Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ENSM-SE at INEX 2012: Basic Experiments

Our objective in the INEX 2012 campaign was to integrate the semantic tags and the linked data in our proximity retrieval model. This model was sucessfully used in previous INEX campaigns and obtained good results, particularly in 2007 with the second place in the Ad Hoc Track Focused Task [1], and in 2010 with the rst place in the Ad Hoc Track Relevant in Context Task [2] Though we had several discom tures with the collection because i) there were several versions of the collection, the last one available at the end of June, one week before the initial run submission deadline, ii) the di erent versions were di cult to follow because they were not clearly identi ed, iii) not every documents were well formed according to the XML format, iv) the provided DTD gives little information on the actual structure and its semantics, v) the documents contains many semantic annotations but the underlying ideas used to generate them are not documented making them di cult to apprehend. We present in section 2 how we processed the documents to alleviate the problems with the DTD. Thus we only have been able to do some basic experiments presented in section 3. In section 4 we present our work in progress.
On the Development of Strategic Games based on a Semiotic Analysis: A Case Study of an Optimized Tic-Tac-Toe

A picture can express something instead of having a thousand words that cannot do it. This phrase, which symbolically connotes a whole scheme of a signs system, is known as Semiotics. This paper presents the process of an educational video game development based on semiotic analysis. We used Extreme Programing Agile Methodology combined with a proposal of the modified Elemental Tetrad Game Design Model to develop a video game known as âTic-Tac-Toeâ. The mathematical model was implemented with Artificial Intelligence algorithms and a graphical user interface including Semiotics; this was optimized for producing an enjoyable and interactive environment. With the purpose of stimulating cognitive development of children, this research combines theories about stimulating cognitive development of children; game design model, Semiotic Analysis harnesses the Model of Aleferenko, and uses algorithms based on heuristics and numerical methods in client-server architecture. The concept was tested with a representative sample of seven to eleven years old children. The results demonstrated that educational video games with Semiotics stimulate the cognitive development of children.
Sequential quantum cloning under real-life conditions

We consider a sequential implementation of the optimal quantum cloning machine of Gisin and Massar and propose optimization protocols for experimental realization of such a quantum cloner subject to the real-life restrictions. We demonstrate how exploiting the matrix-product state (MPS) formalism and the ensuing variational optimization techniques reveals the intriguing algebraic structure of the Gisin-Massar output of the cloning procedure and brings about significant improvements to the optimality of the sequential cloning prescription of Delgado et al [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 150502 (2007)]. Our numerical results show that the orthodox paradigm of optimal quantum cloning can in practice be realized in a much more economical manner by utilizing a considerably lesser amount of informational and numerical resources than hitherto estimated. Instead of the previously predicted linear scaling of the required ancilla dimension D with the number of qubits n, our recipe allows a realization of such a sequential cloning setup with an experimentally manageable ancilla of dimension at most D=3 up to n=15 qubits. We also address satisfactorily the possibility of providing an optimal range of sequential ancilla-qubit interactions for optimal cloning of arbitrary states under realistic experimental circumstances when only a restricted class of such bipartite interactions can be engineered in practice.
Guided Generation of Pedagogical Concept Maps from the Wikipedia

We propose a new method for guided generation of concept maps from open access online knowledge resources such as Wikies. Based on this method we have implemented a prototype extracting semantic relations from sentences surrounding hyperlinks in the Wikipedia’s articles and letting a learner to create customized learning objects in real-time based on collaborative recommendations considering her earlier knowledge. Open source modules enable pedagogically motivated exploration in Wiki spaces, corresponding to an intelligent tutoring system. The method extracted compact noun–verb–noun phrases, suggested for labeling arcs between nodes that were labeled with article titles. On average, 80 percent of these phrases were useful while their length was only 20 percent of the length of the original sentences. Experiments indicate that even simple analysis algorithms can well support user-initiated information retrieval and building intuitive learning objects that follow the learner’s needs.
Phosphonocationic lipids in protein delivery to mice lungs.

