Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Adaptation Approach for Viewport-adaptive 360-degree Video Streaming

In this paper, we propose a new adaptation approach for viewport-adaptive streaming of 360-degree videos over the Internet. The proposed approach is able to systematically decide quality levels of tiles according to user head movements and network conditions by taking into account not only prediction errors but also user head movements in each adaptation interval. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can effectively adapt 360-degree videos to both varying network conditions and user head movements. Compared to existing approaches, the proposed approach can improve the average viewport quality by up to 3.9dB and reduce the standard deviation of the viewport quality by up to 50%.
Approximate Bayesian-inference With the Weighted Likelihood Bootstrap

We introduce the weighted likelihood bootstrap (WLB) as a way to simulate approximately from a posterior distribution. This method is often easy to implement, requiring only an algorithm for calculating the maximum likelihood estimator, such as iteratively reweighted least squares. In the generic weighting scheme, the WLB is first order correct under quite general conditions. Inaccuracies can be removed by using the WLB as a source of samples in the sampling-importance resampling (SIR) algorithm, which also allows incorporation of particular prior information. The SIR-adjusted WLB can be a competitive alternative to other integration methods in certain models. Asymptotic expansions elucidate the second-order properties of the WLB, which is a generalization of Rubin's Bayesian bootstrap. The calculation of approximate Bayes factors for model comparison is also considered. We note that, given a sample simulated from the posterior distribution, the required marginal likelihood may be simulation consistently estimated by the harmonic mean of the associated likelihood values; a modification of this estimator that avoids instability is also noted. These methods provide simple ways of calculating approximate Bayes factors and posterior model probabilities for a very wide class of models.
Secure File Transfer: A Computational Analog To The Furniture Moving Paradigm

One of the most compelling illustrations of the power of parallelism is the furniture-moving paradigm. In it, a large item of furniture needs to be moved from one place to another. A single mover, working alone, must take the item apart, move each piece separately, and then reassemble the item at the new location, taking a long time to complete the job. By contrast, four movers can simply lift the item and quickly move it to its new location. Thus, the time required to accomplish the task is reduced by a factor significantly larger than four. This paper describes a computational analog to the furniture-moving paradigm. The computation in question is concerned with transferring a computer file from one computer system to another over an insecure communications channel. The file contains private or sensitive information whose secrecy and integrity need to be maintained. Cryptography is used to obtain a digital signature of the file, thereby protecting its integrity, and then encrypting it to ensure its secrecy. If the file transfer is performed sequentially, the file and its digital signature need to be broken into blocks, each of which is signed and encrypted individually then transmitted. At the receiving end, each block is checked for authenticity, then the original file is reassembled and its digital signature verified. On the other hand, performing the file transfer in parallel allows the entire file and its digital signature to be sent as a whole in one step. Consequently, the parallel solution speeds up the sequential one by a factor that is superlinear in the number of processors used.
Automatic Classification of Review Comments in Pull-based Development Model

The pull-based model, widely used in distributed software development, allows any contributor to fork a public repository, package contributions as a pull-request, and then merge back to the original repository. Code review is one of the most significant stages in pull-based development. It ensures that only high-quality pull-requests are accepted, based on the in-depth discussion among reviewers. Thus, automatically identifying what reviewers are talking about in the discussions is benificial to better understand the code review process. In this paper, we conduct a case study on three popular opensource software projects hosted on GitHub and construct a finegrained taxonomy including 11 sub-categories for review comments. We then manually label over 5,600 review comments, and propose a Two-Stage Hybrid Classification (TSHC) algorithm to classify review comments automatically by combining rule-based and machine-learning techniques. Comparative experiments with a text-based method achieve a reasonable improvement on each project (9.2% in Rails, 5.3% in Elasticsearch, and 7.2% in Angular.js respectively) in terms of the weighted average Fmeasure.
Complexes of Usher proteins preassemble at the endoplasmic reticulum and are required for trafficking and ER homeostasis

Usher syndrome (USH), the leading cause of hereditary combined hearing and vision loss, is characterized by sensorineural deafness and progressive retinal degeneration. Mutations in several different genes produce USH, but the proximal cause of sensory cell death remains mysterious. We adapted a proximity ligation assay to analyze associations among three of the USH proteins, Cdh23, Harmonin and Myo7aa, and the microtubule-based transporter Ift88 in zebrafish inner ear mechanosensory hair cells. We found that the proteins are in close enough proximity to form complexes and that these complexes preassemble at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Defects in any one of the three USH proteins disrupt formation and trafficking of the complex and result in diminished levels of the other proteins, generalized trafficking defects and ER stress that triggers apoptosis. ER stress, thus, contributes to sensory hair cell loss and provides a new target to explore for protective therapies for USH.
Targeting the PTTG1 oncogene impairs proliferation and invasiveness of melanoma cells sensitive or with acquired resistance to the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib

