Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beneficial Effect of Covalently Grafted α-MSH on Endothelial Release of Inflammatory Mediators for Applications in Implantable Devices

Intravascular devices for continuous glucose monitoring are promising tools for the follow up and treatment of diabetic patients. Limiting the inflammatory response to the implanted devices in order to achieve better biocompatibility is a critical challenge. Herein we report on the production and the characterization of gold surfaces covalently derivatized with the peptide α-alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH), with a quantifiable surface density. In vitro study demonstrated that the tethered α-MSH is able to decrease the expression of an inflammatory cytokine produced by endothelial cells.
Developing Guidelines for the Annotation of Anaphors in the Chinese Treebank

This paper describes the CTB Coreference Annotation Guidelines for annotating pronominal anaphoric expressions in the Penn Chinese Treebank. The goals of the annotation are: to provide training data for learning-based pronoun resolution tools, and to provide a "gold" standard to be used in the evaluation of pronoun resolution algorithms. The choices that were made concerning the coindexing of pronominal anaphors and their antecedents are discussed, as are some questions that arose in trying to categorize those pronominal expressions that did not refer to specific nominal entities in the text.
Interactive UHDTV at the Commonwealth Games: An Explorative Evaluation

In conjunction with BBC R&D experiments and demonstrations at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, an explorative field trial was conducted with a live zoomable UHD video system. The unique field trial featured the world's first live tiled streaming of 4K UHD video to end users. During the trial, we studied and evaluated the attractiveness and novelty of an interactive UHD application, and investigated system design aspects of a live UHD tiling system. In this paper, we evaluate the overall perceived quality of experience (QoE) of the application and to what extent the QoE depends on system factors and/or network conditions. We observe that interactive UHDTV is well received by users, but the delivered experience may decrease in presence of low bandwidth availability.
Canonical periods and congruence formulae

The purpose of this article is to show how congruences between the Fourier coefficients of Hecke eigenforms give rise to corresponding congruences between the algebraic parts of the critical values of the associated L-functions. This study was initiated by B. Mazur in his fundamental work on the Eisenstein ideal (see [Maz77] and [Maz79]) where it was made clear that congruences for analytic L-values were closely related to the integral structure of certain Hecke rings and cohomology groups. The results of [Maz79] also showed that congruences were useful in the study of nonvanishing of L-functions. This idea was then further developed by Stevens [Ste82] and Rubin-Wiles [RW82]. The work of Rubin and Wiles, in particular, used congruences to study the behavior of elliptic curves in towers of cyclotomic fields. A key ingredient here was a theorem of Washington, which states, roughly, that almost L-values in certain families are nonzero modulo p. This theme has recently been taken up again, in the work of Ono-Skinner [OSa], [OSb], James [Jam], and Kohnen [Koh97]. While the earlier history was primarily concerned with cyclotomic twists, the current emphasis is on families of twists by quadratic characters. Here one wants quantitative estimates for the number of quadratic twists of a given modular form, which have nonvanishing L-function at s = 1. We continue this trend in the present work by using our general results to obtain a strong nonvanishing theorem for the quadratic twists of modular elliptic curves with rational points of order three. This generalizes a beautiful example due to Kevin James, and provides new evidence for a conjecture of Goldfeld [Gol79]. It should, however, be pointed out that even the study of quadratic twists may be traced back to Mazur: the reader is urged to look at pages 212–213 of [Maz79], and especially at the footnote at the bottom of page 213. The theorems of Davenport-Heilbronn [DH71] and Washington [Was78], which are crucial in this paper, are both mentioned in Mazur’s article. We want to begin by discussing the congruences that lie at the heart of this article. Thus let f = ∑ anq n be an elliptic modular cuspform of level M and weight k ≥ 2. Assume that f is a simultaneous eigenform for all the Hecke operators and that a1(f) = 1. The L-function associated to f is defined by the Dirichlet series L(s, f) = ∑ ann −s, which converges for the real part of s sufficiently large, and has analytic continuation to s ∈ C. A fundamental theorem of Shimura [Shi76] states that L(s, f) enjoys the following algebraicity property:
Effects of Stress and Social Enrichment on Alcohol Intake, Biological and Psychological Stress Responses in Rats

