Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Selection of Encoding Configuration for Scalable Video Coding

It is well-known that the wider the range of extraction points a scalable bitstream supports, the lower the compression efficiency at these extraction points. Moreover, this compression efficiency generally varies according to what combination of scalability types are used to support this range of extraction points as specified by the encoding configuration. Hence, we propose some objective criteria as a measure of coverage, compression efficiency and rate-distortion performance of a configuration, and then present a multiple-objective optimization formulation to select the best encoding configuration for scalable video coding, given a range of bitstreams that must be supported. The method is demonstrated by experimental results.
Insect-control chemicals from plants. Nagilactone C, a toxic substance from the leaves of Podocarpus nivalis and P. hallii.

Feeding tests showed that the powdered dried leaves and leaf extract of P. nivalis Hook and P. hallii Kirk are toxic to housefly larvae when incorporated into a milk diet. An active toxic ingredient has been isolated and identified as the known norditerpene lactone, nagilactone C. Nagilactone Cat 50 p.p.m. in a defined medium was toxic to housefly larvae. At lower concentrations it inhibited larval growth, maturation to pupae, and emergence of adults. Nagilactone C was not toxic to 3-4-day·old housefly larvae or to 2-3 day old adults when applied topically at the rate of 5 p.g per insect.
Clarification in Spoken Dialogue Systems

This paper argues for the use of more natural and flexible clarification questions in spoken dialogue systems. Several forms and aspects of clarification questions are discussed and exemplified by examples from human-human dialogue corpora. We show how clarification questions fit into the broader context of miscommunication and describe the types of information spoken dialogue systems need in order to generate various different clarification forms. Two kinds of dialogue systems are considered: Slot-based dialogue systems and dialogue systems with deep semantic analysis.
Left Ventricular Reverse Remodeling but Not Clinical Improvement Predicts Long-Term Survival After Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy

Background—In patients with severe heart failure and dilated cardiomyopathy, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) improves left ventricular (LV) systolic function associated with LV reverse remodeling and favorable 1-year survival. However, it is unknown whether LV reverse remodeling translates into a better long-term prognosis and what extent of reverse remodeling is clinically relevant, which were investigated in this study. Methods and Results—Patients (n=141) with advanced heart failure (mean±SD age, 64±11 years; 73% men) who received CRT were followed up for a mean (±SD) of 695±491 days. The extent of reduction in LV end-systolic volume (LVESV) at 3 to 6 months relative to baseline was examined for its predictive value on long-term clinical outcome. The cutoff value for LV reverse remodeling in predicting mortality was derived from the receiver operating characteristic curve. Then the relation between potential predictors of mortality and heart failure hospitalizations were compared by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, followed by Cox regression analysis. There were 22 (15.6%) deaths, mostly due to heart failure or sudden cardiac death. The receiver operating characteristic curve found that a reduction in LVESV of ≥9.5% had a sensitivity of 70% and specificity of 70% in predicting all-cause mortality and of 87% and 69%, respectively, for cardiovascular mortality. With this cutoff value, there were 87 (61.7%) responders to reverse remodeling. In Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, responders had significantly lower all-cause morality (6.9% versus 30.6%, log-rank &khgr;2=13.26, P=0.0003), cardiovascular mortality (2.3% versus 24.1%, log-rank &khgr;2=17.1, P<0.0001), and heart failure events (11.5% versus 33.3%, log-rank &khgr;2=8.71, P=0.0032) than nonresponders. In the Cox regression analysis model, the change in LVESV was the single most important predictor of all-cause (&bgr;=1.048, 95% confidence interval=1.019 to 1.078, P=0.001) and cardiovascular (&bgr;=1.072, 95% confidence interval=1.033 to 1.112, P<0.001) mortality. Clinical parameters were unable to predict any outcome event. Conclusions—A reduction in LVESV of 10% signifies clinically relevant reverse remodeling, which is a strong predictor of lower long-term mortality and heart failure events. This study suggests that assessing volumetric changes after an intervention in patients with heart failure provides information predictive of natural history outcomes.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PETALS: PERSONALITY TAGGED LOGICAL STATISTICAL GENERATOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Kathleen McCoy for her guidance and support during my involvement with the ICICLE project. Her suggestions and encouragement have made this thesis both a successful and an enjoyable learning experience. Lisa Michaud contributed to several discussions about the generation component and user model requirements, and Dr. Vijay Shanker encouraged my exploration of machine learning techniques in generation. Bowen Hui assisted with the initial data collection project.
MicroRNA-143 Activation Regulates Smooth Muscle and Endothelial Cell Crosstalk in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

