Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validity of the polar S810 heart rate monitor to measure R-R intervals at rest.

PURPOSE This study was conducted to compare R-R intervals and the subsequent analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) obtained from the Polar S810 heart rate monitor (HRM) (Polar Electro Oy) with an electrocardiogram (ECG) (Physiotrace, Estaris, Lille, France) during an orthostatic test. METHODS A total of 18 healthy men (age: 27.1 +/- 1.9 yr; height: 1.82 +/- 0.06 m; mass 77.1 +/- 7.7 kg) performed an active orthostatic test during which R-R intervals were simultaneously recorded with the HRM and the ECG recorder The two signals were synchronized and corrected before a time domain analysis, the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and a Poincaré plot analysis. Bias and limits of agreement (LoA), effect size (ES), and correlation coefficients were calculated. RESULTS R-R intervals were significantly different in the supine and standing position between the ECG and the HRM uncorrected and corrected signal (P < 0.05, ES = 0.000 and 0.006, respectively). The bias +/- LoA, however, were 0.9 +/- 12 ms. HRV parameters derived from both signals in both positions were not different (P > 0.05) and well correlated (r > 0.97, P < 0.05), except root mean square of difference (RMSSD) and SD1 in standing position (P < 0.05, ES = 0.052 and 0.057; r = 0.99 and 0.98, respectively). CONCLUSION Narrow LoA, good correlations, and small effect sizes support the validity of the Polar S810 HRM to measure R-R intervals and make the subsequent HRV analysis in supine position. Caution must be taken in standing position for the parameters sensitive to the short-term variability (i.e., RMSSD and SD1).
The Membrane-Associated ‘Cortex’ of Animal Cells: its Structure and Mechanical Properties

I N T R O D U C T I O N We often think of the plasma membrane as a physically separable part of the cell. It is chemically distinct: a thin oily film of lipids and hydrophobic proteins that is immiscible with the water-based cytoplasm it encloses. In questions of cell physiology and metabolism the outer membrane is conveniently regarded as an isolated permeability barrier controlling the entry and egress of ions and small molecules. However, when we come to consider the mechanical properties of cells and their movements, any attempt to segregate the plasma membrane from the rest of the cell is misleading. It is true that the forces necessary for motile phenomena such as locomotion and mitosis are generated mainly in the cytoplasm, by a system of protein filaments known collectively as the cytoskeleton. But the cytoskeleton does not move within the flexible enclosure of the plasma membrane like a cat in a bag. There are extensive and substantial links between the two that give the cell surface appreciable strength and make it an important structural element in cell movements. Perhaps the most conspicuous form taken by the membrane-associated cyto­ skeleton is that of a cell ‘cortex’. Early studies of free-living amoebae, later extended to echinoderm eggs and macrophages, revealed a peripheral layer of gelated cyto­ plasm closely associated with the inner face of the plasma membrane. This appeared to be a major determinant of cell form and was at one time thought to be responsible for many kinds of cell movements including those of vertebrate cells. More recent work has shown that contacts between the cytoskeleton and the membrane in vertebrate cells are mainly confined to discrete regions, such as intercellular junctions and microvilli, each of which has a distinctive structure and complement of proteins. At first sight this seems at variance with the idea of a uniform, and universal, cortex. Our plan in this short essay is to describe the layer of peripheral cytoplasm associated with the plasma membrane of animal cells and to compare the uniform thick cortex found in amoebae and echinoderm eggs with the much thinner layer present in the cells of vertebrate tissues. Since the function of the cortex is to give rigidity and form to the cell surface, we will also consider the cellular mechanics of the cortex and speculate on its role in cell movements. For reasons of space and
Partage de Charge et Ingénierie de Trafic dans les Réseaux MPLS

Dans cette these, nous nous sommes interesses a l'optimisation du partage de charge dans un reseau supportant le routage a la source. Une modelisation generique en files d'attente alimentees par un trafic caracterise par sa bande passante effective et l'utilisation de la theorie des Grandes Deviations nous a permis de deduire de regles d'ingenierie dans divers contextes en optimisant des fonctions de cout qui refletent les besoins des reseaux operationnels. Des proprietes structurelles sur les politiques optimales ont ete demontrees pour des importants dans le domaine de l'ingenierie du trafic. La variabilite de la capacite des chemins d'un reseau a ete integree a l'aide du concept de capacite effective. Nous avons mis en evidence qu'un dimensionnement base sur une capacite moyenne peut s'averer sous optimal et nous avons quantifie cela. Ainsi, une approche d'ingenierie de trafic adaptative a ete proposee en faisant evoluer le partage en fonction des mesures realisees sur le reseau.
Similarity relations and cover automata

