Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Affect-as-Information Approach to a Sentiment Analysis Based Evaluation of Conversational Agents

In this paper we propose a novel method for automatic evaluation of conversational agents. The method is based on analyzing the userpsilas affect conveyed in utterances. From analyzing: the userpsilas general emotional engagement in the conversation and the emotion types conveyed by the user in the conversation, a simple psychological reasoning is derived about the userpsilas sentiment about the agentpsilas performance. The evaluation experiment on two Japanese-speaking conversational agents showed the same tendencies in the results returned by the system constructed on the proposed method and the userpsilas opinion about the two agents checked in the afterward survey. Thus the method can be used for evaluation of Japanese-speaking conversational agents.
Lipopolysaccharide Promotes Choroidal Neovascularization by Up-Regulation of CXCR4 and CXCR7 Expression in Choroid Endothelial Cell

Stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) has been confirmed to participate in the formation of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) via its two receptors: CXC chemokine receptors 4 (CXCR4) and CXCR7. Previous studies have indicated that the activation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) might elevate CXCR4 and/or CXCR7 expression in tumor cells, enhancing the response to SDF-1 to promote invasion and cell dissemination. However, the impact of LPS on the CXCR4 and CXCR7 expression in endothelial cells and subsequent pathological angiogenesis formation remains to be elucidated. The present study shows that LPS enhanced the CXCR4 and CXCR7 expression via activation of the TLR4 pathway in choroid-retinal endothelial (RF/6A) cells. In addition, the transcriptional regulation of CXCR4 and CXCR7 by LPS was found to be mediated by phosphorylation of the extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) 1/2 and activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathways, which were blocked by ERK- or NF-κB-specific inhibitors. Furthermore, the increased CXCR4 and CXCR7 expression resulted in increased SDF-1-induced RF/6A cells proliferation, migration and tube formation. In vivo, LPS-treated rat had significantly higher mRNA levels of CXCR4 and CXCR7 expression and lager laser-induced CNV area than vehicle-treated rat. SDF-1 blockade with a neutralizing antibody attenuated the progression of CNV in LPS-treated rat after a single intravitreal injection. Altogether, these results demonstrated that LPS might influence CNV formation by enhancing CXCR7 and CXCR7 expression in endothelial cells, possibly providing a new perspective for the treatment of CNV-associated diseases.
Adaptive sampling for fast sparsity pattern recovery

In this paper we propose a low complexity adaptive algorithm for lossless compressive sampling and reconstruction of sparse signals. Consider a sparse non-negative real signal x containing only k ≪ n non-zero values. The sampling process obtains m measurements by a linear projection y = Ax and, in order to minimize the complexity, we quantize them to binary values. We also define the measurement matrix A to be binary and sparse, enabling the use of a simple message passing algorithm over a graph. We show how to adaptively construct this matrix in a multi-stage process that sequentially reduces the search space until the sparsity pattern is perfectly recovered. As verified by simulation results, the process requires O(n) operations and O(k log(n/k)) samples.
Novice principals’ perceptions of their mentoring process in early career stage: the key role of mentor-protégé relations

ABSTRACT The purpose of the current study was to explore new Israeli principals’ perceptions, during the first three years in post, of the impact of their mentoring process on their leadership experiences. Based on 12 interviews with newly appointed school principals in the Israeli State Education System, the study found that many of them indicated that their mentor gave them professional and practical advice and performance feedback, especially on technical and administrative issues rather than on issues related to instructional leadership. In addition, the new principals shed light on the significant impact of proper educational and emotional matching between the mentor and the new principal on the mentoring process. We suggest some practical implications for establishing effective mentoring programs for new principals at the end of the paper.
An Improved Extreme Learning Machine for Classification Problem Based on Affinity Propagation Clustering

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is an efficient algorithm for single-hidden layer feedforward neural networks (SLFNs), which can produce good generalization performance in most cases and learn thousands of times faster than conventional popular algorithms. However, the performance of ELM is sensitive to the initialized number of hidden neurons. In some traditional methods, the number of hidden nodes is gradually increased by a fixed interval to select the nearly optimal number of nodes for ELM, whereas these methods are of a little bit of complexity and quite time-consuming. This paper proposes an improved ELM based on the affinity propagation clustering, which does not need to define the number of hidden nodes in advance manually and randomly. The proposed algorithm automatically determines the number of hidden nodes for different data sets. Empirical study of AP-based ELM on several commonly used classification benchmark problems shows that it achieves better performance compared with the standard ELM.
Flexible cooperation between human and robot by interpreting human intention from gaze information

