Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Controls of Personified Locomotive Agents

An autonomous control methodology is proposed for locomotive agents to have lifelike personified behaviors. The control introduces a pattern generator that is constructed by connecting oscillators composed of mutually inhibited neurons. The rhythmic signal of the pattern generator drives a proportional derivative controller that determines the legs joint angles of a locomotive agent, and the signal of the controller is fed back to the oscillator by which the physical parameters of the controller are utilized for stably and smoothly controlling the signals. The motions of bodily components can be autonomously synchronized by mutually feeding their oscillator’s state signals. The controller’s signals are intentionally distorted and fluctuated so as to accurately simulate the behaviors of a real human. Keyword: Pattern generator, neural oscillator, locomotive agent, adaptive stochastic motion controls
A Novel Framework for Tweet segmentation and its Application to Named Entity Recognition

Twitter has become one of the most important communication channels with its ability providing the most up-to-date and newsworthy information. Considering wide use of twitter as the source of information, reaching an interesting tweet for user among a bunch of tweets is challenging. A huge amount of tweets sent per day by hundred millions of users, information overload is inevitable. For extracting information in large volume of tweets, Named Entity Recognition (NER), methods on formal texts. However, many applications in Information Retrieval (IR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) suffer severely from the noisy and short nature of tweets. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for tweet segmentation in a batch mode, called HybridSeg by splitting tweets into meaningful segments, the semantic or context information is well preserved and easily extracted by the downstream applications. HybridSeg finds the optimal segmentation of a tweet by maximizing the sum of the stickiness scores of its candidate segments. The stickiness score considers the probability of a segment being a phrase in English (i.e., global context) and the probability of a segment being a phrase within the batch of tweets (i.e., local context). For the latter, we propose and evaluate two models to derive local context by considering the linguistic features and term-dependency in a batch of tweets, respectively. HybridSeg is also designed to iteratively learn from confident segments as pseudo feedback. As an application, we show that high accuracy is achieved in named entity recognition by applying segment-based part-of-speech (POS) tagging.
Patient’s preferences for health scenarios associated with hepatitis C and its treatment

Background and aim Antiviral therapy with peg-interferon and ribavirin induces sustained virus eradication in 40%–80% of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). We investigated patient views on their involvement in therapeutic decision making and on the desirability of disease and treatment-related outcomes. Methods The control preferences and visual analog scales were administered in a pencil and paper format to a series of 45 patients in order to assess their decisional role, preferences for scenarios of HCV disease and antiviral treatment, and estimates of success required to recommend treatment. Results The preferred decisional role of patients was passive in 26 (58%), collaborative in 12 (27%) and active in 7 (15%). Median preference scores ranged from 0.30 to 0.90 for scenarios of disease, from 0.05 to 0.80 for side effects and from 25% to 100% for estimates of benefit to recommend treatment. Conclusions Our patients prefer to defer to the doctor the final decision in starting therapy in a context of shared decision making. Reported preferences for HCV scenarios are in the range discussed in the literature. The wide variability in the values attributed to side effects by patients with chronic hepatitis C as well as in expected probabilities of successful treatment suggests a need for decision analysis tailored to the individual patient.
A Longitudinal Study of the Tax Capacity and Tax Effort of the Malaysian State Government

In Malaysia, the recently launched New Economic Model (NEM) has emphasized the need to review the state-federal fiscal arrangement.It is hoped that through this review, the state government will have a more efficient expenditure programme.However, the model failed to recognize the importance of enhancing the revenue collection system of the state government.Studies have shown that state governments face great difficulties in financing their expenditure needs.And this can be due to the differences in term of their fiscal capacity and fiscal effort.To what extent are the state governments differ in term of these two measures? And how do these measures evolved across time? The main objective of this paper is to measure the effort and capacity of the state governments in Peninsular Malaysia for their land tax for the period of 2000-2008 using the Representative Revenue System (RRS). Our findings show that state governments differ significantly in term of their capacity and their effort.The findings of this study also show that there is little movement in the ranking of the state governments with respect to the level of their tax effort.This implies that state governments especially the ones found to be exerting below average tax effort have shown little initiative to change their effort.This in turn may be due to the way the whole tax system is managed
TmTriangulate: A Tool for Phrase Table Triangulation