Abstract : Addiction and drug abuse are pervasive in society, and can result in illness, legal and financial trouble, and even death for dependent users. Licit substances, including alcohol, are widely available, easily obtainable, and relatively inexpensive. More than 75% of Americans have used alcohol at least once in their lifetime, and more than half of adults are current drinkers. Unlike most other drugs, alcohol may be health-promoting in low to moderate doses. Excessive alcohol intake can cause serious immediate and long-term consequences to the drinker and to others. There is substantial anecdotal, clinical, and some experimental evidence that environmental factors, especially stress and social environment, affect alcohol self-administration. Stress often is associated with increased alcohol consumption. Social enrichment decreases drug self-administration, but there is mixed evidence regarding social enrichment and alcohol intake. These relationships lack experimental examination and the mechanisms underlying these relationships are not clear. The purpose of this research project was to examine experimentally the individual and combined effects of stress and social enrichment on alcohol self-administration (in two bottle choice and operant self-administration paradigms) and alcohols effects on dopaminergic and serotonergic responses in the brain (nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area, prefrontal cortex) and on psychological constructs (anxiety via open field center time and depression via forced swim test) in male Wistar rats. The major hypotheses were: (1) stress would increase alcohol consumption and increase alcohols effects on the stress response; (2) alcohol would decrease the biological and attenuate the psychological stress response; and (3) social enrichment would decrease alcohol consumption, attenuate the stress response, and attenuate alcohols effects on the stress response.
Time Rate of Blood Pressure Variation Is Associated With Increased Common Carotid Artery Intima-Media Thickness

The extent of target-organ damage has been positively associated with the magnitude of blood pressure (BP) variability in essential hypertension. However, the clinical implications of the rate of BP changes have never been investigated. We evaluated the association between the rate of systolic BP (SBP) variation derived from ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) data analysis and the extent of common carotid artery (CCA) intima-media thickness (IMT) in normotensive (n=280) and in uncomplicated hypertensive subjects (n=234). The 24-hour rate of SBP variation was significantly (P<0.001) higher in hypertensive (0.608 mm Hg/min; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.595 to 0.622) than in normotensive individuals (0.567 mm Hg/min; 95% CI, 0.555 to 0.578), even after adjusting for baseline characteristics, day–night BP changes, 24-hour heart rate (HR), SBP, and HR variability. In the entire group of patients, multiple linear regression models revealed independent determinants of CCA-IMT in the following rank order: age (P<0.001), 24-hour rate of SBP variation (P<0.001), male gender (P=0.004), cholesterol (P=0.009), and smoking (P=0.014). A 0.1 mm Hg/min increase in the 24-hour rate of SBP variation was associated to an increment of 0.029 mm (95% CI, 0.018 to 0.040) in CCA-IMT independent of BP and HR levels, BP and HR variability, and dipping status. The rate of SBP variation during the morning BP surge correlated independently (P<0.001) to larger CCA-IMT values after adjustment for baseline characteristics and other ABPM parameters. Thus, the rate of BP fluctuations is greater in hypertensive patients and correlates to increased CCA-IMT. This finding indicates that steeper BP variations may produce a greater stress on the vessel wall and consequently result in medial hypertrophy of the large arteries.
Perceptual similarity between audio clips and feature selection for its measurement

In this paper, we explore the retrieval of perceptually similar audio. It focuses on finding sounds according to human perceptions. Thus such retrieval is more “human-centered” [1] than previous audio retrievals which intend to find homologous sounds. We make comprehensive use of various acoustic features to measure the perceptual similarity. Since some acoustic features may be redundant or even adverse to the similarity measurement, we propose to find a complementary and effective combination of acoustic features via SFFS (Sequential Floating Forward Selection) method. Experimental results show that LSP, MFCC, and PLP are the three most effective acoustic features. Moreover, the optimal combination of features can improve the accuracy of similarity classification by about 2% compared with the best performance of a single acoustic feature.
Modelling Duration in Activity Recognition using Generative and Discriminative Models 1

Human activity recognition allows many applications in areas such as intelligent environments and health monitoring. Typically probabilistic models such as the hidden Markov model or conditional random fields are used to map the observed sensor data onto the hidden activity states. A weakness of these models, however, is their inaccurate modelling of state durations. Hidden semi-Markov models and semi-Markov conditional random fields model duration explicitly. Our experiments show that modelling duration accurately can lead to a significant increase in recognition performance, in real world activity recognition.
Performance analysis of PID controller, fuzzy and ANFIS in pasteurization process

