Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An analysis of query difficulty for information retrieval in the medical domain

We present a post-hoc analysis of a benchmarking activity for information retrieval (IR) in the medical domain to determine if performance for queries with different levels of complexity can be associated with different IR methods or techniques. Our analysis is based on data and runs for Task 3 of the CLEF 2013 eHealth lab, which provided patient queries and a large medical document collection for patient centred medical information retrieval technique development. We categorise the queries based on their complexity, which is defined as the number of medical concepts they contain. We then show how query complexity affects performance of runs submitted to the lab, and provide suggestions for improving retrieval quality for this complex retrieval task and similar IR evaluation tasks.
Effects of numerical dispersion on the accuracy of FDTD modeling of propagating and evanescent waves in negative index media

Discrete space-time methods, primarily FDTD, have played a major role in illuminating the underlying physics of unconventional phenomena (negative refraction, growing evanescent waves and super-lensing) in negative index media. Yet, a survey of the relevant FDTD literature indicates a number of contradictory results, which stem from inherent limitations of the method. This paper is focused on the impact of numerical dispersion on the FDTD study of the “perfect lens”. It is shown that the calculated resolution of such a lens is primarily related to the FDTD cell size rather than the medium itself, due to the sensitivity of the numerical attenuation constant of evanescent waves. While the introduction of material losses improves the convergence of such simulations, it deteriorates their accuracy. Specific conditions are stated for achieving certain accuracy levels with standard FDTD and high-order finite differences.
Relationship Marketing Practices for Retention of Corporate Customers in Hospitality Contract Catering

Customer retention is specific to the context of each firm, and this is rarely recognized in models for customer retention. This paper studies how customer retention in hospitality business-to-business contract catering depends on the relationship substance built up due to interaction between the parties. Relationship substance may be of a more or less embedded kind, which is explored here in the form of relationship satisfaction and organizational change in the buying firm. A conceptual model is developed and tested on a sample of business relationships in business-to-business contract catering. The results support the fundamental effect that relationship satisfaction improves customer retention. The research also finds that the purchase development of contract catering customers increases retention, in particular if the customer who purchases more is also satisfied. However, when the contract caterer has achieved change in the customer firm, customer is reduced. Evidently, these customers consider that they are done with the seller and move to other sellers, or reduce their purchases altogether.
Cardiac tissue engineering: a reflection after a decade of hurry

The heart is a perfect machine whose mass is mainly composed of cardiomyocytes, but also fibroblasts, endothelial, smooth muscle, nervous, and immune cells are represented. One thousand million cardiomyocytes are estimated to be lost after myocardial infarction, their loss being responsible for the impairment in heart contractile function (Laflamme and Murry, 2005). The potential success of cardiac cell therapy relies almost completely on the ability of the implanted cells to differentiate toward mature cardiomyocytes. These cells must be able to reinforce the pumping activity of the injured heart in the absence of life-threatening arrhythmias due to electrophysiological incompatibility. These conditions can only be met if the newly formed cardiomyocytes can integrate electromechanically with the host tissue while getting appropriate vascularization from host- or donor-derived vessels. Together with the regeneration of the contractile component of the heart, attention must be paid to the search for novel methods to deliver appropriate vascularization to the ischemic areas and to the preservation of structures controlling the efficiency of blood pumping to the organism: the heart valves. Although fetal, neonatal, and adult cardiomyocytes have been tested for their actual ability to engraft diseased heart and improve its function (Dowell et al., 2003), most of the hopes in cardiac tissue regeneration relies on the possibility to use pluripotent and adult stem cells in targeted tissue engineering applications. In this respect, the set-up of protocols to obtain reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells (Takahashi and Yamanaka, 2006), a discovery awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012, represents the demonstration that such advances in knowledge and technology will eventually lead to novel approaches to the treatment of incurable diseases. Unfortunately, notwithstanding a decade of intense investments, the results in terms of knowledge transferred to the clinical practice are very limited. The present issue addresses the topic of cardiac tissue regeneration from the viewpoint of stem cell biologists and tissue engineers, seeking for the most appropriate source of cells to replace dead myocardium, improve the organ structure and function, as well as exploring the most suitable delivery system for such cells. In the last couple of years a number of papers have been published on the ability of biomaterials and bio-constructs to drive the differentiation of stem cells for cardiac tissue engineering applications. Most of these studies used mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from bone marrow, adipose tissue or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). On the other hand, the contribution of cells derived from the heart tissues is here considered of outmost importance since these cells are believed to retain the potential to become highly differentiated cardiomyocytes.
Building diverse computer systems

