Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring Semantic Constraints for Document Retrieval

In this paper, we explore the use of structured content as semantic constraints for enhancing the performance of traditional term-based document retrieval in special domains. First, we describe a method for automatic extraction of semantic content in the form of attribute-value (AV) pairs from natural language texts based on domain models constructed from a semi-structured web resource. Then, we explore the effect of combining a state-of-the-art term-based IR system and a simple constraint-based search system that uses the extracted AV pairs. Our evaluation results have shown that such combination produces some improvement in IR performance over the term-based IR system on our test collection.
Multiple Reorderings in Phrase-Based Machine Translation

This paper presents a method to integrate multiple reordering strategies in phrase-based statistical machine translation. Recently there has been much research effort in reordering problems in machine translation. State-of-the-art decoders incorporate sophisticated local reordering strategies, but there is little research on a unified approach to incorporate various kinds of reordering methods. We present a phrase-based decoder which easily allows multiple reordering schemes. We show how to use this framework to perform distance-based reordering and HIERO-style (Chiang 2005) hierarchical reordering. We also present two novel syntax-based reordering methods, one built on part-of-speech tags and the other based on parse trees. We will give experimental results using these relatively easy to implement methods on standard tests.
A study on the shape of two-photon wavefunctions after the nonlinear interaction with a one-dimensional atom

We study the interaction of Gaussian one- and two-photon pulses with a single two-level atom based on a one-dimensional model of pulse propagation to and from the atom. The characteristic time scale of the atomic response is the dipo le relaxation time 1/ . We therefore compare the effect of the non-linear two-photon interaction for a long pulse length of 10/ with a short pulse of 1/ . Our results indicate that the effect of the non-linear inte raction is particularly strong for the short pulse length of 1/ .
Motion planning of cooperative disk-pushing for multiple biomimetic robotic fish

This paper is concerned with the problem of motion planning for multiple robotic fish swimming together to achieve a disk-pushing task. Based on our previous successful work on the design and development of robotic fish prototypes, we attempt further to investigate how to implement cooperation in groups of these fish. The motivation of this work is that the capability of a single fish robot is always limited while there are many complex missions in practice which should be accomplished by effective cooperation of multiple fish. A disk-pushing task is employed as an example to demonstrate the design of cooperative behaviors as well as strategies. Corresponding experimental results show that higher efficiency and much greater capabilities can be obtained when these fish planning their motion properly.
Software prefetching and caching for translation lookaside buffers

A number of interacting trends in operating system structure, processor architecture, and memory systems are increasing both the rate of translation lookaside buffer (TLB) misses and the cost of servicing amiss. This paper presents two novel software schemes, implemented under Mach 3.0, to decrease both the number and the cost of kernel TLB misses (i.e., misses on kernel data structures, including user page tables). The first scheme is a new use of prefetching for TLB entries on the IPC path, and the second scheme is a new use of software caching of TLB entries for hierarchical page table organizations. For a range of applications, prefetching decreases the number of kernel TLB misses by 40% to 50%, and caching decreases TLB penalties by providing a fast path for over 90% of the misses. Our caching scheme also decreases the number of nested TLB traps due to the page table hierarchy, reducing the number of kernel TLB miss traps for applications by 20% to 40%. Prefetching and caching, when used alone, each improve application performance by up to 3.5%; when used together, they improve application performance by up to 3%. On synthetic benchmarks that involve frequent communication among several different address spaces (and thus put more pressure on the TLB), prefetching improves overall performance by about 6%, caching improves overall performance by about 10%, and the two used together improve overall performance by about 12%. Our techniques are very effective in reducing kernel TLB penalties, which currently range from 1% to 5% of application runtime for the benchmarks studied. Since processor speeds continue to increase relative to memory speeds, our schemes should be even more effective in improving application performance in future architectures.
A Uniform Approach to Programming the World Wide Web

We propose a uniform model for programming distributed Web applications. The model is based on the concept of Web computation places and provides mechanisms to coordinate distributed computations at these places, including peer-to-peer communication between places and a uniform mechanism to initiate computation in remote places. Computations can interact with the flow of HTTP requests and responses, typically as clients, proxies or servers in the Web architecture. We have implemented the model using the global pointers and remote service requests provided by the Nexus communication library. We present the model and its rationale, with some illustrative examples, and we describe the implementation.
Mutation of a Zinc-Binding Residue in the Glycine Receptor α1 Subunit Changes Ethanol Sensitivity In Vitro and Alcohol Consumption In Vivo

