Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On State-Dominance Criteria in Fork-Decoupled Search

Fork-decoupled search is a recent approach to classical planning that exploits fork structures, where a single center component provides preconditions for several leaf components. The decoupled states in this search consist of a center state, along with a price for every leaf state. Given this, when does one decoupled state dominate another? Such state-dominance criteria can be used to prune dominated search states. Prior work has devised only a trivial criterion. We devise several more powerful criteria, show that they preserve optimality, and establish their interrelations. We show that they can yield exponential reductions. Experiments on IPC benchmarks attest to the possible practical benefits.
Frameless Stereotactic Neuronavigation for Space Occupying Lesions

Introduction Prior to the widespread advent of frameless stereotaxy, intracranial tumour surgery relied upon a 3-D conceptualisation of anatomy from pre-operative imaging. External anatomical landmarks such as the coronal suture and auricle helped guide the placement of a craniotomy. Bone flaps were often planned with a margin for error, particularly when locating non-lobar tumours. The choice of an appropriate trajectory for a burr hole biopsy was frequently suboptimal with negative biopsies and significant associated morbidity. For less accessible lesions a frame-based stereotactic craniotomy was performed. This entailed placement of a stereotactic frame, acquisition of pre-operative images and calculation of tri-planar coordinates. Such procedures, although cumbersome and to some extent restrictive in the access they provide, remain part of the armamentarium for small deep targets. However, the evolution of sophisticated, accurate frameless stereotaxy has significantly changed the surgical approach to the majority of patients with space occupying lesions. Application of stereotactic technology can also be used to locate other lesions such as cavernomas and abscesses. Neuronavigation is also used to facilitate rigid endoscopic procedures. This paper aims to outline the principles of neuronavigation for neuro-oncology.
An Empirical Method for Discovering Tax Fraudsters: A Real Case Study of Brazilian Fiscal Evasion

This work encompasses the development of a new method for classifying tax fraudsters based on fraud indicators. This work was developed in conjunction with a Brazilian fiscal agency aim at avoiding fiscal evasion. The main contribution of this paper is a method that allows classifying and ranking taxpayers analyzing fraud indicators obtained from several fiscal applications. Particularly, we developed a method for identifying frequent fraud patterns using association rules and then we apply two dimension reduction methods (i.e. PCA and SVD) in order to create a fraud scale, which allows ranking taxpayers according to their potential to commit a fraud. Experiments were conducted using real taxpayer data. Tax auditors, specialized in fraud detection, validated our results. Preliminary results show that our method may indicate fraudsters with 80% of accuracy, which is definitely an excellent result.
Sensitivity of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 to the Fusion Inhibitor T-20 Is Modulated by Coreceptor Specificity Defined by the V3 Loop of gp120

ABSTRACT T-20 is a synthetic peptide that potently inhibits replication of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 by interfering with the transition of the transmembrane protein, gp41, to a fusion active state following interactions of the surface glycoprotein, gp120, with CD4 and coreceptor molecules displayed on the target cell surface. Although T-20 is postulated to interact with an N-terminal heptad repeat within gp41 in a trans-dominant manner, we show here that sensitivity to T-20 is strongly influenced by coreceptor specificity. When 14 T-20-naive primary isolates were analyzed for sensitivity to T-20, the mean 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) for isolates that utilize CCR5 for entry (R5 viruses) was 0.8 log10 higher than the mean IC50 for CXCR4 (X4) isolates (P = 0.0055). Using NL4.3-based envelope chimeras that contain combinations of envelope sequences derived from R5 and X4 viruses, we found that determinants of coreceptor specificity contained within the gp120 V3 loop modulate this sensitivity to T-20. The IC50 for all chimeric envelope viruses containing R5 V3 sequences was 0.6 to 0.8 log10higher than that for viruses containing X4 V3 sequences. In addition, we confirmed that the N-terminal heptad repeat of gp41 determines the baseline sensitivity to T-20 and that the IC50 for viruses containing GIV at amino acid residues 36 to 38 was 1.0 log10 lower than the IC50 for viruses containing a G-to-D substitution. The results of this study show that gp120-coreceptor interactions and the gp41 N-terminal heptad repeat independently contribute to sensitivity to T-20. These results have important implications for the therapeutic uses of T-20 as well as for unraveling the complex mechanisms of virus fusion and entry.
Novel Image Recognition Based on Subspace and SIFT

In the light of the deep analyses of subspace recognition and SIFT recognition, a novel image recognition based on subspace and SIFT is proposed to provide a recognition from global features to minutiae features. First, subspace is used to implement coarse image recognition, gaining one or more candidate samples with different identities. Then, a special SIFT recognition environment is designed, in which the approach takes all the images as objects, builds a multi-object sample image with its size limited below a certain size, detects SIFT points based on object regions and recognizes the test image through SIFT point registration statistical vote. The experiments show that the designed SIFT recognition environment can increase SIFT recognition accuracy and the method based on subspace and SIFT can provide accurate recognitions in a mass of images. Under some special environments, recognition accuracy tends to 100%.
An analog front-end enables electrical impedance spectroscopy system on-chip for biomedical applications

