Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reproducibility and Relative Validity of Food Group Intake in a Food Frequency Questionnaire Developed for the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study

Objective To examine the validity and reproducibility of food groups in the semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) developed for the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS). Methods To evaluate the reproducibility of food groups included in the FFQ, 132 subjects (61 men and 71 women) aged 20 years or older twice completed a 168-item FFQ (FFQ1, FFQ2), with a 14-month interval between FFQ1 and FFQ2. Over the 1-year interval, 12 dietary recalls (DRs) were collected (1 each month) to assess the validity of the FFQ. Seventeen food groups were derived from the FFQ based on methods described in previous studies. Age-adjusted and deattenuated Spearman correlation coefficients were used to assess the validity of the FFQ. Results The mean (SD) age and body mass index of subjects were 35.5 (16.8) years and 25.5 (5.2) kg/m2, respectively. Validity correlation coefficients ranged from 0.03 (liquid oil) to 0.77 (simple sugars) in men (median, 0.44), and from 0.12 (snacks) to 0.79 (simple sugars) in women (median, 0.37). The energy-adjusted intraclass correlation coefficient, which reflects the reproducibility of the FFQ, was 0.51 in men and was highest for tea and coffee (0.91); in women it was 0.59 and was highest for simple sugars (0.74). The highest percentage of complete agreement and disagreement was observed for snacks and desserts (60.6%) and potatoes and dairy products (12.8%), respectively, in men, and tea and coffee (62.9%) and legumes (15.7%) in women. Conclusions The FFQ that was designed for the TLGS was found to be reliable and valid for assessing the intake of several food groups.
Fault-Tolerant Scheduling of Mixed-Critical Applications on Multi-processor Platforms

There is a lack of mixed-criticality support in system-level design frameworks for dependable Network-on-Chip (NoC) -based multiprocessor systems. Such frameworks should address mixed-criticality in both computation and NoC communication. In Mixed-Critical (MC) systems, only the Safety-Critical (SC) parts have strict predictability and dependability requirements, but conventional methods design the whole system with pessimistic settings to ensure these requirements are satisfied. This however, results in under-utilization of computation and network resources, and a decrease in performance. In this work, we integrate support of MC applications into an existing system-level design framework of dependable NoC-based multiprocessors. This framework handles failures in both computation and inter-task communication. We address the under-utilization problem by proposing a mixed-critical scheduling method such that the overall system performance is increased but all deadlines of SC tasks are met even in the presence of transient faults. Our approach handles mixed-criticality not only in tasks but also in inter-task messages. Our experiments demonstrate performance improvement in different run-time execution environments and with different MC benchmark applications including a realistic robot control system. Performance improvement is achieved regardless of task graph size, NoC size or temporal redundancy level.
A yeast DnaJ homologue, Scj1p, can function in the endoplasmic reticulum with BiP/Kar2p via a conserved domain that specifies interactions with Hsp70s

Eukaryotic cells contain multiple Hsp70 proteins and DnaJ homologues. The partnership between a given Hsp70 and its interacting DnaJ could, in principle, be determined by their cellular colocalization or by specific protein-protein interactions. The yeast SCJ1 gene encodes one of several homologues of the bacterial chaperone DnaJ. We show that Scj1p is located in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), where it can function with Kar2p (the ER-lumenal BiP/Hsp70 of yeast). The region common to all DnaJ homologues (termed the J domain) from Scj1p can be swapped for a similar region in Sec63p, which is known to interact with Kar2p in the ER lumen, to form a functional transmembrane protein component of the secretory machinery. Thus, Kar2p can interact with two different DnaJ proteins. On the other hand, J domains from two other non-ER DnaJs, Sis1p and Mdj1p, do not function when swapped into Sec63p. However, only three amino acid changes in the Sis1p J domain render the Sec63 fusion protein fully functional in the ER lumen. These results indicate that the choice of an Hsp70 partner by a given DnaJ homologue is specified by the J domain.
Update Rewriting and Integrity Constraint Maintenance in a Schema Evolution Support System: PRISM++

