Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ordering as privileged information

We propose to accelerate the rate of convergence of the pattern recognition task by directly minimizing the variance diameters of certain hypothesis spaces, which are critical quantities in fast-convergence results.We show that the variance diameters can be controlled by dividing hypothesis spaces into metric balls based on a new order metric. This order metric can be minimized as an ordinal regression problem, leading to a LUPI (Learning Using Privileged Information) application where we take the privileged information as some desired ordering, and construct a faster-converging hypothesis space by empirically restricting some larger hypothesis space according to that ordering. We give a risk analysis of the approach. We discuss the difficulties with model selection and give an innovative technique for selecting multiple model parameters. Finally, we provide some data experiments.
Relaxed robust stabilization of nonlinear systems with parametric uncertainties

This paper addresses stability analysis and robust stabilization for nonlinear systems in the presence of parametric uncertainties. The Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model with parametric uncertainties is used as the model for the uncertain nonlinear system. Both continuous-time and discrete-time cases of the T-S fuzzy system are considered. In the two cases, sufficient conditions are proposed for robust stabilization in the sense of Lyapunov asymptotic stability, which are represented in the form of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, the T-S fuzzy model of the chaotic Lorenz system, which has complex nonlinearity, is developed as a simulation platform. The validity and applicability of the proposed approach are successfully demonstrated by means of the numerical simulation for the continuous-time nonlinear system.
Depletion of Zebrafish Titin Reduces Cardiac Contractility by Disrupting the Assembly of Z-Discs and A-Bands

The genetic study of titin has been notoriously difficult because of its size and complicated alternative splicing routes. Here, we have used zebrafish as an animal model to investigate the functions of individual titin isoforms. We identified 2 titin orthologs in zebrafish, ttna and ttnb, and annotated the full-length genomic sequences for both genes. We found that ttna, but not ttnb, is required for sarcomere assembly in the heart as well as the subsequent establishment of cardiac contractility. In fact, ttna is the earliest sarcomeric mRNA that is expressed in the heart, which makes it an early molecular marker for cardiomyocyte differentiation. Surprisingly, ttna is required for later steps of sarcomere assembly, including the assembly of Z-discs and A-bands, but not for early steps such as the assembly of Z-bodies and nonstriated myosin filaments. Reduction of individual titin isoforms in vivo using morpholino-modified antisense oligonucleotides indicated that (1) both N2B exon–containing and N2A exon–containing isoforms of ttna are required for sarcomere assembly in the heart; (2) N2A exon–containing isoforms of both ttna and ttnb are required for sarcomere assembly in the somites; and (3) the N2B exon–containing isoforms of ttnb are expressed later than other titin isoforms and are probably involved in modulating their expression; however, these isoforms of ttnb are not required for sarcomere assembly. Collectively, our results reveal distinct functions of different titin isoforms and suggest that various phenotypes in “titinopathies” may be attributable to the disruption of different titin isoforms.
In Vivo Role of Complement-Interacting Domains of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Glycoprotein Gc

Immune evasion is critical for survival of viruses that establish persistent or recurrent infections. However, at the molecular level, little is known about how viruses evade immune attack in vivo. Herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 glycoprotein gC has two domains that are involved in modulating complement activation; one binds C3, and the other is required for blocking C5 and properdin (P) binding to C3. To evaluate the importance of these regions in vivo, HSV-1 gC mutant viruses were constructed that lacked one or both gC domains and studied in a murine model of infection. Each gC region of complement regulation contributed to virulence; however, the C3 binding domain was far more important, as virus lacking this domain was much less virulent than virus lacking the C5/P inhibitory domain and was as attenuated as virus lacking both domains. Studies in C3 knockout mice and mice reconstituted with C3 confirmed that the gC domains are inhibitors of complement activation, accounting for a 50-fold difference in virulence between mutant and wild-type viruses. We conclude that the C3 binding domain on gC is a major contributor to immune evasion and that this site explains at a molecular level why wild-type virus resists complement attack.
You shall be taught what you need to know, both for your soul and bodies? (Annual report of the Manchester Juvenile Reformatory, 1857). The Archaeology of Philanthropic Housing and the Development of the Modern Citizen.