Cationic liposomes constitute one of the main approaches currently investigated to introduce a gene with therapeutic properties into a cell. Another alternative consists in directly introducing the normal protein of concern to, for example, restore the deleted function. We report here on in vitro and in vivo results obtained with GLB73, one of the phosphonolipids investigated as gene transfer agents. In previous studies this cationic lipid had shown its DNA-transfer efficacy in vitro and in vivo. We also confirmed the feasibility of protein/cationic lipid delivery in epithelial cells of mice lungs after intratracheal administration by use of a reporter gene (beta-galactosidase). Two quantitative tests (i.e., a chemiluminescent assay and a flow cytometry assay) were used to determine the amount of beta-galactosidase found in the lungs and the percentage of transfected cells. They showed that 50% of the cells of mice lungs were still positive at day 4 after protein/GLB73 delivery. Immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy studies allowed us to determine the spatial distribution and visualize the penetration of our complex into the lungs.
Sphingosine Kinase 1 (SK1) Is Recruited to Nascent Phagosomes in Human Macrophages: Inhibition of SK1 Translocation by Mycobacterium tuberculosis1

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) is a leading cause of global infectious mortality. The pathogenesis of tuberculosis involves inhibition of phagosome maturation, leading to survival of M.tb within human macrophages. A key determinant is M.tb-induced inhibition of macrophage sphingosine kinase (SK) activity, which normally induces Ca2+ signaling and phagosome maturation. Our objective was to determine the spatial localization of SK during phagocytosis and its inhibition by M.tb. Stimulation of SK activity by killed M.tb, live Staphylococcus aureus, or latex beads was associated with translocation of cytosolic SK1 to the phagosome membrane. In contrast, SK1 did not associate with phagosomes containing live M.tb. To characterize the mechanism of phagosomal translocation, live cell confocal microscopy was used to compare the localization of wild-type SK1, catalytically inactive SK1G82D, and a phosphorylation-defective mutant that does not undergo plasma membrane translocation (SK1S225A). The magnitude and kinetics of translocation of SK1G82D and SK1S225A to latex bead phagosomes were indistinguishable from those of wild-type SK1, indicating that novel determinants regulate the association of SK1 with nascent phagosomes. These data are consistent with a model in which M.tb inhibits both the activation and phagosomal translocation of SK1 to block the localized Ca2+ transients required for phagosome maturation.
Hypercoagulation Assessed by Thromboelastography is Neither Related to Infarct Size nor to Clinical Outcome After Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Objectives: We investigated the relationship between coagulation assessed by thromboelastography (TEG) and myocardial damage in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Methods: We measured platelet activity with TEG-maximum amplitude (TEG-MA) in 233 patients undergoing urgent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Infarct size and myocardial salvage index were evaluated using cardiac magnetic resonance, and the relation of these parameters to posttreatment coagulation was examined retrospectively. Adverse events were adjudicated and related to the coagulation status during the index event. Results: Hypercoagulation was found in 82 (35.2%) patients and was neither correlated to infarct size nor correlated to myocardial salvage index (P = .28 and .65, respectively) or clinical adverse events. Patients who experienced an adverse event during follow-up had a slightly higher TEG-MA value than patients with an event-free follow-up, but this was not statistically significant (68.1 vs 67.3, P = .44). Conclusions: The TEG-MA does not appear to be a sensitive predictor of reperfusion success and prognosis in urgent PCI for STEMI.
Commotion, Collaboration, Conviviality: Mediterranean Survey and the Interpretation of Landscape

Over the last three decades, Mediterranean survey projects have established a broadly agreed methodology, a wide awareness of the invaluable contribution made by intensive survey, and a wealth of data from across the region. Where they have made less progress is in the interpretation of artefact density figures and other findings to go beyond the dots on the map and gain insights into past human lives, the complexity of past landscapes, and the relationship between people and the environment. The key to this is engaging with theories that connect humans and non-humans. In this article I use the term commotion to suggest the constant and continually changing lines of mobility and interaction that constitute the landscape. Collaboration is the ongoing creation and transformation of place through the elaborately intertwined work of people, animals, plants, soils, water, weather, rocks and landforms. Conviviality stands for the life-giving creativity and transformation that is constantly proliferating from the intricate association and interaction with other beings, both human and non-human. My examples come from the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project, an interdisciplinary and multi-period project carried out on the northern edge of the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus.
Shape‐simplifying Image Abstraction

This paper presents a simple algorithm for producing stylistic abstraction of a photograph. Based on mean curvature flow in conjunction with shock filter, our method simplifies both shapes and colors simultaneously while preserving important features. In particular, we develop a constrained mean curvature flow, which outperforms the original mean curvature flow in conveying the directionality of features and shape boundaries. The proposed algorithm is iterative and incremental, and therefore the level of abstraction is intuitively controlled. Optionally, simple user masking can be incorporated into the algorithm to selectively control the abstraction speed and to protect particular regions. Experimental results show that our method effectively produces highly abstract yet feature‐preserving illustrations from photographs.
Network stability and Social Contagion on the Mobile Internet

