Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Designing Telepresence Robot Systems for Use by People with Special Needs

With the recent emergence of several new telepres- ence robot platforms, companies are investigating these technolo- gies for ad-hoc conversations beyond the conference room. This technology has the potential to increase cohesion for people who work in a remote location away from their team. We hypothesize that seniors and people with disabilities may find similar benefits while remaining connected with their remote family and friends. We discuss our design of a telepresence robot system for use by this target population. We describe an upcoming pilot study in which people with special needs will operate the telepresence robot at their families' homes and discuss the potential of these robots for telecommuting. I. INTRODUCTION
Trend-Residual Dual Modeling for Detection of Outliers in Low-Cost GPS Trajectories

Low-cost GPS (receiver) has become a ubiquitous and integral part of our daily life. Despite noticeable advantages such as being cheap, small, light, and easy to use, its limited positioning accuracy devalues and hampers its wide applications for reliable mapping and analysis. Two conventional techniques to remove outliers in a GPS trajectory are thresholding and Kalman-based methods, which are difficult in selecting appropriate thresholds and modeling the trajectories. Moreover, they are insensitive to medium and small outliers, especially for low-sample-rate trajectories. This paper proposes a model-based GPS trajectory cleaner. Rather than examining speed and acceleration or assuming a pre-determined trajectory model, we first use cubic smooth spline to adaptively model the trend of the trajectory. The residuals, i.e., the differences between the trend and GPS measurements, are then further modeled by time series method. Outliers are detected by scoring the residuals at every GPS trajectory point. Comparing to the conventional procedures, the trend-residual dual modeling approach has the following features: (a) it is able to model trajectories and detect outliers adaptively; (b) only one critical value for outlier scores needs to be set; (c) it is able to robustly detect unapparent outliers; and (d) it is effective in cleaning outliers for GPS trajectories with low sample rates. Tests are carried out on three real-world GPS trajectories datasets. The evaluation demonstrates an average of 9.27 times better performance in outlier detection for GPS trajectories than thresholding and Kalman-based techniques.
Suppression of the noninvolved pair of the myeloma isotype correlates with poor survival in newly diagnosed and relapsed/refractory patients with myeloma

Heavy light chain (HLC) assays allow precise measurement of the monoclonal and of the noninvolved polyclonal immunoglobulins of the same isotype as the M‐protein (e.g., monoclonal IgAκ and polyclonal IgAλ in case of an IgAκ myeloma), which was not possible before. The noninvolved polyclonal immunoglobulin is termed ‘HLC‐matched pair’. We investigated the impact of the suppression of the HLC‐matched pair on outcome in 203 patients with multiple myeloma, a phenomenon that likely reflects the host's attempt to control the myeloma clone. Severe (>50%) HLC‐matched pair suppression was identified in 54.5% of the 156 newly diagnosed patients and was associated with significantly shorter survival (45.4 vs. 71.9 months, P = 0.019). This correlation was statistically significant in IgG patients (46.4 vs. 105.1 months, P = 0.017), but not in patients with IgA myelomas (32.9 vs. 54.1 months, P = 0.498). At best response, HLC‐matched pair suppression improved only in patients with ≥VGPR, indicating partial or complete humoral immune reconstitution during remission in those with excellent response. Severe HLC‐matched pair suppression retained its prognostic impact also during follow‐up after first response. In the 47 pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory disease, a similar correlation between severe HLC suppression and survival was noted (22.8 vs. not reached, P = 0.028). Suppression of the polyclonal immunoglobulins of the other isotypes than the myeloma protein correlated neither with HLC‐matched pair suppression, nor with outcome. Multivariate analysis identified severe HLC‐matched pair suppression as independent risk factor for shorter survival, highlighting the impact of isotype specific immune dysregulation on outcome in multiple myeloma. Am. J. Hematol. 91:295–301, 2016. © 2015 The Authors. American Journal of Hematology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Signaling through hepatocellular A2B adenosine receptors dampens ischemia and reperfusion injury of the liver

Ischemia and reperfusion significantly contributes to the morbidity and mortality of liver surgery and transplantation. Based on studies showing a critical role for adenosine signaling in mediating tissue adaptation during hypoxia, we hypothesized that signaling events through adenosine receptors (ADORA1, ADORA2A, ADORA2B, or ADORA3) attenuates hepatic ischemia and reperfusion injury. Initial screening studies of human liver biopsies obtained during hepatic transplantation demonstrated a selective and robust induction of ADORA2B transcript and protein following ischemia and reperfusion. Subsequent exposure of gene-targeted mice for each individual adenosine receptor to liver ischemia and reperfusion revealed a selective role for the Adora2b in liver protection. Moreover, treatment of wild-type mice with an Adora2b-selective antagonist resulted in enhanced liver injury, whereas Adora2b-agonist treatment was associated with attenuated hepatic injury in wild-type, but not in Adora2b−/− mice. Subsequent studies in mice with Adora2b deletion in different tissues—including vascular endothelia, myeloid cells, and hepatocytes—revealed a surprising role for hepatocellular-specific Adora2b signaling in attenuating nuclear factor NF-κB activation and thereby mediating liver protection from ischemia and reperfusion injury. These studies provide a unique role for hepatocellular-specific Adora2b signaling in liver protection during ischemia and reperfusion injury.
Tracheal pH monitoring and aspiration in acute stroke.

