Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulation of Phototropic Responsiveness in Arabidopsis through Ubiquitination of Phototropin 1 by the CUL3-Ring E3 Ubiquitin Ligase CRL3NPH3[W]

This work demonstrates that the NPH3 protein of Arabidopsis represents a core component of a CULLIN3-based E3 ubiquitin ligase that targets the phototropin1 (phot1) photoreceptor for blue light–stimulated mono/multi- and polyubiquitination. In addition, it was shown that phot1 ubiquitination by this E3 complex is necessary for normal phototropic responsiveness. Plant phototropism is an adaptive response to changes in light direction, quantity, and quality that results in optimization of photosynthetic light harvesting, as well as water and nutrient acquisition. Though several components of the phototropic signal response pathway have been identified in recent years, including the blue light (BL) receptors phototropin1 (phot1) and phot2, much remains unknown. Here, we show that the phot1-interacting protein NONPHOTOTROPIC HYPOCOTYL3 (NPH3) functions as a substrate adapter in a CULLIN3-based E3 ubiquitin ligase, CRL3NPH3. Under low-intensity BL, CRL3NPH3 mediates the mono/multiubiquitination of phot1, likely marking it for clathrin-dependent internalization from the plasma membrane. In high-intensity BL, phot1 is both mono/multi- and polyubiquitinated by CRL3NPH3, with the latter event targeting phot1 for 26S proteasome-mediated degradation. Polyubiquitination and subsequent degradation of phot1 under high-intensity BL likely represent means of receptor desensitization, while mono/multiubiquitination-stimulated internalization of phot1 may be coupled to BL-induced relocalization of hormone (auxin) transporters.
ECG acquisition system with heart rate detection and energy harvesting for drivers

This paper proposes a combined heart rate detection and energy harvesting system operated on smart phones for vehicle drivers. The proposed system consists of four parts. The first part includes a high-resolution and low-power analog front-end chip to implement a biosignal sensing module (BSM). The second part comprises a digital signal processor with a high-recognition-rate QRS detection algorithm. The third part includes a power management circuit that harvests energy from a smart phone. This part provides a stable voltage supply to the BSM. The power conversion efficiency of the proposed rectifier exceeds 85%. The last part executes a data recording and heart rate variability analysis software based on the Android system. All chips are fabricated in a TSMC 0.18 μm standard CMOS process.
Leveraging program equivalence for adaptive program repair: Models and first results

Software bugs remain a compelling problem. Automated program repair is a promising approach for reducing cost, and many methods have recently demonstrated positive results. However, success on any particular bug is variable, as is the cost to find a repair. This paper focuses on generate-and-validate repair methods that enumerate candidate repairs and use test cases to define correct behavior. We formalize repair cost in terms of test executions, which dominate most test-based repair algorithms. Insights from this model lead to a novel deterministic repair algorithm that computes a patch quotient space with respect to an approximate semantic equivalence relation. This allows syntactic and dataflow analysis techniques to dramatically reduce the repair search space. Generate-and-validate program repair is shown to be a dual of mutation testing, suggesting several possible cross-fertilizations. Evaluating on 105 real-world bugs in programs totaling 5MLOC and involving 10,000 tests, our new algorithm requires an order-of-magnitude fewer test evaluations than the previous state-of-the-art and is over three times more efficient monetarily.
DEVELOPING OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM USING ARTIFICIAL BEE COLONY SYSTEM

More recently, computer scientists have found in the study of social insect’s behavior a source of inspiration for the design and implementation of optimization algorithms. Particularly, the study of bee colonies behavior turned out to be very attractive to develop problem solving algorithms. However, this paper introduces a new algorithm that are inspired by bee colonies. It presents two unsupervised scenarios for two kinds of bees which are scouts and forgers in order to identify their activities that used by the bees during the food forging, These activities have been analysis and designed as proposed new optimization algorithms as the functions to be used by the processing engine of the artificial bees colony system. The proposed algorithm can be applied to dynamic problems in real variables, stochastic problems, multi-targets and parallel implementations, and any areas which are not required supervision.
Heaviside image edge sharpening

