Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Online collaborative filtering with nearly optimal dynamic regret

We consider a model for sequential online decision-making by many diverse agents. On each day, each agent makes a decision, and pays a penalty if it is a mistake. Obviously, it would be good for agents to avoid repeating the same mistakes made by other agents; however, difficulty may arise when some agents disagree over what constitutes a mistake, perhaps maliciously. As a metric of success for this problem, we consider dynamic regret, i.e., regret versus the off-line optimal sequence of decisions. Previous regret bounds usually use the much weaker notion of static regret, i.e., regret versus the best single decision in hindsight. We assume there is a set of "honest" players whose valuations for the decisions at each time step are identical. No assumptions are made about the remaining players, and the algorithm assumes no information about which are the honest players. We present an algorithm for this setting whose expected dynamic regret per honest player is optimal up to a multiplicative constant and an additive polylogarithmic term, assuming the number of options is bounded.
Rayleigh Multiple Input Multiple Output ( MIMO ) Channels : Eigenmodes and Capacity Evaluation

Using multiple antennas at both sides of the wireless link is currently an active area of research because of the huge capacity and reliability gains promised by such systems. These gains are achieved almost for free where there is no extra bandwidth or transmit power is required. Such a system is called Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) wireless system. In this paper, the behaviour of the MIMO Rayleigh channel’s eigenmodes and the power levels allocated to them by the water-filling algorithm with SNR and with the channel correlation will be analyzed. Capacity of the channel eigenmodes and total capacity of the channel will also be studied. It was found that, the strongest eigenmode of a channel matrix increases with correlation, while the other eigenmodes of the channel decrease. When the channel correlation approaches 1, the strongest eigenmode approaches the Mr * Mt, while the other eigenmodes approach zero. At low SNR, to get the maximum capacity of the channel, the transmitter allocates all transmit power to the strongest eigenmode, and hence the channel capacity will be improved by the channel correlation. At high SNR, the transmitter divides this power equally among the eigenmodes to maximize the channel capacity. In this paper, the channel parameters are considered perfectly known at both sides of the wireless link.
Success probabilities in Gauss-Poisson networks with and without cooperation

Gauss-Poisson processes (GPPs) are a class of clustered point processes, which include the Poisson point process as a special case and have a simpler structure than general Poisson cluster point processes. In this paper, we propose the GPP as a model for wireless networks that exhibit clustering behavior. We calculate the success probabilities and provide bounds for three kinds of GPP networks: (1) the basic model where the desired transmitter is independent of the GPP and all nodes in the GPP are interferers; (2) the non-cooperative model where the desired transmitter is one of the nodes in the GPP; (3) the cooperative model where both nodes in a two-node cluster of the GPP serve a receiver cooperatively using non-coherent joint transmission. Our results show that the bounds, especially the upper bounds, provide good approximations for different operating regimes.
Representing and Solving Decision Problems with Limited Information

We introduce the notion ofLImitedMemoryInfluenceDiagram (LIMID) to describe multistage decision problems in which the traditional assumption of no forgetting is relaxed. This can be relevant in situations with multiple decision makers or when decisions must be prescribed under memory constraints, such as in partially observed Markov decision processes (POMDPs). We give an algorithm for improving any given strategy by local computation of single policy updates and investigate conditions for the resulting strategy to be optimal.
The metapopulation genetic algorithm: An efficient solution for the problem of large phylogeny estimation

Large phylogeny estimation is a combinatorial optimization problem that no future computer will ever be able to solve exactly in practical computing time. The difficulty of the problem is amplified by the need to use complex evolutionary models and large taxon samplings. Hence, many heuristic approaches have been developed, with varying degrees of success. Here, we report on a heuristic approach, the metapopulation genetic algorithm, involving several populations of trees that are forced to cooperate in the search for the optimal tree. Within each population, trees are subjected to evaluation, selection, and mutation events, which are directed by using inter-population consensus information. The method proves to be both very accurate and vastly faster than existing heuristics, such that data sets comprised of hundreds of taxa can be analyzed in practical computing times under complex models of maximum-likelihood evolution. Branch support values produced by the metapopulation genetic algorithm might closely approximate the posterior probabilities of the corresponding branches.
Hyperlipidemia Promotes Osteoclastic Potential of Bone Marrow Cells Ex Vivo

