Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of the Deformations of Various Piezoceramic Actuators

Presented are the predicted manufactured shapes and actuated shape changes of metal-based THUNDERTM-like actuators and fiber-reinforced-polymer-based LIPCA-C1-and LIPCA-C2-like actuators. As these actuators, which are laminated in nature, are manufactured flat at an elevated temperature and then cooled for use, they deform out of plane as they cool, resulting in residual curvatures. The development of the residual curvatures are predicted with a 23-term Rayleigh-Ritz model based on energy principles. Because of the large out-of-plane deformations due to cooling, geometrically nonlinear effects, in the sense of von Karman, are included. Actuated curvatures due to activation of the piezoceramic material are also predicted. The behaviors of plate and beam-like actuator geometries over a range of sidelength-to-thickness ratios are investigated. Finite element results for selected geometries are presented for comparison with the 23-term model. The results show that geometrically nonlinear effects are quite strong for THUNDER and LIPCA-C2 plate-like actuators, resulting in the potential for more than one cooled shape for THUNDER actuators and of a sudden change in the actuated shape, referred to here as snap-through, for LIPCA-C2 actuators. For the LIPCA-C1 actuators, and the beam-like geometries of the other two actuators, geometrically nonlinear effects are not as strong. Residual stress predictions within the cooled and activated actuators are also presented. Though the actuators considered are specific in design, the results can be interpreted more generally and point to the fact that a wide range of behaviors can be expected from geometrically nonlinear effects interacting with variations in materials (i.e., metals vs. fiber-reinforced materials) and geometry (i.e., platelike vs. beam-like and sidelength-to-thickness ratio).
Robust Rotation and Translation Estimation in Multiview Reconstruction

It is known that the problem of multiview reconstruction can be solved in two steps: first estimate camera rotations and then translations using them. This paper presents new robust techniques for both of these steps, (i) Given pair-wise relative rotations, global camera rotations are estimated linearly in least squares, (ii) Camera translations are estimated using a standard technique based on Second Order Cone Programming. Robustness is achieved by using only a subset of points according to a new criterion that diminishes the risk of choosing a mismatch. It is shown that only four points chosen in a special way are sufficient to represent a pairwise reconstruction almost equally as all points. This leads to a significant speedup. In image sets with repetitive or similar structures, non-existent epipolar geometries may be found. Due to them, some rotations and consequently translations may be estimated incorrectly. It is shown that iterative removal of pairwise reconstructions with the largest residual and reregistration removes most non-existent epipolar geometries. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated on difficult wide base-line image sets.
Evaluating the longitudinal risk of social vigilance on atherosclerosis: study protocol for the North Texas Heart Study

Introduction Psychosocial factors are increasingly recognised as important determinants of cardiovascular disease risk. The North Texas Heart Study aims to understand the mechanisms responsible for this association with a focus on social vigilance (ie, scanning the environment for social threats). There is also growing interest in supplementing traditional methods (eg, survey assessment of psychosocial risk paired with cross-sectional and longitudinal health outcomes) with daily or repeated momentary assessment of psychosocial factors. However, there are relatively few longitudinal studies directly comparing these approaches with hard endpoints. Methods and analysis The North Texas Heart Study proposes a longitudinal measurement burst design to examine psychosocial determinants of subclinical atherosclerosis. A sample of 300 healthy community participants, stratified by age and gender, will complete survey measures, as well as 2 days of ecological momentary assessment at baseline and at a 2-year follow-up. A range of psychosocial and behavioural factors, objective biomarkers, as well as carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) will be assessed at both time points. Unadjusted and adjusted models will evaluate cross-sectional associations and determinants of change in the cIMT. Ethics and dissemination The Institutional Review Board at the study coordinating institute (University of North Texas) has approved this study. Positive, negative or inconclusive primary and ancillary findings will be disseminated in scientific journals and conferences.
Investigating Unsupervised Learning for Text Categorization Bootstrapping

