Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sub-flow packet sampling for scalable ML classification of interactive traffic

Machine Learning (ML) classifiers have been shown to provide accurate, timely and continuous IP flow classification when evaluating sub-flows (short moving windows of packets within flows). They can be used to provide automated QoS management for interactive traffic, such as fast-paced multiplayer games or VoIP. As with other ML classification approaches, previous sub-flow techniques have assumed all packets in all flows are being observed and evaluated. This limits scalability and poses a problem for practical deployment in network core or edge routers. In this paper we propose and evaluate subflow packet sampling (SPS) to reduce an ML sub-flow classifier's resource requirements with minimal compromise of accuracy. While random packet sampling increases classification time from <;1 second to over 30 seconds and can reduce accuracy from 98% to <;90%, our tailored SPS technique retains classification times of <;1 second while providing 98% accuracy.
Assessing Gene Significance from cDNA Microarray Expression Data via Mixed Models

The determination of a list of differentially expressed genes is a basic objective in many cDNA microarray experiments. We present a statistical approach that allows direct control over the percentage of false positives in such a list and, under certain reasonable assumptions, improves on existing methods with respect to the percentage of false negatives. The method accommodates a wide variety of experimental designs and can simultaneously assess significant differences between multiple types of biological samples. Two interconnected mixed linear models are central to the method and provide a flexible means to properly account for variability both across and within genes. The mixed model also provides a convenient framework for evaluating the statistical power of any particular experimental design and thus enables a researcher to a priori select an appropriate number of replicates. We also suggest some basic graphics for visualizing lists of significant genes. Analyses of published experiments studying human cancer and yeast cells illustrate the results.
Effects of the core radius of an isothermal ellipsoidal gravitational lens on the caustics and the critical curves

We study the effect of the core radius of an isothermal ellipsoidal gravitational lens on the caustics and the critical curves. We derive an analytic expression of the caustics for an isothermal ellipsoidal gravitational lens via a sixth-order algebraic equation. Since the expression is too long, by using another method we obtain a parametric representation of the critical curves in order to show analytically that there exist three cases: there are two curves for a small core radius, one for a quite large one, and no curves appear for an extremely large one, though the latter two cases are not realistic. The caustics are represented also by the same parameter.
The Case for a Positive Theory of Planning. Part 1: What is Wrong with Planning Theory?

Planning theory is lost. It seems remote from practice and uncertain of its own role. This situation is only in part a reflection of the shortcomings of theory. It is also a result of the reformist ethos of planning and a concommitant failure to contemplate the pressures that mould professional practice. Since the 1960s, when theory focused on procedural questions, the range of ideas and viewpoints has grown enormously, so that planning theory now includes extensive contributions covering the process, the aims, and the social context of planning. However, these contributions are heavily influenced by the ethos of the advocacy side of planning. They underplay the significance of the context of practice and there is a notable failure to develop a convincing positive theory of planning. In paper 1, the current disorientation of planning theory is examined. It is argued that this is caused first by the failure of theorists to separate clearly different types of theory and second by the lack of a widely accepted mainstream, positive theory able to explain planning as an activity and able to provide a basis for assessing the viability of normative proposals for planning. The resource for such a positive theory exists in ‘public choice’ theory. The development of that theory is the subject of paper 2 entitled “A positive theory of planning”.
Efficiency and productivity of publicly-traded bio-pharmaceutical companies in Taiwan

The biopharmaceutical industry has been rapidly growing these last few decades due to the breakthroughs in molecular biology since the 1970s. The Taiwan government initiated a program for developing the biotech industry as early as the 1980s. However, Taiwan's biopharmaceutical companies have failed to deliver any new drugs to the market in the last 30 years. Therefore, the managerial efficiency of these biopharmaceutical companies in Taiwan needs further examination. Traditional managerial efficiency measurements are either output-oriented or input-oriented, respectively. In this study we apply the directional distance function to estimate the relative managerial efficiency of eleven publicly-traded biopharmaceutical firms during the period 2012-2014. We also measure their productivity by means of the Malmquist-Luenberger index. Our results show that, during 2013-2014, the mean productivity of these companies declined, which can be possibly explained by the significant reduction in mean gross sales due to the occurrence of a serious food safety crisis in 2014. Taiwan's pharmaceutical firms have to pay more attention to their quality control over ingredients that are being used in food and drug production.
An Extension of FBS Three-Phase Power Flow for Handling PV Nodes in Active Distribution Networks

