Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-robot informative path planning for active sensing of environmental phenomena: a tale of two algorithms

A key problem of robotic environmental sensing and monitoring is that of active sensing: How can a team of robots plan the most informative observation paths to minimize the uncertainty in modeling and predicting an environmental phenomenon? This paper presents two principled approaches to efficient information-theoretic path planning based on entropy and mutual information criteria for in situ active sensing of an important broad class of widely-occurring environmental phenomena called anisotropic fields. Our proposed algorithms are novel in addressing a trade-off between active sensing performance and time efficiency. An important practical consequence is that our algorithms can exploit the spatial correlation structure of Gaussian process-based anisotropic fields to improve time efficiency while preserving near-optimal active sensing performance. We analyze the time complexity of our algorithms and prove analytically that they scale better than state-of-the-art algorithms with increasing planning horizon length. We provide theoretical guarantees on the active sensing performance of our algorithms for a class of exploration tasks called transect sampling, which, in particular, can be improved with longer planning time and/or lower spatial correlation along the transect. Empirical evaluation on real-world anisotropic field data shows that our algorithms can perform better or at least as well as the state-of-the-art algorithms while often incurring a few orders of magnitude less computational time, even when the field conditions are less favorable.
Taking DCOP to the real world: efficient complete solutions for distributed multi-event scheduling

Distributed Constraint Optimization (DCOP) is an elegant formalism relevant to many areas in multiagent systems, yet complete algorithms have not been pursued for real world applications due to perceived complexity. To capably capture a rich class of complex problem domains, we introduce the Distributed Multi-Event Scheduling (DiMES) framework and design congruent DCOP formulations with binary constraints which are proven to yield the optimal solution. To approach real-world efficiency requirements, we obtain immense speedups by improving communication structure and precomputing best case bounds. Heuristics for generating better communication structures and calculating bound in a distributed manner are provided and tested on systematically developed domains for meeting scheduling and sensor networks, exemplifying the viability of complete algorithms.
Local Random Subspace Method for Constructing Multiple Decision Stumps

We propose a technique of localized multiple decision stumps. The ensemble consists of multiple decision stumps constructed locally by pseudorandomly selecting subsets of components of the feature vector, that is, decision stumps constructed in randomly chosen subspaces. The idea of the local ensemble is that although no single function works well globally, in any local region a function should be capable of doing the classification. We performed a comparison with other well known combining methods using decision stump as based learner, on standard benchmark datasets and the proposed method gave better accuracy.
Implementation of Extreme Programming at CheckFree i-Solutions ”

The following work term report, entitled " Implementation of Extreme Programming at CheckFree i-Solutions " , has been created for CheckFree i-Solutions as required after completing my 1B term. This is my first work term report. The objective of this report is to investigate and scrutinize the execution of Extreme Programming specifically at CheckFree i-Solutions. This report is intended for an individual who has a basic grasp of how software is created, but not, necessarily, any knowledge of Extreme Programming. CheckFree i-Solutions is the software component of the CheckFree Corporation, and has the responsibility of providing software which enables a business to engage in financial transactions with other businesses or customers. The company is extremely motivated in ensuring that the utilization of online billing continues to escalate. My specific job at CheckFree i-Solutions was to work with the Business to Business team under the Director of Software Engineering, Mike Toohey. The team's main responsibility is the creation of a user friendly and efficient web application that allows a particular business to conduct transactions with a number of other businesses via the Internet.
A Secure Database System using Homomorphic Encryption Schemes

Cloud computing emerges as an attractive solution that can be delegated to store and process confidential data. However, several security risks are encountered with such a system as the securely encrypted data should be decrypted before processing them. Therefore, the decrypted data is susceptible to reading and alterations. As a result, processing encrypted data has been a research subject since the publication of the RSA encryption scheme in 1978. In this paper we present a relational database system based on homomorphic encryption schemes to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of the data. Our system executes SQL queries over encrypted data. We tested our system with a recently developed homomorphic scheme that enables the execution of arithmetic operations on ciphertexts. We show that the proposed system performs accurate SQL operations, yet its performance discourages a practical implementation of this system.
Drosophila S2 Cells Are Non-Permissive for Vaccinia Virus DNA Replication Following Entry via Low pH-Dependent Endocytosis and Early Transcription

