Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constraints on Blazar Jet Conditions During Gamma-Ray Flaring from Radiative Transfer Modeling

As part of a program to investigate jet flow conditions during GeV gamma-ray flares detected by Fermi, we are using UMRAO multi-frequency, centimeter-band total flux density and linear polarization monitoring observations to constrain radiative transfer models incorporating propagating shocks orientated at an arbitrary angle to the flow direction. We describe the characteristics of the model, illustrate how the data are used to constrain the models, and present results for three program sources with diverse characteristics: PKS 0420-01, OJ 287, and 1156+295. The modeling of the observed spectral behavior yields information on the sense, strength and orientation of the shocks producing the radio-band flaring; on the energy distribution of the radiating particles; and on the observer's viewing angle with respect to the jet independent of VLBI data. We present evidence that, while a random component dominates the jet magnetic field, a distinguishing feature of those radio events with an associated gamma-ray flare is the presence of a weak but non-negligible ordered magnetic field component along the jet axis.
Support for immigration reduction and physician distrust in the United States

Objectives: Health research indicates that physician trust in the United States has declined over the last 50 years. Paralleling this trend is a decline in social capital, with researchers finding a negative relationship between immigration-based diversity and social capital. This article examines whether physician distrust is also tied to immigration-based diversity and declining social capital. Methods: Data come from the 2012 General Social Survey, one of the gold standards of US public opinion surveys, using a national probability sample of 1080 adult US respondents. Key measures included support for reducing levels of immigration to the United States and multiple measures of physician trust. Results: The results of ordinary least squares regressions, using survey weights, indicate that support for reducing immigration is positively linked to physician distrust, bringing physician distrust into the orbit of research on diversity and declining social capital. Models controlled for age, education, income, gender, race, nativity, conservatism, unemployed status, lack of health insurance, and self-rated health. Furthermore, analyses of a subset of respondents reveal that measures of general trust and some forms of institutional trust do not explain away the association between support for immigration reduction and physician distrust, though confidence in science as an institution appears relevant. Conclusion: Consistent with diversity and social capital research, this article finds that an immigration attitude predicts physician distrust. Physician distrust may not be linked just to physician–patient interactions, the structure of the health care system, or health policies, but could also be tied to declining social trust in general.
Discrimination Of Thermally-Marked Otoliths From Unmarked Specimens By Machine Learning Of Texture Characteristics

We adopt a novel approach to detecting thermal marks using techniques that are being developed for texture discrimination in computer vision. This provides a more natural framework for thermal mark detection than the line detector schemes that are commonly proposed because the detection and inter-mark distance measurement are combined in a single ltering step. We decompose the image into a multi-channel representation using a bank of Gabor lters that has been previously tuned to discriminate thermal marks. We learn the pattern of lter responses by using the Expectation-Maximisation algorithm of Dempster, Laird and Rubin to t a mixture Gaussian model to the data. We arrive at a hard classiication of the data by assigning diierent components of the model to foreground or background classes. The approach is evaluated by examining test samples containing a mixture of known otoliths from thermally marked hatchery and wild pink salmon fry from Prince William Sound, Alaska. The advantages and disadvantages of computer vision in this application are considered.
Adaptations to an extreme environment: retinal organisation and spectral properties of photoreceptors in Antarctic notothenioid fish

