Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robotic Behavior Prediction Using Hidden Markov Models

There are many situations in which it would be beneficial for a robot to have predictive abilities similar to those of rational humans. Some of these situations include collaborative robots, robots in adversarial situations, and for dynamic obstacle avoidance. This paper presents an approach to modeling behaviors of dynamic agents in order to empower robots with the ability to predict the agent's actions and identify the behavior the agent is executing in real time. The method of behavior modeling implemented uses hidden Markov models (HMMs) to model the unobservable states of the dynamic agents. The background and theory of the behavior modeling is presented. Experimental results of realistic simulations of a robot predicting the behaviors and actions of a dynamic agent in a static environment are presented.
The Complexity of Recon guring Network ModelsY

This paper concerns some of the theoretical complexity aspects of the reconngurable network model. The computational power of the model is investigated under several variants, depending on the type of switches (or switch operations) assumed by the network nodes. Computational power is evaluated by focusing on the set of problems computable in constant time in each variant. A hierarchy of such problem classes corresponding to diierent variants is shown to exist and is placed relative to traditional classes of complexity theory.
Identifying Computer Graphics using HSV Color Model and Statistical Moments of Characteristic Functions

Computer graphics generated by advanced rendering software come to appear so photorealistic that it has become difficult for people to visually differentiate them from photographic images. Consequently, modern computer graphics may be used as a convincing form of image forgery. Therefore, identifying computer graphics has become an important issue in image forgery detection. In this paper, a novel approach to distinguishing computer graphics from photographic images is introduced. The statistical moments of characteristic function of the image and wavelet subbands are used as the distinguishing features. In addition, we investigate the influence of different image color representations on the feature effectiveness. Specifically, the efficiency of using RGB and HSV color models is investigated. The experiments have shown that the features extracted from HSV color space, which decouples brightness from chromatic components, have demonstrated better performance than that from RGB color model.
The Effects of Mastoparan on the Carrot Cell Plasma Membrane Polyphosphoinositide Phospholipase C

When [3H]inositol-labeled carrot (Daucus carota L.) cells were treated with 10 or 25 [mu]M wasp venom peptide mastoparan or the active analog Mas-7 there was a rapid loss of more than 70% of [3H]phosphatidylinositol-4-monophosphate (PIP) and [3H]phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) and a 3- and 4-fold increase in [3H]inositol-1,4-P2 and [3H]inositol-1,4,5-P3, respectively. The identity of [3H]inositol-1,4-P3 was confirmed by phosphorylation with inositol-1,4,5-P3 3-kinase and co-migration with inositol-1,3,4,5-P4. The changes in phosphoinositides were evident within 1 min. The loss of [3H]PIP was evident only when cells were treated with the higher concentrations (10 and 25 [mu]M) of mastoparan or Mas-7. At 1 [mu]M Mas-7, [3H]PIP increased. The inactive mastoparan analog Mas-17 had little or no effect on [3H]PIP or [3H]PIP2 hydrolysis in vivo. Neomycin (100 [mu]M) inhibited the uptake of Mas-7 and thereby inhibited the Mas-7-stimulated hydrolysis of [3H]PIP and [3H]PIP2. Plasma membranes isolated from mastoparan-treated cells had increased PIP-phospholipase C (PLC) activity. However, when Mas-7 was added to isolated plasma membranes from control cells, it had no effect on PIP-PLC activity at low concentrations and inhibited PIP-PLC at concentrations greater than 10 [mu]M. In addition, guanosine-5[prime]-O-(3-thiotriphosphate) had no effect on the PIP-PLC activity when added to plasma membranes isolated from either the Mas-7-treated or control cells. The fact that Mas-7 did not stimulate PIP-PLC activity in vitro indicated that the Mas-7 induced increase in PIP-PLC in vivo required a factor that was lost from the membrane during isolation.
Unreliable Measurement of Basophil Maximum Leukotriene Release with the Bühlmann CAST 2000 Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay Kit