Pasteurization engine uses a heat exchanger to heat the milk up to 71.6 °C. Therefore, the suitable type of controller for pasteurization process must be obtained. In this paper, there are five types of controller to be compared. These controllers are a PID controller tuning Ziegler Nichols, PID tuning Cohen Coon, Cascade PID, Fuzzy Inference System and Adapative Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The system is also got disturbances that is caused by changes in flow of the product and changes of a step and impulse input for the system. This controller is created in MATLAB, which is connected to the PLC using OPC. The output of MATLAB will determine the control signals which serve as an input for the heater. It is shown from the data that the system that is controlled using ANFIS has an overshoot is only 0.27 percent, which is the smallest overshoot compared to other controllers. The required power for heater is only 0.48 kW which is the smallest one compare to other controllers. The MSE (mean squared error) value after the rise time had been reached is 0.114. The MSE when the system is given the flow disturbance is 1.86. When the system's step input is changed, the system that is controlled by ANFIS has a smaller overshoot and MSE compared to when the system is being controlled by PID cascade. However, when exposed to impulse disturbance ANFIS system controlled is highly reactive and has a lower performance than PID Cascade. Overall, it can be concluded that the performance of the ANFIS controller is better compare to other controllers.
Protecting services from security mis-configuration

It is understood that ICT security can be defined and enforced through rules. In this paper, the concept of rules which define and ensure users' access to services is introduced. Examples of how service is hindered by otherwise sensible security rules are presented. Service protection policies are then described which can help to prevent these compromises to service and assist us to measure this impact where it occurs. These examples include demonstration in some cases of how the combined collection of rules (security and service protection) can be enforced and maintained. The concept of service protection policies is introduced. We use ns3 and Click in simulations to check the consistency of aggregate security policy by checking that service protection rules are valid. We show that these can improve the performance of the network experienced by users and increase network security.
On the Metallicity of Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies

We construct three extremely different scenarios of the star formation histories applicable to a sample of dwarf galaxies, based on either their present metallicity or their luminosity. The three possible scenarios imply different mechanical energy input rates, and these we compare with the theoretical lower limits established for the ejection of processed matter out of dwarf galaxies. The comparison strongly points to the existence of extended gaseous halos in these galaxies acting as the barrier that allows galaxies to retain their metals and enhance their abundance. At the same time, our findings strongly point to a continuous star-forming process, rather than to coeval bursts, as the main contributor to the overall metallicity in our galaxy sample.
Effects of Culturally and Contextually Familiar Texts on Paraphrasing Skills of ESL Students

This study examined the influence of cultural and contextual settings of passages on ESL students’ paraphrasing skills using a sample of forty-one students enrolled in a university diploma programme. The results showed that students paraphrase better with passages that contained main points that were easy to identify. The culture and context of the passages played an important, but secondary role of stimulating students’ interest. It was also found that there were changes in students’ perceptions of themselves as learners after they had learned the paraphrasing skills. They were more confident about using their paraphrasing skills especially with passages that contained subject matter that was easy to understand and interesting.
Expression of Ca2+-dependent Synaptotagmin Isoforms in Mouse and Rat Parotid Acinar Cells

Synaptotagmin is a Ca2+ sensing protein, which triggers a fusion of synaptic vesicles in neuronal transmission. Little is known regarding the expression of Ca2+-dependent synaptotagmin isoforms and their contribution to the release of secretory vesicles in mouse and rat parotid acinar cells. We investigated a type of Ca2+-dependent synaptotagmin and Ca2+ signaling in both rat and mouse parotid acinar cells using RT-PCR, microfluorometry, and amylase assay. Mouse parotid acinar cells exhibited much more sensitive amylase release in response to muscarinic stimulation than did rat parotid acinar cells. However, transient [Ca2+]i increases and Ca2+ influx in response to muscarinic stimulation in both cells were identical, suggesting that the expression or activity of the Ca2+ sensing proteins is different. Seven Ca2+-dependent synaptotagmins, from 1 to 7, were expressed in the mouse parotid acinar cells. However, in the rat parotid acinar cells, only synaptotagmins 1, 3, 4 and 7 were expressed. These results indicate that the expression of Ca2+-dependent synaptotagmins may contribute to the release of secretory vesicles in parotid acinar cells.
GeoMF: joint geographical modeling and matrix factorization for point-of-interest recommendation

Point-of-Interest (POI) recommendation has become an important means to help people discover attractive locations. However, extreme sparsity of user-POI matrices creates a severe challenge. To cope with this challenge, viewing mobility records on location-based social networks (LBSNs) as implicit feedback for POI recommendation, we first propose to exploit weighted matrix factorization for this task since it usually serves collaborative filtering with implicit feedback better. Besides, researchers have recently discovered a spatial clustering phenomenon in human mobility behavior on the LBSNs, i.e., individual visiting locations tend to cluster together, and also demonstrated its effectiveness in POI recommendation, thus we incorporate it into the factorization model. Particularly, we augment users' and POIs' latent factors in the factorization model with activity area vectors of users and influence area vectors of POIs, respectively. Based on such an augmented model, we not only capture the spatial clustering phenomenon in terms of two-dimensional kernel density estimation, but we also explain why the introduction of such a phenomenon into matrix factorization helps to deal with the challenge from matrix sparsity. We then evaluate the proposed algorithm on a large-scale LBSN dataset. The results indicate that weighted matrix factorization is superior to other forms of factorization models and that incorporating the spatial clustering phenomenon into matrix factorization improves recommendation performance.
Properties of the polarization transformations for the likelihood ratios of symmetric B-DMCs