Ethanol is a widely used drug, yet an understanding of its sites and mechanisms of action remains incomplete. Among the protein targets of ethanol are glycine receptors (GlyRs), which are potentiated by millimolar concentrations of ethanol. In addition, zinc ions also modulate GlyR function, and recent evidence suggests that physiologic concentrations of zinc enhance ethanol potentiation of GlyRs. Here, we first built a homology model of a zinc-bound GlyR using the D80 position as a coordination site for a zinc ion. Next, we investigated in vitro the effects of zinc on ethanol action at recombinant wild-type (WT) and mutant α1 GlyRs containing the D80A substitution, which eliminates zinc potentiation. At D80A GlyRs, the effects of 50 and 200 mM ethanol were reduced as compared with WT receptors. Also, in contrast to what was seen with WT GlyRs, neither adding nor chelating zinc changed the magnitude of ethanol enhancement of mutant D80A receptors. Next, we evaluated the in vivo effects of the D80A substitution by using heterozygous Glra1(D80A) knock-in (KI) mice. The KI mice showed decreased ethanol consumption and preference, and they displayed increased startle responses compared with their WT littermates. Other behavioral tests, including ethanol-induced motor incoordination and strychnine-induced convulsions, revealed no differences between the KI and WT mice. Together, our findings indicate that zinc is critical in determining the effects of ethanol at GlyRs and suggest that zinc binding at the D80 position may be important for mediating some of the behavioral effects of ethanol action at GlyRs.
Dectin‐1 promotes fungicidal activity of human neutrophils

Human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) are a first line of defense against fungal infections. PMN express numerous pattern recognition receptors (PRR) that facilitate identification of invading microorganisms and ultimately promote resolution of disease. Dectin‐1 (β‐glucan receptor) is a PRR expressed on several cell types and has been studied on monocytes and macrophages. However, the role played by dectin‐1 in the recognition and killing of fungi by PMN is unknown. We investigated the ability of dectin‐1 to mediate human PMN phagocytosis and fungicidal activity. Dectin‐1 was expressed on the surface of PMN from all subjects tested (n=29) and in an intracellular compartment that co‐sedimented with azurophilic granules in Percoll density gradients. Soluble β‐glucan and mAb GE2 (anti‐dectin‐1) inhibited binding and phagocytosis of zymosan by human PMN (e.g., ingestion was inhibited 40.1% by 30 min, p<0.001), and blocked reactive oxygen species production. Notably, soluble β‐glucan and GE2 inhibited phagocytosis and killing of Candida albicans by PMN (inhibition of killing was 54.8% for β‐glucan and 36.2% for GE2, p<0.01). Our results reveal a mechanism whereby PMN dectin‐1 plays a key role in the recognition and killing of fungal pathogens by the innate immune system.
Gastrin releasing peptide and gastrin releasing peptide receptor expression in gastrointestinal carcinoid tumours

Aims: To establish whether gastrin releasing peptide (GRP) and the GRP receptor (GRPR) are expressed together in gastrointestinal carcinoid tumours. Methods: Twenty six carcinoid tumours from the stomach, small intestine, appendix, and colorectum were investigated by immunohistochemistry for GRP and GRPR. Results: GRP was detected in nine of 19 tumours and GRPR in 22 of 26. Coexpression of both the ligand and receptor was seen in six of 19 cases. GRPR but not GRP was more strongly expressed in appendix and colonic tumours. Conclusions: GRP and GRPR are produced by a large number of gastrointestinal carcinoid tumours. An autocrine/paracrine pathway may exist for GRP stimulated cell proliferation in some of these neoplasms, analogous to that seen in small cell anaplastic carcinoma of the lung.
Effect of in-feed administration and withdrawal of tylosin phosphate on antibiotic resistance in enterococci isolated from feedlot steers

Tylosin phosphate is a macrolide commonly administered to cattle in North America for the control of liver abscesses. This study investigated the effect of in-feed administration of tylosin phosphate to cattle at subtherapeutic levels and its subsequent withdrawal on macrolide resistance using enterococci as an indicator bacterium. Fecal samples were collected from steers that received no antibiotics and steers administered tylosin phosphate (11 ppm) in-feed for 197 days and withdrawn 28 days before slaughter. Enterococcus species isolated from fecal samples were identified through sequencing the groES-EL intergenic spacer region and subject to antimicrobial susceptibility testing, identification of resistance determinants and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis profiling. Tylosin increased (P < 0.05) the proportion of eryR and tylR enterococci within the population. Just prior to its removal, the proportion of eryR and tylR resistant enterococci began decreasing and continued to decrease after tylosin was withdrawn from the diet until there was no difference (P > 0.05) between treatments on d 225. This suggests that antibiotic withdrawal prior to slaughter contributes to a reduction in the proportion of macrolide resistant enterococci entering the food chain. Among the 504 enterococci isolates characterized, Enterococcus hirae was found to predominate (n = 431), followed by Enterococcus villorum (n = 32), Enterococcus faecium (n = 21), Enterococcus durans (n = 7), Enterococcus casseliflavus (n = 4), Enterococcus mundtii (n = 4), Enterococcus gallinarum (n = 3), Enterococcus faecalis (n = 1), and Enterococcus thailandicus (n = 1). The diversity of enterococci was greater in steers at arrival than at exit from the feedlot. Erythromycin resistant isolates harbored the erm(B) and/or msrC gene. Similar PFGE profiles of eryR E. hirae pre- and post-antibiotic treatment suggest that increased abundance of eryR enterococci after administration of tylosin phosphate reflects selection for strains that were already present within the gastrointestinal tract of cattle at arrival.
Integration of ADAS algorithm into an experimental vehicle