Vaccinia virus (VACV), a member of the chordopox subfamily of the Poxviridae, abortively infects insect cells. We have investigated VACV infection of Drosophila S2 cells, which are useful for protein expression and genome-wide RNAi screening. Biochemical and electron microscopic analyses indicated that VACV entry into Drosophila S2 cells depended on the VACV multiprotein entry-fusion complex but appeared to occur exclusively by a low pH-dependent endocytic mechanism, in contrast to both neutral and low pH entry pathways used in mammalian cells. Deep RNA sequencing revealed that the entire VACV early transcriptome, comprising 118 open reading frames, was robustly expressed but neither intermediate nor late mRNAs were made. Nor was viral late protein synthesis or inhibition of host protein synthesis detected by pulse-labeling with radioactive amino acids. Some reduction in viral early proteins was noted by Western blotting. Nevertheless, synthesis of the multitude of early proteins needed for intermediate gene expression was demonstrated by transfection of a plasmid containing a reporter gene regulated by an intermediate promoter. In addition, expression of a reporter gene with a late promoter was achieved by cotransfection of intermediate genes encoding the late transcription factors. The requirement for transfection of DNA templates for intermediate and late gene expression indicated a defect in viral genome replication in VACV-infected S2 cells, which was confirmed by direct analysis. Furthermore, VACV-infected S2 cells did not support the replication of a transfected plasmid, which occurs in mammalian cells and is dependent on all known viral replication proteins, indicating a primary restriction of DNA synthesis.
Pseudo-Multiple-Exposure-based Tone Fusion and Visual-Salience-based Tone Mapping for High Dynamic Range Images: A Review

This paper presents an introduction to novel saliency-aware weighting and edge-aware weighting for HDR images. These techniques are incorporated into an existing guided image filter to form a perceptually guided image filter. The saliencyaware weighting and the new filter are applied to design a new local tone-mapping algorithm for HDR images such that both extreme light and shadow regions can be reproduced on conventional low dynamic range displays. The VisualSalience-Based Tone Mapping (VSBTM) filter preserves sharp edges in the base layer better than the existing guided filter. Halo artifacts are thus significantly reduced in the tonemapped image. Moreover, the visual quality of the tonemapped image, especially attention-salient regions, is improved by the saliency-aware weighting. Pseudo-MultipleExposure-Based Tone Fusion (PMEBTF) gives a regionbased enhancement on the pseudo-exposures to boost details in the most distinct region. Thereby the region-enhanced pseudo-exposures are fused into an HDR image. The fused image thus enhances details in the bright region of the dark image and the dark region of the bright image.
Interactive stereoscopy optimization for head-mounted displays

In current virtual environment systems, the stereoscopic images presented in a head-mounted display are far from optimal. The aim is to achieve orthostereoscopy, which roughly means images should `behave as in real life. ' A theoretical model of stereoscopic optics was used to implement a test and optimization system. Tests were devised to analyze the importance of many stereoscopy related parameters. The system's capability to independently set these parameters allows an optimization of the stereoscopic images, given the limitations of the display device used.
Behavioral Intervention Strategies for Sleep-Activity Disruption

The purpose of this article is to discuss one of the key behavioral scientific problems facing the Alzheimer's disease (AD) research community: sleep-activity rhythm disruption. Research opportunities in this area have the potential for a significant positive impact on the management of AD in the home and in various institutional environments. Barriers that impede timely implementation of programs of research in this area, suggestions for overcoming these barriers, and resources needed to facilitate the rapid advance of research are also discussed.
The Metabolome in Finnish Carriers of the MYBPC3-Q1061X Mutation for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Aims Mutations in the cardiac myosin-binding protein C gene (MYBPC3) are the most common genetic cause of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) worldwide. The molecular mechanisms leading to HCM are poorly understood. We investigated the metabolic profiles of mutation carriers with the HCM-causing MYBPC3-Q1061X mutation with and without left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and non-affected relatives, and the association of the metabolome to the echocardiographic parameters. Methods and Results 34 hypertrophic subjects carrying the MYBPC3-Q1061X mutation, 19 non-hypertrophic mutation carriers and 20 relatives with neither mutation nor hypertrophy were examined using comprehensive echocardiography. Plasma was analyzed for molecular lipids and polar metabolites using two metabolomics platforms. Concentrations of branched chain amino acids, triglycerides and ether phospholipids were increased in mutation carriers with hypertrophy as compared to controls and non-hypertrophic mutation carriers, and correlated with echocardiographic LVH and signs of diastolic and systolic dysfunction in subjects with the MYBPC3-Q1061X mutation. Conclusions Our study implicates the potential role of branched chain amino acids, triglycerides and ether phospholipids in HCM, as well as suggests an association of these metabolites with remodeling and dysfunction of the left ventricle.
Private information for foreign investment in emerging economies

