Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Latent Communication Styles to Predict Individual Characteristics

Data in online social network and social media systems provides a significant source of information about individual attitudes, preferences, and relationships. While there is a large body of work using statistical and machine learning techniques to predict the characteristics of text and users from documents, these efforts typically do not try to exploit the text to infer personality traits and understand interpersonal communications. However, some recent work in social psychology has focused on the aspects of writing and speech that are suggestive of personal characteristics. These efforts differ from much of the current work in text mining in that they focus on “style” rather than content—by modeling usage patterns involving the most frequent words (i.e., function words such as “the”, “is”, “a”). In this work, we identify stylistic patterns in communication data through the use of latent semantic analysis on function words. We use the discovered topics in logistic regression models and show that style is more predictive than content for several classification tasks focusing on personal traits such as gender, political party affiliation, verbal aggressiveness, and sentiment.
Palomar 12 as a Part of the Sagittarius Stream: The Evidence from Abundance Ratios

We present a detailed abundance analysis for 21 elements based on high-dispersion, high spectral resolution Keck spectra for four members of the outer halo "young" Galactic globular cluster Palomar 12. All four stars show identical abundance distributions with no credible indication of any star-to-star scatter. However, the abundance ratios of the Pal 12 stars are very peculiar. There is no detected enhancement of the α-elements; the mean of [Si/Fe], [Ca/Fe], and [Ti/Fe] is -0.07 ± 0.05 dex, O/Fe is also solar, while Na is very deficient. The distribution among the heavy elements shows anomalies as well. These are inconsistent with those of almost all Galactic globular clusters or of field stars in the Galaxy. The peculiarities shown by the Pal 12 stars are, however, in good general agreement with the trends established by Smecker-Hane & McWilliam and by Bonifacio et al. for stars in the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy evaluated at the [Fe/H] of Pal 12. This reinforces earlier suggestions that Pal 12 originally was a cluster in the Sgr dSph galaxy that during the process of accretion of this galaxy by our own was tidally stripped from the Sgr galaxy to become part of the extended Sgr stream.
Learning heterogeneous data for hierarchical web video classification

Web videos such as YouTube are hard to obtain sufficient precisely labeled training data and analyze due to the complex ontology. To deal with these problems, we present a hierarchical web video classification framework by learning heterogeneous web data, and construct a bottom-up semantic forest of video concepts by learning from meta-data. The main contributions are two-folds: firstly, analysis about middle-level concepts' distribution is taken based on data collected from web communities, and a concepts redistribution assumption is made to build effective transfer learning algorithm. Furthermore, an AdaBoost-Like transfer learning algorithm is proposed to transfer the knowledge learned from Flickr images to YouTube video domain and thus it facilitates video classification. Secondly, a group of hierarchical taxonomies named Semantic Forest are mined from YouTube and Flickr tags which reflect better user intention on the semantic level. A bottom-up semantic integration is also constructed with the help of semantic forest, in order to analyze video content hierarchically in a novel perspective. A group of experiments are performed on the dataset collected from Flickr and YouTube. Compared with state-of-the-arts, the proposed framework is more robust and tolerant to web noise.
High-Frequency Vibration Treatment of Human Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Increases Differentiation toward Bone Tissue

In order to verify whether differentiation of adult stem cells toward bone tissue is promoted by high-frequency vibration (HFV), bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) were mechanically stimulated with HFV (30 Hz) for 45 minutes a day for 21 or 40 days. Cells were seeded in osteogenic medium, which enhances differentiation towards bone tissue. The effects of the mechanical treatment on differentiation were measured by Alizarin Red test, (q) real-time PCR, and protein content of the extracellular matrix. In addition, we analyzed the proliferation rate and apoptosis of BMSC subjected to mechanical stimulation. A strong increase in all parameters characterizing differentiation was observed. Deposition of calcium was almost double in the treated samples; the expression of genes involved in later differentiation was significantly increased and protein content was higher for all osteogenic proteins. Lastly, proliferation results indicated that stimulated BMSCs have a decreased growth rate in comparison with controls, but both treated and untreated cells do not enter the apoptosis process. These findings could reduce the gap between research and clinical application for bone substitutes derived from patient cells by improving the differentiation protocol for autologous cells and a further implant of the bone graft into the patient.
Human walking capture and its inspiration to biped gait planning

