Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Tuning Scheme for Parameters of Generalized Predictive Controller Based on Mind Evolutionary Algorithm

This paper presents a scheme that the Mind Evolutionary Algorithm (MEA) tunes adaptively parameters of the generalized predictive controller. The value domain of parameters constitutes the solution space of MEA. The cost function of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC), the maximum value of the system output and its decay speed constitute the fitness function of MEA. During the control process, MEA adjusts constantly parameters so that the rapidity and robustness of GPC can be improved. Optimum experiments and simulation experiments show the scheme effectiveness and feasibility.
In Vivo Overexpression of IL-13 Receptor α2 Chain Inhibits Tumorigenicity of Human Breast and Pancreatic Tumors in Immunodeficient Mice

Interleukin 13 receptor α2 (IL-13Rα2) chain is highly expressed on some tumor cell lines and primary cell cultures. This receptor chain plays an important role in ligand binding and internalization. To determine the functional significance of overexpression of this chain, we stably transfected IL-13Rα2 chain in human breast (MDA-MB-231) and pancreatic (PANC-1) cancer cell lines that naturally do not express this chain. There was no difference in growth between vector only transfected and IL-13Rα2 chain transfected cells in vitro. However, surprisingly, in immunodeficient mice, tumorigenicity was profoundly inhibited in IL-13Rα2 chain overexpressing tumors. Because breast tumors that grew later showed loss of IL-13Rα2 gene expression, lack of tumorigenicity correlated positively with IL-13Rα2 chain expression. Inflammatory cells including neutrophils and macrophages were identified in IL-13Rα2 overexpressing regressing tumors and neutrophils were found to produce IL-13. IL-13 showed a modest antitumor activity to IL-13Rα2 chain overexpressing tumors in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, IL-13Rα2 chain overexpressing tumors constitutively produced IL-8 that has been shown to have antitumor effect. These results establish a novel function of a cytokine receptor chain and further suggest that the presence of this chain on tumor cells by itself may play a key role in tumorigenicity.
Modified Quadratic Classifier and Directional Features for Handwritten Malayalam Character Recognition

Gradient of images is an effective discriminative feature, widely used in pattern recognition applications. In this work the twelve directional codes depending on the gradient direction is coupled with a statistical classifier for designing an offline recognition system for handwritten isolated Malayalam characters. Preprocessed character images are decomposed into sub-images using the Fixed Meshing strategy and the twelve directional codes are extracted to form the feature vector. Classification has been carried out by implementing the Modified Quadratic Discriminant function (MQDF), a successful statistical approach for Handwritten Character Recognition. We obtained 95.42% accuracy, and the experimental result shows that the approach provides better results. Compared to QDF, MQDF improves the classification performance by more than 10%, reduces the computation cost and also provides dimensionality reduction to a larger extent. A database of 19,800 handwritten Malayalam character samples was used for the experiment.
Establishing and Navigating Trace Links between Elements of Informal Diagram Sketches

The Augmented Interaction Room is a team room whose walls are outfitted with wall-sized touch screens that are used to create informal diagram sketches. It strives to help stakeholders in fostering a common understanding of a project's most important risk and value drivers by visualizing aspects of a software system from different perspectives and allowing stakeholders to annotate elements that are especially important or critical for project success. In this paper, we discuss how a combination of trace ability techniques and fuzzy search methods can be used to efficiently support the stakeholders' collaboration and their early design and decision making activities by providing an easy and intuitive visualization and navigation approach and by automatically uncovering potential inconsistencies and contradictions in the created sketches. Since the pragmatic methodology of the Augmented Interaction Room encourages stakeholders to work with handwritten sketches rather than with formal modeling languages, the identification and maintenance of trace links is particularly challenging.
Production Lead Time in Serial Lines: Evaluation, Analysis, and Control

