Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved Classification and Reconstruction by Introducing Independence and Randomization in Deep Neural Networks

This paper deals with a novel way of improving classification as well as reconstructions obtained from deep neural networks. The underlying ideas that have been used throughout are Independence and Randomization. The idea is to expose the inherent properties of neural network architectures and to make simpler models that are easy to implement rather than creating highly fine-tuned and complex neural network architectures. For the most basic type of deep neural network i.e. fully connected, it has been shown that dividing the data into independent components and training each component separately not only reduces the parameters to be learned but also the training is more efficient. And if the predictions are fused appropriately the overall accuracy also increases. Using the orthogonality of LAB colour space, it is shown that L,A and B components trained separately produce better reconstructions than RGB components taken together which in turn produce better reconstructions than LAB components taken together. Based on a similar approach, randomization has been injected into the networks so as to make different networks as independent as possible. Again fusing predictions appropriately increases accuracy. The best error on MNIST's test data set was 1.91% which is a drop by 1.05% in comparison to architectures that we created similar to [1]. As the technique is architecture independent it can be applied to other networks - for example CNNs or RNNs.
Using correlation engine and mobile agents for intrusion detection

IMAIDS project (Intelligent Mobile Agent for Intrusion Detection System) is carried out by five 5th year students, Reginald Lips, Nicolas Carlier, Damien Molot, Jean-Marie Peschoux and Alexandre Luciani, from Epitech (European Institute of Technology; http://www.epitech.net/), within the framework of their end of studies project. The purpose of this document is to present a part of our research project which is using an expert system as correlation engine and mobile agents for intrusion detection. This paper has been co-written by Reginald Lips, project leader of IMAIDS, Nabil El-Kadhi, director of the LERIA, and Davide Del Vecchio, senior security consultant for Telecom Italia. First, we will remind the goal and the general context of IMAIDS project, its objectives and the research topics aborded. Moreover, we will describe more in details the implementation and the theoretical basics of the expert system used to make a functionnal correlation engine applied to a mobile agent platform for intrusion detection.
A family of drug transporters: the multidrug resistance-associated proteins.

The human multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP) family currently has seven members. The ability of several of these membrane proteins to transport a wide range of anticancer drugs out of cells and their presence in many tumors make them prime suspects in unexplained cases of drug resistance, although proof that they contribute to clinical drug resistance is still lacking. Recent studies have begun to clarify the function of the MRP family members. MRPs are organic anion transporters; i.e., they transport anionic drugs, exemplified by methotrexate, and neutral drugs conjugated to acidic ligands, such as glutathione (GSH), glucuronate, or sulfate. However, MRP1, MRP2, and MRP3 can also cause resistance to neutral organic drugs that are not known to be conjugated to acidic ligands by transporting these drugs together with free GSH. MRP1 can even confer resistance to arsenite and MRP2 to cisplatin, again probably by transporting these compounds in complexes with GSH. MRP4 overexpression is associated with high-level resistance to the nucleoside analogues 9-(2-phosphonylmethoxyethyl) adenine and azidothymidine, both of which are used as anti-human immunodeficiency virus drugs. MRPs may, therefore, also have a role in resistance against nucleoside analogues used in cancer chemotherapy. Mice without Mrp1, a high-affinity leukotriene C(4) transporter, have an altered response to inflammatory stimuli but are otherwise healthy and fertile. MRP2 is the major transporter responsible for the secretion of bilirubin glucuronides into bile, and humans without MRP2 develop a mild liver disease known as the Dubin-Johnson syndrome. The physiologic functions of the other MRPs are not known. Whether long-term inhibition of MRPs in humans can be tolerated (assuming that suitable inhibitors will be found) remains to be determined.
Possible role for molecular chaperones in assembly and repair of photosystem II.

Genes of the HSP70 chaperone family are induced by light. In Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the induction of HSP70 (70 kDa heat shock protein) chaperones by light results in a partial protection of photosystem II against damage by photoinhibitory conditions. Underexpression of a chloroplast-localized HSP70 protein caused an increased sensitivity of photosystem II to light. Overexpression of this protein had a protective effect. Fluorescence measurements and studies of the turnover of photosystem II core components suggest that this HSP70 might function in both the protection and the regeneration of photosystem II. This concept is supported by fractionation studies in which the plastid HSP70 was found associated with chloroplast membranes. Because the light-induced elevation of HSP70 levels provides protection for photosystem II, we examined whether the chloroplast is involved in this regulation and found that mutants defective in plastid-localized chlorophyll synthesis, i.e. the insertion of Mg(2+) into protoporphyrin IX are impaired in the induction of HSP70 by light. Exogenous addition of Mg-protoporphyrin in the dark induced the genes. The combined results support a model in which chlorophyll precursors are essential in the signalling from chloroplast to nucleus that regulates the chaperone genes.
Elevated Circulating Levels and Tissue Expression of Pentraxin 3 in Uremia: A Reflection of Endothelial Dysfunction