In this paper, we propose an automatic and efficient method to enhance edge sharpness of images. Starting from an image with blur edges, we improve the edges using transformed Heaviside functions for better visualization. In addition, we provide an efficient method to directly compute the scaling and shifting factors of the transformed Heaviside functions, so that blur edges can be improved accurately. Experimental results show that the proposed method is fast and can get sharper image edges than some recent state-of-the-art edge enhancement methods. We also apply the edge sharpening method to image super-resolution and obtained promising results.
Effects of Luminance on Dynamic Random-Dot Correlogram Evoked Visual Potentials

Although dynamic random-dot correlogram evoked visual potentials (DRDC-VEPs) are a three-decade-old method to detect the cortical binocularity in humans and animals, our knowledge of the influence of fundamental stimulus parameters and the underlying cerebral processing mechanisms has remained limited. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of luminance on DRDC-VEPs in adults. The variability and detectability of DRDC-VEPs were investigated under different stimulus luminance conditions with neutral density filters. Our results have demonstrated that DRDC-VEPs can be evoked in a wide luminance range, and the response amplitude was practically independent of luminance between 4.75 cd m−2 and 0.015 cd m−2, while DRDC-VEP latencies showed a strong linear correlation with log luminance. There is, however, a limit (0.06 cd m−2) below which DRDC-VEPs are not reliably recordable. Luminance reduction-induced delays in DRDC-VEP latencies cannot be explained simply by retinal mechanisms, since their regression slope does not follow the course of electroretinogram and cortical evoked potential latencies. Luminance independence of DRDC-VEP amplitude suggests that binocular correlation-processing cortical neurons receive input predominantly from the magnocellular visual pathway.
Association of FTO With Obesity-Related Traits in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) Cohort

OBJECTIVE—The underlying genetic component of obesity-related traits is not well understood, and there is limited evidence to support genetic association shared across multiple studies, populations, and environmental contexts. The present study investigated the association between candidate variants and obesity-related traits in a sample of 1,886 adult Filipino women from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) cohort. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We selected and genotyped 19 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 10 genes (ADRB2, ADRB3, FTO, GNB3, INSIG2, LEPR, PPARG, TNF, UCP2, and UCP3) that had been previously reported to be associated with an obesity-related quantitative trait. RESULTS—We observed evidence for association of the A allele of rs9939609 (FTO intron 1) with increased BMI (P = 0.0072 before multiple test correction), baseline BMI (P = 0.0015), longitudinal BMI based on eight surveys from 1983 to 2005 (P = 0.000029), waist circumference (P = 0.0094), and weight (P = 0.021). The increase in average BMI was ∼0.4 for each additional A allele. We also observed association of the ADRB3 Trp64Arg variant with BMI, waist circumference, percent body fat, weight, fat mass, arm fat area, and arm muscle area (P < 0.05), although the direction of effect is inconsistent with the majority of previous reports. CONCLUSIONS—Our study confirms that FTO is a common obesity susceptibility gene in Filipinos, with an effect size similar to that seen in samples of European origin.
The performance of BD FACSPresto™ for CD4 T-cell count, CD4% and hemoglobin concentration test in Ethiopia