Production Lead Time \mbi (LT) is the average time a part spends in the system, being processed or waiting for processing. In systems with unlimited buffers, \mbi LT may be orders of magnitude larger than the total processing time, leading to serious economic and quality problems. At present, no systematic analytical methods for evaluation, analysis, and control of \mbi LT in systems with machines having up- and downtime characterized by continuous random variables are available. This paper is intended to develop such methods. Specifically, we address synchronous serial lines with exponential machines and derive formulas for \mbi LT as a function of machine parameters and raw material release rate. Using these formulas, we develop methods for open- and closed-loop raw material release, which result in the desired \mbi LT. For asynchronous exponential lines, we provide an upper bound on LT. For non-exponential lines (e.g., Weibull, gamma, and log-normal), we offer an empirical formula for \mbi LT as an affine function of the coefficient of variation. The results reported in this paper enable a new paradigm for production systems management, namely: manage a production system so that the desired \mbi LT is ensured, while the throughput is maximized. This paper analyzes production lead time in manufacturing systems with hardware-unlimited buffers. The main practical insights obtained are as follows. The lead time as a function of the raw material release rate has a “knee-type” behavior. Releasing raw material beyond the knee results in no noticeable increase of the throughput, but in unlimited increase of the lead time. To maintain the lead time close to the knee (and, thus, maximize the throughput), a simple control law may be used: release raw material on, say, hourly or shift-type basis, if the total work-in-process is below a certain threshold (provided in the paper) and do not release otherwise.
Question Answering Challenge for Five Ranked Answers and List Answers - Overview of NTCIR4 QAC2 Subtask 1 and 2

In this paper we describe an evaluation of question answering task, Question Answering Challenge 2 (QAC2). This evaluation project was r st carried out at the NTCIR Workshop 3 in October 2002. One objective of the QAC was to develop practical QA systems in a general domain by focusing on research relating to user interaction and information extraction. Our second objective was to develop an evaluation method for the question answering system and information resources for evaluation. We den ed three kinds of tasks in the QAC2 as well as QAC1: Subtask 1, where questions required ve possible answers in some order, Subtask 2, where questions had one list of answers and Subtask 3, where there were a series of questions. This paper describes the evaluation overview of Subtask 1 and 2. We prepared 200 questions for Subtask 1 and Subtask 2. We conducted only Formal Run for these two subtasks. There were 18 active participants: 25 system submissions for subtask 1 from 16 participants and 14 system submissions for subtask 2 from 9 participants.
Dynamic Control of Nanoprecipitation in a Nanopipette

Studying the earliest stages of precipitation at the nanoscale is technically challenging but quite valuable as such phenomena reflect important processes such as crystallization and biomineralization. Using a quartz nanopipette as a nanoreactor, we induced precipitation of an insoluble salt to generate oscillating current blockades. The reversible process can be used to measure both kinetics of precipitation and relative size of the resulting nanoparticles. Counter ions for the highly water-insoluble salt zinc phosphate were separated by the pore of a nanopipette and a potential applied to cause ion migration to the interface. By analyzing the kinetics of pore blockage, two distinct mechanisms were identified: a slower process due to precipitation from solution, and a faster process attributed to voltage-driven migration of a trapped precipitate. We discuss the potential of these techniques in studying precipitation dynamics, trapping particles within a nanoreactor, and electrical sensors based on nanoprecipitation.
Recombinant human interleukin receptor antagonist influences serum chemokines in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Objective To investigate the serum expressions of chemokines CCL2 and CCL3 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were treated with recombinant human interleukin 1 (IL-1) receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra). Material and methods Serum CCL2 and CCL3 were determined using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 54 active RA patients before and after treatment with IL-1Ra or a placebo, as well as 36 healthy controls. Results Compared with the healthy controls, all the 54 RA patients exhibited higher serum CCL2 and CCL3 before and after treatment (p < 0.05). However, patients who had a good response to IL-1Ra treatment had significantly lower mean changes in the serum CCL2 and CCL3 levels from baseline to the last injection than IL-1Ra non-responders (p < 0.01). Conclusions CCL2 and CCL3 may be useful efficacy markers of IL-1Ra treatment.
Sound Source Localization through 8 MEMS Microphones Array Using a Sand-Scorpion-Inspired Spiking Neural Network

