Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward an adaptive String Similarity Measure for Matching Product Offers

Product matching aims at identifying different product offers referring to the same real-world product. Product offers are provided by different merchants and describe products using textual attributes such as offer title and description. String similarity measures therefore play an important role for matching corresponding product offers. In this paper, we propose an adaptive string similarity measure that automatically adjusts the relevance of terms for the product matching. This adaptation is done step-by-step during the match process and does not require training data. We demonstrate that this approach improves the match quality in comparison to the generic TFIDF string similarity measure.
An Empirical Outdoor-to-Indoor Path Loss Model From Below 6 GHz to cm-Wave Frequency Bands

This letter presents an empirical multifrequency outdoor-to-indoor path loss model. The model is based on measurements performed on the exact same set of scenarios for different frequency bands ranging from traditional cellular allocations below 6 GHz (0.8, 2, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz), up to centimeter (cm)-wave frequencies (10, 18, and 28 GHz). The model has applicability similar to the typical 3GPP and ITU-R outdoor-to-indoor simplified models, including the multifrequency formulation recently included in the 3GPP TR 38.900. This letter highlights some of the details behind these simplified models and provides additional modeling for internal multiwall attenuation and associated shadow fading.
Assessment of Daily Life Physical Activities in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background In pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), the six-minute walk test (6MWT) is believed to be representative of patient's daily life physical activities (DLPA). Whether DLPA are decreased in PAH and whether the 6MWT is representative of patient's DLPA remain unknown. Methods 15 patients with idiopathic PAH (IPAH) and 10 patients with PAH associated with limited systemic sclerosis (PAH-SSc) were matched with 15 healthy control subjects and 10 patients with limited systemic sclerosis without PAH. Each subject completed a 6MWT. The mean number of daily steps and the mean energy expenditure and duration of physical activities >3 METs were assessed with a physical activity monitor for seven consecutive days and used as markers of DLPA. Results The mean number of daily steps and the mean daily energy expenditure and duration of physical activities >3 METs were all reduced in PAH patients compared to their controls (all p<0.05). The mean number of daily steps correlated with the 6MWT distance for both IPAH and PAH-SSc patients (r = 0.76, p<0.01 and r = 0.85, p<0.01), respectively. Conclusion DLPA are decreased in PAH and correlate with the 6MWT distance. Functional exercise capacity may thus be a useful surrogate of DLPA in PAH.
Gluey: Developing a Head-Worn Display Interface to Unify the Interaction Experience in Distributed Display Environments

Distributed display environments (DDEs) allow use of various specialized devices but challenge designers to provide a clean flow of data across multiple displays. Upcoming consumer-ready head-worn displays (HWDs) can play a central role in unifying the interaction experience in such ecosystems. In this paper, we report on the design and development of Gluey, a user interface that acts as a 'glue' to facilitate seamless input transitions and data movement across displays. Based on requirements we refine for such an interface, Gluey leverages inherent headworn display attributes such as field-of-view tracking and an always-available canvas to redirect input and migrate content across multiple displays, while minimizing device switching costs. We implemented a functional prototype integrating Gluey's numerous interaction possibilities. From our experience in this integration and from user evaluation results, we identify the open challenges in using HWDs to unify the interaction experience in DDEs.
Effects of getters on hermetically sealed micromachined cesium–neon cells for atomic clocks

The wafer-level integration technique of PageWafer® (SAES Getters’ solution for getter film integration into wafer to wafer bonded devices) has been tested in hermetically sealed miniature glass-Si-glass cells filled with Cs and Ne, e.g. for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) atomic clock applications. Getter effects on the cell atmosphere are analyzed by quadruple mass spectroscopy and coherent population trapping (CPT) spectroscopy. The quadruple mass spectroscopy revealed that the residual gases (H2, O2, N2 and CO2) that are attributed to anodic bonding process are drastically reduced by the getter films while desirable gases such as Ne seem to remain unaffected. The impurity pressure in the getter-integrated cells was measured to be less than 4 × 10−2 mbar, i.e. pressure 50 times lower than the one measured in the cells without getter (2 mbar). Consequently, the atmosphere of the getter-integrated cells is much more pure than that of the getter-free cells. CPT signals obtained from the getter-integrated cells are stable and are, in addition, similar to each other within a cell batch, suggesting the strong potential of applications of this getter film and especially for its wafer-level integration to MEMS atomic clocks and magnetometers.
Haploinsufficiency of the Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 Receptor Enhances Endothelial Repair and Favorably Modifies Angiogenic Progenitor Cell Phenotype