The increasing number of applications of electrical bioimpedance measurements in biomedical practice, together with continuous advances in textile technology, has encouraged several researchers to make the first attempts to develop portable, even wearable, electrical bioimpedance measurement systems. The main target of these systems is personal and home monitoring. Analog Devices has made available AD5933, a new system-on-chip fully integrated electrical impedance spectrometer, which might allow the implementation of minimum-size instrumentation for electrical bioimpedance measurements. However, AD5933 as such is not suitable for most applications of electrical bioimpedance. In this work, we present a relatively simple analog front-end that adapts AD5933 to a four-electrode strategy, allowing its use in biomedical applications for the first time. The resulting impedance measurements exhibit a very good performance in aspects like load dynamic range and accuracy. This type of minimum-size, system-on-chip-based bioimpedance measurement system would lead researchers to develop and implement light and wearable electrical bioimpedance systems for home and personal health monitoring applications, a new and huge niche for medical technology development.
A general and Robust Ray-Casting-Based Algorithm for Triangulating Surfaces at the Nanoscale

We present a general, robust, and efficient ray-casting-based approach to triangulating complex manifold surfaces arising in the nano-bioscience field. This feature is inserted in a more extended framework that: i) builds the molecular surface of nanometric systems according to several existing definitions, ii) can import external meshes, iii) performs accurate surface area estimation, iv) performs volume estimation, cavity detection, and conditional volume filling, and v) can color the points of a grid according to their locations with respect to the given surface. We implemented our methods in the publicly available NanoShaper software suite (www.electrostaticszone.eu). Robustness is achieved using the CGAL library and an ad hoc ray-casting technique. Our approach can deal with any manifold surface (including nonmolecular ones). Those explicitly treated here are the Connolly-Richards (SES), the Skin, and the Gaussian surfaces. Test results indicate that it is robust to rotation, scale, and atom displacement. This last aspect is evidenced by cavity detection of the highly symmetric structure of fullerene, which fails when attempted by MSMS and has problems in EDTSurf. In terms of timings, NanoShaper builds the Skin surface three times faster than the single threaded version in Lindow et al. on a 100,000 atoms protein and triangulates it at least ten times more rapidly than the Kruithof algorithm. NanoShaper was integrated with the DelPhi Poisson-Boltzmann equation solver. Its SES grid coloring outperformed the DelPhi counterpart. To test the viability of our method on large systems, we chose one of the biggest molecular structures in the Protein Data Bank, namely the 1VSZ entry, which corresponds to the human adenovirus (180,000 atoms after Hydrogen addition). We were able to triangulate the corresponding SES and Skin surfaces (6.2 and 7.0 million triangles, respectively, at a scale of 2 grids per Å) on a middle-range workstation.
Expertness measuring in cooperative learning

Cooperative learning in a multi-agent system can improve the learning quality and learning speed. The improvement can be gained if each agent detects the expert agents and uses their knowledge properly. In the paper, a cooperative learning method, called weighted strategy sharing (WSS) is introduced. Also some criteria are introduced to measure the expertness of agents. In WSS, based on the amount of its team-mate expertness, each agent assigns a weight to their knowledge. These weights are used in sharing knowledge among agents in our system. WSS and the expertness criteria are tested on two simulated hunter-prey problems and on object pushing systems.
E-Government challenges in Least Developed Countries (LDCs): A case of Cambodia

So far there have been few studies dealing with e-Government in Cambodia, one of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) with an emerging economy. This study can be considered as an opening pace in the examination of e-Government challenges in Cambodia. Government Administration Information System (GAIS), one of the leading e-Government projects in Cambodia, is a main setting for this study. The study categorizes e-Government challenges in LDCs into six main areas: 1) infrastructure development; 2) law and ICT policy; 3) management; 4) equity issues; 5) the digital divide; and 6) privacy and security. The findings of the study indicates that even though the GAIS has been successful its initiative objectives, it has come up with various critical challenges as well. These challenges and a set of policy implications are discussed in the paper in the light of the six challenges of e-Government in LDCs.
Effect of heparin II domain of fibronectin on aqueous outflow in cultured anterior segments of human eyes.

