Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hyperspectral Reflectance and Fluorescence Imaging to Detect Scab Induced Stress in Apple Leaves

Abstract: Apple scab causes significant losses in the production of this fruit. A timely and more site-specific monitoring and spraying of the disease could reduce the number of applications of fungicides in the fruit industry. The aim of this leaf-scale study therefore lies in the early detection of apple scab infections in a non-invasive and non-destructive way. In order to attain this objective, fluorescence- and hyperspectral imaging techniques were used. An experiment was conducted under controlled environmental conditions, linking hyperspectral reflectance and fluorescence imaging measurements to scab infection symptoms in a susceptible apple cultivar ( Malus x domestica Borkh. cv. Braeburn). Plant stress was induced by inoculation of the apple plants with scab spores. The quantum efficiency of Photosystem II (PSII) photochemistry was derived from fluorescence images of leaves under light adapted conditions. Leaves inoculated with scab spores were expected
Low complexity zero-padding zero-jamming DMT systems

Discrete multitone (DMT) systems have been widely adopted in broadband communications. When the transmission channel is frequency selective, there will be interblock interference (IBI). IBI can be avoided by zero-padding (ZP) [1]. Another solution is to allow IBI during transmission, and at the receiver the samples that contain IBI are removed by zero-jamming (ZJ) [2]. The ZP DMT system employs the ZP technique whereas the CP DMT system where a cyclic prefix is added at the transmitter uses the ZJ technique. In both the ZP DMT and CP DMT systems, the number of redundant samples are larger than or equal to the channel order. In this paper, we propose a ZP-ZJ DMT system. By combining ZP and ZJ techniques, we are able to reduce the number of redundant samples needed for IBI elimination by as much as one half. The transmitter of the ZP-ZJ DMT system involves only one IFFT operation and its receiver can be implemented efficiently using a small number of FFT/IFFT operations. Simulation shows that the bandwidth efficient ZP-ZJ DMT system can sometimes outperform the CP DMT system.
An evaluation of child pedestrian training in the UK: the scope for interactive technologies to aid teaching

Sixty four per cent of the children killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the roads of Great Britain are child pedestrians. Recognition of this issue by the Department for Transport resulted in the introduction of a pilot child pedestrian training scheme, “Kerbcraft”, from 2002-2007. Kerbcraft, which aimed to teach roadside pedestrian skills, was trialled in 75 local authorities across England and Scotland, and was successful in improving child pedestrian behaviour at the roadside. This paper presents the findings from a new survey of these 75 local authorities, identifying what training is currently given, in what ways the learning and delivery mechanisms have changed since the original pilot, and the extent to which scheme evaluation and interactive gaming are and could be used in child pedestrian training. The results suggest that the majority of local authorities continued to provide pedestrian training but in an adapted form; often shortening schemes without considering the resulting impact on participants? knowledge and skills acquisition. Accompanied by a widespread lack of effective evaluation it is difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of these schemes compared to Kerbcraft. Given central government road safety funding cuts of 40%, along with a lack of effective evaluation, child pedestrian training could be one area at risk, and supplementary materials may be required to add value to training schemes in the future. This paper argues that interactive video environments could be one addition to the range of training aids available to child pedestrians.
An application oriented benchmark suit for wireless sensor node programming language

With the rapid development of wireless sensor networks in the recent past, many programming tools have been proposed. It is difficult to provide an accurate comparison because of the different implementation. In this paper, an application based benchmark suit has been proposed. The workloads are selected based on the general application of the sensor nodes and the metrics are selected according to the resource constraint. A comparison between traditional C based programming language nesC and a light weight object-orient programming language Virgil is presented. As shown in the experiment result, the object orient language takes around 1.5 times of the storage resource, 2 times of the memory, but shows better performance in energy management. In the real world workload, the Virgil language is as good as the nesC language.
Functional foveae in an electrosensory system

Several species of Mormyrid weakly electric fish have a mobile chin protuberance that serves as a mobile antenna during prey detection, tracking behaviors, and foraging for food. It has been proposed that it constitutes a fovea of the electrosensory system. The distribution of the three types of receptor organs involved in active imaging of the local surroundings, prey detection, and passive electroreception, and their central projection to the electrosensory lobe (ELL), have been studied in Gnathonemus petersii. Density distributions were compared for different body regions. Primary afferent projections were labeled with biocytin or biotinylated dextrans. This showed that there is considerable central “over‐representation” of the mandibular and nasal regions of the sensory surface involved in electrolocation, at the expense of the other body regions investigated. This over‐representation is not a mere effect of the very high density of receptor organs in these areas, but is found to be due to central magnification. This magnification differs between the subclasses of electroreceptors, suggesting a functional segregation in the brain. We conclude that the chin protuberance and the nasal region are the regions of greatest sensitivity for the resistive, capacitive, and low‐frequency characteristics of the environment, and are probably most important in prey detection, whereas other regions of the skin with a lesser resolution and sensitivity to phase distortion of the EOD, in particular the trunk, are probably designed for imaging larger, inanimate features of the environment. Our data support the hypothesis that the chin appendage and nasal region are functionally distinct electrosensory foveae. J. Comp. Neurol. 511:342–359, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A real-time PCR assay for DNA-methylation using methylation-speciﬁc blockers

