Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Direct control implementation of a refrigeration system in smart grid

The thermal capacity of the content in a cold storage room renders it possible to shift the governing refrigeration system's power consumption in time, without compromising temperature constraints. In this paper we introduce a method of implementing such a cold storage room into a directly controlled smart grid, by use of a predictive control strategy. In this application the shift in consumption is used to stabilize a small grid by utilizing excess renewable energy to minimize the need for fossil fueled production sources. In order for the centralized grid controller to handle such a node, its flexibility is communicated in form of a simple generic bucket model. Finally, the provided experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Fitting-in: Sociocultural Adaptation of International Graduate Students

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between sociocultural adaptation of international graduate students and selected demographic characteristics, and to explore the students’ perceptions of institutional support with regard to their adaptation. A three-phased, mixed methods approach was used to study international graduate students at a private, urban, mid-sized, Northeastern university. Preliminary discussion groups (N = 42), followed by a questionnaire (N = 129), and then follow-up focus groups (N = 11), resulted in 28 statistically significant findings and five major themes. These findings resulted in recommendations for: improving university communication with international students, expanding international orientation, including more Americans in international activities, expanding English language improvement activities, and continually assessing international programs.
REINFORCEMENT DRIVEN INFORMATION ACQUISITION IN NON-DETERMINISTIC ENVIRONMENTS

For an agent living in a non-deterministic Markov environment (NME), what is, in theory, the fastest way of acquiring information about its statistical properties? The answer is: to design \optimal" sequences of \experiments" by performing action sequences that maximize expected information gain. This notion is implemented by combining concepts from information theory and reinforcement learning. Experiments show that the resulting method, reinforcement driven information acquisition, can explore certain NMEs much faster than conventional random exploration.
Two-dimensional locality preserving projection based on Maximum Scatter Difference ⋆

In this paper, we propose a Two-dimensional locality preserving projection based on maximum scatter difference (2D-DLPP/MSD). 2D-LPP/MSD use additive principle to preserve the locality by maximizing the between-class scatter and within-class scatter instead of using multiplicative principle of 2D-DLPP. Theoretically, we also discuss the influence of balance factor α on performance and reveal the relations between 2D-LPP/MSD and 2D-DLPP. Experimental results on the ORL and Yale face databases show the effectiveness of the proposed 2D-DLPP/MSD.
Biocompatibility and nanostructured materials: applications in nanomedicine

Abstract There has been huge interest in applications of nanomaterials in biomedical science, including diagnosis, drug delivery, and development of human organs. Number of these nanomaterials has been already studied in human or at pre-clinical trial. There is a growing concern on potential toxicity and adverse effects of nanomaterials on human health, including lack of standard method of assessment of toxicology of these materials. Our investigation indicated that the bare and small nanoparticle have higher toxicity than modified and bulk materials, respectively. In addition, spherical nanoparticles have less toxicity than rod nanoparticles due to immune response of body.
Towards Automated Classification of Emotional Facial Expressions

Emotional state influences nearly every aspect of human cognition. However, coding emotional state is a costly process that relies on proprietary software or the subjective judgments of trained raters, highlighting the need for a reliable, automatic method of recognizing and labeling emotional expression. We demonstrate that machine learning methods can approach nearhuman levels for categorization of facial expression in naturalistic experiments. Our results show relative success of models on highly controlled stimuli and relative failure on less controlled images, emphasizing the need for real-world data for application to real-world experiments. We then test the potential of combining multiple freely available datasets to broadly categorize faces that vary across age, race, gender and photographic quality.
The visual specification of context

We introduce a simple and novel visual technique for the specification of context in structured documents called T-graphs that we base on T-configurations in document trees. The technique is implemented in the current version of DESIGNER. Although we are applying this technique in the specification of context-dependent style sheets for HTML, XML, and SGML documents, it is clear that it can be used in other environments such as query specification for structured documents and for computer program transformations. We compare T-graphs with the context specification techniques found in other style-sheet systems and we also provide examples of context that we can and cannot specify with T-graphs. Although T-graphs are restrictive, they lend themselves to visual construction and modification, our main requirement when we designed this context specification method. We also investigate the time and space complexity of T-graph matching, a necessity for efficient implementation.
Chinese Herbal Medicine Image Recognition and Retrieval by Convolutional Neural Network

