Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Remote Conversations: The Effects of Mediating Talk With Technology

Three different videoconferencing systems for supporting multiparty, remote conversations are described and evaluated experimentally. The three systems differed by how many participants were visible at once, their spatial arrangement, and control over who was seen. Conversations using these systems were compared to same-room (Experiment 1) and audio-only (Experiment 2) conversations. Specialized speech-tracking equipment recorded the on-off patterns of speech that allowed objective measurement of structural aspects of the conversations, such as turn length, pauses, and interruptions. Questionnaires and interviews also documented participants' opinions and perceptions in the various settings. Contrary to expectation, systems in which visual cues such as selective gaze were absent produced no differences in turn-taking or in any other aspect of the structure of conversation. In fact, turn-taking was unaffected even when visual information was completely absent. Overall, only the same-room condition showed any significant differences from any other condition; people in the same room produced more interruptions and fewer formal handovers of the floor than in any of the technology-mediated conditions. In this respect, the audio-only and video systems examined in these studies were equivalent. However, analyses of participants' perceptions showed that participants felt that visual access in mediated conversations was both important and beneficial in conversation. Further, there were indications that the particular design of the different video systems did affect some aspects of conversational behavior, such as the ability to hold side and parallel conversations.
A human‐specific mutation leads to the origin of a novel splice form of neuropsin (KLK8), a gene involved in learning and memory

Neuropsin (kallikrein 8, KLK8) is a secreted‐type serine protease preferentially expressed in the central nervous system and involved in learning and memory. Its splicing pattern is different in human and mouse, with the longer form (type II) only expressed in human. Sequence analysis suggested a recent origin of type II during primate evolution. Here we demonstrate that the type II form is absent in nonhuman primates, and is thus a human‐specific splice form. With the use of an in vitro splicing assay, we show that a human‐specific T to A mutation (c.71–127T>A) triggers the change of splicing pattern, leading to the origin of a novel splice form in the human brain. Using mutation assay, we prove that this mutation is not only necessary but also sufficient for type II expression. Our results demonstrate a molecular mechanism for the creation of novel proteins through alternative splicing in the central nervous system during human evolution. Hum Mutat 28(10), 978–984, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Fine structure of the spermatophore and spermatozoa in inseminated females of Pergamasus mites (Acari: Gamasida: Pergamasidae)

This study describes the spermatophore of Pergamasus mites after transfer into the female endogynial sac and modifications of the structure of the female‐penetrating spermatozoa. The spermatophore is saccular and contains largely unmodified spermatozoa and variously structured secretions. The spermatozoa that leave the spermatophore reach the inner (proximal) end of the vaginal duct where they presumably escape from the genital tract to continue their route through the hemocoel into the ovarian tissue where fertilization occurs. During this transit, the structure of such spermatozoa changes considerably, in particular when in contact with the ovary. These alterations include modifications of the cell periphery and of certain inclusion bodies. Furthermore, the spermatozoa form protrusions that fit into corresponding invaginations of the somatic tissue of the ovary. J. Morphol. 245:1–18, 2000 © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
ChoreoGraphics: an authoring environment for dance shows

Novel graphics technologies have had a great impact on the movie industry, allowing the combination of real actors with virtual ones that are synthesized from captured performances. Although applications of these resources in other media have so far been little explored, recent trends indicates that artists will soon begin to use them creatively to produce new visual effects in dance shows, concerts, musicals and other spectacles. An important research direction that will allow this revolution to, in fact, take place is the development of authoring environments that serve as a bridge between artists and the emerging technologies.
On the security of an ID-based anonymous proxy signature scheme and its improved scheme

As an important delegation technique, proxy signature was introduced in 1996 by Mambo, Usuda, and Okamoto. And many variants of proxy signature schemes have been proposed. In some cases, to protect privacy of proxy signer, the identity of proxy signer is hidden. Recently, to satisfy the requirement of proxy signer’s privacy protection, Hu et al. gave an enhanced ID-based anonymous proxy signature scheme from pairings, in which it allows that proxy signature produces an anonymous signature on behalf of original signer, and the identity of proxy signer is hidden. Meanwhile, it also allows the original signer to trace the actual identity of proxy signer. Unfortunately, in this paper, by analysing the scheme, we show that the scheme is insecure. It is universally forgeable, namely, anyone can produce an anonymous proxy signature on an arbitrary message. And the original signer can not also trace the actual identity of proxy signer. Finally, we give the corresponding attacks on the scheme and the reasons to pr.
Microwave and millimeter wave power amplifiers: Technology, applications, benchmarks, future trends