ABSTRACT The Bühlmann CAST 2000 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay is a potentially useful assay for measuring sulfidoleukotrienes released in vitro by allergen-challenged basophils. However, we observed that the positive-control reagent yielded positive signals in cell-free systems. These false-positive results depended on using a mouse anti-FcεRI monoclonal antibody and were prevented by degranulation-inducing reagents other than mouse monoclonal antibodies.
Prediction and Decoding of Retinal Ganglion Cell Responses with a Probabilistic Spiking Model

Sensory encoding in spiking neurons depends on both the integration of sensory inputs and the intrinsic dynamics and variability of spike generation. We show that the stimulus selectivity, reliability, and timing precision of primate retinal ganglion cell (RGC) light responses can be reproduced accurately with a simple model consisting of a leaky integrate-and-fire spike generator driven by a linearly filtered stimulus, a postspike current, and a Gaussian noise current. We fit model parameters for individual RGCs by maximizing the likelihood of observed spike responses to a stochastic visual stimulus. Although compact, the fitted model predicts the detailed time structure of responses to novel stimuli, accurately capturing the interaction between the spiking history and sensory stimulus selectivity. The model also accounts for the variability in responses to repeated stimuli, even when fit to data from a single (nonrepeating) stimulus sequence. Finally, the model can be used to derive an explicit, maximum-likelihood decoding rule for neural spike trains, thus providing a tool for assessing the limitations that spiking variability imposes on sensory performance.
Enhancing inulinase yield by irradiation mutation associated with optimization of culture conditions

A new inulinase-producing strain was isolated from rhizosphere soils of Jerusalem artichoke collected from Shihezi (Xinjiang, China) using Jerusalem artichoke power (JAP) as sole carbon source. It was identified as an Aspergillus niger strain by analysis of 16S rRNA. To improve inulinase production, this fungus was subjected to mutagenesis induced by 60Co γ-irradiation. A genetically stable mutant (designated E12) was obtained and it showed 2.7-fold higher inulinase activity (128 U/mL) than the parental strain in the supernatant of a submerged culture. Sequential methodology was used to optimize the inulinase production of stain E12. A screening trial was first performed using Plackett-Burman design and variables with statistically significant effects on inulinase bio-production were identified. These significant factors were further optimized by central composite design experiments and response surface methodology. Finally, it was found that the maximum inulinase production (185 U/mL) could be achieved under the optimized conditions namely pH 7.0, yeast extract concentration of 5.0 g/L, JAP concentration of 66.5 g/L, peptone concentration of 29.1 g/L, solution volume of 49.4 mL in 250-mL shake flasks, agitation speed of 180 rpm, and fermentation time of 60 h. The yield of inulinase under optimized culture conditions was approximately 1.4-fold of that obtained by using basal culture medium. These findings are of significance for the potential industrial application of the mutant E12.
Facteurs de risque de faible poids de naissance en milieu semi-rural de Kamina, République Démocratique du Congo

Introduction Le faible poids de naissance constitue un problème majeur de santé publique, aussi bien dans les pays développés que dans les pays en développement, de par son ampleur et sa forte association avec la morbidité et la mortalité infantiles. Méthodes Il s’agit d’une étude cas-témoins rétrospective menée sur les différents facteurs de risque de faible poids de naissance(FPN) en milieu semi-rural de Kamina chez les accouchées et leurs nouveau-nés respectifs enregistrés de la période allant de janvier 2009 à décembre 2010. Résultats Cette étude a répertorié 69 cas des nouveau-nés de FPN sur 483 accouchements enregistrés (14,3%). Les facteurs associés au FPN déterminés dans ce travail sont l’âge maternel inférieur à 18 ans (OR=7,62, IC=3.46-16.8) et supérieur à 35 ans (OR=2,04;IC=0.91-4.46), la primiparité(OR=2,48;IC=1.18-5.21) et le non suivi des consultations prénatales (OR=5,50;IC=2.00-15.03), la prématurité avec grossesse âgée de moins de 37 semaines d’aménorrhée, la grossesse multiple (OR=30,94) et le sexe féminin du nouveau-né. Conclusion Cette étude a démontré que l’âge maternel inférieur à 18 ans et supérieur à 35 ans, le non suivi des consultations prénatales, la primiparité et la prématurité, la grossesse multiple et le sexe féminin du nouveau-né sont les facteurs associés au faible poids de naissance.
The Design of All-Digital Polar Transmitter Based on ADPLL and Phase Synchronized ΔΣ Modulator