Chinese herbal medicine image recognition and retrieval have great potential of practical applications. Several previous studies have focused on the recognition with hand-crafted image features, but there are two limitations in them. Firstly, most of these hand-crafted features are low-level image representation, which is easily affected by noise and background. Secondly, the medicine images are very clean without any backgrounds, which makes it difficult to use in practical applications. Therefore, designing high-level image representation for recognition and retrieval in real world medicine images is facing a great challenge. Inspired by the recent progress of deep learning in computer vision, we realize that deep learning methods may provide robust medicine image representation. In this paper, we propose to use the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for Chinese herbal medicine image recognition and retrieval. For the recognition problem, we use the softmax loss to optimize the recognition network; then for the retrieval problem, we fine-tune the recognition network by adding a triplet loss to search for the most similar medicine images. To evaluate our method, we construct a public database of herbal medicine images with cluttered backgrounds, which has in total 5523 images with 95 popular Chinese medicine categories. Experimental results show that our method can achieve the average recognition precision of 71% and the average retrieval precision of 53% over all the 95 medicine categories, which are quite promising given the fact that the real world images have multiple pieces of occluded herbal and cluttered backgrounds. Besides, our proposed method achieves the state-of-the-art performance by improving previous studies with a large margin.
"She said yes" -- Liminality and Engagement Announcements on Twitter

Social media sites enable people to share milestones in their lives, but relatively little is understood about how and why they are used in the context of major life changes. We utilize social media as a lens to explore the behavior of individuals undergoing a major life transition – those who use Twitter to announce that they are engaged to be married. Inspired by the anthropological concept “liminality”, we identify behavior manifested in Twitter that characterize this transitional phase. A large-scale quantitative study of Twitter postings of engaged individuals spanning two years shows that this phase marks notable changes in behavior that can be gleaned from social media. A follow-up survey provides qualitative explanations for the statistical analysis. Our findings reveal how individuals may be utilizing social media in the context of a major milestone in life, and bear implications for social media design and applications.
Quantitative Monitoring of Gene Expression Patterns with a Complementary DNA Microarray

A high-capacity system was developed to monitor the expression of many genes in parallel. Microarrays prepared by high-speed robotic printing of complementary DNAs on glass were used for quantitative expression measurements of the corresponding genes. Because of the small format and high density of the arrays, hybridization volumes of 2 microliters could be used that enabled detection of rare transcripts in probe mixtures derived from 2 micrograms of total cellular messenger RNA. Differential expression measurements of 45 Arabidopsis genes were made by means of simultaneous, two-color fluorescence hybridization.
The impact of the post-complex spike pause in cerebellum-dependent learning

The cerebellum plays a fundamental role in motor movement coordination and motor error correction. By using (and associating) sensory cues present during motor errors, the cerebellum learns to anticipate motor error mistakes and execute correct movements.Damage to the cerebellum, either by trauma or disease, can impair or eliminate this ability, resulting in poor coordination and an inability to adapt or correct motor movements. In order to assist these patients, a detailed understanding of the mechanisms involved during error correction and adaptation learning is needed.Many groups have worked to understand how this learning occurs. One identified area that requires more understanding is at the output of the cerebellum, the synapses made by Purkinje neurons on Deep Cerebellar Nucleus neurons. The climbing fiber input to the cerebellum is believed to serve as a teaching signal during associative, cerebellum-dependent forms of motor learning. In Purkinje neurons the climbing fiber generates a complex spike, and a post-complex spike pause, that interrupts Purkinje neuron pacemaker firing. Because Purkinje neurons forminhibitory (GABAergic) synapses onto DCN neurons, coordinated pauses in Purkinje neuron firing lead to transient periods of dis-inhibition at the DCN, allowing them to be active. We hypothesize that windows of dis-inhibition relay information about the presence of a motor error to the DCN, since the DCN neurons do not actually see the climbing fiber-evoked complex spike that the Purkinje neurons see.In addition to facilitating DCN neurons to activate their downstream targets (including the Red Nucleus and other motor targets), we propose that this relief from inhibition allows for learning-related plasticity mechanisms, like mossy fiber long term potentiation (LTP), to occur at the DCN. It is not entirely understood, however, how theclimbing fiber signal is coordinating changes in cerebellar circuitry during learning.The post-complex spike pause is the final component of the climbing fiber signal transmitted by Purkinje neurons to the DCN following a motor error. The pause itself may therefore play an important role in the motor learning process.In in vitro experiments described in Chapter 3, the post-complex spike pause is reliably prolonged by two different drugs acting by two distinct, and opposing, mechanisms. The same drugs delivered in vivo, during classical eye-blink conditioning experiments described in Chapter 4, facilitated the onset of learning in this paradigm: rats receiving the drugs learned the behavioral association faster than their controlcounterparts. These results elucidate an unappreciated aspect of the climbing fiber teaching signal, the post-complex spike pause, and support a model in which synchrony of postcomplex spike pauses drives learning-related plasticity in the deep cerebellar nucleus.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Parents' and Teachers' Ratings of DSM-IV Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in a Spanish Sample

