Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Affective Level Video Applications: A Novel FPGA-Based Video Arousal Content Modeling System

The affective content of a video is defined as the expected amount and type of emotion that are contained in a video. Utilizing this affective content will extend the current scope of application possibilities. The dimensional approach to representing emotion can play an important role in the development of an affective video content analyzer. The three basic affect dimensions are defined as valence, arousal and control [Hanjalic, A, et al. 2005]. This paper presents a novel FPGA-based system for modeling the arousal content of a video based on user saliency and film grammar. The design is implemented on a Xilinx Virtex-Il xc2v6000 on board a RC300 board and it runs 25 times faster than a Pentium 4-based PC at 3.4 Ghz.
The Homeobox Gene Caudal Regulates Constitutive Local Expression of Antimicrobial Peptide Genes in Drosophila Epithelia

ABSTRACT In Drosophila melanogaster, although the NF-κB transcription factors play a pivotal role in the inducible expression of innate immune genes, such as antimicrobial peptide genes, the exact regulatory mechanism of the tissue-specific constitutive expression of these genes in barrier epithelia is largely unknown. Here, we show that the Drosophila homeobox gene product Caudal functions as the innate immune transcription modulator that is responsible for the constitutive local expression of antimicrobial peptides cecropin and drosomycin in a tissue-specific manner. These results suggest that certain epithelial tissues have evolved a unique constitutive innate immune strategy by recruiting a developmental “master control” gene.
Food Insecurity in Nigeria: Way Forward

Food security is indispensable prerequisite for the survival of mankind and his economic activities including food production. Food is different from other commodities because of its inevitability for survival and existence. In Nigeria, there is high level of food insecurity for the past four decades as a result of neglect in food production when oil has become the major export product and the because of the adoption of neo-liberal economic policies such as devaluation of naira, trade liberalization and withdrawal of government from economic activities, ethnic and religious conflicts; disasters, such as flooding and drought have also contributed to food insecurity in Nigeria. Food is different from other commodities because everybody needs it for survival, and it is an indispensable factor in nation’s quest for economic growth and development. Unfortunately, most of the food need in Nigeria is produced by peasant farmers who lack capital, skills, energy and other viable ingredients to produce on large quantity that will meet the requirement of the growing population. Thus food insecurity in Nigeria is a recurrent and double digit problem. The paper however proffers workable solution to these problems.
Current Management and Risk of Recurrent Stroke in Cerebrovascular Patients with Right-to-Left Cardiac Shunt

Background: Right-to-left cardiac shunt (RLS) is considered a risk factor for stroke, especially in patients aged <55 years. We aimed to investigate the current management and prognosis in consecutive patients with RLS and otherwise cryptogenic cerebrovascular events. Methods: In total, 1,126 patients with cryptogenic stroke or TIA were included from 17 German neurology departments. During a mean follow-up of 28.4 months, we assessed current antithrombotic medication, percutaneous device closure (PDC) and recurrent cerebrovascular events in 899 patients (79.8%). Stroke recurrence was compared between 548 patients without RLS and 351 patients with RLS under various prevention regimens. Results: RLS was detected in 35.9% of cryptogenic cerebrovascular patients, but could not be evaluated as an independent predictor for recurrent stroke (adjusted HR 1.6, 95% CI: 0.9–2.7). In RLS-positive patients, the Kaplan-Meier estimate for stroke during the first year was 4.1% (95% CI: 1.9–6.3%) and 1.7% (95% CI: 0.9–2.4%) per year thereafter. At the last follow-up before recurrent stroke or end of study, 117 RLS-positive patients (33.3%) had received a PDC, 154 (43.9%) were receiving antiplatelets, 63 (17.9%) received anticoagulation, and 17 (4.8%) received none of the above. No association with recurrent stroke was found for the secondary preventive regime. Conclusion: Our multicenter hospital-based cohort study confirmed low recurrent event rates in RLS patients with otherwise cryptogenic stroke or TIA, as well as a great heterogeneity of current management. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, a substantial number of RLS-positive patients underwent PDC for secondary stroke prevention.
Modulation of Pro-survival Akt/Protein Kinase B and ERK1/2 Signaling Cascades by Quercetin and Its in Vivo Metabolites Underlie Their Action on Neuronal Viability*

