Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phrase Based Direct Model for Improving Handwriting Recognition Accuracies

We propose a method for increasing word recognition accuracies by correcting the output of a handwriting recognition system. We treat the handwriting recognizer as a black-box, such that there is no access to its internals. This enables us to keep our algorithm general and independent of any particular system. We use a novel method for correcting the output based on a direct “phrase-based” system in contrast to traditional sourcechannel models. We report the accuracies of an in-house handwritten word recognizer before and after the correction. We achieve highly encouraging results for a large
Pictogrammar: an AAC device based on a semantic grammar

As many as two-thirds of individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) also have language impairments, which can range from mild limitations to complete non-verbal behavior. For such cases, there are several Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices available. These are computer-designed tools in order to help people with ASD to palliate or overcome such limitations, at least partially. Some of the most popular AAC devices are based on pic-tograms, so that a pictogram is the graphical representation of a simple concept and sentences are composed by concatenating a number of such pictograms. Usually, these tools have to manage a vocabulary made up of hundreds of pictograms/concepts, with no or very poor knowledge of the language at semantic and pragmatic level. In this paper we present Pictogrammar, an AAC system which takes advantage of SUpO and PictOntology. SUpO (Simple Upper Ontology) is a formal semantic ontology which is made up of detailed knowledge of facts of everyday life such as simple words, with special interest in linguistic issues, allowing automated grammatical super-vision. PictOntology is an ontology developed to manage sets of pictograms, linked to SUpO. Both ontologies make possible the development of tools which are able to take advantage of a formal semantics.
A Validation Environment for LOTOS

We present an environment to analyze LOTOS specifications, based on the integration of several tools developed by the LOTOS research group of the University of Ottawa. Main components of this environment are an interpreter, a symbolic behaviour graph generator, and a model checker, which is able to formally verify whether certain properties expressed in temporal logic are true in the symbolic behaviour graph of the specification. This process is illustrated by using a simple “data link” service provider and a “transport” service handler.
Robust adaptive controller design and stability analysis for flexible-joint manipulators

The problem of controlling robot manipulators with flexible joints is considered. A reduced-order flexible-joint model based on a singular perturbation formulation of the manipulator equations of motion is used. The concept of an integral manifold is utilized to construct the dynamics of the slow subsystem. A fast subsystem is constructed to represent the dynamics of the elastic forces at the joints. A composite adaptive control scheme is developed with special attention to stability and robustness of the controller. The proposed controller is based on online identification of the manipulator parameters and takes into account the effect of a class of unmodeled dynamics, identification errors, and parameter variations. Stability analysis of the resulting closed-loop full-order system is presented. To show the capability of the proposed algorithm, an example of a two-link flexible-joint manipulator is considered. Simulation results are given to illustrate the applicability of the proposed control scheme. >
Optimally Extracting Discriminative Disjunctive Features for Dimensionality Reduction

Dimension Reduction is one popular approach to tackle large and redundant feature spaces as seen in most practical problems, either by selecting a subset of features or by projecting the features onto a smaller space. Most of these approaches suffer from the drawback that the dimensionality reduction objective and the objective for classifier training are decoupled. Recently, there have been some efforts to address the two tasks in a combined manner by attempting to solve an upper-bound to a single objective function. But the main drawback of these methods is that they are all parametric, in the sense that the number of reduced dimensions needs to be provided as an input to the system. Here we propose an integrated non-parametric learning approach to supervised dimension reduction by exploring a search space of all possible disjunctions of features and discovering a sparse subset of (interpretable) disjunctions that minimise a regularised loss function. Here, in order to discover good disjunctive features, we employ algorithms from hierarchical kernel learning to simultaneously achieve efficient feature selection and optimal classifier training in a maximum margin framework and demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on benchmark datasets.
Correction: Evaluating Status Change of Soil Potassium from Path Model

There are errors in the legends of Figures 4 and 5, in both cases the last word is incorrect. The correct legend of Figure 4 is: Path model of non-exchangeable potassium (neK, solid line for double arrow, dashed-line for single arrow, and single arrow flows into ZneK). The correct legend of Figure 5 is: Path model of exchangeable potassium (eK, solid line for double arrow, dashed-line for single arrow, and single arrow flows into ZeK).
Small-molecule inhibitor sorafenib regulates immunoreactions by inducing survival and differentiation of bone marrow cells