Supporting legacy applications when the database schema evolves represents a long-standing challenge of practical and theoretical importance. Recent work has produced algorithms and systems that automate the process of data migration and query adaptation; however, the problems of evolving integrity constraints and supporting legacy updates under schema and integrity constraints evolution are significantly more difficult and have thus far remained unsolved. In this paper, we address this issue by introducing a formal evolution model for the database schema structure and its integrity constraints, and use it to derive update mapping techniques akin to the rewriting techniques used for queries. Thus, we (i) propose a new set of Integrity Constraints Modification Operators (ICMOs), (ii) characterize the impact on integrity constraints of structural schema changes, (iii) devise representations that enable the rewriting of updates, and (iv) develop a unified approach for query and update rewriting under constraints. We then describe the implementation of these techniques provided by our PRISM++ system. The effectiveness of PRISM++ and its enabling technology has been verified on a testbed containing evolution histories of several scientific databases and web information systems, including the Genetic DB Ensembl (410+ schema versions in 9 years), and Wikipedia (240+ schema versions in 6 years).
A current-mode conductance-based silicon neuron for address-event neuromorphic systems

Silicon neuron circuits emulate the electrophysiological behavior of real neurons. Many circuits can be integrated on a single Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) device, and form large networks of spiking neurons. Connectivity among neurons can be achieved by using time multiplexing and fast asynchronous digital circuits. As the basic characteristics of the silicon neurons are determined at design time, and cannot be changed after the chip is fabricated, it is crucial to implement a circuit which represents an accurate model of real neurons, but at the same time is compact, low-power and compatible with asynchronous logic. Here we present a current-mode conductancebased neuron circuit, with spike-frequency adaptation, refractory period, and bio-physically realistic dynamics which is compact, low-power and compatible with fast asynchronous digital circuits.
Adaptive Feature Tracking with Kalman Filter for Ego-Motion Estimation

In this paper, we propose a method to improve ego-motion estimation. In the proposed method, feature points from input binocular stereo image pairs are detected using the Speeded Up Robust Features method and descriptor vectors are generated for the features. Semi-Global Matching is then performed to ensure the quality and quantity of the matching features, which are used in conjunctions with camera parameters to calculate the 3D coordinates for the image features. Kalman filter and adaptive matching are the used to perform feature tracking. The calculated 3D coordinates, as well as the 2D projections and camera parameters are used in Efficient Perspective-n-Point Camera Pose Estimation to find the camera motions. Finally, Sparse Bundle Adjustment is used to perform optimization of the estimated motions.
Data driven number-of-states selection in HMM topologies

In this paper we discuss a data driven approach to select better phone model topologies, in particular to decide on the number of states for linear left-right continuous HMMs. The novel approach is based on a conditional probabilistic viterbi path estimation and operates on forward-backward trained multiple parallel-path HMMs consisting of two different topologies. We compare this conditional probabilistic viterbi path estimation with systematic, statistical and knowledge based designs of different monophone based continuous HMM topologies and evaluate them in a LVSRS system with speech data from the German Verbmobil corpus. We obtained a 5.8% of WER reduction compared to a system with uniform three-state length topologies and a 1.8% WER reduction compared with results of a knowledge based approach with heterogeneous selection of emitting HMM states.
The filtered martingale problem

Let X be a Markov process characterized as the solution of a martingale problem with generator A, and let Y be a related observation process. The conditional distribution t of X(t) given observations of Y up to time t satisfies certain martingale properties, and it is shown that any probability-measure-valued process with the appropriate martingale properties can be interpreted as the conditional distribution of X for some observation process. In particular, if Y (t) = (X(t)) for some measurable mapping , the conditional distribution of X(t) given observations of Y up to time t is characterized as the solution of a filtered martingale problem. Uniqueness for the original martingale problem implies uniqueness for the filtered martingale problem which in turn implies the Markov property for the conditional distribution considered as a probability-measure-valued process. Other applications include a Markov mapping theorem and uniqueness for filtering equations. MSC 2000 subject classifications: 60J25, 93E11, 60G35, 60J35, 60G44
PastryStrings : Content-Based

