Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of various metrics used in collaborative filtering for recommendation system

Collaborative filtering technique for generating recommendation uses user's preferences to find other users most similar to the active user and recommends new items to the user. The task of calculating the similarity is the heart of collaborative filtering approach. In this paper, we have compared various similarity metrics which are used in collaborative filtering approach for recommendation system. We have studied these metrics for both user-based approach, which determines relationships among users of similar taste and item-based approach, which aims to determine the relationships indirectly, by considering the relationship among different items. For each of the two approaches, we have compared similarity and distance metrics like Euclidean distance, Tanimoto coefficient, Pearson correlation etc. To evaluate these metrics for both user-based and item-based approach of collaborative filtering, we conducted a simple data mining experiment on MovieLens dataset for building a movie recommendation system. Finally for performance evaluation we compared our result against performance measures like accuracy, sensitivity, Mathew's coefficient etc.
Control of Ensembles of Single-Input Continuous-Time Linear Systems

Abstract In this paper we consider continuous-time linear time-invariant single-input systems that depend on a single parameter. Given a family of desired states we aim to find open-loop control inputs which are independent of the parameter that simultaneously steer the zero initial state arbitrarily close to a family of terminal states. As an application we show that a family of networks of harmonic oscillators can be robustly controlled by a single input function. Thus our goal is to effectively compute open-loop input functions that are cabable of controlling an ensemble of linear systems.
Deep Brain Stimulation of the Nucleus Accumbens Shell Attenuates Cocaine Reinstatement through Local and Antidromic Activation

Accumbal deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising therapeutic modality for the treatment of addiction. Here, we demonstrate that DBS in the nucleus accumbens shell, but not the core, attenuates cocaine priming-induced reinstatement of drug seeking, an animal model of relapse, in male Sprague Dawley rats. Next, we compared DBS of the shell with pharmacological inactivation. Results indicated that inactivation using reagents that influenced (lidocaine) or spared (GABA receptor agonists) fibers of passage blocked cocaine reinstatement when administered into the core but not the shell. It seems unlikely, therefore, that intrashell DBS influences cocaine reinstatement by inactivating this nucleus or the fibers coursing through it. To examine potential circuit-wide changes, c-Fos immunohistochemistry was used to examine neuronal activation following DBS of the nucleus accumbens shell. Intrashell DBS increased c-Fos induction at the site of stimulation as well as in the infralimbic cortex, but had no effect on the dorsal striatum, prelimbic cortex, or ventral pallidum. Recent evidence indicates that accumbens DBS antidromically stimulates axon terminals, which ultimately activates GABAergic interneurons in cortical areas that send afferents to the shell. To test this hypothesis, GABA receptor agonists (baclofen/muscimol) were microinjected into the anterior cingulate, and prelimbic or infralimbic cortices before cocaine reinstatement. Pharmacological inactivation of all three medial prefrontal cortical subregions attenuated the reinstatement of cocaine seeking. These results are consistent with DBS of the accumbens shell attenuating cocaine reinstatement via local activation and/or activation of GABAergic interneurons in the medial prefrontal cortex via antidromic stimulation of cortico-accumbal afferents.
Epigalloccatechin-3-gallate Inhibits Ocular Neovascularization and Vascular Permeability in Human Retinal Pigment Epithelial and Human Retinal Microvascular Endothelial Cells via Suppression of MMP-9 and VEGF Activation

Epigalloccatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is the main polyphenol component of green tea (leaves of Camellia sinensis). EGCG is known for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and anti-carcinogenic properties. Here, we identify EGCG as a new inhibitor of ocular angiogenesis and its vascular permeability. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) play a key role in the processes of extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling and microvascular permeability during angiogenesis. We investigated the inhibitory effects of EGCG on ocular neovascularization and vascular permeability using the retina oriented cells and animal models induced by VEGF and alkaline burn. EGCG treatment significantly decreased mRNA and protein expression levels of MMP-9 in the presence of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in human retinal pigment epithelial cells (HRPECs). EGCG also effectively protected ARPE-19 cells from cell death and attenuated mRNA expressions of key angiogenic factors (MMP-9, VEGF, VEGF Receptor-2) by inhibiting generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). EGCG significantly inhibited proliferation, vascular permeability, and tube formation in VEGF-induced human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (HRMECs). Furthermore, EGCG significantly reduced vascular leakage and permeability by blood-retinal barrier breakdown in VEGF-induced animal models. In addition, EGCG effectively limited upregulation of MMP-9 and platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM/CD31) on corneal neovascularization (CNV) induced by alkaline burn. Our data suggest that MMP-9 and VEGF are key therapeutic targets of EGCG for treatment and prevention of ocular angiogenic diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and corneal neovascularization.
Mechanochemistry of Cardiac Muscle