DNA methylation-based biomarkers have been dis-covered that could potentially be used for the diagnosis of cancer by detection of circulating, tumor-derived DNA in bodily ﬂuids. Any methylation detection assay that would be applied to these samples must be capable of detecting small amounts of tumor DNA in the presence of background normal DNA. We have developed a real-time PCR assay, called HeavyMethyl, that is well suited for this application. HeavyMethyl uses methylation-speciﬁc oligonucleotide blockers and a methylation-speciﬁc probe to achieve methylation-speciﬁc ampliﬁcation and detection. We tested the assays on unmethylated and artiﬁcially methylated DNA in order to determine the limit of detection. After care-ful optimization, our glutathione- S -transferase pi1 and Calcitonin assays can amplify as little as 30 and 60 pg of methylated DNA, respectively, and neither assay ampliﬁes unmethylated DNA. The Calcitonin assay showed a highly signiﬁcant methylation difference between normal colon and colon adeno-carcinomas, and methylation was also detected in serum DNA from colon cancer patients. These assays show that HeavyMethyl technology can be successfully employed for the analysis of very low concentrations of methylated DNA, e.g. in serum of patients with tumors.
From compliant balancing to dynamic walking on humanoid robot: Integration of CNS and CPG

We present our ongoing effort to achieve compliant balancing to dynamic walking on our torque-controlled, human-sized, biped humanoid robot. Inspired by human musculoskeletal systems, our approach integrates full-body task-space force controllers with joint-space pattern generators on the commanded joint torque output to facilitate robust control performance, as well as the efficient online learning. With this approach various compliant and stable motions have been created in a constructive manner. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by two folds of experiments: 1) Compliant double / single-support balancing and quasi-static walking on uneven terrain, which do not require any joint patters, 2) Fast and stable squat and dynamic walking by introducing joint-space pattern generators.
Gauge dependence of lower bounds on the Higgs boson mass derived from electroweak vacuum stability constraints

We examine the gauge dependence of lower bounds on the Higgs boson mass obtained from the requirement that the electroweak vacuum be the global minimum of the effective potential. We study a simple model, the spontaneously broken Abelian Higgs model coupled to a chiral quark doublet in a two-parameter R{sub {xi},u} gauge, and demonstrate that the lower bounds on the Higgs boson mass obtained in this model are dependent on the choice of gauge parameters. We discuss the significance of this result for calculations in the standard model. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
Modeling and verification of train safety comprehensive monitoring system using temporal Petri nets

Petri nets and temporal logic are efficient tools to study concurrent systems, but each has their own shortages. Thus, we introduce temporal Petri nets to model, analyze and verify train safety comprehensive monitoring system. On one hand, we describe frameworks of this system using Petri nets. On the other hand, we use temporal logic to describe temporal relationships of system states. Then, we analyze and verify the properties of model and conclude that the system is reliable and effective.
Examining self-verification processes in social anxiety

Abstract Socially anxious individuals hold negative beliefs about their appearance, abilities and personality. These negative self-conceptions increase expectations of negative evaluation from others and, consequently increase anxiety. Self-verification theory states that individuals seek, accept and prefer feedback that is congruent with their self-conceptions. This study explored the assumptions of self-verification theory in social anxiety. This was achieved by examining the type of feedback socially anxious individuals seek and how positive and negative feedback is processed. Results from an undergraduate sample (n = 84) indicate that socially anxious individuals were no more or less likely to seek negative feedback than individuals with low social anxiety. However, participants with greater social anxiety rated positive feedback as less accurate, rated negative feedback as more accurate, and were more comfortable with negative feedback, compared to participants with low social anxiety. Greater social anxiety was also found to predict increased discomfort with positive feedback, and fear of negative evaluation fully mediated this relationship. These findings suggest that self-verification processes operate in social anxiety and highlight the need for researchers to include measures of fears of evaluation when examining self-verification theory in samples of socially anxious individuals.
Determination of the Orientation of 3D Objects Using Spherical Harmonics

The paper describes a method for estimation of the orientation of 3D objects without point correspondence information. It is based on decomposition of the object onto a basis of spherical harmonics. Tensors are obtained, and their normalization provides the orientation of the object. Theoretical and experimental results show that the approach is more accurate than the classical method based on the diagonalization of the inertia matrix. Fast registration of 3D objects is a problem of practical interest in domains such as robotics and medical imaging, where it helps to compare multimodal data.
Reconceptualising the role of teachers as assessors: teacher assessment identity

