Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Numerical Behavior Envelopes for Qualitative Models (cid:3)

Semiquantitative models combine both qualitative and quantitative knowledge within a single semiquantitative qualitative di(cid:11)erential equation (SQDE) representation. With current simulation methods, the quantitative knowledge is not exploited as fully as possible. This paper describes dynamic envelopes { a method to exploit quantitative knowledge more fully by deriving and numerically simulatingan extremal system whose so-lution is guaranteed to bound all solutions of the SQDE. It is shown that such systems can be determined automatically given the SQDE and an initial condition. As model precision increases, the dynamic envelope bounds become more precise than those derived by other semiquantitative inference methods. We demonstrate the utility of our method by showing how it improves the dynamic monitoring and diagnosis of a vacuum pumpdown system.
Time varying linear prediction using sparsity constraints

Time-varying linear prediction has been studied in the context of speech signals, in which the auto-regressive (AR) coefficients of the system function are modeled as a linear combination of a set of known bases. Traditionally, least squares minimization is used for the estimation of model parameters of the system. Motivated by the sparse nature of the excitation signal for voiced sounds, we explore the time-varying linear prediction modeling of speech signals using sparsity constraints. Parameter estimation is posed as a 0-norm minimization problem. The re-weighted 1-norm minimization technique is used to estimate the model parameters. We show that for sparsely excited time-varying systems, the formulation models the underlying system function better than the least squares error minimization approach. Evaluation with synthetic and real speech examples show that the estimated model parameters track the formant trajectories closer than the least squares approach.
Trainers education into action: Learning for inclusion

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on a process of learning from experience conducted with professionals in the field of inclusion. The two projects illustrated start from operators with several years of experience in the field of inclusion, who require devices to reflect on their practices. The authors seek a way to favour the analisis of educational practices based on their experience. The paper formalizes the terms a training that enhances an education that begins from practice, enabling the contact among elements, and taking theory to fall back into practice with a professional transformation caused by the reflection. Keywords learning from experiences; social inclusion; trainers
Redundant and Specific Roles of the ARGONAUTE Proteins AGO1 and ZLL in Development and Small RNA-Directed Gene Silencing

The Arabidopsis ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1) and ZWILLE/PINHEAD/AGO10 (ZLL) proteins act in the miRNA and siRNA pathways and are essential for multiple processes in development. Here, we analyze what determines common and specific function of both proteins. Analysis of ago1 mutants with partially compromised AGO1 activity revealed that loss of ZLL function re-establishes both siRNA and miRNA pathways for a subset of AGO1 target genes. Loss of ZLL function in ago1 mutants led to increased AGO1 protein levels, whereas AGO1 mRNA levels were unchanged, implicating ZLL as a negative regulator of AGO1 at the protein level. Since ZLL, unlike AGO1, is not subjected to small RNA-mediated repression itself, this cross regulation has the potential to adjust RNA silencing activity independent of feedback dynamics. Although AGO1 is expressed in a broader pattern than ZLL, expression of AGO1 from the ZLL promoter restored transgene PTGS and most developmental defects of ago1, whereas ZLL rescued only a few AGO1 functions when expressed from the AGO1 promoter, suggesting that the specific functions of AGO1 and ZLL are mainly determined by their protein sequence. Protein domain swapping experiments revealed that the PAZ domain, which in AGO1 is involved in binding small RNAs, is interchangeable between both proteins, suggesting that this common small RNA-binding domain contributes to redundant functions. By contrast, the conserved MID and PIWI domains, which are involved in 5′-end small RNA selectivity and mRNA cleavage, and the non-conserved N-terminal domain, to which no function has been assigned, provide specificity to AGO1 and ZLL protein function.
Interactive online learning for clinical entity recognition

Named entity recognition and entity linking are core natural language processing components that are predominantly solved by supervised machine learning approaches. Such supervised machine learning approaches require manual annotation of training data that can be expensive to compile. The applicability of supervised, machine learning-based entity recognition and linking components in real-world applications can be hindered by the limited availability of training data. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that uses ontologies as a basis for entity recognition and linking, and captures context of neighboring tokens of the entities of interest with vectors based on syntactic and semantic features. Our approach takes user feedback so that the vector-based model can be continuously updated in an online setting. Here we demonstrate our approach in a healthcare context, using it to recognize body part and imaging modality entities within clinical documents, and map these entities to the right concepts in the RadLex and NCIT medical ontologies. Our current evaluation shows promising results on a small set of clinical documents with a precision and recall of 0.841 and 0.966. The evaluation also demonstrates that our approach is capable of continuous performance improvement with increasing size of examples. We believe that our human-in-the-loop, online learning approach to entity recognition and linking shows promise that it is suitable for real-world applications.
Scale Expansion and Operations Inefficiency in Pure E-commerce Firms

