Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Creative storytelling enhanced through social media and intelligent recommendation

Collaborative storytelling is an activity that would boost our creativity and imagination. However, collaborative storytelling systems are not popular and few efforts have been made to support its growth. This research presents WriteYourJourney (WYJ), a collaborative e-storytelling system integrated with social networking media and a recommender system. WriteYourJourney supports the idea of collaborative storytelling by adding in features that increase the interactivity between the users and the system. These features are story and link recommender, story tree visualization, diverse choices of story writing style and chat room. User testing results are positive with regards to usability, effectiveness, learnability and memorability. Users are keen to use the system in the future.
A general methodology for characterizing access patterns and analyzing Web server performance

We develop a general methodology for characterizing Web server access patterns based on a spectral analysis of finite collections of observed data from real systems. Our approach is used together with the access logs from the IBM Web site for the 1996 Olympic Games to demonstrate some of its advantages over previous methods and to analyze certain aspects of large-scale Web server performance.
A comparison of a food frequency questionnaire with a 24-hour recall for use in an epidemiological cohort study: results from the biomarker-based Observing Protein and Energy Nutrition (OPEN) study.

BACKGROUND Most large cohort studies have used a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for assessing dietary intake. Several biomarker studies, however, have cast doubt on whether the FFQ has sufficient precision to allow detection of moderate but important diet-disease associations. We use data from the Observing Protein and Energy Nutrition (OPEN) study to compare the performance of a FFQ with that of a 24-hour recall (24HR). METHODS The OPEN study included 484 healthy volunteer participants (261 men, 223 women) from Montgomery County, Maryland, aged 40-69. Each participant was asked to complete a FFQ and 24HR on two occasions 3 months apart, and a doubly labelled water (DLW) assessment and two 24-hour urine collections during the 2 weeks after the first FFQ and 24HR assessment. For both the FFQ and 24HR and for both men and women, we calculated attenuation factors for absolute energy, absolute protein, and protein density. RESULTS For absolute energy and protein, a single FFQ's attenuation factor is 0.04-0.16. Repeat administrations lead to little improvement (0.08-0.19). Attenuation factors for a single 24HR are 0.10-0.20, but four repeats would yield attenuations of 0.20-0.37. For protein density a single FFQ has an attenuation of 0.3-0.4; for a single 24HR the attenuation factor is 0.15-0.25 but would increase to 0.35-0.50 with four repeats. CONCLUSIONS Because of severe attenuation, the FFQ cannot be recommended as an instrument for evaluating relations between absolute intake of energy or protein and disease. Although this attenuation is lessened in analyses of energy-adjusted protein, it remains substantial for both FFQ and multiple 24HR. The utility of either of these instruments for detecting important but moderate relative risks (between 1.5 and 2.0), even for energy-adjusted dietary factors, is questionable.
Does child labour affect final height?

BACKGROUND Although the negative effects of child labour on health are well known, the impact of child labour on final height is still controversial. AIMS To assess the effect of child labour on the final height of young adults. METHODS The study included 2063 adults aged 23-25 years from a cohort study of all live births (6827) in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (1978-79). Height was measured in centimetres. Information on work, physical activity and smoking was obtained retrospectively and the other variables were obtained at cohort baseline. Work was classified according to age at first job: <14 (child labour), 14-16 and >or=17 years. Analyses were performed separately for males and females. Multiple linear regression analysis followed bivariate and stratified analysis. RESULTS The average height for males and females were respectively 176.0 cm [95% confidence interval (CI) 175.6-176.4] and 162.7 cm (95% CI 162.3-163.0). Labour before the age of 14 years was performed by 20% of males and 12% of females. In the bivariate analysis, child labour was statistically associated with final height for both males (P < 0.01) and females (P < 0.01). However, the association was not maintained after adjusting for confounders. CONCLUSION We were not able to demonstrate significant height differences between those previously employed or not employed as a child, other than differences explained by other social and biological factors.
Decision Tree Parsing using a Hidden Derivation Model

