Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tubular Overexpression of Gremlin Induces Renal Damage Susceptibility in Mice

A growing number of patients are recognized worldwide to have chronic kidney disease. Glomerular and interstitial fibrosis are hallmarks of renal progression. However, fibrosis of the kidney remains an unresolved challenge, and its molecular mechanisms are still not fully understood. Gremlin is an embryogenic gene that has been shown to play a key role in nephrogenesis, and its expression is generally low in the normal adult kidney. However, gremlin expression is elevated in many human renal diseases, including diabetic nephropathy, pauci-immune glomerulonephritis and chronic allograft nephropathy. Several studies have proposed that gremlin may be involved in renal damage by acting as a downstream mediator of TGF-β. To examine the in vivo role of gremlin in kidney pathophysiology, we generated seven viable transgenic mouse lines expressing human gremlin (GREM1) specifically in renal proximal tubular epithelial cells under the control of an androgen-regulated promoter. These lines demonstrated 1.2- to 200-fold increased GREM1 expression. GREM1 transgenic mice presented a normal phenotype and were without proteinuria and renal function involvement. In response to the acute renal damage cause by folic acid nephrotoxicity, tubule-specific GREM1 transgenic mice developed increased proteinuria after 7 and 14 days compared with wild-type treated mice. At 14 days tubular lesions, such as dilatation, epithelium flattening and hyaline casts, with interstitial cell infiltration and mild fibrosis were significantly more prominent in transgenic mice than wild-type mice. Tubular GREM1 overexpression was correlated with the renal upregulation of profibrotic factors, such as TGF-β and αSMA, and with increased numbers of monocytes/macrophages and lymphocytes compared to wild-type mice. Taken together, our results suggest that GREM1-overexpressing mice have an increased susceptibility to renal damage, supporting the involvement of gremlin in renal damage progression. This transgenic mouse model could be used as a new tool for enhancing the knowledge of renal disease progression.
Routing reliability analysis of partially disjoint paths

Alternative paths may significantly improve routing reliability in an IP network, One application of this technique is to enhance the reliability of the popular open shortest path first (OSPF) routing protocol. In our proposed reliable OSPF (ROSPF) routing protocol, one primary path and two alternate backup paths are deployed for data transmission. As expected, the number of shared links and routers among the three paths dominates the reliability of the routing connection between two routers. The calculation of routing reliability of multiple paths is very important in alternate path-finding algorithms. To solve this problem, we use the Venn diagram model to analyze the overall failure probability of three partially disjoint paths and to understand how the double- and triple-shared links affect the routing reliability. General mathematical formulas to calculate the failure probability are also obtained.
Young children can extend motion verbs to point-light displays.

In the first study using point-light displays (lights corresponding to the joints of the human body) to examine children's understanding of verbs, 3-year-olds were tested to see if they could perceive familiar actions that corresponded to motion verbs (e.g., walking). Experiment 1 showed that children could extend familiar motion verbs (e.g., walking and dancing) to videotaped point-light actions shown in the intermodal preferential looking paradigm. Children watched the action that matched the requested verb significantly more than they watched the action that did not match the verb. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were validated by having children spontaneously produce verbs for these actions. The use of point-light displays may illuminate the factors that contribute to verb learning.
Metropolis Instant Radiosity

We present Metropolis Instant Radiosity (MIR), an unbiased algorithm to solve the Light Transport problem. MIR is a hybrid technique which consists in representing the incoming radiance field by a set of Virtual Point Lights (V PLs) and in computing the response of all sensors in the scene (i.e. camera captors) by accumulating their contributions. In contrast to other similar approaches, we propose to sample the VPLs with an innovative Multiple‐try Metropolis‐Hastings (MTMH) Algorithm: the goal is to build an efficient, aggressive, and unconditionally robust variance reduction method that works well regardless of the scene layout. Finally, we present a fast ray tracing implementation using MIR and show how our complete rendering pipeline can produce high‐quality and high‐resolution pictures in a few seconds.
Comparison of CKD-EPI Cystatin C and Creatinine Glomerular Filtration Rate Estimation Equations in Asian Indians

