Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SpaceFold and PhysicLenses: simultaneous multifocus navigation on touch surfaces

Many tasks performed in multiscale visual spaces require the user to have several foci. Using bimanual interaction, multitouch devices can facilitate the simultaneous definition and exploration of several foci. However, multitouch is rarely used for multifocus navigation, and may limit the interaction to a sequential definition of areas of interest. We introduce two novel navigation techniques that combine multiple foci and bimanual touch, and therefore enable the isochronic definition of areas of interest, leading to simultaneous multifocus navigation. SpaceFold folds the visual space in the third dimension, allowing users to bring objects closer to each other. Our technique enables a direct, bimanual manipulation of a folded space and therefore provides high flexibility. PhysicLenses uses multiple magnification lenses to compare objects. Using a physics model, PhysicLenses introduces a general solution for the arrangement of multiple lenses within the viewport. We conducted a controlled experiment with 24 participants to compare the techniques with split screen. The results show that SpaceFold significantly outperformed all other techniques, whereas PhysicLenses was just as fast as split screen.
Pharmacokinetic profile evaluation of di-μ-hydroxo-bis(quercetinatooxovanadium(IV)) complex

The present study was designed to evaluate the pharmacokinetic (PK) properties of di-μ-hydroxo-bis(quercetinatooxovanadium(IV) (HOBQOV) complex, with hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic properties, in rats after a single i.p. dose of 100 mg/kg b.w. The HOBQOV complex pharmacokinetics is described by a bicompartmental model and the plasma concentration decrease is described by two phases that might be correlated to the distribution and elimination processes. The obtained results suggest a PK profile of the complex suitable for a profound distribution in the animal organism with possibility of interaction with the cytosolic enzymes.
Density control in ITER: an iterative learning control and robust control approach

Plasma density control for next generation tokamaks, such as ITER, is challenging because of multiple reasons. The response of the usual gas valve actuators in future, larger fusion devices, might be too slow for feedback control. Both pellet fuelling and the use of feedforward-based control may help to solve this problem. Also, tight density limits arise during ramp-up, due to operational limits related to divertor detachment and radiative collapses. As the number of shots available for controller tuning will be limited in ITER, in this paper, iterative learning control (ILC) is proposed to determine optimal feedforward actuator inputs based on tracking errors, obtained in previous shots. This control method can take the actuator and density limits into account and can deal with large actuator delays. However, a purely feedforward-based density control may not be sufficient due to the presence of disturbances and shot-to-shot differences. Therefore, robust control synthesis is used to construct a robustly stabilizing feedback controller. In simulations, it is shown that this combined controller strategy is able to achieve good tracking performance in the presence of shot-to-shot differences, tight constraints, and model mismatches.
Recent lung cancer patterns in younger age-cohorts in Ireland

Background Smoking causes 85% of all lung cancers in males and 70% in females. Therefore, birth cohort analysis and annual-percent-changes (APC) in age-specific lung cancer mortality rates, particularly in the youngest age cohorts, can explain the beneficial impacts of both past and recent anti-smoking interventions. Methods A long-term time-trend analysis (1958-2002) in lung cancer mortality rates focusing on the youngest age-cohorts (30-49 years of age) in particular was investigated in Ireland. The rates were standardised to the World Standard Population. Lung cancer mortality data were downloaded from the WHO Cancer Mortality Database to estimate APCs in death rates, using the Joinpoint regression (version 3.0) program. A simple age-cohort modelling (log-linear Poisson model) was also done, using SAS software. Results The youngest birth cohorts (born after 1965) have almost one-fourth lower lung cancer risk relative to those born around the First World War. A more than 50% relative decline in death rates among those between 35 and 39 years of age was observed in both sexes in recent years. The youngest age-cohorts (30-39 years of age) in males also showed a significant decrease in death rates in 1998-2002 by more than 3% every five years from 1958-1962 onwards. However, death rate declines in females are slower. Conclusions The youngest birth cohorts had the lowest lung cancer risk and also showed a significant decreasing lung cancer death rate in the most recent years. Such temporal patterns indicate the beneficial impacts of both recent and past tobacco control efforts in Ireland. However, the decline in younger female cohorts is slower. A comprehensive national tobacco control program enforced on evidence-based policies elsewhere can further accelerate a decline in death rates, especially among the younger generations.
Increase in Serum Ca2+/Mg2+ Ratio Promotes Proliferation of Prostate Cancer Cells by Activating TRPM7 Channels*