This thesis is submitted by Gordon Stewart Marino to the University of Manchester for consideration of the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 2012. It is entitled: ? You shall be taught what you need to know, both for your soul and bodies? (Annual Report of the Manchester Juvenile Reformatory, 1857). The Archaeology of Philanthropic Housing and the Development of the Modern Citizen.When Frank Prochaska first published his studies on philanthropy, he provided the most in-depth scholarship to date. But this research is now over 20 years old and is ready for review. It is also a purely historical analysis, with little archaeological content. This research seeks to enhance Prochaska? s findings, using the archaeological record to evaluate, augment and further develop his findings.A complex web of personal and societal motivations interweave through individual philanthropic activity. Most research to date ignores this interconnectedness, or relegates it to subordinate status, producing a simplistic model. This research seeks to explore the relationship between personal impulse and societal pressure, investigating the affiliation between the two in diverse case studies, both UK and international. This is accomplished through archaeological methodology, and the exploration of material culture.The model proposed in this research provides a recognition of the complexity of personal and communal action. It draws heavily on a theoretical perspective that includes Bourdieu and Giddens. It places these theoretical perspectives within a practical and appropriate framework, to provide a robust analysis of change through philanthropic action. As such it complements much of the research of Prochaska, whilst providing a modern interpretation.
A Hybrid Technique for Deterministic Algorithms with a Shortest Path Example

A general hybridization technique, potentially effective in improving algorithmic efficiency, is presented for deterministic algorithms. Extensions of existing hybrid techniques for nondeterministic algorithms to deterministic ones are also described. The new technique uses one or more input parameters to predict the behavior of a group of algorithms and then takes advantage of the fastest method for that instance. We have applied this technique to Dijkstra''s and Floyd''s algorithms for the shortest path problem to create a hybrid dependent on the size and density of the input graph. An analysis based on complexity of the algorithms confirms our empirical results. We have also presented a performance gain analysis that quantifies the significant improvement due the new algorithm. The hybrid algorithm was able to provide 16% and 26% improvement over each parent algorithm respectively, for large graphs and a uniform distribution of density.
Autonomous parking: A unified motion planning framework based on simultaneous dynamic optimization

Autonomous parking refers to driving a vehicle into a parking spot without manual operation. The emerging and prevailing methods are either effective on specific scenarios only or focus on overly simplified scenarios, lacking the capability to tackle general cases. In our viewpoint, a general parking motion planning problem is a dynamic optimization problem associated with complicated constraints. This paper proposes a unified formulation that can cover various kinds of parking scenarios when time-optimal solutions are pursued. First, we use differential equations to describe the kinematics of a car, and then use algebraic equalities/inequalities to restrict the car not collide with the parking slot frontiers. Through this, we formulate a time-optimal dynamic optimization (DO) problem that is identical to the original parking motion planning mission. Thereafter, the formulated DO is solved by a simultaneous approach. Although we pursue for time-optimal motions, this approach can be extended to consider other user-specific optimization criteria (such as minimum driving length or minimal fuel usage) with almost none additional effort.
Magnetic helicity in stellar dynamos: new numerical experiments

The theory of large scale dynamos is reviewed with particular emphasis on the magnetic helicity constraint in the presence of closed and open boundaries. In the presence of closed or periodic boundaries, helical dynamos respond to the helicity constraint by developing small scale separation in the kinematic regime, and by showing long time scales in the nonlinear regime where the scale separation has grown to the maximum possible value. A resistively limited evolution towards saturation is also found at intermediate scales before the largest scale of the system is reached. Larger aspect ratios can give rise to different structures of the mean field which are obtained at early times, but the final saturation field strength is still decreasing with decreasing resistivity. In the presence of shear, cyclic magnetic fields are found whose period is increasing with decreasing resistivity, but the saturation energy of the mean field is in strong super-equipartition with the turbulent energy. It is shown that artificially induced losses of small scale field of opposite sign of magnetic helicity as the large scale field can, at least in principle, accelerate the production of large scale (poloidal) field. Based on mean field models with an outer potential field boundary condition in spherical geometry, we verify that the sign of the magnetic helicity flux from the large scale field agrees with the sign of alpha. For solar parameters, typical magnetic helicity fluxes lie around 10^{47} Mx^2 per cycle.
Effect of Alendronate Administration on Bone Mineral Density and Bone Strength in Castrated Rats