Forward/backward sweep power flow (FBS) is widely used in distribution network analysis because it is very efficient for radial and weakly meshed networks. In these types of methods, sensitivity-based approaches are commonly used to account for PV nodes in active distribution system; however, the convergence deteriorates as the number of PV nodes increases, and may even diverge for large-branch R/X ratios. We propose an efficient method for handling PV nodes based on loop analysis incorporated in the FBS framework. Here, PV nodes refer to nodes connected by distributed generators with constant voltage control. As an extension of FBS, the proposed method's convergence remains satisfactory when the number of PV nodes increases for a wide range of branch R/X ratios. Numerical simulations with three-phase models were carried out to quantify the performance of the method.
Plasticity of BRCA2 Function in Homologous Recombination: Genetic Interactions of the PALB2 and DNA Binding Domains

The breast cancer suppressor BRCA2 is essential for the maintenance of genomic integrity in mammalian cells through its role in DNA repair by homologous recombination (HR). Human BRCA2 is 3,418 amino acids and is comprised of multiple domains that interact with the RAD51 recombinase and other proteins as well as with DNA. To gain insight into the cellular function of BRCA2 in HR, we created fusions consisting of various BRCA2 domains and also introduced mutations into these domains to disrupt specific protein and DNA interactions. We find that a BRCA2 fusion peptide deleted for the DNA binding domain and active in HR is completely dependent on interaction with the PALB2 tumor suppressor for activity. Conversely, a BRCA2 fusion peptide deleted for the PALB2 binding domain is dependent on an intact DNA binding domain, providing a role for this conserved domain in vivo; mutagenesis suggests that both single-stranded and double-stranded DNA binding activities in the DNA binding domain are required for its activity. Given that PALB2 itself binds DNA, these results suggest alternative mechanisms to deliver RAD51 to DNA. In addition, the BRCA2 C terminus contains both RAD51-dependent and -independent activities which are essential to HR in some contexts. Finally, binding the small peptide DSS1 is essential for activity when its binding domain is present, but not when it is absent. Our results reveal functional redundancy within the BRCA2 protein and emphasize the plasticity of this large protein built for optimal HR function in mammalian cells. The occurrence of disease-causing mutations throughout BRCA2 suggests sub-optimal HR from a variety of domain modulations.
Testing an extended theory of planned behaviour to predict intention to participate in health-related exercise during long-distance flight travel

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine intention to participate in exercise during long-haul flights using an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB, Ajzen, 1991), augmented with the variables descriptive norm (DN) and self-identity (SI). Design: The study employed a cross-sectional design using belief-based as well as direct quantitative questionnaire measures of all variables. Method: Participants (N = 208), mean age 29.7 (SD = 11.50), were employees and students of three universities. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing the TPB predictors (attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control) of intention to participate in in-flight exercise (walking and seated) and the additional variables DN and SI. Results: Regression analysis showed that all variables significantly predicted intention to engage in walking and seated exercise using direct measures. A similar pattern of results was found using belief-based measures in the context of walking. Normative beliefs did not reach significance in the belief-based model of seated exercise. Based on direct measures, the TPB accounted for 50% of the variance in intention to walk and 41% to do seated exercise after controlling for past behaviour. The additional contribution of DN was 2% for walking and 1% for seated exercise. The additional contribution of SI was 2% for walking and 2% for seated exercise. Conclusions: The results of this study support the application of TPB augmented with DN and SI in the context of walking and seated in-flight exercise. The findings can be used to aid the development of motivational strategies for health-related exercise during long-haul flight travel.
Transitions and Brain Injury: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Journey of People with Traumatic Brain Injury

This qualitative study aimed to explore transitions from hospital to the home over a period of one year. Methods and procedures: A longitudinal, phenomenological approach was employed and 18 individuals with severe traumatic brain injury, their family members and rehabilitation professionals were interviewed using semistructured interviews, when the person with brain injury was discharged from the ward, after 6 months and again after one year. Results: Themes identified within the data included returning home, getting back to normal, moving forward and the role of rehabilitation in the transitional period. Further subthemes were also identified including issues of life-course disruption, self-identity, status and reconstruction. Conclusions: Data suggested that access to rehabilitation programs employing individualised, contextual interventions following discharge to the home were integral in enabling the transition through to autonomy and independence. Consideration of issues of identity and status can enable a different and potentially important perspective on the experience of transitions for those with brain injury. Reclaiming personal autonomy and control appeared to be central to the reconstruction of a coherent sense of self, enabling a meaningful life after brain injury.
Accuracy Maximization Analysis for Sensory-Perceptual Tasks: Computational Improvements, Filter Robustness, and Coding Advantages for Scaled Additive Noise