Objectives— Defective endothelial regeneration predisposes to adverse arterial remodeling and is thought to contribute to cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetes mellitus. We recently demonstrated that the type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF1R) is a negative regulator of insulin sensitivity and nitric oxide bioavailability. In this report, we examined partial deletion of the IGF1R as a potential strategy to enhance endothelial repair. Approach and Results— We assessed endothelial regeneration after wire injury in mice and abundance and function of angiogenic progenitor cells in mice with haploinsufficiency of the IGF1R (IGF1R+/−). Endothelial regeneration after arterial injury was accelerated in IGF1R+/− mice. Although the yield of angiogenic progenitor cells was lower in IGF1R+/− mice, these angiogenic progenitor cells displayed enhanced adhesion, increased secretion of insulin-like growth factor-1, and enhanced angiogenic capacity. To examine the relevance of IGF1R manipulation to cell-based therapy, we transfused IGF1R+/− bone marrow–derived CD117+ cells into wild-type mice. IGF1R+/− cells accelerated endothelial regeneration after arterial injury compared with wild-type cells and did not alter atherosclerotic lesion formation. Conclusions— Haploinsufficiency of the IGF1R is associated with accelerated endothelial regeneration in vivo and enhanced tube forming and adhesive potential of angiogenic progenitor cells in vitro. Partial deletion of IGF1R in transfused bone marrow–derived CD117+ cells enhanced their capacity to promote endothelial regeneration without altering atherosclerosis. Our data suggest that manipulation of the IGF1R could be exploited as novel therapeutic approach to enhance repair of the arterial wall after injury.
Complex molecular mixtures under cycling gradients as basis for life’s origins

We consider life as a cyclic physicochemical process that makes heredity and Darwinian evolution observable through living cells. We elaborate four principles that constrain current speculations about life’s emergence to natural processes driven by diurnal physicochemical gradients, primarily of temperature, water activity and electromagnetic radiation. First, Earth’s prebiotic chemical evolution is historically continuous with Darwinian evolution; second, cycling energies of solar radiation are primary drivers of chemical evolution; third, environmental molecular complexity must be high at the origin of life; and fourth, non-covalent molecular forces determine molecular recognition and cellular organization. Under normal physiological conditions of high ionic strength and high macromolecular crowding, hydration interactions (hydrogen bonding), screened electrostatic forces and excluded volume repulsions act over a commensurate distance of about one nanometer. This intermolecular distance governs chemical coevolution of proto-biomacromolecular surfaces (nucleic acids, proteins and membranes) toward Darwinian thresholds and living states. The above physicochemical principles of life’s emergence are consistent with the second law of thermodynamics, and with the current facts of molecular microbiology and planetary sciences. New kinds of experimentation with crowded molecular mixtures under oscillating temperature gradients - a PCR-like mechanism of life’s origins - can further illuminate how living states come about. Graphical abstract Life’s emergence follows from chemical and Darwinian evolution, a high degree of molecular complexity and a high crowdedness, and non-covalent molecular forces that determine molecular recognition and cellular organization. The macromolecules divide the cytoplasm into dynamically crowded macromolecular regions and topologically complementary electrolyte pools. Small ions and ionic metabolites are transported vectorially between the electrolyte pools and through the (semi-conducting) electrolyte pathways of the crowded macromolecular regions.
Nonorthogonal Multiple Access for 5G and Beyond

Driven by the rapid escalation of the wireless capacity requirements imposed by advanced multimedia applications (e.g., ultrahigh-definition video, virtual reality, etc.), as well as the dramatically increasing demand for user access required for the Internet of Things (IoT), the fifth-generation (5G) networks face challenges in terms of supporting large-scale heterogeneous data traffic. Nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA), which has been recently proposed for the third-generation partnership projects long-term evolution advanced (3GPP-LTE-A), constitutes a promising technology of addressing the aforementioned challenges in 5G networks by accommodating several users within the same orthogonal resource block. By doing so, significant bandwidth efficiency enhancement can be attained over conventional orthogonal multiple-access (OMA) techniques. This motivated numerous researchers to dedicate substantial research contributions to this field. In this context, we provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in power-domain multiplexing-aided NOMA, with a focus on the theoretical NOMA principles, multiple-antenna-aided NOMA design, on the interplay between NOMA and cooperative transmission, on the resource control of NOMA, on the coexistence of NOMA with other emerging potential 5G techniques and on the comparison with other NOMA variants. We highlight the main advantages of power-domain multiplexing NOMA compared to other existing NOMA techniques. We summarize the challenges of existing research contributions of NOMA and provide potential solutions. Finally, we offer some design guidelines for NOMA systems and identify promising research opportunities for the future.
Minimum Bayes Risk Combination of Translation Hypotheses from Alternative Morphological Decompositions