Sorafenib has been used for the treatment of liver cancer. However, its clinical impact on human immunity system remains poorly known. Our previous study has shown that sorafenib modulates immunosuppressive cell populations in murine liver cancer models. Here, we continue to report that low doses of sorafenib promotes the survival of murine bone marrow cells (BMCs) in a dose-dependent manner by up-regulating the anti-apoptotic protein survivin. Sorafenib induces differentiation of BMCs into suppressive dendritic cells that inhibit autologous T-cell proliferation and stimulate CD4+ T cells to express increased IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, IFN-γ and TNF-α, and reduced levels of IL-6 and CD25, which indicates that sorafenib-induced dendritic cells represent a distinct cellular subset with unique properties. Taken together, our findings suggest that in addition to its anticancer effects, sorafenib has an immunoregulatory property that is apparent at low doses.
Identification of PAH Isomeric Structure in Cosmic Dust Analogs: The AROMA Setup

We developed a new analytical experimental setup called AROMA (Astrochemistry Research of Organics with Molecular Analyzer) that combines laser desorption/ionization techniques with ion trap mass spectrometry. We report here on the ability of the apparatus to detect aromatic species in complex materials of astrophysical interest and characterize their structures. A limit of detection of 100 femto-grams has been achieved using pure polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) samples, which corresponds to 2 × 108 molecules in the case of coronene (C24H12). We detected the PAH distribution in the Murchison meteorite, which is made of a complex mixture of extraterrestrial organic compounds. In addition, collision induced dissociation experiments were performed on selected species detected in Murchison, which led to the first firm identification of pyrene and its methylated derivatives in this sample.
Physical exercise exacerbates memory deficits induced by intracerebroventricular STZ but improves insulin regulation of H₂O₂ production in mice synaptosomes.

Insulin brain resistant state is associated with cognitive deficits and Alzheimer's disease by mechanisms that may involve mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress. Conversely, physical exercise improves cognitive function and brain insulin signaling. The intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) administration of streptozotocin (STZ) in rodents is an established model of insulin-resistant brain state. This study evaluates the effects of physical exercise on memory performance of i.c. v. , STZ-treated mice(1 and 3 mg/kg) and whether insulin (50 and 100 ng/ml) modulates mitochondrial H₂O₂ generation in synaptosomes. S100B levels and SOD and CAT activities were assessed as markers of brain damage caused by STZ. Sedentary and exercise vehicle-treated mice demonstrated similar performance in object recognition memory task. In the water maze test, exercise vehicle-treated mice showed improvement performance in the acquisition and retrieval phases. The administration of STZ (1 mg/kg) before thirty days of voluntary physical exercise protocol impaired recognition and spatial memory only in exercised mice, whereas STZ (3 mg/kg) impaired the performance of sedentary and exercise groups. Moreover, STZ (3 mg/kg) increased hippocampal S100B levels in both groups and SOD/CAT ratio in the sedentary animals. Insulin decreased synaptosomal H₂O₂ production in exercised compared to sedentary mice; however, both STZ doses abolished this effect. Normal brain insulin signaling is mechanistically involved in the improvement of cognitive function induced by exercise through the regulation of mitochondrial H₂O₂ production. However, a prior blockade of brain insulin signaling with STZ abolished the benefits of exercise on memory performance and mitochondrial H₂O₂ regulation.
Validation of reference genes for quantitative RT-PCR normalization in Suaeda aralocaspica, an annual halophyte with heteromorphism and C4 pathway without Kranz anatomy

Reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) is a powerful analytical technique for the measurement of gene expression, which depends on the stability of the reference gene used for data normalization. Suaeda aralocaspica, an annual halophyte with heteromorphic seeds and possessing C4 photosynthesis pathway without Kranz anatomy, is an ideal plant species to identify stress tolerance-related genes and compare relative expression at transcriptional level. So far, no molecular information is available for this species. In the present study, six traditionally used reference genes were selected and their expression stability in two types of seeds of S. aralocaspica under different experimental conditions was evaluated. Three analytical programs, geNorm, NormFinder and BestKeeper, were used to assess and rank the stability of reference gene expression. Results revealed that although some reference genes may display different transcriptional profiles between the two types of seeds, β-TUB and GAPDH appeared to be the most suitable references under different developmental stages and tissues. GAPDH was the appropriate reference gene under different germination time points and salt stress conditions, and ACTIN was suitable for various abiotic stress treatments for the two types of seeds. For all the sample pools, β-TUB served as the most stable reference gene, whereas 18S rRNA and 28S rRNA performed poorly and presented as the least stable genes in our study. UBQ seemed to be unsuitable as internal control under different salt treatments. In addition, the expression of a photosynthesis-related gene (PPDK) of C4 pathway and a salt tolerance-related gene (SAT) of S. aralocaspica were used to validate the best performance reference genes. This is the first systematic comparison of reference gene selection for qRT-PCR work in S. aralocaspica and these data will facilitate further studies on gene expression in this species and other euhalophytes.
Stable integration of isolated cell membrane patches in a nanomachined aperture: a step towards a novel device for membrane physiology