Objectives—Osteoporosis is associated epidemiologically with atherosclerosis and hyperlipidemia. We previously found that atherogenic lipids regulate bone formation. To determine whether hyperlipidemia also affects bone resorption, we compared osteoclastogenesis in marrow preosteoclasts derived from hyperlipidemic versus control mice. Methods—Nonadherent marrow cells from low-density lipoprotein receptor−/− (LDLR−/−)and C57BL/6J mice were cultured with M-CSF and ligand for receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB (RANKL). Functional osteoclastic activity, measured as number of resorption pits, was significantly greater in 12-month-old LDLR−/−. Similar results were obtained in 5- and 10-month-old LDLR−/− versus C57BL/6J mice on a high-fat diet. Osteoclastic differentiation, indicated by tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) activity, was significantly greater in the 12-month-old LDLR−/−, and there was a trend toward increased TRAP activity in LDLR−/− on a high-fat diet, at ages 5 and 10 months. Osteoclastic parameters correlated with total serum lipoproteins with a possible threshold effect. Osteoporotic human cortical bone stained positive for lipids in the perivascular space of Haversian canals by oil red O. The presence of lipid hydroperoxides was detected in bone marrow from hyperlipidemic mice. Conclusions—Hyperlipidemia may contribute to osteoporosis via increased osteoclastic bone resorption.
Building a Better Bitext for Structurally Different Languages through Self-training

We propose a novel method to bootstrap the construction of parallel corpora for new pairs of structurally different languages. We do so by combining the use of a pivot language and self-training. A pivot language enables the use of existing translation models to bootstrap the alignment and a self-training procedure enables to achieve better alignment, both at the document and sentence level. We also propose several evaluation methods for the resulting alignment.
Spatial Distribution and Risk Factors of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in China

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 was first encountered in 1996 in Guangdong province (China) and started spreading throughout Asia and the western Palearctic in 2004–2006. Compared to several other countries where the HPAI H5N1 distribution has been studied in some detail, little is known about the environmental correlates of the HPAI H5N1 distribution in China. HPAI H5N1 clinical disease outbreaks, and HPAI virus (HPAIV) H5N1 isolated from active risk-based surveillance sampling of domestic poultry (referred to as HPAIV H5N1 surveillance positives in this manuscript) were modeled separately using seven risk variables: chicken, domestic waterfowl population density, proportion of land covered by rice or surface water, cropping intensity, elevation, and human population density. We used bootstrapped logistic regression and boosted regression trees (BRT) with cross-validation to identify the weight of each variable, to assess the predictive power of the models, and to map the distribution of HPAI H5N1 risk. HPAI H5N1 clinical disease outbreak occurrence in domestic poultry was mainly associated with chicken density, human population density, and elevation. In contrast, HPAIV H5N1 infection identified by risk-based surveillance was associated with domestic waterfowl density, human population density, and the proportion of land covered by surface water. Both models had a high explanatory power (mean AUC ranging from 0.864 to 0.967). The map of HPAIV H5N1 risk distribution based on active surveillance data emphasized areas south of the Yangtze River, while the distribution of reported outbreak risk extended further North, where the density of poultry and humans is higher. We quantified the statistical association between HPAI H5N1 outbreak, HPAIV distribution and post-vaccination levels of seropositivity (percentage of effective post-vaccination seroconversion in vaccinated birds) and found that provinces with either outbreaks or HPAIV H5N1 surveillance positives in 2007–2009 appeared to have had lower antibody response to vaccination. The distribution of HPAI H5N1 risk in China appears more limited geographically than previously assessed, offering prospects for better targeted surveillance and control interventions.
Predictive Value of Screening for Different Areas of Development