Parser development is generally viewed as a primarily linguistic enterprise. A grammarian examines sentences, skillfully extracts the linguistic generalizations evident in the data, and writes grammar rules which cover the language. The grammarian then evaluates the performance of the grammar, and upon analysis of the errors made by the grammar-based parser, carefully refines the rules, repeating this process, typically over a period of several years.
Mild Hyperthermia Enhances Transport of Liposomal Gemcitabine and Improves In Vivo Therapeutic Response

Obstructive biological barriers limit the transport and efficacy of cancer nanotherapeutics. Creative manipulation of tumor microenvironment provides promising avenues towards improving chemotherapeutic response. Such strategies include the use of mechanical stimuli to overcome barriers, and increase drug delivery and therapeutic efficacy. The rational use of gold nanorod‐mediated mild hyperthermia treatment (MHT) alters tumor transport properties, increases liposomal gemcitabine (Gem Lip) delivery, and antitumor efficacy in pancreatic cancer CAPAN‐1 tumor model. MHT treatment leads to a threefold increase in accumulation of 80‐nm liposomes and enhances spatial interstitial distribution. I.v. injection of Gem Lip and MHT treatment lead to a threefold increase in intratumor gemcitabine concentration compared to chemotherapeutic infusion alone. Furthermore, combination of MHT treatment with infusion of 12 mg kg−1 Gem Lip leads to a twofold increase in therapeutic efficacy and inhibition of CAPAN‐1 tumor growth when compared to equimolar chemotherapeutic treatment alone. Enhanced therapeutic effect is confirmed by reduction in tumor size and increase in apoptotic index where MHT treatment combined with 12 mg kg−1 Gem Lip achieves similar therapeutic efficacy as the use of 60 mg kg−1 free gemcitabine. In conclusion, improvements in vivo efficacy are demonstrated resulting from MHT treatment that overcome transport barriers, promote delivery, improve efficacy of nanomedicines.
The complex geometry of holographic flows of quiver gauge theories

We argue that the complete Klebanov-Witten flow solution must be described by a Calabi-Yau metric on the conifold, interpolating between the orbifold at infinity and the cone over T(1,1) in the interior. We show that the complete flow solution is characterized completely by a single, simple, quasi-linear, second order PDE, or ``master equation,'' in two variables. We show that the Pilch-Warner flow solution is almost Calabi-Yau: It has a complex structure, a hermitian metric, and a holomorphic (3,0)-form that is a square root of the volume form. It is, however, not Kahler. We discuss the relationship between the master equation derived here for Calabi-Yau geometries and such equations encountered elsewhere and that govern supersymmetric backgrounds with multiple, independent fluxes.
VLSI Implementation for Low Noise Power Efficiency Cellular Communication Systems

A low power model for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) based cellular communication system is developed. The dynamic power is minimized by reducing the frequency of the Phase Lock Loop (PLL) after lock is established. The paper addresses the feasibility of lowering the clock frequency of the processing unit that models the PLL is addressed and modulator/demodulator functions of the system while maintaining synchronization with the memory unit and other peripherals. The system is simulated with Matlab considering various Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNR). For a given SNR, the minimum frequency required for the PLL to maintain lock is determined. The Matlab file is translated to VHDL code, simulated and synthesized with Mentor tools, and the layout then generated. Mach-Pa 5-V software system from Mentor tools is utilized to estimate the power consumed by the simulated device. A Xilinx file is also generated and downloaded for Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) implementation. A 50 MHz clock frequency of the processing unit was first considered and then lowered to 20 MHz for the low power study. Lowering the base and clock frequency resulted in near 30% reduction in power.
Effect of Node Size on the Performance of Cache-Conscious Indices