Abstract Over the past years, pivoting methods, i.e. machine translation via a third language, gained respectable attention. Various experiments with different approaches and datasets have been carried out but the lack of open-source tools makes it difficult to replicate the results of these experiments. This paper presents a new tool for pivoting for phrase-based statistical machine translation by so called phrase-table triangulation. Besides the tool description, this paper discusses the strong and weak points of various triangulation techniques implemented in the tool.
Withaferin A Effectively Targets Soluble Vimentin in the Glaucoma Filtration Surgical Model of Fibrosis

Withaferin A (WFA) is a natural product that binds to soluble forms of the type III intermediate filament (IF) vimentin. Currently, it is unknown under what pathophysiological contexts vimentin is druggable, as cytoskeltal vimentin-IFs are abundantly expressed. To investigate druggability of vimentin, we exploited rabbit Tenon's capsule fibroblast (RbTCF) cell cultures and the rabbit glaucoma filtration surgical (GFS) model of fibrosis. WFA potently caused G0/G1 cell cycle inhibition (IC50 25 nM) in RbTCFs, downregulating ubiquitin E3 ligase skp2 and inducing p27Kip1 expression. Transforming growth factor (TGF)-ß-induced myofibroblast transformation caused development of cell spheroids with numerous elongated invadopodia, which WFA blocked potently by downregulating soluble vimentin and α-smooth muscle actin (SMA) expression. In the pilot proof-of-concept study using the GFS model, subconjunctival injections of a low WFA dose reduced skp2 expression in Tenon's capsule and increased p27Kip1 expression without significant alteration to vimentin-IFs. This treatment maintains significant nanomolar WFA concentrations in anterior segment tissues that correspond to WFA's cell cycle targeting activity. A ten-fold higher WFA dose caused potent downregulation of soluble vimentin and skp2 expression, but as found in cell cultures, no further increase in p27Kip1 expression was observed. Instead, this high WFA dose potently induced vimentin-IF disruption and downregulated α-SMA expression that mimicked WFA activity in TGF-ß-treated RbTCFs that blocked cell contractile activity at submicromolar concentrations. These findings illuminate that localized WFA injection to ocular tissues exerts pharmacological control over the skp2-p27Kip1 pathway by targeting of soluble vimentin in a model of surgical fibrosis.
Preparation of Urban High School Leaders in Philadelphia through Multiorganizational Partnerships

Partnerships between universities and school districts are increasingly being identified as a means to overcome the difficulties of preparing the next generation of urban high school principals. This article examines the development of such a multiorganizational partnership with a large urban school district, two universities, and a national educational organization. The partnership development is analyzed against a framework of dimensions of effective collaborations. Data include interviews and observations and are analyzed using qualitative methods. Findings indicate that challenges in multi-institution partnerships are inevitable. However, the overarching focus on a common goal, defined responsibilities, authentic communication, alignment of common interests, and dynamic receptiveness to ongoing evaluative feedback enables the sustenance of an effective program.
Generalizable distributional regularities aid fluent lan- guage processing: The case of semantic valence tendencies

