Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sweep‐based Freeform Deformations

We propose a sweep‐based approach to the freeform deformation of three‐dimensional objects. Instead of using a volume enclosing the whole object, we approximate only its deformable parts using sweep surfaces. The vertices on the object boundary are bound to the sweep surfaces and follow their deformation. Several sweep surfaces can be organized into a hierarchy so that they interact with each other in a controlled manner. Thus we can support intuitively plausible shape deformation of objects of arbitrary topology with multiple control handles. A sweep‐based approach also provides important advantages such as volume preservation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique in several examples.
Large digraphs with small diameter : A voltage assignment approach

The theory of lifting voltage digraphs provides a useful tool for constructing large digraphs with given properties from suitable small base digraphs endowed with an assignment of voltages (=elements of a nite group) on arcs. We revisit the degree/diameter problem for digraphs from this new perspective and prove a general upper bound on diameter of a lifted digraph in terms of properties of the base digraph and voltage assignment. In addition, we show that all currently known largest vertex-transitive Cayley digraphs for semidirect products of groups can be described by means of a voltage assignment construction using simpler groups.
Neural Stem Cells - interaction with the brain and prospects for cell replacement therapy for Stroke

Stroke is an acute neurological condition and the leading cause of disability in adult humans. Treatments for efficient recovery are not available. The most common form of stroke results from the occlusion of the middle cerebral artery, which causes loss of brain parenchyma and many types of neurons as well as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Neural stem cells (NSCs) could potentially be used to develop novel therapies to restore loss of function after stroke. We generated a NSC line derived as monolayer cultures from the human fetal striatum, termed NS, and described the in vitro and in vivo potential of these cells. The derived hNS are very stable during expansion and efficiently generate neurons in vitro and in vivo upon transplantation into the rat neonatal brain. In order to establish successful NSCs-based therapies, factors such as the number of cells and the appropriate time of transplantation play an important role. We found that when transplantation of NSCs into the stroke-damaged striatum was performed at 48 hours after stroke, it resulted in better cell survival than did transplantation at 6 weeks. Increasing the number of grafted NSCs beyond a certain number did not result in a greater number of surviving cells or increased neuronal differentiation. Transplantation at 48 hours exposed the cells to a less hostile environment compared to 6 weeks following stroke. In the present thesis we reported that ES-derived NS cells fuse with microglia and cortical neurons both in vitro and in vivo. We found that microglia, the resident immune cells of the brain are important players in the fusion process. However further investigation is needed to understand the dynamics and the physiological relevance of this phenomenon. In summary, we have reported here previously undescribed characteristics of NS cells, which are relevant to better understanding of NSCs and their interaction with the brain environment after transplantation. Fusion could be of potential interest in the regenerative medicine due to the nuclear reprogramming implications but needs extensive investigation before it can be considered in the clinical setting. A relevant aspect of the cell-based therapy approach is that it could extend the therapeutic time window of intervention for ischemic stroke, which is now limited, thus benefiting a larger number of stroke-patients. Therefore, the findings described in this thesis have direct clinical implications.
JRS at Search and Hyperlinking of Television Content Task

This paper describes the work done by the JRS team for the linking sub-task. We submitted eight pairs of runs: four with dierent textual resources only, two using reranking based on visual similarity, and two using concept detection results. Each of the pairs contains of one run using the anchor segment only, and one using a longer context segment. The results show higher variance between anchors than for the 2013 task, also the dierences between runs using dierent textual resources are more salient. The use of the context does not generally improve results, and visual reranking provides small improvements.
TAGSENSE: MARRYING FOLKSONOMY AND ONTOLOGY by

by ZIXIN WU (Under the Direction of Amit P. Sheth) ABSTRACT Tagging communities is a featured Web 2.0 phenomenon, where users describe a Web resource by using keywords (called tags). This behavior can be viewed as cooperative meta-data extraction and annotation. While these tagging communities become more and more popular, their information retrieval mechanism is still keyword based, thus it is difficult to achieve high precision and recall rates because of word ambiguity and lack of semantics. In this thesis, we combine the approaches of folksonomy and ontology to improve recall rate and ranking of query results. We index Web resources by the meanings of tags instead of strings, and we provide context-aware multi-ontologies semantic search capability which utilizes relationships in ontologies. The evaluations performed on a subset of Flickr’s photos indicate that our users spent significantly less time and effort in finding what they want on our system than on Google Desktop on the same datasets.
Distributed Memory Implementation of the False Nearest Neighbors Method : Kd-tree approach versus Box-assisted approach

