Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiprotocol MR image segmentation in multiple sclerosis: experience with over 1000 studies

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an acquired disease of the central nervous system. Several clinical measures are commonly used to express the severity of the disease, including the Expanded Disability Status Scale and the ambulation index. These measures are subjective and may be difficult to reproduce. The aim of this research is to investigate the possibility of developing more objective measures derived from MR imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS Various magnetic resonance (MR) imaging protocols are being investigated for the study of MS. Seeking to replace the Expanded Disability Status Scale and ambulation index with an objective means to assess the natural course of the disease and its response to therapy, the authors have developed multiprotocol MR image segmentation methods based on fuzzy connectedness to quantify both macrosopic features of the disease (lesions, gray matter, white matter, cerebrospinal fluid, and brain parenchyma) and the microscopic appearance of diseased white matter. Over 1,000 studies have been processed to date. RESULTS By far the strongest correlations with the clinical measures were demonstrated by the magnetization transfer ratio histogram parameters obtained for the various segmented tissue regions. These findings emphasize the importance of considering the microscopic and diffuse nature of the disease in the individual tissue regions. Brain parenchymal volume also demonstrated a strong correlation with clinical measures, which suggests that brain atrophy is an important disease indicator. CONCLUSION Fuzzy connectedness is a viable, highly reproducible segmentation method for studying MS.
PrimerHunter : A Primer Selection Tool for Avian Influenza Subtype Identification ?

1 Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Connecticut, 371 Fairfield Rd., Unit 2155, Storrs, CT 06269-2155, USA E-mail: {jduitama,ion}@engr.uconn.edu 2 Department of Pathobiology and Veterinary Science, University of Connecticut, 61 North Eagleville Road, Unit 3089, Storrs, CT 06269-3089, USA E-mail: {dipu.kumar,mazhar.khan}@uconn.edu 3 Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, 91 N. Eagleville Rd., Unit 3125, Storrs, CT 06269-3125, USA E-mail: craig.nelson@uconn.edu
ASSET ALLOCATION: MANAGEMENT STYLE AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

Once a procedure for measuring exposures to variations in returns of major asset classes is in place, it is possible to determine how effectively individual fund managers have performed their functions and the extent (if any) to which value has been added through active management. Finally, the effectiveness of the investor's overall asset allocation can be compared with that of one or more benchmark asset mixes.
Pcadapt: An R Package to Perform Genome Scans for Selection Based on Principal Component Analysis

The R package pcadapt performs genome scans to detect genes under selection based on population genomic data. It assumes that candidate markers are outliers with respect to how they are related to population structure. Because population structure is ascertained with principal component analysis, the package is fast and works with large-scale data. It can handle missing data and pooled sequencing data. By contrast to population-based approaches, the package handle admixed individuals and does not require grouping individuals into populations. Since its first release, pcadapt has evolved both in terms of statistical approach and software implementation. We present results obtained with robust Mahalanobis distance, which is a new statistic for genome scans available in the 2.0 and later versions of the package. When hierarchical population structure occurs, Mahalanobis distance is more powerful than the communality statistic that was implemented in the first version of the package. Using simulated data, we compare pcadapt to other software for genome scans (BayeScan, hapflk, OutFLANK, sNMF). We find that the proportion of false discoveries is around a nominal false discovery rate set at 10% with the exception of BayeScan that generates 40% of false discoveries. We also find that the power of BayeScan is severely impacted by the presence of admixed individuals whereas pcadapt is not impacted. Last, we find that pcadapt and hapflk are the most powerful software in scenarios of population divergence and range expansion. Because pcadapt handles next-generation sequencing data, it is a valuable tool for data analysis in molecular ecology.
Definite Description Resolution in Spanish

In this work, a method for the resolution of the identity co-reference produced by definite descriptions in Spanish texts is presented. This method is based on the linguistic knowledge acquired by POS-tagger, synonymous dictionary and relationships between names and verbs resources. This method uses a system of restrictions and preferences in order to obtain the correct antecedent. The method achieves a precision of 95% for the identification of non-anaphoric and anaphoric uses of definite descriptions. Moreover, the method achieves a precision of 80% for the reference resolution task. In addition, a profound study of linguistic cha racteristics of definite descriptions in a Spanish corpus has been made. From this study, a classification of the different definite description types has been obtained.
IMPROVED DISTANCES TO TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE WITH TWO SPECTROSCOPIC SUBCLASSES

