Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Agomelatine prevents relapse in patients with major depressive disorder without evidence of a discontinuation syndrome: a 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE This study evaluates the efficacy of agomelatine, the first antidepressant that is an agonist at MT(1)/MT(2) receptors and an antagonist at 5-HT(2C) receptor, in the prevention of relapse of depression following successful response. METHOD Patients with DSM-IV-TR major depressive disorder who responded to an 8- or 10-week course of agomelatine 25- or 50-mg daily treatment were randomly assigned to receive continuation treatment with agomelatine (n=165) or placebo (n=174) during a 24-week, randomized, double-blind treatment period. The main outcome measure was time to relapse during the double-blind treatment period. The cumulative probability of relapse was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method of survival analysis. The study was conducted from February 2005 to February 2007. RESULTS During the 6-month evaluation period, the incidence of relapse was significantly lower in patients who continued treatment than in those switched to placebo (P=.0001). The cumulative relapse rate at 6 months for agomelatine-treated patients was 21.7%; that for placebo-treated patients was 46.6%. Agomelatine was also superior to placebo in preventing relapse in the subset of patients with baseline 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale total score > or = 25. Measures of tolerability and safety of both doses of agomelatine were similar to placebo. No pattern of early relapse or adverse events suggestive of withdrawal symptoms was obtained after abrupt cessation of agomelatine. CONCLUSIONS The findings are important in 2 respects. First, agomelatine is an effective and safe antidepressant continuation therapy, which confirms efficacy seen in short-term studies. Second, few early relapses were observed in the patient group switched to placebo: the survival curve for placebo separated gradually from that of patients taking agomelatine. We suggest this reflects solely the underlying properties of the illness, which is only possible due to the lack of discontinuation syndrome after agomelatine withdrawal. It underlines the novel clinical profile of agomelatine, which quite likely reflects its innovative pharmacology. TRIAL REGISTRATION isrctn.org Identifier: ISRCTN53193024.
Efficient design of university timetable

Timetabling is a classic problem with practical applications. Based on the available literature on timetable generation, it is clear that the process of automation gives rise to difficulties while trying to incorporate all the constraints involved. The fast elegant simple heuristic proposed here is used for multi-campus university where the faculty belongs to a common teaching pool Administrative processes are adopted to overcome constraints at various levels of hierarchy. The timetable is generated in constant time. The heuristic finds application in various scheduling problems such as: flight scheduling, train scheduling etc.
Efficient Mining of Multiple Partial Near-Duplicate Alignments by Temporal Network

This paper considers the mining and localization of near-duplicate segments at arbitrary positions of partial near-duplicate videos in a corpus. Temporal network is proposed to model the visual-temporal consistency between video sequence by embedding temporal constraints as directed edges in the network. Partial alignment is then achieved through network flow programming. To handle multiple alignments, we consider two properties of network structure: conciseness and divisibility, to ensure that the mining is efficient and effective. Frame-level matching is further integrated in the temporal network for alignment verification. This results in an iterative alignment-verification procedure to fine tune the localization of near-duplicate segments. The scalability of frame-level matching is enhanced by exploring visual keyword matching algorithms. We demonstrate the proposed work for mining partial alignments from two months of broadcast videos and across six TV sources.
Predicting the Geography of Species’ Invasions via Ecological Niche Modeling

Species’ invasions have long been regarded as enormously complex processes, so complex as to defy predictivity. Phases of this process, however, are emerging as highly predictable: the potential geographic course of an invasion can be anticipated with high precision based on the ecological niche characteristics of a species in its native geographic distributional area. This predictivity depends on the premise that ecological niches constitute long‐term stable constraints on the potential geographic distributions of species, for which a sizeable body of evidence is accumulating. Hence, although the entire invasion process is indeed complex, the geographic course that invasions are able to take can be anticipated with considerable confidence.
Pre-authentication filters: providing dos resistance for signature-based broadcast authentication in sensor networks

Recent studies have demonstrated that it is possible to perform public key cryptographic operations on the resource-constrained sensor platforms. However, the significant resource consumption imposed by public key cryptographic operations makes such mechanisms easy targets of Denial- of Service (DoS) attacks. For example, if digital signatures such as ECDSA are used directly for broadcast authentication without further protection, an attacker can simply broadcast forged packets and force the receiving nodes to perform a large number of unnecessary signature verifications, eventually exhausting their battery power. This paper studies how to deal with such DoS attacks when signatures are used for broadcast authentication in sensor networks. In particular, this paper presents two filtering techniques, a group-based filter and a key chain-based filter, to handle DoS attacks against signature verification. Both methods can significantly reduce the number of unnecessary signature verifications that a sensor node has to perform. The analytical results also show that these two techniques are efficient and effective for resource-constrained sensor networks.
Children's understanding of the stream of consciousness.