An improved architecture of polar transmitter (TX) is presented. The proposed architecture is digitally-intensive and mainly composed of an all-digital PLL (ADPLL) for phase modulation, a 1-bit low-pass delta sigma ΔΣ modulator for envelop modulation, and a H-bridge class-D power amplifier (PA) for differential signaling. The ΔΣ modulator is clocked using the phase modulated RF carrier to ensure phase synchronization between the amplitude and phase path, and to guarantee the PA is switching at zero crossings of the output current. An on-chip pre-filter is used to reduce the parasitic capacitance from packages at the switch stage output. The high over sampling ratio of the ΔΣ modulator move quantization noise far away from the carrier frequency, ensuring good in-band performance and relax filter requirements. The on-chip filter also acts as impedance matching and differential to single-ended conversion. The measured digital transmitter consumes 58 mW from a 1-V supply at 6.8 dBm output power.
Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search Algorithms for Multiway Graph Partition

For a given graph G with vertex and edge weights, we partition the vertices into subsets to minimize the total weights for edges crossing the subsets (weighted cut size) under the constraint that the vertex weights are evenly distributed among the subsets. We propose two new effective graph partition algorithms based on simulated annealing and tabu search, and compare their performance with that of the LPK algorithm reported in Ref. 12. Extensive experimental study shows that both of our new algorithms produce significantly better solutions than the LPK algorithm (maximal and minimal improvements on average weighted cut size are roughly 51.8% and 10.5% respectively) with longer running time, and this advantage in solution quality would not change even if we run the LPK algorithm repeatedly with random initial solutions in the same time frame as required by our algorithms.
Intimate Violence: The Effects of Family, Threatened Egotism, and Reciprocity.

Intimate Violence: The Effects of Family, Threatened Egotism, and Reciprocity by Jessica Lynne Holt This study was undertaken in an attempt to investigate the impact of family, threatened egotism, and reciprocity on a person’s use of intimate violence. Threatened egotism proposes that aggression is the result of high but unstable self-esteem, which is conceptualized as high selfesteem coupled with high narcissism. Self-report questionnaires were administered to randomly selected cluster samples of 423 college students, 147 males and 276 females. The mean age is approximately 22 with 93% indicating they are White and 7% non-White. While no support was found for threatened egotism, violence witnessed in the family of origin and reciprocity were found to significantly impact intimate violence. Analyses conducted separately for males and females indicate that these factors operate differently based on gender.
Quantitative Real-Time Quaking-Induced Conversion Allows Monitoring of Disease-Modifying Therapy in the Urine of Prion-Infected Mice

Abstract Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative diseases characterized by accumulation of the pathogenic prion protein PrPSc in the brain. We established quantitative real-time quaking-induced conversion for the measurement of minute amounts of PrPSc in body fluids such as urine. Using this approach, we monitored the efficacy of antiprion therapy by quantifying the seeding activity of PrPSc from the brain and urine of mice after prion infection. We found that the aggregation inhibitor anle138b decreased the levels of PrPSc in the brain and urine. Importantly, variations of PrPSc levels in the urine closely corresponded to those in the brain. Our findings indicate that quantification of urinary PrPSc enables measurement of prion disease progression in body fluids and can substitute for immunodetection in brain tissue. We expect PrPSc quantification biologic fluids (such as urine and cerebrospinal fluid) with quantitative real-time quaking-induced conversion to emerge as a valuable noninvasive diagnostic tool for monitoring disease progression and the efficacy of therapeutic approaches in animal studies and human clinical trials of prion diseases. Moreover, highly sensitive methods for quantifying pathologic aggregate seeds might provide novel molecular biomarkers for other neurodegenerative diseases that may involve prion-like mechanisms (protein aggregation and spreading), such as Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease.
State of the Art in Surface Reconstruction from Point Clouds