We propose a generalized bootstrapping algorithm in which categories are described by relevant seed features. Our method introduces two unsupervised steps that improve the initial categorization step of the bootstrapping scheme: (i) using Latent Semantic space to obtain a generalized similarity measure between instances and features, and (ii) the Gaussian Mixture algorithm, to obtain uniform classification probabilities for unlabeled examples. The algorithm was evaluated on two Text Categorization tasks and obtained state-of-the-art performance using only the category names as initial seeds.
Differential regulation enrichment analysis via the integration of transcriptional regulatory network and gene expression data

MOTIVATION Although many gene set analysis methods have been proposed to explore associations between a phenotype and a group of genes sharing common biological functions or involved in the same biological process, the underlying biological mechanisms of identified gene sets are typically unexplained. RESULTS We propose a method called Differential Regulation-based enrichment Analysis for GENe sets (DRAGEN) to identify gene sets in which a significant proportion of genes have their transcriptional regulatory patterns changed in a perturbed phenotype. We conduct comprehensive simulation studies to demonstrate the capability of our method in identifying differentially regulated gene sets. We further apply our method to three human microarray expression datasets, two with hormone treated and control samples and one concerning different cell cycle phases. Results indicate that the capability of DRAGEN in identifying phenotype-associated gene sets is significantly superior to those of four existing methods for analyzing differentially expressed gene sets. We conclude that the proposed differential regulation enrichment analysis method, though exploratory in nature, complements the existing gene set analysis methods and provides a promising new direction for the interpretation of gene expression data. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The program of DRAGEN is freely available at http://bioinfo.au. tsinghua.edu. cn/dragen/. CONTACT ruijiang@tsinghua.edu. cn or jiang@cs.ucr. edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Power delay profile filtering techniques for indoor radio channel characterization

This paper presents a comparison of two power delay profile filtering techniques, the Relevance Vector Machine — RVM — and the Constant False Alarm Rate — CFAR. Both techniques are applied to power delay profiles (PDPs) measured in a indoor environment at 1.95 GHz on a 160 MHz channel bandwidth and the matched filter technique is used for the sounding. The RMS (root mean square) delay spreads are determined from these filtered PDPs and from the original ones. So, for all positions of the receiver, they are compared and the quadratic mean error is evaluated.
Gotong royong in NLP research a mobile tool for collaborative text annotation in Indonesia

The absence of manually annotated training data presents an obstacle for the development of machine-learning based NLP tools in Indonesia. Existing annotation tools lack a mobile-friendly interface which is a problem in Indonesia where most users access the internet using their smartphone. In this paper, we propose the first mobile collaborative data annotation tool and evaluate it in an experiment involving 15 Indonesian students who annotated 1500 data records using their smartphones. Users confirmed the responsiveness and good usability of the system. We observed that using the mobile tool users tend to annotate data in multiple short sessions of 7–15 minutes rather than in a single long one. Future research could examine ways to increase inter-annotator agreement, which was moderate in our experiment.
Investigations on the protection effect of filling materials for post‐tensioning systems under construction conditions

About the long‐term protection behaviour of corrosion protection materials (filling materials) for prestressed systems under critical environmental conditions is only little known. The corrosion protection effect is usually based on theoretical considerations and is proven by short‐term tests. The selection of the different products is mainly made according to economical or workability criteria. In a research project the barrier effect of different commercial corrosion protection materials (waxes as well as oil‐based greases) against water, their tendency for undercutting as well as their additional corrosion protection effect were investigated. The exposure tests were carried out with non‐stressed as well as stressed prestressing steel specimens which were subjected to critical conditions (condensed water, artificial soil solution, direct soil contact). Parallel to these long‐term exposure tests the applicability of different electrochemical techniques and their significance with respect to testing the corrosion protection ability and water absorption was evaluated. Within the project a suitable method for simple testing the performance of corrosion protection materials under real conditions was developed. By means of a small compact cell submicroscopical reactions of the used sensors could be measured. The high sensitivity of this measuring technique enables the detection of degradation processes at thin protection layers.
Dynamic NMDAR-mediated properties of place cells during the object place memory task