RATIONALE The pathogenesis of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) remains unclear. The 4 microRNAs representing the miR-143 and miR-145 stem loops are genomically clustered. OBJECTIVE To elucidate the transcriptional regulation of the miR-143/145 cluster and the role of miR-143 in PAH. METHODS AND RESULTS We identified the promoter region that regulates miR-143/145 microRNA expression in pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs). We mapped PAH-related signaling pathways, including estrogen receptor, liver X factor/retinoic X receptor, transforming growth factor-β (Smads), and hypoxia (hypoxia response element), that regulated levels of all pri-miR stem loop transcription and resulting microRNA expression. We observed that miR-143-3p is selectively upregulated compared with miR-143-5p during PASMC migration. Modulation of miR-143 in PASMCs significantly altered cell migration and apoptosis. In addition, we found high abundance of miR-143-3p in PASMC-derived exosomes. Using assays with pulmonary arterial endothelial cells, we demonstrated a paracrine promigratory and proangiogenic effect of miR-143-3p-enriched exosomes from PASMC. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction and in situ hybridization showed elevated expression of miR-143 in calf models of PAH and in samples from PAH patients. Moreover, in contrast to our previous findings that had not supported a therapeutic role in vivo, we now demonstrate a protective role of miR-143 in experimental pulmonary hypertension in vivo in miR-143-/- and anti-miR-143-3p-treated mice exposed to chronic hypoxia in both preventative and reversal settings. CONCLUSIONS MiR-143-3p modulated both cellular and exosome-mediated responses in pulmonary vascular cells, whereas inhibition of miR-143-3p blocked experimental pulmonary hypertension. Taken together, these findings confirm an important role for the miR-143/145 cluster in PAH pathobiology.
Answer Extraction

Information retrieval systems have typically concentrated on retrieving a set of documents which are relevant to a user's query. This paper describes a system that attempts to retrieve a much smaller section of text, namely, a direct answer to a user's question. The SMART IR system is used to extract a ranked set of passages that are relevant to the query. Entities are extracted from these passages as potential answers to the question, and ranked for plausibility according to how well their type matches the query, and according to their frequency and position in the passages. The system was evaluated at the TREC-8 question answering track: we give results and error analysis on these queries.
Improving link quality of UWB communication links by means of PSWF-Basis persuit denoising

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) utilising Ultra Wideband communication channels often use a combination of thin sensor nodes and a heavy base node. The sensor nodes need to be as simple and low power as possible. This makes it difficult to maintain a good quality link. In this paper additional post processing steps at the base node are proposed in order to overcome these issues. A basis persuit denoising technique, using Prolate Spheroidal Wave Functions (PSWFs), combined with a sampling technique inspired by compressive sensing allows data to be recovered even when the link is interrupted for short intervals.
Electronic Reprint Applied Crystallography Automated Matching of High-and Low-resolution Structural Models Kozin and Svergun ¯ High-and Low-resolution Structural Models Kozin and Svergun High-and Low-resolution Structural Models 33 Applied Crystallography Automated Matching of High-and Low-resolutio

Author(s) of this paper may load this reprint on their own web site provided that this cover page is retained. Republication of this article or its storage in electronic databases or the like is not permitted without prior permission in writing from the IUCr. A method is presented for automated best-matching alignment of three-dimensional models represented by ensembles of points. A normalized spatial discrepancy (NSD) is introduced as a proximity measure between three-dimensional objects. Starting from an inertia-axes alignment, the algorithm minimizes the NSD; the ®nal value of the NSD provides a quantitative estimate of similarity between the objects. The method is implemented in a computer program. Simulations have been performed to test its performance on model structures with speci®ed numbers of points ranging from a few to a few thousand. The method can be used for comparative analysis of structural models obtained by different methods, e.g. of high-resolution crystallographic atomic structures and low-resolution models from solution scattering or electron microscopy.
Automatic Termination Analysis of Logic Programs (with Detailed Experimental Results)

This paper describes a system implemented in SICStus Prolog for automatically checking left termination of logic programs. Given a program and query, the system answers either that the query terminates or that there may be non-termination. The system can use any norm of a wide family of norms. It can handle automatically most of the examples found in the literature on termination of logic programs, and about half of the programs in the benchmarks of 5]. The algorithm employed by the system consists of three main parts: instantiation analysis (i.e., rigidity analysis), constraint inference, and construction of the query-mapping pairs associated with the program and query. Each of these parts generalizes earlier work related to termination analysis.
El paradigma crítico y los aportes de la investigación acción participativa en la transformación de la realidad: un análisis desde las ciencias sociales