Diversity is an important source of robustness in biological systems. Computers, by contrast, are notable for their lack of diversity. Although homogeneous systems have many advantages, the beneficial effects of diversity in computing systems have been overlooked, specifically in the area of computer security. Several methods of achieving software diversity are discussed based on randomizations that respect the specified behavior of the program. Such randomization could potentially increase the robustness of software systems with minimal impact on convenience, usability, and efficiency. Randomization of the amount of memory allocated on a stack frame is shown to disrupt a simple buffer overflow attack.
Inference of a Probabilistic Boolean Network from a Single Observed Temporal Sequence

The inference of gene regulatory networks is a key issue for genomic signal processing. This paper addresses the inference of probabilistic Boolean networks (PBNs) from observed temporal sequences of network states. Since a PBN is composed of a finite number of Boolean networks, a basic observation is that the characteristics of a single Boolean network without perturbation may be determined by its pairwise transitions. Because the network function is fixed and there are no perturbations, a given state will always be followed by a unique state at the succeeding time point. Thus, a transition counting matrix compiled over a data sequence will be sparse and contain only one entry per line. If the network also has perturbations, with small perturbation probability, then the transition counting matrix would have some insignificant nonzero entries replacing some (or all) of the zeros. If a data sequence is sufficiently long to adequately populate the matrix, then determination of the functions and inputs underlying the model is straightforward. The difficulty comes when the transition counting matrix consists of data derived from more than one Boolean network. We address the PBN inference procedure in several steps: (1) separate the data sequence into "pure" subsequences corresponding to constituent Boolean networks; (2) given a subsequence, infer a Boolean network; and (3) infer the probabilities of perturbation, the probability of there being a switch between constituent Boolean networks, and the selection probabilities governing which network is to be selected given a switch. Capturing the full dynamic behavior of probabilistic Boolean networks, be they binary or multivalued, will require the use of temporal data, and a great deal of it. This should not be surprising given the complexity of the model and the number of parameters, both transitional and static, that must be estimated. In addition to providing an inference algorithm, this paper demonstrates that the data requirement is much smaller if one does not wish to infer the switching, perturbation, and selection probabilities, and that constituent-network connectivity can be discovered with decent accuracy for relatively small time-course sequences.
Sorting of mannose 6-phosphate receptors and lysosomal membrane proteins in endocytic vesicles

The intracellular distributions of the cation-independent mannose 6- phosphate receptor (MPR) and a 120-kD lysosomal membrane glycoprotein (lgp120) were studied in rat hepatoma cells. Using quantitative immunogold cytochemistry we found 10% of the cell's MPR located at the cell surface. In contrast, lgp120 was not detectable at the plasma membrane. Intracellularly, MPR mainly occurred in the trans-Golgi reticulum (TGR) and endosomes. lgp120, on the other hand, was confined to endosomes and lysosomes. MPR was present in both endosomal tubules and vacuoles, whereas lgp120 was confined to the endosomal vacuoles. In cells incubated for 5-60 min with the endocytic tracer cationized ferritin, four categories of endocytic vacuoles could be discerned, i.e., vacuoles designated MPR+/lgp120-, MPR+/lgp120+, MPR-/lgp120+, and vacuoles nonimmunolabeled for MPR and lgp120. Tracer first reached MPR+/lgp120-, then MPR+/lgp120+, and finally MPR-/lgp120+ vacuoles, which are assumed to represent lysosomes. To study the kinetics of appearance of endocytic tracers in MPR-and/or lgp120-containing pools in greater detail, cells were allowed to endocytose horse-radish peroxidase (HRP) for 5-90 min. The reduction in detectability of MPR and lgp120 antigenicity on Western blots, due to treatment of cell homogenates with 3'3-diaminobenzidine, was followed in time. We found that HRP reached the entire accessible pool of MPR almost immediately after internalization of the tracer, while prolonged periods of time were required for HRP to maximally access lgp120. The combined data suggest that MPR+/lgp120+ vacuoles are endocytic vacuoles, intermediate between MPR+/lgp120-endosomes and MPR-/lgp120+ lysosomes, and represent the site where MPR is sorted from lgp120 destined for lysosomes. We propose that MPR is sorted from lgp120 by selective lateral distribution of the receptor into the tubules of this compartment, resulting in the retention of lgp120 in the vacuoles and the net transport of lgp120 to lysosomes.
A sub-micron capacitive gap process for multiple-metal-electrode lateral micromechanical resonators

A fabrication process has been demonstrated that combines polysilicon surface micromachining, metal electroplating, and a sidewall sacrificial-spacer technique, to achieve high-aspect-ratio, submicron, lateral capacitive gaps between a micromechanical structure and its metal electrodes, without the need for advanced lithographic and etching technology. Among the devices demonstrated using this process are lateral free-free beam micromechanical resonators (Q=10,470 at 10.47 MHz), contour mode disk resonators (Q=9,400 at 156 MHz), and temperature-compensated micromechanical resonators (Q=10,317 at 13.5 MHz, with a -200 ppm frequency variation over a full 80/spl deg/C range).
Detailed Mid- and Far-Ultraviolet Model Spectra for Accretion Disks in Cataclysmic Binaries