Solid State Transistor Device Technology is ubiquitous in communications, radar, electronic warfare, and instrumentation applications. This presentation will cover Si LDMOS, PHEMT, InP HEMT/MHEMT and GaN HEMT. Content includes principles of operation, structures, characteristics, classes of operation, and device state of the art benchmarks. The art of power amplifier design is approached from a historical perspective. Power amplifiers utilizing these device technologies covering UHF through sub-millimeter wave are described including amplifier state of the art benchmarks. Future trends are highlighted and summarized.
Trapping dust particles in the outer regions of protoplanetary disks

In order to explain grain growth to mm sized particles and their retention in outer regions of protoplanetary disks, as it is observed at sub-mm and mm wavelengths, we investigate if strong inhomogeneities in the gas density profiles can slow down excessive radial drift and can help dust particles to grow. We use coagulation/fragmentation and disk-structure models, to simulate the evolution of dust in a bumpy surface density profile which we mimic with a sinusoidal disturbance. For different values of the amplitude and length scale of the bumps, we investigate the ability of this model to produce and retain large particles on million years time scales. In addition, we introduced a comparison between the pressure inhomogeneities considered in this work and the pressure profiles that come from magnetorotational instability. Using the Common Astronomy Software Applications ALMA simulator, we study if there are observational signatures of these pressure inhomogeneities that can be seen with ALMA. We present the favorable conditions to trap dust particles and the corresponding calculations predicting the spectral slope in the mm-wavelength range, to compare with current observations. Finally we present simulated images using different antenna configurations of ALMA at different frequencies, to show that the ring structures will be detectable at the distances of the Taurus Auriga or Ophiucus star forming regions.
Partnerships to Design Novel Regimens to Treat Childhood Tuberculosis, Sui Generis: The Road Ahead

There has been a recent expansion of preclinical models to predict the efficacy of regimens to treat adults with tuberculosis. Despite increasing global interest in childhood tuberculosis, these same tools have not been employed to develop pediatric regimens. Children differ from adults in bacillary burden, spectrum of disease, the metabolism and distribution of antituberculosis drugs, and the toxicity experienced. The studies documented in this series describe a proof-of-concept approach to pediatric regimen development. We propose a program of investigation that would take this forward into a systematic and comprehensive method to find optimal drug combinations to use in children, ideal exposures, and required dosing. Although the number of possible drug combinations is extensive, a series of principles could be employed to select likely effective regimens. Regimens should avoid drugs with overlapping toxicity or linked mechanisms of resistance and should aim to include drugs with different mechanisms of action and ones that are able to target different subpopulations of mycobacteria. Finally drugs should penetrate into body sites necessary for treating pediatric disease. At an early stage, this body of work would need to engage with regulatory agencies and bodies that formulate guidelines, so that once regimens and dosages are identified, translation into clinical studies and clinical practice can be rapid. The development of child-friendly drug formulations would need to be carried out in parallel so that pharmacokinetic studies can be undertaken as formulations are created. Significant research and development would be required and a wide range of stakeholders would need to be engaged. The time is right to consider a more thoughtful and systematic approach toward identifying, testing, and comparing combinations of drugs for children with tuberculosis.
Learning Recursive Segments for Discourse Parsing

Automatically detecting discourse segments is an important preliminary step towards full discourse parsing. Previous research on discourse segmentation have relied on the assumption that elementary discourse units (EDUs) in a document always form a linear sequence (i.e., they can never be nested). Unfortunately, this assumption turns out to be too strong, for some theories of discourse, like the ""Segmented Discourse Representation Theory"" or SDRT, allow for nested discourse units. In this paper, we present a simple approach to discourse segmentation that is able to produce nested EDUs. Our approach builds on standard multi-class classification techniques making use of a regularized maximum entropy model, combined with a simple repairing heuristic that enforces global coherence. Our system was developed and evaluated on the first round of annotations provided by the French Annodis project (an ongoing effort to create a discourse bank for French). Cross-validated on only 47 documents (1,445 EDUs), our system achieves encouraging performance results with an F-score of 73% for finding EDUs.
Integration of browsing, searching, and filtering in an applet for web information access

Improvements to information access on the World Wide Web has to be considered one of today's strategic challenges. In this paper we present a Java applet called AMIT (Animated Multiscale Interactive TreeViewer) that integrates fisheye tree browsing with search and filtering techniques. Used in combination with a web walker, a search server, and a tree server, it shows promise as a scalable solution to information access in configurable web spaces.
Evaluation of safety and efficacy of NexGen – an ultrathin strut and hybrid cell design cobalt-chromium bare metal stent implanted in a real life patient population – the Polish NexGen Registry