SUMMARY The Notothenioid suborder of teleosts comprises a number of species that live below the sea ice of the Antarctic. The presence of `antifreeze' glycoproteins in these fish as an adaptation to freezing temperature has been well documented but little is known about the adaptations of the visual system of these fish to a light environment in which both the quantity and spectral composition of downwelling sunlight has been reduced by passage through ice and snow. In this study, we show that the red/long-wave sensitive (LWS) opsin gene is not present in these fish but a UV-sensitive short-wave sensitive (SWS1) pigment is expressed along with blue-sensitive (SWS2) and green/middle-wave sensitive (Rh2) pigments. The identity and spectral location of maximal absorbance of the SWS1 and Rh2 pigments was confirmed by in vitro expression of the recombinant opsins followed by regeneration with 11-cis retinal. Only the SWS2 pigment showed interspecific variations in peak absorbance. Expression of the Rh2 opsin is localised to double cone receptors in both the central and peripheral retina, whereas SWS2 opsin expression is present only in the peripheral retina. SWS1 cones could not be identified by either microspectrophotometry or in situ hybridisation, presumably reflecting their low number and/or uneven distribution across the retina. A study of photoreceptor organisation in the retina of two species, the shallower dwelling Trematomus hansoni and the deeper dwelling Dissostichus mawsoni, identified a square mosaic in the former, and a row mosaic in the latter species; the row mosaic in Dissostichus mawsoni with less tightly packed cone photoreceptors allows for a higher rod photoreceptor density.
Annotation upon Annotation: Adding Signalling Information to a Corpus of Discourse Relations

We present an annotation effort that involves adding a new layer of annotation to an existing corpus. We are interested in how rhetorical relations are signalled in discourse, and thus begin with a corpus already annotated for rhetorical relations, to which we add signalling information. We show that a very large number of relations carry signals that can help identify them as such. The detailed, extensive analysis of signals in the corpus can aid research in the automatic parsing of discourse relations.
A theoretic approach to translation of linear temporal logic into an automaton

Model checking is a fully automated inspection technology, which a system satisfies a group of required properties. Properties are used to define in linear time temporal logic (LTL), and are translated into automata in to be checked in explicit-state model checkers. In this paper, we give that an algorithm generates automata from LTL formula. We give a method consisting of three stages: the negative of the formula, a process of translation, and Simplified the resulting automaton. We put forward a process of translation that is optimal within a certain class of translation procedures. The simplification usually means can be used for automata. It reduces the number of transitions and states. This lends to more simples model checking of Linear-time temporal logic formula. Tests show that this algorithm is correct.
Ionic conductance pathways in the mouse medullary thick ascending limb of Henle. The paracellular pathway and electrogenic Cl- absorption

Net Cl- absorption in the mouse medullary thick ascending limb of Henle (mTALH) involves a furosemide-sensitive Na+:K+:2 Cl- apical membrane symport mechanism for salt entry into cells, which occurs in parallel with a Ba++-sensitive apical K+ conductance. The present studies, using the in vitro microperfused mouse mTALH, assessed the concentration dependence of blockade of this apical membrane K+-conductive pathway by Ba++ to provide estimates of the magnitudes of the transcellular (Gc) and paracellular (Gs) electrical conductances (millisiemens per square centimeter). These studies also evaluated the effects of luminal hypertonicity produced by urea on the paracellular electrical conductance, the electrical Na+/Cl- permselectivity ratio, and the morphology of in vitro mTALH segments exposed to peritubular antidiuretic hormone (ADH). Increasing luminal Ba++ concentrations, in the absence of luminal K+, produced a progressive reduction in the transcellular conductance that was maximal at 20 mM Ba++. The Ba++- sensitive transcellular conductance in the presence of ADH was 61.8 +/- 1.7 mS/cm2, or approximately 65% of the total transepithelial conductance. In phenomenological terms, the luminal Ba++-dependent blockade of the transcellular conductance exhibited negative cooperativity. The transepithelial osmotic gradient produced by luminal urea produced blebs on apical surfaces, a striking increase in shunt conductance, and a decrease in the shunt Na+/Cl- permselectivity (PNa/PCl), which approached that of free solution. The transepithelial conductance obtained with luminal 800 mM urea, 20 mM Ba++, and 0 K+ was 950 +/- 150 mS/cm2 and provided an estimate of the maximal diffusion resistance of intercellular spaces, exclusive of junctional complexes. The calculated range for junctional dilution voltages owing to interspace salt accumulation during ADH-dependent net NaCl absorption was 0.7-1.1 mV. Since the Ve accompanying ADH-dependent net NaCl absorption is 10 mV, lumen positive, virtually all of the spontaneous transepithelial voltage in the mouse mTALH is due to transcellular transport processes. Finally, we developed a series of expressions in which the ratio of net Cl- absorption to paracellular Na+ absorption could be expressed in terms of a series of electrical variables. Specifically, an analysis of paired measurement of PNa/PCl and Gs was in agreement with an electroneutral Na+:K+:2 Cl- apical entry step. Thus, for net NaCl absorption, approximately 50% of Na+ was absorbed via a paracellular route.
Morphology of astroglial cells is controlled by beta-adrenergic receptors