We present a large grid of computed far- and mid-ultraviolet spectra (850-2000 Å) of the integrated light from steady-state accretion disks in luminous cataclysmic variables. The spectra are tabulated at 0.25 Å intervals with an adopted FWHM resolution of 1.0 Å, so they are suitable for use with observed spectra from a variety of modern space-borne observatories. Twenty-six different combinations of white dwarf mass Mwd and mass accretion rate are considered, and spectra are presented for six different disk inclinations i. The disk models are computed self-consistently in the plane-parallel approximation, assuming LTE and vertical hydrostatic equilibrium, by solving simultaneously the radiative transfer, hydrostatic equilibrium, and energy balance equations. Irradiation from external sources is neglected. Local spectra of disk annuli are computed taking into account line transitions from elements 1-28 (H through Ni). Limb darkening as well as Doppler broadening and blending of lines are taken into account in computing the integrated disk spectra. The radiative properties of the models are discussed, including the dependence of ultraviolet fluxes and colors on Mwd, , and i. The appearance of the disk spectra is illustrated, with regard to changes in the same three parameters. Finally, possible future improvements to the present models and spectra are discussed.
Eye-Gaze and Arm-Movement Interaction

Eye-gaze in response to arm movment stimuli is modeled. It is demonstrated that the eyegaze response depends to a large degree on both instantaneous and past arm components movement as well as on past “long memory” of eye-gaze on a scale of about 0.1 second. The suggested class of models provide close fits. A long memory property in eye-gaze is validated from a certain spectral condition.
The Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) for Vehicle Motion State Estimation

This paper proposes a multi-sensory Joint Adaptive Kalman Filter (JAKF) through extending innovation-based adaptive estimation (IAE) to estimate the motion state of the moving vehicles ahead. JAKF views Lidar and Radar data as the source of the local filters, which aims to adaptively adjust the measurement noise variance-covariance (V-C) matrix ‘R’ and the system noise V-C matrix ‘Q’. Then, the global filter uses R to calculate the information allocation factor ‘β’ for data fusion. Finally, the global filter completes optimal data fusion and feeds back to the local filters to improve the measurement accuracy of the local filters. Extensive simulation and experimental results show that the JAKF has better adaptive ability and fault tolerance. JAKF enables one to bridge the gap of the accuracy difference of various sensors to improve the integral filtering effectivity. If any sensor breaks down, the filtered results of JAKF still can maintain a stable convergence rate. Moreover, the JAKF outperforms the conventional Kalman filter (CKF) and the innovation-based adaptive Kalman filter (IAKF) with respect to the accuracy of displacement, velocity, and acceleration, respectively.
Prosody and voice quality in the expression of emotions

Terms for voice quality or phonation types for use in normal speech often come from studies of pathological speech (laryngeal settings) and it is hard to describe voice quality, especially the variations of a normal voice. In normal speech we use different voice qualities both for linguistic distinctions in some languages, prosodically as a boundary signal, socially depending on social and regional variants and paralinguistically in attitudes and emotions. This paper shows some reference types of voice qualities, recorded by a trained phonetician, and their acoustic correlates. In a pilot study a male actor recorded four attitudinally neutral sentences using five different emotions which are being compared to his neutral voice. It is evident that voice quality, as well as rhythm and intonation, plays an important role in giving the impression of different emotions.
A Feedback-based Multipath Approach for Secure Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a novel approach of secure data collection for wireless sensor networks. We explore secret sharing and multipath routing to achieve secure data collection in a wireless sensor network with compromised nodes. We present the notion of secure path, which makes full use of the routing functionality of wireless sensor networks, to support secure data collection. Moreover, we propose to perform intrusion detection for wireless sensor network based on the results of data collection.We evaluate the approach with a simulation experiment and analyze the simulation results in detail. We argue that the approach is simple but efficient to support secure data collection in wireless sensor network.
Facet: a multi-segment wrist worn system

We present Facet, a multi-display wrist worn system consisting of multiple independent touch-sensitive segments joined into a bracelet. Facet automatically determines the pose of the system as a whole and of each segment individually. It further supports multi-segment touch, yielding a rich set of touch input techniques. Our work builds on these two primitives to allow the user to control how applications use segments alone and in coordination. Applications can expand to use more segments, collapses to encompass fewer, and be swapped with other segments. We also explore how the concepts from Facet could apply to other devices in this design space.
Applying Automated Model Extraction for Simulation and Verification of Real-Life SDL Specification With Spin