In previous studies it has been found that new foreign investment is significantly related to the stock of existing investment in the country/region. This paper's contribution is the finding that a Japanese firm's new investment in an emerging economy is positively correlated with its previous investment in that economy and also with the current/planned investments by competitors. These two channels are primarily substitutes; that is, investment by competitors becomes less salient when the firm has experience in the market. The correlated behaviour is not explained by industrial agglomerations but appears to reflect the value of private information to investment in emerging economies.
Paired Box 5 Methylation Detection by Droplet Digital PCR for Ultra-Sensitive Deep Surgical Margins Analysis of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Molecular deep surgical margin analysis has been shown to predict locoregional recurrences of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). To improve the accuracy and versatility of the analysis, we used a highly tumor-specific methylation marker and highly sensitive detection technology to test DNA from surgical margins. Histologically cancer-negative deep surgical margin samples were prospectively collected from 82 eligible HNSCC surgeries by an imprinting procedure (n = 75) and primary tissue collection (n = 70). Bisulfite-treated DNA from each sample was analyzed by both conventional quantitative methylation-specific PCR (QMSP) and QMSP by droplet digital PCR (ddQMSP) targeting Paired box 5 (PAX5) gene promoter methylation. The association between the presence of PAX5 methylation and locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRFS) was evaluated. PAX5 methylation was found in 68.0% (51 of 75) of tumors in the imprint samples and 71.4% (50 of 70) in the primary tissue samples. Among cases that did not have postoperative radiation (n = 31 in imprint samples, n = 29 in tissue samples), both conventional QMSP and ddQMSP revealed that PAX5 methylation–positive margins was significantly associated with poor LRFS by univariate analysis. In particular, ddQMSP increased detection of the PAX5 marker from 29% to 71% in the nonradiated imprint cases. Also, PAX5 methylated imprint margins were an excellent predictor of poor LRFS [HR, 3.89; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.19–17.52; P = 0.023] by multivariate analysis. PAX5 methylation appears to be an excellent tumor-specific marker for molecular deep surgical margin analysis of HNSCC. Moreover, the ddQMSP assay displays increased sensitivity for methylation marker detection. Cancer Prev Res; 8(11); 1017–26. ©2015 AACR.
CTCF-mediated transcriptional regulation through cell type-specific chromosome organization in the β-globin locus

The principles underlying the architectural landscape of chromatin beyond the nucleosome level in living cells remains largely unknown despite its potential to play a role in mammalian gene regulation. We investigated the three-dimensional folding of a 1 Mbp region of human chromosome 11 containing the β-globin genes by integrating looping interactions of the CCCTC-binding insulator protein CTCF determined comprehensively by chromosome conformation capture (3C) into a polymer model of chromatin. We find that CTCF-mediated cell type-specific interactions in erythroid cells are organized to favor contacts known to occur in vivo between the β-globin locus control region (LCR) and genes. In these cells, the modeled β-globin domain folds into a globule with the LCR and the active globin genes on the periphery. In contrast, in non-erythroid cells, the globule is less compact with few but dominant CTCF interactions driving the genes away from the LCR. This leads to a decrease in contact frequencies that can exceed 1000-fold depending on the stiffness of the chromatin and the exact position of the genes. Our findings show that an ensemble of CTCF contacts functionally affects spatial distances between control elements and target genes contributing to chromosomal organization required for transcription.
Characteristics of the Population of Internet Panel Members

The proportion of the U.S. population with Internet access has risen dramatically from one in five households (18%) in 1997 to nearly four out of five households (78.5%) in 2013. Consequently, the majority of market research and public opinion surveys are now conducted by Internet. Non-probability panels of volunteer respondents who agree to receive invitations to conduct surveys account for the largest share of online research. Despite the major role of non-probability online panels in surveys, we know little about the size and characteristics of their panelists. This paper investigates the potential coverage of Internet panels among American adults. Since online panels frequently partner with other panel organizations in order to generate samples that are larger or more diverse than their own panel, the population who participate in any online panels is more critical to evaluating potential coverage error and bias in this type of survey than the population of individual panels. The size and characteristics of the population of online panelists is estimated from a national dual frame random digit dialing survey conducted in spring 2015. We believe this is the first published estimate of the size of the total population engaged in online panels based upon a national probability survey. The total sample size for the survey was approximately 500, which is adequate to estimate that size of the population. We have also presented the characteristics of the online panelists in the sample since this is the first survey of that population. However, due to the small size of the subsample of online panelists, these findings should be treated as preliminary.
Improved Hyper-Heuristic Scheduling with Load-Balancing and RASA for Cloud Computing Systems