Elevated systemic pentraxin 3 (PTX3) levels appear to be a powerful marker of inflammatory status and a superior outcome predictor in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). As previous data imply that PTX3 is involved in vascular pathology and that adipose tissue mass may influence circulating PTX3 levels, we aimed to study the importance of adipose tissue expression of PTX3 in the uremic milieu and its relation to endothelial dysfunction parameters. Plasma PTX3 and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) PTX3 mRNA levels were quantified in 56 stage 5 CKD patients (median age 57 [range 25–75] years, 30 males) and 40 age and gender matched controls (median age 58 [range 20–79] years, 27 males). Associations between PTX3 measures and an extensive panel of clinical parameters, including surrogate markers of endothelial function, were assessed. Functional ex vivo studies on endothelial status and immunohistochemical staining for PTX3 were conducted in resistance subcutaneous arteries isolated from SAT. SAT PTX3 mRNA expression correlated with plasma PTX3 concentrations (rho = 0.54, p = 0.0001) and was increased (3.7 [0.4–70.3] vs. 1.2 [0.2–49.3] RQ, p = 0.02) in CKD patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), but was not significantly different between patients and controls. The association to CVD was lost after adjustments. SAT PTX3 mRNA levels were independently correlated to asymmetric dimethylarginine and basal resistance artery tone developed after inhibition with nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase (rho = −0.58, p = 0.002). Apparent positive PTX3 immunoreactivity was observed in both patient and control arteries. In conclusion, fat PTX3 mRNA levels are associated with measures of endothelial cell function in patients with CKD. PTX3 may be involved in adipose tissue-orchestrated mechanisms that are restricted to the uremic milieu and modify inflammation and vascular complications in CKD patients.
Synthesizing experiences: Lessons to be learned from Internet-mediated simulation games

This article draws on published evaluations of Internet-mediated (I-M) educational, business, and policy games to establish an inventory of lessons for future I-M games. These three types of I-M games have important concerns in common: objectives, role-play, synchronicity, game facilitation, and participant interaction. Lessons of design and implementation derived from these experiences are identified and explored. Special attention is given to the development of strategic I-M policy games because I-M gaming literature has tended to ignore them in comparison with educational and business games, and they seem to require more guidance and support in three main areas: structure, motivation, and interaction.
A New Control Structure for Robot Manipulators Based on the Trigonometric Functions Sech+Sinh

The main objective of this paper is to control the position of a robot manipulator by means of the implementation of a new control scheme based on the combination of hyperbolic trigonometrical functions. In order to accomplish the control we used the method of shaping energy; and by means of the Lyapunovpsilas theory its stability is demonstrated formally. It is important to compare the functionality of the proposed controller, for this reason is compared with the simple PD controller, this analysis is made based on the performance index having solved the norm L2.
Parallel Simulated Annealing for Fragment Based Sequence Alignment

Finding a biologically relevant sequence alignment may be difficult since several sequence alignments are possible, taking different parameters in consideration. A perceptron neuron can be used to associate weights to a set of alignment characteristics and to decide if two residues should be aligned. Finding a good set of weights can be a hard problem and simulated annealing can be used for this purpose but it can take a long time. In this paper, we propose a parallelization strategy for simulated annealing optimizing a Fragment Based Alignment in Linear Space (FBALS). The results were superior to the competing algorithm and the obtained speedups were compatible with the number of processing cores, indicating a good parallel strategy.
SALSA: a new approach to scheduling with timing constraints

First, an initial schedule that satisfies all timing constraints is generated using algorithms adapted from layout compaction. This schedule is then improved with respect to resource usage using simulated annealing. SALSA provides for efficient exploration of alternative schedules while supporting timing constraints, conditionals, loops, and subroutines. The SALSA scheduling procedure is described in detail. An implementation of the approach shows promising results. <<ETX>>
A scalable architecture for active networks

Explores the network-level issues that deal with the organization, interaction and deployment of active routers in a network. We have identified and answered four sets of questions: (i) Where should active routers be placed in the network? What is the network organization of active routers that achieves a good tradeoff between scalability and flexibility? (ii) If all routers in the network are not active, then how can we abstract the state of the "non-active" portion of the network for services that reside in active routers? (iii) How do active routers discover and communicate with other active routers? What is the infrastructure for the management, discovery and communication of active routers? (iv) How do users discover the available (third-party) active services in the network? What is the infrastructure for the dissemination, discovery and composition of active services? We present a network organization of active routers and describe two key network-level constructs-the equivalent link abstraction and the spine network management infrastructure-that enable the deployment of a scalable and flexible active network. We finally present some preliminary simulation and implementation results to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed architecture.
A Case Study on Unconstrained Facial Recognition Using the Boston Marathon Bombings Suspects