Background: Mg2+ concentration regulates MagNuM channels; however, their role in prostate cancer is not known. Results: TRPM7 functions as an endogenous MagNuM channel, which facilitates Ca2+ entry at low Mg2+ levels and promotes cell proliferation. Conclusion: Alteration in Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio could lead to prostate cancer. Significance: Learning how extra/intracellular Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio is regulated is crucial for understanding and/or diagnosis of prostate cancer. TRPM7 is a novel magnesium-nucleotide-regulated metal current (MagNuM) channel that is regulated by serum Mg2+ concentrations. Changes in Mg2+ concentration have been shown to alter cell proliferation in various cells; however, the mechanism and the ion channel(s) involved have not yet been identified. Here we demonstrate that TRPM7 is expressed in control and prostate cancer cells. Supplementation of intracellular Mg-ATP or addition of external 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate inhibited MagNuM currents. Furthermore, silencing of TRPM7 inhibited whereas overexpression of TRPM7 increased endogenous MagNuM currents, suggesting that these currents are dependent on TRPM7. Importantly, although an increase in the serum Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio facilitated Ca2+ influx in both control and prostate cancer cells, a significantly higher Ca2+ influx was observed in prostate cancer cells. TRPM7 expression was also increased in cancer cells, but its expression was not dependent on the Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio per se. Additionally, an increase in the extracellular Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio led to a significant increase in cell proliferation of prostate cancer cells when compared with control cells. Consistent with these results, age-matched prostate cancer patients also showed a subsequent increase in the Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio and TRPM7 expression. Altogether, we provide evidence that the TRPM7 channel has an important role in prostate cancer and have identified that the Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio could be essential for the initiation/progression of prostate cancer.
Proteome analysis of the model microsymbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti: Isolation and characterisation of novel proteins

Sinorhizobium meliloti is an agriculturally and ecologically important microbe due to its capacity to establish nitrogen‐fixing symbiosis with plant legumes. Two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis of total cellular protein was used to establish a proteome reference map for the model microsymbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti strain 1021. The extent of changes in the gene expression of cells grown in a defined medium at different growth phases was established. After examination of over 2000 resolved protein spots, a minimum of 52 reproducible changes in protein expression levels were detected when early exponential phase cells were compared to late exponential phase cells. In contrast, induction of nodulation gene expression by the addition of the flavonoid luteolin to cells did not result in detectable changes in protein expression at either early or late exponential phase. N‐terminal microsequencing of eighteen unknown constitutive proteins plus four proteins, induced or up‐regulated in late exponential phase cells, allowed the identification of proteins not previously described in rhizobia. These included an amide‐binding protein, a putative hydrolase of the glyoxalase II protein family, a nucleoside diphosphate kinase, and a 5′‐nucleotidase. N‐terminal microsequencing was also valuable in revealing N‐terminal post‐translational processing and assigning a subcellular location to the analysed protein. Proteome analysis will provide a powerful analytical tool to complement the sequencing of the genome of strain 1021.
Tractable Reasoning with Incomplete First-Order Knowledge in Dynamic Systems with Context-Dependent Actions

A basic reasoning problem in dynamic systems is the projection problem: determine if a formula holds after a sequence of actions has been performed. In this paper, we propose a tractable solution to the projection problem in the presence of incomplete first-order knowledge and contextdependent actions. Our solution is based on a type of progression, that is, we progress the initial knowledge base (KB) wrt the action sequence and answer the query against the resulting KB. The form of reasoning we propose is always logically sound and is also logically complete when the query is in a certain normal form and the agent has complete knowledge about the context of any context-dependent actions.
Coevolved Crypts and Exocrine Glands Support Mutualistic Bacteria in Fungus-Growing Ants