This paper examine the importance of website quality indicator in e-commerce efficiency evaluation. It applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models and traditional production theory to account for how scale affects efficiency in pure e-commerce firms. The results of DEA models identify website quality, user scale and user experience each contribute to improving operations efficiency, but scale expansion often leads to overall operations inefficiency. Due to excessive scale expansion, all inefficient Decision Making Units exhibit decreasing return to scale. These findings may help managers resize the scale of their operations. This research enriches scale economic theory and improves the indicator system in e-commerce efficiency evaluation.
Comparing Service Delivery Models for Children with Developmental Delays in Canada: Adaptive and Maladaptive Behaviours, Parental Perceptions of Stress and of Care

This study compares two service delivery models (community-based and centre-based), examining them in light of children’s adaptive and maladaptive behaviours, and parental perceptions of stress and of care. More specifically, parents of 96 children with developmental delays assessed their children’s adaptive and maladaptive behaviours and rated their own perceived levels of stress as well as their perceptions of care from service providers. Findings indicated that children from the community-based sites were perceived as having less severe social skill deficits than those from centre-based sites. Regarding parental stress, mothers from community-based settings reported more challenges with their child’s father than did the mothers from centre-based settings; and fathers from the community-based settings reported more challenges related to their health than did the fathers from the centre-based settings. Regarding care, parents from the centre-based settings had more positive perceptions of care than did parents from the community-based settings. Therefore, in general, parents receiving services within community-based settings reported fewer positive perceptions of care and more challenges than those from centre-based settings. Overall, the results of this investigation can inform future programming for communityand centre-based service delivery systems. More specifically, the findings highlight the important role that family-centred care can play in supporting the needs of children with developmental delays and their families; particularly for families using community-based services.
The KRAS-Variant and miRNA Expression in RTOG Endometrial Cancer Clinical Trials 9708 and 9905

Objective To explore the association of a functional germline variant in the 3′-UTR of KRAS with endometrial cancer risk, as well as the association of microRNA (miRNA) signatures and the KRAS-variant with clinical characteristics and survival outcomes in two prospective RTOG endometrial cancer trials. Methods/Materials The association of the KRAS-variant with endometrial cancer risk was evaluated by case-control analysis of 467 women with type 1 or 2 endometrial cancer and 582 age-matched controls. miRNA and DNA were isolated for expression profiling and genotyping from tumor specimens of 46 women with type 1 endometrial cancer enrolled in RTOG trials 9708 and 9905. miRNA expression levels and KRAS-variant genotype were correlated with patient and tumor characteristics, and survival outcomes were evaluated by variant allele type. Results The KRAS-variant was not significantly associated with overall endometrial cancer risk (14% controls and 17% type 1 cancers), although was enriched in type 2 endometrial cancers (24%, p = 0.2). In the combined analysis of RTOG 9708/9905, miRNA expression differed by age, presence of lymphovascular invasion and KRAS-variant status. Overall survival rates at 3 years for patients with the variant and wild-type alleles were 100% and 77% (HR 0.3, p = 0.24), respectively, favoring the variant. Conclusions The KRAS-variant may be a genetic marker of risk for type 2 endometrial cancers. In addition, tumor miRNA expression appears to be associated with patient age, lymphovascular invasion and the KRAS-variant, supporting the hypothesis that altered tumor biology can be measured by miRNA expression, and that the KRAS-variant likely impacts endometrial tumor biology.
Notes on "An Effective ECC based User Access Control Scheme with Attribute based Encryption for WSN"

The rapid growth of networking and communication technologies results in amalgamation of 'Internet of Things' and 'Wireless sensor networks' to form WSNIT. WSNIT facilitates the WSN to connect dynamically to Internet and exchange the data with the external world. The critical data stored in sensor nodes related to patient health, environment can be accessed by attackers via insecure internet. To counterattack this, there is a demand for data integrity and controlled data access by incorporating a highly secure and light weight authentication schemes. In this context, Santanu et al had proposed an attribute based authentication framework for WSN and discussed on its security strengths. In this paper, we do a thorough analysis on Santanu et al scheme, to show that their scheme is susceptible to privileged insider attack and node capture attack. We also demonstrate that Santanu et al scheme consists of major inconsistencies which restrict the protocol execution.
A Collaborative Attack Detection and its Challenges in the Future Internet