In different fields of science and engineering (medicine, economics, oceanography, biological systems, etc) the False Nearest Neighbors (FNN) method has a special relevance. In some of these applications, it is important to provide the results in a reasonable time scale, thus the execution time of the FNN method has to be reduced. To achieve this goal, a multidisciplinary group formed by computer scientists and physicists are collaborative working on developing High Performance Computing implementations of one of the most popular algorithms that implement the FNN method: based on Kd-tree data structure and based on Box-assisted algorithm. In this paper, a comparative study of the distributed memory architecture implementations carried out in the framework of this collaboration, is presented. As a result, two parallel implementations for Boxassisted algorithm and one implementation for the Kd-tree structure are compared in terms of execution time, speed-up and efficiency. In terms of execution time, the approaches presented here are from 2 to 19 times faster than the sequential implementation, and the kd-tree approach is from 2 to 6 times faster than the box-assisted approaches.
Comparisons of Mathematics Intervention Effects in Resource and Inclusive Classrooms

In this article, we describe results of a reanalysis of two randomized studies that tested the effects of enhanced anchored instruction (EAI) on the fractions computation performance of students in special education resource rooms and inclusive mathematics classrooms. Latent class analysis and latent transition analysis classified students according to error subtypes and tracked their performance patterns. Results indicated that EAI was more effective than business as usual in reducing combining errors (e.g., adding denominators) and denominator errors (e.g., not finding common denominator) of students with disabilities (SWD) and students without disabilities in both settings. SWD in inclusive classrooms scored higher on the pretest than SWD in resource rooms, but EAI reduced the disparity on the posttest. An important additional finding revealed that the SWD who received more support from special education teachers in inclusive classrooms scored higher and made fewer errors than the SWD who were provided only limited support.
Collapsed Consonant and Vowel Models: New Approaches for English-Persian Transliteration and Back-Transliteration

Most current machine transliteration systems employ a corpus of known sourcetarget word pairs to train their system, and typically evaluate their systems on a similar corpus. In this paper we explore the performance of transliteration systems on corpora that are varied in a controlled way. In particular, we control the number, and prior language knowledge of human transliterators used to construct the corpora, and the origin of the source words that make up the corpora. We find that the word accuracy of automated transliteration systems can vary by up to 30% (in absolute terms) depending on the corpus on which they are run. We conclude that at least four human transliterators should be used to construct corpora for evaluating automated transliteration systems; and that although absolute word accuracy metrics may not translate across corpora, the relative rankings of system performance remains stable across differing corpora.
A novel balanced frequency tripler for millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave application

A novel balanced frequency tripler for millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave application is proposed. This balanced tripler adopts double-sided suspended striplines with two unbalanced tripler on each side of the substrate. The phase and amplitude balance are fulfilled between the top-side and bottom-side unbalanced triplers. This balanced tripler scheme features higher conversion efficiency for strictly balanced configuration, high power capacity introduced by the multiple anodes and good heat dissipation paths, and ease of diode bias free from on-chip capacitor. A W-band frequency tripler is designed with commercial diodes, and the preliminary simulated output power is 14 dBm with 25% peak efficiency at 92 GHz.
Aggregation Encoding: Reducing Network Traffic for Big Data Erasure-Coded Storages

Erasure-coded storages provide data reliability for big data archiving and backup with high storage efficiency. However, erasure code generates a large amount of data transmission traffic in both encoding (write) and decoding (repair) which costs substantial bandwidth in the network. Most of the existing work focus on the decoding cost due to the importance of data repair, but unfortunately overlooks the encoding cost. In this paper, we propose Aggregation Encoding for reducing the bandwidth cost of the encoding phase in erasure-coded storages. Aggregation Encoding takes inspiration from network coding to enforce encoding through data transmission, which reduces redundant information transmitting. The extensive analysis and experimental results demonstrate that Aggregation Encoding reduces bandwidth cost by 20% in average.
Quality of toddler childcare – Can it be assessed with questionnaires?

ABSTRACT Although observational instruments are considered to be the gold standard for measuring toddler childcare quality, large-scale studies often have to rely on interviews or questionnaires. However, it remains unclear whether such reports can serve as reliable indicators for childcare quality. The present study used the ITERS and FCCERS to examine how far staff-reported and observed quality coincide in 65 centre-based and 47 family-based childcare facilities; moreover, data on 414 two-year-olds were taken from the German National Educational Panel Study to determine whether reported childcare quality predicts children’s developmental status at the age of two years. Results indicated that up to 43% of the variance in toddler childcare quality could be explained by staff-reported quality via questionnaires. But with cross-sectional analysis, children’s developmental status could not be explained sufficiently by reported quality. Results and implications for future research are discussed.
A path integral representation of the map between commutative and noncommutative gauge fields

The world-volume theory on a D-brane in a constant B-field background can be described by either commutative or noncommutative Yang-Mills theories. These two descriptions correspond to two different gauge fixing of the diffeomorphism on the brane. Comparing the boundary states in the two gauges, we derive a map between commutative and noncommutative gauge fields in a path integral form, when the gauge group is U(1).
Innovatives Supercomputing in Deutschland