Attine ants engage in a quadripartite symbiosis with fungi they cultivate for food, specialized garden parasites, and parasite-inhibiting bacteria. Molecular phylogenetic evidence supports an ancient host-pathogen association between the ant-cultivar mutualism and the garden parasite. Here we show that ants rear the antibiotic-producing bacteria in elaborate cuticular crypts, supported by unique exocrine glands, and that these structures have been highly modified across the ants' evolutionary history. This specialized structural evolution, together with the absence of these bacteria and modifications in other ant genera that do not grow fungus, indicate that the bacteria have an ancient and coevolved association with the ants, their fungal cultivar, and the garden parasite.
Chinese Semantic Role Labeling using High-quality Syntactic Knowledge

This paper presents an application of Chinese syntactic knowledge for semantic role labeling (SRL). Besides basic morphological information, syntactic structures are crucial in SRL. However, it is difficult to learn such information from limited, small-scale, manually annotated training data. Instead of manually increasing the size of annotated data, we use a large amount of automatically extracted syntactic knowledge to improve the performance of SRL.
Isolating a Vertex via Lattices: Polytopes with Totally Unimodular Faces

We present a geometric approach towards derandomizing the Isolation Lemma by Mulmuley, Vazirani, and Vazirani. In particular, our approach produces a quasi-polynomial family of weights, where each weight is an integer and quasi-polynomially bounded, that can isolate a vertex in any 0/1 polytope for which each face lies in an affine space defined by a totally unimodular matrix. This includes the polytopes given by totally unimodular constraints and generalizes the recent derandomization of the Isolation Lemma for bipartite perfect matching and matroid intersection. We prove our result by associating a lattice to each face of the polytope and showing that if there is a totally unimodular kernel matrix for this lattice, then the number of vectors of length within 3/2 of the shortest vector in it is polynomially bounded. The proof of this latter geometric fact is combinatorial and follows from a polynomial bound on the number of circuits of size within 3/2 of the shortest circuit in a regular matroid. This is the technical core of the paper and relies on a variant of Seymour's decomposition theorem for regular matroids. It generalizes an influential result by Karger on the number of minimum cuts in a graph to regular matroids.
Association of Oxidative Stress Markers with Atherogenic Index of Plasma in Adult Sickle Cell Nephropathy

This paper evaluates the association of oxidative stress and atherogenic index of plasma in order to assess the cardiovascular risk in Sickle cell nephropathy especially as lipoprotein levels are lower in SCD than non-SCD patients. Antioxidant enzymes, malondialdehyde(MDA), urea, creatinine, and glomerular filtration rate were evaluated in 110 confirmed sickle cell disease patients: 65 males in steady state, aged 21.1 ± 6.0 years, 30 males with macroalbuminuria, aged 24.5 ± 7.0, years and 15 with chronic kidney disease (CKD), aged 31.8 ± 2.0 years. The mean activity levels of glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (Cu/ZnSOD), and catalase (CAT) were significantly lower (P < 0.001) in SCD with macroalbuminuria and CKD while MDA was higher (P < 0.001) in SCD with macroalbuminuria and CKD compared with controls. There was negative correlation between GPx (P < 0.001), Cu/ZnSOD (P < 0.02), and Atherogenic index of plasma in SCD with CKD, while MDA shows a positive correlation (P < 0.001) with AIP in SCD with CKD. There was however no correlation between CAT and AIP. Decreased activity levels of antioxidant enzymes and low HDL-cholesterol concentration were confirmed in adult SCD with CKD in Nigerians. The increase oxidative stress and high atherogenic index in CKD may accelerate the process of cardiovascular complications in adult SCD patients. Atherogenic index of plasma was negatively correlated with antioxidant enzymes and positively with MDA.
Visualization and probability-based scoring of structural variants within repetitive sequences