Sentence processing is an extraordinarily complex and speeded process, and yet proceeds, typically, in an effortless manner. What makes us so fluent in language? Incremental models of sentence processing propose that speakers continuously build expectations for upcoming linguistic material based on partial information available at each relevant time point. In addition, statistical analyses of corpora suggest that many words entail probabilistic semantic consequences. For instance, in English, the verb provide typically precedes positive words (e.g., ‘to provide work’) whereas cause typically precedes negative items (e.g., ‘to cause trouble’; Sinclair 1996). We hypothesized that these statistical patterns form units of meaning that imbue lexical items, and their argument structures, with semantic valence tendencies (SVTs), and that such knowledge assists fluent on-line sentence comprehension by facilitating the predictability of upcoming information. First, a sentence completion task elicited such tendencies in adults, suggesting that speakers constrain their free productions to conform to the connotative meaning of words. Second, fluent on-line reading was slowed down significantly in sentences that contained a violation of a valence tendency (e.g. cause optimism). Third, an automated computer algorithm assessed the pervasiveness of valence tendencies in large computerized samples of English, supporting the hypothesis that valence tendencies are a distributional phenomenon. We conclude that not only can aspects of meaning be modeled with word cooccurrence statistics, but that such statistics are likely to be computed by the human brain during the processing of language. They thus simultaneously contribute to our understanding of the use of language and the psychology of language*.
Characterization of Dnmt1 Binding and DNA Methylation on Nucleosomes and Nucleosomal Arrays

The packaging of DNA into nucleosomes and the organisation into higher order structures of chromatin limits the access of sequence specific DNA binding factors to DNA. In cells, DNA methylation is preferentially occuring in the linker region of nucleosomes, suggesting a structural impact of chromatin on DNA methylation. These observations raise the question whether DNA methyltransferases are capable to recognize the nucleosomal substrates and to modify the packaged DNA. Here, we performed a detailed analysis of nucleosome binding and nucleosomal DNA methylation by the maintenance DNA methyltransferase Dnmt1. Our binding studies show that Dnmt1 has a DNA length sensing activity, binding cooperatively to DNA, and requiring a minimal DNA length of 20 bp. Dnmt1 needs linker DNA to bind to nucleosomes and most efficiently recognizes nucleosomes with symmetric DNA linkers. Footprinting experiments reveal that Dnmt1 binds to both DNA linkers exiting the nucleosome core. The binding pattern correlates with the efficient methylation of DNA linkers. However, the enzyme lacks the ability to methylate nucleosomal CpG sites on mononucleosomes and nucleosomal arrays, unless chromatin remodeling enzymes create a dynamic chromatin state. In addition, our results show that Dnmt1 functionally interacts with specific chromatin remodeling enzymes to enable complete methylation of hemi-methylated DNA in chromatin.
Exploring the causes and effects of inter-agency information sharing systems adoption in the anti/counter-terrorism and disaster management domains

The present paper presents a study that seeks the antecedents of inter-agency information sharing systems adoption and the effects of using such systems on the information sharing practice among anti/counter-terrorism and disaster management agencies. Based on traditional IT acceptance theory, social exchange theory, and distributional justice perspective, the study presents a set of potential determinants of inter-agency information sharing systems adoption and propositions about post-adoption behaviors of user agencies. Also presented in this paper are the results from a preliminary study that administered a survey questionnaire to emergency responders such as law enforcement personnel, intelligence agents, firefighters, emergency medical staffs, and other government employees in the emergency management area. In the preliminary study, the relationships between inter-agency information sharing and hypothesized antecedents including perceived benefits, information assurance, organizational norm, and IT infrastructure are examined. The results from the preliminary study revealed that the current inter-agency information sharing systems use does not reflect social and operational environments of emergency management organizations. While technical environments such as other agencies' information assurance level and technical standards seem to encourage information sharing systems use, other factors such as perceived task support benefits, organizational norms, and institutional pressure to share information have no or negligible association with the systems use. The paper discusses about the findings and proposes a refined framework and model to understand inter-agency information sharing systems adoption and use.
Lacking structures of communication for teachers in Sweden, a focus group study