Confirmatory factor analysis examined the factor structure of DSM-IV Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms and analyzed the differences in informants' ratings of ADHD symptoms by children's age and sex. A sample of 1,018 Spanish school children, 574 girls and 444 boys, ages 4 to 12 years, was rated by teachers and parents. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a similar fit for the three-factor model of Inattention, Hyperactivity, and Impulsivity (teachers: CFI = .976, RMR = .041, % of total variance = 83.2; parents: CFI = .969, RMR = .037, % of total variance = 82.7) and for the two-factor model of Inattention and Hyperactivity-Impulsivity (teachers: CFI = .958, RMR = .044, % of total variance = 79.3; parents: CFI = .961, RMR = .038, % of total variance, 79.9). The two-factor model was selected as a parsimonious representation of the teachers' and parents' ratings of ADHD symptoms. Analyses of variance indicated significant differences in teachers' and parents' mean ratings across sex and school grades of children.
Genetic Characterization of Ten-Eleven-Translocation Methylcytosine Dioxygenase Alterations in Human Glioma

The molecular mechanisms leading to brain tumors still remain unclear. Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence that epigenetic effects play crucial roles in tumor development and progression. Thereby, 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) represents a further base modification of cytosine besides 5-methylcytosine (5mC). In addition to the role of 5hmC as an intermediate in demethylation, 5hmC is of reasonable importance for cellular control. Previous studies showed that loss of 5hmC is a hallmark of human malignancies, e.g. in glioma, melanoma, and myeloid tumors. In myeloid malignancies studies showed that loss of 5hmC was due to mutations within ten-eleven-translocation (TET) genes, enzymes being responsible for conversion of 5mC to 5hmC. Nevertheless, till date there are no genetic characterization data of TET enzymes available for glioma. In this study, we genetically characterized TET2 and TET3 alterations in 50 human gliomas (WHO-Grade II-IV) and in 19 healthy brain samples. We identified 7 genetic alterations within TET2 (p.V218M, p.G355N, p.P363L, p.L1721W, p.P1723S, p.I1762V, p.H1778R). Additionally, we performed quantification of 5hmC amount and added functional prediction analysis of identified TET alterations to evaluate the biological impact of these alterations on the hydroxymethylome. An analysis of TET3 showed no non-synonymous alterations. In summary, we did not find correlations of TET alterations with 5hmC amount. Thus, our data emphasize that, in contrast to leukemia, loss of 5hmC in glioma is not caused by TET gene alterations. Moreover, other disturbances, such as disrupted gene expressions or functional inhibitions of TET proteins may be responsible for the aberrant epigenome of human glioma.
Models and Tabu Search Heuristics for the Berth-Allocation Problem

In the berth-allocation problem (BAP) the aim is to optimally schedule and assign ships to berthing areas along a quay. The objective is the minimization of the total (weighted) service time for all ships, defined as the time elapsed between the arrival in the harbor and the completion of handling. Two versions of the BAP are considered: the discrete case and the continuous case. The discrete case works with a finite set of berthing points. In the continuous case ships can berth anywhere along the quay. Two formulations and a tabu search heuristic are presented for the discrete case. Only small instances can be solved optimally. For these sizes the heuristic always yields an optimal solution. For larger sizes it is always better than a truncated branch-and-bound applied to an exact formulation. A heuristic is also developed for the continuous case. Computational comparisons are performed with the first heuristic and with a simple constructive procedure.
Toxin Gene Analysis of a Variant Strain ofClostridium difficile That Causes Human Clinical Disease

ABSTRACT A toxin variant strain of Clostridium difficile was isolated from two patients with C. difficile-associated disease (CDAD), one of whom died from extensive pseudomembranous colitis. This strain, identified by restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) as type CF2, was not detected by an immunoassay for C. difficile toxin A. Culture supernatants of CF2 failed to elicit significant enterotoxic activity in the rabbit ileal loop assay but did produce atypical cytopathic effects in cell culture assay. Southern hybridization, PCR amplification, and DNA sequence analyses were performed on the toxin A (tcdA) and toxin B (tcdB) genes of type CF2 isolate 5340. Type CF2 5340tcdA exhibited a 1,821-bp truncation, due to three deletions in the 3′ end of the gene, and a point mutation in the 5′ end of the gene, resulting in a premature stop codon at tcdAposition 139. Type CF2 5340 tcdB exhibited multiple nucleotide base substitutions in the 5′ end of the gene compared totcdB of the standard toxigenic strain VPI 10463. Type CF2 5340 toxin gene nucleotide sequences and deduced amino acid sequences showed a strong resemblance to those of the previously described variant C. difficile strain 1470, a strain reported to have reduced pathogenicity and no association with clinical illness in humans. REA of strain 1470 identified this strain as a distinct type (CF1) within the same REA group as the closely related type CF2. A review of our clinical-isolate collection identified five additional patients infected with type CF2, three of whom had documented CDAD. PCR amplification of the 3′ end of tcdA demonstrated identical 1.8-kb deletions in all seven type CF2 isolates. REA type CF2 is a toxin variant strain of C. difficile that retains the ability to cause disease in humans but is not detected in clinical immunoassays for toxin A.
Energy-Efficient Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks: Parametric and Convex Transformations