Much recent interest has focused on the potential of flavonoids to interact with intracellular signaling pathways such as with the mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade. We have investigated whether the observed strong neurotoxic potential of quercetin in primary cortical neurons may occur via specific and sensitive interactions within neuronal mitogen-activated protein kinase and Akt/protein kinase B (PKB) signaling cascades, both implicated in neuronal apoptosis. Quercetin induced potent inhibition of both Akt/PKB and ERK phosphorylation, resulting in reduced phosphorylation of BAD and a strong activation of caspase-3. High quercetin concentrations (30 μm) led to sustained loss of Akt phosphorylation and subsequent Akt cleavage by caspase-3, whereas at lower concentrations (<10 μm) the inhibition of Akt phosphorylation was transient and eventually returned to basal levels. Lower levels of quercetin also induced strong activation of the pro-survival transcription factor cAMP-responsive element-binding protein, although this did not prevent neuronal damage. O-Methylated quercetin metabolites inhibited Akt/PKB to lesser extent and did not induce such strong activation of caspase-3, which was reflected in the lower amount of damage they inflicted on neurons. In contrast, neither quercetin nor its O-methylated metabolites had any measurable effect on c-Jun N-terminal kinase phosphorylation. The glucuronide of quercetin was not toxic and did not evoke any alterations in neuronal signaling, probably reflecting its inability to enter neurons. Together these data suggest that quercetin and to a lesser extent its O-methylated metabolites may induce neuronal death via a mechanism involving an inhibition of neuronal survival signaling through the inhibition of both Akt/PKB and ERK rather than by an activation of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase-mediated death pathway.
[Physician Counseling about Physical and Sports Activity in Neurological Practices in Germany: Results of a Survey Among Members of the German Neurological Society].

Physical inactivity is a major but modifiable risk factor for morbidity and mortality. Regular physical activity has preventive and therapeutic effects on numerous diseases including neurological disorders. Therefore, it is desirable that physicians motivate their patients to increase their physical and sports activities and that they help them to overcome barriers to exercising. The present study is a survey of neurologists who are members of the German Neurological Society with their own practices; they were asked whether they advised their patients on the benefits of physical activity. Details on physician counseling on physical activity were obtained, such as the frequency of counseling, the neurological disorders considered by the practitioners to be worth the effort of counseling, and the barriers to exercise on the part of patients. More than 80 % of the participants who responded to the survey stated that they frequently provide their patients with advice on the preventive and therapeutic aspects of physical activity. Almost all of them recommended endurance sports; this was followed by Far Eastern types of sport such as tai chi or yoga (70 % of all physicians who advice sports activities). The frequency of counseling about physical activity significantly correlated to the physician's own sports activity. Frequency of counseling was reduced if the physician assessed the patients to be incapable of adopting and maintaining a lifestyle of habitual physical activity. Lack of time as well as an insufficient reimbursement of the counseling, however, did not significantly influence the frequency of counseling. The physician's own sports activity matched that of individuals with similar social status. Thus, a selection bias does not seem to be of importance regarding the results of the survey. However, since only 169 of the 784 invited neurologists (21.6 %) responded to the questionnaire, the representativeness of the survey may be limited. Counseling about physical activity seems to be an essential part of consultations in neurological practices.
Hiding Higher-Order Univariate Leakages by Shuffling Polynomial Masking Schemes: A More Efficient, Shuffled, and Higher-Order Masked AES S-box

Polynomial masking is a glitch-resistant and higher-order masking scheme based upon Shamir's secret sharing scheme and multi-party computation protocols. Polynomial masking was first introduced at CHES 2011, while a 1st-order implementation of the AES S-box on FPGA was presented at CHES 2013. In this latter work, the authors showed a 2nd-order univariate leakage by side-channel collision analysis on a tuned measurement setup. This negative result motivates the need to evaluate the performance, area-costs, and security margins of combined {shuffled} and higher-order polynomially masking schemes to counteract trivial univariate leakages. In this work, we provide the following contributions: first, we introduce additional principles for the selection of efficient addition chains, which allow for more compact and faster implementations of cryptographic S-boxes. Our 1st-order AES S-box implementation requires approximately 27% less registers, 20% less clock cycles, and 5% less random bits than the CHES 2013 implementation. Then, we propose a lightweight shuffling countermeasure, which inherently applies to polynomial masking schemes and effectively enhances their univariate security at negligible area expenses. Finally, we present the design of a {combined} {shuffled} {and} higher-order polynomially masked AES S-box in hardware, while providing ASIC synthesis and side-channel analysis results in the Electro-Magnetic (EM) domain.
Algorithms to Approximate Column-sparse Packing Problems

Column-sparse packing problems arise in several contexts in both deterministic and stochastic discrete optimization. We present two unifying ideas, (non-uniform) attenuation and multiple-chance algorithms, to obtain improved approximation algorithms for some well-known families of such problems. As three main examples, we attain the integrality gap, up to lower-order terms, for known LP relaxations for k-column-sparse packing integer programs (Bansal et al., Theory of Computing, 2012) and stochastic k-set packing (Bansal et al., Algorithmica, 2012), and go “half the remaining distance” to optimal for a major integrality-gap conjecture of Füredi, Kahn, and Seymour on hypergraph matching (Combinatorica, 1993).
Topical drug delivery systems: a patent review