The pituitary tumor transforming gene 1 (PTTG1) is implicated in tumor growth, metastasis and drug resistance. Here, we investigated the involvement of PTTG1 in melanoma cell proliferation, invasiveness and response to the BRAF inhibitor (BRAFi) dabrafenib. We also preliminary assessed the potential value of circulating PTTG1 protein to monitor melanoma patient response to BRAFi or to dabrafenib plus trametinib. Dabrafenib-resistant cell lines (A375R and SK-Mel28R) were more invasive than their drug-sensitive counterparts (A375 and SK-Mel28), but expressed comparable PTTG1 levels. Dabrafenib abrogated PTTG1 expression and impaired invasion of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in A375 and SK-Mel28 cells. In contrast, it affected neither PTTG1 expression in A375R and SK-Mel28R cells, nor ECM invasion in the latter cells, while further stimulated A375R cell invasiveness. Assessment of proliferation and ECM invasion in control and PTTG1-silenced A375 and SK-Mel28 cells, exposed or not to dabrafenib, demonstrated that the inhibitory effects of this drug were, at least in part, dependent on its ability to down-regulate PTTG1 expression. PTTG1-silencing also impaired proliferation and invasiveness of A375R and SK-Mel28R cells, and counteracted dabrafenib-induced stimulation of ECM invasion in A375R cells. Further experiments performed in A375R cells indicated that PTTG1-silencing impaired cell invasiveness through inhibition of MMP-9 and that PTTG1 expression and ECM invasion could be also reduced by the CDK4/6 inhibitor LEE011. PTTG1 targeting might, therefore, represent a useful strategy to impair proliferation and metastasis of melanomas resistant to BRAFi. Circulating PTTG1 also appeared to deserve further investigation as biomarker to monitor patient response to targeted therapy.
Enhanced Pipeline ‘MetaGaAP-Py’ for the Analysis of Quasispecies and Non-Model Microbial Populations using Ultra-Deep ‘Meta-barcode’ Sequencing

A pipeline developed to establish sequence identity and estimate abundance of non-model organisms (such as viral quasispecies) using customized ultra-deep sequence ‘meta-barcodes’ has been modified to improve performance by re-development in the Python programming language. Redundant packages were removed and new features added. RAM and storage usage have been optimized to facilitate the computational speeds though coding optimizations and improved cross-platform compatibility. However, computational limits restrict the approach to barcodes spanning a maximum of 30 polymorphisms. The modified pipeline, MetaGaAP-Py, is available for download here: https://github.com/CNoune/IMG_pipelines
Distribution of Carabid Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Across a Forest-Grassland Ecotone in Southwestern China

Abstract This paper studied the occurrence of carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in the forest edge, the adjacent forest interior, and the surrounding grassland in southwestern China. Beetles were collected with pitfall traps along five replicated transects. Forest species rarely penetrated into the grassland from the forest interior, and the grassland specialists were not found in the forest interior. The forest edge hosted additional species from the adjacent grassland that increased its overall species richness. Nearly all forest species (23 of 24 species) and grassland species (13 of 15 species) can be found in the forest edge. Carabids of the forest edge were more similar to those of the forest interior than to those of the grassland by ordination and cluster analysis. Based on the specificity and fidelity, carabids can be distinguished into five species groups: habitat generalists, grassland-associated species, forest generalists, forest specialists, and edge-associated species. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that canopy cover and/or shrub cover were the most important factors in determining the richness, abundance, and diversity of carabids. The forest edge may serve as a transition zone for dispersal and re-colonization of carabid beetles from adjacent habitats and therefore is important for natural conservation.
Gender differences in participation of physical activities: a comprehensive model approach