Associations between the results of developmental screening at five ages between 30 weeks and three years and the children's educational and behavioural status in normal primary schools at 6% to 7% years were examined in two samples of children living in Dundee and born in 1974 and 1975. In one sample the screening results for 417 children with moderately severe or severe school problems were compared with the screening results for a control group without school problems. Positive associations were found between school problems and motor and adaptive screening test results (from 39‐week screening onward), language (from 15 months), preschool behaviour (at 39 weeks and two years) and neurological status (at 39 weeks and three years). In the second sample the questionnaire scores of 570 children known to be suspect on screening were compared with the scores of a control group whose screening results had been considered within the normal range. Adaptive and neurological screening tests provided the best predictors of behaviour problems in school and of educational failure. It is suggested that more thorough developmental and neurological assessments, at less frequent intervals, than is common in most screening programmes would facilitate identification of (and intervention for) preschool neurodevelopmental disability among children at risk of early schooling problems.
Cognitively Plausible Models of Human Language Processing

We pose the development of cognitively plausible models of human language processing as a challenge for computational linguistics. Existing models can only deal with isolated phenomena (e.g., garden paths) on small, specifically selected data sets. The challenge is to build models that integrate multiple aspects of human language processing at the syntactic, semantic, and discourse level. Like human language processing, these models should be incremental, predictive, broad coverage, and robust to noise. This challenge can only be met if standardized data sets and evaluation measures are developed.
Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin, a Novel Proinflammatory Mediator in Rheumatoid Arthritis That Potently Activates CD1c+ Myeloid Dendritic Cells to Attract and Stimulate T Cells

To determine the levels of thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) and the numbers of TSLP receptor (TSLPR)–expressing CD1c+ (blood dendritic cell antigen 1–positive) myeloid dendritic cells (MDCs) in the joints as compared with the peripheral blood (PB) of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as well as to determine the capacity of TSLP to induce MDC‐dependent T cell activation.
A SNP in a half-binding site creates p53 and estrogen receptor control of VEGFR-1

Interactions between master regulatory pathways provide higher order controls for cellular regulation. Recently, we reported a C>T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1 (VEGFR-1/Flt1) promoter that merges human VEGF and p53 pathways. This finding suggested a new layer in environmental controls of a pathway relevant to several diseases. The Flt1-T SNP created what appeared to be a half-site p53 target response element (RE). The absence of information about p53 gene responsiveness mediated by half-site REs led us to address how it influences Flt1 expression. We now identify a second regulatory sequence comprising a partial RE for estrogen receptors (ERs) upstream of the p53 binding site. Surprisingly, this provides for synergistic stimulation of transcription specifically at the Flt1-T allele through the combined action of ligand-bound ER and stress-induced p53. In addition to demonstrating direct control of Flt1 expression by ER and p53 proteins acting as sequence-specific transcription factors at half-site REs, we establish a new interaction between three master regulatory pathways, p53/ER/VEGF. The mechanism of joint regulation through half-sites is likely relevant to transcriptional control of other targets and expands the number of genes that may be directly controlled in master regulatory networks.
Evolutionary Signatures of Common Human Cis-Regulatory Haplotypes