BACKGROUND aspiration can lead to chest infections, increased morbidity and mortality in stroke sufferers. It is important clinically and for research purposes to identify all patients who aspirate. At present, videofluoroscopy is the gold standard for detecting aspiration. The aim of this study was to investigate aspiration in acute stroke patients, who are safe for oral intake as assessed by bedside swallow test and videofluoroscopy, using tracheal pH monitoring. METHODS thirty-four stroke patients admitted to the Acute Stroke Unit gave informed consent and underwent tracheal pH monitoring 4-19 days post-stroke. A standardised acid meal was served. RESULTS two traces were discarded. Nine of the 32 remaining studies showed a drop in tracheal pH <5.5 following ingestion of an acidic meal. Two patterns of lowered tracheal pH were observed: three cases showed a prolonged fall in pH to <5.5, which took over 15 minutes to return to baseline and six had acute falls in pH to <5.5, which rapidly recovered in under 4 minutes. In six the drop occurred immediately after the meal, and in three a delay was observed prior to the drop. CONCLUSION tracheal acidification, which could represent aspiration, has been observed in 9 of 32 stroke patients assessed as safe to take diet and fluids orally by bedside assessment and videofluoroscopy. This is a preliminary investigation that provides information about tracheal pH monitoring in acute stroke patients.
Meta-analysis on the mandibular dimensions effects of the MARA appliance in patients with Class II malocclusions.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the short- and long-term effects of the mandibular anterior repositioning appliance (MARA) on mandibular dimensions in patients with Class II malocclusion and to assess the stability of the MARA results. MATERIALS AND METHODS Multiple electronic databases were searched for articles published in any language until March 2014. A manual search was also performed of reference lists of retrieved articles. The primary outcomes were the short-and long-term effects of the MARA appliance on mandible dimensions. The secondary outcome was postretention stability. Outcome measures were total mandibular unit length, corpus length, and ramus height. Two reviewers examined all articles independently and assessed their methodologic quality. Meta-analyses were conducted using random-effects models. The Cochrane test and the I(2) statistic were used to assess heterogeneity. Sensitivity analyses were performed and publication bias was evaluated. RESULTS Seven retrospective clinical controlled studies that compared MARA with controls were included. Three of the studies were medium quality; the rest were low quality. Meta-analysis of the short-term effects revealed a significant increase in total mandibular unit length (1.16 mm/y) and ramus height (1.58 mm/y) with MARA and a nonsignificant increase in corpus length (0.21 mm/y). Analyses of the long-term effects showed a statistically significant advantage of MARA over controls for all three variables, but the effect sizes were small. More high-quality studies are warranted. CONCLUSIONS The MARA appliance produced statistically significant mandibular growth enhancement in the short- and long-term. These findings, however, may not be clinically significant.
Multi-locus sequence typing and plasmid profile characterization of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli associated with increased mortality in free-range layer flocks

Avian pathogenic Escherichia coli strains originating from 10 free-range layer flocks were characterized by multi-locus sequence typing and plasmid profile analysis to investigate their phylogenetic relationship and diversity, respectively. In addition to colibacillosis, all flocks tested positive for antibodies against avian metapneumovirus (aMPV) during production, and six of the flocks were concurrently affected by histomonosis. Accumulated average mortality for flocks concurrently affected by colibacillosis and histomonosis made up 17.4%, while the average mortality for E. coli-infected flocks was 16.5%. A total of eight different sequence types (STs) and 47 different plasmid profiles were demonstrated among the E. coli isolates. Within each flock between one and four different STs and between three and 13 different plasmid profiles were demonstrated. A statistical significant difference in STs and plasmid profile diversity of the population of E. coli was not demonstrated between flocks affected by histomonosis compared with histomonosis-free flocks. Only minor clonal diversity was demonstrated for each flock, and in all but one flock colibacillosis started before antibodies against aMPV were detected. All isolates, except two, carried plasmids greater than 100 kb, but only a single plasmid replicon type, IncFIB, was demonstrated, suggesting plasmids representing this type might represent a common pathogenicity factor for the different STs of E. coli. Within each flock a clonal tendency was observed, indicating that only certain clones of E. coli possess a significant pathogenic potential. These clones act as primary rather than secondary pathogens, resulting in colibacillosis without predisposing factors, including histomonosis and aMPV.
Extracting Paraphrases of Technical Terms from Noisy Parallel Software Corpora