Motivation: Repetitive sequences account for approximately half of the human genome. Accurately ascertaining sequences in these regions with next generation sequencers is challenging, and requires a different set of analytical techniques than for reads originating from unique sequences. Complicating the matter are repetitive regions subject to programmed rearrangements, as is the case with the antigen-binding domains in the Immunoglobulin (Ig) and T-cell receptor (TCR) loci. Results: We developed a probability-based score and visualization method to aid in distinguishing true structural variants from alignment artifacts. We demonstrate the usefulness of this method in its ability to separate real structural variants from false positives generated with existing upstream analysis tools. We validated our approach using both target-capture and whole-genome experiments. Capture sequencing reads were generated from primary lymphoid tumors, cancer cell lines and an EBV-transformed lymphoblast cell line over the Ig and TCR loci. Whole-genome sequencing reads were from a lymphoblastoid cell-line. Availability: We implement our method as an R package available at https://github.com/Eitan177/targetSeqView. Code to reproduce the figures and results are also available. Contact: ehalper2@jhmi.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A Multi-Agent System for Predicting Future Event Outcomes (Extended Abstract)

Forecasting the outcome of events that will happen in the future is a frequently indulged and important task for humans. Despite the ubiquity of the forecasts, predicting the outcome of future events is a challenging task for humans or even computers it requires extremely complex calculations involving a reasonable amount of domain knowledge, significant amounts of information processing and accurate reasoning. Recently, a market-based paradigm called prediction markets has shown ample success to solve this problem by using the aggregated ‘wisdom of the crowds’ to predict the outcome of future events. This is evidenced from the successful predictions of actual events done by the Iowa Electronic Marketplace(IEM), Tradesports, Hollywood Stock Exchange, the Gates-Hillman market, etc., and by companies such as Hewlett Packard, Google and Yahoo’s Yootles. A prediction market consists of human traders and future events whose outcome has not yet been determined. Traders bet their money on the possible future outcome of the events. A security is a financial instrument like a financial stock that is associated with an event. Each event can have one or more securities associated with it. Traders can buy or sell one or more of the securities for each event at a time. The decision of a trader to buy or sell a particular security depends on the trader’s current belief about the outcome of the event. This belief is expressed as a price corresponding to the security. A prediction market also includes a central entity (e.g., the company running the prediction market) that aggregates the prices (or beliefs) from the market’s traders into a single price, called the market price. This market price of a security represents the price at which the security can be bought or
Quality Criteria for Multiagent-based Simulations with Conservative Synchronisation

The concept of multiagent-based simulation introduces the agent programming paradigm to simulation. Multiagent systems ease the implementation of software systems to control complex business processes, such as supply chain management (SCM). Problem complexity is decreased by abolishing monolithic programs. Instead, decision-making is delegated to software agents as local entities. This allows coping even with processes that cannot be controlled centrally due to their inherent physical distribution. Simulation allows evaluating logistics strategies regarding their applicability in such processes. However, general agent development frameworks are not designed to consider simulation-specific issues. In particular, they provide no means for synchronisation. This paper identifies time model adequacy, causality, and reproducibility as quality criteria that must be ensured by a simulation middleware implementing synchronisation. Furthermore, a formal definition of these quality criteria for conservative synchronisation is presented.
Randomized controlled trial of mailed personalized feedback for problem drinkers in the emergency department: the short-term impact.