Variation in gene expression may give rise to a significant fraction of inter-individual phenotypic variation. Studies searching for the underlying genetic controls for such variation have been conducted in model organisms and humans in recent years. In our previous effort of assessing conserved underlying haplotype patterns across ethnic populations, we constructed common haplotypes using SNPs having conserved linkage disequilibrium (LD) across ethnic populations. These common haplotypes cluster into a simple evolutionary structure based on their frequencies, defining only up to three conserved clusters termed ‘haplotype frameworks’. One intriguing preliminary finding was that a significant portion of reported variants strongly associated with cis-regulation tags these globally conserved haplotype frameworks. Here we expand the investigation by collecting genes showing stringently determined cis-association between genotypes and expression phenotypes from major studies. We conducted phylogenetic analysis of current major haplotypes along with the corresponding haplotypes derived from chimpanzee reference sequences. Our analysis reveals that, for the vast majority of such cis-regulatory genes, the tagging SNPs showing the strongest association also tag the haplotype lineages directly separated from ancestry, inferred from either chimpanzee reference sequences or the allele frequency-derived haplotype frameworks, suggesting that the differentially expressed phenotypes were evolved relatively early in human history. Such evolutionary signatures provide keys for a more effective identification of globally-conserved candidate regulatory haplotypes across human genes in future epidemiologic and pharmacogenetic studies.
Route Visualization Using Detail Lenses

We present a method designed to address some limitations of typical route map displays of driving directions. The main goal of our system is to generate a printable version of a route map that shows the overview and detail views of the route within a single, consistent visual frame. Our proposed visualization provides a more intuitive spatial context than a simple list of turns. We present a novel multifocus technique to achieve this goal, where the foci are defined by points of interest (POI) along the route. A detail lens that encapsulates the POI at a finer geospatial scale is created for each focus. The lenses are laid out on the map to avoid occlusion with the route and each other, and to optimally utilize the free space around the route. We define a set of layout metrics to evaluate the quality of a lens layout for a given route map visualization. We compare standard lens layout methods to our proposed method and demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in generating aesthetically pleasing layouts. Finally, we perform a user study to evaluate the effectiveness of our layout choices.
Genetic Divergence Among Venezuelan Populations of Lutzomyia longipalpis (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae)

Abstract Lutzomyia longipalpis (Lutz & Neiva) is the primary vector of visceral leishmaniasis in Venezuela. An analysis of alleles at seven enzyme-encoding loci among four populations from different geographic and epidemiological regions revealed strong genetic substructuring. Isozyme analysis indicated that L. longipalpis in Venezuela is a complex of at least two subspecies. Possible differences in population size during their evolutionary histories, varying colonization histories and geological events may explain discrepancies in the patterns of variation observed at genetic markers between these four populations.
A novel technique of integrating the conventional algorithms for broadcasting protocols to reduce the redundancy in wireless ad-hoc networks

The broadcasting protocols for transmission from peer to peer ad-hoc networks are currently a topic of enormous interest. There are several traditional algorithms which deal with the transmission of information from one source to another in the wireless ad-hoc networks. However, these conventional algorithms are not capable of eliminating the data redundancy completely. This study proposes a new technique of merging the traditional algorithms to absolutely eradicate the data redundancy problem in such networks. The customary algorithms such as the counter, distance and location based schemes only provide with a generalized methods of transmitting and reboradcasting information from one node to another but do not address the redundancy problem. The proposed method integrates the counter and location based schemes with the distance based method respectively and compares their performances to get rid of the unnecessary re-transmission of information .
Tikhonov Regularization with a Solution Constraint

Many numerical methods for the solution of linear ill-posed problems apply Tikhonov regularization. This paper presents a modification of a numerical method proposed by Golub and von Matt for quadratically constrained least-squares problems and applies it to Tikhonov regularization of large-scale linear discrete ill-posed problems. The method is based on partial Lanczos bidiagonalization and Gauss quadrature. Computed examples illustrating its performance are presented.
Metabolism of Oligosaccharides and Starch in Lactobacilli: A Review