Formally defined Specification and Description Language (SDL) is used for the design and specification of complex safety-critical systems. Each change in the specification of the product should be immediately checked formally against the requirements’ specification. This paper presents semi-automated system abstraction, automated model extraction, simulation, and formal verification of real-life complex SDL specification. Sound algorithms implemented in our sdl2pml automated model extraction tool preserve all properties of the SDL system. Sdl2pml includes our model of discrete time, abstraction, and support for all relevant SDL functionality and constructs such as dynamic process creation, rational data types, and communication with more than one process instance. To the best of our knowledge, most of them are not supported by any other known approach. We use our SpinRCP tool for simulation and formal verification of the extracted model with the Spin model checker. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach on ISDN User adaptation protocol from SI3000 Softswitch. The extracted Promela model is the largest one ever processed by Spin. We have shown that Spin simulation and model checking can be applied successfully to such huge models.
Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) based Face Recognition

This paper presents study of face recognition system which is based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) [1], [2]. These methods are used for feature extraction and dimension reduction. Nearest Neighbour Classifier (NNC) is used for classification. For matching Mahalanobis Cosine (Mahacos) and Cosine (Cos) distance is used.
Classification of HTTP Attacks: A Study on the ECML/PKDD 2007 Discovery Challenge

As the world becomes more reliant on Web applications for commercial, financial, and medical transactions, cyber attacks on the World Wide Web are increasing in frequency and severity. Web applications provide an attractive alternative to traditional desktop applications due to their accessibility and ease of deployment. However, the accessibility of Web applications also makes them extremely vulnerable to attack. This inherent vulnerability is intensified by the distributed nature of Web applications and the complexity of configuring application servers. These factors have led to a proliferation of Web-based attacks, in which attackers surreptitiously inject code into HTTP requests, allowing them to execute arbitrary commands on remote systems and perform malicious activities such as reading, altering, or destroying sensitive data. One approach for dealing with HTTP-based attacks is to identify malicious code in incoming HTTP requests and eliminate bad requests before they are processed. Using machine learning techniques, we can build a classifier to automatically label requests as “Valid” or “Attack. ” For this study, we develop a simple, but effective HTTP attack classifier, based on the vector space model used commonly for Information Retrieval. Our classifier not only separates attacks from valid requests, but can also identify specific attack types (e.g., “SQL Injection” or “Path Traversal”). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through experiments on the ECML/PKDD 2007 Discovery Challenge data set. Specifically, we show that our approach achieves higher precision and recall than previous methods. In addition, our approach has a number of desirable characteristics, including robustness to missing contextual information, interpretability of models, and scalability.
Incremental Task and Motion Planning: A Constraint-Based Approach

—We present a new algorithm for task and motion planning (TMP) and discuss the requirements and abstractions necessary to obtain robust solutions for TMP in general. Our Iteratively Deepened Task and Motion Planning (IDTMP) method is probabilistically-complete and offers improved per- formance and generality compared to a similar, state-of-the-art, probabilistically-complete planner. The key idea of IDTMP is to leverage incremental constraint solving to efﬁciently add and remove constraints on motion feasibility at the task level. We validate IDTMP on a physical manipulator and evaluate scalability on scenarios with many objects and long plans, showing order-of-magnitude gains compared to the benchmark planner and a four-times self-comparison speedup from our extensions. Finally, in addition to describing a new method for TMP and its implementation on a physical robot, we also put forward requirements and abstractions for the development of similar planners in the future.
A balanced-mesh clock routing technique using circuit partitioning

A clock routing technique using a balanced-mesh routing is proposed, which incorporates the advantages of both the well-known balanced-tree and fixed-mesh routing method. The circuit is partitioned into subblocks called Mesh-Routing Regions (MRs) in which clock skew is suppressed below a constant by mesh routing. Then the net from the clock source to each MR is routed as a balanced-tree. In using the technique to design an MPEG2-encoder LSI, a skew of 210 ps was achieved.
Effective Static and Adaptive Carrier Sensing for Dense Wireless CSMA Networks

The increasingly dense deployments of wireless CSMA networks arising from applications of Internet-of-things call for an improvement to mitigate the interference among simultaneous transmitting wireless devices. For cost efficiency and backward compatibility with legacy transceiver hardware, a simple approach to address interference is by appropriately configuring the carrier sensing thresholds in wireless CSMA protocols, particularly in dense wireless networks. Most prior studies of the configuration of carrier sensing thresholds are based on a simplified conflict graph model, whereas this paper considers a realistic signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio model. We provide a comprehensive study for two effective wireless CSMA protocols: Cumulative-interference-Power Carrier Sensing and Incremental-interference-Power Carrier Sensing, in two aspects: (1) static approach that sets a universal carrier sensing threshold to ensure interference-safe transmissions regardless of network topology, and (2) adaptive approach that adjusts the carrier sensing thresholds dynamically based on the feedback of nearby transmissions. We also provide simulation studies to evaluate the starvation ratio, fairness, and goodput of our approaches.