Astroglial cells in vivo and in vitro respond to hormones, growth factors, and neurotransmitters by changing from an epithelial-like to stellate morphology. We have studied the temporal relationship between receptor activation, second messenger mobilization, and morphological changes using LRM55 astroglial cells. Maintenance of an altered morphology required continuous beta-adrenergic receptor activation. These changes appeared to be mediated by cAMP since they were elicited by its analogue, dibutyryl cAMP, and by forskolin, a direct activator of adenylate cyclase. Changes in cell morphology may require a relatively small increase in intracellular cAMP, since receptor- stimulated changes in cAMP levels were transient and peaked approximately 5 min after receptor activation while changes in morphology took at least 30 min to reach a new steady state. Time-lapse videomicroscopy and high voltage electron microscopy indicated that receptor activation resulted in a sequence of morphological events. Time-lapse observations revealed the development and enlargement of openings through the cytoplasm associated with cytoplasmic withdrawal to the perinuclear region and process formation. Higher resolution high voltage electron microscopy indicated that the transition to a stellate morphology was preceded by the appearance of two distinct cytoplasmic domains. One contained an open network of filaments and organelles. The other was characterized by short broad cytoplasmic filaments. The first domain was similar to cytoplasm in control cells while the second was associated with the development and enlargement of openings through the cytoplasm and regions of obvious cytoplasmic withdrawal.
DNA rearrangement in the control region for early transcription in a human polyomavirus JC host range mutant capable of growing in human embryonic kidney cells

A human polyomavirus JC virus (JCV) host range mutant (JC-HEK) can grow in human embryonic kidney cells, whereas the brain cell-tropic wild-type JCV strain (Mad-1) cannot; JC-HEK contains two complementing defective DNAs, JC-HEK-A and JC-HEK-B. We determined the nucleotide sequence of the putative transcriptional control region of JC-HEK-A DNA that can induce T-antigen synthesis in human embryonic kidney cells and compared it with the sequence of JCV Mad-1 DNA. The JC-HEK-A control region was found to have a complex DNA rearrangement, namely, a partial local duplication of a noncoding region generating two extra replication origins and translocation of segments from the large-T-antigen gene (415 base pairs) and the VP-1 gene (78 base pairs). In the rearranged segment, JC-HEK-A had seven sets of the sequence 5'TGGA(T)A(T)A(T)3', which is found in the simian virus 40 enhancer core, whereas JCV Mad-1 had only one set in its control region. JC-HEK-A also had a 5'TGGAAGTGTAA3' sequence resembling the adenovirus early region 1A enhancer core sequence 5'AGGAAGTGAA3'. Because the viral enhancer is host discriminatory and because another human polyomavirus, BK virus, that grows well in human embryonic kidney cells has these signals in its control region, it is likely that some of the newly acquired signals in JC-HEK play an important role in the altered host range of JCV.
Improving Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis with Principal Component Analysis

Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) models have been shown to provide a better model for capturing polysemy and synonymy than Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). However, the parameters of a PLSA model are trained using the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm, and as a result, the trained model is dependent on the initialization values so that performance can be highly variable. In this paper we present a method for using LSA analysis to initialize a PLSA model. We also investigated the performance of our method for the tasks of text segmentation and retrieval on personal-size corpora, and present results demonstrating the efficacy of our proposed approach.
The role of shame in motivating support for, and opposition to, intergroup reconciliation : two forms of shame as separate predictors of positive and negative responses to ingroup wrongdoing