Acknowledgments There are many people that have helped, guided, encouraged, supported, and inspired me in this endeavor. It took me a long time to complete this goal, and without the following people, it would not have been possible. there for me when I was struggling to finish and encouraged me to persevere when I was tempted to quit. Even though they didn't fully understand exactly what I was doing, they were interested and willing to listen to what my project was all about. Another very important group of people who have seen me through this are my Shelia Anthony and the rest of the faculty and staff in the Department of Kinesiology at Southeastern Louisiana University. They served as a source of inspiration, encouragement, and support. Many helped with proof reading, collecting data and offered advice and suggestions with data analysis. In addition to my colleagues, the kinesiology and teacher education students at SLU have been supportive. They helped with pilot studies and expressed a sense of empathy when I encountered obstacles. Not a day would go by without a student stopping by to ask how everything was going at LSU. Distefano were a tremendous help. They have gone above iii and beyond what is expected of a committee. They showed me patience and gave me guidance. Special thanks to Eddie Hebert and Christine Distefano for their help with the data analysis and Melinda Solmon for her help with the instrument development. And lastly, my major professor, Amelia Lee has been the one person that I relied on the most. She has served as a role model and helped me get to where I am today. She spent countless hours reading and re-reading the seemingly endless drafts, until I could produce an acceptable paper. My respect and admiration for her cannot be adequately expressed in words. This would not have been possible without her inspiration, patience, guidance, encouragement, and support. I am truly blessed to have these people in my life. I thank God everyday for giving me the opportunity to pursue and complete this degree and for all of the people that helped me through it. My only regret is that my mother could not be here to see me finish. She was very proud of my accomplishments and supported me in every way towards the achievement of this degree. I pray that God will somehow let her know …
Cis-Acting Pathways Selectively Enforce the Non-Immunogenicity of Shed Placental Antigen for Maternal CD8 T Cells

Maternal immune tolerance towards the fetus and placenta is thought to be established in part by pathways that attenuate T cell priming to antigens released from the placenta into maternal blood. These pathways remain largely undefined and their existence, at face value, seems incompatible with a mother's need to maintain a functional immune system during pregnancy. A particular conundrum is evident if we consider that maternal antigen presenting cells, activated in order to prime T cells to pathogen-derived antigens, would also have the capacity to prime T cells to co-ingested placental antigens. Here, we address this paradox using a transgenic system in which placental membranes are tagged with a strong surrogate antigen (ovalbumin). We find that although a remarkably large quantity of acellular ovalbumin-containing placental material is released into maternal blood, splenic CD8 T cells in pregnant mice bearing unmanipulated T cell repertoires are not primed to ovalbumin even if the mice are intravenously injected with adjuvants. This failure was largely independent of regulatory T cells, and instead was linked to the intrinsic characteristics of the released material that rendered it selectively non-immunogenic, potentially by sequestering it from CD8α+ dendritic cells. The release of ovalbumin-containing placental material into maternal blood thus had no discernable impact on CD8 T cell priming to soluble ovalbumin injected intravenously during pregnancy, nor did it induce long-term tolerance to ovalbumin. Together, these results outline a major pathway governing the maternal immune response to the placenta, and suggest how tolerance to placental antigens can be maintained systemically without being detrimental to host defense.
Dissecting Situational Strength: Theoretical Analysis and Empirical Tests

Abstract : It has been argued that the most important characteristic of situations is their strength--and that dispositional forces predict behavior in weak, but not strong, situations. Until recently, however, there was little consensus regarding how to measure this construct. As a consequence, several behavioral predictions are less accurate than they could be. The current research presents a theoretically unified conceptualization of this construct (consisting of the four facets of clarity, consistency, constraints, and consequences), provides tests of its primary postulates, and assesses the effects of misfit between preferred and perceived levels of strength on the job. We found that situational strength influenced the impact of personality (conscientiousness and agreeableness) on citizenship and counterproductive (deviant) behavior at work. We also found that the deleterious impact of misfit between preferred and perceived levels of situational strength was worse for certain types of misfit than for others. We suggest fruitful avenues for future research as well as practical implications. Because recent changes in the Army's nature and structure have weakened the situations Soldiers commonly experience, the current research has considerable implications for Army research in Soldier selection, classification, and retention. Overall, the current research sheds considerable light on the phenomenon of situational strength.
Recognition of discrimination: meritocracy and egalitarian primes and their effects on feminist self-identification