We study the observables of 158 relatively normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) by dividing them into two groups in terms of the expansion velocity inferred from the absorption minimum of the Si ii λ6355 line in their spectra near B-band maximum brightness. One group (“Normal”) consists of normal SNe Ia populating a narrow strip in the Si ii velocity distribution, with an average expansion velocity 〈v〉 = 10, 600 ± 400 km s−1 near B maximum; the other group (“HV”) consists of objects with higher velocities, v ≳ 11, 800 km s−1. Compared with the Normal group, the HV one shows a narrower distribution in both the peak luminosity and the luminosity decline rate Δm15. In particular, their B−V colors at maximum brightness are found to be on average redder by ∼ 0.1 mag, suggesting that they either are associated with dusty environments or have intrinsically red B−V colors. The HV SNe Ia are also found to prefer a lower extinction ratio RV ≈ 1.6 (versus ∼ 2.4 for the Normal ones). Applying such an absorption-correction dichotomy to SNe Ia of these two groups remarkably reduces the dispersion in their peak luminosity from 0.178 mag to only 0.125 mag.
This Is the Rhythm of Your Eyes: The Phase of Ongoing Electroencephalogram Oscillations Modulates Saccadic Reaction Time

Motor reaction times in humans are highly variable from one trial to the next, even for simple and automatic tasks, such as shifting your gaze to a suddenly appearing target. Although classic models of reaction time generation consider this variability to reflect intrinsic noise, some portion of it could also be attributed to ongoing neuronal processes. For example, variations of alpha rhythm frequency (8–12 Hz) across individuals, or alpha amplitude across trials, have been related previously to manual reaction time variability. Here we investigate the trial-by-trial influence of oscillatory phase, a dynamic marker of ongoing activity, on saccadic reaction time in three paradigms of increasing cognitive demand (simple reaction time, choice reaction time, and visual discrimination tasks). The phase of ongoing prestimulus activity in the high alpha/low beta range (11–17 Hz) at frontocentral locations was strongly associated with saccadic response latencies. This relation, present in all three paradigms, peaked for phases recorded ∼50 ms before fixation point offset and 250 ms before target onset. Reaction times in the most demanding discrimination task fell into two distinct modes reflecting a fast but inaccurate strategy or a slow and efficient one. The phase effect was markedly stronger in the group of subjects using the faster strategy. We conclude that periodic fluctuations of electrical activity attributable to neuronal oscillations can modulate the efficiency of the oculomotor system on a rapid timescale; however, this relation may be obscured when cognitive load also adds a significant contribution to response time variability.
The Molecular Ridge Close to 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Abstract With the ATNF Mopra telescope we are performing a survey in the 12CO(1–0) line to map the molecular gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud. For some regions we also obtained interferometric maps of the high density gas tracers HCO+ and HCN with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. Here we discuss the properties of the elongated molecular complex that stretches about 2 kpc southward from 30 Doradus. Our data suggest that the complex, which we refer to as the ‘molecular ridge’, is not a coherent feature but consists of many smaller clumps that share the same formation history. Likely triggers of molecular-cloud formation are shocks and shearing forces that are present in the surrounding south-eastern Hi overdensity region, a region influenced by strong ram pressure and tidal forces. The molecular ridge is at the western edge of the the overdensity region where a bifurcated velocity structure transitions into a single disk velocity component. We find that the 12CO(1–0) and Hi emission peaks in the molecular ridge are typically near each other but never coincide. A likely explanation is the conversion of warmer, low-opacity Hi to colder, high-opacity Hi from which H2 subsequently forms. On smaller scales we find that very dense molecular gas, as traced by interferometric HCO+ and HCN maps, is associated with star formation along shocked filaments and with rims of expanding shell-like structures, both created by feedback from massive stars.
Quantifying changes in IT metrics after outsourcing transitions

When IT development is (partly) outsourced to third parties, the development process often has to be changed. Therefore, the outsourcing transition affects important software metrics in domains such as cost, size, quality, time to market and productivity in two ways. First, they are influenced by changes made in the development process. Second, they are affected by the change of supplier. In this paper, differences in IT metrics caused by introducing a new development process are quantified using simulation techniques. These techniques are illustrated and validated by applying them in a real-world situation. By using such quantifications it becomes possible to make a fair assessment of the changes truly caused by the supplier.
Information Retrieval Boosted by Category for Troubleshooting Search System

Troubleshooting search system aims at extracting relevant information to solve the problem at hand. It is often the case that documents in troubleshooting system includes an abundant amount of domain-speci c categories. However, the useful information about the domain-speci c categories, such as relationship between words and categories and relationship between categories, is not fully utilized in simple query search and faceted search. In this paper, we propose an information retrieval method boosted by the domainspeci c categories. Given a problem query and categories, the troubleshooting search system is able to retrieve the relevant information of interest with respect to the selected categories. The experiment results show our proposal improves the recall.
Optimized One-Way Relaying Strategy With Outdated CSI Quantization for Spatial Multiplexing

