Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Who knows?

iT is diFFiCULT to remember what people had to do to find the answer to a question before the Web. Imagine it is 1990, before the age of search engines, and of course, Wikipedia. You have no access to a library, and available reference books are not enough. The only option you might have is to call a friend who might know the answer. In fact, this option is so important, it is baked into the game " Who Wants to be a Millionaire? " as one of the three lifeline options to take when you are stumped for an answer. This natural instinct to call someone is also baked into the DNA of Aardvark, the social question and answering (QA) engine described in the following paper by D. Horowitz and S. Kamvar. When you turn to the phone, one of the first steps you have to figure out is who to call. This is the expertise location or question-routing problem in social QA research. At a high level, this seems like a great computer science problem. You have people as nodes, and their relationships and interactions as edges, and you want to model people's interests and expertise, as well as the frequency and recency of their interactions with each other. You will use these models to route questions. Your mind races with possible algorithms and user modeling approaches to apply. Yes, conceptually you would probably be correct with many of these ideas, but in practice, building Aardvark is much more complex and difficult. First, you must figure out how to build accurate user models for each user on the whole Web, even with sparse data for many users, including brand new users of your system. Second, you have to scale this system to millions of users, and be able to do the question routing in milliseconds. You also want to try and get answers that are good and return them as quickly as possible. Third, potential answerers (read: humans) are finicky: they do not want you to spam them; they do not like being interrupted if they are in the middle of another conversation; and they don't like it when you call them up at weird hours of the day (no matter if you know their time zone or not). In order words, you must deal with the real human context and its associated social interaction. Finally, you need …
Accuracy of needle placement into the intra-articular space of the knee.

To The Editor: I read with interest the paper entitled “Accuracy of Needle Placement into the Intra-Articular Space of the Knee” (2002;84:1522-7), by Jackson et al. The authors deserve to be complimented for a scientific study on a topic about which very little has been published. All injections were performed by a single surgeon, which is excellent. The authors mentioned that, on the basis of a magnetic resonance imaging study, they used needles that were 2 in (5.08 cm) long instead of needles that were 1.5 in (3.81 cm) long in order to clear the fat pad. Intra-articular placement was achieved in 71% of the injections that were performed through the anterolateral portal, compared with 93% of those that were performed through the midpatellar portal. Interestingly, … Corresponding author: Douglas W. Jackson, MD Orthopaedic Research Institute at the Southern California Center for Sports Medicine 2760 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90806 simori{at}aol.com
Mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae unresponsive to cell division control by polypeptide mating hormone

Temperature-sensitive mutations that produce insensitivity to division arrest by alpha-factor, a mating pheromone, were isolated in an MATa strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and shown by complementation studies to difine eight genes. All of these mutations (designated ste) produce sterility at the restrictive temperature in MATa cells, and mutations in seven of the genes produce sterility in MAT alpha cells. In no case was the sterility associated with these mutations coorectible by including wild-type cells of the same mating type in the mating test nor did nay of the mutants inhibit mating of the wild-type cells; the defect appears to be intrinsic to the cell for mutations in each of the genes. Apparently, none of the mutants is defective exclusively in division arrest by alpha-factor, as the sterility of none is suppressed by a temperature-sensitive cdc 28 mutation (the latter imposes division arrest at the correct cell cycle stage for mating). The mutants were examined for features that are inducible in MATa cells by alpha-factor (agglutinin synthesis as well as division arrest) and for the characteristics that constitutively distinguish MATa from MAT alpha cells (a-factor production, alpha-factor destruction). ste2 Mutants are defective specifically in the two inducible properties, whereas ste4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12 mutants are defective, to varying degrees, in constitutive as well as inducible aspects. Mutations in ste8 and 9 assume a polar budding pattern unlike either MATa or MAT alpha cells but characteristic of MATa/alpha cells. This study defines seven genes that function in two cell types (MATa and alpha) to control the differentiation of cell type and one gene, ste2, that functions exclusively in MATa cells to mediate responsiveness to polypeptide hormone.
Continuous positive airway pressure treatment in sleep apnea prevents new vascular events after ischemic stroke.