We study the dual roles of the stability of an individual’s social network and social contagion on individual behavior in the mobile Internet setting. We use a panel dataset containing all mobile records for a sample of 3G mobile subscribers. Our data includes information about their frequency of mobile Internet usage, and their communication patterns across voice calls and messages, which allow us to map any dynamics in their social network. We find three main results. First, users with high network stability have a low intrinsic tendency to engage in content usage and generation on the mobile Internet. Second, the extent of positive social contagion effect is mitigated for users with stable networks. Third, we find that network stability is a significant predictor for individual behavior even after controlling for network closure. We discuss the implications of these findings for social network theory, social contagion and managerial practice.
Critical role for complement receptor 3 (CD11b/CD18), but not for Fc receptors, in killing of Streptococcus pyogenes by neutrophils in human immune serum

During phagocytosis, surface receptors on neutrophils interact with pathogens opsonized with complement factor C3b/iC3b and in some cases with antibodies. In human immune sera antibodies directed against surface‐bound M proteins mediated killing of Streptococcus pyogenes by neutrophils. Surprisingly, blocking of the Fc receptors had little effect on the killing. In contrast, inhibition of C3b/iC3b generation, or blocking of the major neutrophil iC3b receptor CD11b/CD18, enabled S. pyogenes to grow efficiently in immune sera. Inhibition of CD11b/CD18, but not of CD32, the major neutrophil signaling Fc receptor, prevented Streptococcus‐induced NADPH oxidase‐dependent respiratory burst, and blocking of C3b/iC3b formation inhibited Streptococcus‐induced activation of Cdc42, a small GTPase critically involved in transmitting pro‐inflammatory signals to the cytoskeleton. Consequently, ligation of CD11b/CD18 by bacteria‐bound iC3b is necessary for inducing a neutrophil response leading to elimination of S. pyogenes in immune human serum.
Bayesian Policy Gradients via Alpha Divergence Dropout Inference

Policy gradient methods have had great success in solving continuous control tasks, yet the stochastic nature of such problems makes deterministic value estimation difficult. We propose an approach which instead estimates a distribution by fitting the value function with a Bayesian Neural Network. We optimize an $\alpha$-divergence objective with Bayesian dropout approximation to learn and estimate this distribution. We show that using the Monte Carlo posterior mean of the Bayesian value function distribution, rather than a deterministic network, improves stability and performance of policy gradient methods in continuous control MuJoCo simulations.
Soil moisture retrieval over the Mackenzie river basin using AMSR-E 6.9 GHz brightness temperature

An approach is proposed to estimate soil moisture and to monitor its change from AMSR-E 6.9 GHz passive microwave data acquired over a large northern basin. The lack of in situ direct measurements is a major issue to be resolved to reach the aim of this work. Therefore, external ancillary data were used as a surrogate for available measurements. The methodology is based on the inversion of a microwave radiative transfer model. A sequential method based on the sensitivity of the emitted microwave signal to soil roughness and vegetation parameters was applied to calibrate the model. The roughness parameter was determined from AMSR-E data acquired under dry watershed conditions. The vegetation parameters were estimated under wet conditions. The method was first applied in the Peace-Athabasca Delta area located in Northern Alberta, Canada. The estimated geophysical parameters were then used to retrieve soil moisture estimates for sites with similar LAI values. It was found that the variations of the estimated soil moisture compared well with soil moisture imported from NARR data. A satisfactory agreement was obtained between soil moisture, precipitation and temperature.
The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire

Illustrations Preface Prologue: Ottomans Triumphant Floodtide of Islam Challenge from the West Tulip Time and After Westem Approaches 'the Strange Fate of Sultan Selim Mahmud II, The Enigma Egyptian Style Sick Man? Dolmabahche Yildiz The Hamidian Empire Armenia, Crete and the Thirty-Day War Ancient Peoples and Young Turks Seeking Union and Progress Germany's Ally Sovereignty and Sultanate Epilogue: Ottomans Moribund Sultans since the Ottoman Capture of Constantinople Alternative Place Names Glossary Notes Select Bibliography Index.
Local Weather Effects on Emergency Department Visits: A Time Series and Regression Analysis

Objective: The ability to forecast atypical emergency department (ED) volumes may aid staff/resource allocation. We determine whether deviations from short-term predictions of weather can be used to forecast deviations from short-term predictions of ED volumes. Methods: In this retrospective study, we attempted to predict the volume of patient visits to an academic pediatric ED based on short-interval local weather patterns (2000). Local temperature and precipitation data in 1- and 3-hour increments were obtained. Precipitation was coded to be present if it exceeded 0.04 in and subclassified as cold rain/snow if the ambient temperature was lower than 40°F. ED visits were categorized as injuries, emergent, or nonemergent visits. For each category of visit, Box-Jenkins Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average time-series models were created of natural trends and cycles in temperature and patient volumes. From these models, differences (residuals) between predicted and observed values of these variables were estimated. The correlation between residuals for temperature and ED volumes was derived for various kinds of ED visit, after controlling for type/volume of precipitation. Results: Residuals for ambient temperature controlled for precipitation correlated poorly with residuals for patient volumes, accounting for 1% to 6% of the variability in the volume of injuries, emergent, and nonemergent visits (R2 = 1%, 1%, and 6%, respectively). Conclusions: Deviations from short-term predictions of temperature correlate poorly with deviations from predictions of patient volume after adjusting for natural trends and cycles in these variables and controlling for precipitation. These weather variables are of little practical benefit for predicting fluctuations in the rates of ED utilization.
Real-Time Static Hand Gesture Recognition for American Sign Language (ASL) in Complex Background