This thesis deals with how group members respond to wrongdoing committed in their group's name. In particular, I investigate whether individuals feel ashamed or guilty for these acts, and in turn, what motivational effects these emotions have. A review of the literature on shame and guilt turns up serious inconsistencies regarding both the charac- terisation of these emotions and the empirical evidence relating to them. In particular, shame is found to be related to both prosocial and antisocial outcomes, and guilt is some- times associated with prosocial acts and sometimes not. My empirical work tests an explanation for these inconsistencies. Notably, I test a novel way of seeing shame, and propose that not only are there different forms of shame but that these different forms have divergent motivational effects. I focus on two important forms of shame: moral shame and image shame, which arise when one sees the ingroup's actions as threatening one's morality or reputation, respectively. I show that moral shame is consistently related to increased prosocial attitudes (support for apology and compensation) and decreased an- ger, avoidance and cover-up; whereas image shame is predictive of higher levels of anger, avoidance and cover-up. The effects of guilt are weak or non-existent in the presence of these two forms of shame. I also show that these emotions have a meaningful influence on how group members relate to unrelated minorities in society, borne in part of a feeling of moral obligation for past wrongdoing. A study is also reported that shows that, depend- ing on their individual motivations, different group members prefer different emotional expressions within apologies offered by their leaders.
Distributed Channel Access for Device-to-Device Communications: A Hypergraph-Based Learning Solution

In this letter, we propose a learning solution for distributed channel access in device-to-device communications based on a hypergraph interference model. We first define a new interference metric for a hypergraph model, and then formulate this distributed channel access problem as a local altruistic game, which is proved to be an exact potential game admitting at least one pure strategy Nash equilibrium (PNE). A distributed learning algorithm is designed to quickly achieve the optimal PNE, which can minimize the defined networks’ interference metric. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing schemes and significantly improves the spectrum efficiency.
Particle Filters for Infinite (or Large) Dimensional State Spaces-Part 2

We study particle filtering algorithms for tracking on infinite (in practice, large) dimensional state spaces. Particle filtering (Monte Carlo sampling) from a large dimensional system noise distribution is computationally expensive. But, in most large dim tracking applications, it is fair to assume that "most of the state change" occurs in a small dimensional basis and the basis itself may be slowly time varying (approximated as piecewise constant). We have proposed a PF algorithm with basis change detection and re-estimation steps that uses this idea. The implicit assumptions in defining this algorithm are very strong. We study here the implications of weaker assumptions and how to handle them. We propose to use a simple modification of the asymptotically stable adaptive particle filter to handle errors in estimating the basis dimension
Biochemical Characterization of dTDP-d-Qui4N and dTDP-d-Qui4NAc Biosynthetic Pathways in Shigella dysenteriae Type 7 and Escherichia coli O7

