Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning distance functions for image retrieval

Image retrieval critically relies on the distance function used to compare a query image to images in the database. We suggest learning such distance functions by training binary classifiers with margins, where the classifiers are defined over the product space of pairs of images. The classifiers are trained to distinguish between pairs in which the images are from the same class and pairs, which contain images from different classes. The signed margin is used as a distance function. We explore several variants of this idea, based on using SVM and boosting algorithms as product space classifiers. Our main contribution is a distance learning method, which combines boosting hypotheses over the product space with a weak learner based on partitioning the original feature space. The weak learner used is a Gaussian mixture model computed using a constrained EM algorithm, where the constraints are equivalence constraints on pairs of data points. This approach allows us to incorporate unlabeled data into the training process. Using some benchmark databases from the UCI repository, we show that our margin based methods significantly outperform existing metric learning methods, which are based an learning a Mahalanobis distance. We then show comparative results of image retrieval in a distributed learning paradigm, using two databases: a large database of facial images (YaleB), and a database of natural images taken from a commercial CD. In both cases our GMM based boosting method outperforms all other methods, and its generalization to unseen classes is superior.
Session “ Health and Mortality in the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe ” Recent Mortality Trends in Russia : Differences between Younger and Older Generations

This paper analyzes the most recent trends of mortality in Russia across ages, genders and regions using official statistical data for 1991-2001. During the last decade Russia experienced two mortality crises in 1992 and 1998. Life expectancy in Russia continues to decline after 1998. The most recent mortality data for year 2001 demonstrate changes in opposite direction for younger and older adult age groups: total mortality of young adults (20-30 years old) apparently starts to decline while total mortality among middle-aged and older adults continues to grow after 1998. Our findings suggest that the recent mortality trends in Russia demonstrate increasing level of violence and stress in the society. Therefore, many negative tendencies can be reversed if more attention is paid to prevention of these largely avoidable causes of death.
Acute-phase responses in transgenic mice with CNS overexpression of IL-1 receptor antagonist.

The interleukin-1 (IL-1) receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) is an endogenous antagonist that blocks the effects of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1α and IL-1β by occupying the type I IL-1 receptor. Here we describe transgenic mice with astrocyte-directed overexpression of the human secreted IL-1ra (hsIL-1ra) under the control of the murine glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) promoter. Two GFAP-hsIL-1ra strains have been generated and characterized further: GILRA2 and GILRA4. These strains show a brain-specific expression of the hsIL-1ra at the mRNA and protein levels. The hsIL-1ra protein was approximated to ∼50 ng/brain in cytosolic fractions of whole brain homogenates, with no differences between male and female mice or between the two strains. Furthermore, the protein is secreted, inasmuch as the concentration of hsIL-1ra in the cerebrospinal fluid was 13 (GILRA2) to 28 (GILRA4) times higher in the transgenic mice than in the control animals. To characterize the transgenic phenotype, GILRA mice and nontransgenic controls were injected with recombinant human IL-1β (central injection) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS, peripheral injection). The febrile response elicited by IL-1β (50 ng/mouse icv) was abolished in hsIL-1ra-overexpressing animals, suggesting that the central IL-1 receptors were occupied by antagonist. The peripheral LPS injection (25 μg/kg ip) triggered a fever in overexpressing and control animals. Moreover, no differences were found in LPS-induced (100 and 1,000 μg/kg ip; 1 and 6 h after injection) IL-1β and IL-6 serum levels between GILRA and wild-type mice. On the basis of these results, we suggest that binding of central IL-1 to central IL-1 receptors is not important in LPS-induced fever or LPS-induced IL-1β and IL-6 plasma levels.
Physical Activity as a Determinant of Quality of Life in Working-Age People in Wrocław, Poland

Regular physical activity can greatly contribute to the improvement of physical fitness and performance, reduction of the incidence risk of some occupational diseases, and as a consequence, to a general improvement of quality of life in terms of health status. The aim of the article was to assess relationships between the quality of life and physical activity of a working-age population. The study material comprised 4460 residents of the city of Wrocław, Poland (2129 men, 2331 women) aged 18–64 years. The study was a questionnaire survey using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form (IPAQ-SF) and The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaires. The highest levels of overall quality of life and its four particular domains (physical, psychological, social, and environmental), as well as perceived health conditions were found among the most physically active respondents. Furthermore, the odds of high assessment of perceived overall quality of life were shown to increase with the increasing levels of physical activity. Activities aimed at the improvement of the quality of life of working-age people should involve programs enhancing the development of physical activity.
Cardiac autonomic responses to volume overload in normal subjects and in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy.