Introduction In Ethiopia, CD4+ T-cell counting is still required for all patients at baseline before antiretroviral therapy (ART) and to determine eligibility and follow-up of opportunistic infection prophylaxis. However, access to CD4+ T cell count in rural health facilities remains a major challenge in Ethiopia like other resource-limited settings. Methodology Both capillary and venous blood was drawn from each of 325 study participant recruited in Addis Ababa and surroundings. The CD4+ T-cell count, CD4%, and hemoglobin (Hgb) were tested at one of the four study health facilities using capillary blood and BD FACSPresto™ device. These tests were also done at the national HIV reference laboratory, using venous blood with BD FACSCalibur™, Sysmex XT-1800i™, and BD FACSPresto™. Results BD FACSPresto™ had an absolute mean bias of -13.3 cells/ul (-2.99%) and 28.3 cells/μl (6.4%) using venous and capillary blood, respectively, compared with BD FACSCalibur™. The absolute CD4 assay on the BD FACSPresto™ had a regression coefficient (R2) of 0.87 and 0.92 using capillary blood and venous blood samples, respectively, compared with BD FACSCalibur™. The percentage similarity of the BD FACSPresto™ using capillary and venous blood was 105.2% and 99.3%, respectively. The sensitivity of the FACSPresto™ using threshold of 500 cells/μl for ART eligibility using capillary and venous blood was 87.9 and 94.3%, while the specificity was 91.4 and 83.8%, respectively. Furthermore, the BD FACSPresto™ had an absolute mean bias of -0.2 dl/μl (0.0%) (95% LOA: -1.7, 1.3) and -0.59 dl/μl (0.1%) (95% LOA: -1.49, 0.31) for Hgb using capillary and venous blood compared with the Sysmex XT-1800i™, respectively. Conclusion Our results showed acceptable agreement between the BD FACSPresto™ and BD FACSCalibur™ for CD4+ T-cell counting and CD4%; and between the BD FACSPresto™ and Sysmex XT-1800i™for measuring Hgb concentration.
Beyond Method

Procedures are not the same as processes. But purposive modules are probably no more than a waystation to understanding learning processes and may not be as simply represented in brain neurophysiology as many seem to assume. And finally: it is impossible (and therefore unwise) to specify in advance what the ultimate theory of learning must explain. Copyright Information: Copyright 2005 by the article author(s). This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution: 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Solution of the two-impurity Kondo model: Critical point, Fermi-liquid phase, and crossover.

An asymptotically exact solution is presented for the two-impurity Kondo model for a finite region of the parameter space surrounding the critical point. This region is located in the most interesting intermediate regime where the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction is comparable to the Kondo temperature. After several exact simplifications involving reduction to one dimension and Abelian bosonization, the critical point is explicitly identified, making clear its physical origin. By using controlled low-energy projection, an effective Hamiltonian is derived for the finite region in the phase diagram around the critical point. The completeness of the effective Hamiltonian is rigorously proved from general symmetry considerations. The effective Hamiltonian is solved exactly not only at the critical point but also for the surrounding Fermi-liquid phase. Analytic crossover functions from the critical to Fermi-liquid behavior are derived for the specific heat and staggered susceptibility. It is shown that applying a uniform magnetic field has negligible effect on the physical behavior inside our solution region. A detailed comparison is made with the numerical renormalization-group and conformal-field-theory results. The excellent agreement is exploited to argue for the universality of the critical point, which in turn implies universal behavior everywhere inside our solution region.
A quorum-based channel hopping scheme for jamming resilience

Jamming attacks have become wireless security threats disrupting reliable RF communication. Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) is a widely used technique for anti-jamming wireless communications. However, FHSS relies on the pre-shared secret key between the communication pair. However, secure key exchange is challenging. Recently, Uncoordinated Frequency Hopping (UFH) schemes have been studied to achieve resilient key establishment in presence of a jammer. However, existing UFH schemes either suffer from unguaranteed rendezvous. In this paper, we introduce an Jamming-Resilient Asynchronous-Symmetric UFH scheme, AJCH, for guaranteeing rendezvous.
Silicon Crystal Growth and Wafer Technologies

Silicon substrates form the foundation of modern microelectronics. Whereas the first 50 years of silicon wafer technology were primarily driven by the microelectronics industry, applications in photovoltaics (PV) also promise to drive new advances in silicon wafer technology over the next ten years. In the first part, we review the historical development of semiconductor silicon wafer technology and highlight recent technical advances in bulk crystal growth and wafering technologies, including the development of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technologies and ultrathin wafers. We then discuss technologies that could take us beyond the current capabilities of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices. In the second part, we review silicon manufacturing for PV applications and some unique wafering technology challenges in that field. Finally, we summarize industry roadmaps and product needs highlighting key technical areas which promise to shape the future of silicon wafer technologies in the coming decades.
2016 Ieee International Conference on Big Data (big Data) Giving Voice to Office Customers Best Practices in How Office Handles Verbatim Text Feedback