We describe a simple strategy to achieve translation performance improvements by combining output from identical statistical machine translation systems trained on alternative morphological decompositions of the source language. Combination is done by means of Minimum Bayes Risk decoding over a shared N-best list. When translating into English from two highly inflected languages such as Arabic and Finnish we obtain significant improvements over simply selecting the best morphological decomposition.
Studying Academic Indicators within Virtual Learning Environment Using Educational Data Mining

Our main goal is to discover the main factors influencing students' academic trajectory and students' academic evolution within such environment. Our results indicate strong correlation in this virtual learning environment between student average and some factors like: student's English level (despite the fact that Arabic language is the teaching language), student's age, student's gender, student's over-stay and student's place of residence (inside or outside Syria). Our results indicate also a need to modify the academic trajectory of students by changing the prerequisites of few courses delivered as a part of BIT diploma like Advanced DBA II, Data Security. In this research, the results also highlight the effect of the Syrian Crisis on students. Finally, we've suggested some future recommendations based on our observations and results to develop the current information system in SVU in order to help us to deduce some indicators more easily.
A quicker assessment of input uncertainty

“Input uncertainty” refers the effect of driving a simulation with input distributions that are based on real-world data. At WSC 2012, Ankenman and Nelson presented a quick-and-easy experiment to assess the overall effect of input uncertainty on simulation output. When their method reveals that input uncertainty is substantial, then the natural follow-up questions are which input distributions contribute the most to input uncertainty, and from which input processes would it be most beneficial to collect more data? To answer these questions Ankenman and Nelson proposed a sequence of additional experiments that are in no sense “quick. ” In this paper we provide a follow-up analysis that requires no additional simulation experiments beyond the overall assessment, and yet provides more information than Ankenman and Nelson. Numerical illustrations are provided.
Computer-Aided Detection of Polyps in CT Colonography Using Logistic Regression

We present a computer-aided detection (CAD) system for computed tomography colonography that orders the polyps according to clinical relevance. The CAD system consists of two steps: candidate detection and supervised classification. The characteristics of the detection step lead to specific choices for the classification system. The candidates are ordered by a linear logistic classifier (logistic regression) based on only three features: the protrusion of the colon wall, the mean internal intensity, and a feature to discard detections on the rectal enema tube. This classifier can cope with a small number of polyps available for training, a large imbalance between polyps and non-polyp candidates, a truncated feature space, unbalanced and unknown misclassification costs, and an exponential distribution with respect to candidate size in feature space. Our CAD system was evaluated with data sets from four different medical centers. For polyps larger than or equal to 6 mm we achieved sensitivities of respectively 95%, 85%, 85%, and 100% with 5, 4, 5, and 6 false positives per scan over 86, 48, 141, and 32 patients. A cross-center evaluation in which the system is trained and tested with data from different sources showed that the trained CAD system generalizes to data from different medical centers and with different patient preparations. This is essential to application in large-scale screening for colorectal polyps.
Dynamics Analysis of the Stochastic Lorenz System

This paper mainly studies the dynamical behaviors of the stochastic Lorenz system, which means one parameter of Lorenz system is designed as a bounded random parameter. This stochastic system can be transformed intoan equivalent deterministic nonlinear system by Chebyshevpolynomial approximation, so the dynamics characteristics ofthe stochastic Lorenz system can be obtained by analyzingthe corresponding equivalent deterministic system. Bifurcationdiagram, phase graph, poincarée section are used to showthat this stochastic Lorenz system shares some dynamicscharacteristics with the deterministic system.
Recognition of Human Histocompatibility Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)-E Complexed with HLA Class I Signal Sequence–derived Peptides by CD94/NKG2 Confers Protection from Natural Killer Cell–mediated Lysis

Human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA)-E is a nonclassical HLA class I molecule, the gene for which is transcribed in most tissues. It has recently been reported that this molecule binds peptides derived from the signal sequence of HLA class I proteins; however, no function for HLA-E has yet been described. We show that natural killer (NK) cells can recognize target cells expressing HLA-E molecules on the cell surface and this interaction results in inhibition of the lytic process. Furthermore, HLA-E recognition is mediated primarily through the CD94/NKG2-A heterodimer, as CD94-specific, but not killer cell inhibitory receptor (KIR)–specific mAbs block HLA-E–mediated protection of target cells. Cell surface HLA-E could be increased by incubation with synthetic peptides corresponding to residues 3–11 from the signal sequences of a number of HLA class I molecules; however, only peptides which contained a Met at position 2 were capable of conferring resistance to NK-mediated lysis, whereas those having Thr at position 2 had no effect. Interestingly, HLA class I molecules previously correlated with CD94/NKG2 recognition all have Met at residue 4 of the signal sequence (position 2 of the HLA-E binding peptide), whereas those which have been reported not to interact with CD94/NKG2 have Thr at this position. Thus, these data show a function for HLA-E and suggest an alternative explanation for the apparent broad reactivity of CD94/NKG2 with HLA class I molecules; that CD94/NKG2 interacts with HLA-E complexed with signal sequence peptides derived from “protective” HLA class I alleles rather than directly interacting with classical HLA class I proteins.
0 " Sleep Choice and Time-of-day Effects on P-beauty Contest Outcomes. "