Existing approaches to biped gait generation always need to assume appropriate parameter conditions of the walking patterns. To accomplish this, this paper aims to experimentally investigate the characteristics of the human walking, and reveal, to some extent, its balance strategies. The experimental study was carried out on a self-designed human walking testing platform, which captures the joint kinematics data and the ground reaction force data. Based on the testings results, a parametric human gait database of multi walking patterns was constructed. Analyses based on this database was given and discussed, part of which has been implemented in prototype design and gait planning of biped robots. Compared to similar studies based on complicated commercial testing systems, this study provides theoretical inspirations which are more pertinent and intuitionistic to gait planning for biped robots.
Scheduling recurring tasks in energy harvesting sensors

We consider the problem of periodic task scheduling in sensor nodes powered with energy harvesters. In particular, we focus on systems with stochastic energy sources such as solar panels, and we present two energy-aware scheduling algorithms that reduce the likelihood of task violations. Our algorithms, called Smooth to Average Method (STAM) and Smooth to Full Utilization (STFU), are static schedulers that do not require prescience of the incoming energy to operate effectively.
Bacterial Clearance and Survival Are Dependent on CXC Chemokine Receptor-2 Ligands in a Murine Model of Pulmonary Nocardia asteroides Infection1

Survival from murine pulmonary nocardiosis is highly dependent on CXC chemokine receptor-2 (CXCR2) ligand-mediated neutrophil chemotaxis and subsequent clearance of the infectious agent Nocardia asteroides. Intratracheal inoculation of N. asteroides rapidly up-regulated the CXC chemokines macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2) and KC within 24 h, with levels remaining elevated through day 3 before returning to near baseline levels by day 7. Coinciding with elevated MIP-2 and KC were the rapid recruitment of neutrophils and clearance of the organism. Anti-Ly-6G Ab-mediated neutrophil depletion before bacterial challenge resulted in strikingly increased mortality to N. asteroides infection. The relative contribution of MIP-2 in neutrophil recruitment was examined by anti-MIP-2 Ab treatment before nocardial infection. MIP-2 neutralization had no detrimental effects on survival, neutrophil recruitment, or bacterial clearance, suggesting the usage of additional or alternative CXCR2-binding ligands. The importance of the CXC family of chemokines was determined by the administration of an anti-CXCR2 Ab capable of blocking ligand binding in vivo. Anti-CXCR2 treatment greatly increased mortality by preventing neutrophil migration into the lung. Paralleling this impaired neutrophil recruitment was a 100-fold increase in lung bacterial burden. Combined, these observations indicate a critical role for neutrophils and CXC chemokines during nocardial pneumonia. These data directly link CXCR2 ligands and neutrophil recruitment and lend further support to the concept of CXC chemokine redundancy. For infections highly dependent on neutrophils, such as nocardial pneumonia, this is of critical importance.
A New Lower Bound to the Traveling Tournament Problem

Optimization in sports is a field of increasing interest. The traveling tournament problem abstracts certain characteristics of sports scheduling problems. We propose a new method for determining a lower bound to this problem. The new bound improves upon the previously best known lower bound. Numerical results on benchmark instances showed reductions as large as 38.6% in the gaps between lower and upper bounds.
The accuracy of endorectal ultrasonography in rectal cancer staging

Background and aims The incidence of rectal cancer in the European Union is about 35% of the total colorectal cancer incidence. Staging rectal cancer is important for planning treatment. It is essential for the management of rectal cancer to have adequate preoperative imaging, because accurate staging can influence the therapeutic strategy, type of resection, and candidacy for neoadjuvant therapy. The aim of this work is to evaluate the accuracy of endorectal ultrasound (ERUS) in rectal cancer staging. Methods A retrospective study was performed to assess the accuracy of ERUS by analyzing patients discharged from Regional Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (IRGH) Cluj-Napoca, Romania, diagnosed with rectal cancer between 01 January 2011 and 31 December 2013. Patients who were preoperatively staged by other imaging methods and those who had ERUS performed in another service were excluded from the analysis. As inclusion criteria remained ERUS performed for patients with rectal cancer in IRGH Cluj-Napoca where they were also operated. We analyzed preoperative T stage obtained by ERUS and it was compared with the histopathology findings. Results The number of patients discharged with a diagnosis of rectal cancer were 200 (operated – 157) in 2011, 193 (operated – 151) in 2012, and 198 (operated – 142) in 2013. We analyzed a total of 51 cases diagnosed with rectal cancer who performed ERUS in IRGH Cluj-Napoca. The results according to the T stage obtained by ERUS and histopathology test were: Under-stage T2= 25.0%, T3=7.9% of cases; Over-stage T2=25.0%, T3=31.6% and T4=60.0% of cases. Less than 20% of patients underwent preoperative radio-chemotherapy. Conclusions ERUS is a method of staging rectal cancer which is human dependent. ERUS is less accurate for T staging of stenotic tumours, but the accuracy may still be within acceptable limits. Surgeons use ERUS to adopt a treatment protocol, knowing the risk of under-staging and over-staging of this method. The accuracy of ERUS is higher in diagnosing rectal cancer in stages T1, T2 and even in stage T3 with malignant tumor which is not occlusive. ERUS is less accurate for T staging of locally advanced and stenotic tumours.
Can a 3-hour educational workshop and the provision of practical tools encourage family physicians to prescribe physical activity as medicine? A pre–post study