In main-memory environments, the number of processor cache misses has a critical impact on the performance of the system. Cache-conscious indices are designed to improve the performance of mainmemory indices by reducing the number of processor cache misses that are incurred during a search operation. Conventional wisdom suggests that the index’s node size should be equal to the cache line size in order to minimize the number of cache misses and improve performance. As we show in this paper, this design choice ignores additional effects, such as instruction count, which play a significant role in determining the overall performance of the index. Using analytical models and a detailed experimental evaluation, we investigate the effect of the index’s node size on two common cache-conscious indices: a cache-conscious B+-tree (CSB+-tree), and a cache-conscious extendible hash index. We show that using node sizes much larger than the cache line size can result in better search performance for the CSB+-tree. For the hash index, reducing the number of overflow chains is the key to improving search performance, even if it requires using a node size that is much larger than the cache line size. Extensive experimental evaluation demonstrates that these node size choices are valid for a variety of data distributions, for range searches on the CSB+-tree, and can also be used to speed up the execution of traditional hash-based query operators that use memory-resident indices internally.
The chemical basis of morphogenesis

It is suggested that a system of chemical substances, called morphogens, reacting together and diffusing through a tissue, is adequate to account for the main phenomena of morphogenesis. Such a system, although it may originally be quite homogeneous, may later develop a pattern or structure due to an instability of the homogeneous equilibrium, which is triggered off by random disturbances. Such reaction-diffusion systems are considered in some detail in the case of an isolated ring of cells, a mathematically convenient, though biologically unusual system. The investigation is chiefly concerned with the onset of instability. It is found that there are six essentially different forms which this may take. In the most interesting form stationary waves appear on the ring. It is suggested that this might account, for instance, for the tentacle patterns onHydra and for whorled leaves. A system of reactions and diffusion on a sphere is also considered. Such a system appears to account for gastrulation. Another reaction system in two dimensions gives rise to patterns reminiscent of dappling. It is also suggested that stationary waves in two dimensions could account for the phenomena of phyllotaxis.The purpose of this paper is to discuss a possible mechanism by which the genes of a zygote may determine the anatomical structure of the resulting organism. The theory does not make any new hypotheses; it merely suggests that certain well-known physical laws are sufficient to account for many of the facts. The full understanding of the paper requires a good knowledge of mathematics, some biology, and some elementary chemistry. Since readers cannot be expected to be experts in all of these subjects, a number of elementary facts are explained, which can be found in text-books, but whose omission would make the paper difficult reading.
Data mining using hierarchical virtual k-means approach integrating data fragments in cloud computing environment

State of the art research in data mining is focusing on loosely distributed regionalized large scale databases using cloud computing for business applications. Cloud computing poses a diversity of challenges in data mining operation arising out of the dynamic structure of data distribution as against the use of typical database scenarios in conventional architecture. Realization of maximum efficiency depends much on the initiation of accurate decision data mining. This paper presents a specific method of implementing k-means approach for data mining in such scenarios. In this approach data is geographically distributed in multiple regions formed under several virtual machines. The results show that hierarchical virtual k-means approach is an efficient mining scheme for cloud databases.
Interaction of Isoflavones and Endophyte-Infected Tall Fescue Seed Extract on Vasoactivity of Bovine Mesenteric Vasculature