Accuracy Maximization Analysis (AMA) is a recently developed Bayesian ideal observer method for task-specific dimensionality reduction. Given a training set of proximal stimuli (e.g. retinal images), a response noise model, and a cost function, AMA returns the filters (i.e. receptive fields) that extract the most useful stimulus features for estimating a user-specified latent variable from those stimuli. Here, we first contribute two technical advances that significantly reduce AMA’s compute time: we derive gradients of cost functions for which two popular estimators are appropriate, and we implement a stochastic gradient descent (AMA-SGD) routine for filter learning. Next, we show how the method can be used to simultaneously probe the impact on neural encoding of natural stimulus variability, the prior over the latent variable, noise power, and the choice of cost function. Then, we examine the geometry of AMA’s unique combination of properties that distinguish it from better-known statistical methods. Using binocular disparity estimation as a concrete test case, we develop insights that have general implications for understanding neural encoding and decoding in a broad class of fundamental sensory-perceptual tasks connected to the energy model. Specifically, we find that non-orthogonal (partially redundant) filters with scaled additive noise tend to outperform orthogonal filters with constant additive noise; non-orthogonal filters and scaled additive noise can interact to sculpt noise-induced stimulus encoding uncertainty to match task-irrelevant stimulus variability. Thus, we show that some properties of neural response thought to be biophysical nuisances can confer coding advantages to neural systems. Finally, we speculate that, if repurposed for the problem of neural systems identification, AMA may be able to overcome a fundamental limitation of standard subunit model estimation. As natural stimuli become more widely used in the study of psychophysical and neurophysiological performance, we expect that task-specific methods for feature learning like AMA will become increasingly important.
Fostering adoption, acceptance, and assimilation in knowledge management system design

Designing information and communication technologies (ICT) for knowledge work is a primary challenge in research and practice of knowledge management. Knowledge workers supposedly organize and manage their workplaces, at least partly themselves, which needs to be considered when designing ICT for supporting their daily knowledge-intense activities. It is considered useful for designers of knowledge management systems (KMS) to look into the results of behavioral science in information systems concerning the adoption, acceptance and assimilation of ICT. Thus, this paper proposes a model that contributes to bridging the gap between design science and behavioral science in the domain of knowledge management. In this regard, widely recognized behavioral models that aim at explaining organizational and human behavior in conjunction with ICT are analyzed in order to extract important factors influencing the successful application of KMS with respect to the adoption by an organization or organizational unit, acceptance by individual knowledge workers, and assimilation into knowledge processes and practices. By combining, categorizing, and structuring these factors, we developed a comprehensive model to be taken into account in software design and evaluation processes from various perspectives. Moreover, we discuss a case example in which this model is applied to the design of a KMS.
Elevated oxidative stress and sensorimotor deficits but normal cognition in mice that cannot synthesize ascorbic acid

Oxidative stress is implicated in the cognitive deterioration associated with normal aging as well as neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. We investigated the effect of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) on oxidative stress, cognition, and motor abilities in mice null for gulono‐γ‐lactone oxidase (Gulo). Gulo−/− mice are unable to synthesize ascorbic acid and depend on dietary ascorbic acid for survival. Gulo−/− mice were given supplements that provided them either with ascorbic acid levels equal to‐ or slightly higher than wild‐type mice (Gulo‐sufficient), or lower than physiological levels (Gulo‐low) that were just enough to prevent scurvy. Ascorbic acid is a major anti‐oxidant in mice and any reduction in ascorbic acid level is therefore likely to result in increased oxidative stress. Ascorbic acid levels in the brain and liver were higher in Gulo‐sufficient mice than in Gulo‐low mice. F4‐neuroprostanes were elevated in cortex and cerebellum in Gulo‐low mice and in the cortex of Gulo‐sufficient mice. All Gulo−/− mice were cognitively normal but had a strength and agility deficit that was worse in Gulo‐low mice. This suggests that low levels of ascorbic acid and elevated oxidative stress as measured by F4‐neuroprostanes alone are insufficient to impair memory in the knockouts but may be responsible for the exacerbated motor deficits in Gulo‐low mice, and ascorbic acid may have a vital role in maintaining motor abilities.
Optimal time decay of the non cut-off Boltzmann equation in the whole space