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDAR) in the hippocampus participate in encoding and recalling the location of objects in the environment, but the ensemble mechanisms by which NMDARs mediate these processes have not been completely elucidated. To address this issue, we examined the firing patterns of place cells in the dorsal CA1 area of the hippocampus of mice (n = 7) that performed an object place memory (OPM) task, consisting of familiarization (T1), sample (T2), and choice (T3) trials, after systemic injection of 3-[(±)2-carboxypiperazin-4yl]propyl-1-phosphate (CPP), a specific NMDAR antagonist. Place cell properties under CPP (CPP–PCs) were compared to those after control saline injection (SAL–PCs) in the same mice. We analyzed place cells across the OPM task to determine whether they signaled the introduction or movement of objects by NMDAR-mediated changes of their spatial coding. On T2, when two objects were first introduced to a familiar chamber, CPP–PCs and SAL–PCs showed stable, vanishing or moving place fields in addition to changes in spatial information (SI). These metrics were comparable between groups. Remarkably, previously inactive CPP–PCs (with place fields emerging de novo on T2) had significantly weaker SI increases than SAL–PCs. On T3, when one object was moved, CPP–PCs showed reduced center-of-mass (COM) shift of their place fields. Indeed, a subset of SAL–PCs with large COM shifts (>7 cm) was largely absent in the CPP condition. Notably, for SAL–PCs that exhibited COM shifts, those initially close to the moving object followed the trajectory of the object, whereas those far from the object did the opposite. Our results strongly suggest that the SI changes and COM shifts of place fields that occur during the OPM task reflect key dynamic properties that are mediated by NMDARs and might be responsible for binding object identity with location.
Wound degradomics – current status and future perspectives

Abstract Proteases are pivotal modulators of extracellular matrix components and bioactive proteins at all phases of cutaneous wound healing and thereby essentially contribute to the successful reestablishment of skin integrity upon injury. As a consequence, disturbance of proteolytic activity at the wound site is a major factor in the pathology of chronic wounds. A large body of data acquired in many years of research provide a good understanding of how individual proteases may influence the repair process. The next challenge will be to integrate these findings and to elucidate the complex interactions of proteolytic enzymes, their inhibitors and substrates on a system-wide level. Here, we present novel approaches that might help to achieve this ambitious goal in cutaneous wound healing research.
Dynamic difficulty for checkers and Chinese chess

We investigate the practical effectiveness of a theoretically sound algorithm for dynamic difficulty adjustment in computer games: Firstly, we show how the partially ordered set master (Posm) algorithm [11] can be incorporated in board games, taking checkers and Chinese chess as examples. Secondly, we describe an empirical study of (i) Posm on checkers against synthetic opponents of varying strength, (ii) Posm on chinese chess against synthetic opponents of varying strength, and (iii) Posm on Chinese chess against human opponents of varying strength. Our results indicate that Posm can indeed serve as a flexible and effective subroutine for dynamical difficulty adjustment in computer games.
Matrine induces apoptosis of human multiple myeloma cells via activation of the mitochondrial pathway

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a hematological malignancy characterized by the uncontrolled proliferation of clonal plasma cells in bone marrow in the elderly. Although there have been tremendous advances in the treatment of MM, it remains an incurable disease. Matrine, a main alkaloid of the traditional Chinese herb Sophora flavescens Ait, has been shown to inhibit cellular proliferation and induce apoptosis of various cancer cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of matrine as a novel therapeutic agent for patients with MM. We investigated the effects of matrine for its anti-myeloma activity in vitro, and further examined the mechanisms of apoptosis induced by matrine. Matrine inhibited the proliferation of human myeloma cell lines as well as freshly isolated myeloma cells from patients in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Matrine showed a potent induction of apoptosis of myeloma cells. Mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm) was lost and cytochrome c (cyt c) was released from mitochondria to cytosol in myeloma cells treated by matrine for 24 h in a dose-dependent manner. The ratio of Bcl-2/Bax protein decreased, and the percentage of activated caspase-3 increased in myeloma cells treated by matrine for 48 h, but this matrine-induced activity of caspase-3 was completely canceled by the addition of Z-Asp(O-Me)-Glu(O-Me)-Val-Asp(O-Me) fluoromethyl ketone (Z-DEVD-FMK), a caspase-3 inhibitor. The addition of Z-DEVD-FMK partially blocked the apoptotic effect of matrine on myeloma cells. These data indicated that matrine could exert antiproliferative effects on myeloma cells and induce apoptosis of myeloma cells in vitro. The induction of apoptosis appeared to proceed via the mitochondrial pathway, including down-regulation of Bcl-2/Bax ratio, loss of Δψm, release of cyt c from mitochondria to cytosol, and activation of caspase-3. These findings support the view that matrine may be a useful candidate as a chemotherapeutic agent against MM.
Eurographics/siggraph Symposium on Computer Animation (2003) an Example-based Approach for Facial Expression Cloning