This paper describes a method to realize flexible cooperation between human and robot which reflects the intention and state of human by using gaze information. This physiological information expresses the process of thinking directly, so it enables us to read the internal condition such as hesitation or search in decision making process. We propose a method to interpret the intention and condition from the latest history of gaze movement and determine an appropriate cooperative action of a robot based on it so that the task proceeds smoothly. Finally, we show experimental results by using a humanoid-type robot.
Segmentation, diarization and speech transcription : surprise data unraveled

In this thesis, research on large vocabulary continuous speech recognition for unknown audio conditions is presented. For automatic speech recognition systems based on statistical methods, it is important that the conditions of the audio used for training the statistical models match the conditions of the audio to be processed. Any mismatch will decrease the accuracy of the recognition. If it is unpredictable what kind of data can be expected, or in other words if the conditions of the audio to be processed are unknown, it is impossible to tune the models. If the material consists of `surprise data' the output of the system is likely to be poor. In this thesis methods are presented for which no external training data is required for training models. These novel methods have been implemented in a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system called SHoUT. This system consists of three subsystems: speech/non-speech classification, speaker diarization and automatic speech recognition.
Observation of multiple domains in a planar Gunn diode

We have observed multiple oscillations in a planar Gunn diode fabricated using an AlGaAs/GaAs based quantum well structure. The material used was grown by molecular beam epitaxy and devices were made using electron beam lithography. The devices had a 4µm cathode-anode distance and 60µm width. They showed multiple oscillations at 29GHz, 33GHz and 35GHz. This is the first observation of multiple frequencies in a planar quantum well structure device and may have applications as a single chip multi-frequency source.
Alkaline ceramidase 1 is essential for mammalian skin homeostasis and regulating whole‐body energy expenditure

The epidermis is the outermost layer of skin that acts as a barrier to protect the body from the external environment and to control water and heat loss. This barrier function is established through the multistage differentiation of keratinocytes and the presence of bioactive sphingolipids such as ceramides, the levels of which are tightly regulated by a balance of ceramide synthase and ceramidase activities. Here we reveal the essential role of alkaline ceramidase 1 (Acer1) in the skin. Acer1‐deficient (Acer1−/−) mice showed elevated levels of ceramide in the skin, aberrant hair shaft cuticle formation and cyclic alopecia. We demonstrate that Acer1 is specifically expressed in differentiated interfollicular epidermis, infundibulum and sebaceous glands and consequently Acer1−/− mice have significant alterations in infundibulum and sebaceous gland architecture. Acer1−/− skin also shows perturbed hair follicle stem cell compartments. These alterations result in Acer1−/− mice showing increased transepidermal water loss and a hypermetabolism phenotype with associated reduction of fat content with age. We conclude that Acer1 is indispensable for mammalian skin homeostasis and whole‐body energy homeostasis. © 2016 The Authors. The Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Mass Spectrometry-Based Methods for Identifying Oxidized Proteins in Disease: Advances and Challenges

Many inflammatory diseases have an oxidative aetiology, which leads to oxidative damage to biomolecules, including proteins. It is now increasingly recognized that oxidative post-translational modifications (oxPTMs) of proteins affect cell signalling and behaviour, and can contribute to pathology. Moreover, oxidized proteins have potential as biomarkers for inflammatory diseases. Although many assays for generic protein oxidation and breakdown products of protein oxidation are available, only advanced tandem mass spectrometry approaches have the power to localize specific oxPTMs in identified proteins. While much work has been carried out using untargeted or discovery mass spectrometry approaches, identification of oxPTMs in disease has benefitted from the development of sophisticated targeted or semi-targeted scanning routines, combined with chemical labeling and enrichment approaches. Nevertheless, many potential pitfalls exist which can result in incorrect identifications. This review explains the limitations, advantages and challenges of all of these approaches to detecting oxidatively modified proteins, and provides an update on recent literature in which they have been used to detect and quantify protein oxidation in disease.
Measurements of spontaneous rates of mutations in the recent past and the near future

The rate of spontaneous mutation in natural populations is a fundamental parameter for many evolutionary phenomena. Because the rate of mutation is generally low, most of what is currently known about mutation has been obtained through indirect, complex and imprecise methodological approaches. However, in the past few years genome-wide sequencing of closely related individuals has made it possible to estimate the rates of mutation directly at the level of the DNA, avoiding most of the problems associated with using indirect methods. Here, we review the methods used in the past with an emphasis on next generation sequencing, which may soon make the accurate measurement of spontaneous mutation rates a matter of routine.
Detecting text in video frames