Nowadays cloud computing has turned into a key innovation and has become a great solution for indulging a flexible utility oriented , online allocation and storage of computing resources and client’s information in lower expense, oninterest and dynamically scalable framework on pay per use premise. This technology is a new pattern emerging in IT environment with immense necessities of framework and resources. Job Scheduling Problem is an essential issue. For efficient usage and managing resources, administrations, scheduling plays a critical role. This paper apportion the performance enhancement of HyperHeuristic Scheduling Approach to schedule cloudlets and resources, by taking account of both , computation time and transmission cost with two detection operators. Load Balancing and RASA concept is applied for efficient Load Scheduling, resource utilization and thereby enhancing the overall performance of cloud computing environment. The numerical investigations of HHSA were performed on CloudSim. Experimental results generated via simulation shows that enhanced heuristic scheduling approach is much better than individual heuristic approach in terms of minimizing makespan time.
Incorporating seascape ecology into the design and assessment of marine protected areas

Networks of no-take marine reserves and partially-protected areas (with limited fishing) are being increasingly promoted as a means of conserving biodiversity. We examined changes in fish assemblages across a network of marine reserves and two different types of partially-protected areas within a marine park over the first 5 years of its establishment. We used Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV) to quantify fish communities on rocky reefs at 20–40 m depth between 2008–2011. Each year, we sampled 12 sites in 6 no-take marine reserves and 12 sites in two types of partially-protected areas with contrasting levels of protection (n = 4 BRUV stations per site). Fish abundances were 38% greater across the network of marine reserves compared to the partially-protected areas, although not all individual reserves performed equally. Compliance actions were positively associated with marine reserve responses, while reserve size had no apparent relationship with reserve performance after 5 years. The richness and abundance of fishes did not consistently differ between the two types of partially-protected areas. There was, therefore, no evidence that the more regulated partially-protected areas had additional conservation benefits for reef fish assemblages. Overall, our results demonstrate conservation benefits to fish assemblages from a newly established network of temperate marine reserves. They also show that ecological monitoring can contribute to adaptive management of newly established marine reserve networks, but the extent of this contribution is limited by the rate of change in marine communities in response to protection. Citation: Kelaher BP, Coleman MA, Broad A, Rees MJ, Jordan A, et al. (2014) Changes in Fish Assemblages following the Establishment of a Network of No-Take Marine Reserves and Partially-Protected Areas. PLoS ONE 9(1): e85825. doi:10.1371/journal.pone. 0085825 Editor: Arga Chandrashekar Anil, CSIRNational institute of Oceanography, India Received April 22, 2013; Accepted December 2, 2013; Published January 15, 2014 Copyright: ! 2014 Kelaher et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The study was funded by the NSW Government. Independent university-based scientists and NSW Fisheries scientists were responsible for the data collection and analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: brendan.kelaher@scu.edu. au
Grammatical evolution with restarts for fast fractal generation

In a previous work, the authors proposed a Grammatical Evolution algorithm to automatically generate Lindenmayer Systems which represent fractal curves with a pre-determined fractal dimension. This paper gives strong statistical evidence that the probability distributions of the execution time of that algorithm exhibits a heavy tail with an hyperbolic probability decay for long executions, which explains the erratic performance of different executions of the algorithm. Three different restart strategies have been incorporated in the algorithm to mitigate the problems associated to heavy tail distributions: the first assumes full knowledge of the execution time probability distribution, the second and third assume no knowledge. These strategies exploit the fact that the probability of finding a solution in short executions is non-negligible and yield a severe reduction, both in the expected execution time (up to one order of magnitude) and in its variance, which is reduced from an infinite to a finite value.
A visualization system for web retrieved credit information

Information retrieved with traditional method results in linear lists which lack of effective filtration, organization, and aggregation. How to organize and visualize the retrieved information result set effectively and how to provide users with the effective interaction becomes increasingly important. Based on the Information Visualization Model, this paper studies the key technologies. The data clustering methods and suitable display technologies are analyzed. Then, this paper proposes an information visualization model for credit domain, and describes a visualization system for web retrieved credit information. The system can crawl credit related web pages, and after analyzing the characteristics of credit information, SOM-based clustering method is applied to well organize the web pages, and visualization technology is used to present the documents information globally and locally. In this way, user can understand credit information better. At last, examples of visual display for credit information are shown in this paper.