It was hypothesized that isoflavones may attenuate ergot alkaloid-induced vasoconstriction and possibly alleviate diminished contractility of vasculature after exposure to ergot alkaloids. The objective of this study was to determine if prior incubation of bovine mesenteric vasculature with the isoflavones formononetin (F), biochanin A (B), or an ergovaline-containing tall fescue seed extract (EXT) and their combinations affect ergotamine (ERT)-induced contractility. Multiple segments of mesenteric artery and vein supporting the ileal flange of the small intestine were collected from Angus heifers at slaughter (n = 5, bodyweight = 639 ± 39 kg). Duplicates of each vessel type were incubated in tissue culture flasks at 37°C with a 50-mL volume of Krebs–Henseleit buffer containing: only buffer (control); or 1 × 10−6 M EXT; F; or B; and combinations of 1 × 10−6 M EXT + F; 1 × 10−6 M EXT + B; 1 × 10−6 M F + B; or 1 × 10−6 M EXT + F + B. After incubation for 2 h, sections were mounted in a multimyograph chamber. The ERT dose responses were normalized to 0.12 M KCl. Pretreatment with F, B, and F + B without EXT resulted in similar contractile responses to ERT in mesenteric artery and all incubations containing EXT resulted in a complete loss of vasoactivity to ERT. In mesenteric artery pretreated with EXT, treatments that contained B had higher contractile responses (P < 0.05) at ERT concentrations of 1 × 10−7 and 5 × 10−7 M. Also, treatments containing B tended (P < 0.1) to have greater responses than treatments without B at ERT concentrations of 1 × 10−6, 5 × 10−6, and 5 × 10−5 M. In mesenteric vein pretreated with EXT, treatments containing F had greater contractile responses to ERT at 1 × 10−5, 5 × 10−5, and 1 × 10−4 M (P < 0.05). These data indicated that F and B at 1 × 10−6 M and their combination did not impact the overall contractile response to ERT in mesenteric vasculature. However, F and B may offset some of the vasoconstriction caused by prior exposure to ergot alkaloids.
Full-Image Guided Filtering for Fast Stereo Matching

A novel full-image guided filtering method is proposed. Different with many existing neighborhood filters, all input elements are employed during the proposed filtering approach. In addition, a novel scheme called weight propagation is proposed to compute support weights. It fulfills the requirements of edge preserving and low complexity. It is applied to the cost-volume filtering in the local stereo matching framework. The algorithm utilizing the proposed filtering method is currently one of the best local algorithms on the Middlebury stereo testbed in terms of both speed and accuracy.
Optical coherence tomography assessment of the acute effects of stent implantation on the vessel wall: a systematic quantitative approach

Objective: To observe and characterise vessel injury after stenting using optical coherence tomography (OCT), to propose a systematic OCT classification for periprocedural vessel trauma, to evaluate its frequency in stable versus unstable patients and to assess its clinical impact during the hospitalisation period. Setting: Stenting causes vessel injury. Design and interventions: All consecutive patients in whom OCT was performed after stent implantation were included in the study. Qualitative and quantitative assessment of tissue prolapse, intra-stent dissection and edge dissection were performed. Results: Seventy-three patients (80 vessels) were analysed. Tissue prolapse within the stented segment was visible in 78/80 vessels (97.5%). Median number of tissue prolapse sites was 8 (IQR 4–19), mean (SD) area 1.04 (0.9) mm2. Intra-stent dissection flaps were visible in 69/80 vessels (86.3%) (median number 3 (IQR 1.25–6), maximum flap length 450 (220) μm). Fifty-five out of 80 vessels (68.8%) showed dissection cavities (median number 2 (IQR 0–4.75), maximum depth 340 (170) μm). Edge dissection was visible in 20 vessels (mean (SD) length flap 744 (439) μm). The frequency of tissue prolapse or intra-stent dissection was similar in stable and unstable patients (95.6% vs 100%, p = 0.5 for tissue prolapse; 91.1% vs 82.9%, p = 0.3 for intra-stent dissection). There were no events during the hospitalisation period. Conclusions: OCT allows a detailed visualisation of vessel injury after stent implantation and enables a systematic classification and quantification in vivo. In this study, frequency of tissue prolapse or intra-stent dissections after stenting was high, irrespective of the clinical presentation of the patients, and was not associated with clinical events during hospitalisation.
A Secure and Reliable Chat Room Application via Embedded Chaotic Encryption

Cryptography is most popular in information security. Chaotic encryption is one of the technique can be used to secure the information from unauthorized person. In this paper, chaotic encryption was implemented in development of secure chat room application. Chat room application will use for communication by sending a message. Three components involved in the chat room application which are sender, receiver and server. Two core functions in chaotic encryption are encryption process and decryption process. Encryption process will convert plaintext to cipher text. Decryption process will convert ciphertext to plaintext with enter a secret key. Chat room application was developed using JAVA. This application was tested with several experiments. The result indicates implementation of chaotic encryption make a chat room application more secure and reliable.
Anisotropic mean shift based fuzzy c-means segmentation of skin lesions