Children and adults were tested for their understanding that there is a virtually continuous flow of mental content in a waking person, a "stream of consciousness" that continues to run even when the person is not examining stimuli perceptually or trying to solve a problem. There was a marked increase with age from preschool to adulthood in subjects' tendency to say that a person who was just waiting quietly was having "some thoughts and ideas" rather than "a mind empty of thoughts and ideas. " 4-year-olds also tended to say that the mind of a waiting person was "not doing anything," whether that person was another individual or themselves, and that a person who wanted to could keep his or her "mind completely empty of all thoughts and ideas" for 3 min. These results suggest that preschoolers' conceptions of people's mental lives may be quite different from those of older children and adults.
Stable Haptic Interaction with Virtual Environments Using and Adapted Voxmap-PointShell Algorithm

Despite a lot of research in recent years stable and realistic haptic interaction with virtual environments keeps an unsolved problem. Among different approaches the Voxmap-PointShell TM (VPS) method seems very promising due to constant sample rates, independent of the static environment. But there is still the stability problem to be solved globally. In this paper some adaptations based on the VPS are presented, including the dynamic object modeling and the force calculation method, to reduce the distractions of the calculated collision forces to increase stability. The PointShell points lie exactly on the surface of the dynamic object, to get a smoother surface representation. A variation of the collision force calculation leads to a reduction of the “voxel noise”, that appears due to the discretization of the volume space. A design framework for the virtual coupling is presented, that enables the automatic configuration for different haptic devices. The validity will be shown with different kineasthetic hand controllers.
Multi-instance Learning Using Information Entropy Theory for Image Retrieval

As a new learning framework, Multi-Instance learning is used successfully in vision classification and labeled recently. In this paper, a novel Multi-instance bag generating method is put forward on the basis of a Gaussian Mixed Model. The generated GMM model composes not only color but also the locally stable unchangeable components. It is called MI bag by researchers. Besides this, another method which is called Agglomerative Information Bottleneck clustering is ad opted here to replace the MIL problem with the help of singleinstance learning ones. Meanwhile, single-instance classifiers are employed here for classification. Finally, ensemble learning is employed to strengthen classifiers’ generalization ability of RBM (Restricted Boltzmann Machine) as the base classifier. On the basis of large-scale datasets, this method is tested and the result of it shows that our method provides higher accuracy and performance for image annotation, feature matching and example-based object-classification. Keyword: Multi-Instance Learning; Image representation; RBM; AIB Clustering; Scene Recognition, Gaussian Mixed Model;
Adjunctive HPV In-Situ Hybridization (ISH) Assay as an Aid in the Diagnosis of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia in Cervical Tissue Specimens: An Analytical and Functional Characterization

The purpose of this study was to develop and analytically and functionally validate a new human papillomavirus (HPV) in-situ hybridization (ISH) assay and to determine whether the use of this assay combined with hemotoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining could potentially improve the diagnostic accuracy of interpreting cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) in human cervical tissue specimens. An automated HPV ISH assay was developed using probes that targeted the broad spectrum of HPV genotypes most commonly associated with CIN. In an exploratory study, tissue sections (n=118) were stained with H&E alone and H&E with HPV ISH and evaluated by 6 general surgical pathologists. Results were compared with diagnoses established by expert pathologists on H&E alone. The change in specificity (diagnosis of no-CIN) and sensitivity (diagnosis of CIN) using H&E plus HPV versus H&E alone was determined. The HPV ISH assay detected 21 HPV genotypes and demonstrated no cross-reactivity to Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1, HSV-2, or human placental DNA. The assay detected HPV in a range of 1 to 600 copies on CaSki, HeLa, and SiHa xenografts. Use of this assay with H&E staining improved the average diagnostic specificity of the surgical pathologists from 68.5% to 89.9% (P<0.001), with fewer false-positive CIN 1 results (122 vs. 39). The diagnostic sensitivity was similar for assessments made with H&E alone and those made with HPV plus H&E (93.1% vs. 93.6%). In conclusion, a new automated broad-spectrum HPV ISH assay combined with H&E-stained slides contributed to better ascertainment of CIN than H&E staining alone.
Consequences, Action, and Intention as Factors in Moral Judgments: An fMRI Investigation