We investigate the microscopic contact of a cell/semiconductor hybrid. The semiconductor is nanostructured with the aim of single channel recording of ion channels in cell membranes. This approach will overcome many limitations of the classical patch-clamp technique. The integration of silicon-based devices 'on-chip' promises novel types of experiments on single ion channels.
Analysis of deformation of aluminum plates under the influence of nano- and microsecond laser pulses

The paper presents numerical modeling of interaction of strong laser radiation with conventional aluminum sheets, similar to those used in military technology. The theoretical model uses equations of continuum mechanics (equations of hydrodynamics and the equations of mechanics of solid bodies in a cylindrical coordinates r, z), enriched with equations describing the typical effects of high temperature, such as absorption of laser radiation within the Al shield, electronic and radiative thermal conductivity, and energy loss on phase transitions (melting, evaporation, ionization). Semiempirical equations of state were used to describe the properties of material in the conditions of large deformation and the Johnson-Cook’s model. The equations were solved using the method of free points developed by one of the authors. Two kinds od laser pulses were considered: microsecond pulse with duration of 200 μs and a low peak power of 10 kW/cm2 (CW laser), and nanosecond pulse with duration of 10 ns and high peak power of 5 GW/cm2 (pulsed laser). The aim of this study was to determine the shapes and temperatures of Al plates under the influence of these pulses for the comparison of the numerical results with future experiments and to verify the possibility to determine the distribution of the energy density of the laser beam on the basis of the plate deformation.
Increased coupling efficiency of fiber coupled modules by smile compensation

A technique is experimentally demonstrated which allows for the compensation of the smile of a laser diode bar using a beam transformation system and a telescope array. The beam transformation system consists of a fast-axis collimator and an array of biconvex cylindrical lenses, which rotates each collimated beam by 90°. The telescope array is placed immediately behind and allows to address each emitter independently. The telescope array has two effects that reduce the fast-axis divergence: one is the magnification of the beams by effectively filling out the space between the beams, and the other the compensation of the smile-induced beam pointing by decentering the vertices of the concave entrance lens. In theory, this reduces the fast-axis divergence of a laser diode bar with 1 µm smile (peak-to-valley) from 7 mrad to 3.5 mrad, which would significantly increase the efficiency in fiber coupling applications. It is demonstrated in the experiment that it is possible to couple a full 19-emitter bar in a 100 μm core and 0.22 NA fiber with an overall fiber coupling efficiency of more than 75%. The telescope array is designed to be used with different, but similar smile forms. It is shown that slightly different smile forms have a negligible effect on the fiber coupling efficiency. Therefore, it is possible to compensate an arbitrary smile of a random laser diode bar by using a given set of optical modules.
Biofilm Growth and Near-Infrared Radiation-Driven Photosynthesis of the Chlorophyll d-Containing Cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina

ABSTRACT The cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina is the only known phototroph harboring chlorophyll (Chl) d. It is easy to cultivate it in a planktonic growth mode, and A. marina cultures have been subject to detailed biochemical and biophysical characterization. In natural situations, A. marina is mainly found associated with surfaces, but this growth mode has not been studied yet. Here, we show that the A. marina type strain MBIC11017 inoculated into alginate beads forms dense biofilm-like cell clusters, as in natural A. marina biofilms, characterized by strong O2 concentration gradients that change with irradiance. Biofilm growth under both visible radiation (VIS, 400 to 700 nm) and near-infrared radiation (NIR, ∼700 to 730 nm) yielded maximal cell-specific growth rates of 0.38 per day and 0.64 per day, respectively. The population doubling times were 1.09 and 1.82 days for NIR and visible light, respectively. The photosynthesis versus irradiance curves showed saturation at a photon irradiance of E k (saturating irradiance) >250 μmol photons m−2 s−1 for blue light but no clear saturation at 365 μmol photons m−2 s−1 for NIR. The maximal gross photosynthesis rates in the aggregates were ∼1,272 μmol O2 mg Chl d −1 h−1 (NIR) and ∼1,128 μmol O2 mg Chl d −1 h−1 (VIS). The photosynthetic efficiency (α) values were higher in NIR-irradiated cells [(268 ± 0.29) × 10−6 m2 mg Chl d −1 (mean ± standard deviation)] than under blue light [(231 ± 0.22) × 10−6 m2 mg Chl d −1]. A. marina is well adapted to a biofilm growth mode under both visible and NIR irradiance and under O2 conditions ranging from anoxia to hyperoxia, explaining its presence in natural niches with similar environmental conditions.
OPERATION OF ARTERIOVENOUS MALFORMATIONS ASSISTED BY STEREOSCOPIC NAVIGATION‐CONTROLLED DISPLAY OF PREOPERATIVE MAGNETIC RESONANCE ANGIOGRAPHY AND INTRAOPERATIVE ULTRASOUND ANGIOGRAPHY