Objectives To increase, in our sample, the proportion of family physicians who provided their patients with written physical activity prescriptions after the delivery of a 3-hour educational workshop with the provision of practical tools to facilitate behaviour change. Design A pre–post study. Setting Abbotsford and Mission, British Columbia. Participants All 158 physicians registered with the Abbotsford (121) or Mission (37) Divisions of Family Practice were invited to participate. Intervention A 3-hour educational workshop combined with practical tools. Educational content of the workshop included (1) assessing patients’ physical activity levels, (2) using motivational interviewing techniques to encourage physical activity and (3) providing written physical activity prescriptions when appropriate. Practical tools to facilitate physician behaviour changes included a ‘physical activity vital sign’, and copies of the Exercise is Medicine Canada Prescription Pad. Participating physicians completed a bespoke questionnaire before and 4 weeks after their attendance at the workshop. Outcome measures The primary outcome was the change in the proportion of family physicians who reported providing written physical activity prescriptions. Exploratory outcomes included changes in other physical activity prescription behaviours, the perceived importance of various barriers to prescription, and knowledge and confidence in regards to physical activity prescription. McNemar's test evaluated changes in proportions before and after the workshop, while Wilcoxon signed-rank tests evaluated changes in Likert data. Results 25 family physicians completed the baseline questionnaire and attended the workshop, with 100% follow-up response rate. The proportion of family physicians who reported providing written physical activity prescriptions in their clinical practice increased significantly (p<0.05), from 10 (40%) at baseline to 17 (68%) 4 weeks after the intervention. Conclusions Educational workshops combined with practical tools appear to be a promising method to encourage the use of written physical activity prescriptions among family physicians in this setting, over the short term.
Dynamics of Interorganizational Learning

This paper proposes a model that gives deeper insights into the dynamics of interorganizational learning specified for the example of alliances. Current alliance research tends to neglect a feedback-perspective which might be the reason why certain behavioral effects cannot be explained. However, based on alliance research, three different major feedback-loops that influence interorganizational learning dynamics are identified in this paper: first, a reinforcing loop called ‘trust drives learning’. It shows that trust between the coworkers in an alliance has a positive impact on learning. Second, a balancing feedback-loop named ‘inertia cuts trust’ states that organizational inertia hinders the development of trust between coworkers. Third, a positive feedbackloop called ‘let’s learn together’ underlines that two parent companies aim for common learning instead for learning from the partner when forming a learning alliance. The model offers new insights into alliance learning as well as insights into how specific influencing factors interrelate with each other.
A performance oriented Grid monitoring architecture

Resource state monitoring is a critical component of any Grid Management Architecture, providing Grid scheduler, job/execution manager and state estimation components with accurate information about network, computational and storage resource status. Without up-to-date monitoring information, intelligent scheduling decision making would be a near-impossible task. In this paper we describe a scalable, portable and nonintrusive Grid Monitoring Architecture whose implementation decisions were made with performance in mind. We compare it to well-known Grid monitoring systems, and measure our platform’s performance to the Globus MDS2.2 and the Globus 3.2 web services Information Service (WS-IS) performance.
Self-reproducing catalyst drives repeated phospholipid synthesis and membrane growth

Significance We report on the design and synthesis of an artificial cell membrane that sustains continual growth. Lipid membranes are ubiquitous in all domains of life. Numerous studies have exploited the ability of lipids to self-assemble into bilayer vesicles with properties reminiscent of cellular membranes, but previous work has yet to mimic nature’s ability to support persistent phospholipid membrane formation. In this work, we have developed an artificial cell membrane that continually synthesizes all of the components needed to form additional catalytic membranes. These results demonstrate that complex lipid membranes capable of indefinite self-synthesis can emerge when supplied with simpler chemical building blocks. Cell membranes are dynamic structures found in all living organisms. There have been numerous constructs that model phospholipid membranes. However, unlike natural membranes, these biomimetic systems cannot sustain growth owing to an inability to replenish phospholipid-synthesizing catalysts. Here we report on the design and synthesis of artificial membranes embedded with synthetic, self-reproducing catalysts capable of perpetuating phospholipid bilayer formation. Replacing the complex biochemical pathways used in nature with an autocatalyst that also drives lipid synthesis leads to the continual formation of triazole phospholipids and membrane-bound oligotriazole catalysts from simpler starting materials. In addition to continual phospholipid synthesis and vesicle growth, the synthetic membranes are capable of remodeling their physical composition in response to changes in the environment by preferentially incorporating specific precursors. These results demonstrate that complex membranes capable of indefinite self-synthesis can emerge when supplied with simpler chemical building blocks.
PF16 encodes a protein with armadillo repeats and localizes to a single microtubule of the central apparatus in Chlamydomonas flagella