Image segmentation is a crucial stage in the analysis of dermoscopic images as the extraction of exact boundaries of skin lesions is esseintial for accurate diagnosis. One approach to image segmentation is based on the idea of clustering pixels with similar characteristics. Fuzzy c-means is a popular clustering based algorithm that is often employed in medical image segmentation, however due to its iterative nature also has excessive computational requirements. In this paper we introduce a new mean shift based fuzzy c-means algorithm that requires less computational time compared to previous techniques while providing good segmentation performance. The proposed segmentation method incorporates a mean field term within the standard fuzzy c-means objective function. Since mean shift can quickly and reliably find cluster centres, the entire strategy is capable of effeciently detecting regions within an image. Experimental results on a large dataset of dermoscopic images demonstrates that our algorithm is able to accurately and efficiently extract skin lesion borders.
Image graphs-a novel approach to visual data exploration

For types of data visualization where the cost of producing images is high, and the relationship between the rendering parameters and the image produced is less than obvious, a visual representation of the exploration process can make the process more efficient and effective. Image graphs represent not only the results but also the process of data visualization. Each node in an image graph consists of an image and the corresponding visualization parameters used to produce it. Each edge in a graph shows the change in rendering parameters between the two nodes it connects. Image graphs are not just static representations; users can interact with a graph to review a previous visualization session or to perform new rendering. Operations which cause changes in rendering parameters can propagate through the graph. The user can take advantage of the information in image graphs to understand how certain parameter changes affect visualization results. Users can also share image graphs to streamline the process of collaborative visualization. We have implemented a volume visualization system using the image graph interface, and the examples presented come from this application.
Testing and Performance Evaluation of Machine Transliteration System for Tamil Language

Machine Translation (MT) is a science fiction that was converted into reality with the enormous contributions from the MT research community. We cannot expect any text without Named Entities (NE). Such NEs are crucial in deciding the quality of MT. NEs are to be recognized from the text and transliterated accordingly into the target language in order to ensure the quality of MT. In the present paper we present various technical issues encountered during handling the shared task of NE transliteration for Tamil.
Relating benthic diatom community structure to nutrient loads and water quality in Southern Ontario streams

Rivers worldwide have doubled their content of nitrogen and phosphorus as a result of cultural eutrophication, with local increases in Western Europe and North America of up to 50 times (HARPER 1992). Since eutrophication started to become a widely used term in the 1940s, much research effort has been directed towards understanding eutrophication in lakes. Comparatively little, however, is known about the eutrophication process in rivers. Areas of the Grand River in Southern Ontario experience elevated nutrient levels, despite efforts to conrrol inputs from point sources (Rorr et al. 1998). The consequent luxuriant growths of macrophytes and macroalgae are a current management issue and there is a need to address the sources and effects of nutrient loading to streams in the Grand River watershed. In recent years, i t has become increasingly evident that benrhic diatoms are useful for monitoring changes in river water quality (PAN et al. 1996). Diatoms are particularly useful for assessing eutrophication because they occur throughout all river habitats and react specifically and quickly to inorganic nutrient enrichment (Rorr et al. 1998). Multivariate analytical approaches and applications are increasingly being used in diatom river monitoring, and provide sophisticated techniques to assess the influence of pollution on algal community structure (LOWE & PAN 1996). The main purpose of this study was to determine the utility of benrhic diatoms as indicators of eutrophication in Southern Onrario streams. Our specific objectives were firstly to evaluate the relationships between benrhic diatom community structure and important environmenral variables; secondly to assess the relative importance of land-use predictors and water quality predictors in explaining variance in a subset of the diatom data; and thirdly to quanrif}r relationships between diatoms and levels ofboth total nitrogen and total phosphorus. Studyarea