PURPOSE To determine whether an integrin/syndecan-binding domain of fibronectin, called the heparin II (Hep II) domain, affects outflow facility in the human eye. METHODS Anterior segments of human eyes were placed in perfusion organ culture. One eye of each pair received the Hep II domain, and the fellow eye received DMEM or a heat-denatured Hep II domain. The Hep II domain was produced as a recombinant glutathione S-transferase (GST)-fusion protein. Microscopic changes were assessed. RESULTS Outflow facility in anterior segments treated with Hep II domain increased by 93% compared with that in anterior segments treated with DMEM. In contrast, facility in anterior segments treated with the heat-denatured Hep II domain showed very little change. Outflow facility remained high during Hep II domain perfusion and returned to baseline after removal of the protein. Electron microscopy revealed disruptions in the endothelial lining of Schlemm's canal in anterior segments fixed during maximum effect and in anterior segments after facility had returned to baseline. Scattered disruptions of canal cells were noted in control anterior segments. Trabecular cells in other regions looked normal. Major changes in the extracellular matrix of the juxtacanalicular tissue were not observed. Repeated doses of the Hep II domain administered after facility returned to baseline increased facility in two of three anterior segments. CONCLUSIONS The Hep II domain of fibronectin increases outflow facility in the human anterior segment. This suggests that fibronectin-mediated interactions may have a role in modulating aqueous hydrodynamics. Such interactions may represent avenues of novel therapeutic interventions for glaucoma.
Reflections on "Aboutness" TREC-9 Evaluation Experiments at Justsystem

TREC-9 evaluation experiments at the Justsystem site are described with a focus on “aboutness” based approach in text retrieval. Experiments on the effects of supplemental noun phrase indexing, pseudo-relevance feedback and reference database feedback in view of the effect of various length of queries are reported. The results show that pesudo-relevance feedback is always effective while reference database feedback is effective only with very short queries. We reconfirmed that supplemental phrasal indexing is more effective with longer queries.
Precise Calculations of the Existence of Multiple AMOC Equilibria in Coupled Climate Models. Part I: Equilibrium States

AbstractThis study examines criteria for the existence of two stable states of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) using a combination of theory and simulations from a numerical coupled atmosphere–ocean climate model. By formulating a simple collection of state parameters and their relationships, the authors reconstruct the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) OFF state behavior under a varying external salt-flux forcing. This part (Part I) of the paper examines the steady-state solution, which gives insight into the mechanisms that sustain the NADW OFF state in this coupled model; Part II deals with the transient behavior predicted by the evolution equation. The nonlinear behavior of the Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) reverse cell is critical to the OFF state. Higher Atlantic salinity leads both to a reduced AAIW reverse cell and to a greater vertical salinity gradient in the South Atlantic. The former tends to reduce Atlantic salt export to the Southern Ocean, while the latter tends .
A Rudiment of Energy Internet: Coordinated Power Dispatching of Intra- and Inter- Local Area Packetized-Power Networks

Local area packetized-power network (LAPPN) provides flexible local power dispatching in the future Energy Internet. With interconnections among multiple LAPPNs, power dispatching can be further extended to intra- and inter-LAPPN power interchanges. It becomes a significant issue to schedule the two kinds of power interchanges as, from a system perspective high utilization of available scheduling time slots and low overall transmission loss should be guaranteed, and from a subscriber perspective a high scheduled ratio of transmission requests with a fair transmission sequence in terms of transmission urgency are expected. To this end, we propose a cooperative power dispatching framework for connected LAPPNs, including subscriber matching and two-layer power transmission scheduling. The former matches subscribers from different LAPPNs, considering both subscriber preferences and power transmission loss. The latter coordinates the intra- and inter-LAPPN power packet transmission to maximize the amount of energy delivered with a guaranteed fairness on user urgency. Simulation results of a two-LAPPN system are provided, which demonstrate that the proposed framework can achieve effective and efficient power dispatching in terms of the mentioned concerns, and reveal facts on ideal system capacity and how to manipulate the proportions of the two kinds of transmissions according to network status.
Igs from Patients with Graves’ Disease Induce the Expression of T Cell Chemoattractants in Their Fibroblasts1

Thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy and dermopathy are connective tissue manifestations of Graves’ disease (GD). Tissue remodeling is a prominent feature of both and is apparently driven by recruited T cells. In this study, we report that IgG isolated from patients with GD (GD-IgG) up-regulates T lymphocyte chemoattractant activity in GD-derived fibroblasts from orbit, thyroid, and several regions of skin. This chemoattractant activity, absent in fibroblasts from donors without known thyroid disease, is partially susceptible to neutralization by anti-IL-16 and anti-RANTES Abs. IL-16 is a CD4+-specific chemoattractant and RANTES is a C-C-type chemokine. IL-16 and RANTES protein levels, as determined by specific ELISAs, are substantially increased by GD-IgG in GD fibroblasts. Addition of the macrolide, rapamycin, to fibroblast culture medium blocked the up-regulation by GD-IgG of IL-16, implicating the FRAP/mTOR/p70s6k pathway in the induction of IL-16 expression. These findings suggest a specific mechanism for activation of fibroblasts in GD resulting in the recruitment of T cells. They may provide insight into a missing link between the glandular and extrathyroidal manifestations of GD.
Interior Distance Using Barycentric Coordinates