In light of the changing circumstances for teaching, teachers’ views on organizational communication processes were explored. Empirically, this paper is based on five semi-structured focus groups, each interviewed on two occasions. In total, 44 primary and lower secondary-school teachers working in one municipality in Sweden participated. The interviews were framed by a pre-survey concerning demographic data and a post-survey collecting data on the teachers’ assessment of the group climate. In the analysis, four themes that illustrate aspects of teachers’ perceptions and experiences of workplace communication were identified. The findings point to a lack of adequate and comprehensive structures for organizational communication.
Dual polynomials and communication complexity of $\textsf{XOR}$ functions

We show a new duality between the polynomial margin complexity of $f$ and the discrepancy of the function $f \circ \textsf{XOR}$, called an $\textsf{XOR}$ function. Using this duality, we develop polynomial based techniques for understanding the bounded error ($\textsf{BPP}$) and the weakly-unbounded error ($\textsf{PP}$) communication complexities of $\textsf{XOR}$ functions. We show the following. A weak form of an interesting conjecture of Zhang and Shi (Quantum Information and Computation, 2009) (The full conjecture has just been reported to be independently settled by Hatami and Qian (Arxiv, 2017). However, their techniques are quite different and are not known to yield many of the results we obtain here). Zhang and Shi assert that for symmetric functions $f : \{0, 1\}^n \rightarrow \{-1, 1\}$, the weakly unbounded-error complexity of $f \circ \textsf{XOR}$ is essentially characterized by the number of points $i$ in the set $\{0,1, \dots,n-2\}$ for which $D_f(i) \neq D_f(i+2)$, where $D_f$ is the predicate corresponding to $f$. The number of such points is called the odd-even degree of $f$. We show that the $\textsf{PP}$ complexity of $f \circ \textsf{XOR}$ is $\Omega(k/ \log(n/k))$. We resolve a conjecture of a different Zhang characterizing the Threshold of Parity circuit size of symmetric functions in terms of their odd-even degree. We obtain a new proof of the exponential separation between $\textsf{PP}^{cc}$ and $\textsf{UPP}^{cc}$ via an $\textsf{XOR}$ function. We provide a characterization of the approximate spectral norm of symmetric functions, affirming a conjecture of Ada et al. (APPROX-RANDOM, 2012) which has several consequences. Additionally, we prove strong $\textsf{UPP}$ lower bounds for $f \circ \textsf{XOR}$, when $f$ is symmetric and periodic with period $O(n^{1/2-\epsilon})$, for any constant $\epsilon > 0$.
Angle estimation for two unresolved targets with monopulse radar

Most present-day radar systems use monopulse techniques to extract angular measurements of sunbeam accuracy. The familiar "monopulse ratio" is a very effective means to derive the angle of a single target within a radar beam. For the simultaneous estimation of the angles of two closely-spaced targets, a modification on the monopulse ratio was derived in (Blair and Pearce, 2001), while (Sinha et al., 2002) presented a maximum likelihood (ML) technique via numerical search. In this paper it is shown that the ML solution can in fact be found explicitly, and the numerical search of ((Sinha et al., 2002) is unnecessary. However, the ML solution requires the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each target to be known, and hence we generalize it so it requires only the relative SNR. Several versions of expectation maximization (EM) joint angle estimators are also derived, these differing in the degree to which prior information on SNR and on beam pattern are assumed. The performances of the different direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimators for unresolved targets are studied via Monte Carlo, and it is found that most have similar performance: this is remarkable since the use of prior information (SNR, relative SNR, beam pattern) varies widely between them. There is, however, considerable performance variability as a function of the two targets' off-boresight angles. A simple combined technique that fuses the results from different approaches is thus proposed, and it performs well uniformly.
Tuple – Information Visualization Publications Browser

As publication networks grow it becomes difficult to grasp their key influences and directions by examining individual papers. Making queries on specific topics or trying to understand how various topics interact within the research field is even more challenging. Tuple is an exploratory visualization system which provides category-based overview of publication data. Using well established visualization conventions we provide methods for gaining insight into the most influential publications, research category contents and interactions between categories (and more! ). We show that Tuple is an effective solution by providing an overview and answering advanced queries about InfoVis publication data.
Single Cell Confocal Raman Spectroscopy of Human Osteoarthritic Chondrocytes: A Preliminary Study