This correspondence considers a MIMO relay downlink system using precoding and limited feedback. Since the conventional precoding matrices are directly obtained by treating the quantized channel state information (CSI) feedback as real CSI, we propose an optimized relay precoding strategy by taking both effects of channel quantization error and feedback delay into account. Conditioned on the outdated CSI quantization available at the relay station, the relay precoding is optimized via minimizing an expected mean-square error (MSE) criterion over CSI mismatches. By using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions, a closed-form solution to the relay design is achieved with comparable computational complexity relative to the conventional approach. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Enhancing recommender systems under volatile userinterest drifts

This paper presents a systematic study of how to enhance recommender systems under volatile user interest drifts. A key development challenge along this line is how to track user interests dynamically. To this end, we first define four types of interest patterns to understand users' rating behaviors and analyze the properties of these patterns. We also propose a rating graph and rating chain based approach for detecting these interest patterns. For each users' rating series, a rating graph and a rating chain are constructed based on the similarities between rated items. The type of a given user's interest pattern is identified through the density of the corresponding rating graph and the continuity of the corresponding rating chain. In addition, we propose a general algorithm framework for improving recommender systems by exploiting these identified patterns. Finally, experimental results on a real-world data set show that the proposed rating graph based approach is effective for detecting user interest patterns, which in turn help to improve the performance of recommender systems.
Evaluation of Protein Structural Models Using Random Forests

Protein structure prediction has been a grand challenge problem in the structure biology over the last few decades. Protein quality assessment plays a very important role in protein structure prediction. In the paper, we propose a new protein quality assessment method which can predict both local and global quality of the protein 3D structural models. Our method uses both multi and single model quality assessment method for global quality assessment, and uses chemical, physical, geo-metrical features, and global quality score for local quality assessment. CASP9 targets are used to generate the features for local quality assessment. We evaluate the performance of our local quality assessment method on CASP10, which is comparable with two stage-of-art QA methods based on the average absolute distance between the real and predicted distance. In addition, we blindly tested our method on CASP11, and the good performance shows that combining single and multiple model quality assessment method could be a good way to improve the accuracy of model quality assessment, and the random forest technique could be used to train a good local quality assessment model.
Self-Regulated Learning (SRL): A guide for the perplexed

ABSTRACT This introductory paper to the special issue of High Ability Studies aims to provide a “guide for the perplexed” relating to self-regulated learning (SRL) theory, research, and applications. We begin by defining SRL and its key cyclical stages and criterial attributes. We move on to discuss a number of motivational and meta-motivational constructs supporting SRL. We then briefly present a number of issues related to teaching and promoting SRL. Finally, we review research shedding light on SRL in gifted, high ability, and high achieving students.
Joint Conference on Neural Networks , Orlando , Florida , USA , August 12-17 , 2007 Transfer Learning in Decision Trees

Most research in machine learning focuses on scenarios in which a learner faces a single learning task, independently of other learning tasks or prior knowledge. In reality, however, learning is not performed in isolation, starting from scratch with every new task. Instead, it is a lifelong activity during which a learner encounters many learning tasks, and usefully transfers to new tasks knowledge acquired from earlier related tasks. We propose a novel approach to transfer learning with decision trees. Our system learns a new task semi-incrementally from a partial decision tree model which captures knowledge from a previous task. Empirical results on several UCI data sets show that our approach is generally more effective and accurate than the base approach.
Enhanced performance in wideband cognitive radios via compressive sensing

In the emerging paradigm of interoperable network, the cognitive users are allowed to transmit opportunistically on a temporarily empty frequency band which is authorized to the licensed users. To support this spectrum sharing functionality, the cognitive users dynamically sense the radio frequency environment for being aware of the high-priority licensed users. Spectrum sensing becomes challenging in the wideband regime due to high sampling frequency functioning at or above Nyquist rates. Based on the sparseness of the wideband signal, the spectrum can be recovered with only few compressive measurements, thus employs relief of high-speed signal processing units. This paper proposes an efficient way for wideband cognitive receiver sensing unit that estimate the highly sparse segment of wideband through compressed sensing rather than entire wideband spectrum and then discover spectral opportunity for a cognitive user. The proposed model deals with the highly-sparse signal segment which provides better spectral estimation and hence improves the detection performance, demonstrated by the simulation. Eventually, reduction of computational complexity as well as a level up of detection performance of the proposed method has sorted out compared to a single RF chain followed by compressive sensing.
sAPP as a regulator of dendrite motility and melanin release in epidermal melanocytes and melanoma cells