Nuestro objetivo en este articulo se centra en realizar una reflexion en torno a los diferentes instrumentos y metodologias que los investigadores utilizan en su interes por conocer, describir o transformar el contexto o entorno en el que ubican su estudio, acercandonos a los distintos paradigmas de las ciencias sociales y el aporte que estos realizan. Finalmente, profundizaremos en el paradigma critico y las metodologias de investigacion accion participativa, a traves de una experiencia practica, reflexionando sobre su conformacion teorica, su procedimiento en la practica, y su capacidad de transformacion social, desde el protagonismo de los sujetos sobre sus practicas sociales.
Hyper-Laplacian Regularized Unidirectional Low-Rank Tensor Recovery for Multispectral Image Denoising

Recent low-rank based matrix/tensor recovery methods have been widely explored in multispectral images (MSI) denoising. These methods, however, ignore the difference of the intrinsic structure correlation along spatial sparsity, spectral correlation and non-local self-similarity mode. In this paper, we go further by giving a detailed analysis about the rank properties both in matrix and tensor cases, and figure out the non-local self-similarity is the key ingredient, while the low-rank assumption of others may not hold. This motivates us to design a simple yet effective unidirectional low-rank tensor recovery model that is capable of truthfully capturing the intrinsic structure correlation with reduced computational burden. However, the low-rank models suffer from the ringing artifacts, due to the aggregation of overlapped patches/cubics. While previous methods resort to spatial information, we offer a new perspective by utilizing the exclusively spectral information in MSIs to address the issue. The analysis-based hyper-Laplacian prior is introduced to model the global spectral structures, so as to indirectly alleviate the ringing artifacts in spatial domain. The advantages of the proposed method over the existing ones are multi-fold: more reasonably structure correlation representability, less processing time, and less artifacts in the overlapped regions. The proposed method is extensively evaluated on several benchmarks, and significantly outperforms state-of-the-art MSI denoising methods.
Signaling in transitional type 2 B cells is critical for peripheral B‐cell development

Summary: Splenic peripheral B‐cell development and the events regulating this functionally significant but relatively poorly defined developmental process have become a major focus in recent studies in B‐cell immunology. Following the exit from the bone marrow, peripheral B cells develop through transitional type 1 (T1) and transitional type 2 (T2) B‐cell stages. Emerging data suggest that the T2 subset is the immediate precursor of the mature B‐cell populations present in the spleen. In this review, we first elaborate on the evidence describing the unique properties of CD21hiCD24hiCD23hiIgMhiIgDhi T2 B cells. T2 cells uniquely activate a proliferative, pro‐survival, and differentiation program in response to B‐cell antigen receptor (BCR) engagement. The potential mechanisms leading to the differential BCR responsiveness of T1 versus T2 B cells are discussed. We also review evidence that distinguishes key BCR‐dependent signaling pathways operative in T2 and mature B cells. These signaling cascades include a protein kinase Cβ (PKCβ)‐dependent cell‐survival pathway and a second PKCβ‐independent pathway essential for BCR‐driven differentiation. Finally, we discuss recent intriguing results suggesting that the type of signal(s) encountered by T2 cells leads to their differential maturation toward the follicular mature versus marginal zone mature B‐cell populations. These combined observations suggest important implications with regard to B‐cell selection and tolerance, potential novel therapeutic targets for B‐cell lymphomas, and how the intricate balance of commensal organisms and other microenvironmental signals interact to promote the generation of ‘innate‐like’ versus adaptive effector B‐cell populations.
Different Persistence of the Cellular Effects Promoted by Protein Kinase CK2 Inhibitors CX-4945 and TDB

We compare the cellular efficacy of two selective and cell permeable inhibitors of the antiapoptotic kinase CK2. One inhibitor, CX-4945, is already in clinical trials as antitumor drug, while the other, TDB, has been recently successfully employed to demonstrate the implication of CK2 in cellular (dis)regulation. We found that, upon treatment of cancer cells with these compounds, the extent of inhibition of endocellular CK2 is initially comparable but becomes significantly different after the inhibitors are removed from the cellular medium: while in CX-4945 treated cells CK2 activity is restored to control level after 24 h, in the case of TDB it is still strongly reduced after 4 days from removal. The biological effects of the two inhibitors have been analyzed by performing clonogenic, spheroid formation, and wound-healing assays: we observed a permanent inhibition of cell survival and migration in TDB-treated cells even after the inhibitor removal, while in the case of CX-4945 only its maintenance for the whole duration of the assay insured a persisting effect. We suggest that the superiority of TDB in maintaining kinase activity inhibited and perpetuating the consequent effects is an added value to be considered when planning new therapies based on CK2 targeting.
Small‐Molecule Inhibitors and Probes for Ubiquitin‐ and Ubiquitin‐Like‐Specific Proteases

