Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Finite-State Dirichlet Allocation : Learned Priors on Finite-State Models

To model a collection of documents, suppose that each document was generated by a different hidden Markov model or probabilistic finite-state automaton (PFSA). Further suppose that all these PFSAs are similar because they are drawn from a single (but unknown) prior distribution over PFSAs. We wish to infer the prior, obtain smoothed estimates of the individual PFSAs, and reconstruct the hidden paths by which the unknown PFSAs generated their documents. As an initial application, particularly hard for our model because of its sparse data, we derive an FSA topology from WordNet. For each verb, we construct the “document” of all nouns that have appeared as its object. Our method then learns a better estimate of p(object | verb), as well as which paths in WordNet, and hence which senses of ambiguous objects, tend to be favored. Our method improves 14.6% over Witten-Bell smoothing on the conditional perplexity of objects given the verb, and 27.5% over random on detecting the most common senses of nouns in the SemCor corpus.
Relationship between respiratory viral load and lung lesion severity: a study in 24 cases of pandemic H1N1 2009 influenza A pneumonia.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between respiratory viral load and lung lesion severity of patients with pandemic H1N1 2009 influenza A pneumonia. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional observation study. METHODS 24 consecutive H1N1 influenza patients with viral pneumonia (13 males, 11 females, mean age: 17.5 years) during their presentation to hospital were retrospectively analysed. Viral load were first measured on average 5.2 days after the onset of symptoms. The initial CT and viral load measurement was carried on the same day in 13 patients. The rest were carried out with a mean interval time of 1.5 days. All patients had viral load follow-up till turned negative. Thirteen patients had radiological follow-up. RESULTS There was no significant correlation between the initial lung lesion severity and viral load (P=0.4). Both viral load and lung lesion severity decreased over time, being highest value at initial presentation. The patients had higher initial viral load or higher initial lung lesion severity tended to be slower in resolving. The lung lesion decreased at a slower rate than viral load. CONCLUSIONS While there was no correlation between the initial viral load and lung lesion severity, these two indices provide valuable information for epidemiological control.
E ects of Homophily on Citation Patterns in Scienti c Communities Master ' s thesis ( 30 ECTS )

Individuals tend to establish ties in higher rate with individuals that exhibit some kind of affinity than with dissimilar ones. This principle, referred to as homophily, has a important impact in the shape of the social interactions, i.e., topologies of the underlying social networks. In the context of bibliometrics, the effects of homophily can be observed in patterns of citation: references often include a non-negligeable number of self-citations and citations from close collaborators. In light of the above, we aim at designing bibliometric indicators that allow us to modulate the effect of homophily in the ranking induced by metrics. Clearly, homophily-aware metrics would favor communities where citations involve a broader participation. In this thesis, we present homophily-trimmed and homophily-weighted versions of the citation count and report on the patterns of citation uncovered by such metrics over the citation network for three different communities.
Optimal Feedback Rate Sharing Strategy in Zero-Forcing MIMO Broadcast Channels

In this paper, we consider a multiple-input multiple-output broadcast channel with limited feedback where all users share the feedback rates. Firstly, we find the optimal feedback rate sharing strategy using zero-forcing transmission scheme at the transmitter and random vector quantization at each user. We mathematically prove that equal sharing of sum feedback size among all users is the optimal strategy in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region, while allocating whole feedback size to a single user is the optimal strategy in the high SNR region. For the mid-SNR region, we propose a simple numerical method to find the optimal feedback rate sharing strategy based on our analysis and show that the equal allocation of sum feedback rate to a partial number of users is the optimal strategy. It is also shown that the proposed simple numerical method can be applicable to finding the optimal feedback rate sharing strategy when different path losses of the users are taken into account. Our proposed feedback rate sharing scheme can be extended to the system with stream control and is still useful for the systems with other techniques such as regularized zero-forcing and spherical cap codebook.
Stability of sampled-data, delayed haptic interaction under passive or active operator

This study studies the absolute stability of a sampled-data, m-user haptic virtual environment (HVE) system based on the discrete-time circle criterion. Depending on the task being performed by an operator, the passivity of the operator is influenced. The authors provide a framework for the system stability analysis, in which the operator is allowed to exhibit passive or active behaviour. In this study, the well-known Colgate's stability condition for a 1-user haptic system with a passive operator is reproduced and then extended to the m-user case while allowing each or all of the operators to behave passively or actively. Another extension to Colgate's condition comes by allowing communication delays to exist in the system. Simulations and experiments confirm the validity of the proposed conditions for stability of sampled-data, delayed m-user HVE systems.
Mental Health and Human Rights: Vision, Praxis, and Courage