In this work we propose and develop a comprehensive infrastr uctu e, coined PastryStrings, for supporting rich queries on both numerical (with range, and comparison predicates) and string attributes, (accommodating equality, prefix, suffix , and containment predicates) over DHT networks utilising prefix -based routing. As event-based, publish/subscribe inform ation systems are a champion application class, we formulate our s l tion in terms of this environment.
No association betweenP53codon 72 polymorphism and risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

An initial report suggested that patients homozygous for the arginine allele at codon 72 of P53 were at increased risk for human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cervical cancer, but other groups have not confirmed this finding. Since approximately 18–36% of head and neck cancers are HPV-related, we examined the genotypic frequencies at that locus in 163 cases with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) and 163 ethnically matched controls. We found no significant excess of arginine homozygotes in cases compared to controls (P= 0.50). No significant differences in allele frequencies were observed when the data were stratified by tobacco exposure or by cancer site. These findings suggest a limited role, if any, for this P53 polymorphism in SCCHN. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Matrix Metalloproteinase-10 Is Required for Lung Cancer Stem Cell Maintenance, Tumor Initiation and Metastatic Potential

Matrix metalloproteinases (Mmps) stimulate tumor invasion and metastasis by degrading the extracellular matrix. Here we reveal an unexpected role for Mmp10 (stromelysin 2) in the maintenance and tumorigenicity of mouse lung cancer stem-like cells (CSC). Mmp10 is highly expressed in oncosphere cultures enriched in CSCs and RNAi-mediated knockdown of Mmp10 leads to a loss of stem cell marker gene expression and inhibition of oncosphere growth, clonal expansion, and transformed growth in vitro. Interestingly, clonal expansion of Mmp10 deficient oncospheres can be restored by addition of exogenous Mmp10 protein to the culture medium, demonstrating a direct role for Mmp10 in the proliferation of these cells. Oncospheres exhibit enhanced tumor-initiating and metastatic activity when injected orthotopically into syngeneic mice, whereas Mmp10-deficient cultures show a severe defect in tumor initiation. Conversely, oncospheres implanted into syngeneic non-transgenic or Mmp10 −/− mice show no significant difference in tumor initiation, growth or metastasis, demonstrating the importance of Mmp10 produced by cancer cells rather than the tumor microenvironment in lung tumor initiation and maintenance. Analysis of gene expression data from human cancers reveals a strong positive correlation between tumor Mmp10 expression and metastatic behavior in many human tumor types. Thus, Mmp10 is required for maintenance of a highly tumorigenic, cancer-initiating, metastatic stem-like cell population in lung cancer. Our data demonstrate for the first time that Mmp10 is a critical lung cancer stem cell gene and novel therapeutic target for lung cancer stem cells.
Better Guarantees for k-Means and Euclidean k-Median by Primal-Dual Algorithms

Clustering is a classic topic in optimization with k-means being one of the most fundamental such problems. In the absence of any restrictions on the input, the best known algorithm for k-means with a provable guarantee is a simple local search heuristic yielding an approximation guarantee of 9+&#x2265;ilon, a ratio that is known to be tight with respect to such methods.We overcome this barrier by presenting a new primal-dual approach that allows us to (1) exploit the geometric structure of k-means and (2) to satisfy the hard constraint that at most k clusters are selected without deteriorating the approximation guarantee. Our main result is a 6.357-approximation algorithm with respect to the standard LP relaxation. Our techniques are quite general and we also show improved guarantees for the general version of k-means where the underlying metric is not required to be Euclidean and for k-median in Euclidean metrics.
Generating a contact state graph of polyhedral objects for robotic application