́ News HLRS@GCS Hazel Hen Europe’s fastest system 4 Leibniz Extreme Scaling Award goes to VERTEX 6 Start of Production on the JURECA System 8 Europes biggest Training Facilities for High Performance Computing 10 New Team for Coordination of Computing Time Allocation located at JSC 11 20 Years of High Performance Computing for Science and Economy 12 "Industry Relations" Team paves the Way to HPC Expertise 15 Reallabor Stadt:quartiere 4.0 16
Opposing effects of oxytocin on moral judgment in males and females

Current perspectives on the evolutionary roots of human morality suggest it arose to incentivize social cooperation by promoting feelings of disgust toward selfish behavior, although the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. To investigate whether the ancient mammalian neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) influences self‐referential processing in the domains of emotion evaluation and moral decision making, we conducted a pharmaco‐functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a behavioral experiment involving 157 healthy women and men who were treated with either OXT (24 IU) or placebo (PLC) intranasally. Our results show that OXT facilitated cortical midline responses during self‐processing of disgust and selectively promoted self‐interest moral judgments in men. In contrast, in women OXT increased the reaction time difference between accepted and rejected moral dilemmas and led them to suppress their self‐interest and respond more altruistically for the benefit of others. Taken together, these findings suggest an OXT‐related sexual dimorphism in human moral behavior which evolved adaptively to optimize both protection and nurturing of offspring by promoting selfish behavior in men and altruistic behavior in women. Hum Brain Mapp 35:6067–6076, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A pesquisa em educação em ciências e a formação de professores

Nos ultimos vinte anos a tematica da formacao de professores vem se consolidando como uma das mais presentes nos trabalhos de pesquisa em educacao em ciencias. Ao longo desse processo, tem sido comum que esses estudos busquem parte de sua fundamentacao teorica em obras ja classicas (por exemplo, GAUTHIER et al., 1998; GIROUX, 1997; MARCELO GARCIA, 1999; SCHON, 2000; TARDIF, 2004). As referidas obras gradativamente originaram um corpo de conhecimentos e proposicoes que contribuiram para novos patamares de debate, demonstrando, por exemplo, a inadequacao da concepcao da racionalidade tecnica, e a pluralidade dos saberes docentes. Ao mesmo tempo, pesquisas voltadas a obtencao e a discussao de dados de natureza empirica avancaram de modo significativo ao disponibilizarem numerosas analises a respeito de concepcoes de professores e a respeito de programas e atividades de formacao inicial e formacao em servico. Tendo em vista esse cenario, muitos aspectos poderiam ser levantados e discutidos. Selecionarei para o momento, por sua relevância e complexidade, um unico aspecto apenas, que e o dialogo entre os aportes da pesquisa academica e os processos formativos que se dao no âmbito das escolas de educacao basica e no âmbito das universidades. Em relacao a tal proble -matica, algumas perguntas podem ser feitas: Qual tem sido – e qual deveria ser idealmente – o papel da producao academica (em ensino) no âmbito do processo de formacao de professores e, principalmente, no âmbito de seu trabalho? Ate que ponto a producao academica em ensino tem real potencial de se transformar em uma contribuicao para o trabalho dos professores da educacao basica, e quais os caminhos para que esses professores considerem os conhecimentos elaborados pela academia, avaliem-nos e os transformem em favor de sua pratica? Que tipo de saberes os professores estruturam a partir do contato com a producao academica em ensino, e como esses saberes dialogam com outros saberes docentes, em funcao dos desafios do trabalho educativo? Ha diversas respostas para essas questoes, e colocarei aqui apenas algumas sugestoes de apontamentos gerais. Nao seguirei uma ordem linear para tal reflexao, ja que os diferentes elementos do problema aparecem imbricados.Os conhecimentos produzidos pela academia, e que podem ser uteis para as discus-soes sobre ensino, distribuem-se em campos de estudo diversos, embora inter-relacionados. Historia da Educacao, Politicas Publicas em Educacao, Filosofia da Educacao, Psicologia da Educacao, Didatica, Metodologia do Ensino e Linguagem sao exemplos desses campos. Ha porem, nos meios escolares e ate na academia, certa desconfianca quanto a pertinencia e o valor
Genetic Variants in CASP3, BMP5, and IRS2 Genes May Influence Survival in Prostate Cancer Patients Receiving Androgen-Deprivation Therapy