Sand-scorpions and many other arachnids perceive their environment by using their feet to sense ground waves. They are able to determine amplitudes the size of an atom and locate the acoustic stimuli with an accuracy of within 13° based on their neuronal anatomy. We present here a prototype sound source localization system, inspired from this impressive performance. The system presented utilizes custom-built hardware with eight MEMS microphones, one for each foot, to acquire the acoustic scene, and a spiking neural model to localize the sound source. The current implementation shows smaller localization error than those observed in nature.
2-Aminobenzoyl-CoA monooxygenase/reductase, a novel type of flavoenzyme. Identification of the reaction products.

In a previous report we have described some properties of a novel flavoenzyme from a denitrifying Pseudomonas species which catalyzes the oxygen- and NAD(P)H-dependent conversion of 2-aminobenzoyl-CoA [Buder, R. , Ziegler, K. , Fuchs, G. , Langkau, B. & Ghisla, S. (1989) Eur. J. Biochem. 185, 637-634]. In this paper, we report on the identification of the three products formed from 2-aminobenzoyl-CoA in this reaction. The spectroscopic data and the chemical properties of these compounds and those of their degradation products are compatible with the structures of 2-amino-5-hydroxybenzoyl-CoA, 2-amino-5-hydroxycyclohex-1-enecarboxyl-CoA and of 2-amino-5-oxocyclohex-1-enecarboxyl-CoA. The latter is the main product and was found to be rather unstable since it hydrolyzes and decarboxylates readily at pH less than 5. Ammonia is released from the decarboxylation product in the neutral pH range to yield 1,4-cyclohexanedione. Conditions were optimized such that the CoA thioester of 2-amino-5-hydroxybenzoate is the product obtained at greater than 98% yield. 2-amino-5-hydroxycyclohex-1-enecarboxyl-CoA is the product which is formed when the mixture of the reaction products is treated with sodium borohydride before separation.
Simulating the Population Dynamics of Lizards in the Sand Dunes of the São Francisco River : A Simulator for the Calangos Game

Calangos is an under development educational game based on the fauna and flora of the desert-like field of the sand dunes in the middle São Francisco River, located within the Caatinga biome in Brazil. One of the player’s goals is to manage the behavior of species of lizards that inhabit this biome, with consequences to their ecology and evolution. For the development of the game, a prototype, or simulator, is proposed. This prototype will be used to simulate the natural predatorprey dynamics based on the Evolutionary Biology and Ecology literature. The objective of this paper is to introduce the simulator and present some key experimental results obtained with the simulations performed with it. The results clearly show that in a balanced environment without predators it is possible to observe a dynamic equilibrium of populations in accordance with a typical Lotka-Volterra model of population dynamics. In turn, it is also observed that in the most hostile environments containing large numbers of predators, the capability of evolution allows the lizard species to survive in the environment, which does not occur if the lizards’ evolution is disabled during the simulations. In the context of the Calangos game, the results presented here serve as the initial proof of concept necessary for the modeling of the lizards to be incorporated in the game.
Being Omnipresent To Be Almighty: The Importance of The Global Web Evidence for Organizational Expert Finding

Modern expert nding algorithms are developed under the assumption that all possible expertise evidence for a person is concentrated in a company that currently employs the person. The evidence that can be acquired outside of an enterprise is traditionally unnoticed. At the same time, the Web is full of personal information which is sufficiently detailed to judge about a person's skills and knowledge. In this work, we review various sources of expertise evidence out-side of an organization and experiment with rankings built on the data acquired from six dierent sources, accessible through APIs of two major web search engines. We show that these rankings and their combinations are often more realistic and of higher quality than rankings built on organizational data only.
Multiobjective optimization of the transport in oil pipelines networks