STUDY OBJECTIVES A study was made of the role of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment in the prevention of new vascular events following ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack. DESIGN Prospective study. PATIENTS AND INTERVENTIONS Demographic data, vascular risk factors, clinical manifestations associated to sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome, and neurologic parameters were recorded in a group of patients presenting with acute ischemic stroke at least 2 months previously. A polygraphic study was carried out 2 months after the acute episode in all patients, with the prescription of CPAP in the event of an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) > or = 20. Two groups were defined: patients who could tolerate CPAP (group 1), and patients who could not tolerate CPAP after 1 month of initial adaptation (group 2). Patients with an AHI < 20 were excluded. The incidence of new vascular events was evaluated throughout follow-up (18 months) in all patients, with an analysis of the role of CPAP in protecting the patients against such events. RESULTS Ninety-five patients were studied. Fifty-one patients (53.7%; mean age, 72.7 +/- 9.4 years [+/- SD]) presented with an AHI > or = 20, and 15 patients (29.4%) tolerated CPAP. The incidence of new vascular events was greater in group 2 (6.7%) vs group 1 (36.1%; long-rank, p = 0.03). Intolerance of CPAP increased the probability of a new vascular event fivefold (odds ratio, 5.09) adjusted for other vascular risk factors and neurologic indexes. CONCLUSIONS We concluded that CPAP treatment during 18 months in patients with an AHI > or = 20 afforded significant protection against new vascular events after ischemic stroke.
Data-Efficient Decentralized Visual SLAM

Decentralized visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a powerful tool for multi-robot applications in environments where absolute positioning is not available. Being visual, it relies on cheap, lightweight and versatile cameras, and, being decentralized, it does not rely on communication to a central entity. In this work, we integrate state-of-the-art decentralized SLAM components into a new, complete decentralized visual SLAM system. To allow for data association and optimization, existing decentralized visual SLAM systems exchange the full map data among all robots, incurring large data transfers at a complexity that scales quadratically with the robot count. In contrast, our method performs efficient data association in two stages: first, a compact full-image descriptor is deterministically sent to only one robot. Then, only if the first stage succeeded, the data required for relative pose estimation is sent, again to only one robot. Thus, data association scales linearly with the robot count and uses highly compact place representations. For optimization, a state-of-the-art decentralized pose-graph optimization method is used. It exchanges a minimum amount of data which is linear with trajectory overlap. We characterize the resulting system and identify bottlenecks in its components. The system is evaluated on publicly available datasets and we provide open access to the code. Supplementary Material Data and code are at: https://github.com/uzh-rpg/dslam_open
A Novel Real-Time Face Tracking Algorithm for Detection of Driver Fatigue

Fatigue affects a driver’s ability to control his or her cars safely. This paper proposes a novel real-time face tracking algorithm for detection of driver fatigue, based on tracking eyes, mouth and pose of a driver. The input face images are preprocessed to gray level images by using generalized Laplacian. Two eyes and mouth are labeled in binary image. According to pose of the driver, the system forms either isosceles feature triangle or right feature triangle to acquire potential face region. During the tracking of the video sequence, the confusing triangle is removed effectively. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the good performance of the proposed face tracking algorithm, and about 98% success rate is achieved.
Phyllanthus amarus Inhibits Cell Growth and Induces Apoptosis in Dalton's Lymphoma Ascites Cells Through Activation of Caspase-3 and Downregulation of Bcl-2

The authors found in an earlier study that Phyllanthus amarus extract could significantly inhibit the solid and ascites tumor development in mice induced by Dalton's lymphoma ascites (DLA) cells. In the present study, the apoptotic effects of P.amarus against DLA cells in culture was evaluated. P.amarus produced significant reduction in cell viability as determined by the MTT assay. It also induces the formation of apoptotic bodies with characteristic features like plasma membrane invagination, elongation, fragmentation, and chromatin condensation. P.amarus at concentrations of 100 and 200 µg/mL is shown to induce DNA fragmentation. Gene expression analysis reveals that P.amarus induces the expression of caspase-3 and inhibits the expression of Bcl-2, which is an antiapoptotic protein. So the present study provides some insights into the possible mechanism by which P.amarus brings about apoptosis and growth inhibition in DLA cells.
Personality Attributes as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being for NCOs

The authors examined the nature of the relationships between job-specific personality dimensions and psychological well-being for noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF). A job-specific personality inventory, comprising measures of 11 personality dimensions was developed for selection purposes. The inventory was administered to a representative sample of 1,428 NCOs along with a general mental health inventory developed by the authors, which consisted of 6 dimensions of psychological well-being. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested existence of a single factor underlying the 6 psychological well-being dimensions, Mental Health, and 2 latent factors underlying the 11 personality dimensions, Military Demeanor and Military Efficacy. The 2 personality constructs explained 91% of the variance in the Mental Health construct. A stepwise regression indicated that beta weights of the personality measures were significant except for military bearing, orderliness, and dependability. Results suggest that job-specific personality attributes were predictive of mental health. Implications of the findings for the selection of NCOs are discussed.
Molecular Archaeology of Flaviviridae Untranslated Regions: Duplicated RNA Structures in the Replication Enhancer of Flaviviruses and Pestiviruses Emerged via Convergent Evolution