Several genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been conducted to identify the common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that influence the risk of prostate cancer. It was hypothesized that some prostate cancer-associated SNPs might relate to the clinical outcomes in patients treated for prostate cancer using androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT). A cohort of 601 patients who have received ADT for prostate cancer was genotyped for 29 SNPs that have been associated with prostate cancer in Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility GWAS, and within the genes that have been implicated in cancer. Prognostic significance of these SNPs on the disease progression, prostate cancer-specific mortality (PCSM) and all-cause mortality (ACM) after ADT were assessed by Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression model. Three SNPs, namely CASP3 rs4862396, BMP5 rs3734444 and IRS2 rs7986346, were found to be closely associated with the ACM (P≤0.042), and BMP5 rs3734444 and IRS2 rs7986346 were also noted to be significantly related to the PCSM (P≤0.032) after adjusting for the known clinicopathologic predictors. Moreover, patients carrying a greater number of unfavorable genotypes at the loci of interest had a shorter time to ACM and PCSM during ADT (P for trend <0.001). Our results suggest that CASP3 rs4862396, BMP5 rs3734444 and IRS2 rs7986346 may affect the survival in patients after ADT for prostate cancer, and the analysis of these SNPs can help identify patients at higher risk of poor outcome.
The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor - eScholarship

The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor George Lakoff Do not go gentle into that good night. -Dylan Thomas Death is the mother of beauty . -Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morningq Introduction These famous lines by Thomas and Stevens are examples of what classical theorists, at least since Aristotle, have referred to as metaphor: instances of novel poetic language in which words like “mother,q “go,q and “nightq are not used in their normal everyday senses. In classical theories of language, metaphor was seen as a matter of language not thought. Metaphorical expressions were assumed to be mutually exclusive with the realm of ordinary everyday language: everyday language had no metaphor, and metaphor used mechanisms outside the realm of everyday conventional language. The classical theory was taken so much for granted over the centuries that many people didn't realize that it was just a theory. The theory was not merely taken to be true, but came to be taken as definitional. The word “metaphorq was defined as a novel or poetic linguistic expression where one or more words for a concept are used outside of its normal conventional meaning to express a “similarq concept. But such issues are not matters for definitions; they are empirical questions. As a cognitive scientist and a linguist, one asks: What are the generalizations governing the linguistic expressions referred to classically as “poetic metaphors? q When this question is answered rigorously, the classical theory turns out to be false. The generalizations governing poetic metaphorical expressions are not in language, but in thought: They are general mappings across conceptual domains. Moreover, these general principles which take the form of conceptual mappings, apply not just to novel poetic expressions, but to much of ordinary everyday language. In short, the locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another. The general theory of metaphor is given by characterizing such cross-domain mappings. And in the process, everyday abstract concepts like time, states, change, causation, and purpose also turn out to be metaphorical. The result is that metaphor (that is, cross-domain mapping) is absolutely central to ordinary natural language semantics, and that the study of literary metaphor is an extension of the study of everyday metaphor. Everyday metaphor is characterized by a huge system of thousands of cross-domain mappings, and this system is made use of in novel metaphor.
Optimization of a One-Step Heat-Inducible In Vivo Mini DNA Vector Production System

While safer than their viral counterparts, conventional circular covalently closed (CCC) plasmid DNA vectors offer a limited safety profile. They often result in the transfer of unwanted prokaryotic sequences, antibiotic resistance genes, and bacterial origins of replication that may lead to unwanted immunostimulatory responses. Furthermore, such vectors may impart the potential for chromosomal integration, thus potentiating oncogenesis. Linear covalently closed (LCC), bacterial sequence free DNA vectors have shown promising clinical improvements in vitro and in vivo. However, the generation of such minivectors has been limited by in vitro enzymatic reactions hindering their downstream application in clinical trials. We previously characterized an in vivo temperature-inducible expression system, governed by the phage λ pL promoter and regulated by the thermolabile λ CI[Ts]857 repressor to produce recombinant protelomerase enzymes in E. coli. In this expression system, induction of recombinant protelomerase was achieved by increasing culture temperature above the 37°C threshold temperature. Overexpression of protelomerase led to enzymatic reactions, acting on genetically engineered multi-target sites called “Super Sequences” that serve to convert conventional CCC plasmid DNA into LCC DNA minivectors. Temperature up-shift, however, can result in intracellular stress responses and may alter plasmid replication rates; both of which may be detrimental to LCC minivector production. We sought to optimize our one-step in vivo DNA minivector production system under various induction schedules in combination with genetic modifications influencing plasmid replication, processing rates, and cellular heat stress responses. We assessed different culture growth techniques, growth media compositions, heat induction scheduling and temperature, induction duration, post-induction temperature, and E. coli genetic background to improve the productivity and scalability of our system, achieving an overall LCC DNA minivector production efficiency of ∼90%. We optimized a robust technology conferring rapid, scalable, one-step in vivo production of LCC DNA minivectors with potential application to gene transfer-mediated therapeutics.