Cover automata for finite languages have been much studied a few years ago. It turns out that a simple mathematical structure, namely similarity relations over a finite set of words, is underlying these studies. In the present work, we investigate in detail for themselves the properties of these relations beyond the scope of finite languages. New results with straightforward proofs are obtained in this generalized framework, and previous results concerning cover automata are obtained as immediate consequences.
Designing visualization software for super-wicked problems

Designing effective visualization software in the context of super wicked problems includes incorporating understanding of public policy and decision making settings into the software development process. Case study findings presented here show that a problem-driven design approach must include both the primary and secondary users of visualization software. The primary lesson learned is that extending the scope of the problem domain beyond the explicit functionality of creating visualizations, to include the reactions or enhanced participation of decision makers, will likely provide scientists with more effective software.
Insights in decision making : a tribute to Hillel J. Einhorn

How do people make decisions? How can we help people make better decisions? How can we best study the processes of decision making? The growing field of behavioral decision research, which seeks to link observed decision behavior to underlying psychological mechanisms, may provide the answers to these questions. The volume is based on a recent conference held to honor the work and memory of the late Hillel J. Einhorn, a pioneering scholar in behavioral decision research. Composed of contributions by leading researchers, " Insights in Decision Making" provides a state-of-the-art image of work in this field. The range of topics covered includes conceptual and technical issues the bridge the gap between theory and the practical concern of improving decision making, difficulties in statistical thinking, experimental studies of processes of judgment and choice, and the emergence of new paradigms for studying decision behavior. Providing many avenues for future research, "Insights in Decision Making" will be essential reading for students of the psychology of decision making and will prove valuable to readers in psychology, economics, statistics, and management.
Bagging Linear Sparse Bayesian Learning Models for Variable Selection in Cancer Diagnosis

This paper investigates variable selection (VS) and classification for biomedical datasets with a small sample size and a very high input dimension. The sequential sparse Bayesian learning methods with linear bases are used as the basic VS algorithm. Selected variables are fed to the kernel-based probabilistic classifiers: Bayesian least squares support vector machines (BayLS-SVMs) and relevance vector machines (RVMs). We employ the bagging techniques for both VS and model building in order to improve the reliability of the selected variables and the predictive performance. This modeling strategy is applied to real-life medical classification problems, including two binary cancer diagnosis problems based on microarray data and a brain tumor multiclass classification problem using spectra acquired via magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The work is experimentally compared to other VS methods. It is shown that the use of bagging can improve the reliability and stability of both VS and model prediction
Discriminative techniques for keyframe selection

A convenient representation of a video segment is a single "keyframe". Keyframes are widely used in applications such as non-linear browsing and video editing. With existing methods of keyframe selection, similar video segments result in very similar keyframes, with the drawback that actual differences between the segments may be obscured. We present methods for keyframe selection based on two criteria: capturing the similarity to the represented segment, and preserving the differences from other segment keyframes, so that different segments will have visually distinct representations. We present two discriminative keyframe selection methods, and an example of experimental results.
"Check out where I am!": location-sharing motivations, preferences, and practices

Rapid growth in the usage of location-aware mobile phones has enabled Location Sharing Services (LSS) to gain mainstream adoption. Integration with social networking services has further accelerated LSS usage. We conducted an online study (N = 401) to uncover the impact of recent changes in the underlying social and technological landscape on the preferences and practices of LSS users in the US. We found that the main motivations for location sharing were to connect with one's social circle, to project an interesting image of oneself, and to receive rewards offered for "checking in. " Respondents overwhelmingly preferred sharing location only upon explicit action. More than 25% of the respondents recalled at least one instance of regret over having shared location. These findings highlight the tension between the utility of location sharing and concerns with invasions of privacy. Empowering users to resolve this tension effectively can potentially drive further growth in adoption and utility of LSS.
Monitoring the Size and Lateral Dynamics of ErbB1 Enriched Membrane Domains through Live Cell Plasmon Coupling Microscopy

To illuminate the role of the spatial organization of the epidermal growth factor receptor (ErbB1) in signal transduction quantitative information about the receptor topography on the cell surface, ideally on living cells and in real time, are required. We demonstrate that plasmon coupling microscopy (PCM) enables to detect, size, and track individual membrane domains enriched in ErbB1 with high temporal resolution. We used a dendrimer enhanced labeling strategy to label ErbB1 receptors on epidermoid carcinoma cells (A431) with 60 nm Au nanoparticle (NP) immunolabels under physiological conditions at 37°C. The statistical analysis of the spatial NP distribution on the cell surface in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) confirmed a clustering of the NP labels consistent with a heterogeneous distribution of ErbB1 in the plasma membrane. Spectral shifts in the scattering response of clustered NPs facilitated the detection and sizing of individual NP clusters on living cells in solution in an optical microscope. We tracked the lateral diffusion of individual clusters at a frame rate of 200 frames/s while simultaneously monitoring the configurational dynamics of the clusters. Structural information about the NP clusters in their membrane confinements were obtained through analysis of the electromagnetic coupling of the co-confined NP labels through polarization resolved PCM. Our studies show that the ErbB1 receptor is enriched in membrane domains with typical diameters in the range between 60–250 nm. These membrane domains exhibit a slow lateral diffusion with a diffusion coefficient of = |0.0054±0.0064| µm2/s, which is almost an order of magnitude slower than the mean diffusion coefficient of individual NP tagged ErbB1 receptors under identical conditions.
Predicting Pronunciations with Syllabification and Stress with Recurrent Neural Networks