Mental Health and Human Rights: Vision, Praxis, and Courage Edited by Michael Dudley, Derrick Silove, Fran Gale. Oxford University Press. 2012. £75.00 (hb). 736 pp. ISBN: 9780199213962 International, regional and domestic human rights comprise laws which safeguard entitlements owned by everyone
Simulation of cellular biochemical system kinetics

The goal of realistically and reliably simulating the biochemical processes underlying cellular function is achievable through a systematic approach that makes use of the broadest possible amount of in vitro and in vivo data, and is consistent with all applicable physical chemical theories. Progress will be facilitated by establishing: (1) a concrete self‐consistent theoretical foundation for systems simulation; (2) extensive and accurate databases of thermodynamic properties of biochemical reactions; (3) parameterized and validated models of enzyme and transporter catalytic mechanisms that are consistent with physical chemical theoretical foundation; and (4) software tools for integrating all these concepts, data, and models into a cohesive representation of cellular biochemical systems. Ongoing initiatives are laying the groundwork for the broad‐based community cooperation that will be necessary to pursue these elements of a strategic infrastructure for systems simulation on a large scale. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2011 3 136–146 DOI: 10.1002/wsbm.116
Toward multi-level modeling of robotic sensor networks: a case study in acoustic event monitoring

Modeling and simulation can be powerful tools for analyzing multi-agent systems, such as networked robotic systems and sensor networks. In this paper, it is shown concretely how instances of both these elements fit into a general methodology for multi-level modeling, providing insight into system dynamics. Use of the resulting general framework is illustrated through application to a specific sample case study involving a robotic wireless sensor network engaged in an acoustic detection task. We then compare and contrast the resulting family of models, highlighting explicitly the trade-off between realism and simplicity.
Temporal segmentation of laparoscopic videos into surgical phases

Videos of laparoscopic surgeries need to be segmented temporally into phases so that surgeons can use the recordings efficiently in their everyday work. In this paper we investigate the performance of an automatic phase segmentation method based on instrument detection and recognition. Contrary to known methods that dynamically align phases to an annotated dataset, our method is not limited to standardized or unvarying endoscopic procedures. Phases of laparoscopic procedures show a high correlation to the presence of one or a group of certain instruments. Therefore, the first step of our procedure is the definition of a set of rules that describe these correlations. The next step is the spatial detection of instruments using a color-based segmentation method and a rule-based interpretation of image moments for the refinement of the detections. Finally, the detected regions are recognized with SVM classifiers and ORB features. The evaluation shows that the proposed technique find phases in laparoscopic videos of cholecystectomies reliably.
On the pragmatics of contrast

ABSTRACT In this paper, I review properties and consequences of the PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST. This principle, which I have argued from the beginning has a pragmatic basis, captures facts about the inferences speakers and addressees make for both conventional and novel words. Along with a PRINCIPLE OF CONVENTIONALITY, it accounts for the pre-emption of novel words by well-established ones. And it holds just as much for morphology as it does for words and larger expressions. In short, Contrast has the major properties Gathercole (1989) proposed as characteristic of her alternative to Contrast.
Constrained Free Form Deformation Driven by Sectional Outline Curve

A method that uses 2D sectional outline curve to drive 3D mesh model deformation is presented. (Triangular mesh model denoted by) STL data format is taken as research object. Based on topological reconstruction and using the topological information of the model, the sectional outline curve that intersects by plane and triangular meshes is efficiently constructed and is presented by cubic NURBS curve. Resample the curve based on curvature distribution and make the new points as data points for curve edit, edit the curve by using mouse to interactively drag the data points on the curve. When curve shape revision is satisfied, position of data points that before and after revision are taken as constrained conditions, use constrained direct manipulation of free form deformation to make triangular mesh model deformed. This method has advantages such as it's convenient for manipulate, real-time and intuitionistic, and not necessary to build mapping relation between outline curve and vertex of mesh model.
Blood Glucose-Lowering Nuclear Receptor Agonists Only Partially Normalize Hepatic Gene Expression in db/db Mice