Designing energy-efficient cognitive radio sensor networks is important to intelligently use battery energy and to maximize the sensor network life. In this paper, the problem of determining the power allocation that maximizes the energy-efficiency of cognitive radio-based wireless sensor networks is formed as a constrained optimization problem, where the objective function is the ratio of network throughput and the network power. The proposed constrained optimization problem belongs to a class of nonlinear fractional programming problems. Charnes-Cooper Transformation is used to transform the nonlinear fractional problem into an equivalent concave optimization problem. The structure of the power allocation policy for the transformed concave problem is found to be of a water-filling type. The problem is also transformed into a parametric form for which a ε-optimal iterative solution exists. The convergence of the iterative algorithms is proven, and numerical solutions are presented. The iterative solutions are compared with the optimal solution obtained from the transformed concave problem, and the effects of different system parameters (interference threshold level, the number of primary users and secondary sensor nodes) on the performance of the proposed algorithms are investigated.
Speed kills: cellular and molecular bases of methamphetamine‐induced nerve terminal degeneration and neuronal apoptosis

Methamphetamine (METH) is a drug of abuse that has long been known to damage monoaminergic systems in the mammalian brain. Recent reports have provided conclusive evidence that METH can cause neuropathological changes in the rodent brain via apoptotic mechanisms akin to those reported in various models of neuronal death. The purpose of this review is to provide an interim account for a role of oxygen‐based radicals and the participation of transcription factors and the involvement of cell death genes in METH‐induced neurodegeneration. We discuss data suggesting the participation of endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria‐mediated activation of caspase‐dependent and ‐independent cascades in the manifestation of METH‐induced apoptosis. Studies that use more comprehensive approaches to gene expression profiling should allow us to draw more instructive molecular portraits of the complex plastic and degenerative effects of this drug. —Cadet, J. L. , Jayanthi, S. , Deng, X. Speed kills: cellular and molecular bases of methamphetamine‐induced nerve terminal degeneration and neuronal apoptosis. FASEB J. 17, 1775–1788 (2003)
Steroids as Adjuvant Therapy for Acute Pharyngitis in Ambulatory Patients: A Systematic Review

PURPOSE This review summarizes the evidence regarding the efficacy of adjuvant steroids for pain reduction in acute pharyngitis. METHODS We searched for randomized controlled trials, using MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, published between 1966 and December 2008. Two reviewers assessed the quality of each retrieved article and summarized the data. RESULTS Our review found 8 relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a total of 806 patients. There were 5 RCTs with adult patients and 3 with children. All RCTs found a statistically significant faster reduction of pain or complete pain relief from steroid use compared with placebo. The trials used different steroids (dexamethasone, betamethasone, prednisone), and most participants had received antibiotics at least initially. Analgesic medication, such as acetaminophen, was allowed in all studies, but this factor was not always controlled. No serious adverse side effects were reported. CONCLUSIONS Steroids are effective in relieving pain in acute pharyngitis. Although no serious adverse effects were observed, the benefits have to be balanced with possible adverse drug effects. There are safe and effective over-the-counter medications to relieve throat pain. Most patients received concomitant antibiotics; however, reducing the prescription of antibiotics for generally benign upper respiratory tract infection is a public health goal. We therefore recommend further studies to establish both the safety of steroids without antibiotic coverage and the additional benefits of steroids when used with regular administration of over-the-counter analgesic medications.
FLUORIDE LEVEL IN PUBLIC WATER SUPPLIES OF CITIES FROM THE NORTHWEST REGION OF SÃO PAULO STATE, BRAZIL

It may be difficult for small and medium cities to obtain information about the fluoride content of public water, because of the lack of equipments and technicians. This study aimed to analyze the fluoride levels of the water supplied by the public treatment stations of 40 cities situated in the northwest region of São Paulo State, during a period of 6 months, to verify if fluoridation occurs in a continuous manner and if the fluoride levels are within the recommended. Maps of the water distribution system were obtained from the water treatment companies and utilized to randomize the addresses of the collection sites, so that they included all regions with treated water sources. One water sample by month was collected and analyzed in duplicate using an ion-specific-electrode. Samples with 0.6 to 0.8 mgF/L were considered acceptable. In the 38 cities that regularly provided the samples in the 6 months of the study, water from 144 collection sites was collected and a total of 864 samples were analyzed, of which 61.81 percent were classified as unacceptable. It was observed that 33 cities performed fluoridation but in 78.79 percent of these cities there were variations in the fluoride level among the sites and in the same site during the period of study. One can conclude that most of these cities do not control the fluoride levels in the public water, since fluoridation occurs in a discontinuous manner and in most of the situations not within the recommended concentrations.