The post-translational modification of proteins with ubiquitin(Ub) or ubiquitin-like (Ubl) modifiers is an important signal inthe regulation of a variety of biological processes. The attach-ment of either a single Ub, a 76 amino acid polypeptide, ormultiple Ub entities helps to control the targeting of sub-strates for degradation. Processes such as receptor internaliza-tion, trafficking to the lysosomal compartments, and regulationof gene expression are likewise affected by Ub conjugation.
Bio-Inspired Principles Applied to the Guidance, Navigation and Control of UAS

This review describes a number of biologically inspired principles that have been applied to the visual guidance, navigation and control of Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). The current limitations of UAS systems are outlined, such as the over-reliance on GPS, the requirement for more self-reliant systems and the need for UAS to have a greater understanding of their environment. It is evident that insects, even with their small brains and limited intelligence, have overcome many of the shortcomings of the current state of the art in autonomous aerial guidance. This has motivated research into bio-inspired systems and algorithms, specifically vision-based navigation, situational awareness and guidance.
Named Entity Recognition in Questions: Towards a Golden Collection

Named Entity Recognition (NER) plays a relevant role in several Natural Language Processing tasks. Question-Answering (QA) is an example of such, since answers are frequently named entities in agreement with the semantic category expected by a given question. In this context, the recognition of named entities is usually applied in free text data. NER in natural language questions can also aid QA and, thus, should not be disregarded. Nevertheless, it has not yet been given the necessary importance. In this paper, we approach the identification and classification of named entities in natural language questions. We hypothesize that NER results can benefit with the inclusion of previously labeled questions in the training corpus. We present a broad study addressing that hypothesis, focusing on the balance to be achieved between the amount of free text and questions in order to build a suitable training corpus. This work also contributes by providing a set of nearly 5,500 annotated questions with their named entities, freely available for research purposes.
Micro-Optics Fabrication on Top of Optical Fibers Using Two-Photon Lithography

We describe the fabrication of different micro-optical structures on top of optical fibers using two-photon polymerization. We show the convenience of this approach to quickly create generic three-dimensional shapes using a single setup by comparison to previous shape-dependent methods. A set of different structures, designed for different optical functions, are fabricated and characterized to demonstrate the versatility of this approach and their high optical quality.
Decomposition of Declarative Knowledge Bases with External Functions

We present a method to decompose a declarative knowledge base, given by a logic program under Answer Set Semantics with access to external sources. It overcomes the ineffectiveness of current methods due to a lack of structural information about these sources, viewed as black boxes, by exploiting independency information in accesses to them. To this end, we develop a generic notion of domain independence that allows to restrict the evaluation domain and, as a consequence, to prune unnecessary dependency assumptions between atoms. This leads to increased decomposability; we demonstrate this by an evaluation method for HEX-programs based on program rewriting, which may yield large performance gains. While developed for a particular formalism, the notions and ideas of this paper might be adapted to related formalisms as well.
Proportional assist ventilation: methodology and therapeutics on COPD patients compared with pressure support ventilation.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the impact of proportional assist ventilation (PAV) on tolerance and breathlessness in ventilated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and to describe the patient-ventilator interaction, hemodynamic state, breathing pattern and work of breath during PAV and pressure support ventilation (PSV). METHODS Ten intubated COPD patients on weaning from mechanical ventilation were studied. Elastance and resistance were measured by both the inspiratory-hold technique during a brief period of volume control ventilation and runaway technique during PAV. Each assistance level of PAV (80%, 60% and 40%) and PSV was selected randomly. Patients' response, hemodynamics, blood gas and lung mechanics were monitored. RESULTS Tidal volume and respiratory rate didn't change in a consistent manner as the level of assist was decreased (P > 0.05). With the level of assist increasing, peak inspiratory pressure was increasing significantly (P < 0.05), while patients' work of breath had the tendency to decrease (P < 0.05). A significant difference in the Borg Category Scale was observed between PAV and PSV (0.50 [1.50] vs. 0.75 [2.00], P < 0.05) at the same degree of respiratory muscle unloading. PaCO(2) was significantly higher on PAV (54 [23] mm Hg) than on PSV (48 [23] mm Hg) (P < 0.05). Peak inspiratory pressure on PAV was significantly lower than on PSV (16 +/- 4 cm H(2)O vs. 21 +/- 3 cm H(2)O, respectively, P < 0.05). Hemodynamics and oxygenation remained unchanged. CONCLUSIONS PAV is a feasible method for supporting ventilator-dependent patients and was well tolerated. It can improve the breathing pattern and reduce inspiratory effort. At the same degree of respiratory muscle unloading, PAV can be implemented at much lower peak inspiratory pressure than PSV. It can also apply proportional pressure support according to the patients' ventilatory demand.