—Microsoft Office users submit hundreds of thousands of pieces of verbatim feedback per month. How can an engineer or manager in Office find the signal in this data to make business decisions? This paper presents an overview of the Office Customer Voice (OCV) system. OCV combines classification, on-demand clustering and other machine learning techniques with a rich web UI to solve this problem. In this paper, we describe the different types of feedback received. Next, we outline the architecture used to build OCV. We then detail the text processing, classification and clustering done to reason on the data. Finally, we present challenges, future plans, and best practices that may be relevant to other teams analyzing customer feedback. We argue that this multi-pronged approach to handling customer feedback presents a pattern that other organizations can use to mature their handling of customer feedback.
Learning Virtual Equilibrium Trajectories for Control of a Robot Arm

The cerebellar model articulation controller (CMAC) (Albus 1975) is applied for learning the inverse dynamics of a simulated two joint, planar arm. The actuators were antagonistic muscles, which acted as feedback controllers for each joint. We use this example to demonstrate some limitations of the control paradigm used in earlier applications of the CMAC (e.g., Miller et al. 1987, 1990): the CMAC learns dynamics of the arm and not those of the feedback system. We suggest an alternate approach, one in which the CMAC learns to manipulate the feedback controller's input, producing a virtual trajectory, rather the controller's output, which is torque. Several experiments are performed that suggest that the CMAC learns to compensate for the dynamics of the plant, as well as the controller.
GPS tethering for energy conservation1

Due to the low-speed GPS transmission and poor signal quality, localization is considered an expensive operation in battery-operated smartphones. This is even worse for apps that need a single location fix such as Foursquare and Flickr rather than continuous navigation because it cannot exploit the less-demanding “warm start” mode of GPS operation. This paper proposes GPS-Tether (GTR) which shares and reuses the known GPS coordinates among mobile devices in the proximity. Benefiting from unremitting Wifi discovery behaviors of smartphones, GTR does not need an additional protocol and does not disrupt operations of non-GTR clients. Experiments based on Samsung Galaxy smartphones and Monsoon Power Monitor show that GTR can extend smartphones battery usage as much as 19% compared to Assisted GPS (A-GPS). One important design goal is that it should require minimal changes for the implementation of GTR, which has been accomplished by incorporating the Wifi virtualization technique.
Automatic Discovery of Contextual Factors Describing Phonological Variation

In this paper we describe a method for automatically discovering subsets of contextual factors which, taken together, are useful for predicting the realizations, or pronunciations, of English words for continuous speech recognition. A decision tree is used for organizing contextual descriptions of phonological variation. This representation enables us to categorize different realizations according to the context in which they appear in the corpus. In addition, this organization permits us to consider simplifications such as pruning and branch clustering, leading to parsimonious descriptions that better predict allophones in these contexts. We created trees to examine the working assumption that preceding phoneme and following phoneme provide important contexts, as exemplified by the use of triphones in hidden Markov models; our results were in general accordance with the assumption. However, we found that other contexts also play a significant role in phoneme realizations.
Triangle cursor: interactions with objects above the tabletop

Extending the tabletop display to the third dimension using a stereoscopic projection offers the possibility to improve applications by using the volume above the table surface. The combination of multi-touch input and stereoscopic projection usually requires an indirect technique to interact with objects above the tabletop, as touches can only be detected on the surface. Triangle Cursor is a 3D interaction technique that allows specification of a 3D position and yaw rotation above the interactive tabletop. It was designed to avoid occlusions that disturb the stereoscopic perception. While Triangle Cursor uses an indirect approach, the position, the height above the surface and the yaw rotation can be controlled simultaneously, resulting in a 4 DOF manipulation technique. We have evaluated Triangle Cursor in an initial user study and compared it to a related existing technique in a formal user study. Our experiments show that users were able to perform all tasks significantly faster with our technique without loosing any precision. Most of the subjects considered the technique easy to use and satisfying.
Media Caching Support for Mobile Transit Clients