Introduction Despite the dominance of drug-eluting stents in modern interventional cardiology, there is still a niche for bare metal stents. Aim The aim of the Polish NexGen registry was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a new generation cobalt-chromium NexGen stent in a real life patient population. Material and methods A prospective multi-center registry was conducted in five clinical sites of American Heart of Poland. Three hundred and eighty-three patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with NexGen stent implantation were included. Clinical follow-up was performed at 1, 6 and 12 months. Additionally, a group of 42 randomly selected patients underwent control angiography at 6 months (10.96% of study population). The primary endpoint was occurrence of target vessel revascularization (TVR) at 6-month follow-up. Angiographic endpoints included rates of binary restenosis and late lumen loss at 6-month follow-up based on QCA analysis. Multivessel disease was present in more than 70% of patients, and 52.4% of lesions were complex. The main indications for angiography were non-ST elevation acute coronary syndromes (54.8%) and ST elevation myocardial infarction (34.99%). Results At 6-month follow-up 47 (12.7%) patients reached the primary endpoint of TVR. The composite of major acute cardiac event rates at 30-day and 6- and 12-month follow-up was 6.01% (n = 23), 18.5% (n = 69) and 25.21% (n = 92) respectively. Control angiography performed after 6 months showed in-stent late loss of 0.66 ±0.71 mm and a binary restenosis rate of 16.7%. Conclusions Our study showed that PCI with the NexGen stent is safe and effective at 6- and 12-month follow-up. Angiographic results showed a satisfactory restenosis rate and low late lumen loss.
Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering for Marine Carotenoids: New Opportunities and Future Prospects

Carotenoids are a class of diverse pigments with important biological roles such as light capture and antioxidative activities. Many novel carotenoids have been isolated from marine organisms to date and have shown various utilizations as nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. In this review, we summarize the pathways and enzymes of carotenoid synthesis and discuss various modifications of marine carotenoids. The advances in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for carotenoid production are also reviewed, in hopes that this review will promote the exploration of marine carotenoid for their utilizations.
EXTENDED EXPERIMENTAL EXPLORATIONS OF THE NECESSITY OF USER GUIDANCE IN CASE-BASED LEARNING

This is an extended report focussing on experimental results to explore the necessity of user guidance in case-based knowledge acquisition. It is covering a collection of theoretical investigations as well. The methodology of our approach is quite simple: We choose a well-understood area which is tailored to case-based knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, we choose a prototypical case-based learning algorithm which is obviously suitable for the problem domain under consideration. Then, we perform a number of knowledge acquisition experiments. They clearly exhibit essential limitations of knowledge acquisition from randomly chosen cases. As a consequence, we develop scenarios of user guidance. Based on these theoretical concepts, we prove a few theoretical results characterizing the power of our approach. Next, we perform a new series of more constrained results which support our theoretical investigations. The main experiments deal with the di culties of learning from randomly arranged data in 4 di erent formal settings. The key insight is that even the right data do not su ce, if they are not arranged appropriately. The present report aims at presenting a large amount of experimental data exceeding the space available in conference proceedings, usually. We are reporting more than a million of individual learning experiments, each of them comprising several steps Part of this work has been supported by the German Research Fund (DFG) within the project IND{CBL under contract no. Ja 566/3{3. of generating hypotheses (2 500 per run 1 , in some cases). First results have been presented at the 1996 Paci c Knowledge Acquisition Workshop in Sydney, Australia. A much shorter version of this report will be presented on FLAIRS{97, the Florida AI Research Symposium in Daytona Beach, FL, USA, May 1997.
Joint Estimation of Channel Impulse Response and Carrier Frequency Offset for OFDM Systems

In this paper, an order recursive method is proposed to solve the joint estimation of channel impulse response (CIR) and carrier frequency offset (CFO) for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission. As long as one can obtain the solution for Qth-order Taylor expansion, the solution for (Q + 1)th order can also be obtained via a simple recursive relation. The proposed recursive algorithm actually provides a method to handle any Qth-order Taylor expansion, instead of just the second order adopted in the technical literature. Significant improvement can be observed by adopting higher order approximation. Analytical mean-square-error (MSE) performance results are given, demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Distributed Interval Optimization with Stochastic Zeroth-order Oracle.

In this paper, we investigate a distributed interval optimization problem which is modeled with optimizing a sum of convex interval-valued objective functions subject to global convex constraints, corresponding to agents over a time-varying network. We first reformulate the distributed interval optimization problem as a distributed constrained optimization problem by scalarization. Then, we design a stochastic zeroth-order algorithm to solve the reformulated distributed problem, optimal solutions of which are also proved to be Pareto optimal solutions of the distributed interval optimization problem. Moreover, we construct the explicit convergence and the convergence rate in expectation of the given algorithm. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Hydrological modelling of the Zambezi River Basin taking into account floodplain behaviour by a modified reservoir approach