This study evaluated the effects of acute isotonic volume expansion on heart rate variability (HRV) in 10 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and in 10 age- and sex-matched normal volunteers. Echocardiographic left ventricular volumes and HRV measurements by continuous Holter recording were assessed at baseline, at 60 and 120 min during intravenous saline load (0.9% NaCl, 0.25 ml ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ min-1), and 60 min after infusion was terminated. Data analysis was performed by repeated-measures ANOVA. After volume expansion, left ventricular ejection fraction increased ( F = 9.8; P < 0.001) in normal subjects and decreased ( F = 8.7; P < 0.001) in DCM patients. During volume expansion a significant difference was also detectable between the two groups in root-mean-square successive difference ( F = 25.2; P < 0.001), percentage of differences between successive normal R-R intervals >50 ms ( F = 97.6; P < 0.001), high-frequency power ( F = 50.1; P < 0.001), and low-frequency power ( F = 41.6; P < 0.001), all of which reflect parasympathetic modulation of heart rate; in fact, these measurements increased in normal subjects and decreased in DCM patients. In normal subjects, the increase in HRV measurements during volume expansion suggests a parasympathetic activation, mediated by stimulation of cardiopulmonary and arterial mechanoreceptors. On the contrary, in DCM patients the parasympathetic withdrawal, already detectable at baseline, increases during volume expansion.
Cardiorespiratory Fitness as a Mediator of the Influence of Diet on Obesity in Children

The association between diet and obesity has been widely studied and it continues to be controversial; however, the extent to which cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) acts as a confounder or mediator in this relation has not been analyzed. The aim of this study is to examine if the relation between diet and obesity is mediated by CRF. In this cross-sectional study, fat mass (by electronic bioimpedance) was measured in 320 schoolchildren, aged 9–11 years. Diet was measured through two computerised 24-h dietary recalls and CRF was assessed by the 20-m shuttle run test. Simple mediation analyses were fitted. CRF acts as a partial mediator in the negative relationship between dietary factors (energy intake/weight, carbohydrate intake/weight, protein intake/weight, and fat intake/weight) and fat mass. The percentage of mediation ranged from 24.3 to 33.2%. Thus, Spanish schoolchildren with higher levels of energy and macronutrients intake had lower adiposity levels, especially when they had good levels of CRF.
Disruption of PTPS Gene Causing Pale Body Color and Lethal Phenotype in the Silkworm, Bombyx mori

Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inborn error of metabolism caused by mutations in the phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) gene or by defects in the tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) synthesis pathway. Here, by positional cloning, we report that the 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS) gene, encoding a key enzyme of BH4 biosynthesis, is responsible for the alc (albino C) mutation that displays pale body color, head shaking, and eventually lethality after the first molting in silkworm. Compared to wild type, the alc mutant produced more substrates (phenylalanine (Phe) and tyrosine (Tyr)) and generated less DOPA and dopamine. Application of 2,4-diamino-6-hydroxypyrimidine (DAHP) to block BH4 synthesis in the wild type effectively produced the alc-like phenotype, while BH4 supplementation rescued the defective body color and lethal phenotype in both alc and DAHP-treated individuals. The detection of gene expressions and metabolic substances after drugs treatments in alc and normal individuals imply that silkworms and humans have a high similarity in the drugs metabolic features and the gene pathway related to BH4 and the dopamine biosynthesis. We propose that the alc mutant could be used as an animal model for drug evaluation for BH4-deficient PKU.
Cyclosporin-induced dyslipoproteinemia is associated with selective activation of SREBP-2.