In this paper, we consider the design of caching infrastructure to enhance the client-perceived performance of mobile wireless clients retrieving multimedia objects from the Internet. We consider three primary issues: location of the cache, size of the cache, and management policy for the cache. We consider both infrastructure-oriented caching at the Access Point (AP), as well as peer-assisted caching at the mobile clients. Simulation is used as the methodology for evaluation and comparison of caching strategies. The simulation results show that AP caching is generally more effective than client-side caching, that adequate performance is achievable with a mix of rather modest AP and client-side caches, and that Least Frequently Used (LFU) is the most effective cache replacement policy. Additional simulation experiments show that our results are robust across different request generation rates and client turnover rates.
Certified In-lined Reference Monitoring on .NET

MOBILE is an extension of the . NET Common Intermediate Language that supports certified In-Lined Reference Monitoring. Mobile programs have the useful property that if they are well-typed with respect to a declared security policy, then they are guaranteed not to violate that security policy when executed. Thus, when an In-Lined Reference Monitor (IRM) is expressed in Mobile, it can be certified by a simple type-checker to eliminate the need to trust the producer of the IRM.Security policies in Mobile are declarative, can involve unbounded collections of objects allocated at runtime, and can regard infinite-length histories of security events exhibited by those objects. The prototype Mobile implementation enforces properties expressed by finite-state security automata - one automaton for each security-relevant object - and can type-check Mobile programs in the presence of exceptions, finalizers, concurrency, and non-termination. Executing Mobile programs requires no change to existing . NET virtual machine implementations, since Mobile programs consist of normal managed CIL code with extra typing annotations stored in . NET attributes.
Crowd detection in video sequences

We present a real-time system that detects moving crowd in a video sequence. Crowd detection differs from pedestrian detection in that we assume that no individual pedestrian can be properly segmented in the image. We propose a scheme that looks at the motion patterns of crowd in the spatio-temporal domain and give an efficient implementation that can detect crowd in real-time. In our experiments we detected crowd at distances of up to 70 m.
Fast Low-Rank Matrix Learning with Nonconvex Regularization

Low-rank modeling has a lot of important applications in machine learning, computer vision and social network analysis. While the matrix rank is often approximated by the convex nuclear norm, the use of nonconvex low-rank regularizers has demonstrated better recovery performance. However, the resultant optimization problem is much more challenging. A very recent state-of-the-art is based on the proximal gradient algorithm. However, it requires an expensive full SVD in each proximal step. In this paper, we show that for many commonly-used nonconvex low-rank regularizers, a cutoff can be derived to automatically threshold the singular values obtained from the proximal operator. This allows the use of power method to approximate the SVD efficiently. Besides, the proximal operator can be reduced to that of a much smaller matrix projected onto this leading subspace. Convergence, with a rate of O(1/T) where T is the number of iterations, can be guaranteed. Extensive experiments are performed on matrix completion and robust principal component analysis. The proposed method achieves significant speedup over the state-of-the-art. Moreover, the matrix solution obtained is more accurate and has a lower rank than that of the traditional nuclear norm regularizer.
Stochastic Teams with Nonclassical Information Revisited: When is an Affine Law Optimal?

In this paper we consider a parameterized family of two-stage stochastic control problems with nonclassical information patterns, which includes the famous 1968 counterexample of Witsenhausen. We show that the parameter region can be partitioned into two regions, in one of which the optimal solution is linear whereas in the other it is inherently nonlinear. In the latter, the best piecewise-constant solution does not always outperform the best linear solution, whereas a linear plus piecewise-constant policy leads to a uniformly better performance in that region. Extensive numerical computations complement the study.