Background. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is identified in the general population using estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR) calculated from a serum creatinine-based equation, the chronic kidney disease-epidemiology collaboration (CKD-EPI) equation. Using serum cystatin C in combination may improve eGFR accuracy. We evaluated the new CKD-EPI equations incorporating cystatin C in a population of Asian Indians in classifying CKD across body mass index, diabetes, and hypertension status. Methods. We retrieved standardized serum creatinine and serum cystatin C data from a cohort of 2877 Asian Indians aged 40–80 years from the Singapore Indian Eye Study and calculated eGFR (in mL/min/1.73 m2) with the new CKD-EPI equations and serum creatinine only equation. Results. The creatinine only equation mean eGFR (88 ± 17) was similar to using spline Log cystatin C (88 ± 22). The lowest mean eGFR (81 ± 21) was obtained with the spline Log cystatin C—age, sex, and weight equation. The creatinine only equation had the fewest participants (7.1%) with eGFR <60 and spline Log cystatin C—age, sex, and weight equation had the most (16.1%). Conclusions. Using serum cystatin C resulted in widely varying eGFR which significantly affected the classification of chronic kidney disease.
The Server Provisioning Problem for Continuous Distributed Interactive Applications

In this paper, we study the server provisioning problem for continuous Distributed Interactive Applications (DIAs) whose application states not only change because of the operations performed by participants, but also evolve along with the passing of time. We focus on finding the locations of servers for hosting continuous DIAs, with the goals of optimizing the interactivity performance while fulfilling the consistency and fairness requirements. We show that the server provisioning problem is challenging by presenting its NP-hardness and non-approximability results under several conditions. We propose two efficient server placement algorithms and analyze their approximation ratios. The approximation ratio of the proposed M-BETTER algorithm is quite close to a lower bound for any polynomial-time algorithm. We also conduct experimental evaluations to compare the proposed algorithms with several baseline server placements.
Ontological Filtering for Sentiment Analysis

The rapid growth of the internet has increased the number of online reviews, opinions and sentiments toward products, services or topics. People appreciate this opportunity so that e-Commerce websites provide services for users to publish their reviews. Social networks, blogs and websites enable, thanks to the reviews, a social structure that provides benefits for the users and the firms that hosts electronic markets. Therefore, this huge quantity of information can confuse users and does not produce useful knowledge. In such a context, in fact, who says what and how they say it, matters. In this scenario a valuable contribute can be given by the sentiment analysis that is one of the hottest current research area. This paper presents a novel approach to the sentiment analysis which is based on the ontological filtering approach. The proposed approach shows how to automatically mine, from a corpus of documents, positive and negative sentiments . Experimental evaluations, on real dataset, show that the proposed approach is effective and furnishes interesting results.
The Study of Color Tree Image Segmentation

Tree image extraction is an important algorithm and technique to separate an individual tree from the surrounding landscape in a photographic image, and at the same time access the tree’s feature data. In recent years, this problem is a hot issue for scientific workers in forestry research field. In order to get a better processing result to the problem, this paper makes use of image segmentation technology for extraction of object tree. In this paper, the difficulties to segment the tree image are analyzed. When the background is simple, edge detection algorithms can extract of the object tree. But when the background is complex, this paper proposes an improved method to segment tree image in complex background based on color and amends the segmented result by mathematical morphology. The experimental results show that the crown and trunk of one tree have been successfully segmented and the result is deemed effective.
Johnson-Lindenstrauss notes

PrA∼D [∣∣‖Ax‖22 − 1∣∣ > ε] < δ. Lemma 2 implies Lemma 1, since we can set δ = 1/n2 then apply a union bound on the vectors (xi − xj)/‖xi − xj‖2 for all i < j. The first proof of Lemma 2 was given by [15]. Since then, several proofs have been given where D can be taken as a distribution over matrices with independent Gaussian or Bernoulli entries, or even more generally, Ω(log(1/δ))-wise independent entries which each have mean 0, variance 1/k, and a subGaussian tail1; see the proofs in [1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18]).
PSR B 1706-44 and the SNR G 343.1-2.3 as the remnants of a cavity supernova explosion