ABSTRACT O-antigen variation due to the presence of different types of sugars and sugar linkages is important for the survival of bacteria threatened by host immune systems. The O antigens of Shigella dysenteriae type 7 and Escherichia coli O7 contain 4-(N-acetylglycyl)amino-4,6-dideoxy-d-glucose (d-Qui4NGlyAc) and 4-acetamido-4,6-dideoxy-d-glucose (d-Qui4NAc), respectively, which are sugars not often found in studied polysaccharides. In this study, we characterized the biosynthetic pathways for dTDP-d-Qui4N and dTDP-d-Qui4NAc (the nucleotide-activated precursors of d-Qui4NGlyAc and d-Qui4NAc in O antigens). Predicted genes involved in the synthesis of the two sugars were cloned, and the gene products were overexpressed and purified as His-tagged fusion proteins. In vitro enzymatic reactions were carried out using the purified proteins, and the reaction products were analyzed by capillary electrophoresis, electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. It is shown that in S. dysenteriae type 7 and E. coli O7, dTDP-d-Qui4N is synthesized from α-d-glucose-1-phosphate in three reaction steps catalyzed by glucose-1-phosphate thymidyltransferase (RmlA), dTDP-d-glucose 4,6-dehydratase (RmlB), and dTDP-4-keto-6-deoxy-d-glucose aminotransferase (VioA). An additional acetyltransferase (VioB) catalyzes the conversion of dTDP-d-Qui4N into dTDP-d-Qui4NAc in E. coli O7. Kinetic parameters and some other properties of VioA and VioB are described and differences between VioA proteins from S. dysenteriae type 7 (VioAD7) and E. coli O7 (VioAO7) discussed. To our knowledge, this is the first time that functions of VioA and VioB have been biochemically characterized. This study provides valuable enzyme sources for the production of dTDP-d-Qui4N and dTDP-d-Qui4NAc, which are potentially useful in the pharmaceutical industry for drug development.
Growing Secure Distributed Systems from a Spore

This paper describes the design and evaluation of Spore, a secure cloud-based file system that minimizes trust and functionality assumptions on underlying servers. Spore differs from other systems in that system relationships are formalized only through signed data objects, rather than in complicated protocols executed between clients and servers. This approach allows Spore to bootstrap a file system from a single object, providing integrity and security guarantees while storing all data as simple, immutable objects on untrusted servers. We use simulation to characterize the performance of this system, focusing primarily on the cost incurred in compensating for the minimal server support. We show that while a naive approach is quite inefficient, a series of simple optimizations can enable the system to perform well in real-world scenarios.
Does Service Discovery Enhance Requirements Specification? A Preliminary Empirical Investigation

Service-centric systems pose new challenges and opportunities for requirements processes and techniques. This paper describes new techniques developed by the EU-funded SeCSE Integrated Project that enable service discovery during early requirements processes and exploit discovered services to enhance requirements specifications, and reports 2 preliminary evaluations of software tools by our industrial partners that implement SeCSE's processes and techniques. The first evaluation investigated the usability and functionality of UCaRE, a web-based tool for specifying requirements prior to discovering services. The second evaluation investigated the utility and usability of UCaRE combined with EDDiE, the service discovery engine, during a requirements discovery workshop. Results from both evaluations inform the design of the second versions of SeCSE's processes, techniques and tools.
Friends and enemies: a novel initialization for speaker diarization

The task of speaker diarization consists of answering the question “Who spoke when? ”. The most commonly used approach to speaker diarization is agglomerative clustering of multiple initial clusters. Even though the initial clustering is greatly modified by iterative cluster merging and possibly multiple resegmentations of the data, the initialization algorithm is a key module for system performance and robustness. In this paper we present a novel approach that obtains a desired initial number of clusters in three steps. It first computes possible speaker change points via a standard technique based on the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). It then classifies the resulting segments into ”friend” and ”enemy” groups to finally creates an initial set of clusters for the system. We test this algorithm with the dataset used in the RT05s evaluation, where we show a 13% Diarization error rate relative improvement and a 2.5% absolute cluster purity improvement with respect to our previous algorithm. Index Terms: Speaker diarization, speaker segmentation and clustering, clusters initialization, meetings indexing.
A collaborative visual analytics of trajectory and transaction data for digital forensics: VAST 2014 Mini-Challenge 2: Award for outstanding visualization and analysis

Advanced digital forensics technologies provide powerful basis in criminal investigation. Due to the complexity and diversity of data as well as the increasing quantity of the data, traditional digital forensics technologies have already can not adapt to the analysis requirements. This paper provides a visualization approach to analyze multiple types of data for digital forensics which provide users three interrelated tools: the RadViz tool, the PMViz tool and the SGGViz tool. Our solution focuses on the correlation analysis of trajectories and transactions, and it plays an important role in the process of analyzing the case in VAST 2014 Mini-challenge 2.