Castration of male rats leads to increased bone turnover and osteopenia. This study was conducted to examine the effects of the aminobisphosphonate alendronate on castration-induced bone changes. Bisphosphonates are drugs that inhibit bone turnover by decreasing the resorption. Since they suppress bone remodeling, they may also prevent the repair of microdamage and decrease bone strength. Although the mechanical properties of bones are directly related to the determination of fracture risk, bisphosphonate effects on the related variables have scarcely been investigated. Twenty-four male Wistar rats at two months of age were castrated or sham-operated to evaluate the effects of long-term administration (six months) of sodium alendronate at a dose of 1 mg/kg/day. The bones were tested mechanically by a three-point bending test in a Mini Bionix (MTS) testing system. High bone remodeling seen in castrated rats expressed by increased TrACP and B-ALP was suppressed by alendronate administration. Bone from castrated rats was characterized by a reduction in bone density as well as ash, calcium and phosphate content. Castration significantly altered mechanical properties of bone and femoral cortical thickness. When castrated rats were treated with high dose of alendronate, the changes in bone density resulting from castration were entirely prevented, and mechanical analysis revealed preserved mechanical strength of femur and cortical thickness. We conclude that castration induces cortical bone loss associated with high bone turnover in the male rat, and this bone loss can be prevented by alendronate through the inhibition of osteoclastic activity, while preserving the mechanical properties of bone. These results document the efficacy of alendronate, even at high doses, in preventing bone loss, loss of bone mechanical strength, and the rise in biochemical bone turnover indicators due to castration in rats, and raises the possibility that a alendronate could be equally effective in humans.
Development of a torque-sensorless viscometer for food processing applications

Demands for automatic food processors are growing rapidly year by year. In this paper, a novel viscosity measurement method which can provide real-time monitoring in food processing application has been proposed. Instead of using a torque sensor for the viscosity measurement, the proposed method applies disturbance observer-based estimation technique to the viscometer. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through simulations and experiments.
γ-Mangostin from Garcinia Mangostana Pericarps as a Dual Agonist That Activates Both PPARα and PPARδ

We tested the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)δ agonistic activity of a Garcinia mangostana pericarp extract to develop a treatment for the metabolic syndrome, and demonstrated γ-mangostin to be an active compound on the basis of a luciferase reporter gene assay. γ-Mangostin induced the expression of the uncoupling protein-3 (UCP-3) gene which is related to energy expenditure and fat metabolism in L6 cells. We showed that γ-mangostin is a dual agonist that activates both PPARδ and PPARα. γ-Mangostin also induced the expression of acyl-CoA synthase and carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1A genes in HepG2 cells. These results suggest the potential of γ-mangostin as a preventive agent of the metabolic syndrome.
Secure source coding with action-dependent side information

We consider a secure lossy source coding problem with the presence of an eavesdropper who has access to the source description. An encoder wants to compress the source in such a way that the intended decoder can reconstruct the source sequence and satisfy a distortion criterion, while revealing only limited knowledge about the source to the eavesdropper. In our system an action sequence is generated based on the source description with some costs to influence the side information available to the legitimate decoder and the eavesdropper. We provide a complete characterization of the rate-distortion-cost-equivocation region for a discrete source with correlated action-dependent side information at the decoders. The result serves as a fundamental limit for example in secure sensor networking.
Sensorless Control of PMSM Fractional Horsepower Drives by Signal Injection and Neural Adaptive-Band Filtering

This paper presents a sensorless technique for permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) based on high-frequency pulsating voltage injection. Starting from a speed estimation scheme well known in the literature, this paper proposes the adoption of a neural network (NN) based adaptive variable-band filter instead of a fixed-bandwidth filter, needed for catching the speed information from the sidebands of the stator current. The proposed NN filter is based on a linear NN adaptive linear neuron (ADALINE), trained with a classic least mean squares (LMS) algorithm, and is twice adaptive. From one side, it is adaptive in the sense that its weights are adapted online recursively. From another side, its bandwidth is made adaptive during the running of the drive, acting directly on the learning rate of the NN filter itself. The immediate consequence of adopting a variable-band structure is the possibility to enlarge significantly the working speed range of the sensorless drive, which can be increased by a factor of five. The proposed observer has been tested experimentally on a fractional horsepower PMSM drive and has been compared also with a fixed-bandwidth structure.
A New Approach for Determining Phase Response Curves Reveals that Purkinje Cells Can Act as Perfect Integrators

Cerebellar Purkinje cells display complex intrinsic dynamics. They fire spontaneously, exhibit bistability, and via mutual network interactions are involved in the generation of high frequency oscillations and travelling waves of activity. To probe the dynamical properties of Purkinje cells we measured their phase response curves (PRCs). PRCs quantify the change in spike phase caused by a stimulus as a function of its temporal position within the interspike interval, and are widely used to predict neuronal responses to more complex stimulus patterns. Significant variability in the interspike interval during spontaneous firing can lead to PRCs with a low signal-to-noise ratio, requiring averaging over thousands of trials. We show using electrophysiological experiments and simulations that the PRC calculated in the traditional way by sampling the interspike interval with brief current pulses is biased. We introduce a corrected approach for calculating PRCs which eliminates this bias. Using our new approach, we show that Purkinje cell PRCs change qualitatively depending on the firing frequency of the cell. At high firing rates, Purkinje cells exhibit single-peaked, or monophasic PRCs. Surprisingly, at low firing rates, Purkinje cell PRCs are largely independent of phase, resembling PRCs of ideal non-leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. These results indicate that Purkinje cells can act as perfect integrators at low firing rates, and that the integration mode of Purkinje cells depends on their firing rate.
Greenhouse effect dependence on atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse substances and the nature of climate stability on Earth