Numerous factors including ultraviolet (UV) radiation and growth factors regulate the specific function of epidermal melanocytes. A recently discovered epidermal growth factor is sAPP, the soluble N‐terminal ectodomain of the β‐amyloid precursor protein (APP). Using whole mount preparations of isolated human epidermis, we detected a small population of basal cells, which expressed exceptionally high levels of APP. These cells were identified as melanocytes, which, similar to keratinocytes and neuronal cells, expressed the three APP isoforms 695, 751, and 770. They differed in their expression pattern from that of neuronal cells by expressing only low levels of APP 695. Melanocytes and melanoma cells in vitro released, in addition to keratinocytes, large quantities of sAPP. Because of its growth factor function, we studied possible effects of sAPP on melanocytes. Recombinant sAPP strongly increased lamellipodia activity at dendritic tips, an effect that coincided with increased release of melanin particles. Our observations point to the possible use of APP as an immunocytochemical marker for melanocytes. They suggest that sAPP derived from keratinocytes and/or melanocytes belongs to a family of factors operating in the paracrine and/or autocrine regulation of melanocyte function.
Gauging of 1d-space translations for nonrelativistic matter - geometric bags

Abstract We develop in a systematic fashion the idea of gauging 1D-space translations with fixed Newtonian time for nonrelativistic matter (particles and fields). By starting with a nonrelativistic free theory we obtain its minimal gauge invariant extension by introducing two gauge fields with a Maxwellian self interaction. We fix the gauge so that the residual symmetry group is the Galilei group and construct a representation of the extended Galilei algebra. The reduced N-particle Lagrangian describes geodesic motion in a (N−1)-dimensional (Pseudo-) Riemannian space. The singularity of the metric for negative gauge coupling leads in classical dynamics to the formation of geometric bags in the case of two or three particles. The ordering problem within the quantization scheme for N-particles is solved by canonical quantization of a pseudoclassical Schrodinger theory obtained by adding to the continuum generalization of the point-particle Lagrangian an appropriate quantum correction. We solve the two-particle bound state problem for both signs of the gauge coupling. At the end we speculate on the possible physical relevance of the new interaction induced by the gauge fields.
Formation of passive-roof duplexes in the Colombian Subandes and Perú

Passive-roof duplexes are important features for accommodating shortening in active orogens, but their occurrences have been previously demonstrated only with significant subsurface data or after their exhumation. In this study, we describe a series of thin-skinned passive-roof duplexes along the Subandean front in Colombia and compare them with potential analogues in southern Peru. We suggest type localities for this structural style, which display conditions favorable for formation of these structures. It appears that passive-roof duplexes in the Subandean zones are mostly late Miocene features. Our main data for placing temporal and thermokinematic constraints on their development are 25 apatite fission-track (AFT) analyses, including track-length distributions. We show that these areas require high shortening, surface erosion, and downstream sedimentation rates at the time of their formation, as well as two distinct low-friction detachments. These features, which have been previously described by analog models, appear to have been conditioned by a phase of late Miocene topographic growth and denudation in the hinterland and subsequent increase in accommodation as well as sedimentation rates in the foreland.
Relative location for light field saliency detection

Light field images, which capture multiple images from different angles of a scene, have been proved that can detect salient regions more effectively. Instead of estimating depth labels from light field images, we proposed to extract relative locations, which can distinguish whether the object is located before the focus plane of the main lens or not, for saliency detection. The relative locations are calculated by comparing raw light field images captured by plenoptic cameras and central views of scenes. The relative locations are then integrated to a modified saliency detection framework to obtain the salient regions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed relative locations can help to improve the accuracy of results, which is also efficient. Moreover, the modified framework outperforms the state-of-the-art methods for light field images saliency detection.
Virtual Product Experience: The Effects of Interactivity Task and Product Type on Presence Perceptions

This article presents a model of the effects of product types (hedonic versus utilitarian) and object interactivity on presence perceptions (i.e., perceptions of nonmediation in technology-mediated environments, Lombard & Ditton, 1997), as well as on subsequent beliefs about a product and web site. A laboratory experiment has been designed to test the hypothesized effects. The expected findings will have important implications for research and practice, as they will further the understanding of factors influencing presence perceptions and online buying behavior, and provide prescriptive insights for the design of business-to-consumer e-commerce systems.
Optimal Monetary Policy Under Endogenous Currency Invoicing

Since many developed countries have started to invoice their exports not only in American dollars but also in their own currencies, new models have been developed in international macroeconomics literature to show under which conditions exporting rms choose the currency to invoice their exports and to know what are the implications of those decisions on optimal monetary policy. In this paper, I use the second order approximation method of the policy function for solving Stochastic Dynamic General Equilibrium models to show two important results. First, gains from monetary policy cooperation are dierent from zero when the elasticity of substitution between domestic and imported goods consumption is dierent