The use of cyclosporin A has contributed greatly to the success of organ transplantation. However, cyclosporin-associated side effects of hypertension, nephrotoxicity, and dyslipoproteinemia have tempered these benefits. Cyclosporin-induced dyslipoproteinemia may be an important risk factor for the accelerated atherosclerosis observed posttransplantation. Using a mouse model, we treated Swiss-Webster mice for 6 days with a daily dose of 20 μg/g body wt of cyclosporin and observed significant elevations of plasma cholesterol, triglyceride, and apolipoprotein B (apoB) levels relative to vehicle-alone treated control animals. Measurement of the rate of secretion of very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) by the liver in vivo showed that cyclosporin treatment led to a significant increase in the rate of hepatic VLDL triglyceride secretion. Total apoB secretion was unaffected. Northern analysis showed that cyclosporin A treatment increased the abundance of hepatic mRNA levels for a number of key genes involved in cholesterol biosynthesis relative to vehicle-alone treated animals. Two key transcriptional factors, sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREBP)-1 and SREBP-2, also showed differential expression; SREBP-2 expression was increased at the mRNA level, and there was an increase in the active nuclear form, whereas the mRNA and the nuclear form of SREBP-1 were reduced. These results show that the molecular mechanisms by which cyclosporin causes dyslipoproteinemia may, in part, be mediated by selective activation of SREBP-2, leading to enhanced expression of lipid metabolism genes and hepatic secretion of VLDL triglyceride.
CONIKS: A Privacy-Preserving Consistent Key Service for Secure End-to-End Communication

Recent revelations about government surveillance have significantly increased the demand for end-to-end secure communications. However, key management remains a major barrier to adoption. Current systems are often either vulnerable to a malicious or coerced key directory or they make unrealistic assumptions about user behavior, for example, that users will verify key fingerprints out of band. We present CONIKS, a system that provides automated key management for end users capable of seamless integration into existing secure messaging applications. In CONIKS, key servers maintain consistent directories of username-to-public key bindings that allow participants to detect any equivocation or unexpected key changes by malicious key servers. CONIKS also preserves user’s privacy by ensuring that adversaries cannot harvest large numbers of usernames from the directories. Our prototype chat application extends the Off-the-Record Messaging plug-in for Pidgin. A single commodity server can support up to 10 million users and clients need only download less than 100 kB per day of additional data.
Automatically and efficiently inferring the hierarchical structure of visual maps

In Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM), it is well known that probabilistic filtering approaches which aim to estimate the robot and map state sequentially suffer from poor computational scaling to large map sizes. Various authors have demonstrated that this problem can be mitigated by approximations which treat estimates of features in different parts of a map as conditionally independent, allowing them to be processed separately. When it comes to the choice of how to divide a large map into such ‘submaps’, straightforward heuristics may be sufficient in maps built using sensors such as laser range-finders with limited range, where a regular grid of submap boundaries performs well. With visual sensing, however, the ideal division of submaps is less clear, since a camera has potentially unlimited range and will often observe spatially distant parts of a scene simultaneously. In this paper we present an efficient and generic method for automatically determining a suitable submap division for SLAM maps, and apply this to visual maps built with a single agile camera. We use the mutual information between predicted measurements of features as an absolute measure of correlation, and cluster highly correlated features into groups. Via tree factorisation, we are able to determine not just a single level submap division but a powerful fully hierarchical correlation and clustering structure. Our analysis and experiments reveal particularly interesting structure in visual maps and give pointers to more efficient approximate visual SLAM algorithms.
Detection and Characterisation of Anaplasma marginale and A. centrale in South Africa

Bovine anaplasmosis is endemic in South Africa and it has a negative economic impact on cattle farming. An improved understanding of Anaplasma marginale and Anaplasma marginale variety centrale (A. centrale) transmission, together with improved tools for pathogen detection and characterisation, are required to inform best management practices. Direct detection methods currently in use for A. marginale and A. centrale in South Africa are light microscopic examination of tissue and organ smears, conventional, nested, and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays, and a reverse line blot hybridisation assay. Of these, qPCR is the most sensitive for detection of A. marginale and A. centrale in South Africa. Serological assays also feature in routine diagnostics, but cross-reactions prevent accurate species identification. Recently, genetic characterisation has confirmed that A. marginale and A. centrale are separate species. Diversity studies targeting Msp1a repeats for A. marginale and Msp1aS repeats for A. centrale have revealed high genetic variation and point to correspondingly high levels of variation in A. marginale outer membrane proteins (OMPs), which have been shown to be potential vaccine candidates in North American studies. Information on these OMPs is lacking for South African A. marginale strains and should be considered in future recombinant vaccine development studies, ultimately informing the development of regional or global vaccines.
Sensitivity and Specificity Analysis: Use of Emoticon for Screening of Depression in Elderly in Singapore