ABSTRACT Introduction: Topical administration is the favored route for local delivery of therapeutic agents due to its convenience and affordability. The specific challenge of designing a therapeutic system is to achieve an optimal concentration of a certain drug at its site of action for an appropriate duration. Areas covered: This review summarizes innovations from the past 3 years (2012–2015) in the field of topical drug delivery for the treatment of local infections of the vagina, nose, eye and skin. The review also throws some light on the anatomy and physiology of these organs and their various defensive barriers which affect the delivery of drugs administered topically. Expert opinion: Topical administration has been gaining attention over the last few years. However, conventional topical drug delivery systems suffer from drawbacks such as poor retention and low bioavailability. The successful formulation of topical delivery products requires the careful manipulation of defensive barriers and selection of a soluble drug carrier. Extensive research is required to develop newer topical drug delivery systems aiming either to improve the efficacy or to reduce side effects compared to current patented systems.
Analysis of a Campus-Wide Wireless Network

Abstract Understanding usage patterns in wireless local-area networks (WLANs) is critical for those who develop, deploy, and manage WLAN technology, as well as those who develop systems and application software for wireless networks. This paper presents results from the largest and most comprehensive trace of network activity in a large, production wireless LAN. For eleven weeks we traced the activity of nearly two thousand users drawn from a general campus population, using a campus-wide network of 476 access points spread over 161 buildings at Dartmouth College. Our study expands on those done by Tang and Baker, with a significantly larger and broader population. We found that residential traffic dominated all other traffic, particularly in residences populated by newer students; students are increasingly choosing a wireless laptop as their primary computer. Although web protocols were the single largest component of traffic volume, network backup and file sharing contributed an unexpectedly large amount to the traffic. Although there was some roaming within a network session, we were surprised by the number of situations in which cards roamed excessively, unable to settle on one access point. Cross-subnet roams were an especial problem, because they broke IP connections, indicating the need for solutions that avoid or accommodate such roams.
“We make choices we think are going to save us”: Debate and stance identification for online breast cancer CAM discussions

Patients discuss complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in online health communities. Sometimes, patients' conflicting opinions toward CAM-related issues trigger debates in the community. The objectives of this paper are to identify such debates, identify controversial CAM therapies in a popular online breast cancer community, as well as patients' stances towards them. To scale our analysis, we trained a set of classifiers. We first constructed a supervised classifier based on a long short-term memory neural network (LSTM) stacked over a convolutional neural network (CNN) to detect automatically CAM-related debates from a popular breast cancer forum. Members' stances in these debates were also identified by a CNN-based classifier. Finally, posts automatically flagged as debates by the classifier were analyzed to explore which specific CAM therapies trigger debates more often than others. Our methods are able to detect CAM debates with F score of 77%, and identify stances with F score of 70%. The debate classifier identified about 1/6 of all CAM-related posts as debate. About 60% of CAM-related debate posts represent the supportive stance toward CAM usage. Qualitative analysis shows that some specific therapies, such as Gerson therapy and usage of laetrile, trigger debates frequently among members of the breast cancer community. This study demonstrates that neural networks can effectively locate debates on usage and effectiveness of controversial CAM therapies, and can help make sense of patients' opinions on such issues under dispute. As to CAM for breast cancer, perceptions of their effectiveness vary among patients. Many of the specific therapies trigger debates frequently and are worth more exploration in future work.
The Brain Atlas Concordance Problem: Quantitative Comparison of Anatomical Parcellations

Many neuroscientific reports reference discrete macro-anatomical regions of the brain which were delineated according to a brain atlas or parcellation protocol. Currently, however, no widely accepted standards exist for partitioning the cortex and subcortical structures, or for assigning labels to the resulting regions, and many procedures are being actively used. Previous attempts to reconcile neuroanatomical nomenclatures have been largely qualitative, focusing on the development of thesauri or simple semantic mappings between terms. Here we take a fundamentally different approach, discounting the names of regions and instead comparing their definitions as spatial entities in an effort to provide more precise quantitative mappings between anatomical entities as defined by different atlases. We develop an analytical framework for studying this brain atlas concordance problem, and apply these methods in a comparison of eight diverse labeling methods used by the neuroimaging community. These analyses result in conditional probabilities that enable mapping between regions across atlases, which also form the input to graph-based methods for extracting higher-order relationships between sets of regions and to procedures for assessing the global similarity between different parcellations of the same brain. At a global scale, the overall results demonstrate a considerable lack of concordance between available parcellation schemes, falling within chance levels for some atlas pairs. At a finer level, this study reveals spatial relationships between sets of defined regions that are not obviously apparent; these are of high potential interest to researchers faced with the challenge of comparing results that were based on these different anatomical models, particularly when coordinate-based data are not available. The complexity of the spatial overlap patterns revealed points to problems for attempts to reconcile anatomical parcellations and nomenclatures using strictly qualitative and/or categorical methods. Detailed results from this study are made available via an interactive web site at http://obart.info.
The Iberian Storm of 1941 in the Twentieth Century Reanalysis