Abstract Teachers’ capabilities to conduct classroom assessment and use assessment evidence are central to quality assessment practice, traditionally conceptualised as assessment literacy. In this paper we present, firstly, an expanded conceptualisation of teachers’ assessment work. Drawing on research on teacher identity, we posit that teachers’ identity as professionals, beliefs about assessment, disposition towards enacting assessment, and perceptions of their role as assessors are all significant for their assessment work. We term this reconceptualisation Teacher Assessment Identity (TAI). Secondly, in support of this conceptual work, we present findings from a systematic review of self-report scales on teacher assessment literacy and teacher identity related to assessment. The findings demonstrate that such scales and previous research exploring teacher assessment practices have paid limited attention to what we identify as essential and broader dimensions of TAI. We share our reconceptualisation and analyses to encourage others to consider teacher assessment work more broadly in their research.
Multi-level Dialogue Act Tags

In this paper we discuss the use of multi-layered tagsets for dialogue acts, in the context of dialogue understanding for multi-party meeting recording and retrieval applications. We discuss some desiderata for such tagsets and critically examine some previous proposals. We then define MALTUS, a new tagset based on the ICSI-MR and Switchboard tagsets, which satisfies these requirements. We present some experiments using MALTUS which attempt to compare the merits of integrated versus multi-level classifiers for the detection of dialogue acts.
An Incompressible, Depth-Averaged Lattice Boltzmann Method for Liquid Flow in Microfluidic Devices with Variable Aperture

Two-dimensional (2D) pore-scale models have successfully simulated microfluidic experiments of aqueous-phase flow with mixing-controlled reactions in devices with small aperture. A standard 2D model is not generally appropriate when the presence of mineral precipitate or biomass creates complex and irregular three-dimensional (3D) pore geometries. We modify the 2D lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) to incorporate viscous drag from the top and bottom microfluidic device (micromodel) surfaces, typically excluded in a 2D model. Viscous drag from these surfaces can be approximated by uniformly scaling a steady-state 2D velocity field at low Reynolds number. We demonstrate increased accuracy by approximating the viscous drag with an analytically-derived body force which assumes a local parabolic velocity profile across the micromodel depth. Accuracy of the generated 2D velocity field and simulation permeability have not been evaluated in geometries with variable aperture. We obtain permeabilities within approximately 10% error and accurate streamlines from the proposed 2D method relative to results obtained from 3D simulations. In addition, the proposed method requires a CPU run time approximately 40 times less than a standard 3D method, representing a significant computational benefit for permeability calculations.
Applying WebSOM for Building a Corporate Semantic Map

We intend extract textual information related to companies using selforganizing maps. Several different types of documents used in the project will be divided into small snippets. The demonstration will illustrate the feasibility of incorporating knowledge derived from text to create a Corporate Semantic Map. A parameterization of WebSOM illustrates the emergence of new knowledge and the proper identification of relevant concepts in text. The BestSupplier system is integrated with a prototype using WebSOM. The current demonstration illustrates the practical potential of this method.
Oxidized low-density lipoproteins upregulate proline oxidase to initiate ROS-dependent autophagy

Epidemiological studies showed that high levels of oxidized low-density lipoproteins (oxLDLs) are associated with increased cancer risk. We examined the direct effect of physiologic concentrations oxLDL on cancer cells. OxLDLs were cytotoxic and activate both apoptosis and autophagy. OxLDLs have ligands for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma and upregulated proline oxidase (POX) through this nuclear receptor. We identified 7-ketocholesterol (7KC) as a main component responsible for the latter. To elucidate the role of POX in oxLDL-mediated cytotoxicity, we knocked down POX via small interfering RNA and found that this (i) further reduced viability of cancer cells treated with oxLDL; (ii) decreased oxLDL-associated reactive oxygen species generation; (iii) decreased autophagy measured via beclin-1 protein level and light-chain 3 protein (LC3)-I into LC3-II conversion. Using POX-expressing cell model, we established that single POX overexpression was sufficient to activate autophagy. Thus, it led to autophagosomes accumulation and increased conversion of LC3-I into LC3-II. Moreover, beclin-1 gene expression was directly dependent on POX catalytic activity, namely the generation of POX-dependent superoxide. We conclude that POX is critical in the cellular response to the noxious effects of oxLDL by activating protective autophagy.
Cross-Modal Learning to Rank via Latent Joint Representation