OBJECTIVE To study the application of navigated stereoscopic display of preoperative three-dimensional (3-D) magnetic resonance angiography and intraoperative 3-D ultrasound angiography in a clinical setting. METHODS Preoperative magnetic resonance angiography and intraoperative ultrasound angiography are presented as stereoscopic images on the monitor during the operation by a simple red/blue technique. Two projections are generated, one for each eye, according to a simple ray casting method. Because of integration with a navigation system, it is possible to identify vessels with a pointer. The system has been applied during operations on nine patients with arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). Seven of the patients had AVMs in an eloquent area. RESULTS The technology makes it easier to understand the vascular architecture during the operation, and it offers a possibility to identify and clip AVM feeders both on the surface and deep in the tissue at the beginning of the operation. All 28 feeders identified on the preoperative angiograms were identified by intraoperative navigated stereoscopy. Twenty-five were clipped at the beginning of the operation. The other three were clipped at a later phase of the operation. 3-D ultrasound angiography was useful to map the size of the nidus, to detect the degree of brain shift, and to identify residual AVM. CONCLUSION Stereoscopic visualization enhances the surgeon's perception of the vascular architecture, and integrated with navigation technology, this offers a reliable system for identification and clipping of AVM feeders in the initial phase of the operation.
Trauma center designation correlates with functional independence after severe but not moderate traumatic brain injury.

BACKGROUND The mortality of traumatic brain injury (TBI) continues to decline, emphasizing functional outcomes. Trauma center designation has been linked to survival after TBI, but the impact on functional outcomes is unclear. The objective was to determine whether trauma center designation influenced functional outcomes after moderate and severe TBI. METHODS Trauma subjects presenting to an American College of Surgeons (ACS) Level I or II trauma center with a Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) <or=12 who survived to discharge were identified using the National Trauma Databank (2002-2006). Outcomes were functional independence (FI) defined as a modified functional independence measure (FIM) of 12, and independent expression (IE) defined as a FIM component of 4. These were compared between Level I and Level II centers in subjects with both moderate (GCS 9-12) and severe (GCS <or=8) TBI using stepwise logistic regression to adjust for demographics, injuries, and comorbidities. RESULTS Analysis identified 25,170 subjects (72% severe TBI). After adjusting for covariates, ACS Level I designation was associated with FI (odds ratio: 1.16; confidence interval: 1.07-1.24, p < 0.01) and IE (1.10; 1.03-1.17, p < 0.01) after severe TBI. Trauma center designation was not associated with FI or IE after moderate TBI. CONCLUSIONS ACS trauma center designation is significantly associated with FI and IE after severe, but not moderate TBI. Prospective study is warranted to verify and explore factors contributing to this discrepancy.
E-services: a look behind the curtain

The emerging paradigm of electronic services promises to bring to distributed computation and services the flexibility that the web has brought to the sharing of documents. An understanding of fundamental properties of e-service composition is required in order to take full advantage of the paradigm. This paper examines proposals and standards for e-services from the perspectives of XML, data management, workflow, and process models. Key areas for study are identified, including behavioral service signatures, verification and synthesis techniques for composite services, analysis of service data manipulation commands, and XML analysis applied to service specifications. We give a sample of the relevant results and techniques in each of these areas.
Using Latent-Semantic Analysis and Network Analysis for Monitoring Conceptual Development

This paper describes and evaluates CONSPECT (from concept inspection), an application that analyses states in a learner’s conceptual development. It was designed to help online learners and their tutors monitor conceptual development and also to help reduce the workload of tutors monitoring a learner’s conceptual development. CONSPECT combines two technologies - Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and Network Analysis (NA) into a technique called Meaningful Interaction Analysis (MIA). LSA analyses the meaning in the textual digital traces left behind by learners in their learning journey; NA provides the analytic instrument to investigate (visually) the semantic structures identified by LSA. This paper describes the validation activities undertaken to show how well LSA matches first year medical students in 1) grouping similar concepts and 2) annotating text.
Development of a Compound Class-Directed Similarity Coefficient That Accounts for Molecular Complexity Effects in Fingerprint Searching

In chemoinformatics, fingerprints are defined as bit string representations of molecular structure and properties. The evaluation of fingerprint similarity, that is, quantification of fingerprint overlap, is known to be biased by differences in molecular complexity and size. For example, similarity searching using optimized lead compounds that are typically more complex and larger than average database compounds often leads to the artificial selection of large molecules. A modified version of the Tversky coefficient has been introduced to balance such complexity effects. In addition, compound class-directed fingerprint bit position-dependent weight vectors have been designed to aid in the assessment of Tanimoto similarity. We show that by merging weight vectors with the modified Tversky coefficient, a class-directed similarity metric is obtained that effectively balances complexity effects and further improves the accuracy of fingerprint search calculations.