RNA secondary structures in the 3′untranslated regions (3′UTR) of the viruses of the family Flaviviridae, previously identified as essential (promoters) or beneficial (enhancers) for replication, have been analysed. Duplicated enhancer elements are revealed as a global feature in the evolution of the 3′UTR of distantly related viruses within the genera Flavivirus and Pestivirus. For the flaviviruses, duplicated structures occur in the 3′UTR of all four distantly related ecological virus subgroups (tick-borne, mosquito-borne, no known vector and insect-specific flaviviruses (ISFV). RNA structural differences distinguish tick-borne flaviviruses with discrete pathogenetic characteristics. For Aedes- and Culex-associated ISFV, secondary RNA structures with different conformations display numerous short ssRNA direct repeats, exposed as loops and bulges. Long quadruplicate regions comprise almost the entire 3′UTR of Culex-associated ISFV. Extended duplicated sequence and associated RNA structures were also discovered in the 3′UTR of pestiviruses. In both the Flavivirus and Pestivirus genera, duplicated RNA structures were localized to the enhancer regions of the 3′UTR suggesting an adaptive role predominantly in wild-type viruses. We propose sequence reiteration might act as a scaffold for dimerization of proteins involved in assembly of viral replicase complexes. Numerous nucleotide repeats exposed as loops/bulges might also interfere with host immune responses acting as a molecular sponge to sequester key host proteins or microRNAs.
Comparison of target detection algorithms using adaptive background models

This article compares the performance of target detectors based on adaptive background differencing on public benchmark data. Five state of the art methods are described. The performance is evaluated using state of the art measures with respect to ground truth. The original points are the comparison to hand labelled ground truth and the evaluation on a large database. The simpler methods LOTS and SGM are more appropriate to the particular task as MGM using a more complex background model.
Semi-autonomous scheme for pushing micro-objects

In many microassembly applications, it is often desirable to position and orient polygonal micro-objects lying on a planar surface. Pushing micro-objects using point contact provides more flexibility and less complexity compared to pick and place operation. Due to the fact that in micro-world surface forces are much more dominant than inertial forces and these forces are distributed unevenly, pushing through the center of mass of the micro-object will not yield a pure translational motion. In order to translate a micro-object, the line of pushing should pass through the center of friction. In this paper, a semi-autonomous scheme based on hybrid vision/force feedback is proposed to push microobjects with human assistance using a custom built tele-micromanipulation setup to achieve pure translational motion. The pushing operation is divided into two concurrent processes: In one process human operator who acts as an impedance controller alters the velocity of the pusher while in contact with the micro-object through scaled bilateral teleoperation with force feedback. In the other process, the desired line of pushing for the micro-object is determined continuously using visual feedback procedures so that it always passes through the varying center of friction. Experimental results are demonstrated to prove nano-Newton range force sensing, scaled bilateral teleoperation with force feedback and pushing microobjects.
A Coverage Enhancement Method of Directional Sensor Network Based on Genetic Algorithm for Occlusion-Free Surveillance

Coverage enhancement is one of the hot research topics in area surveillance using wireless sensor network. In this paper, the characteristics of coverage model for directional sensor networks are analyzed, and the prototype of view orientation of wireless sensor node in surveillance area with obstacles is discussed. Then, the concept of weighted coverage modal with different weight is provided, and a novel coverage optimizing algorithm based on genetic algorithm for occlusion-free surveillance model is proposed. The dynamic optimization process is constructed for adapting the real-time changing and a discrete model of sub-regions is presented for simplifying calculation. The result of experiment show that the proposed method can optimize the coverage rate of occlusion-free surveillance in wireless directional sensor network, and make coverage rate more stable when obstacles are increased.
A Focused Dynamic Attention Model for Visual Question Answering

Visual Question and Answering (VQA) problems are attracting increasing interest from multiple research disciplines. Solving VQA problems requires techniques from both computer vision for understanding the visual contents of a presented image or video, as well as the ones from natural language processing for understanding semantics of the question and generating the answers. Regarding visual content modeling, most of existing VQA methods adopt the strategy of extracting global features from the image or video, which inevitably fails in capturing fine-grained information such as spatial configuration of multiple objects. Extracting features from auto-generated regions -- as some region-based image recognition methods do -- cannot essentially address this problem and may introduce some overwhelming irrelevant features with the question. In this work, we propose a novel Focused Dynamic Attention (FDA) model to provide better aligned image content representation with proposed questions. Being aware of the key words in the question, FDA employs off-the-shelf object detector to identify important regions and fuse the information from the regions and global features via an LSTM unit. Such question-driven representations are then combined with question representation and fed into a reasoning unit for generating the answers. Extensive evaluation on a large-scale benchmark dataset, VQA, clearly demonstrate the superior performance of FDA over well-established baselines.
Timbre Classification Of A Single Musical Instrument