The area of surface reconstruction has seen substantial progress in the past two decades. The traditional problem addressed by surface reconstruction is to recover the digital representation of a physical shape that has been scanned, where the scanned data contains a wide variety of defects. While much of the earlier work has been focused on reconstructing a piece-wise smooth representation of the original shape, recent work has taken on more specialized priors to address significantly challenging data imperfections, where the reconstruction can take on different representations -- not necessarily the explicit geometry. This state-of-the-art report surveys the field of surface reconstruction, providing a categorization with respect to priors, data imperfections, and reconstruction output. By considering a holistic view of surface reconstruction, this report provides a detailed characterization of the field, highlights similarities between diverse reconstruction techniques, and provides directions for future work in surface reconstruction.
Engaging conceptions of identity in a context of medical pluralism: explaining treatment choices for everyday illness in Niger.

This article uses ethnographic research to reflect upon how the treatment of 'everyday' illnesses in Niger engages concepts of social identity. Inspired by Bourdieu's concept of social distinction, as well as Appadurai's edited volume on the 'social lives' of 'things', I present an analysis of how medications are understood by their users in terms of social and ideological meaning in one rural Hausa village. Decisions about medication choice were framed by three main themes: belonging to the 'modern' world, 'traditional' Hausa culture, and religious identity. This article does not argue that these notions of identity fully explain medication use, nor necessarily predict treatment choices. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the dynamic meanings given to treatment decisions after they have been made, attributed to the medications themselves and negotiated through their circulation in a context where multiple medical systems are drawn from to manage illness. Producers and sellers of medication also engage these meaning-centred concepts, which have theoretical and practical interest for the social sciences and public health. A virtual abstract for this paper can be viewed at: https://www.youtube. com/channel/UC_979cmCmR9rLrKuD7z0ycA.
Geometric probability results for bounding path quality in sampling-based roadmaps after finite computation

Sampling-based algorithms provide efficient solutions to high-dimensional, geometrically complex motion planning problems. For these methods asymptotic results are known in terms of completeness and optimality. Previous work by the authors argued that such methods also provide probabilistic near-optimality after finite computation time using indications from Monte Carlo experiments. This work formalizes these guarantees and provides a bound on the probability of finding a near-optimal solution with PRM* after a finite number of iterations. This bound is proven for general-dimension Euclidean spaces and evaluated through simulation. These results are leveraged to create automated stopping criteria for PRM* and sparser near-optimal roadmaps, which have reduced running time and storage requirements.
MetaDesign: Beyond User-Centered and Participatory Design

Meta-design characterizes objectives, techniques, and processes for creating new media and environments that allow the owners of problems to act as designers. A fundamental objective of meta-design is to create socio-technical environments that empower users to engage in informed participation rather than being restricted to the use of existing systems. The seeding, evolutionary growth, reseeding model is a process model that supports meta-design. We have explored and assessed meta-design approaches in the development of innovative computational environments and in our teaching and learning activities.
TURBULENT FLOW IN A MICRO-CHANNEL

Turbulent flow of water in a narrow gap of an emulsifier is investigated experimentally using micro-PIV (micro Particle Image Velocimetry) technique and compared with numerical predictions performed using the commercial code Fluent. The purpose of the investigations is to develop a procedure for wellcontrolled generation of mono-disperse suspension of micro droplets. These droplets will form a matrix for collection of nano-particles into well-structured configuration [1]. The micro-flow measurements are based on epi-fluorescence illumination and high-speed imaging. The experimental data are compared with the numerical results obtained using both turbulent and laminar flow models. It was found that, due to small channel dimensions and very small flow development length, the turbulent energy dissipation takes place mainly in the gap and shortly behind it. Very low amount of oil-phase fraction in investigated emulsions justifies us to use mean energy dissipation estimated for pure water to predict mean diameter of oil droplets. These predictions are validated using experimental data for the emulsion.
Detection of HPV types and neutralizing antibodies in Gansu province, China