Oligosaccharides, compounds that are composed of 2–10 monosaccharide residues, are major carbohydrate sources in habitats populated by lactobacilli. Moreover, oligosaccharide metabolism is essential for ecological fitness of lactobacilli. Disaccharide metabolism by lactobacilli is well understood; however, few data on the metabolism of higher oligosaccharides are available. Research on the ecology of intestinal microbiota as well as the commercial application of prebiotics has shifted the interest from (digestible) disaccharides to (indigestible) higher oligosaccharides. This review provides an overview on oligosaccharide metabolism in lactobacilli. Emphasis is placed on maltodextrins, isomalto-oligosaccharides, fructo-oligosaccharides, galacto-oligosaccharides, and raffinose-family oligosaccharides. Starch is also considered. Metabolism is discussed on the basis of metabolic studies related to oligosaccharide metabolism, information on the cellular location and substrate specificity of carbohydrate transport systems, glycosyl hydrolases and phosphorylases, and the presence of metabolic genes in genomes of 38 strains of lactobacilli. Metabolic pathways for disaccharide metabolism often also enable the metabolism of tri- and tetrasaccharides. However, with the exception of amylase and levansucrase, metabolic enzymes for oligosaccharide conversion are intracellular and oligosaccharide metabolism is limited by transport. This general restriction to intracellular glycosyl hydrolases differentiates lactobacilli from other bacteria that adapted to intestinal habitats, particularly Bifidobacterium spp.
Stochastic Volterra integro-differential equations : stability and numerical methods

We consider the reliability of some numerical methods in preserving the stability properties of the linear stochastic functional differential equation ẋ(t) = αx(t) + β ∫ t 0 x(s)ds + σx(t − τ )Ẇ (t), where α, β, σ, τ ≥ 0 are real constants, and W (t) is a standard Wiener process. We adopt the shorthand notation of ẋ(t) to represent the differential dx(t) etc. Our choice of test equation is a stochastic perturbation of the classical deterministic Brunner & Lambert test equation for σ = 0 and so our investigation may be thought of as an extension of their work. Sufficient conditions for the asymptotic mean square stability of solutions to both the differential equation and discrete analogues are derived using the general method of Lyapunov functionals construction proposed by Kolmanovskii & Shaikhet which has previously been successfully employed for deterministic and stochastic differential and difference equations with delay. The areas of the regions of asymptotic stability for each θ method, indicated by the sufficient conditions for the discrete system, are shown to be equal and we show that an upper bound can be put on the time-step parameter for the numerical method fo which the system is asymptotically mean-square stable. We illustrate our results by means of numerical experiments and various stability diagrams. We examine the extent to which the continuous system can tolerate stochastic perturbations before losing its stability properties and we illustrate how one may accurately choose a numerical method to preserve the stability properties of the original problem in the numerical solution. Our numerical experiments also indicate that the quality of the sufficient conditions is very high. Donetsk State Academy of Management, Ukraine, leonid.shaikhet@usa.net, collaboration supported by NATO, grant ref. PST.EV. 979727 Mathematics Department, University College Chester, England, j.roberts@chester.ac. uk 1
A real-time hand gesture recognition method

This paper presents a real-time hand gesture recognition method. Hand regions are located by combining adaptive skin color detection and motion detection. Histograms of oriented gradients (HOG) are used to describe hand image. Extracted HOG features are projected into low-dimensional subspace using PCA-LDA (Principle Component Analysis and Linear Discriminant Analysis). And then distances between the projected features and each gesture class center are calculated. Finally the recognition results are obtained by the nearest neighbor method. Experimental results showed that the proposed method gained detection rate up to 91% with real-time performance.
A Dynamical System View for the Turbo Decoding Algorithm Based on the Gaussian Approximation

The Gaussian approximation has been used to study iterative decoding algorithms of graph-based codes like turbo codes [7, 8] and low-density parity check (LDPC) codes [6]. In this work, the Gaussian approximation is used to describe the turbo decoding algorithm (TDA) as an elegant discrete dynamical system and explicit iterative equations for the evolution of the BER with the decoder phases of the TDA are presented. This formulation is used to study the SNR thresholds for turbo codes and the fixed points of the TDA. The issues of stability of TDA’s fixed points for SNRs below the threshold and rate of convergence of the TDA to very low BERs for SNRs above the threshold are also addressed.