A great deal of effort has been focused on exploring the underlying molecular mechanism of osteoarthritis (OA) especially at the cellular level. We report a confocal Raman spectroscopic investigation on human osteoarthritic chondrocytes. The objective of this investigation is to identify molecular features and the stage of OA based on the spectral signatures corresponding to bio-molecular changes at the cellular level in chondrocytes. In this study, we isolated chondrocytes from human osteoarthritic cartilage and acquired Raman spectra from single cells. Major spectral differences between the cells obtained from different International Cartilage Repair Society (ICRS) grades of osteoarthritic cartilage were identified. During progression of OA, a decrease in protein content and an increase in cell death were observed from the vibrational spectra. Principal component analysis and subsequent cross-validation was able to associate osteoarthritic chondrocytes to ICRS Grade I, II and III with specificity 100.0%, 98.1%, and 90.7% respectively, while, sensitivity was 98.6%, 82.8%, and 97.5% respectively. The overall predictive efficiency was 92.2%. Our pilot study encourages further use of Raman spectroscopy as a noninvasive and label free technique for revealing molecular features associated with osteoarthritic chondrocytes.
New approaches regarding the in vitro maturation of oocytes: manipulating cyclic nucleotides and their partners in crime

Several discoveries have been described recently (5-10 years) about the biology of ovarian follicles (oocyte, cumulus cells and granulosa cells), including new aspects of cellular communication, the control of oocyte maturation and the acquisition of oocyte competence for fertilization and further embryo development. These advances are nourishing assisted reproduction techniques (ART) with new possibilities, in which novel culture systems are being developed and tested to improve embryo yield and quality. This mini-review aims to describe how the recent knowledge on the physiological aspects of mammalian oocyte is reflecting as original or revisited approaches into the context of embryo production. These new insights include recent findings on the mechanisms that control oocyte maturation, especially modulating intraoocyte levels of cyclic nucleotides during in vitro maturation using endogenous or exogenous agents. In this mini-review we also discuss the positive and negative effects of these manipulations on the outcoming embryo
Lead times and overdetection due to prostate-specific antigen screening: estimates from the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer.

BACKGROUND Screening for prostate cancer advances the time of diagnosis (lead time) and detects cancers that would not have been diagnosed in the absence of screening (overdetection). Both consequences have considerable impact on the net benefits of screening. METHODS We developed simulation models based on results of the Rotterdam section of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC), which enrolled 42,376 men and in which 1498 cases of prostate cancer were identified, and on baseline prostate cancer incidence and stage distribution data. The models were used to predict mean lead times, overdetection rates, and ranges (corresponding to approximate 95% confidence intervals) associated with different screening programs. RESULTS Mean lead times and rates of overdetection depended on a man's age at screening. For a single screening test at age 55, the estimated mean lead time was 12.3 years (range = 11.6-14.1 years) and the overdetection rate was 27% (range = 24%-37%); at age 75, the estimates were 6.0 years (range = 5.8-6.3 years) and 56% (range = 53%-61%), respectively. For a screening program with a 4-year screening interval from age 55 to 67, the estimated mean lead time was 11.2 years (range = 10.8-12.1 years), and the overdetection rate was 48% (range = 44%-55%). This screening program raised the lifetime risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis from 6.4% to 10.6%, a relative increase of 65% (range = 56%-87%). In annual screening from age 55 to 67, the estimated overdetection rate was 50% (range = 46%-57%) and the lifetime prostate cancer risk was increased by 80% (range = 69%-116%). Extending annual or quadrennial screening to the age of 75 would result in at least two cases of overdetection for every clinically relevant cancer detected. CONCLUSIONS These model-based lead-time estimates support a prostate cancer screening interval of more than 1 year.