In this paper, we present a novel example-based approach for cloning facial expressions of a source model to a target model while reflecting the characteristic features of the target model in the resulting animation. Our approach comprises three major parts: key-model construction, parameterization, and expression blending. We first present an effective scheme for constructing key-models. Given a set of source example key-models and their corresponding target key-models created by animators, we parameterize the target key-models using the source key-models and predefine the weight functions for the parameterized target key-models based on radial basis functions. In runtime, given an input model with some facial expression, we compute the parameter vector of the corresponding output model, to evaluate the weight values for the target key-models and obtain the output model by blending the target key-models with those weights. The resulting animation preserves the facial expressions of the input model as well as the characteristic features of the target model specified by animators. Our method is not only simple and accurate but also fast enough for various real-time applications such as video games or internet broadcasting.
Semi-supervised Distance Metric Learning for Visual Object Classification

This paper describes a semi-supervised distance metric learning algorithm which uses pairwise equivalence (similarity and dissimilarity) constraints to discover the desired groups within high-dimensional data. As opposed to the traditional full rank distance metric learning algorithms, the proposed method can learn nonsquare projection matrices that yield low rank distance metrics. This brings additional benefits such as visualization of data samples and reducing the storage cost, and it is more robust to overfitting since the number of estimated parameters is greatly reduced. Our method works in both the input and kernel induced-feature space, and the distance metric is found by a gradient descent procedure that involves an eigen-decomposition in each step. Experimental results on high-dimensional visual object classification problems show that the computed distance metric improves the performance of the subsequent clustering algorithm.
Cheating honeybee workers produce royal offspring

The Cape bee (Apis mellifera capensis) is unique among honeybees in that workers can lay eggs that instead of developing into males develop into females via thelytokous parthenogenesis. We show that this ability allows workers to compete directly with the queen over the production of new queens. Genetic analyses using microsatellites revealed that 23 out of 39 new queens produced by seven colonies were offspring of workers and not the resident queen. Of these, eight were laid by resident workers, but the majority were offspring of parasitic workers from other colonies. The parasites were derived from several clonal lineages that entered the colonies and successfully targeted queen cells for parasitism. Hence, these parasitic workers had the potential to become genetically reincarnated as queens. Of the daughter queens laid by the resident queen, three were produced asexually, suggesting that queens can ‘choose’ to produce daughter queens clonally and thus have the potential for genetic immortality.
NICKELOAN TOURMALINE FROM THE BEREZOVSKOE GOLD DEPOSIT, MIDDLE URALS, RUSSIA