The possible association of the supernova remnant (SNR) G 343.1 2.3 with the pulsar PSR B 1706 44 (superposed on the arclike "shell" of the SNR) has been questioned by some authors on the basis of an inconsistency between the implied and measured (scintillation) transverse velocities of the pulsar, the absence of any apparent interaction between the pulsar and the SNR's "shell", and some other indirect arguments. We suggest, however, that this association could be real if both objects are the remnants of a supernova (SN) which exploded within a mushroom-like cavity (created by the SN progenitor wind breaking out of the parent molecular cloud). This suggestion implies that the actual shape of the SNR's shell is similar to that of the well-known SNR VRO 42.05. 01 and that the observed bright arc corresponds to the "half" of the SNR located inside the cloud. We report the discovery in archival radio data of an extended ragged radio arc to the southeast of the bright arc which we interpret as the "half" of the SN blast wave expanding in the intercloud medium.
Starburst: A robust algorithm for video-based eye tracking

Knowing the user’s point of gaze has signican t potential to enhance current humancomputer interfaces. The primary obstacle of integrating eye movements into interfaces is the availability of a reliable, low-cost open-source eye-tracking system. Towards making such a system available to interface designers, we have developed a hybrid eye-tracking algorithm that integrates feature-based and model-based approaches and made it available in an open-source package. We refer to this algorithm as \starburst" because of the way in which pupil features are detected. This starburst algorithm is more accurate than pure feature-based approaches yet is signican tly less time consuming than pure model-based approaches. The current implementation is tailored to tracking eye movements in infrared video obtained from an inexpensive head-mounted eye-tracking system. A validation study shows that the technique can reliably estimate eye position with an accuracy of approximately one degree of visual angle even in the presence of signican t image noise.
Estimation of I / Q Imbalance in MIMO OFDM

—The estimation of in-phase and quadrature-phase (I/Q) imbalance for multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems using training sequences is studied in this paper. A new concept called channel residual energy (CRE) is introduced. By minimizing the CRE, we can estimate the I/Q imbalance using channel response. The proposed method needs only one OFDM block for training and the training symbols can be arbitrary. Simulation results show that the mean-squared error (MSE) of the proposed method is close to the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB).
Reducing the number of preemptions in fixed priority scheduling

Fixed priority scheduling (FPS) has been widely studied and used in a number of applications, mostly due to its flexibility, simple run-time mechanism and small overhead. However, preemption related overhead in FPS may cause undesired high processor utilization, high energy consumption, or, in some cases, even infeasibility. In this paper, we propose a method to reduce the number of preemptions in legacy FPS systems consisting of tasks with priorities, periods and offsets. Unlike other approaches, our algorithm does not require modification of the basic FPS mechanism. Our method analyzes offline a set of periodic tasks scheduled by FPS, detects the maximum number of preemptions that can occur at run-time, and reassigns task attributes such that the tasks are schedulable by the same scheduling mechanism, while achieving a significantly lower number of preemptions. In some cases, there is a cost to pay for a lower number of preemptions in terms of increased amount of tasks and/or reduced task execution flexibility. Our method provides for the ability to choose a user-defined number of preemptions with respect to the cost to pay.
Algebra and Geometry under projections and Applications