BACKGROUND: The current screening tools for depression can be tedious to administer, especially in the elderly population with hearing impairment and/or limited proficiency in English language. OBJECTIVES: To look at the feasibility of using emoticon as a screening and assessment tool for depression in the elderly. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHOD: A total of 77 elderly patients completed the study from June 2014 to August 2015 in a general geriatric outpatient clinic of an acute care hospital in Singapore. Patients rated their mood using an emoticon scale, which ranges from 1 (most happy face) to 7 (most sad face). Depression was assessed using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV) criteria as the gold standard. Sensitivity and specificity for depression were calculated for the cutoff scores from 1 to 7 on the emoticon scale. RESULTS: The sensitivity percentages were low across all cutoff scores. The specificity was more than 90% for the cutoff score of 5 and above on the emoticon scale. However, all the patients who had depression diagnosed using the DSM-IV criteria did not have emoticon scores of 5 and above. CONCLUSIONS: The emoticon scale was easy to use, but its effectiveness in the screening of depression in the elderly needs to be explored further. The inability to use the emoticon scale as a tool may be the lack of measurements in the other domains of the DSM-IV criteria (sleep, energy, appetite, etc.), rather than failure of the emoticon scale to assess mood.
L-asparaginase production in the pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes strain JHS-71 isolated from Jooshan Hot-spring

L-asparaginase has lots of medical and industrial applications. Ever since L-asparaginase anti-tumor activity was first demonstrated, its production using microbial systems has attracted considerable attention owing to their cost-effective and eco-friendly nature. The aim of this study is to obtain L-asparaginase producing bacteria and determining the enzyme activity. Samples were picked up from Jooshan hot springs located in the Sirch, Kerman. The L-asparaginase producing bacteria were screened on the agar medium supplied with L-asparagine and phenol red indicator dye (pH-7.0). L-asparaginase activity was detected on the basis of pink color around the colony. Enzyme production was also performed based on ammonia detection by Nessler method. Among 24 strains, there were 7 strains which could produce L-asparaginase. Sequencing of 16S rRNA showed that, the best isolates producing L-asparaginase belongs to the Pseudomonas genus. Enzyme activity after 24 and 48 h of incubation showed that Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes strain JHS-71 was the best strain that produced L-Asparaginase about 240 (U/ml) after 48h of incubation. Results showed that, L-Asparaginase activity enhanced about 27% in the presence of Co+2. L-asparaginase JHS-71 retained more than 50% of its initial activity in the presence of Cu+2, Mn+2, Zn+2, Mg+2 and Fe+2. Because of various applications of L-asparaginase in biotechnology, P. pseudoalcaligenes strain JHS-71 can be used as a suitable candidate in these fields.
Role of the type 1 TNF receptor in lung inflammation after inhalation of endotoxin or Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

To determine the roles of the type 1 tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor (TNFR1) in lung inflammation and antibacterial defense, we exposed transgenic mice lacking TNFR1 [TNFR1(-/-)] and wild-type control mice to aerosolized lipopolysaccharide or Pseudomonas aeruginosa. After LPS, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from TNFR1(-/-) mice contained fewer neutrophils and less macrophage inflammatory protein-2 than BALF from control mice. TNF-α, interleukin-1β, and total protein levels in BALF as well as tissue intercellular adhesion molecule-1 expression did not differ between the two groups. In contrast, lung inflammation and bacterial clearance after infection were augmented in TNFR1(-/-) mice. BALF from infected TNFR1(-/-) mice contained more neutrophils and TNF-α and less interleukin-1β and macrophage inflammatory protein-2 than that from control mice, but protein levels were similarly elevated in both groups. Lung inflammation and bacterial clearance were also augmented in mice lacking both TNF receptors. Thus TNFR1 facilitates neutrophil recruitment after inhalation of lipopolysaccharide, in part by augmenting chemokine induction. In contrast, TNFR1 attenuates lung inflammation in response to live bacteria but does not contribute to increased lung permeability and is not required for the elimination of P. aeruginosa.
Affect sensing in an affective interactive e-theatre for autistic children

In this paper we describe an interactive emotional social virtual framework for autistic young people age 11 –14 to learn verbal and non-verbal emotional expression in role-play situations. In order to provide an interactive learning environment with some degree of automatic metaphorical understanding from open-ended text input, new developments on affect detection for the processing of several metaphorical languages have been presented. The emotional gesture and facial animation have been created for users' avatars and activated by affective states detected from users' text input. Emotion appraisal and affect detection functions have been embodied in an intelligent conversational agent, who interacts with human users for drama improvisation. We have also conducted user testing with 24 autistic children to evaluate the overall framework. The work has the potential to improve autistic young people's ability in language learning and their social connection with other people. It contributes to the conference themes on natural language processing, interactive affective social interfaces and user studies of intelligent interfaces.