In this paper, we study the problem of extracting technical paraphrases from a parallel software corpus, namely, a collection of duplicate bug reports. Paraphrase acquisition is a fundamental task in the emerging area of text mining for software engineering. Existing paraphrase extraction methods are not entirely suitable here due to the noisy nature of bug reports. We propose a number of techniques to address the noisy data problem. The empirical evaluation shows that our method significantly improves an existing method by up to 58%.
Inclusive fitness and sexual conflict: How population structure can modulate the battle of the sexes

Competition over reproductive opportunities among members of one sex often harms the opposite sex, creating a conflict of interest between individual males and females. Recently, this battle of the sexes has become a paradigm in the study of intersexual coevolution. Here, we review recent theoretical and empirical advances suggesting that – as in any scenario of intraspecific competition – selfishness (competitiveness) can be influenced by the genetic relatedness of competitors. When competitors are positively related (e.g. siblings), an individual may refrain from harming its competitor(s) and their mate(s) because this can improve the focal individual's inclusive fitness. These findings reveal that population genetic structure might be of paramount importance when studying the battle of the sexes. We conclude by identifying some new lines of research at the interface of sexual selection and social evolution.
Large vocabulary continuous speech recognition for Vietnamese, an under-resourced language

This paper proposes a method to build a Vietnamese Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition system (Vietna-mese LVCSR system). The difference between Vietnamese and European languages is analyzed and used to adapt a LVCSR system for European languages to Vietnamese. Experiments are implemented on the VNSPEECHCORPUS. The results show that the accuracy of Vietnamese recognition system is increased by using Vietnamese language characteristics .
Bigram-based learning and the richness of the stimulus for language acquisition

Recent challenges to Chomsky’s poverty of the stimulus thesis for language acquisition suggest that children’s primary data may carry ‘indirect evi dence’ about linguistic constructions despite containing no instances of them. Indirect evidence is claimed to suffice for grammar acquisition, without need for innate knowledge or specializ ed learning mechanisms. We report experiments based on those of Reali & Christiansen (2005) , who demonstrated that a simple bigram language model can induce the correct form of auxilia ry-inversion in certain complex English questions. We investigate the nature of the indi rect evidence that supports this learning, to assess how generally it might be available. Result s confirm the original finding but show that the model’s success is highly circumscribed, resting on on e particular word pair in the grammatical test sentences. The model performs poorly on inversion in related constructions in English and Dutch, which evidently do not afford effective c u s accessible to the learning model. Other more powerful statistical models have so far be en shown to succeed only on the same very limited subset of cases as the bigram model, which are clearly not indicative of broader success. The ‘richness of the stimulus’ for auxiliary-inversion thus remains unsubstantiated by this line of research to date.
Mining complex power networks for blackout prevention

Following the recent devastating blackouts in North America, UK and Italy, blackout prevention has attracted significant attention, though it is known as a notoriously difficult task. To prevent the blackout, it is essential to accurately predict the instable status of power network components. In the large-scale power network however, existing analysis tools fail to perform accurate and in-time prediction of component instability, because of the sophisticated structure of real-world power networks and the huge amount of system variables to be analyzed. To prevent the blackout, we need an accurate and efficient method that (a) can discover interesting features and patterns relevant to the blackout, from the highly complex structure and ten thousands of system variables of a power network, and (b) can give accurate and fast prediction of system instability whenever required, so that the network operator can take necessary actions in time. In this paper, we report our tool developed for power network instability prediction. The proposed method consists of two major stages. In the first stage,a novel type of patterns namely Local Correlation Network Pattern (LCNP) is mined from the structure and system variables of the power network. Correlation rules, which are useful for the network operator to locate potentially instable components, can be further generated from the LCNP. In the second stage, a kernel based network classification method is developed to predict the system instability. By testing on a real world power network (the New England system), we demonstrate that the proposed tool is effective in predicting system instability and thus highly useful for blackout prevention.
Model Checking of Recursive Probabilistic Systems