This investigation was designed to determine whether a defect in energy utilization exists in heart failure. Accordingly, the direct conversion of chemical energy to mechanical work was studied in right ventricular papillary muscles from normal cats and cats with experimental right ventricular failure secondary to pulmonary artery constriction. Energy production was inhibited by iodoacetic acid and N 2 . After resting or performing variable amounts of internal contractile element work under isometric conditions, muscles were instantly frozen, and the total amount of chemical energy (~— P = creatine phosphate + ATP) used was correlated with work performed and the number of contractions. The contractile properties of papillary muscles from cats with heart failure were severely depressed. There was a significant depression in initial *-~P stores in muscles from cats with heart failure, but there was no significant change in the resting rate of '—P utilization. Although the muscles from cats with heart failure performed, on the average, 13% as much work and were activated 64% as many times, the average amount of energy used was only 7% of that used by normal muscles. It is concluded that in this form of experimentally produced heart failure the utilization of *—-P is reduced but only in relation to the reduction in contractile element work and that the direct conversion of chemical energy to mechanical work is not an inefficient process in this state.
Head-Neck Taper Corrosion in Hip Arthroplasty

Modularity at the head-neck junction of the femoral component in THA became popular as a design feature with advantages of decreasing implant inventory and allowing adjustment of leg length, offset, and soft tissue balancing through different head options. The introduction of a new modular interface to femoral stems that were previously monoblock, or nonmodular, comes with the potential for corrosion at the taper junction through mechanically assisted crevice corrosion. The incidence of revision hip arthroplasty is on the rise and along with improved wear properties of polyethylene and ceramic, use of larger femoral head sizes is becoming increasingly popular. Taper corrosion appears to be related to all of its geometric parameters, material combinations, and femoral head size. This review article discusses the pathogenesis, risk factors, clinical assessment, and management of taper corrosion at the head-neck junction.
Development of a PCR protocol for sensitive detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts in water samples

The development of a reliable method of using PCR for detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts in environmental samples with oligonucleotide primers which amplify a portion of the sequence encoding the small (18S) subunit of rRNA producing a 435-bp product was demonstrated. The PCR assay was found to provide highly genus-specific detection of Cryptosporidium spp. after release of nucleic acids from oocysts by a simple freeze-thaw procedure. The assay routinely detected 1 to 10 oocysts in purified oocyst preparations, as shown by direct microscopic counts and by an immunofluorescence assay. The sensitivity of the PCR assay in some seeded environmental water samples was up to 1,000-fold lower. However, this interference was eliminated by either flow cytometry or magnetic-antibody capture. Sensitivity was also improved 10- to 1,000-fold by probing of the PCR product on dot blots with an oligonucleotide probe detected by chemiluminescence. Confirmation of the presence of Cryptosporidium oocysts in water samples from the outbreak in Milwaukee, Wis. , was obtained with this technique, and PCR was found to be as sensitive as immunofluorescence for detection of oocysts in wastewater concentrates.
Microsatellite loci are not conserved across the Asteraceae.

Microsatellite loci (also known as simple sequence repeats [SSRs] or simple tandem repeats [STRs]) are regions of DNA that contain short (<6 bp) tandemly repeated sequences (Litt and Luty 1989; Edwards et al. 199 1; Jacob et al. 199 1). Much attention is currently being paid to the development of microsatellite loci because they display a number of properties of interest for genomic mapping, population genetic, and evolutionary studies (Terauchi and Konuma 1994). They occur in large numbers within the genome: Edwards et al. (1991) estimated that 400,000 trior tetrameric repeats with more than seven repeated units occur in the human genome. Condit and Hubbell (1991) estimated the frequency of poly(AC) and poly(AG) repeats in six species of higher plants at between 5 X lo3 and 3 X 105. Similar numbers have been reported for wheat (Roder et al. 1995). Microsatellite loci are generally highly polymorphic, with large numbers of low-frequency alleles that are codominantly expressed (Akkaya, Bhagwat, and Cregan 1992; Hughes and Queller 1993; Saghai Maroof et al. 1994; Chase, Kesseli, and Bawa 1996). For example, Terauchi and Konuma (1994) found an average of 6.2 alleles per locus in a survey of 23 individuals of wild yam (Dioscorea tokoro), whereas allozyme surveys of 1,128 individuals revealed only 2.5 alleles per locus (Terauchi 1990). In spite of these properties, primers for microsatellite loci are presently available for a limited number of taxa. However, surveys of primer conservation in a number of animal groups have revealed that primers developed for one taxon can often amplify homologous microsatellite loci in related taxa, and sometimes in widely divergent taxa (Moore et al. 1991; Schlotterer, Amos, and Tautz 199 1; Stallings et al. 1991; FitzSimmons, Moritz, and Moore 1995). In the most striking example, primers developed from nucleotide sequences from one family of marine turtles (Cheloniidae) amplified homologous loci in other marine and terrestrial turtles, representing a divergence time of approximately 300 Myr (FitzSimmons, Moritz, and Moore 1995). The degree of conservation of microsatellite loci across plant taxa has not been explicitly addressed in a broad taxonomic group. Zhao and Kochert (1993) found that primers for a (GGC), microsatellite locus developed for rice amplified a homologous locus in maize and bamboo. Lagercrantz, Ellegren, and Andersson (1993) attempted to amplify five microsatellite loci in four species of Brassica using primers developed from B. napus
Periodic real-time data flows over general purpose networks