In this paper we propose an edge-based algorithm for artificial text detection in video frames. First, an edge map is created using the Canny edge detector. Then, morphological filtering is used, based on geometrical constraints, in order to connect the vertical edges and discard false alarms. A connected component analysis is performed to the filtered edge map in order to determine a bounding box for every candidate text area. Finally, horizontal and vertical projections are calculated on the edge map of every box and a threshold is applied, refining the result and splitting text areas in text lines. The whole algorithm is applied in multiresolution fashion to ensure text detection with size variability. Experimental results prove that the method is highly effective and efficient for artificial text detection.
Volatility Smile in Option Prices May Reflect Heterogeneous Expectations : Theory and Empirical Evidence

If the underlying asset price process is unknown, arbitrageurs may not have sufficient incentive and confidence to use the underlying asset to arbitrage options. The option market makers can hedge their portfolios of temporary option inventories without the underlying asset, but investors’ risk attitudes and heterogeneous expectations could become relevant to option pricing. This paper shows that, if the investors just assume the lognormal process for the underlying asset price, but are heterogeneous on the drift and volatility, there exists an arbitrage-free option pricing function, providing that all the investors are risk-averse and the underlying asset is not involved. Since this pricing function allows the option market makers to achieve delta-neutrality and gamma-neutrality with their portfolios of options, the option market equilibrium is sustainable. This option pricing model implies that the risk-neutral probability distribution is a finite mixture of lognormal distributions, which can be easily recovered from observed contemporaneous options quotes by a parametric method. The empirical results support the model.
Environmental and sustainability education in the Benelux countries: research, policy and practices at the intersection of education and societal transformation

Abstract As an introductory article of a Special Issue on Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) in the Benelux region, this paper provides an overview of ESE research, policy and practice in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. It discusses the different contributions in this collection with regard to how the central theme of this issue, the relation between education and societal transformation, is approached in each paper. The main characteristics of the ESE research fields in the Benelux are described in general terms, and placed within the context of how ESE policy and practice are organised in these countries. Next, different conceptualisations of the relation between educational and political spaces reflected in the collection are discussed and the varied contributions to this issue are positioned in relation to three distinguished traditions of approaching the place of democracy in ESE. The authors conclude with commenting on how this relates to different approaches to the research-policy-practice interface.
Analysis of educational institution DNS network traffic for insider threats

The Internet is a medium for people to communicate with each other. Individuals and/or organizations are faced with increased security threats on the Internet. Many organizations prioritize on handling external security threats over internal security threats and for this reason, internal security threats are often missed or worst ignored. Domain Name System (DNS) is one of major Internet services that resolve user's request on domain name to an IP address. Since all of the user query to domain name utilize DNS to resolve the domain name or vice versa, including malicious intended user's query. Thus, DNS is a great source of information for detecting potential insider threat to detect unknown insider threats. This research aims to detect insider threats using DNS based features and these potential insider threats are clustered based on the DNS traffic features. Machine learning algorithms are used to cluster the DNS traffic under investigation. Our research shows that suspected clusters of DNS traffic contain insider threats in the organizations and the most frequent suspect of insider threats are botnet, categorized as misuse in insider threat classification. Some clusters could be suspicious indicating insider threats and other cluster is also a benign cluster but potentially an abnormal traffic.
Numerical Simulation of Solar Cells and Solar Cell Characterization Methods: the Open-Source on Demand Program AFORS-HET

Within this chapter, the principles of numerical solar cell simulation are described, using AFORS-HET (automat for simulation of heterostructures). AFORS-HET is a one dimensional numerical computer program for modelling multi layer homoor heterojunction solar cells as well as some common solar cell characterization methods. Solar cell simulation subdivides into two parts: optical and electrical simulation. By optical simulation the local generation rate ) , ( t G x within the solar cell is calculated, that is the number of excess carriers (electrons and holes) that are created per second and per unit volume at the time t at the position x within the solar cell due to light absorption. Depending on the optical model chosen for the simulation, effects like external or internal reflections, coherent superposition of the propagating light or light scattering at internal surfaces can be considered. By electrical simulation the local electron and hole particle densities ) , ( ), , ( t p t n x x and the local electric potential ) , ( t x φ within the solar cell are calculated, while the solar cell is operated under a specified condition (for example operated under open-circuit conditions or at a specified external cell voltage). From that, all other internal cell quantities, such like band diagrams, local recombination rates, local cell currents and local phase shifts can be calculated. In order to perform an electrical simulation, (1) the local generation rate ) , ( t G x has to be specified, that is, an optical simulation has to be done, (2) the local recombination rate ) , ( t R x has to be explicitly stated in terms of the unknown variables φ , , p n , ( ) φ , , ) , ( p n f t R = x . This is a recombination model has to be chosen. Depending on the recombination model chosen for the simulation, effects like direct band to band recombination (radiative recombination), indirect band to band recombination (Auger recombination) or recombination via defects (Shockley-Read-Hall recombination, dangling-bond recombination) can be considered. In order to simulate a real measurement, the optical and electrical simulations are repeatedly calculated while changing a boundary condition of the problem, which is specific to the measurement. For example, the simulation of a i-V characteristic of a solar cell is done by calculating the internal electron and hole current (the sum of which is the total current) as a function of the externally applied voltage. Source: Solar Energy, Book edited by: Radu D. Rugescu, ISBN 978-953-307-052-0, pp. 432, February 2010, INTECH, Croatia, downloaded from SCIYO.COM
Proteome Analysis of the Human Mitotic Spindle*S