Recursive Markov Chains (RMCs) are a natural abstract model of procedural probabilistic programs and related systems involving recursion and probability. They succinctly define a class of denumerable Markov chains that generalize several other stochastic models, and they are equivalent in a precise sense to probabilistic Pushdown Systems. In this article, we study the problem of model checking an RMC against an ω-regular specification, given in terms of a Büchi automaton or a Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) formula. Namely, given an RMC A and a property, we wish to know the probability that an execution of A satisfies the property. We establish a number of strong upper bounds, as well as lower bounds, both for qualitative problems (is the probability = 1, or = 0? ), and for quantitative problems (is the probability ≥ p? , or, approximate the probability to within a desired precision). The complexity upper bounds we obtain for automata and LTL properties are similar, although the algorithms are different. We present algorithms for the qualitative model checking problem that run in polynomial space in the size |A| of the RMC and exponential time in the size of the property (the automaton or the LTL formula). For several classes of RMCs, including single-exit RMCs (a class that encompasses some well-studied stochastic models, for instance, stochastic context-free grammars) the algorithm runs in polynomial time in |A|. For the quantitative model checking problem, we present algorithms that run in polynomial space in the RMC and exponential space in the property. For the class of linearly recursive RMCs we can compute the exact probability in time polynomial in the RMC and exponential in the property. For deterministic automata specifications, all our complexities in the specification come down by one exponential. For lower bounds, we show that the qualitative model checking problem, even for a fixed RMC, is already EXPTIME-complete. On the other hand, even for simple reachability analysis, we know from our prior work that our PSPACE upper bounds in A can not be improved substantially without a breakthrough on a well-known open problem in the complexity of numerical computation.
Matching and Clustering: Two Steps Toward Automatic Object Modeling in Computer Vision

In this article, we present a general frame for a system of au tomatic modeling and recognition of 3D polyhedral objects. Such a system has many applications for robotics: e.g., recog nition, localization, and grasping. Here we focus on one main aspect of the system: when many images of one 3D object are taken from different unknown viewpoints, how to recognize those that represent the same aspect of the object? Briefly, is it possible to determine automatically if two images are similar or not? The two stages detailed in the article are the matching of two images and the clustering of a set of images. Matching consists of finding the common features of two images while no information is known about the image contents, the motion, or the calibration of the camera. Clustering consists of regrouping into sets the images representing a same aspect of the modeled objects. For both stages, experimental results on real images are shown.
Ontogenetic Development of Habit and Memory Formation in Primates

Lesion studies in adult monkeys have suggested that an experience can enter into memory in two ways: as cognitive information stored in a cortico-limbo-thalamocortical system (involving the higher order sensory areas of cortex, the amygdala, hippocampus, and entorhinal cortex, the medial thalamic nuclei, or ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the basal forebrain) and as a habit stored perhaps in a cortico-striatal system (involving the sensory cortical areas and the caudate and putamen). Our studies of behavioral development in infant monkeys as well as those in human infants provide complementary evidence by suggesting that these two systems are developmentally dissociable, in that the cognitive memory system, assessed by the delayed non-matching to sample task, appears to mature considerably more slowly than the habit system, assessed by the concurrent visual discrimination task, a notion that has also been discussed recently by others (Nadel & Zola-Morgan, 1984; Rose, 1980). Furthermore, despite the late development of the cortico-limbo-diencephalic memory system, this chapter has presented evidence that some limbic-dependent memory processes, such as those required for success on the visual paired comparison task, develop extremely early. The notion that at least one type of recognition process mediated by the limbic system is present neonatally provides new insight into the normal development of memory processes and indicates the need to identify further the memory processes and substrates that become available to an infant at different time points during maturation. Such studies will help one day to determine the immaturity of structure or function that is responsible for the intriguing phenomenon of infantile amnesia, that is, the inability to recall the stimuli or events experienced in the first few years of life.
Significance of Size and Nucleic Acid Content Heterogeneity as Measured by Flow Cytometry in Natural Planktonic Bacteria

ABSTRACT Total bacterial abundances estimated with different epifluorescence microscopy methods (4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole [DAPI], SYBR Green, and Live/Dead) and with flow cytometry (Syto13) showed good correspondence throughout two microcosm experiments with coastal Mediterranean water. In the Syto13-stained samples we could differentiate bacteria with apparent high DNA (HDNA) content and bacteria with apparent low DNA (LDNA) content. HDNA bacteria, “live” bacteria (determined as such with the Molecular Probes Live/Dead BacLight bacterial viability kit), and nucleoid-containing bacteria (NuCC) comprised similar fractions of the total bacterial community. Similarly, LDNA bacteria and “dead” bacteria (determined with the kit) comprised a similar fraction of the total bacterial community in one of the experiments. The rates of change of each type of bacteria during the microcosm experiments were also positively correlated between methods. In various experiments where predator pressure on bacteria had been reduced, we detected growth of the HDNA bacteria without concomitant growth of the LDNA bacteria, such that the percentage contribution of HDNA bacteria to total bacterial numbers (%HDNA) increased. This indicates that the HDNA bacteria are the dynamic members of the bacterial assemblage. Given how quickly and easily the numbers of HDNA and LDNA bacteria can be obtained, and given the similarity to the numbers of “live” cells and NuCC, the %HDNA is suggested as a reference value for the percentage of actively growing bacteria in marine planktonic environments.