The increasing popularity of using general purpose networks for real-time communication generates a number of issues which need to be analyzed. This paper has the objective of evaluating some of the solutions proposed in this specific research area and emphasizing their most important advantages and drawbacks. Moreover, a model is proposed as a solution for IP network bandwidth estimation in the case of periodic real-time traffic. We used this model for simulations in purpose of revealing the behavior of periodic real-time traffic on IP networks.
Lacunarity analysis: A general technique for the analysis of spatial patterns.

Lacunarity analysis is a multiscaled method for describing patterns of spatial dispersion. It can be used with both binary and quantitative data in one, two, and three dimensions. Although originally developed for fractal objects, the method is more general and can be readily used to describe nonfractal and multifractal patterns. Lacunarity analysis is broadly applicable to many data sets used in the natural sciences; we illustrate its application to both geological and ecological data. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society. }
Paternal HLA-C and Maternal Killer-Cell Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor Genotypes in the Development of Autism

Killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) are a family of cell surface proteins found on natural killer cells, which are components of the innate immune system. KIRs recognize MHC class I proteins, mainly HLA-C and are further divided into two groups: short-tailed 2/3DS activating receptors and long-tailed 2/3DL inhibitory receptors. Based on the Barker Hypothesis, the origins of illness can be traced back to embryonic development in the uterus, and since KIR:HLA interaction figures prominently in the maternal–fetal interface, we investigated whether specific KIR:HLA combinations may be found in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) children compared with their healthy parents. This study enrolled 49 ASD children from different Israeli families, and their healthy parents. Among the parents, a higher frequency of HLA-C2 allotypes was found in the fathers, while its corresponding ligand 2DS1 was found in higher percentage in the maternal group. However, such skewing in KIR:HLA frequencies did not appear in the ASD children. Additionally, analysis of “overall activation” indicated higher activation in maternal than in paternal cohorts.
Small Object Segmentation Based on Visual Saliency in Natural Images

— Object segmentation is a challenging task in image processing and computer vision. In this paper, we present a visual attention based segmentation method to segment small sized interesting objects in natural images. Different from the traditional methods, we first search the region of interest by using our novel saliency-based method, which is mainly based on band-pass filtering, to obtain the appropriate frequency. Secondly, we applied the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to locate the object region. By incorporating the visual attention analysis into object segmentation, our proposed approach is able to narrow the search region for object segmentation, so that the accuracy is increased and the computational complexity is reduced. The experimental results indicate that our proposed approach is efficient for object segmentation in natural images, especially for small objects. Our proposed method significantly outperforms traditional GMM based segmentation.
UV Spectrophotometric Simultaneous Determination of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen in Combined Tablets by Derivative and Wavelet Transforms

The application of first-order derivative and wavelet transforms to UV spectra and ratio spectra was proposed for the simultaneous determination of ibuprofen and paracetamol in their combined tablets. A new hybrid approach on the combined use of first-order derivative and wavelet transforms to spectra was also discussed. In this application, DWT (sym6 and haar), CWT (mexh), and FWT were optimized to give the highest spectral recoveries. Calibration graphs in the linear concentration ranges of ibuprofen (12–32 mg/L) and paracetamol (20–40 mg/L) were obtained by measuring the amplitudes of the transformed signals. Our proposed spectrophotometric methods were statistically compared to HPLC in terms of precision and accuracy.
How Does Stochastic Basis Change Mean Reversion? A Study on Bermudan Swaptions

The main goal of this work is to analyse the impact of the stochastic nature of basis spreads in the price of Bermudan swaptions. In this paper we find a relationship between the effect of stochastic basis spreads and an effective mean reversion of the traditional one-factor Hull-White model. We develop an extended Hull-White model which considers two different curves: one used to discount and the other used to estimate cash-flows, with a stochastic basis spread between both curves. We derive formulas for the Libor rate and the stochastic discount factor. We also derive semi-analytical formulas for Euopean swaptions used to calibrate the model. The impact of stochastic basis spreads in Bermudan swaptions is analysed for different volatility and correlation scenarios. We show that the impact may clearly become non-negligible and is captured in a natural way by means of an effective mean reversion in the simplest one-factor Hull-White model. This permits to manage positions in an effective way, incorporating stochastic basis spreads automatically.
Consumption and Savings Over the Life Cycle