Hand gestures are powerful means of communication among humans and sign language is the most natural and expressive way of communication for dump and deaf people. In this work, real-time hand gesture system is proposed. Experimental setup of the system uses fixed position low-cost web camera with 10 mega pixel resolution mounted on the top of monitor of computer which captures snapshot using Red Green Blue [RGB] color space from fixed distance. This work is divided into four stages such as image preprocessing, region extraction, feature extraction, feature matching. First stage converts captured RGB image into binary image using gray threshold method with noise removed using median filter [medfilt2] and Guassian filter, followed by morphological operations. Second stage extracts hand region using blob and crop is applied for getting region of interest and then “Sobel” edge detection is applied on extracted region. Third stage produces feature vector as centroid and area of edge, which will be compared with feature vectors of a training dataset of gestures using Euclidian distance in the fourth stage. Least Euclidian distance gives recognition of perfect matching gesture for display of ASL alphabet, meaningful words using file handling. This paper includes experiments for 26 static hand gestures related to A-Z alphabets. Training dataset consists of 100 samples of each ASL symbol in different lightning conditions, different sizes and shapes of hand. This gesture recognition system can reliably recognize single-hand gestures in real time and can achieve a 90.19% recognition rate in complex background with a “minimum-possible constraints” approach.
A systematic review on the use of Definition of Done on agile software development projects

Background: Definition of Done (DoD) is a Scrum practice that consists of a simple list of criteria that adds verifiable or demonstrable value to the product. It is one of the most popular agile practices and assures a balance between short-term delivery of features and long-term product quality, but little is known of its actual use in Agile teams. Objective: To identify possible gaps in the literature and define a starting point to define DoD for practitioners through the identification and synthesis of the DoD criteria used in agile projects as presented in the scientific literature. Method: We applied a Systematic Literature Review of studies published up to (and including) 2016 through database search and backward and forward snowballing. Results: In total, we evaluated 2326 papers, of which 8 included DoD criteria used in agile projects. We identified that some studies presented up to 4 levels of DoD, which include story, sprint, release or project. We identified 62 done criteria, which are related to software verification and validation, deploy, code inspection, test process quality, regulatory compliance, software architecture design, process management, configuration management and non-functional requirements. Conclusion: The main implication for research is a need for more and better empirical studies documenting and evaluating the use of the DoD in agile software development. For the industry, the review provides a map of how DoD is currently being used in the industry and can be used as a starting point to define or compare with their own DoD definition.
ross-Sectional Relations f Electrocardiographic QRS uration to Left Ventricular Dimensions he Framingham Heart Study

OBJECTIVES The goal of this study was to assess the relations of electrocardiographic QRS duration to left ventricular (LV) measurements in individuals without heart failure (HF) or prior myocardial infarction (MI). BACKGROUND Increased electrocardiographic QRS duration ( 120 ms) is a marker of ventricular dyssynchrony. METHODS We evaluated the relations of maximal electrocardiographic QRS duration to echocardiographic LV dimensions in 4,534 Framingham Heart study participants (mean age 54 years, 57% women) without prior HF or MI. QRS duration was analyzed as a continuous variable and as categories ( 100, 100 to 119, and 120 ms). RESULTS In linear regression models, LV mass, end-diastolic dimension, and septal and posterior wall thicknesses were positively related to log-QRS duration, whereas fractional shortening (FS) was inversely related (p 0.001). There was a significant trend for increasing LV mass and dimensions, and decreasing FS across categories of QRS duration (p 0.001). Left bundle branch block was associated with higher LV mass and lower FS compared with a normal QRS duration (p 0.001). CONCLUSIONS In our community-based sample of individuals free of HF and MI, increasing electrocardiographic QRS duration was positively related to LV mass and dimensions, and inversely associated with LV FS. Additional investigations are warranted to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the observed associations. (J Am Coll Cardiol 2005;45:685–9) © 2005 by the ublished by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.jacc. 2004.11. 046