For several years, INRIA and Toyota Europe have been working together in the development of algorithms directed to ADAS. This paper will describe the main results of this joint project, applied to a prototype vehicle equipped with several sensors. This work will detail the framework, steps taken and motivation behind the developed technologies, as well as address the requirements for the automobile industry.
On Multidimensional Sharpening of Uncertain Data

In this paper, we will propose a technique for multidimensional enhancement of uncertain data. In many applications, the uncertainty in the different dimensions is caused by independent factors, especially if the different dimensions have been collected from independent sources. In such cases, it is possible to enhance the quality of the data and reduce the underlying uncertainty by using multidimensional uncertainty analysis. In this paper, we will discuss techniques for uncertainty reduction of multidimensional uncertain data. We will examine the effectiveness of the approach over a variety of real and synthetic data sets.
Oriented Local Binary Patterns for Writer Identification

In this paper we present an oriented texture feature set and apply it to the problem of offline writer identification. Our feature set is based on local binary patterns (LBP) which were broadly used for face recognition in the past. These features are inherently texture features. Thus, we approach the writer identification problem as an oriented texture recognition task and obtain remarkable results comparable to the state of the art. Our experiments were conducted on the ICDAR 2011 and ICHFR 2012 writer identification contest datasets. On these datasets we investigate the strengths of our approach as well its limitations.
Gymkhana: A Connectivity-Based Routing Scheme for Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks

The topology of a cognitive radio Ad Hoc network is highly influenced by the behavior of both licensed (primary) and unlicensed (secondary) users. In fact, the network connectivity could be impaired by the activity of primary users. This aspect has a significant impact on the design of routing protocols. We design a routing scheme for cognitive radio Ad Hoc networks, named Gymkhana, which is aware of the degree of connectivity of possible paths towards the destination. Gymkhana routes the information across paths that avoid network zones that do not guarantee stable and high connectivity. To this aim we use a mathematical framework, based on the Laplacian spectrum of graphs, that allows a comprehensive evaluation of the different routing paths of the cognitive radio network. Laplacian matrixes are used to compute the connectivity of the different network paths. Gymkhana uses a distributed protocol to collect some key parameters related to candidate paths from an origin to a destination. The parameters are fed into a basic mathematical structure which is used to compute efficient routing paths. Besides the basic idea of Gymkhana, the use of Laplacian matrixes to derive a closed formula to measure the path connectivity is another contribution of ours.
Divide and conquer: PC-based packet trace replay at OC-48 speeds

Today's Internet backbone networking devices need to be tested under realistic traffic conditions at transmission rates of OC-48 and above. While commercially available synthetic traffic generators are capable of keeping up with high transmission rates, they fail to produce realistic mixes of flow, packet and address arrival patterns. We explore the alternative of replaying real packet traces from high-speed links using multiple commodity PCs equipped with lower-speed network interfaces. Such an approach is inherently cost-effective because of the use of commodity hardware and can scale up to any desired transmission rate. We first examine how to split a trace among multiple PCs for the purpose of replaying and validate our technique using simulations. We use a wavelet 'spectrum' or energy plot for this purpose which enables traffic processes to be viewed simultaneously on many time-scales. Then we present an implementation using Linux PCs with gigabit Ethernet interfaces to replay OC-48 packet traces from the Sprint backbone. Our results show that the replayed trace is very similar to the original trace at most time scales. We are also able to pinpoint the specific system components that contributed to the replay inaccuracy, as well as identify several important challenges that remain to be explored in-depth.
ScaleMesh: A Scalable Dual-Radio Wireless Mesh Testbed

