Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fuzzy active rules in mutimodal biometric systems

This paper presents the idea how to use fuzzy active rules within biometric systems. We have already shown how the concept of complex events presented in the active database theory could be used in order to build a biometric system. We especially explored the paradigm of active rules and complex events and experimental results were encouraging. Fuzzy logic is very good when dealing with imprecision and uncertainty and hence it is suitable to be used in biometric systems. We will discuss how to apply fuzzy active rules in order to deal with imprecise decision making in multimodal biometric systems.
Inhibition of nitrogen fixation in symbiotic Medicago truncatula upon Cd exposure is a local process involving leghaemoglobin

Leguminous biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is very sensitive to environmental fluctuations. It is still contentious how BNF is regulated under stress conditions. The local or systemic control of BNF and the role played by reactive oxygen species (ROS) in such regulation have still not been elucidated completely. Cadmium, which belongs to the so-called heavy metals, is one of the most toxic substances released into the environment. The mechanisms involved in Cd toxicity are still not completely understood but the overproduction of ROS is one of its characteristic symptoms. In this work, we used a split-root system approach to study nodule BNF and the antioxidant machinery’s response to the application of a mild Cd treatment on one side of a nodulated Medicago truncatula root system. Cd induced the majority of nodule antioxidants without generating any oxidative damage. Cd treatment also provoked BNF inhibition exclusively in nodules directly exposed to Cd, without provoking any effect on plant shoot biomass or chlorophyll content. The overall data suggest that the decline in BNF was not due to a generalized breakdown of the plant but to control exerted through leghaemoglobin/oxygen availability, affecting nitrogenase function.
Documentation, Multi-scale and Multi-dimensional Representation of Cultural Heritage for the Policies of Redevelopment, Development and Regeneration

Abstract. The paper describes reading criteria for the documentation for important buildings in Milan, Italy, as a case study of the research on the integration of new technologies to obtain 3D multi-scale representation architectures. In addition, affords an overview of the actual optical 3D measurements sensors and techniques used for surveying, mapping, digital documentation and 3D modeling applications in the Cultural Heritage field. Today new opportunities for an integrated management of data are given by multiresolution models, that can be employed for different scale of representation. The goal of multi-scale representations is to provide several representations where each representation is adapted to a different information density with several degrees of detail. The Digital Representation Platform, along with the 3D City Model, are meant to be particularly useful to heritage managers who are developing recording, documentation, and information management strategies appropriate to territories, sites and monuments. Digital Representation Platform and 3D City Model are central activities in a the decision-making process for heritage conservation management and several urban related problems. This research investigates the integration of the different level-of-detail of a 3D City Model into one consistent 4D data model with the creation of level-of-detail using algorithms from a GIS perspective. In particular, such project is based on open source smart systems, and conceptualizes a personalized and contextualized exploration of the Cultural Heritage through an experiential analysis of the territory.
Primary sequence and epigenetic determinants of in vivo occupancy of genomic DNA by GATA1

DNA sequence motifs and epigenetic modifications contribute to specific binding by a transcription factor, but the extent to which each feature determines occupancy in vivo is poorly understood. We addressed this question in erythroid cells by identifying DNA segments occupied by GATA1 and measuring the level of trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3) and monomethylation of H3 lysine 4 (H3K4me1) along a 66 Mb region of mouse chromosome 7. While 91% of the GATA1-occupied segments contain the consensus binding-site motif WGATAR, only ∼0.7% of DNA segments with such a motif are occupied. Using a discriminative motif enumeration method, we identified additional motifs predictive of occupancy given the presence of WGATAR. The specific motif variant AGATAA and occurrence of multiple WGATAR motifs are both strong discriminators. Combining motifs to pair a WGATAR motif with a binding site motif for GATA1, EKLF or SP1 improves discriminative power. Epigenetic modifications are also strong determinants, with the factor-bound segments highly enriched for H3K4me1 and depleted of H3K27me3. Combining primary sequence and epigenetic determinants captures 52% of the GATA1-occupied DNA segments and substantially increases the specificity, to one out of seven segments with the required motif combination and epigenetic signals being bound.
Towards the development of artificial endocrine tissues: 31P NMR spectroscopic studies of immunoisolated, insulin‐secreting AtT‐20 cells