Heuristic methods are specially well suited to solve combinatorial problems. One of these problems is the distribution of petroleum products through oil pipelines networks. In this paper the problem is stated and solved using a multiobjective and constraint evolutionary optimization algorithm. Several objective functions has been defined to express the goals of the solutions as well as the preferences among them. Some constraints are included as hard objective functions and some has been evaluated through a repairing function to avoid infeasible solutions. An example of working is given.
On a robust estimator in heteroscedastic regression model in the presence of outliers

The ordinary least squares (OLS) procedure is inefficient when the underlying assumption of constant error variances (homoscedasticity) is not met. As an alternative, we often used weighted least squares (WLS) procedure which requires a known form of the heteroscedastic errors structures, to estimate the regression parameters when heteroscedasticity occurs in the data. It is now evident that the WLS estimator is easily affected by outliers. To remedy the problem of heteroscedasticity and outliers simultaneously, we proposed a new method that we call two-step robust weighted least squares (TSRWLS) where prior information on the structure of the heteroscedastic errors is not required. The performance of the newly proposed estimator is investigated extensively by real data sets and Monte Carlo simulations.
Drug Transporter Expression and Activity in Human Hepatoma HuH-7 Cells

Human hepatoma cells may represent a valuable alternative to the use of human hepatocytes for studying hepatic drug transporters, which is now a regulatory issue during drug development. In the present work, we have characterized hepatic drug transporter expression, activity and regulation in human hepatoma HuH-7 cells, in order to determine the potential relevance of these cells for drug transport assays. HuH-7 cells displayed notable multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP) activity, presumed to reflect expression of various hepatic MRPs, including MRP2. By contrast, they failed to display functional activities of the uptake transporters sodium taurocholate co-transporting polypeptide (NTCP), organic anion-transporting polypeptides (OATPs) and organic cation transporter 1 (OCT1), and of the canalicular transporters P-glycoprotein and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP). Concomitantly, mRNA expressions of various sinusoidal and canalicular hepatic drug transporters were not detected (NTCP, OATP1B1, organic anion transporter 2 (OAT2), OCT1 and bile salt export pump) or were found to be lower (OATP1B3, OATP2B1, multidrug and toxin extrusion protein 1, BCRP and MRP3) in hepatoma HuH-7 cells than those found in human hepatocytes, whereas other transporters such as OAT7, MRP4 and MRP5 were up-regulated. HuH-7 cells additionally exhibited farnesoid X receptor (FXR)- and nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-related up-regulation of some transporters. Such data indicate that HuH-7 cells, although expressing rather poorly some main hepatic drug transporters, may be useful for investigating interactions of drugs with MRPs, notably MRP2, and for studying FXR- or Nrf2-mediated gene regulation.
V: Image Reconstruction: Methods of Back Projection and Tensor Transform

Let us analyze the application of this principle of superposition for reconstructing the image of size 256×256, i.e. for the N = 256 case. In paired representation (and tensor representation), the reconstruction of this image requires measurements of (3/2) · 256 = 384 projections, which are required to calculate the complete set of direction images. (Principle of Superposition, N = 256): The discrete image of size 256 × 256, can be composed from its 384 direction images as
Available Potential Energy and Irreversible Mixing in the Meridional Overturning Circulation