The traditional philosophical doctrines of Consequentialism, Doing and Allowing, and Double Effect prescribe that moral judgments and decisions should be based on consequences, action (as opposed to inaction), and intention. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how these three factors affect brain processes associated with moral judgments. We find the following: (1) Moral scenarios involving only a choice between consequences with different amounts of harm elicit activity in similar areas of the brain as analogous nonmoral scenarios; (2) Compared to analogous nonmoral scenarios, moral scenarios in which action and inaction result in the same amount of harm elicit more activity in areas associated with cognition (such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and less activity in areas associated with emotion (such as the orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole); (3) Compared to analogous nonmoral scenarios, conflicts between goals of minimizing harm and of refraining from harmful action elicit more activity in areas associated with emotion (orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole) and less activity in areas associated with cognition (including the angular gyrus and superior frontal gyrus); (4) Compared to moral scenarios involving only unintentional harm, moral scenarios involving intentional harm elicit more activity in areas associated with emotion (orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole) and less activity in areas associated with cognition (including the angular gyrus and superior frontal gyrus). These findings suggest that different kinds of moral judgment are preferentially supported by distinguishable brain systems.
Toward Reliable Data Delivery for Highly Dynamic Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This paper addresses the problem of delivering data packets for highly dynamic mobile ad hoc networks in a reliable and timely manner. Most existing ad hoc routing protocols are susceptible to node mobility, especially for large-scale networks. Driven by this issue, we propose an efficient Position-based Opportunistic Routing (POR) protocol which takes advantage of the stateless property of geographic routing and the broadcast nature of wireless medium. When a data packet is sent out, some of the neighbor nodes that have overheard the transmission will serve as forwarding candidates, and take turn to forward the packet if it is not relayed by the specific best forwarder within a certain period of time. By utilizing such in-the-air backup, communication is maintained without being interrupted. The additional latency incurred by local route recovery is greatly reduced and the duplicate relaying caused by packet reroute is also decreased. In the case of communication hole, a Virtual Destination-based Void Handling (VDVH) scheme is further proposed to work together with POR. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that POR achieves excellent performance even under high node mobility with acceptable overhead and the new void handling scheme also works well.
Type I collagen-templated assembly of silver nanoparticles and their application in surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) are one of the active substrates that are employed extensively in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), and aggregations of Ag NPs play an important role in enhancing the Raman signals. In this paper, we fabricated two kinds of SERS-active substrates utilizing the electrostatic adsorption and superior assembly properties of type I collagen. These were collagen-Ag NP aggregation films and nanoporous Ag films. Two probe molecules, 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) and methylene blue (MB), were studied on these substrates. These substrates showed reproducible SERS intensities with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 8–10% and 11–14%, respectively, while the RSDs of the traditional thick Ag films were 12–28%. Also, the intensities for the 4-ATP spectrum on the collagen-templated nanoporous Ag film were approximately one order higher than those on the DNA-templated Ag film.
Ecological relevance of anabranch confluences: Hydrological and morphological effects

The aim of the current study was to determine the ecological role of anabranch confluences at diverse hydrological regimes, taking into consideration the floodplain secondary channels of a large river as a case of study. In conducting this study, we used unpublished data from sampling campaigns performed in the past. Triplicate benthic sediment samples were taken at each station using a bottom grab and according to sampling protocols equal to the current ones. Benthic taxa were identified at the species and genus levels. According to our results, a protracted effect by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon on benthic fauna structure was evident. This effect was observed not only in the confluences but also all along the rivers, reflecting its ecological effect at least 1.5 years after its occurrence. Thus, the ENSO effect on benthic organisms should not be treated like a “physical action–reaction” but rather as an ecological relationship with lag periods (“ecological inertia”) after its occurrence. On the other hand, one of the studied confluences was categorized as a “hydro‐geomorphic patch” along the river channel, resulting from shifts in hydraulic and sedimentological conditions, which are explained by local morphological features. This hydro‐geomorphic patch created a critical site of abrupt changes in ecological patterns, enhancing the biodiversity of the river system. However, this hydro‐geomorphic patch was not detected in another anabranch confluence, where the benthic assemblage was comparable with that recorded in straight sections. Accordingly, we concluded that the mere presence of an anabranch confluence is not a sufficient reason to assume enhancing local habitat heterogeneity or biodiversity.
Zonostrophic Instability