Switzerland Abstract In the night from 15 to 16 February 1941, a disastrous storm hit the Iberian Peninsula and caused devastation across the peninsula. Historical reports and sparse observational data show the exceptional strength and impact of the storm. No comparable event has been recorded since. Therefore, studying this specific historical storm event is important from a present-day perspective in order to better understand storm risks in the Iberian Peninsula. The focus of this paper is to assess whether the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Version 2c (20CRv2c) is able to reproduce this unique storm. We compare the ensemble mean reanalysis fields with historical observations with respect to mean sea-level pressure and wind. The comparison shows that the Iberian Storm of 1941 is well reproduced in 20CRv2c. Mean sea-level pressure is reproduced better than wind. Discrepancies can be due to measurement errors in the historical observations as well as inaccuracies in the reanalysis. Our results suggest that 20CRv2c is a good tool to reproduce and analyse historical storm
Online Regret Bounds for Undiscounted Continuous Reinforcement Learning

We derive sublinear regret bounds for undiscounted reinforcement learning in continuous state space. The proposed algorithm combines state aggregation with the use of upper confidence bounds for implementing optimism in the face of uncertainty. Beside the existence of an optimal policy which satisfies the Poisson equation, the only assumptions made are Holder continuity of rewards and transition probabilities.
What’s Yours and What’s Mine: Determining Intellectual Attribution in Scientific Text

We believe that identifying the structure of scientific argumentation in articles can help in tasks such as automatic summarization or the automated construction of citation indexes. One particularly important aspect of this structure is the question of who a given scientific statement is attributed to: other researchers, the field in general, or the authors themselves.We present the algorithm and a systematic evaluation of a system which can recognize the most salient textual properties that contribute to the global argumentative structure of a text. In this paper we concentrate on two particular features, namely the occurrences of prototypical agents and their actions in scientific text.
Writer adaptive feature extraction based on convolutional neural networks for online handwritten Chinese character recognition

This paper presents a novel approach to writer adaptation based on convolutional neural network (CNN) as a feature extractor and improved discriminative linear regression for online handwritten Chinese character recognition. First, the proposed recognizer consisting of CNN-based feature extractor and prototype-based classifier can achieve comparable performance with the state-of-the-art CNN-based classifier while it could be designed more compact and efficient as a practical solution. Second, the writer adaption is performed via a linear transformation of the extracted feature from CNN. The transformation parameters are optimized with a so-called sample separation margin based minimum classification error criterion, which can be further improved by using more synthesized adaptation data and a simple regularization method. The experiments on the data collected from user inputs of Smartphones with a vocabulary of 20,936 characters demonstrate that our writer adaptation approach can yield significant improvements of recognition accuracy over a high-performance baseline system and also outperform a state-of-the-art approach based on style transfer mapping especially with increased adaptation data.
AÊ Single Particle Reconstruction of GroEL Using EMAN

0022-2836/01/020253±10 $35.00/0 Single-particle analysis has become an increasingly important method for structural determination of large macromolecular assemblies. GroEL is an 800 kDa molecular chaperone, which, along with its co-chaperonin GroES, promotes protein folding both in vitro and in the bacterial cell. EMAN is a single-particle analysis software package, which was ®rst publicly distributed in 2000. We present a three-dimensional reconstruction of native naked GroEL to 11.5 AÊ performed entirely with EMAN. We demonstrate that the single-particle reconstruction, X-ray scattering data and X-ray crystal structure all agree well at this resolution. These results validate the speci®c methods of image restoration, reconstruction and evaluation techniques implemented in EMAN. It also demonstrates that the single-particle reconstruction technique and X-ray crystallography will yield consistent structure factors, even at low resolution, when image restoration is performed correctly. A detailed comparison of the single-particle and X-ray structures exhibits some small variations in the equatorial domain of the molecule, likely due to the absence of crystal packing forces in the single-particle reconstruction. # 2001 Academic Press
Proportional fairness of call blocking probability

To guarantee proportional fairness (PF) is an important way to realize predictable and controllable service differentiation. In this paper, a proportional differentiation call admission control (CAC) algorithm, named PBS-PF, is proposed to guarantee the network services' PF in terms of call blocking probability (CBP). PBS-PF is based on the partial bandwidth sharing CAC scheme due to this scheme's high bandwidth utilization rate. PBS-PF dynamically calculates the bandwidth admission threshold of each service class to control the blocking call number for guaranteeing the CBP ratio of high and low priority services to accord with a given value. The simulations show that the CBP of each service class changes with the network load, but their ratio approximately keeps unchanged, which proves the effectiveness of PBS-PF. At last, we analyze the time complexity of PBS-PF.