Word pronunciations, consisting of phoneme sequences and the associated syllabification and stress patterns, are vital for both speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) systems. For speech recognition phoneme sequences for words may be learned from audio data. We train recurrent neural network (RNN) based models to predict the syllabification and stress pattern for such pronunciations making them usable for TTS. We find these RNN models significantly outperform naive rulebased models for almost all languages we tested. Further, we find additional improvements to the stress prediction model by using the spelling as features in addition to the phoneme sequence. Finally, we train a single RNN model to predict the phoneme sequence, syllabification and stress for a given word. For several languages, this single RNN outperforms similar models trained specifically for either phoneme sequence or stress prediction. We report an exhaustive comparison of these approaches for twenty languages.
KidSim: programming agents without a programming language

oftware agents are our besf hope during the 1990s for obtaining more power and utility from personal computers. Agents have the potential to partiti$xzte nrtively in accomplishing tasks, rather than serving as passive tools as do today’s applications. However, people do not want generic agents-they want help with lhtir jobs, their tasks, their goals. Agents must be flexible enough to be tailored to each individual. The most flexible way to tailor a software entity is to program it. The problem is that programming is too difficult for most people today. Consider:
REGISTRATION OF AIRBORNE LASER DATA WITH ONE AERIAL IMAGE

At present, the calibration of airborne laser scanner data relies on the estimation of the position and attitude of the aircraft during the acquisition using GPS and INS systems, but also on the estimation of some other parameters: time bias, scan angle offset, etc, which usually requires the acquisition of extra data over known features: along and across the airport runway, over an horizontal building edge, etc. The operator need then to identify within the cloud of 3D points the position of these known features. The aim of this paper is to propose a tool for the automated registration of airborne laser scanner data with one aerial image over urban areas. The method makes use of the intrinsic rigidity of the aerial image: the registration is performed by optimizing the 3D reconstruction of the scene calculated with the aerial image and the laser points. On the assumption that urban areas are mainly composed of planar surfaces, a segmentation algorithm generates a partition of the aerial image and a robust technique estimates a 3D plane for each region. The quality of the registration is calculated according to the global number of outliers remaining after the robust estimation. Experimental results show the convexity of this registration estimator for some low frequency deformations: 3D translations and rotations, and also curvature along and across the flying direction. The system then uses a Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm to calculate a precise registration of both data sets.
Effects of Speech Recognition-based Pronunciation Feedback on Second-Language Pronunciation Ability

This study's goal was to determine whether receiving a particular type of feedback on nativeness of secondlanguage accent positively influenced pronunciation over time. Forty-five native speakers of American English of beginning to intermediate Spanish ability were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group was asked to practise Spanish using speech recognitionbased software that provided scores of nativeness of pronunciation. The second group practised with software that was identical but with no feedback indicating pronunciation scores. The third group did not practise with the software. The subjects' speech was recorded at the beginning of the study and again after three weeks, and scores based on log posterior probabilities were calculated. These scores are output by the speech recognizer and have been shown to correlate well with human listeners' nonnativeness judgements [1]. The two practice groups showed a small but statistically significant improvement over the control group. The two practice groups were also compared with each other.
Transcriptome analysis of immature xylem in the Chinese fir at different developmental phases

Background.Chinese fir [Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook. ] is one of the most important native tree species for timber production in southern China. An understanding of overall fast growing stage, stem growth stage and senescence stage cambium transcriptome variation is lacking. We used transcriptome sequencing to identify the repertoire of genes expressed during development of xylem tissue in Chinese fir, aiming to delineate the molecular mechanisms of wood formation. Results. We carried out transcriptome sequencing at three different cultivation ages (7Y, 15Y and 21Y) generating 68.71 million reads (13.88 Gbp). A total of 140,486 unigenes with a mean size of 568.64 base pairs (bp) were obtained via de novo assembly. Of these, 27,427 unigenes (19.52%) were further annotated by comparison to public protein databases. A total of 5,331 (3.79%) unigenes were mapped into 118 pathways by searching against the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes Pathway database (KEGG). Differentially expressed genes (DEG) analysis identified 3, 16 and 5,899 DEGs from the comparison of 7Y vs. 15Y, 7Y vs. 21Y and 15Y vs. 21Y, respectively, in the immature xylem tissues, including 2,638 significantly up-regulated and 3,280 significantly down-regulated genes. Besides, five NAC transcription factors, 190 MYB transcription factors, and 34 WRKY transcription factors were identified respectively from Chinese fir transcriptome. Conclusion. Our results revealed the active transcriptional pathways and identified the DEGs at different cultivation phases of Chinese fir wood formation. This transcriptome dataset will aid in understanding and carrying out future studies on the molecular basis of Chinese fir wood formation and contribute to future artificial production and applications.
Playing Non-linear Games with Linear Oracles