The overturning circulation of the global oceans is examined from an energetics viewpoint. A general framework for stratified turbulence is used for this purpose; first, it highlights the importance of available potential energy in facilitating the transfer of kinetic energy to the background potential energy (defined as the adiabatically rearranged state with no motion). Next, it is shown that it is the rate of transfer between different energy reservoirs that is important for the maintenance of the ocean overturning, rather than the total amount of potential or kinetic energy. A series of numerical experiments is used to assess which energy transfers are significant in the overturning circulation. In the steady state, the rate of irreversible diapycnal mixing is necessarily balanced by the production of available potential energy sourced from surface buoyancy fluxes. Thus, the external inputs of available potential energy from surface buoyancy forcing and of kinetic energy from other sources (such as surface winds and tides, and leading to turbulent mixing) are both necessary to maintain the overturning circulation.
Six weeks of structured exercise training and hypocaloric diet increases the probability of ovulation after clomiphene citrate in overweight and obese patients with polycystic ovary syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND Clomiphene citrate (CC) is the first-line therapy for the induction of ovulation in infertile women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), but ∼20% of patients are unresponsive. The aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that a 6-week intervention that consisted of structured exercise training (SET) and hypocaloric diet increases the probability of ovulation after CC in overweight and obese CC-resistant PCOS patients. METHODS A cohort of 96 overweight and obese CC-resistant PCOS patients was enrolled consecutively in a three-arm randomized, parallel, controlled, assessor-blinded clinical trial. The three interventions were: SET plus hypocaloric diet for 6 weeks (Group A); 2 weeks of observation followed by one cycle of CC therapy (Group B); and SET plus hypocaloric diet for 6 weeks, with one cycle of CC after the first 2 weeks (Group C). The primary end-point was the ovulation rate. Other reproductive data, as well as anthropometric, hormonal and metabolic data, were also collected and considered as secondary end points. RESULTS After 6 weeks of SET plus hypocaloric diet, the ovulation rate was significantly (P =0.008) higher in Group C [12/32 (37.5%)] than in Groups A [4/32 (12.5%)] and B [3/32 (9.4%)] with relative risks of 3.9 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1-8.3; P = 0.035] and 4.0 (95% CI 1.2-12.8; P = 0.020) compared with Groups A and B, respectively. Compared with baseline, in Groups A and C, a significant improvement in clinical and biochemical androgen and insulin sensitivity indexes was observed. In the same two groups, the insulin sensitivity index was significantly (P < 0.05) better than that in Group B. CONCLUSIONS In overweight and obese CC-resistant PCOS patients, a 6-week intervention of SET and a hypocaloric diet was effective in increasing the probability of ovulation under CC treatment. The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov:NCT0100468.
Architecturally reconfigurable development of mobile games

Mobile game development must face the problem of multiple hardware and software platforms, which will bring large number of variants. To cut the development and maintenance efforts, in this paper, we present an architecturally reconfigurable software product line approach to develop mobile games. Mobile game domain variants could be handled uniformly and traced across all kinds of software assets. The architecture and configuration mechanism in our approach make optimizations that built into meta-components propagated to all product line members. We show this approach with an industrial role-playing-game product line, which achieved not only development and maintenance gains, but also performance enhancements.
An X-ray and near-IR spectroscopic analysis of the ULIRG IRAS 05189-2524

We present new, quasi-simultaneous hard X-ray and near-IR spectra of the ultraluminous infrared galaxy IRAS 05189-2524, and discuss them together with archival and literature data. The 1.9 Seyfert nucleus is Compton-thin. The near-IR broad lines are seen in transmission, similarly to the X-rays, and the medium along the line of sight has an $A_V/N_{\rm H}$ ratio definitely lower than Galactic. The increase in obscuration observed at the latter epoch has $\Delta A_V/ \Delta N_{\rm H}$ also less than Galactic, supporting a correlation between the properties of the obscuring matter and its proximity to the center. The measured A V is compatible with the broad component of $\rm H\alpha$ being seen in transmission, as opposed to scattering, so that most of the observed polarization must be due to dichroism. The bolometric luminosity of the AGN, deduced from the X-ray and line luminosities, falls definitely short of accounting for the IR luminosity of the galaxy, consistent with its coolish infrared color.
Estimation of channel bias for telephone speech recognition

We propose a maximum a posterior (MAP) estimation of channel bias to compensate for the channel mismatch in telephone speech recognition. For a telephone speech, the channel bias is estimated by maximizing a posterior probability. Because a posterior probability is composed of a likelihood function and a prior density, we introduce a scale factor to evaluate their weights in MAP estimation. To further improve the performance, a priori channel statistics is extended to multiple components and the channel mismatch is separately compensated for different segments. A rapid MAP estimation applied in the feature domain is also proposed for reducing computational complexity. Experiments show that the proposed method can significantly improve recognition rates and computational complexity.