Let X be a reduced closed scheme in P n and let I X be its saturated defining ideal. As a generalization of property Np due to Green-Larzarsfeld, we say that X satisfies property N 2,p if I X has only the simplest linear syzygies up to p-th step. When p = 1, then I X is generated by quadrics. Recently, many interesting geometric results have been proved for projective varieties with property N 2,p (see [4], [7], [8] [13]). In this paper, we obtain higher normality, syzygetic structures and geometric properties of any isomorphic or birational projections of varieties satisfying N 2,p by using the mapping cone and the vector bundle technique. In fact, this kind of uniform results can also be refined as we move the center of the projection in an ambient space. Furthermore, property N 2,p can be simply generalized to property N d,p , d ≥ 2. For a variety X satisfying the condition N d,p , first of all we can show by projection method that a linear section X ∩ L is d-regular (as a scheme) if dim(X ∩ L) = 0 and 1 ≤ dim L ≤ p (see also Theorem 1.1 in [7]). Thus, a projective variety with property N 2,p has no (p + 2)-secant p-plane. Second, we give not only other algebraic and geometric structures for projected varieties but also the structure of multiple loci for projections of varieties with the condition N d,p. In addition, many interesting examples are provided.
A Formal Object-Oriented CASE Tool for theDevelopment of Complex

An increasing number of CASE tools based on object-oriented methods (OOMs) are appearing in the marketplace. Despite their good qualities, OOMs produce models that are not amenable to rigorous semantic analysis. This problem can be attributed to the lack of rm semantic basis for the modeling notations and concepts such as those found in formal methods. Formal and graphical informal analysis techniques complement each other when they are integrated appropriately. Formal techniques facilitate rigorous reasoning about modeled behavior, while graphical informal techniques facilitate the creation of models that are concise, and easier to understand. In this paper we describe the current status of our work on developing an environment for the speciication and the analysis of complex systems. This environment, called FuZE, supports the integration of Fusion analysis techniques and the more formal Z speciication language. This new CASE tool is one example of the successful integration of two diierent speciication approaches into a rigorous development environment.
Dossier: Institutions and skilled mobility. Guest Editors: Gery Nijenhuis & Maggi W.H. Leung

While the relatively free and frequent flow of traffic across international boundaries is an essential foundation of cross-border regions, cross-border public transit systems are the ultimate symbols of metropolitan integration. This paper investigates the governance of the cross-border transit system in Eurometropolis of Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai between France and Belgium. It relies on a qualitative analysis of actors and institutions as well as social network analysis to more precisely fix the positions and roles of actors on either side of the border. The new cross-border institution, the EGTC agency, is a central actor in public transit policy networks and its function is more complex than the institutional analysis implies. Evaluating these roles in evolving cross-border public transit policy enables an assessment of the effectiveness of this new governance institution and the challenges faced by general-purpose cross-border governance structures in affecting policy areas in which political authority is fragmented.
Managing the University Curriculum: Making Common Cause

Foreword by Dr. Kenneth J.R. Edwards, Chairman, Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals - Introduction - PART ONE. THE CHANGING CONTEXT: Setting the Scene - Managing the Curriculum: Roles and Responsibilities - Changing the Subject: The Organization of Knowledge and Academic Culture - PART TWO. MANAGING THE UNIVERSITY/INSTITUTIONAL HEADS: The Institutional Compact - Living with Ambiguity: Some Dilemmas of Academic Leadership - PART THREE. MANAGING THE CURRICULUM/MIDDLE MANAGERS AND LECTURERS: Educational Development - A Course Leader's Perspective - Curriculum Change and Professional Identity: The Role of the University Lecturer - PART FOUR. FACING THE FUTURE: Common Cause: Prospects for Renewal - Index.
A spectral analysis of the hydrogen-deficient star HD144941

HD144941 is a B type hydrogen-deficient star. Pre- vious analysis has suggested that its effective temperature and surface gravity are similar to the nitrogen rich H-deficient star V652 Her. However, its H/He ratio puts it between the clas- sifications of an extreme and an intermediate helium star, and its low C and N abundances make it unique amongst known H-deficient stars. High-resolution, high-S/N, optical spectra have been ob- tained using the AAT. A grid of model atmospheres has been constructed for varying Teff, logg and H/He abundance. Ionisa- tion equilibria for available metal ions, fitted Hei line profiles, and UV/visual flux distributions have been used to determine Teff, logg and H/He. With optimal values of Teff = 23200K and logg =3 . 9 the abundances by number of the principal species are: nH = 5.21%, nHe =9 4 . 79%, nC =0 . 0017%, nN =0 . 00079%, nO =0 . 0024%, nMg =0 . 00031%, nAl =0 . 000019%, nSi = 0.00027%, nFe =0 . 00066%. HD144941 lies at the high logg, high Teff end of the group of EHe stars, but its nH /n He ratio of 0.055 is above average for the group. The surface composition is also remarkable in having a considerable metal deficiency (Z=0.0003), probably of primordial origin. The low metallicity explains why substantial radial pulsa- tions are not observed for a star with these surface properties andisavindicationofmodernheliumstarpulsationmodelsand opacities.
Taxation, Unemployment and Working Time in Models of Economic Growth