A total of 82 samples from patients with cervical cancer (Group 1) and 50 samples from patients with other genital diseases (Group 2) were collected in Gansu, China. All 132 samples were tested for HPV DNA with a typing kit that can detect 21 types of HPV, and also tested for neutralizing antibodies against HPV‐16, ‐18, ‐58, ‐45, ‐6, and ‐11 using pseudovirus‐based neutralization assays. The results revealed that 28% (23/82) of sera in Group 1 were positive for type‐specific neutralizing antibodies with a titer range of 160–640, of which 23.2% (19/82), 2.4% (2/82), 2.4% (2/82), 1.2% (1/82), and 1.2% (1/82) were against HPV‐16, ‐58, ‐6, ‐18, and ‐45, respectively. Only one serum (2%) in Group 2 was positive for neutralizing antibodies, which were against HPV‐6 with a titer of 2,560. Overall, 85.4% (70/82) of samples in Group 1 were HPV DNA‐positive, compared with 28% (14/50) of samples in Group 2. The seven most common types detected in Group 1 were HPV‐16 (80%), HPV‐52 (7.1%), HPV‐66 and HPV‐11 (5.7% each), and HPV‐58, HPV‐18, and HPV‐33 (4.3% each), while the four most common types in Group 2 were HPV‐16 (12%), HPV‐52 and HPV‐11 (6% each), and HPV‐68 (4%). The concordance between HPV DNA and corresponding neutralizing antibodies was 32.9% (27/82) with a significant difference (P < 0.005). More specifically, the concordance was 42.7% (35/82) for HPV‐16 in Group 1. The full‐length sequences of six HPV types (HPV‐16, ‐58, ‐33, ‐59, ‐11, and ‐68) were determined and showed 99% identities with their reported genomes. J. Med. Virol. 81:693–702, 2009 © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Sympathetic Innervation Promotes Arterial Fate by Enhancing Endothelial ERK Activity.

RATIONALE Arterial endothelial cells are morphologically, functionally, and molecularly distinct from those found in veins and lymphatic vessels. How arterial fate is acquired during development and maintained in adult vessels is incompletely understood. OBJECTIVE We set out to identify factors that promote arterial endothelial cell fate in vivo. METHODS AND RESULTS We developed a functional assay, allowing us to monitor and manipulate arterial fate in vivo, using arteries isolated from quails that are grafted into the coelom of chick embryos. Endothelial cells migrate out from the grafted artery, and their colonization of host arteries and veins is quantified. Here we show that sympathetic innervation promotes arterial endothelial cell fate in vivo. Removal of sympathetic nerves decreases arterial fate and leads to colonization of veins, whereas exposure to sympathetic nerves or norepinephrine imposes arterial fate. Mechanistically, sympathetic nerves increase endothelial ERK (extracellular signal-regulated kinase) activity via adrenergic α1 and α2 receptors. CONCLUSIONS These findings show that sympathetic innervation promotes arterial endothelial fate and may lead to novel approaches to improve arterialization in human disease.
It's the way you check-in: identifying users in location-based social networks

In recent years, the rapid spread of smartphones has led to the increasing popularity of Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs). Although a number of research studies and articles in the press have shown the dangers of exposing personal location data, the inherent nature of LBSNs encourages users to publish information about their current location (i.e., their check-ins). The same is true for the majority of the most popular social networking websites, which offer the possibility of associating the current location of users to their posts and photos. Moreover, some LBSNs, such as Foursquare, let users tag their friends in their check-ins, thus potentially releasing location information of individuals that have no control over the published data. This raises additional privacy concerns for the management of location information in LBSNs. In this paper we propose and evaluate a series of techniques for the identification of users from their check-in data. More specifically, we first present two strategies according to which users are characterized by the spatio-temporal trajectory emerging from their check-ins over time and the frequency of visit to specific locations, respectively. In addition to these approaches, we also propose a hybrid strategy that is able to exploit both types of information. It is worth noting that these techniques can be applied to a more general class of problems where locations and social links of individuals are available in a given dataset. We evaluate our techniques by means of three real-world LBSNs datasets, demonstrating that a very limited amount of data points is sufficient to identify a user with a high degree of accuracy. For instance, we show that in some datasets we are able to classify more than 80% of the users correctly.