In order to map the spectral characteristics of the large variety of sounds a musical instrument may produce, different notes were performed and sampled in several intensity levels across the whole extension of a clarinet. Amplitude and frequency time-varying curves of partials were measured by Discrete Fourier Transform. A limited set of orthogonal spectral bases was derived by Principal Component Analysis techniques. These bases defined spectral sub-spaces capable of representing all tested sounds and of grouping them according to the distance metrics of the representation. A clustering algorithm was used to infer timbre classes. Preliminary tests with resynthesized sounds with normalized pitch showed a strong relation between the perceived timbre and the cluster label to which the notes were assigned. Self-Organizing Maps lead to results similar to those obtained by PCA representation and Kmeans clustering algorithm.
Optimal surface reconstruction from planar contours

In many scientific and technical endeavors, a three-dimensional solid must be reconstructed from serial sections, either to aid in the comprehension of the object's structure or to facilitate its automatic manipulation and analysis. This paper presents a general solution to the problem of constructing a surface over a set of cross-sectional contours. This surface, to be composed of triangular tiles, is constructed by separately determining an optimal surface between each pair of consecutive contours. Determining such a surface is reduced to the problem of finding certain minimum cost cycles in a directed toroidal graph. A new fast algorithm for finding such cycles is utilized. Also developed is a closed-form expression, in terms of the number of contour points, for an upper bound on the number of operations required to execute the algorithm. An illustrative example which involves the construction of a minimum area surface describing a human head is included. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work or personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page.
Extracellular Receptor Kinase and cAMP Response Element Binding Protein Activation in the Neonatal Rat Heart after Perinatal Cocaine Exposure

Prenatal exposure to cocaine has been shown to induce an increase in the myocardial expression and activation of the cAMP response binding protein (CREB), a transcriptional factor that has been shown to regulate gene expression. Several different kinases, including protein kinase A, calcium calmodulin kinase II, and mitogen-activated protein kinase can induce phosphorylation of CREB at serine 133, a necessary step for CREB activation. We examined whether the mitogen-activated protein kinase–extracellular receptor kinase (ERK) pathway may be involved in mediating the serine 133 CREB phosphorylation in cardiac nuclei after perinatal cocaine exposure. Pregnant rats were treated daily with saline or cocaine at 60 mg/kg (C60) by intragastric administration during the entire gestational period, and treatment was continued in the nursing dams after delivery until the time of the study. Nuclear extracts were isolated from hearts of 1-d- and 7-d-old neonatal rats. We performed immunoblotting experiments using an antibody that recognized CREB with phosphorylation specifically at the serine 133 site and an antibody that recognized both the phosphorylated and the unphosphorylated forms of CREB, as well as antibodies for total ERK, phospho-ERK, total ribosomal S6 kinase 1 (RSK1), RSK2, and phospho-RSK. We assessed the interaction of RSK with CREB or CREB-binding protein by performing co-immunoprecipitation experiments. We found that perinatal cocaine exposure increased both phospho-ERK and phospho-RSK expression, indicative of an increased activity of these two enzymes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that phospho-RSK was immunoprecipitated with CREB in all neonatal cardiac nuclei and that the greatest interaction was found in day 7 hearts after perinatal cocaine exposure. Our results thus illustrate that the ERK-RSK pathway was active in the postnatal rat heart at 1 and 7 d of age and that this pathway may mediate the increase in myocardial CREB activation after perinatal cocaine exposure in the day 7 hearts.
On the Placement of Internet Taps in Wireless Neighborhood Networks

Recently there has emerged a novel application of wireless technology that enables home users to connect to the Internet by creating a multi-hop wireless network over a neighborhood region. In such a network, a small number of Internet TAPs (ITAPs) are deployed across the neighborhood, serving as gateways to the Internet; houses are equipped with low-cost antennas, and form a multi-hop wireless network among themselves to cooperatively route traffic to the Internet using the ITAPs. A similar application also exists in sensor networks, where sensors collect measurement data and send it through a multi-hop wireless network to the servers on the Internet via ITAPs. For both applications, placement of ITAPs is a critical determinant of system performance and resource usage. However there has been little work on this subject. In this paper, we explore the ITAP placement problem under three wireless link models. For each link model, we develop placement algorithms to make informed placement decisions based on neighborhood layouts, user demands, and wireless link characteristics. We also extend our algorithms to provide fault tolerance and to handle significant workload variation. We evaluate our placement algorithms through both analysis and simulation. Our results show that our algorithms yield close to optimal solutions over a wide range of scenarios we have considered.