In this paper, we introduce and evaluate ScaleMesh, a scalable miniaturized dual-radio wireless mesh testbed based on IEEE 802.11b/g technology- ScaleMesh can emulate large-scale mesh networks within a miniaturized experimentation area by adaptively shrinking the transmission range of mesh nodes by means of variable signal attenuators. To this end, we derive a theoretical formula for approximating the attenuation level required for downscaling desired network topologies. We present a performance study in which we validate the feasibility of ScaleMesh for network emulation and protocol evaluation. We further conduct single- radio vs. dual-radio experiments in ScaleMesh, and show that dual-radio communication significantly improves network goodput. The median TCP goodput we observe in a typical random topology at 54 Mbit/s and dual-radio communication ranges between 1468 Kbit/s and 7448 Kbit/s, depending on the current network load.
Vertical Characterization and Source Apportionment of Water-Soluble Organic Aerosol with High-resolution Aerosol Mass Spectrometry in Beijing, China

Water-soluble organic aerosol (WSOA) constitutes a large fraction of organic aerosol (OA) and plays an important role in affecting aerosol hygroscopicity and cloud condensation nuclei formation. Here, we characterized WSOA in fine particles that were collected at ground level and at 260 m on a meteorological tower in Beijing in winter using offline aerosol mass spectrometry (AMS) and compared them with the simultaneous real-time online AMS measurements. Our results showed large increases in WSOA from nonheating season to heating season by 43% and 53% at ground level and at 260 m, respectively. WSOA was highly oxidized in winter with a higher oxygen-to-carbon ratio (O/C = 0.69) at 260 m than at ground level (0.63). On average, WSOA contributed 47% and 52% to the total OA at ground level and at 260 m, respectively. Positive matrix factorization analysis further showed that primary OA was the dominant source of WSOA (52–61%) with coal combustion (CCOA) and biomass burning OA (BBOA) being two major contributo.
SFL in Computational Contexts : a Contemporary History

Intertwined with this evolution we find also the evolution of computers, and their use in relation to SFL. Computational applications of SFL, such as sentence generation and analysis, have enabled practitioners to explore just how complete the Systemic model of language is: when confronted with real texts, is the theory sufficient to provide formal instructions for interpreting those texts; and when confronted with meanings, is the theory sufficient for providing formal instructions that motivate natural texts corresponding to those meanings. In this way, the computer-using linguist (or computational linguists as they are now called), could find where the model failed to work, and needed to be changed. They have also found gaps in the theory: places where SFL does not tell us enough to allow us to generate a text, or to understand one, and thus point to where the theory needs to be extended.
Organ Crosstalk in Critically Ill Patients: Hemofiltration and Immunomodulation in Sepsis

Despite substantial advances in our understanding of the pathogenesis of sepsis, the mortality of patients with severe sepsis/septic shock is unacceptably high. The potential role of extracorporeal therapies in the adjunctive treatment of sepsis is highly controversial. The present article reviews the current status of clinical research in this area. Conventional ‘renal dose’ continuous and discontinuous renal replacement technologies fail to achieve a biologically relevant reduction of target molecules. This may be accomplished by modified approaches, e.g. using high-dose protocols, high cut-off membranes, or (selective or unselective) adsorption techniques; however, their clinical value remains to be established by prospective studies using clinical end points.
Rehabilitation ecology of rivers and lakes

Rivers have been "managed" to accommodate navigation. Farmers have dredged channels to increase the productivity of wetlands in agricultural terms. Builders have embanked channels to allow an extension of their activities on to the floodplain. Planners have re-routed rivers to accommodate new roads and other developments. lndustrialists have used rivers as a convenience to dispose of their effiuent. • Water abstraction has reduced and, in some cases, eliminated watercourses. Governments have encouraged the impoundment of channels to generate electricity. "Loggers" have used rivers as a means of transporting their timber to the sawmill.
Planetary Vehicle Suspension Options

A study of locomotion performance of different suspension types was conducted in order to find the rover that matches best any given mission requirements. Two modeling approaches were chosen to evaluate the performance on hard ground and obstacles, as well as on loose soil and inclined planes. A number of metrics were defined which precisely specify what qualifies as good or bad performance. The simulations revealed significant differences between the various configurations for important metrics like torque, power or velocity. These results were used to characterize the performance of each rover and put it in relation to the weighted mission requirements. The sum of the performances multiplied by the weight factors of the requirements was taken as the measure for how good a rover fits the mission needs. This study has shown that a four wheeled rover can be a valuable alternative to the rocker bogie but only in very specific missions.
qpcR: an R package for sigmoidal model selection in quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis

UNLABELLED The qpcR library is an add-on to the free R statistical environment performing sigmoidal model selection in real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) data analysis. Additionally, the package implements the most commonly used algorithms for real-time PCR data analysis and is capable of extensive statistical comparison for the selection and evaluation of the different models based on several measures of goodness of fit. AVAILABILITY www.dr-spiess.de/qpcR.html. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Statistical evaluations of the implemented methods can be found at www.dr-spiess.de under 'Supplemental Data'.