This paper introduces a framework for defining a shape‐aware distance measure between any two points in the interior of a surface mesh. Our framework is based on embedding the surface mesh into a high‐dimensional space in a way that best preserves boundary distances between vertices of the mesh, performing a mapping of the mesh volume into this high‐dimensional space using barycentric coordinates, and defining the interior distance between any two points simply as their Euclidean distance in the embedding space. We investigate the theoretical properties of the interior distance in relation to properties of the chosen boundary distances and barycentric coordinates, and we investigate empirical properties of the interior distance using diffusion distance as the prescribed boundary distance and mean value coordinates. We prove theoretically that the interior distance is a metric, smooth, interpolating the boundary distances, and reproducing Euclidean distances, and we show empirically that it is insensitive to boundary noise and deformation and quick to compute. In case the barycentric coordinates are non‐negative we also show a maximum principle exists. Finally, we use it to define a new geometric property, barycentroid of shape, and show that it captures the notion of semantic center of the shape.
Osmotin Protects H9c2 Cells from Simulated Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury through AdipoR1/PI3K/AKT Signaling Pathway

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of osmotin on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), as well as the underlying mechanisms. Methods: In vitro I/R injury model was established on rat cardiac myoblast H9c2 cells by oxygen and glucose deprivation followed by reperfusion (OGD/R). Cells were administrated with osmotin, and transfected with small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) which specifically target adiponectin receptor 1 or 2 (AdipoR1/2). Besides, the cells were incubated with or without LY294002 as inhibitor of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) under OGD/R condition. Cell viability, apoptosis, expressions of apoptosis-related proteins and inflammatory factors were analyzed. Results: The results showed that osmotin significantly increased H9c2 cells viability compared with the cells treated with vehicle (P < 0.05), and decreased H9c2 cells apoptosis by regulating expressions of apoptosis-related proteins. Moreover, we observed that osmotin statistically reduced the release of proinflammatory factors and increased the release of anti-inflammatory factors in H9c2 cells (P < 0.05). However, these effects were markedly reversed by AdipoR1 silence but not AdipoR2. Furthermore, osmotin dramatically upregulated the phosphorylation levels of PI3K, AKT, ERK, and downregulated the phosphorylation level of NF-κB (P < 0.05). While administration of LY294002 reduced cell viability, increased cell apoptosis, and aggravated inflammatory response (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Our results suggested that the protective effect of osmotin on the simulated OGD/R injured H9c2 cells might be associated with AdipoR1/PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.
Work stress as a risk factor for major depressive episode(s)

Background. Major depression is a prevalent mental disorder in the general population, with a multi-factorial etiology. However, work stress as a risk factor for major depression has not been well studied. Method. Using a longitudinal study design, this analysis investigated the association between the levels of work stress and major depressive episode(s) in the Canadian working population, aged 18 to 64 years. Data from the longitudinal cohort of the Canadian National Population Health Survey (NPHS) were used (n=6663). The NPHS participants who did not have major depressive episodes (MDE) at baseline (1994–1995 NPHS) were classified into four groups by the quartile values of the baseline work stress scores. The proportion of MDE of each group was calculated using the 1996–1997 NPHS data. Results. The first three quartile groups had a similar risk of MDE. Those who had a work stress score above the 75th percentile had an elevated risk of MDE (7·1%). Using the 75th percentile as a cut-off, work stress was significantly associated with the risk of MDE in multivariate analysis (odds ratio=2·35, 95% confidence interval 1·54–3·77). Other factors associated with MDE in multivariate analysis included educational level, number of chronic medical illnesses and child and adulthood traumatic events. There was no evidence of effect modification between work stress and selected sociodemographic, clinical and psychosocial variables. Conclusions. Work stress is an independent risk factor for the development of MDE in the working population. Strategies to improve working environment are needed to keep workers mentally healthy and productive.
Amplitude and phase evolution of optical fields inside periodic photonic structures

Optical amplitude distributions of light inside periodic photonic structures are visualized with subwavelength resolution. In addition, using a phase-sensitive photon scanning tunneling microscope, we simultaneously map the phase evolution of light. Two different structures, which consist of a ridge waveguide containing periodic arrays of nanometer scale features, are investigated. We determine the wavelength dependence of the exponential decay rate inside the periodic arrays. Furthermore, various interference patterns are observed, which we interpret as interference between light reflected by the substrate and light inside the waveguide. The phase information obtained reveals scattering phenomena around the periodic array, which gives rise to phase jumps and phase singularities. Locally around the air rods, we observe an unexpected change in effective refractive index, a possible indication for anomalous dispersion resulting from the periodicity of the array.