This paper combines collective bargaining over wages and working time with models of endogenous and neoclassical growth. Public expenditure is funded by taxes on capital and labour supplied by infinitely-lived households in a closed economy. Taxes on labour are generally inefficient in both growth models, there is a “dynamic Laffer Curve”, and employment is increased by a reduction of working hours below the collective bargaining level – except in the case of a monopoly union. Although growth is maximised by competitive (efficient) hours, welfare-optimal working time is below the collective bargain when union are ‘too weak’, and vice-versa.
Molecular Strategies of the Caenorhabditis elegans Dauer Larva to Survive Extreme Desiccation

Massive water loss is a serious challenge for terrestrial animals, which usually has fatal consequences. However, some organisms have developed means to survive this stress by entering an ametabolic state called anhydrobiosis. The molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are poorly understood. We recently showed that Caenorhabditis elegans dauer larva, an arrested stage specialized for survival in adverse conditions, is resistant to severe desiccation. However, this requires a preconditioning step at a mild desiccative environment to prepare the organism for harsher desiccation conditions. A systems approach was used to identify factors that are activated during this preconditioning. Using microarray analysis, proteomics, and bioinformatics, genes, proteins, and biochemical pathways that are upregulated during this process were identified. These pathways were validated via reverse genetics by testing the desiccation tolerances of mutants. These data show that the desiccation response is activated by hygrosensation (sensing the desiccative environment) via head neurons. This leads to elimination of reactive oxygen species and xenobiotics, expression of heat shock and intrinsically disordered proteins, polyamine utilization, and induction of fatty acid desaturation pathway. Remarkably, this response is specific and involves a small number of functional pathways, which represent the generic toolkit for anhydrobiosis in plants and animals.
Determination, Optimization and Taxonomy of Regulatory Networks: The Example of Arabidopsis thaliana Flower Morphogenesis

This paper aims at warning modellers in systems biology against several traps encountered in the modelling of Boolean thresholded automata networks, i.e. the Hopfield-like networks that are often used in the context of neural and genetic networks. It introduces a new manner based on inverse methods to conceive such models. Using these techniques, we re-visit the model of regulatory network of Arabidopsis thaliana morphogenetic network. In this context, we discuss about the non-uniqueness of models, on a possible taxonomy of the set of valid models and on the sense of the relative size of the basin of attractions within or between these models.
A theory of multi-perspective defocusing

We present a novel theory for characterizing defocus blurs in multi-perspective cameras such as catadioptric mirrors. Our approach studies how multi-perspective ray geometry transforms under the thin lens. We first use the General Linear Cameras (GLCs) [21] to approximate the incident multi-perspective rays to the lens and then apply a Thin Lens Operator (TLO) to map an incident GLC to the exit GLC. To study defocus blurs caused by the GLC rays, we further introduce a new Ray Spread Function (RSF) model analogous the Point Spread Function (PSF). While PSF models defocus blurs caused by a 3D scene point, RSF models blurs spread by rays. We derive closed form RSFs for incident GLC rays, and we show that for catadioptric cameras with a circular aperture, the RSF can be effectively approximated as a single or mixtures of elliptic-shaped kernels. We apply our method for predicting defocus blurs on commonly used catadioptric cameras and for reducing de-focus blurs in catadioptric projections. Experiments on synthetic and real data demonstrate the accuracy and general applicability of our approach.