Transformed, insulin‐secreting endocrine cells have been proposed as an alternative to islets for the development of a bioartificiat pancreas. With appropriate immunoprotection, such cells may be implanted without the need for patient immunosuppression. Use of continuous cell lines alleviates the cell availability limitation, but poses questions regarding thestability and biochemical and secretory function of the preparation, especially in the longterm. We have developed a bioreactor/perfusion system, compatible with a horizontal‐bore NMR instrument, that can maintain immunoprotected endocrine cells for prolonged periods of time. 31P NMR spectroscopy was used to study the bioenergetics of recombinant, insulin‐secreting mouse pituitary AtT‐20 cells entrapped as spheroids in calcium alginate/poly‐L‐lysine/alginate beads. NMR provided data verifying the macroscopic homogeneity within the bioreactor and allowing the evaluation of changes in cellular bioenergetics for a period of 70 days under different culture conditions. Levels of high‐energy phosphates changed slightly during the first 40 days of the experiment, then decreased considerably as cell death occurred. Rates of glucose consumption and insulin‐related peptide secretion also remained constant for 40 days and decreased rapidly thereafter. This study constitutes the beginning of an extensive quantitative analysis of the biochemistry of transformed endocrine cell lines in a sequestered, artificial tissue environment. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Benchmarking and Comparison of the Task Graph Scheduling Algorithms

The problem of scheduling a parallel program represented by a weighted directed acyclic graph (DAG) to a set of homogeneous processors for minimizing the completion time of the program has been extensively studied. The NP-completeness of the problem has stimulated researchers to propose a myriad of heuristic algorithms. While most of these algorithms are reported to be efficient, it is not clear how they compare against each other. A meaningful performance evaluation and comparison of these algorithms is a complex task and it must take into account a number of issues. First, most scheduling algorithms are based upon diverse assumptions, making the performance comparison rather meaningless. Second, there does not exist a standard set of benchmarks to examine these algorithms. Third, most algorithms are evaluated using small problem sizes, and, therefore, their scalability is unknown. In this paper, we first provide a taxonomy for classifying various algorithms into distinct categories according to their assumptions and functionalities. We then propose a set of benchmarks that are based on diverse structures and are not biased toward a particular scheduling technique. We have implemented 15 scheduling algorithms and compared them on a common platform by using the proposed benchmarks, as well as by varying important problem parameters. We interpret the results based upon the design philosophies and principles behind these algorithms, drawing inferences why some algorithms perform better than others. We also propose a performance measure called scheduling scalability (SS) that captures the collective effectiveness of a scheduling algorithm in terms of its solution quality, the number of processors used, and the running time.
Multiscale saliency using natural statistics

Visual saliency is the perceptual quality that makes some items in visual scenes stand out from their immediate contexts. Natural scenes contain features across a large range of scales. However, most of the existing saliency models operate on a single scale. Inspired by the scale space theory and the saliency model using natural statistics, we propose a multiscale saliency model in this paper. It is demonstrated that the proposed model predicts well human gaze in free viewing static natural scenes.
On randomly colouring locally sparse graphs

We consider the problem of generating a random q-colouring of a graph G=(V,E). We consider the simple Glauber Dynamics chain. We show that if for all v ∈ V the average degree of the subgraph H_v induced by the neighbours of v ∈ V is #x226a Δ where Δ is the maximum degree and Δ >c_1\ln n then for sufficiently large c_1, this chain mixes rapidly provided q/Δ >α , where α #x2248 1.763 is the root of α = e^\1/α \. For this class of graphs, which includes planar graphs, triangle free graphs and random graphs G_\n,p\ with p #x226a 1, this beats the 11Δ /6 bound of Vigoda for general graphs.
A Hybrid Approach to Learn Description Logic Ontology from Texts

Augmenting formal medical knowledge is neither manually nor automatically straightforward. However, this process can benefit from rich information in narrative texts, such as scientific publications. Snomed-supervised relation extraction has been proposed as an approach for mining knowledge from texts in an unsupervised way. It can catch not only superclass/subclass relations but also existential restrictions; hence produce more precise concept definitions. Based on this approach, the present work aims to develop a system that takes biomedical texts as input and outputs the corresponding EL++ concept definitions. Several extra features are introduced in the system, such as generating general class inclusions (GCIs) and negative concept names. Moreover, the system allows users to trace textual causes for a generated definition, and also give feedback (i.e. correction of the definition) to the system to retrain its inner model, a mechanism for ameliorating the system via interaction with domain experts.
Towards Modelling Language Innovation Acceptance in Online Social Networks

Language change and innovation is constant in online and offline communication, and has led to new words entering people's lexicon and even entering modern day dictionaries, with recent additions of 'e-cig' and 'vape'. However the manual work required to identify these 'innovations' is both time consuming and subjective. In this work we demonstrate how such innovations in language can be identified across two different OSN's (Online Social Networks) through the operationalisation of known language acceptance models that incorporate relatively simple statistical tests. From grounding our work in language theory, we identified three statistical tests that can be applied - variation in; frequency, form and meaning. Each show different success rates across the two networks (Geo-bound Twitter sample and a sample of Reddit). These tests were also applied to different community levels within the two networks allowing for different innovations to be identified across different community structures over the two networks, for instance: identifying regional variation across Twitter, and variation across groupings of Subreddits, where identified example innovations included 'casualidad' and 'cym'.
Neural Basis of Saccade Target Selection

