Molecules

ABSTRACT The murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) protein m4/gp34 is unique among known viral genes that target the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I pathway of antigen presentation in the following two ways: it is found in association with class I MHC molecules at the cell surface, and it inhibits antigen presentation without reducing cell surface class I levels. The current study was undertaken to define more clearly the structural and cellular requirements for m4/gp34 association with the MHC class I molecule Kb. We first assessed the role of the peptide-loading complex in m4/gp34-Kb association, using cell lines lacking TAP, tapasin, or β2m. m4/gp34-Kb complexes formed in the absence of TAP or tapasin, although not as efficiently as in wild-type cells. The expression of full-length and truncation mutants of m4/gp34 in a gutless adenovirus vector revealed that the transmembrane region of m4/gp34 was required for efficient association with the Kb heavy chain. However, the peptide-loading complex was not absolutely required for the association, since m4/gp34 readily formed complexes with Kb in detergent lysates. The addition of Kb-binding peptide to the detergent lysates facilitated but was not essential for the formation of the complexes. The ease of complex formation in detergent lysates contrasted with the small fractions of m4/gp34 and Kb that form complexes in infected cells, suggesting that the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) environment restricts access of m4/gp34 to Kb. Finally, although m4/gp34-Kb complexes could form when m4 was carried either by MCMV or by the adenovirus vector, they were only efficiently exported from the ER in MCMV-infected cells, suggesting that MCMV provides additional factors needed for transport of the complexes.
Structural basis of capacity of lipoarabinomannan to induce secretion of tumor necrosis factor

The results of this study show that lipoarabinomannans (LAM) isolated from a virulent strain and from an avirulent strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which have recently been shown to differ markedly in terms of the structures of their nonreducing termini, also differ markedly in the capacity to induce the secretion of tumor necrosis factor from murine macrophages. It was found that LAM from the avirulent H37Ra strain was 100-fold more potent at inducing tumor necrosis factor secretion than LAM from the virulent Erdman strain, thus leading us to hypothesize that the structure of LAM from a given mycobacterial isolate may directly influence its ability to elicit, or avoid, cytokine-mediated mechanisms of host resistance.
Characterizing Semantic Relatedness of Search Query Terms

Mining for semantic information in search engine query logs bears great potential for both the optimization of search engines and bootstrapping Semantic Web applications. The interaction of a user with a search engine (more specifically clicklog information) has recently been viewed as implicit tagging of resources by query terms. The resulting structure – previously called a logsonomy – exhibits structural similarities to folksonomies, which evolve during the expclicit process of annotating resources with freely chosen keywords in social bookmarking systems. For the folksonomy case, appropriate measures of relatedness have shown to be capable to harvest the emerging semantics inherent in the tripartite graph of users, tags and resources. Motivated by the reported structural similarities, in this work we extend this methodology to logsonomies. More specifically, we apply several measures of query term relatedness to the logsonomy graph and provide a semantic characterization for each measure by grounding it against user-validated relatedness measures based on WordNet. Comparing the outcome with prior results of analyzing folksonomy data we find that the formalization of log data in logsonomies retains the semantic information. Some relatedness measures we applied prove to be able to capture these emergent semantics similarly to the folksonomy case, while others exhibit different characteristics. In this way we provide a novel and systematic approach to compare the emergent semantics of user interactions with search engines and social bookmarking systems. We conclude that the type of semantic information inherent in both emerging structures is similar, and inform the choice of an appropriate measure of query term relatedness for a given task.