Research has shown that a disconnect exists between individuals’ belief in feminist ideology and their willingness to identify as a feminist. Based on this incongruence, research on feminist identification has focused on social-demographic predictors and the thought processes that lead to self-identification. However, not much is known about how the recognition of discrimination is related to feminist self-identification. Research has suggested that part of identifying as a feminist involves the recognition of discrimination. Further, it is suggested that system-justifying ideologies (e.g., meritocracy beliefs) are used to deny the presence of discrimination. The current study further explored this relationship by looking at meritocracy and egalitarian beliefs and how they affected perceptions of discrimination, belief in feminist ideology and identifying as a feminist. Results revealed that participants’ meritocracy and egalitarian beliefs had relatively no effect on their levels of perceived discrimination, belief in feminist ideology or identifying as a feminist.
Consensus algorithms and plug-and-play control for current sharing in DC microgrids

In this paper, we propose a secondary consensus-based control layer for current sharing and voltage balancing in DC microGrids (mGs). Differently from existing approaches based on droop control, we assume decentralized Plug-and-Play (PnP) controllers at the primary level as they provide voltage stabilization and their design complexity is independent of the mG size. We analyze the behavior of the closed-loop mG by approximating local primary control loops with either unitary gains or first-order transfer functions. Besides proving stability, current sharing and voltage balancing in the asymptotic regime, we describe how to design secondary controllers in a PnP fashion when distributed generation units are added or removed. Theoretical results are complemented by simulations using a 5-DGUs mG implemented in Simulink/PLECS.
Complex Network Partitioning Using Label Propagation

We present PuLP (partitioning using label propagation), a parallel and memory-efficient graph partitioning method specifically designed to partition low-diameter networks with skewed degree distributions on shared-memory multicore platforms. Graph partitioning is an important problem in scientific computing because it impacts the execution time and energy efficiency of computations on distributed-memory platforms. Partitioning determines the in-memory layout of a graph, which affects locality, intertask load balance, communication time, and overall memory utilization. A novel feature of our PuLP method is that it optimizes for multiple objective metrics simultaneously, while satisfying multiple partitioning constraints. Using our method, we are able to partition a web crawl with billions of edges on a single compute server in under a minute. For a collection of test graphs, we show that PuLP uses up to $7.8\times$ less memory than state-of-the-art partitioners and is $5.0\times$ faster, on average, than a.
Numerical bifurcation analysis of delay differential equations using DDE-BIFTOOL

We describe DDE-BIFTOOL, a Matlab package for numerical bifurcation analysis of systems of delay differential equations with several fixed, discrete delays. The package implements continuation of steady state solutions and periodic solutions and their stability analysis. It also computes and continues steady state fold and Hopf bifurcations and, from the latter, it can switch to the emanating branch of periodic solutions. We describe the numerical methods upon which the package is based and illustrate its usage and capabilities through analysing three examples: two models of coupled neurons with delayed feedback and a model of two oscillators coupled with delay.
Research on weed recognition method based on invariant moments

A new method of weed recognition based on the invariant moments was proposed in this paper. Firstly, the area of the soybean leaf was located from the complicated image background. Secondly, the features of soybean leaf were obtained by Hu invariant moments, which are the invariability of the translation, the ratio and the rotation, and have lower computational complexity. Finally, the soybean leaf was recognized by the nearest neighbor classifier, and other image information were identified to weed. Experimental results proved that the weed recognition method was effective on the different environment, and could location the weed rapidly, reliably and accurately. The correct rate of the weed recognition was 90.5% in the ordinary environment, the average cost time was 670ms.
Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis Have Lower Frequency of nTregs in Peripheral Blood.

BACKGROUND Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) suffer from wide ranges of autoimmune reactions in joints. The mechanism of which is generally unknown and maybe associated with Treg deregulation. OBJECTIVE To compare the frequency of nTregs in peripheral blood of patients with active rheumatoid disease with healthy individuals. METHODS Twenty five newly diagnosed patients with active RA disease were selected based on the clinical and laboratory criteria before starting their therapies. Treg cells in peripheral blood samples were enumerated by immune staining and flowcytometry analysis. RESULTS Clinical and laboratory results were in favor of active disease in all the studied patients although they showed variations in Disease Activity Score-28 (DAS-28). Compared to the healthy controls, RA patients had significantly lower frequency of CD4+CD25hi or CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ natural regulatory T cells. In spite of that, there were no significant differences between patients and healthy controls in respect to the CD4/CD8 ratio. Interestingly, more CD4+CD25-FoxP3+ cells were found in peripheral blood of patients. The frequencies of the Tregs did not show strong associations with the DAS-28. CONCLUSION We showed lower abundance of nTregs in peripheral blood of RA patients which highlights the significance of these cells in RA.