Saccade target selection must be understood in relation to the obvious fact that vision naturally occurs in a continuous cycle of fixations interrupted by gaze shifts. The guidance of eye movements requires information about what is where in the visual field. The identities of objects are derived from their visible features. Single neurons in the visual system represent the presence of specific features by the level of activation; the reliability of the discriminating signal from single neurons varies over time. Each point in the visual field is represented by many populations of neurons activated by all types of features. Topographic representations are found throughout the visual and oculomotor systems; neighboring neurons tend to represent similar visual field locations or saccades. Selecting one out of many stimuli to which to direct gaze requires comparing stimulus attributes across the visual field. The existence of retinotopic maps of the visual field makes possible local interactions to implement such comparisons /41/. For example, a lateral inhibition network can extract the location of the most conspicuous stimulus in the visual field /30,40,81/. Coordinated with this parallel visual processing is activation in structures responsible for producing the movement such as FEF and the superior colliculus. A saccade is produced when the neurons at one location within the motor maps become sufficiently active. One job of visual processing, then, is to ensure that only one site within a movement map becomes activated. This is done when the neurons signalling the location of the desired target develop enhanced activation while the neurons responding to other locations are attenuated. Saccade target selection often converts an initially ambiguous pattern of neural activation into a pattern that reliably signals one target location. The ambiguity may be reduced through prior knowledge of the likely target location or identity, and extraretinal signals reflecting such expectations can modulate the responsiveness of afferent visual neurons. Specifying the metrics of a saccade and triggering the movement are coordinated but dissociable processes. Speed-accuracy trade-offs can thereby be produced allowing the visuomotor system to produce a saccade that is inaccurate because it is premature relative to the target selection process. While there are many gaps in our knowledge, the questions to ask seem reasonably clear. Because saccade target selection involves visual processing and eye movement programming combined with mnemonic influences, only continued experimental ingenuity will disentangle the various and variable contributions of individual neurons. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
A Global War against Avian Influenza

This article offers a cognitive semantic analysis of a few conceptual metaphors as instantiated in the news discourse of the British press, more particularly the crisis that followed the 2005 outbreak of avian influenza. Main attention is given to the use of metaphors which rely on the notions of war and force. Drawing on the work by Schon and by Lakoff, and following the line of research by some other scholars such as Nerlich, it is claimed that exposure to particular metaphors to describe a complex political reality can affect readers? perceptions and value judgements in accordance with the logic displayed by the metaphors encountered. Finally, the typical action frames evoked by politicians in food scares are analysed.
Linking C-reactive protein to late-life disability in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2002.

BACKGROUND Chronic inflammation, measured by interleukin-6, predicts incident disability among elderly people. However, little is known about the relation of C-reactive protein (CRP) to disability. METHOD Participants (>60 years old, N = 1680) were from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2002. Disability in activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), leisure and social activities (LSA), lower extremity mobility (LEM), and general physical activities (GPA) was obtained by self-report. Peak muscle power was the product of isokinetic peak leg torque and peak force velocity. Functional limitations were evaluated via habitual walking speed, which was obtained from a 20-foot timed walk. CRP levels were quantified by using latex-enhanced nephelometry. RESULTS Elevated CRP levels were associated with disability in IADL, LSA, LEM, and GPA, independent of basic demographics, chronic medical diseases, health behaviors, as well as nutritional markers. The corresponding odds ratios of disability for each standard-deviation increase in natural-log-transformed CRP were 1.18 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02-1.35), 1.18 (95% CI, 1.00-1.39), 1.17 (95% CI, 1.03-1.33), and 1.17 (95% CI, 1.05-1.31), respectively. The relationship diminished after additional adjustment of leg power and/or walking speed, meaning that impairment in leg power and limitations in gait speed likely mediate the association between CRP and disability. CRP had an inverse relationship to leg power and walking speed. Likewise, additional adjustment for leg power substantially diminished the association between CRP and walking speed, suggesting a mediating effect of power between CRP and gait speed. CONCLUSIONS Independent of chronic diseases, elevated CRP is associated with multiple domains of disability through mediation of muscle power, habitual gait speed, or both. Future research is needed to understand CRP as a risk factor for disability in older populations.
Inter‐layer per‐mobile optimization of cloud mobile computing: a message‐passing approach