We investigate, starting with a symmetric B-DMC, the evolution of various probabilities related to the likelihood ratios of the synthetic channels created by the recursive application of the polarization transformations. We show the processes are bounded sub/super martingales converging to the extremes of the bounded intervals. In particular, this is true for the process that tracks the error probability of the likelihood ratio based decision rule of the synthetic channels. Moreover, the derivations reveal the set of BECs do not only provide universally good indices for the information sets of symmetric B-DMCs, but also universally bad indices. The analysis provides a new perspective into the theory of channel polarization initiated by Arikan, and it helps us to address an approximation to the computations of the likelihood ratios of the synthetic channels.
Strategies for Sequencing as a Planning

The paper summarizes an ongoing investigation of the discourse planning tasks concerned with the se-quencing of utterances and their parts. Content selection provides some important constraints on sequencing, most notably those derived from the preconditions and eeects of planning operators. However these operators underconstrain sequencing, especially below the granularity at which they interface with a domain knowledge source. Further constraints are available from the integrative processes of the hearer or reader and from working memory limits. Application of these constraints is a matter for discourse planning because the choices relate to one's communicative goals. The planning task is one of translating functionally relevant relationships between units to be ordered into ordering constraints. A collection of strategies for this task are presented. Some of the strategies were used in an earlier implemented system; many are justiied by prior psycholinguistic research. Also discussed include current eeorts to extend the work to focus structure in general, and to address the handling of connicts between strategies.
A Scalable Extension of Group Key Management Protocol

Abstract : This paper presents a robust, scalable extension to the recently proposed multicast Group Key Management Protocol (GKMP), in terms of security administration. The GKMP has two major security related problems, (a) lack of any mechanism to remove a compromised group administrator, (b) lack of scalability. We are able to remove a compromised single panel member from generating the group keys by setting the panel members with shared authority to generate the group keys. We then introduce the sub-controllers who have all the functionalities of the group control panel except the authority to generate the group keys. The sub-control panel helps scalability of the network in terms of the security operations. The sub-controllers are chosen using a threshold based clustering algorithm.
Reconsidering the Relationship Between Inflation and Relative Price Variability

It has long been popularly believed that the relationship between inflation and relative price variability (RPV) is positive and stable. Using disaggregated CPI data for the United States and Japan, however, this study finds that the relationship is neither linear nor stable over time. The overall relationship is approximately U-shaped around a nonzero threshold inflation rate. RPV therefore changes not with the inflation rate "per se", but with the deviation of inflation from the threshold inflation rate. More importantly, the relationship is by no means stable over time but instead varies significantly in a way that coincides with regime changes of inflation or monetary policy. The relationship was positive during the period of high inflation of the 1970s and the early 1980s, as has been documented by a number of previous studies, whereas it takes a U-shape profile during the Great Moderation. The results are robust to the use of core inflation, which excludes the traditionally volatile prices of food and energy. This paper then presents a modified version of the Calvo-type sticky price model to describe the observed empirical regularities. Simulation experiments show that the modified Calvo model fits the data well, and that the underlying relationship hinges upon the degree of price rigidity, which is systematically related to inflation regime. For countries and periods with low inflation rates, the relationship takes a U-shape as price adjustment is more sticky. In a high-inflation environment, when price setting becomes more flexible, the U-shaped profile vanishes. Copyright (c) 2010 The Ohio State University.
Domain-Z: 28 Registrations Later Measuring the Exploitation of Residual Trust in Domains

Any individual that re-registers an expired domain implicitly inherits the residual trust associated with the domain's prior use. We find that adversaries can, and do, use malicious re-registration to exploit domain ownership changes - undermining the security of both users and systems. In fact, we find that many seemingly disparate security problems share a root cause in residual domain trust abuse. With this study we shed light on the seemingly unnoticed problem of residual domain trust by measuring the scope and growth of this abuse over the past six years. During this time, we identified 27,758 domains from public blacklists and 238,279 domains resolved by malware that expired and then were maliciously re-registered. To help address this problem, we propose a technical remedy and discuss several policy remedies. For the former, we develop Alembic, a lightweight algorithm that uses only passive observations from the Domain Name System (DNS) to flag potential domain ownership changes. We identify several instances of residual trust abuse using this algorithm, including an expired APT domain that could be used to revive existing infections.