Today, the Internet is an inherent part of our daily life. The Internet’s availability is, however, threatened primarily by large-scale attacks like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks [1]. In the context of the G-Lab project1 we therefore worked on a suitable solution that allows for an effective Internet-wide detection of such attacks in today’s Internet. This solution, in a next step, has to be analyzed with respect to its applicability in a Future Internet that, e. g. , relies on virtual networks and application-tailored architectures and protocols. The collaborative attack detection, which we developed with focus on currently common large-scale attacks, can be divided into three major parts: – Local detection of traffic anomalies, – Local identification of the respective attack, and – Collaboration of detection systems that are distributed Internet-wide, act independently of each other, and do not require pre-established trust relationships. These parts and their interaction are shortly described in the following Section II. The challenges of applying such an anomaly detection in a Future Internet are subsequently detailed in Section III as an outlook on ongoing and future work.
Time-resolved diffraction profiles and structural dynamics of Ni film under short laser pulse irradiation

The evolution of the diffraction profiles during the fast thermoelastic deformation and structural transformations induced in a thin Ni film by short pulse laser irradiation is investigated in molecular dynamics simulations. Fast disappearance of the diffraction peaks characteristic for the initial crystal structure is related to the homogeneous nucleation and growth of liquid regions inside the overheated crystal. Transient thermoelastic deformation of the film prior to melting is reflected in shifts and splittings of the diffraction peaks, providing an opportunity for experimental probing of the ultrafast deformations.
Progression of Coronary Artery Calcium and Occurrence of Myocardial Infarction in Patients With and Without Diabetes Mellitus

Progression of coronary artery calcium, a marker of atherosclerosis, can be slowed with statins, and continued progression of calcium is associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction. However, it is not known whether statins are effective in slowing calcium progression in diabetes mellitus. In a retrospective study, we examined 1153 nondiabetic and 157 diabetic subjects who underwent sequential electron beam tomography scans at a minimum 1-year interval to assess progression of coronary calcium. A yearly score increase >15% was considered evidence of true progression. The use of statins and occurrence of myocardial infarction were recorded. There was no difference in baseline calcium score between diabetic and nondiabetic patients. Diabetic patients with no coronary calcium on the baseline scans developed it more often than nondiabetic subjects (42% versus 25%; P=0.046) during follow-up. Calcium progression was 33% greater in diabetic patients than nondiabetic subjects (P<0.001) if no statin therapy was provided and 17.7% greater when statins were used (P<0.001). Among the 49 subjects who experienced a myocardial infarction, the calcium score increased on average 20% more in diabetic than nondiabetic patients (P<0.001). In logistic models, diabetes mellitus and systemic hypertension were the best predictors of calcium progression (odds ratio, 3.1 and 1.9, respectively), whereas baseline calcium score percentile and statin therapy were the best predictors of infarction. These findings support the notion that diabetes mellitus causes accelerated atherosclerosis, even in the presence of statin therapy, and provide evidence that coronary calcium monitoring is an effective method to assess treatment efficacy.
Gifts: intertwining market and moral economies and the rise of store bought gifts

ABSTRACT Gifts are a major part of both economic and social life. This intertwined relationship between the market and moral economies has long been unsettling to those concerned about rationalized marketplace meanings contaminating and eroding the sacred social role of gift giving. Consumer researchers have analysed the important relationship work done through gift giving in the moral economy and the ways that the marketplace facilitates such work (or not). However, little has explored when, how, and why a store bought gift, rather than a homemade one, actually became acceptable. This article uses three case studies from the early to mid-1800s to trace the rise of the store bought gift in the American marketplace. It highlights how the sociocultural context, marketing innovations, retailers, and meanings surrounding gifting all helped to ensconce gift giving as both a central component in the contemporary marketplace and a tool for symbolic communication in social life.
Affiliation Influence on Recommendation in Academic Social Networks

Social networks have been the focus of many studies, from communities’ identification to link prediction. Here, we propose a method based on researchers’ institution affiliation for predicting links in a collaboration social network. Initial experiments show that considering the institution affiliation aspect, the set of recommendations is more accurate and concise, leading to a more efficient result.
Hough transformation based approach for road border detection in infrared images