Cross-modal ranking is a research topic that is imperative to many applications involving multimodal data. Discovering a joint representation for multimodal data and learning a ranking function are essential in order to boost the cross-media retrieval (i.e., image-query-text or text-query-image). In this paper, we propose an approach to discover the latent joint representation of pairs of multimodal data (e.g., pairs of an image query and a text document) via a conditional random field and structural learning in a listwise ranking manner. We call this approach cross-modal learning to rank via latent joint representation (CML2R). In CML2R, the correlations between multimodal data are captured in terms of their sharing hidden variables (e.g., topics), and a hidden-topic-driven discriminative ranking function is learned in a listwise ranking manner. The experiments show that the proposed approach achieves a good performance in cross-media retrieval and meanwhile has the capability to learn the discriminative representation of multimodal data.
A Learning Automation Solution to the QoS-Aware Service Composition

The QoS properties of the provided services based on SOA play a significant role in service composition. However in the domain of multimedia service, making the provision of services QoS-aware is still a challenging work. In this paper we present a generic QoS model of service composition, as well as an algorithm to the QoS-aware service problem. The proposed algorithm is designed and implemented based on the concepts of learning automation. It has been rigorously tested and evaluated through extensive simulations. Our results show that the learning automation based approach is scalable and can effectively achieve service composition for QoS requirement satisfaction.
Statistical models: Conventional, penalized and hierarchical likelihood

We give an overview of statistical models and likelihood, together with two of its variants: penalized and hierarchical likelihood. The Kullback-Leibler divergence is referred to repeatedly in the literature, for defining the misspecification risk of a model and for grounding the likelihood and the likelihood cross-validation, which can be used for choosing weights in penalized likelihood. Families of penalized likelihood and particular sieves estimators are shown to be equivalent. The similarity of these likelihoods with a posteriori distributions in a Bayesian approach is considered
High-copy bacterial plasmids diffuse in the nucleoid-free space, replicate stochastically and are randomly partitioned at cell division

Bacterial plasmids play important roles in the metabolism, pathogenesis and bacterial evolution and are highly versatile biotechnological tools. Stable inheritance of plasmids depends on their autonomous replication and efficient partition to daughter cells at cell division. Active partition systems have not been identified for high-copy number plasmids, and it has been generally believed that they are partitioned randomly at cell division. Nevertheless, direct evidence for the cellular location of replicating and nonreplicating plasmids, and the partition mechanism has been lacking. We used as model pJHCMW1, a plasmid isolated from Klebsiella pneumoniae that includes two β-lactamase and two aminoglycoside resistance genes. Here we report that individual ColE1-type plasmid molecules are mobile and tend to be excluded from the nucleoid, mainly localizing at the cell poles but occasionally moving between poles along the long axis of the cell. As a consequence, at the moment of cell division, most plasmid molecules are located at the poles, resulting in efficient random partition to the daughter cells. Complete replication of individual molecules occurred stochastically and independently in the nucleoid-free space throughout the cell cycle, with a constant probability of initiation per plasmid.
Bit-interleaved Doppler diversity for LTE-Advanced system

Time-varying channel degrades the performance of LTE-Advanced system due to the Intercarrier Interference (ICI) and imperfect channel estimation. In this paper, we propose a practical strategy by bit-interleaving preprocessing in transmitting part for Doppler diversity in high-speed scenario. Time-varying channel frequency response and effect of coding rate to this algorithm are analyzed. In addition, to evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy, it is implemented into LTE-A system and simulated. The results show that the strategy can achieve significant performance enhancement in high-speed scenario.
The efficacy of HER2-targeted agents in metastatic breast cancer: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND The addition of HER2-targeted agents to standard treatment has been shown to improve outcomes for HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer patients. We undertook a meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of HER2-targeted therapy in addition to standard treatment in metastatic breast cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Eligible trials were randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the addition of HER2 therapy to standard treatment (hormone or chemotherapy) reporting overall survival (OS), time to progression (TTP), progression-free survival (PFS) and/or response rates. RESULTS Eight trials comprising 1848 patients were eligible for inclusion. HER2-targeted agents were trastuzumab and lapatinib and therapeutic partners were taxanes (4 RCTs), anthracyclines (1), capecitabine (2), anastrozole (1) and letrozole (1). The addition of HER2-targeted agents improved OS [hazard ratios (HR) 0.78; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.67-0.91], TTP (HR 0.56; 95% CI 0.48-0.64), PFS (HR 0.63; 95% CI 0.53-0.74) and overall response rate (relative risk 1.67; 95% CI 1.46-1.90). CONCLUSIONS Our meta-analysis confirms the benefit of adding HER2-targeted therapy to standard treatment in HER2 positive metastatic breast cancer. Compared with OS, TTP, PFS and ORR overestimate treatment benefit. Trials in our meta-analysis differed in terms of partner drug or HER2 agents, yet delivered comparable outcomes.