Cloud mobile computing enables the offloading of computation‐intensive applications from a mobile device to a cloud processor via a wireless interface. In light of the strong interplay between offloading decisions at the application‐layer and physical‐layer parameters, which determine the energy and latency associated with the mobile‐cloud communication, this paper investigates the inter‐layer optimization of fine‐grained task offloading across both layers. In prior art, this problem was formulated, under a serial implementation of processing and communication, as a mixed integer program, entailing a complexity that is exponential in the number of tasks. In this work, instead, algorithmic solutions are proposed that leverage the structure of the call graphs of typical applications by means of message passing on the call graph, under both serial and parallel implementations of processing and communication. For call trees, the proposed solutions have a linear complexity in the number of tasks, and efficient extensions are presented for more general call graphs that include ‘map’‐type and ‘reduce’‐type tasks. Moreover, the proposed schemes are optimal for the serial implementation and provide principled heuristics for the parallel implementation. Extensive numerical results yield insights into the impact of inter‐layer optimization and on the comparison of the two implementations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Spatially Disaggregated Areal Interpolation Model Using Light Detection and Ranging‐Derived Building Volumes

Dasymetric areal interpolation is the process by which data are transferred from a spatial unit system for which they are available (source units) to another system for which they are required (target units) with the aid of ancillary information (control units). We propose a spatially disaggregated areal interpolation model for population data using light detection and ranging (LiDAR)-derived building volumes as an ancillary variable. Innovative methods are proposed for model initialization, iterative regression and adjustment, and stopping criteria to deal effectively with control units of unequal size. The model is derived and applied at the control unit level to minimize the modifiable areal unit problem, and an iterative adjustment process is utilized to overcome the spatial heterogeneity problem encountered in earlier approaches. The use of building volume to disaggregate the population into finer scales ensures maximum correspondence with the unit at which the original population data were collected and models not only the horizontal but also the vertical population distribution. A case study for Round Rock, Texas, demonstrates that the proposed spatially disaggregated model using LiDAR-derived building volumes outperforms earlier areal interpolation models using traditional area- and length-based ancillary variables. 密度区域插值是在辅助信息的帮助下（控制元），从一个可测空间单元系统（源单元）转换至所需空间单元系统（目标元）的过程。 本文提出了一个利用激光雷达（LiDAR）测量建筑物体积作为辅助变量的人口数据空间分解区域插值模型（SDAIM），一系列创新方法用于模型初始化、迭代回归和调整方法，并给出了可有效处理不等大小控制单元的停止准则。 该模型从控制单元层次来最小化可变区域单元问题（MAUP），并通过迭代调整过程来克服现有方法中的空间异质性问题。 利用建筑物体积将从更精细尺度进行人口空间分解，保证了原始人口数据与模型的符合度达到最大，且模型可同时反映人口的水平与垂直分布特征。 以德克萨斯州的Round Rock城市为例，验证了SDAIM方法优于已有基于面积和长度辅助变量的区域插值方法。
Human Neuroscience

(Eagleman and Pariyadath, 2009). A third explanation suggests that temporal effects are mostly affected by the intrinsic dynamics of the stimulus (Kanai et al., 2006; New and Scholl, 2009). Of particular relevance here, looming signals (expanding discs) are associated with subjective time dilation whereas receding signals (shrinking discs) do not result in an altered experience of time (van Wassenhove et al., 2008). These fi ndings converge with the observations that looming signals are particularly salient events (Yantis and Egeth, 1999) and are more powerful in drawing attention compared to other stimuli (Franconeri et al., 2005). Looming signals are an intrinsic threat cue for the organism (Schiff et al., 1962) and as such, may constitute a natural self-referential stimulus (Northoff et al., 2006). In the context of recent proposals suggesting that the experience of time is a self-referential process (Craig, 2009b; Wittmann, 2009) we implemented the looming disc task. If self-referential processing is related to time perception, the looming signals should provoke relative overestimation of duration. Here, we exploited the fact that a difference of time experience is elicited by a looming and a receding stimulus and tested (i) which brain structures are involved in the temporal dilation effect and (ii) whether clear differential brain activation can be observed in these structures when experiencing (with looming stimuli) or not (with receding stimuli) a temporal dilation illusion. For this, we used a previously validated psychophysical paradigm (van Wassenhove et al., 2008) as the basis for an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study.
Founder mutation in KCNJ10 in Pakistani patients with EAST syndrome

EAST syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by loss‐of‐function mutations in the gene KCNJ10. Among the 14 pathogenic mutations described so far, the p.R65P mutation stands out as the most frequent one and is particularly associated with patients of Pakistani origin. As a result we aimed to establish the existence of a potential founder effect in the Pakistani population.
Voice conversion using nonlinear principal component analysis

In the last decades, much attention has been paid to the design of multi-speaker voice conversion. In this work, a new method for voice conversion (VC) using nonlinear principal component analysis (NLPCA) is presented. The principal components are extracted and transformed by a feed-forward neural network which is trained by combination of genetic algorithm (GA) and back-propagation (BP). Common pre- and post-processing approaches are applied to increase the quality of the synthesized speech. The results indicate that the proposed method can be considered as a step towards multi-speaker voice conversion