ABSTRACT Floodplains are regions of great interest for environmental assessment as they constitute important ecological reserves and contribute efficiently to natural flood attenuation. However, the implementation of a model describing the basic hydrological behaviour of floodplains is not an easy task due to the complexity of the processes included. Although several attempts have been made to simulate floodplain effects in global rainfall-runoff models, no satisfactory routines have been developed yet. In this study, an adapted version of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (2009) reservoir model is proposed and applied to the Zambezi Basin at daily time step with the intention of adequately modelling floodplain behaviour. The model separates the outflow of the reservoir simulating the floodplain into main channel flow and flow over the floodplain area. The improved solution was compared with the original model regarding its potential to simulate observed discharges in terms of volume ratio, the Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient and hydrograph plots. These evaluation criteria attest, for both calibration and validation periods, that the modified model is superior to the original one for simulating the discharge downstream of large floodplains. A sensitivity analysis is carried out at two geographical levels: at the outlet of a floodplain and at the outlet of the entire basin. The results show that upper flow parameters are more sensitive than base flow parameters.
Estimating software fault content before coding

The standard software development process consists of multiple stages: requirements, design, coding, system test, first office, and finally delivery. An objective of this process is to minimize the number of faults in delivered code. Root cause analysis shows that many of the faults can be traced back to requirements or design faults. As part of the software development process, reviews are conducted to remove these faults before the requirements or design document is passed on to the next step. We have developed a method of instrumenting a review process to record document faults discovered by reviewers during their preparation. Then, using statistical techniques related to capture-recapture methods, we estimate the number of undiscovered faults remaining in the document. The key idea to our method is to look at how many common faults independent reviewers find and then extrapolate to die total number of faults. We do not seed the document with artificial faults - no additional faults are introduced. We have applied our methods to 13 review sessions (either feature requirements or feature design) and are in the process of a longitudinal study tracing these features. Our results to date estimate that about 20% of the faults are undetected by reviews. When the predicted number of undetected faults is greater than 20%, consideration should be given to reworking design and/or rereviewing the result. One surprising by-product of this study is a quantification of the number of faults found by group reviews. We find that only about 10% of the (discovered) document faults are found at the review (90% are found in preparation) and that the lead time to schedule a review is about ten working days.
Ion-Acoustic Rogue Waves in Multi-ion Plasmas

The basic properties of nonlinear ion-acoustic (IA) waves (IAWs), particularly finite amplitude IA rogue waves (IARWs) in a plasma medium (containing pair ions, iso-thermal positrons, and non-thermal electrons) are theoretically investigated by deriving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE). The criteria for the modulational instability of IAWs, and the basic features of finite amplitude IARWs are identified. The modulationally stable and unstable regions are determined by the sign of the ratio of the dispersive coefficient to the nonlinear coefficient of NLSE. The latter is analyzed to obtain the region for the existence of the IARWs, which corresponds to the unstable region. The shape of the profile of the rogue waves depends on the non-thermal parameter α and the ratio of electron temperature to positron temperature. It is found that the increase in the value of the non-thermal parameter enhances both the amplitude and width of IARWs, and that the enhancement of electron (positron) temperature reduces (enhances) the amplitude and width of IARWs. It is worth to mention that our present investigation may be useful for understanding the salient features of IARWs in space (viz., upper region of Titan’s atmosphere, cometary comae, and Earth’s ionosphere, etc.) and laboratory (viz., plasma processing reactor and neutral beam sources, etc.) plasmas.
Chemoimmunohormonal Therapy With Carmustine, Dacarbazine, Cisplatin, Tamoxifen, and Interferon for Metastatic Melanoma: A Prospective Phase II Study

The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy of our treatment regimen in metastatic melanoma. Thirty patients entered the study after undergoing a thorough metastatic workup. Treatment protocol included carmustine (BCNU) (150 mg/m2 IV, day 1) every 6 weeks, dacarbazine (DTIC) (220 mg/m2 IV, days 1–3), and cisplatin (25 mg/m2 IV, days 1–3) every 3 weeks, interferon A-2B (6 × 106 U/m2 daily s.c. on days 4–8 and 16–20) and tamoxifen 20 mg/day for 6 weeks. Among 29 evaluable patients, overall response was seen in 15 (52%) and complete response in 5 (17%) patients. Median duration of partial response was 4 months (range, 1–12 months); of complete response was 8 months (range, 2–14 months). Complete response continues in two patients with lung metastases. Median survival time was 8.7 months. Side effects were tolerable. Four (13%) patients developed neutropenic fever, and platelet transfusions were required in five (17%) patients. One patient died of neutropenic sepsis. Thrombocytopenia caused prolongation of the median interval between the first and second courses, and drug doses were reduced in the second course in 8 of 26 (31%) patients. Our chemoimmunohormonal regimen is efficient in metastatic malignant melanoma and can induce durable remission. Severe thrombocytopenia leads to a reduction of carmustine dose in a new protocol.