Traditional methods require large computation to model a contact state graph of polyhedral objects for robotic application, and moreover they are heuristic. In this paper, we propose a framework to generate the contact state graph automatically. All faces of the polyhedral objects are triangulated. A sub-contact is defined as single contact between two polyhedral objects and a contact state is presented with a set of the sub-contacts. There are two sub-contacts, a vertex-triangle contact and an edge-edge contact. According to convexity or concavity of the edges composing the triangle, the vertex-triangle contact and the edge-edge contact are classified into 10 types and 7 types, respectively. A contact state graph is made by evolutionary transitions of the sub-contacts. This procedure is accomplished only using the topology of the sub-contacts, which is possible in real-time. The proposed framework is evaluated by an example of square peg-in-hole assembly.
IPTV and Secure Digital Contents Downloading

Ubiquitous environment is emerging and improving IT technologies and the popularization of broadband Internet is encouraging creation and sharing of various contents. The contents include the concept of production and circulation of digital information/contents, in forms of characters, codes, voices, sounds, client and videos for being used on the Internet and networks. However, many contents without acquiring agree of copyright are sharing on the Internet, so many problems happen in the manufacturing process of digital contents. To solve this problem, many research projects to limit contents utilization onto legitimate users and to provide secure contents protection and download, are in progress. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a secure D-CAS system which provides security for contents downloading.
Highly GeO2 doped polarization maintaining PCF for dispersion compensation

In this paper a highly GeO<inf>2</inf> doped single mode equiangular spiral photonic crystal fiber (HDES-PCF) is proposed to achieve high birefringence with extremely high negative dispersion, higher nonlinearity with low confinement loss for E+S+C+L+U band of interest. From the simulation results, large negative dispersion of −602.7803 ps/nm/km at 1.33 µm and −903.5316 ps/nm/km at 1.55 µm is achieved. High birefringence 5.8×10<sup>−2</sup> at 1.33 µm, 5.3×10<sup>−2</sup> at 1.55 µm with very low confinement loss is also achieved. Our proposed structure is also suitable for nonlinear applications because of nonlinearity ∼133.9298 W<sup>−1</sup>km<sup>−1</sup> is achieved at 1.33 µm and ∼79.1229 W<sup>−1</sup>km<sup>−1</sup> is achieved at 1.55 µm wavelength. The proposed PCF can be used in dispersion compensation, optical sensor, higher bit rate coherent communication, and polarization maintaining fiber etc.
Numerical Research on the Acoustic Features of the Vocal Tract in a Horseshoe Bat, Rhinolophus Hipposideros

Ultrasonic system is the major feature of the most bats and the vocal tract of the bats play an important in the system. Most prior study in the vocal tract of the bats are mainly based on the biology approach. In this paper, we use the numerical method to investigate the acoustics role of the vocal tract in a horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus hipposideros. 3D digital model of the horseshoe bat vocal tract is constructed by using tomography scanning technique, and then the sound field distributions in nostrils are figured out by solving the Helmholtz equation based on the finite element method. The horseshoe bat vocal tract has very complex structure and the acoustic role of the nasal cavities and rigid tracheal chambers in the vocal tract was investigated by determining the effect of their selective filling on the nasal emitted sonar pulse and on sound traveling backwards down the trachea. The result demonstrated that (a) the transfer function of the vocal tract was consistent with the real sound spectrum which has a peak at the second harmonic, (b) filling the dorsal and both lateral tracheal chambers had little effect on the emitted vocalization, but caused the level of the second harmonic component and (c) filling nasal chamber had no effect on the tracheal sound but the effect of this treatment on the nasally emitted sonar pulse was changed.
Altered Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Response in Mif−/− Mice Reveals a Role of Mif for Inflammatory-Th1 Response in Type 1 Diabetes