Several studies have indicated that the central pair of microtubules and their associated structures play a significant role in regulating flagellar motility. To begin a molecular analysis of these components we have generated central apparatus-defective mutants in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii using insertional mutagenesis. One paralyzed mutant recovered in our screen, D2, is an allele of a previously identified mutant, pf16. Mutant cells have paralyzed flagella, and the C1 microtubule of the central apparatus is missing in isolated axonemes. We have cloned the wild-type PF16 gene and confirmed its identity by rescuing pf16 mutants upon transformation. The rescued pf16 cells were wild-type in motility and in axonemal ultrastructure. A full-length cDNA clone for PF16 was obtained and sequenced. Database searches using the predicted 566 amino acid sequence of PF16 indicate that the protein contains eight contiguous armadillo repeats. A number of proteins with diverse cellular functions also contain armadillo repeats including pendulin, Rch1, importin, SRP-1, and armadillo. An antibody was raised against a fusion protein expressed from the cloned cDNA. Immunofluorescence labeling of wild-type flagella indicates that the PF16 protein is localized along the length of the flagella while immunogold labeling further localizes the PF16 protein to a single microtubule of the central pair. Based on the localization results and the presence of the armadillo repeats in this protein, we suggest that the PF16 gene product is involved in protein-protein interactions important for C1 central microtubule stability and flagellar motility.
GPU-ACCELERATED PARELLEL BILINEAR SPATIAL INTERPOLATION ALGORITHM 3 . 1 Bilinear Spatial Interpolation Algorithm

In view of the problem that massive spatial data interpolation is a complex and time-consuming computing process, and the traditional CPU implementation methods can't meet the real-time processing demand, in this paper, we propose a parallel bilinear spatial interpolation algorithm, which is accelerated by the graphic processing unit(GPU) and implemented in compute unified device architecture(CUDA). Firstly, we introduce the basic idea of general purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) and then discuss the technology of the CUDA programming model. Secondly, we introduce the principle of the bilinear interpolation algorithm and analyze the feasibility of mapping the bilinear interpolation algorithm program onto the GPU, and then we provide detail of implementing our parallel bilinear spatial interpolation algorithm on GPU that uses the CUDA programming model. Finally, we conduct several groups of experiments to demonstrate the strength of our GPU implementation method by measuring the performance over standard CPU implementation. The experimental results show that the GPGPU-based parallel algorithm can take full advantage of the GPU's parallel computing capabilities, and can achieve about 40 times speedup; it is able to meet the demand of real-time processing of massive spatial data interpolation.
Laboratory-based clinical audit as a tool for continual improvement: an example from CSF chemistry turnaround time audit in a South-African teaching hospital

Introduction Timeliness of laboratory results is crucial to patient care and outcome. Monitoring turnaround times (TAT), especially for emergency tests, is important to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of laboratory services. Laboratory-based clinical audits reveal opportunities for improving quality. Our aim was to identify the most critical steps causing a high TAT for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) chemistry analysis in our laboratory. Materials and methods A 6-month retrospective audit was performed. The duration of each operational phase across the laboratory work flow was examined. A process-mapping audit trail of 60 randomly selected requests with a high TAT was conducted and reasons for high TAT were tested for significance. Results A total of 1505 CSF chemistry requests were analysed. Transport of samples to the laboratory was primarily responsible for the high average TAT (median TAT = 170 minutes). Labelling accounted for most delays within the laboratory (median TAT = 71 minutes) with most delays occurring after regular work hours (P < 0.05). CSF chemistry requests without the appropriate number of CSF sample tubes were significantly associated with delays in movement of samples from the labelling area to the technologist’s work station (caused by a preference for microbiological testing prior to CSF chemistry). Conclusion A laboratory-based clinical audit identified sample transportation, work shift periods and use of inappropriate CSF sample tubes as drivers of high TAT for CSF chemistry in our laboratory. The results of this audit will be used to change pre-analytical practices in our laboratory with the aim of improving TAT and customer satisfaction.