The investigation surrounding the Boston Marathon bombings was a missed opportunity for automated facial recognition to assist law enforcement in identifying suspects. We simulate the identification scenario presented by the investigation using two state-of-the-art commercial face recognition systems, and gauge the maturity of face recognition technology in matching low quality face images of uncooperative subjects. Our experimental results show one instance where a commercial face matcher returns a rank-one hit for suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev against a one million mugshot background database. Though issues surrounding pose, occlusion, and resolution continue to confound matchers, there have been significant advances made in face recognition technology to assist law enforcement agencies in their investigations.
Acquisition of a qualitative model

The application exposed below is part of a vast program which aims to enable a system to control a process without any initial knowledge about itI3,2]. The targeted control is very similar to a rule-based contro1[4,6,12], the main difference is that we do not consider a fixed set of rules : the rules may be improved by a machine learning loop. These rules create a similar behavior to reflex rules, at each sampling time, one of them is selected and fired, the system reacting “instinctively” to each little variation of the external world. The consequence is a robustness which is not granted by more conventional ways of controlliug varying processes in unknown worlds.
Creaky voice and the classification of affect

Creaky voice, a phonation type involving a low frequency and often highly irregular vocal fold vibration, has the potential both to indicate emotion and to confuse automatic processing algorithms, making it both friend and enemy to emotion recognition systems. This paper explores the effect of creak on affect classification performance using hidden Markov models (HMMs) trained on a variety of voice quality features. The importance of “creak-robust” features is demonstrated, and it is shown that features designed to capture creak may be particularly useful for the classification of power. The SEMAINE database of emotional speech is used, thus allowing us to compare with the AVEC 2011 challenge, and we find that the voice quality features match the performance of the best reported classifier on the challenge.
Investigation of Chinese neurosurgeon creativity- What can be drawn from the US neurosurgeon education system

The creativity of Chinese young neurosurgeon is a weakness comparing to that of the counterparts in US. The professional education system of Chinese young neurosurgeon is yet to be improved. This study compares the neurosurgery training system between China and US, especially the neurosurgeon residency training program, to draw experience from US neurosurgeon education system for enhancing the creativity of young neurosurgeon in China. The creativity improvement of young neurosurgeon requires mature professional training system, nice sense of humanism, high quality of personality, and powerful support of the nation.
Construction of Large Packet Radio Networks

We outline constructions of packet radio networks (with time division multiplexing) that achieve much better parameters than those previously proposed. Given the desired diameter and number of slots per time frame, our networks seek to maximize the possible number of users. We model this as a problem of constructing large graphs or digraphs with given diameter and chromatic index, and relate it to extant work on large graphs with given diameter and maximum degree.
Chance and Deception : Attacks That Rely On User Actions

There are a variety of attacks that rely heavily on user actions to succeed and don’t require explicit installs or on the part of the user. We examine 3 basic categories of such attacks: Autorun attacks utilizing physical media such as flash drives and CD-Roms, phishing attacks and web based malware attacks that do “drive-by-downloads”. Through surveying users we found the following: First, many users are vulnerable to autorun based attacks, second, substituting visually similar but semantically different characters in hyperlinks provides a particularly effective way of obfuscating a malicious websites hyperlink, and third there appears to be an interesting logical disconnect whereby web links advertised physically, but still of unknown origin, are deemed more trustworthy than those from an unknown email source. We also attempted two simple proof of concept experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of using physical advertising through flyers and “promotional” CDs as attack vectors to guide users to malicious websites. Both experiments failed, with a minimal number of hits to the flyer advertised website, and none using the CDs.
Online Localization of Radio-Tagged Wildlife with an Autonomous Aerial Robot System

The application of autonomous robots to efficiently locate small wildlife species has the potential to provide significant ecological insights not previously possible using traditional landbased survey techniques, and a basis for improved conservation policy and management. We present an approach for autonomously localizing radio-tagged wildlife using a small aerial robot. We present a novel two-point phased array antenna system that yields unambiguous bearing measurements and an associated uncertainty measure. Our estimation and informationbased planning algorithms incorporate this bearing uncertainty to choose observation points that improve confidence in the location estimate. These algorithms run online in real time and we report experimental results that show successful autonomous localization of stationary radio tags and live radio-tagged birds.
Using Viewer's Facial Expression and Heart Rate for Sports Video Highlights Detection