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (Mif) is highly expressed in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). However, there is limited information about how Mif influences the activation of macrophages (Mφ) and dendritic cells (DC) in T1DM. To address this issue, we induced T1DM by administering multiple low doses of streptozotocin (STZ) to Mif-/- or wild-type (Wt) BALB/c mice. We found that Mif-/- mice treated with STZ (Mif-/-STZ) developed lower levels of hyperglycemia, inflammatory cytokines, and specific pancreatic islet antigen- (PIAg-) IgG and displayed reduced cellular infiltration into the pancreatic islets compared to Wt mice treated with STZ (WtSTZ). Moreover, Mφ and DC from Mif-/-STZ displayed lower expression of MHC-II, costimulatory molecules CD80, CD86, and CD40, Toll-like receptor- (TLR-) 2, and TLR-4 than WtSTZ. These changes were associated with a reduced capacity of Mφ and DC from Mif-/-STZ to induce proliferation in ovalbumin-specific T cells. All the deficiencies observed in Mif-/-STZ were recovered by exogenous administration of recombinant Mif. These findings suggest that Mif plays a role in the molecular mechanisms of Mφ and DC activation and drives T cell responses involved in the pathology of T1DM. Therefore, Mif is a potential therapeutic target to reduce the pathology of T1DM.
Phase function measurement for modelling radiowave attenuation and scatter in vegetation based on the theory of radiative energy transfer

Modelling radio wave propagation through vegetation is becoming increasingly more important. Many empirical solutions have been suggested in the past. The theory of radiative energy transfer offers an analytical method to the problem. This theory requires however 4 input parameters, which need to be established experimentally. A measurement of the angular scatter pattern, the so called 'phase function', can be utilised to determine 2 of those parameters. In this paper 3 different methods of measuring the phase function for measurements in a real forest environment are presented and compared. One method is presented as the most suitable one.
Discrete Integration by Decoding Binary Codes

Many probabilistic inference and learning tasks involve summations over exponentially large sets. Recently, it has been shown that these problems can be reduced to solving a polynomial number of MAP inference queries for a model augmented with randomly generated parity constraints. By exploiting a connection with max-likelihood decoding of binary codes, we show that these optimizations are computationally hard. Inspired by iterative message passing decoding algorithms, we propose an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation for the problem, enhanced with new sparsification techniques to improve decoding performance. By solving the ILP through a sequence of LP relaxations, we get both lower and upper bounds on the partition function, which hold with high probability and are much tighter than those obtained with variational methods.
Source Enumeration Via MDL Criterion Based on Linear Shrinkage Estimation of Noise Subspace Covariance Matrix

Numerous methodologies have been investigated for source enumeration in sample-starving environments. For those having their root in the framework of random matrix theory, the involved distribution of the sample eigenvalues is required. Instead of relying on the eigenvalue distribution, this work devises a linear shrinkage based minimum description length (LS-MDL) criterion by utilizing the identity covariance matrix structure of noise subspace components. With linear shrinkage and Gaussian assumption of the observations, an accurate estimator for the covariance matrix of the noise subspace components is derived. The eigenvalues obtained from the estimator turn out to be a linear function of the corresponding sample eigenvalues, enabling the LS-MDL criterion to accurately detect the source number without incurring significantly additional computational load. Furthermore, the strong consistency of the LS-MDL criterion for m,n→∞ and m/n→ c ∈ (0,∞) is proved, where m and n are the antenna number and snapshot number, respectively. Simulation results are included for illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed criterion.
Construction of Learning Partners Based on Learning Interest

With the rise of the three course provider including Coursera, Udacity and edX in US in 2012, massive open online courses(MOOC), as a new mode of education, boomed a wave of online higher education and swept quickly across the world. MOOC platforms, with a wide range of audience, high quality of curriculum, flexible teaching methods and rich teaching resources, are more and more popular in students. How to improve the learner's learning achievement is a hotspot in the research in MOOCs. In this paper, we use the semantic analysis of the discussion area to reflect the learner's learning interest, and then construct the learner's learning interest model, which can improve the learning achievement. So we provide a construction of learning partners based on learning interest algorithm, through the algorithm CLP, a partner relationship, which have similar learning interests, can be constructed. Finally, an experiment in our MOOC platform is implemented and the result is satisfying.