Nickeloan tourmaline (up to 0.531 apfu Ni) associated with nickeloan talc (0.511‐0.582 apfu Ni) or chromian muscovite is developed in magnesite‐quartz veins hosted in ultramafic talc + magnesite ± hematite ± chromian muscovite hydrothermal alteration located in Uspenskaya Gorka, eastern flank of the Berezovskoe gold deposit, Middle Urals, Russia. The unusual Nirich composition of the silicates reflects the geochemical environment of formation. Tourmalines are represented by light and dark green needles in aggregates up to 2 cm in length. Crystals are characterized by a strong pleochroism, from colorless to green. Tourmaline cores associated with talc are magnesiofoitite with an elevated Na content (0.436‐0.452 apfu) and a Mg/(Fetot + Mg) value of 0.90, or dravite [Na 0.535‐0.765 apfu, Mg/(Fetot + Mg) 0.87‐0.88]. In the magnesiofoitite, Ni and Cr contents range from 0.060 to 0.425 apfu, and from 0.214 to 0.249 apfu, respectively. In the dravitic cores, Ni and Cr contents range from 0.077 to 0.102 apfu and from 0.000 to 0.272 apfu, respectively. Intermediate and rim zones are magnesiofoititic and dravitic [Na 0.443‐ 0.938 apfu, Mg/(Fetot + Mg) 0.74‐0.90]. Ni and Cr contents in the same zones range from 0.020 to 0.531 apfu, and from 0.188 to 0.449 apfu. The distribution of the Mg/(Fetot + Mg) within single crystals is oscillatory. Partition coefficients for Ni and Fetot between tourmaline and talc are 0.05 and 21.48, respectively. Tourmaline associated with chromian muscovite can be classified as dravite (0.669‐0.936 apfu Na), with Mg/(Fetot + Mg) ranging from 0.76 to 0.89. Some crystals are enriched in Cr (up to 1.564 apfu); Ni content ranges from 0.036 to 0.217 apfu. The Mossbauer study indicates that about half of the total Fe is Fe 3+ in the
A Surgical Technique for the Removal of Clinoidal Meningiomas

CLINOIDAL MENINGIOMAS, ALSO referred to as medial or inner sphenoid wing meningiomas, are often difficult and challenging to remove completely and safely, especially when they become large enough to encircle, compress, or displace the adjacent critical neurovascular structures such as the optic nerve, the internal carotid artery and its branches, and the oculomotor nerve. In this article, the authors describe the detailed surgical technique used in their practice in addition to subtle nuances learned from their experience of operating on more than 40 patients with clinoidal meningiomas over the past several years. The primary goals of surgery are to achieve aggressive tumor removal with avoidance of intraoperative morbidity and, in addition, for those with preoperative compromised vision, to provide improvement in their visual function after surgery.
Reaching Strong Consensus in a General Network

In this paper, the strong consensus (SC) problem is reexamined in a general network, in which the components (processors and communication links) may be subjected to different faulty types simultaneously (also called hybrid fault model) and the network topology does not have to be fully connected. The proposed protocol can tolerate the maximum number of tolerable faulty components to make each fault-free processor obtain a common value for the SC problem in a general network.
Adaptive and cross resistance to cadmium (II) and zinc (II) by Pseudomonas aeruginosa BC15

Cadmium and zinc appear in the combined forms and they are co-pollutants. Cd is the most hazardous metal ion for human beings and causes renal dysfunction, liver and lungs damage, bone degeneration and blood damage. Though Zn is an essential nutrient, excess of Zn is toxic. Biological process was more important because conventional methods fail to remediate these pollutants due to high costs and less affordability. The screening and understanding of the functioning of microorganism plays an important role in removal and recovery of metals from heavy-metal-polluted water and soil. In our study, the strain Pseudomonas aeruginosa BC15 was isolated from oil-mill-treated waste water and it showed to be highly resistant to 6 mM Cd and 20 mM Zn in the solid and liquid media. The growth studies of BC15 strain in the medium without induction exhibited high tolerable capacity when compared to other microbes. Pretreatment of P. aeruginosa BC15 with sub-lethal concentrations of Cd induced adaptive resistance to lethal doses of Cd. Cadmium-induced cells also showed cross resistance to lethal concentration of zinc. The organism had high resistance against Cd and Zn. This has been clearly proven through biosorption studies: Cd was absorbed up to 62% and Zn about 60% in single solution, whereas in binary solution Cd was biosorbed up to 82% and Zn 85%. In conclusion, this study reveals the significance of using the strain P. aeruginosa BC15 in the bioremediation of Cd and Zn from industrial waste water and contaminated soil.