Agonists of the nuclear receptors peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) γ, PPARα, and liver X receptors (LXRs) reduce blood glucose in type 2 diabetic patients and comparable mouse models. Since the capacity of these drugs to normalize hepatic gene expression is not known, we compared groups of obese diabetic db/db mice treated with agonists for PPARγ [rosiglitazone (Rosi); 10 mg/kg/day], PPARα [Wy 14643 (Wy; 4-chloro-6-(2,3-xylidino)-2-pyrimidinyl)thioacetic acid); 30 mg/kg/day], and LXR [T0901317 (T09; N-(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)-N-[4-[2,2,2-trifluoro-1-hydroxy-1(trifluoromethyl)-ethyl]phenyl]-benzenesulfonamide); 40 mg/kg/day] and from untreated nondiabetic litter mates (db/+) by oligonucleotide microarrays and quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. The 10-day treatment period of db/db mice with Rosi, Wy, and T09 altered expression of 300, 620, and 735 genes including agonist-specific target genes, respectively. However, from the 337 genes differentially regulated in untreated db/+ versus db/db animals, only 34 (10%), 51 (15%), and 82 (24%) were regulated in the direction of the db/+ group by Rosi, Wy, and T09, respectively. Gene expression normalization by drug treatment involved glucose homeostasis, lipid homeostasis, and local glucocorticoid activation. In addition, our data pointed to hitherto unknown interference of these nuclear receptors with growth hormone receptor gene expression and endoplasmic reticulum stress. However, many diabetes-associated gene alterations remained unaffected or were even aggravated by nuclear receptor agonist treatment. These results suggest that diabetes-induced gene expression is minimally reversed by potent blood glucose-lowering nuclear receptor agonists.
Evalution research based on SECI model in E-learning

This paper, based on the research framework of the SECI model, taking the online course “computer animation” in Wenzhou university of China as a sample and establishing the content analysis as the main research method. The features of online interactive statements and actions are investigated by means of the knowledge such as socialization, externalization, combination, internalization and innovation, etc, respectively. The evaluation research is carried on the effect of E-learning, and further the corresponding suggestion is put forward in order to promote the development of collective wisdom in the process of E-learning.
econstor Make Your Publications Visible . A Service of zbw

Wage Effects of Non-Wage Labour Costs We study shortand long-term wage effects of two important elements of non-wage labour costs: firing costs and payroll taxes. We exploit a reform that introduced substantial reduction in these two provisions for unemployed workers aged less than thirty and over forty five years. Theoretical insights are gained with a matching model with heterogeneous workers, which predicts an ambiguous effect on wages: firing costs are expected to increase wages, because they increase the bargaining power of workers, while the effect of payroll taxes is negative. Difference-in-differences estimates, which account for the endogeneity of the treatment status, suggest that decreased firing costs and payroll taxes have a positive overall short-term effect on wages – and also on unemployment. We find larger effects for older than for younger workers and for men than for women. Calibration and simulation of the model shows that about fifty percent of the predicted cumulative increase on wages takes place during the first year of the reform. Our simulations also show that the increase in wages is mostly due to the reduction in payroll taxes, while the overall effect of firing costs is nil because direct and indirect effects of firing costs offset each other. JEL Classification: C23, D31, J31
Real-Time Motion Trajectory-Based Indexing and Retrieval of Video Sequences

This paper presents a novel motion trajectory-based compact indexing and efficient retrieval mechanism for video sequences. Assuming trajectory information is already available, we represent trajectories as temporal ordering of subtrajectories. This approach solves the problem of trajectory representation when only partial trajectory information is available due to occlusion. It is achieved by a hypothesis testing-based method applied to curvature data computed from trajectories. The subtrajectories are then represented by their principal component analysis (PCA) coefficients for optimally compact representation. Different techniques are integrated to index and retrieve subtrajectories, including PCA, spectral clustering, and string matching. We assume a query by example mechanism where an example trajectory is presented to the system and the search system returns a ranked list of most similar items in the dataset. Experiments based on datasets obtained from University of California at Irvine's KDD archives and Columbia University's DVMM group demonstrate the superiority of our proposed PCA-based approaches in terms of indexing and retrieval times and precision recall ratios, when compared to other techniques in the literature
Intelligent Topical Sentiment Analysis for the Classification of E-Learners and Their Topics of Interest

Every day, huge numbers of instant tweets (messages) are published on Twitter as it is one of the massive social media for e-learners interactions. The options regarding various interesting topics to be studied are discussed among the learners and teachers through the capture of ideal sources in Twitter. The common sentiment behavior towards these topics is received through the massive number of instant messages about them. In this paper, rather than using the opinion polarity of each message relevant to the topic, authors focus on sentence level opinion classification upon using the unsupervised algorithm named bigram item response theory (BIRT). It differs from the traditional classification and document level classification algorithm. The investigation illustrated in this paper is of threefold which are listed as follows: (1) lexicon based sentiment polarity of tweet messages; (2) the bigram cooccurrence relationship using naïve Bayesian; (3) the bigram item response theory (BIRT) on various topics. It has been proposed that a model using item response theory is constructed for topical classification inference. The performance has been improved remarkably using this bigram item response theory when compared with other supervised algorithms. The experiment has been conducted on a real life dataset containing different set of tweets and topics.
Bilateral Two-Dimensional Neighborhood Preserving Discriminant Embedding for Face Recognition