The accurate distribution of sister chromatids during cell division is crucial for the generation of two cells with the same complement of genetic information. A highly dynamic microtubule-based structure, the mitotic spindle, carries out the physical separation of the chromosomes to opposite poles of the cells and, moreover, determines the cell division cleavage plane. In animal cells, the spindle comprises microtubules that radiate from the microtubule organizing centers, the centrosomes, and interact with kinetochores on the chromosomes. Malfunctioning of the spindle can lead to chromosome missegregation and hence result in aneuploidy, a hallmark of most human cancers. Despite major progress in deciphering the temporal and spatial regulation of the mitotic spindle, its composition and function are not fully understood. A more complete inventory of spindle components would therefore constitute an important advance. Here we describe the purification of human mitotic spindles and their analysis by MS/MS. We identified 151 proteins previously known to associate with the spindle apparatus, centrosomes, and/or kinetochores and 644 other proteins, including 154 uncharacterized components that did not show obvious homologies to known proteins and did not contain motifs indicative of a particular localization. Of these uncharacterized proteins, 17 were tagged and localized in transfected mitotic cells, resulting in the identification of six genuine spindle components (KIAA0008, CdcA8, KIAA1187, FLJ12649, FLJ90806, and C20Orf129). This study illustrates the strength of a proteomic approach for the analysis of isolated human spindles and identifies several novel spindle components for future functional studies.
Applying Modern PDE Techniques to Digital Image Restoration

Inpainting, or image interpolation, is a process used to reconstruct missing parts of images. Artists have long used manual inpainting to restore damaged paintings. Today, mathematicians apply partial differential equations (PDEs) to automate image interpolation. The PDEs operate in much the same way that trained restorers do: They propagate information from the structure around a hole into the hole to fill it in [1,2,3].
Gametogenesis in the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii minus Mating Type Is Controlled by Two Genes, MID and MTD1

In the unicellular algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the plus and minus mating types are controlled by a complex locus, MT, where the dominant MID gene in the MT− locus has been shown to be necessary for expression of minus-specific gamete-specific genes in response to nitrogen depletion. We report studies on MID expression patterns during gametogenesis and on a second gene unique to the MT− locus, MTD1. Vegetative cells express basal levels of MID. An early activation of MID transcription after nitrogen removal, and its sequence similarity to plant RWP-RK proteins involved in nitrogen-responsive processes, suggest that Mid conformation/activity may be nitrogen sensitive. A second stage of MID upregulation correlates with the acquisition of mating ability in minus gametes. Knockdown of MTD1 by RNAi in minus strains results in a failure to differentiate into gametes of either mating type after nitrogen deprivation. We propose that intermediate Mid levels are sufficient to activate MTD1 transcription and to repress plus gamete-specific genes and that MTD1 expression in turn allows the threshold-level MID expression needed to turn on minus gamete-specific genes. We further propose that an MTD1-equivalent system, utilizing at least one gene product encoded in the MT+ locus, is operant during plus gametogenesis.
Genres in the Prague Discourse Treebank

We present the project of classification of Prague Discourse Treebank documents (Czech journalistic texts) for their genres. Our main interest lies in opening the possibility to observe how text coherence is realized in different types (in the genre sense) of language data and, in the future, in exploring the ways of using genres as a feature for multi-sentence-level language technologies. In the paper, we first describe the motivation and the concept of the genre annotation, and briefly introduce the Prague Discourse Treebank. Then, we elaborate on the process of manual annotation of genres in the treebank, from the annotators’ manual work to post-annotation checks and to the inter-annotator agreement measurements. The annotated genres are subsequently analyzed together with discourse relations (already annotated in the treebank) ― we present distributions of the annotated genres and results of studying distinctions of distributions of discourse relations across the individual genres.