BACKGROUND Evidence exists for the efficacy of emergency department (ED)-based brief alcohol interventions, but attempts to incorporate face-to-face interventions into routine ED practice have been hampered by time, financial, and attitudinal constraints. Mailed personalized feedback, which is likely to be more feasible, has been associated with reduced alcohol consumption in other settings, but its cost-effectiveness in the ED has not been examined. METHODS The intervention was evaluated with a randomized controlled trial of patients presenting to 5 rural EDs in New South Wales, Australia. Patients aged 14 years and older were screened using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and those scoring 8 or more were randomly allocated to the intervention or control group. Participants in the intervention group received mailed personalized feedback regarding their alcohol consumption. The control group received no feedback. RESULTS Two hundred and forty-four (80%) participants were successfully followed up at 6 weeks. A significant effect of the mailed feedback was observed only in patients with an alcohol-involved ED presentation. Among this subgroup of participants, those in the intervention group consumed 12.2 fewer drinks per week than the control group after controlling for baseline consumption and other covariates (effect size d = 0.59). The intervention was associated with an average cost of Australian $5.83 per patient, and among participants with an alcohol-involved ED presentation, an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of 0.48. CONCLUSIONS Mailed personalized feedback is efficacious in reducing quantity/frequency of alcohol consumption among patients with alcohol-involved ED presentations. Mailed feedback has high cost-efficacy and a low absolute cost, making it a promising candidate for integration into ED care.
Concentration of measure for the analysis of randomized algorithms by Devdatt P. Dubhashi and Alessandro Panconesi Cambridge University Press, 2009

Randomized algorithms have become a central part of the algorithms curriculum based on their increasingly widespread use in modern applications. This book presents a coherent and unified treatment of probabilistic techniques for obtaining high- probability estimates on the performance of randomized algorithms. It covers the basic tool kit from the Chernoff-Hoeffding (CH) bounds to more sophisticated techniques like Martingales and isoperimetric inequalities, as well as some recent developments like Talagrand's inequality, transportation cost inequalities, and log-Sobolev inequalities. Along the way, variations on the basic theme are examined, such as CH bounds in dependent settings. The authors emphasize comparative study of the different methods, highlighting respective strengths and weaknesses in concrete example applications. The exposition is tailored to discrete settings sufficient for the analysis of algorithms, avoiding unnecessary measure-theoretic details, thus making the book accessible to computer scientists as well as probabilists and discrete mathematicians.
Hipparcos distance estimates of the Ophiuchus and the Lupus cloud complexes

We combine extinction maps from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) with Hipparcos and Tycho parallaxes to obtain reliable and high-precision estimates of the distance to the Ophiuchus and Lupus dark complexes. Our analysis, based on a rigorous maximumlikelihood approach, shows that the ρ-Ophiuchi cloud is located at (119 ± 6) pc and the Lupus complex is located at (155 ± 8) pc; in addition, we are able to put constraints on the thickness of the clouds and on their orientation on the sky (both these effects are not included in the error estimate quoted above). For Ophiuchus, we find some evidence that the streamers are closer to us than the core. The method applied in this paper is currently limited to nearby molecular clouds, but it will find many natural applications in the GAIA-era, when it will be possible to pin down the distance and three-dimensional structure of virtually every molecular cloud in the Galaxy.
Voicing Chicana Feminisms: Young Women Speak Out on Sexuality and Identity

1. The Research ContextPart I: The Development of Self: Existing within a Family2. Growing up Female3. Becoming Family: Women's Relationships to Their ParentsReview of Part I: Implications for Feminist TheorizingPart II: Multiple Group Identities: Existing in the World4. Believers5. Workers6. LoversReview of Part II: Implications for Feminist TheorizingPart III: Living and Speaking Feminisms7. Negotiating the Color Line8. Chicanas Speak Feminisms9. Political UnderstandingsReview of Part III: Implications for Feminist Theorizing10. Conclusions and Ruminations
Inertial sensor-based humanoid joint state estimation

This work presents methods for the determination of a humanoid robot's joint velocities and accelerations directly from link-mounted Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) each containing a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer. No information about the global pose of the floating base or its links is required and precise knowledge of the link IMU poses is not necessary due to presented calibration routines. Additionally, a filter is introduced to fuse gyroscope angular velocities with joint position measurements and compensate the computed joint velocities for time-varying gyroscope biases. The resulting joint velocities are subject to less noise and delay than filtered velocities computed from numerical differentiation of joint potentiometer signals, leading to superior performance in joint feedback control as demonstrated in experiments performed on a SARCOS hydraulic humanoid.