Due to the exponential positive feedback between sea surface temperature and saturated water vapour concentration, dependence of the planetary greenhouse e ect on atmospheric water content is critical for stability of a climate with extensive liquid hydrosphere. 5 In this paper on the basis of the law of energy conservation we develop a simple physically transparent approach to description of radiative transfer in an atmosphere containing greenhouse substances. It is shown that the analytical solution of the equation thus derived coincides with the exact solution of the well-known radiative transfer equation to the accuracy of 20% for all values of atmospheric optical depth. The de10 rived equation makes it possible to easily take into account the non-radiative thermal fluxes (convection and latent heat) and obtain an analytical dependence of the greenhouse e ect on atmospheric concentrations of a set of greenhouse substances with arbitrary absorption intervals. The established dependence is used to analyse stability of the modern climate of 15 Earth. It is shown that the modern value of global mean surface temperature, which corresponds to the liquid state of the terrestrial hydrosphere, is physically unstable. The observed stability of modern climate over geological timescales is therefore likely to be due to dynamic singularities in the physical temperature-dependent behaviour of the greenhouse e ect. We hypothesise that such singularities may appear due 20 to controlling functioning of the natural global biota and discuss major arguments in support of this conclusion.
Adaptive String Dictionary Compression in In-Memory Column-Store Database Systems

Domain encoding is a common technique to compress the columns of a column store and to accelerate many types of queries at the same time. It is based on the assumption that most columns contain a relatively small set of distinct values, in particular string columns. In this paper, we argue that domain encoding is not the end of the story. In real world systems, we observe that a substantial amount of the columns are of string types. Moreover, most of the memory space is consumed by only a small fraction of these columns. To address this issue, we make three main contributions: First we survey several approaches and variants for dictionary compression, i. e. , data structures that store the dictionary of domain encoding in a compressed way. As expected, there is a trade-off between size of the data structure and its access performance. This observation can be used to compress rarely accessed data more than frequently accessed data. Furthermore the question which approach has the best compression ratio for a certain column heavily depends on specific characteristics of its content. Consequently, as a second contribution, we present non-trivial sampling schemes for all our dictionary formats, enabling us to estimate their size for a given column. This way it is possible to identify compression schemes specialized for the content of a specific column. Third, we draft how to fully automate the decision of the dictionary format. We sketch a compression manager that selects the most appropriate dictionary format based on column access and update patterns, characteristics of the underlying data, and costs for set-up and access of the different data structures. We evaluate an off-line prototype of a compression manager using a variation of the TPC-H benchmark [15]. The compression manager can configure the database system to be anywhere in a large range of the space / time trade-off with a fine granularity, providing significantly better trade-offs than any fixed dictionary format.
Mental health improvements of substance-dependent clients after 4 months in a Therapeutic Community.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Odyssey House Victoria's Therapeutic Community (TC) accepts substance-dependent clients, including those with co-occurring mental health issues. American data suggest that TCs are effective in rehabilitating such clients; however, Australian research is limited. The aim of the study was to examine Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) profiles of Odyssey House TC residents early in their residency and again after 4 months, to chart changes in MMPI-2 profiles and compare them with norms for psychological health. DESIGN AND METHODS The sample comprised 351 clients who were part of the residential program between 1997 and 2007, and who remained in treatment at the TC for at least 4 months. They were administered the MMPI-2 after 5 weeks in treatment and again after 4 months. RESULTS At the first assessment, the validity scales of the MMPI-2 plus the clinical scales Depression, Psychopathic Deviate, Paranoia, Psychasthenia and Schizophrenia were in the clinical range. At the second assessment, mean scores on all clinical scales except Mania were significantly or near significantly lower and, except for Psychopathic Deviate, within the normal range. The validity scales also demonstrated improvement, although two of the three remained in the clinical range. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Results indicated that treatment within the TC over this time span was associated with improved mental health. The present study suggests that residential rehabilitation's holistic approach provides a suitable treatment model for clients with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.