In this paper, we propose a novel bilateral 2-D neighborhood preserving discriminant embedding for supervised linear dimensionality reduction for face recognition. It directly extracts discriminative face features from images based on graph embedding and Fisher’s criterion. The proposed method is a manifold learning algorithm based on graph embedding criterion, which can effectively discover the underlying nonlinear face data structure. Both within-neighboring and between-neighboring information are taken into account to seek an optimal projection matrix by minimizing the intra-class scatter and maximizing the inter-class scatter based on Fisher’s criterion. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated and compared with other face recognition schemes on the Yale, PICS, AR, and LFW databases. The experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method as compared with the state-of-the-art dimensionality reduction algorithms.
Shame : associations with childhood maltreatment and mental health

Research consistently reports a relationship between childhood maltreatment and the experience of psychological distress in adulthood. More recently, researchers have sought to identify the emotional consequences of these experiences. The current literature review focuses on the experience of shame. In particular, research is presented which demonstrates how childhood maltreatment, especially psychological abuse, has been associated with the experience of internalised shame. Furthermore, research is presented demonstrating an association between internalised shame the experience of psychological distress in adulthood. A burgeoning evidence base illustrates how shame partially mediates the relationship between childhood maltreatment and the experience of psychological distress in adulthood, although the review concludes that this research remains limited, and the models presented require further investigation to broaden the understanding of the role of shame in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and psychopathology. The empirical paper explores the associations between childhood maltreatment and internalised shame in a sample of participants with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (BD; n = 35), compared with a control group of participants with no psychiatric diagnoses (n = 35). Participants completed measures of maltreatment, internalised shame, and resource loss and gain. Participants in the BD group reported significantly higher levels of internalised shame, resource loss, and most sub-types of childhood maltreatment, compared with participants in the control iii group. Internalised shame was significantly correlated with childhood emotional abuse and neglect, even when controlled for the effect of low mood and mania. The theoretical and clinical implications are discussed, and directions for further investigation are indicated.
Robust Neutralizing Antibodies Elicited by HIV-1 JRFL Envelope Glycoprotein Trimers in Nonhuman Primates

ABSTRACT Host cell-mediated proteolytic cleavage of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) gp160 precursor glycoprotein into gp120 and gp41 subunits is required to generate fusion-competent envelope glycoprotein (Env) spikes. The gp120-directed broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (bNabs) isolated from HIV-infected individuals efficiently recognize fully cleaved JRFL Env spikes; however, nonneutralizing gp120-directed monoclonal antibodies isolated from infected or vaccinated subjects recognize only uncleaved JRFL spikes. Therefore, as an immunogen, cleaved spikes that selectively present desired neutralizing epitopes to B cells may elicit cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies. Accordingly, we inoculated nonhuman primates (NHPs) with plasmid DNA encoding transmembrane-anchored, cleaved JRFL Env or by electroporation (EP). Priming with DNA expressing soluble, uncleaved gp140 trimers was included as a comparative experimental group of NHPs. DNA inoculation was followed by boosts with soluble JRFL gp140 trimers, and control NHPs were inoculated with soluble JRFL protein trimers without DNA priming. In the TZM-bl assay, elicitation of neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 tier 1 isolates was robust following the protein boost. Neutralization of tier 2 isolates was detected, but only in animals primed with plasmid DNA and boosted with trimeric protein. Using the more sensitive A3R5 assay, consistent neutralization of both clade B and C tier 2 isolates was detected from all regimens assessed in the current study, exceeding levels achieved by our previous vaccine regimens in primates. Together, these data suggest a potential advantage of B cell priming followed by a rest interval and protein boosting to present JRFL Env spikes to the immune system to better generate HIV-1 cross-clade neutralizing antibodies.
Cryptanalysis and improvement of a biometric and smart card based remote user authentication scheme

In recent years, with the increasing amount of internet-connected devices, people tend to access the internet more frequently. User authentication protocol has become one of the most widely used techniques to construct communication between valid users and remote servers via a public network. In 2015, An proposed an enhanced smart card based remote user password authentication scheme and introduced biometric feature to it, he claimed that his scheme can resist off-line password guessing attack, user impersonation attack, etc. However, in this paper, we demonstrate that his scheme is still vulnerable to several attacks. We then propose a security improved scheme based on cryptanalysis of An's scheme and achieve robust biometric protection and user anonymity. Moreover, the comparison between our proposed scheme and other related schemes shows that the presented scheme has more security properties.
Clustering of Wireless Sensors based on Ultra-Wideband Geo-Regioning

This paper introduces a novel approach for the clustering of Ultra-Wideband nodes based on their channel impulse responses (CIRs) to a central unit. We propose to model the CIRs as realizations of a mixture density, where the individual component probability density functions represent the clusters. It is shown that the clustering can be simply achieved by the application of the expectation maximization algorithm. Furthermore, this work studies the impact of a-priori knowledge and the number of available CIR observations on the clustering performance, which is evaluated based on measured CIRs.