Zonostrophic instability leads to the spontaneous emergence of zonal jets on a b plane from a jetless basicstate flow that is damped by bottom drag and driven by a random body force. Decomposing the barotropic vorticity equation into the zonal mean and eddy equations, and neglecting the eddy–eddy interactions, defines the quasilinear (QL) system. Numerical solution of the QL system shows zonal jets with length scales comparable to jets obtained by solving the nonlinear (NL) system. Starting with the QL system, one can construct a deterministic equation for the evolution of the two-point single-time correlation function of the vorticity, from which one can obtain the Reynolds stress that drives the zonal mean flow. This deterministic system has an exact nonlinear solution, which is an isotropic and homogenous eddy field with no jets. The authors characterize the linear stability of this jetless solution by calculating the critical stability curve in the parameter space and successfully comparing this analytic result with numerical solutions of the QL system. But the critical drag required for the onset of NL zonostrophic instability is sometimes a factor of 6 smaller than that for QL zonostrophic instability. Near the critical stability curve, the jet scale predicted by linear stability theory agrees with that obtained via QL numerics. But on reducing the drag, the emerging QL jets agree with the linear stability prediction at only short times. Subsequently jets merge with their neighbors until the flow matures into a state with jets that are significantly broader than the linear prediction but have spacing similar to NL jets.
Neurite-localized estrogen receptor-alpha mediates rapid signaling by estrogen.

Classically, estrogen acts on cells by directly activating gene transcription driven by ligand-bound nuclear estrogen receptors (ER). Accumulating evidence demonstrates that estrogen acts on neurons by utilizing diverse molecular mechanisms, including rapid signaling by proteins localized to the plasma membrane. Recent studies showing that ERalpha localizes to axons and dendrites of hippocampal neurons suggest that nonnuclear stores of the receptor may transduce estrogen signaling. Here, we have studied the subcellular localization, dynamic regulation, and function of ERalpha in mouse cortical neurons. Estrogen-stimulated mouse cortical neurons activate both estrogen response element (ERE) stimulated transcription and rapid activation of p44/42 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK). We demonstrate that green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged ERalpha localizes to neurites in cultured cortical neurons and that the expression within neurites can be down-regulated by estrogen or up-regulated by antiestrogen administered during synthesis. Neurite ERalpha appears to be directed to neurites directly from its site of translation and not from nuclear stores. By using confocal microscopy, we show that ERalpha within neurites stimulates local activation of p44/42 MAP kinases in response to estrogen. We conclude that hormonal status alters subcellular ERalpha targeting in cortical neurons and that neurite-expressed ERalpha is important in the activation of local MAPK signaling.
Phosphomimetic Modulation of eNOS Improves Myocardial Reperfusion and Mimics Cardiac Postconditioning in Mice

Objective Myocardial infarction resulting from ischemia-reperfusion injury can be reduced by cardiac postconditioning, in which blood flow is restored intermittently prior to full reperfusion. Although key molecular mechanisms and prosurvival pathways involved in postconditioning have been identified, a direct role for eNOS-derived NO in improving regional myocardial perfusion has not been shown. The objective of this study is to measure, with high temporal and spatial resolution, regional myocardial perfusion during ischemia-reperfusion and postconditioning, in order to determine the contribution of regional blood flow effects of NO to infarct size and protection. Methods and Results We used myocardial contrast echocardiography to measure regional myocardial blood flow in mice over time. Reperfusion after myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury is improved by postconditioning, as well as by phosphomimetic eNOS modulation. Knock-in mice expressing a phosphomimetic S1176D form of eNOS showed improved myocardial reperfusion and significantly reduced infarct size. eNOS knock-out mice failed to show cardioprotection from postconditioning. The size of the no-reflow zone following ischemia-reperfusion is substantially reduced by postconditioning and by the phosphomimetic eNOS mutation. Conclusions and Significance Using myocardial contrast echocardiography, we show that temporal dynamics of regional myocardial perfusion restoration contribute to reduced infarct size after postconditioning. eNOS has direct effects on myocardial blood flow following ischemia-reperfusion, with reduction in the size of the no-reflow zone. These results have important implications for ongoing clinical trials on cardioprotection, because the degree of protective benefit may be significantly influenced by the regional hemodynamic effects of eNOS-derived NO.
A negotiation model for autonomous agents: key features and comparison with existing models

This paper presents the key features of a new negotiation model for autonomous agents. The model is generic, handles multi-party and multi-issue negotiation, acknowledges the role of conflict as a driving force of negotiation, formalizes a set of human negotiation procedures, allows the dynamic addition and removal of issues, and accounts for a tight integration of the individual capability of planning and the social capability of negotiation. This paper also characterizes the model along a set of dimensions and compares it with other developed models.
Creating and evolving software by searching, selecting and synthesizing relevant source code

When programmers develop or maintain software, they instinctively sense that there are fragments of code that other developers implemented somewhere, and these code fragments could be reused if found. In this paper, we propose a novel solution that addresses the fundamental questions of searching, selecting, and synthesizing (S3) software based on the analysis of Application Programming Interface (API) calls as units of abstractions that implement high-level concepts (e.g., the API call EncryptData implements a cryptographic concept). This paper outlines the details behind S3, analyzes current challenges and describes evaluation plans.