Linear optimization is many times algorithmically simpler than non-linear convex optimization. Linear optimization over matroid polytopes, matching polytopes and path polytopes are example of problems for which we have efficient combinatorial algorithms, but whose non-linear convex counterpart is harder and admit significantly less efficient algorithms. This motivates the computational model of online decision making and optimization using a linear optimization oracle. In this computational model we give the first efficient decision making algorithm with optimal regret guarantees, answering an open question of Kalai and Vempala, Hazan and Kale, in case the decision set is a polytope. We also give an extension of the algorithm for the partial information setting, i.e. the "bandit" model. Our method is based on a novel variant of the conditional gradient method, or Frank-Wolfe algorithm, that reduces the task of minimizing a smooth convex function over a domain to that of minimizing a linear objective. Whereas previous variants of this method give rise to approximation algorithms, we give such algorithm that converges exponentially faster and thus runs in polynomial-time for a large class of convex optimization problems over polyhedral sets, a result of independent interest.
Consistent Threat Assessment in Rear-End Near-Crashes Using BTN and TTB Metrics, Road Information and Naturalistic Traffic Data

Rear-end crashes are one of the most frequent types of traffic accidents. As a response, in order to assist the drivers, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are being developed; particularly, Collision Avoidance Systems (CAS). Current CAS algorithms are commonly based on very simplified models of the preceding vehicle motion, under the assumptions of constant velocity or constant acceleration. This leads to several issues in the prediction of the lead vehicle behavior, and at the end, in the evaluation of the potential collision hazard.
Data Fusion and Object Identification

Many databases exist, which are defined on the same universe of objects, but there is no global ID available at all. To fuse data it is necessary to identify objects. As an example think of several population databases, where only name and address are common attributes. Data quality varies over the sources. Therefore the identification is more complicated due to erroneous and obsolete data. The usual approach of data integration is to establish a global schema, which is derived from the local schemata. In the case of missing ID’s the global schema is not sufficient for identification. Hence we compute appropriate derivable attributes. Records are compared pairwise based on those derived attributes. The underlying comparison space is partitoned into at least two classes same and not same. To classify records according to these comparison values, supervised learning can be applied. Data Fusion is more than integration because it merges data and evaluates the quality of the merging. We develop a unified framework for such kind of data fusion. We cover the feature selection problem, and embed the data fusion problem into supervised classification. This approach makes it possible to select the best procedure for data fusion and object identification from solid methodologies like likelihood ratio tests (record linkage), classification trees or non linear classification. Unfortunately, for supervised learning a random sample of pairs must be taken and each pair labeled. Alternatively, a weighted similarity measure can be defined and used for classification. Referring to modern theory of distributed, heterogeneous databases we add a third component to the three-layer Mediator-Wrapper architecture of data integration introduced by Wiederhold: The Identificator. We illustrate the approach by an example.
Mangrove Forest Distributions and Dynamics in Madagascar (1975–2005)

Mangrove forests of Madagascar are declining, albeit at a much slower rate than the global average. The forests are declining due to conversion to other land uses and forest degradation. However, accurate and reliable information on their present distribution and their rates, causes, and consequences of change have not been available. Earlier studies used remotely sensed data to map and, in some cases, to monitor mangrove forests at a local scale. Nonetheless, a comprehensive national assessment and synthesis was lacking. We interpreted time-series satellite data of 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2005 using a hybrid supervised and unsupervised classification approach. Landsat data were geometrically corrected to an accuracy of ± one-half pixel, an accuracy necessary for change analysis. We used a postclassification change detection approach. Our results showed that Madagascar lost 7% of mangrove forests from 1975 to 2005, to a present extent of ∼2,797 km2. Deforestation rates and causes varied both spatially and temporally. The forests increased by 5.6% (212 km2) from 1975 to 1990, decreased by 14.3% (455 km2) from 1990 to 2000, and decreased by 2.6% (73 km2) from 2000 to 2005. Similarly, major changes occurred in Bombekota Bay, Mahajamba Bay, the coast of Ambanja, the Tsiribihina River, and Cap St Vincent. The main factors responsible for mangrove deforestation include conversion to agriculture (35%), logging (16%), conversion to aquaculture (3%), and urban development (1%).