This paper describes a real-time image processing algorithm for road border detection in infrared images. The basic idea is to couple the road border lines through the parallelism between them in the vehicle coordinate system. The parallelism of the two lines is translated in their convergence in the image plane due to the perspective projection. In this plane the two lines meet at a point on the horizon line. The new idea is to use this common point on the horizon line to find the road border in the Hough domain. The input data for the Hough transformation is created by a set of local regularized edge detectors and an adaptive thresholding of the image. Since the image mostly shows low contrast, the edge extraction can hardly be realized by edge detectors with a small kernel. The image, therefore, is subsampled using the Gaussian pyramid technique and the preprocessing takes place in an optimal resolution level that is experimentally determined. The developed algorithm has been implemented on an experimental vehicle equipped with an infrared camera and was successfully tested in different situations.
Small-Animal PET Imaging of Amyloid-Beta Plaques with [11C]PiB and Its Multi-Modal Validation in an APP/PS1 Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease

In vivo imaging and quantification of amyloid-β plaque (Aβ) burden in small-animal models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a valuable tool for translational research such as developing specific imaging markers and monitoring new therapy approaches. Methodological constraints such as image resolution of positron emission tomography (PET) and lack of suitable AD models have limited the feasibility of PET in mice. In this study, we evaluated a feasible protocol for PET imaging of Aβ in mouse brain with [11C]PiB and specific activities commonly used in human studies. In vivo mouse brain MRI for anatomical reference was acquired with a clinical 1.5 T system. A recently characterized APP/PS1 mouse was employed to measure Aβ at different disease stages in homozygous and hemizygous animals. We performed multi-modal cross-validations for the PET results with ex vivo and in vitro methodologies, including regional brain biodistribution, multi-label digital autoradiography, protein quantification with ELISA, fluorescence microscopy, semi-automated histological quantification and radioligand binding assays. Specific [11C]PiB uptake in individual brain regions with Aβ deposition was demonstrated and validated in all animals of the study cohort including homozygous AD animals as young as nine months. Corresponding to the extent of Aβ pathology, old homozygous AD animals (21 months) showed the highest uptake followed by old hemizygous (23 months) and young homozygous mice (9 months). In all AD age groups the cerebellum was shown to be suitable as an intracerebral reference region. PET results were cross-validated and consistent with all applied ex vivo and in vitro methodologies. The results confirm that the experimental setup for non-invasive [11C]PiB imaging of Aβ in the APP/PS1 mice provides a feasible, reproducible and robust protocol for small-animal Aβ imaging. It allows longitudinal imaging studies with follow-up periods of approximately one and a half years and provides a foundation for translational Alzheimer neuroimaging in transgenic mice.
A health economic analysis of screening and optimal treatment of nephropathy in patients with type 2 diabetes and hypertension in the USA.

BACKGROUND Nephropathy is an indicator of end-organ damage and is a strong predictor of an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death in patients with diabetes. Screening can lead to early identification and treatment, both of which incur costs. However, identification and treatment may slow or prevent progression to a more expensive stage of the disease and thus may save money. We assessed the health economic impact of screening for nephropathy (microalbuminuria and overt nephropathy) followed by optimal renoprotective-based antihypertensive therapy in a US setting. METHODS A Markov model simulated the lifetime impact of screening with semi-quantitative urine dipsticks in a primary care setting of hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes and subsequent treatment with irbesartan 300 mg in patients identified as having nephropathy. Progression from no nephropathy to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) was simulated. Probabilities, utilities, medication and ESRD treatment costs came from published sources. Clinical outcomes and direct medical costs were projected. Second order Monte Carlo simulation was used to account for uncertainty in multiple parameters. Annual discount rates of 3% were used where appropriate. RESULTS Screening, followed by optimized treatment, led to a 44% reduction in the cumulative incidence of ESRD and improvements in non-discounted life expectancy of 0.25 +/- 0.22 years/patient (mean +/- SD). Quality-adjusted life expectancy was improved by 0.18 +/- 0.15 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs)/patient and direct costs increased by $244 +/- 3499/patient. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $20 011 per QALY gained for screening and optimized treatment versus no screening. There was a 77% probability that screening and optimized therapy would be considered cost effective with a willingness to pay a threshold of $50 000. CONCLUSION In patients with type 2 diabetes and hypertension, screening for nephropathy and treatment with a renoprotective-based antihypertensive agent was projected to improve patient outcomes and represent excellent value in a US setting.