Viewer interest, evoked by video content, can potentially identify the highlights of the video. This paper explores the use of facial expressions (FE) and heart rate (HR) of viewers captured using camera and non-strapped sensor for identifying interesting video segments. The data from ten subjects with three videos showed that these signals are viewer dependent and not synchronized with the video contents. To address this issue, new algorithms are proposed to effectively combine FE and HR signals for identifying the time when viewer interest is potentially high. The results show that, compared with subjective annotation and match report highlights, 'non-neutral' FE and 'relatively higher and faster' HR is able to capture 60%-80% of goal, foul, and shot-on-goal soccer video events. FE is found to be more indicative than HR of viewer interest, but the fusion of these two modalities outperforms each of them.
Class I transplantation antigens in solution in body fluids and in the urine. Individuality signals to the environment

Classical class I transplantation antigens present in solution in the body fluids have been studied. These antigens have been found in a monomeric, soluble form in blood, lymph, and urine, and a major source is the hemopoietic system which gives rise to cells that secrete these molecules into the blood. The cell types most probably involved in their secretion are of the macrophage/dendritic cell lineage. The serum molecule is a heterodimer with a heavy chain of 39,000 mol wt associated noncovalently with beta 2-microglobulin and is present in serum at a concentration between 350 and 390 ng/ml. These molecules have a short half-life of 2.7 h and are excreted into the environment via the kidneys in the urine. In the urine, greater than 90% of the molecules are degraded into smaller fragments. This finding that normal metabolic processes lead to the excretion of classical highly polymorphic class I molecules in the urine provides a direct explanation in molecular terms of the ability of animals to identify individuals on the basis of urinary odor. Since intact class I molecules are unlikely to be the odoriferous component in the urine, two hypotheses have been suggested. Either small fragments of class I molecules are detected or the molecule acts as a carrier that transports volatiles from the serum into the urine where they are released, giving rise to the class I-associated odor.
Defining the Range of Pathogens Susceptible to Ifitm3 Restriction Using a Knockout Mouse Model

The interferon-inducible transmembrane (IFITM) family of proteins has been shown to restrict a broad range of viruses in vitro and in vivo by halting progress through the late endosomal pathway. Further, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in its sequence have been linked with risk of developing severe influenza virus infections in humans. The number of viruses restricted by this host protein has continued to grow since it was first demonstrated as playing an antiviral role; all of which enter cells via the endosomal pathway. We therefore sought to test the limits of antimicrobial restriction by Ifitm3 using a knockout mouse model. We showed that Ifitm3 does not impact on the restriction or pathogenesis of bacterial (Salmonella typhimurium, Citrobacter rodentium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis) or protozoan (Plasmodium berghei) pathogens, despite in vitro evidence. However, Ifitm3 is capable of restricting respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in vivo either through directly restricting RSV cell infection, or by exerting a previously uncharacterised function controlling disease pathogenesis. This represents the first demonstration of a virus that enters directly through the plasma membrane, without the need for the endosomal pathway, being restricted by the IFITM family; therefore further defining the role of these antiviral proteins.
Reconsidering context: Six underlying features of context to improve learning from evaluation

This article considers the role of context in ‘theory-based’ evaluations, particularly those that use chain-type path or logic models. Reflecting on the use of causal models in the school professional development field, a set of underlying features of context is developed: the article proposes that context can be dynamic, agentic, relational, historically located, immanent and complex. These features are applied to a consideration of a commonly observed contextual factor: senior leader support for an intervention. The article argues that actively considering these underlying features can allow for a more sophisticated approach to context and concludes with a set of related interrogatory questions for evaluators, aiming to improve learning in future evaluation.
EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

On 11 October 2006 the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Council of the European Union for an opinion on a proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 92/49/EEC () and Directives 2002/83/EC (), 2004/39/EC (), 2005/68/EC () and 2006/48/EC () as regards procedural rules and evaluation criteria for the prudential assessment of acquisitions and increase of shareholdings in the financial sector () (hereinafter the ‘proposed directive’).
Successful mentors in academia: are they teachers, sponsors and/or collaborators?

ABSTRACT Mentors in academia may act as teachers, sponsors and/or collaborators. However, so far there was no evidence on which role mentors should enact to best promote their mentees’ careers. This paper focuses on mentors in academia who are not the academic advisor. We provide first evidence on the relationship between the perceived role of mentors as teachers, sponsors and/or collaborators and mentees’ subsequent academic career success. Specifically, we find that mentees who perceive their mentors as sponsors who extend their social networks are most successful – in particular if they perceive their mentors also as teachers. Further, we find that collaborating with mentors who are not their academic advisors on joint research projects has negative implications for mentees’ subsequent career success.