During the last decade most western economies have experienced large and unexpected fluctuations in consumption and savings. The purpose of this paper is to provide additional insights into the individual household's consumption decision and thereby increase the knowledge of what governs these important macro variables. A consumption equation is estimated on Swedish micro data using an empirical method capable of dealing with the inherent data problem found in micro data sets.
Spatial packing, cranial base angulation, and craniofacial shape variation in the mammalian skull: testing a new model using mice

The hypothesis that variation in craniofacial shape within and among species is influenced by spatial packing has a long history in comparative anatomy, particularly in terms of primates. This study develops and tests three alternative models of spatial packing to address how and to what extent the cranial base angle is influenced by variation in brain and facial size. The models are tested using mouse strains with different mutations affecting craniofacial growth. Although mice have distinctive crania with small brains, long faces, and retroflexed cranial bases, the results of the study indicate that the mouse cranial base flexes to accommodate larger brain size relative to cranial base length. In addition, the mouse cranial base also extends, but to a lesser degree, to accommodate larger face size relative to cranial base length. In addition, interactions between brain size, face size, and the widths and lengths of the components of the cranial base account for a large percentage of variation in cranial base angle. The results illustrate the degree to which the cranial base is centrally embedded within the covariation structure of the craniofacial complex as a whole.
SASHA: A Distributed Protocol for Secure Application Deployment in Shared Ad-Hoc Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless ad-hoc sensor networks in industrial settings often consist of multiple independent parties, each owning a subset of the nodes. In order to reduce costs, minimize time to market and increase coverage and functionality, these parties must share the capabilities of their individual sensor nodes; this creates a multi-owner and multi-application environment that requires advanced and secure mechanisms to control the deployment and operation of sensor applications. Although there is clear demand like in transport & logistics, state-of-the-art on secure application deployment in WSNs is lacking support for this sharing of sensor nodes. This paper presents SASHA: a proof-of-concept protocol that enables lightweight and secure deployment of multiple applications on heterogeneously owned sensor nodes.
A Stochastic Neural Model for Graph Problems: Software and Hardware Implementation

This article describes a novel neural stochastic model for solving graph problems. The neural system has been tested on random graphs, showing better performance than other well-known heuristics for the same problems. Furthermore, a simplified version of the proposed model has been developed in such a way that it can be easily implemented in hardware using programmable logic chips, such as FPGAs
Exploratory computing: a draft Manifesto

The advent of the Big Data challenge has stimulated research on methods and techniques to deal with the problem of managing data abundance. Many approaches have been developed, but for the most part, they attack one specific side of the problem: e.g. efficient querying, analysis techniques that summarize data or reduce its dimensionality, data visualization, etc. The approach proposed in this paper aims instead at taking a comprehensive view: first of all, it takes into account that human exploration is an iterative and multi-step process and therefore allows building upon a previous query on to the next, in a sort of “dialogue” between the user and the system. Second, it aims at supporting a variety of user experiences, like investigation, inspiration seeking, monitoring, comparison, decision-making, research, etc. Third, and probably most important, it adds to the notion of “big” the notion of “rich”: Exploratory Computing (EC) aims at dealing with datasets of semantically complex items, whose inspection may reach beyond the user's previous knowledge or expectations: an exploratory experience basically consists in creating, refining, modifying, comparing various datasets in order to “make sense” of these meanings.
Evidence of quality of textual features on the web 2.0

The growth of popularity of Web 2.0 applications greatly increased the amount of social media content available on the Internet. However, the unsupervised, user-oriented nature of this source of information, and thus, its potential lack of quality, have posed a challenge to information retrieval (IR) services. Previous work focuses mostly only on tags, although a consensus about its effectiveness as supporting information for IR services has not yet been reached. Moreover, other textual features of the Web 2.0 are generally overseen by previous research. In this context, this work aims at assessing the relative quality of distinct textual features available on the Web 2.0. Towards this goal, we analyzed four features (title, tags, description and comments) in four popular applications (CiteULike, Last.FM, Yahoo! Video, and Youtube). Firstly, we characterized data from these applications in order to extract evidence of quality of each feature with respect to usage, amount of content, descriptive and discriminative power as well as of content diversity across features. Afterwards, a series of classification experiments were conducted as a case study for quality evaluation. Characterization and classification results indicate that: 1) when considered separately, tags is the most promising feature, achieving the best classification results, although its absence in a non-negligible fraction of objects may affect its potential use; and 2) each feature may bring different pieces of information, and combining their contents can improve classification.