Sleep data are gathered prior to administration of the well-known p-beauty contest game. Additionally, using a validated morningness-eveningness preference measure, morning-type and evening-type subjects are identified and randomly matched or mismatched into morning or evening experiment sessions. This design allows examination of the effects of voluntary sleep restriction and optimal/suboptimal times-of-day on behavioral outcomes. Subject responses display significantly lower levels of iterative reasoning when ‘sleep deprived’ or at non-optimal times-of-day. However, repeated play shows that sleep loss and suboptimal times-of-day do not affect learning/adaptation in response to information feedback. Our results apply to environments where anticipation is important (e.g., coordination games, stock trading, driving, etc.), with important implications for sleep deprived individuals or those operating at suboptimal times-of-day (e.g., shift workers, new parents).
Single-View Dressed Human Modeling via Morphable Template

We introduce a morphable template for dressed human modeling, called Morphable Dressed Human (MDH) template. The template is obtained by learning basic functions from two common types of clothes (long shirts and trousers) and defining a deform-combine manipulation. Our MDH template is parametric, spans variation in both clothes and body/pose, and can generate various dressed human shapes. The template can be morphed to perform dressed human modeling from just a single image through shape fitting and deformation/texture transfer. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our MDH template in single-view dressed human estimation and garment transfer.
Brief meditation training can improve perceived stress and negative mood.

OBJECTIVES To test a brief, non-sectarian program of meditation training for effects on perceived stress and negative emotion, and to determine effects of practice frequency and test the moderating effects of neuroticism (emotional lability) on treatment outcome. DESIGN AND SETTING The study used a single-group, open-label, pre-test post-test design conducted in the setting of a university medical center. PARTICIPANTS Healthy adults (N=200) interested in learning meditation for stress-reduction were enrolled. One hundred thirty-three (76% females) completed at least 1 follow-up visit and were included in data analyses. INTERVENTION Participants learned a simple mantra-based meditation technique in 4, 1-hour small-group meetings, with instructions to practice for 15-20 minutes twice daily. Instruction was based on a psychophysiological model of meditation practice and its expected effects on stress. OUTCOME MEASURES Baseline and monthly follow-up measures of Profile of Mood States; Perceived Stress Scale; State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI); and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Practice frequency was indexed by monthly retrospective ratings. Neuroticism was evaluated as a potential moderator of treatment effects. RESULTS All 4 outcome measures improved significantly after instruction, with reductions from baseline that ranged from 14% (STAI) to 36% (BSI). More frequent practice was associated with better outcome. Higher baseline neuroticism scores were associated with greater improvement. CONCLUSIONS Preliminary evidence suggests that even brief instruction in a simple meditation technique can improve negative mood and perceived stress in healthy adults, which could yield long-term health benefits. Frequency of practice does affect outcome. Those most likely to experience negative emotions may benefit the most from the intervention.
System-of-PUFs: Multilevel security for embedded systems

Embedded systems continue to provide the core for a wide range of applications, from smart-cards for mobile payment to smart-meters for power-grids. The resource and power dependency of embedded systems continues to be a challenge for state-of-the-art security practices. Moreover, even theoretically secure algorithms are often vulnerable in their implementation. With decreasing cost and complexity, physical attacks are an increasingly important threat. This threat led to the development of Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) which are disordered physical systems with various applications in hardware security. However, consistent security oriented design of embedded systems remains a challenge, as most formalizations and security models are concerned with isolated physical components or high-level concept. We provide four unique contributions: (i) We propose a system-level security model to overcome the chasm between secure components and requirements of high-level protocols; this enables synergy between component-oriented security formalizations and theoretically proven protocols. (ii) An analysis of current practices in PUF protocols using the proposed system-level security model; we identify significant issues and expose assumptions that require costly security techniques. (iii) A System-of-PUF (SoP) that utilizes the large PUF design-space to achieve security requirements with minimal resource utilization; SoP requires 64% less gate-equivalent units than recently published schemes. (iv) A multilevel authentication protocol based on SoP which is validated using our system-level security model and which overcomes current vulnerabilities. Furthermore, this protocol offers breach recognition and recovery.