In this paper we study the large-time behavior of perturbative classical solutions to the hard and soft potential Boltzmann equation without the angular cut-off assumption in the whole space $\mathbb{R}^n _x$ with $n≥3$ . We use the existence theory of global in time nearby Maxwellian solutions from [12,11]. It has been a longstanding open problem to determine the large time decay rates for the soft potential Boltzmann equation in the whole space, with or without the angular cut-off assumption [26,1]. For perturbative initial data, we prove that solutions converge to the global Maxwellian with the optimal large-time decay rate of $O(t^{-\frac{N}{2}+\frac{N}{2r}})$ in the $L^2_v$$(L^r_x)$-norm for any $2\leq r\leq \infty$.
Enhancing Image-Based Aging Approaches

Modern video games and computer-animated movies exhibit extremely realistic synthetic images. To achieve such a level of realism, artists have to consider several characteristics including material appearance changes from object aging such as rust, bumps, dents, or simply dust. Since adding these details is time-consuming, several approaches have been proposed to ease the aging process and reduce related costs. In this paper, we address some problems and limitations from image based aging techniques by proposing extensions intended to widen their range of application. First, we present a new automatic positioning system that handles special orientation cases, thus increasing the overall controllability on the aging framework. Also, we propose an innovative process to better handle multiple texture colorations during the synthesis phase of image-based aging techniques.
Conceptualizing Access to Justice and Victims’ Rights in International Sentencing

The purpose of this article is to confront some of the theoretical and conceptual difficulties in understanding the meaning and relevance of notions of access to justice and rights for victims in the context of international sentencing. In particular, it suggests the need for such conceptualizations to engage with the nature of international sentencing process as a transformative mechanism where fact and value are negotiated to correspond with the moral ideologies of the powerful. It is argued that for international penality to progress beyond partisan ideology, rhetorical symbolism and the dynamics of retribution and vindictiveness require us to recognize and understand how moral values and moral action are linked through process and the significance of this for the legitimacy of punishment. For victims and victim communities in international conflict this means conceiving of participation and rights as processual reality and a recognition that any constructive engagement with notions of truth and justice must be grounded in context.
Cancer immunotherapy using novel tumor-associated antigenic peptides identified by genome-wide cDNA microarray analyses

Recent genome‐wide cDNA microarray analysis of gene expression profiles in comprehensive tumor types coupled with isolation of cancer tissues by laser‐microbeam microdissection have revealed ideal tumor‐associated antigens (TAAs) that are frequently overexpressed in various cancers including head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC) and lung cancer, but not in most normal tissues except for testis, placenta, and fetal organs. Preclinical studies using HLA‐transgenic mice and human T cells in vitro showed that TAA‐derived CTL‐epitope short peptides (SPs) are highly immunogenic and induce HLA‐A2 or ‐A24‐restricted CTLs. Based on the accumulated evidence, we carried out a phase II clinical trial of the TAA‐SP vaccine in advanced 37 HNSCC patients. This study showed a significant induction of TAA‐specific CTLs in the majority of patients without serious adverse effects. Importantly, clinical responses including a complete response were observed in this study. Another phase II clinical trial of therapeutic TAA‐SP vaccine, designed to evaluate the ability of prevention of recurrence, is ongoing in HNSCC patients who have received curative operations. Further studies in human preclinical studies and in vivo studies using HLA class I transgenic mice showed TAA‐derived long peptides (TAA‐LPs) have the capacity to induce not only promiscuous HLA class II‐restricted CD4+ T helper type 1 cells but also tumor‐specific CTLs through a cross‐presentation mechanism. Moreover, we observed an augmentation of TAA‐LP‐specific T helper type 1 cell responses and tumor antigen‐spreading in HNSCC patients vaccinated with TAA‐SPs. This accumulated evidence suggests that therapeutic TAA‐SPs and LPs vaccines may provide a promising cancer immunotherapy.
The Consequences of Being in an Infectious Biofilm: Microenvironmental Conditions Governing Antibiotic Tolerance

The main driver behind biofilm research is the desire to understand the mechanisms governing the antibiotic tolerance of biofilm-growing bacteria found in chronic bacterial infections. Rather than genetic traits, several physical and chemical traits of the biofilm have been shown to be attributable to antibiotic tolerance. During infection, bacteria in biofilms exhibit slow growth and a low metabolic state due to O2 limitation imposed by intense O2 consumption of polymorphonuclear leukocytes or metabolically active bacteria in the biofilm periphery. Due to variable O2 availability throughout the infection, pathogen growth can involve aerobic, microaerobic and anaerobic metabolism. This has serious implications for the antibiotic treatment of infections (e.g., in chronic wounds or in the chronic lung infection of cystic fibrosis patients), as antibiotics are usually optimized for aerobic, fast-growing bacteria. This review summarizes knowledge about the links between the microenvironment of biofilms in chronic infections and their tolerance against antibiotics.