Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Classical Planning Algorithms on the Atari Video Games

The Atari 2600 games supported in the Arcade Learning Environment (Bellemare et al. 2013) all feature a known initial (RAM) state and actions that have deterministic effects. Classical planners, however, cannot be used for selecting actions for two reasons: first, no compact PDDL-model of the games is given, and more importantly, the action effects and goals are not known a priori. Moreover, in these games there is usually no set of goals to be achieved but rewards to be collected. These features do not preclude the use of classical algorithms like breadth-first search or Dijkstra’s algorithm, but these methods are not effective over large state spaces. We thus turn to a different class of classical planning algorithms introduced recently that perform a structured exploration of the state space; namely, like breadth-first search and Dijkstra’s algorithm they are “blind” and hence do not require prior knowledge of state transitions, costs (rewards) or goals, and yet, like heuristic search algorithms, they have been shown to be effective for solving problems over huge state spaces. The simplest such algorithm, called Iterated Width or IW, consists of a sequence of calls IW(1), IW(2), . , IW(k) where IW(i) is a breadth-first search in which a state is pruned when it is not the first state in the search to make true some subset of i atoms. The empirical results over 54 games suggest that the performance of IW with the k parameter fixed to 1, i.e., IW(1), is at the level of the state of the art represented by UCT. A simple best-first variation of IW that combines exploration and exploitation proves to be very competitive as well.
In Vitro Inhibition of NFAT5-Mediated Induction of CCL2 in Hyperosmotic Conditions by Cyclosporine and Dexamethasone on Human HeLa-Modified Conjunctiva-Derived Cells

Purpose To investigate the pro-inflammatory intracellular mechanisms induced by an in vitro model of dry eye disease (DED) on a Hela-modified conjunctiva-derived cells in hyperosmolarity (HO) stress conditions. This study focused on CCL2 induction and explored the implications of the nuclear factor of activated T-cells 5 (NFAT5) as well as mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) and nuclear factor kappa B (NFĸB). This work was completed by an analysis of the effects of cyclosporine A (CsA), dexamethasone (Dex) and doxycycline (Dox) on HO-induced CCL2 and NFAT5 induction. Methods A human HeLa-modified conjunctiva-derived cell line was cultured in NaCl-hyperosmolar medium for various exposure times. Cellular viability, CCL2 secretion, NFAT5 and CCL2 gene expression, and intracytoplasmic NFAT5 were assessed using the Cell Titer Blue® assay, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), RT-qPCR and immunostaining, respectively. In selected experiments, inhibitors of MAPKs or NFκB, therapeutic agents or NFAT5 siRNAs were added before the hyperosmolar stimulations. Results HO induced CCL2 secretion and expression as well as NFAT5 gene expression and translocation. Adding NFAT5-siRNA before hyperosmolar stimulation led to a complete inhibition of CCL2 induction and to a decrease in cellular viability. p38 MAPK (p38), c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) and NFĸB inhibitors, CsA and Dex induced a partial inhibition of HO-induced CCL2, while Dox and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) inhibitor did not. Dex also induced a partial inhibition of HO-induced NFAT5 gene expression but not CsA or Dox. Conclusions These in vitro results suggest a potential role of CCL2 in DED and highlight the crucial role of NFAT5 in the pro-inflammatory effect of HO on HeLa-modified conjunctiva-derived cells, a rarely studied cellular type. This inflammatory pathway involving NFAT5 and CCL2 could offer a promising target for developing new therapies to treat DED, warranting further investigations to fully grasp the complete intracellular mechanisms.
Human capacity for action as core content in occupational science education

ABSTRACT Incentives for teaching occupational science may vary from advancement of the discipline to providing philosophical grounding for the profession of occupational therapy. Regardless of the aim, the essential content of the subject matter – occupational science – has been largely unexplored. In seeking to refine concepts of occupation that emerged from scholarship in occupational therapy and yet distance the conversation from an applied perspective, occupational scientists have focused heavily on the form, function and meaning of occupation as well as sociocultural factors effecting occupational engagement. This focus has largely divorced the content from the exploration of the embodied experience of and the human capacity for action. This paper seeks to challenge that division by considering human capacity for action as integral to understanding occupation, and knowledge of body structure and function as key to understanding human capacity for action. We offer an example of a course where human capacity for action is foregrounded, enabling students to more clearly understand the relationship between occupation, embodied action, and body structures and functions.
GOAT: The Gene Ontology Annotation Tool

The Gene Ontology (GO), a structured controlled vocabulary of over 15,000 terms, is becoming the de facto standard for describing gene products in terms of their molecular functions, biological processes in which they participate, and the cellular locations in which they are active. However, current annotation editors do not constrain the choice of GO terms users may enter, potentially resulting in inconsistent or even nonsensical descriptions of gene products. Relying upon a DAML+OIL version of GO, including mined GO-term-to-gene-product-type and GO-term-to-GO-term associations, and the FaCT reasoner, GOAT aims to guide the user in the annotation of gene products with GO terms by displaying those field values that are appropriate based on previously entered terms. This will result in annotations of a higher quality, which in turn will facilitate biomedical e-Science.
Online Disclosure and Privacy Concerns: a Study of Moroccan and American Facebook Users

In using online social networks to connect and interact with people has become extremely popular all around the world. Thelargest Social Networking Site (SNS), Facebook, offers its services in over 70 languages and increasingly relies oninternational users to grow its membership. Aiming to understand the role of culture in SNS participation, this study adopts a‘privacy calculus’ perspective to examine the differences in participation patterns between American and MoroccanFacebook users. Survey results show that Moroccans users disclose less on Facebook than US users, yet perceive moredamage should their privacy on Facebook be violated. American users, on the other hand, have lower privacy concerns, trustfellow SNS members and legal system more, and disclose more in their profile. From a practical standpoint, the resultsindicate that SNS providers cannot rely on the same methods to encourage user participation and disclosure in differentcountries.
801 storage: architecture and programming

Based on novel architecture, the 801 minicomputer project has developed a low-level storage manager that can significantly simplify storage programming in subsystems and applications. The storage manager embodies three ideas: (1) large virtual storage, to contain all temporary data and permanent files for the active programs; (2) the innovation of database storage, which has implicit properties of access serializability and atomic update, similar to those of database transaction systems; and (3) access to all storage, including files, by the usual operations and types of a high-level programming language. The IBM RT PC implements the hardware architecture necessary for these storage facilities in its storage controller (MMU). The storage manager and language elements required, as well as subsystems and applications that use them, have been implemented and studied in a prototype operating system called CPR, that runs on the RT PC. Low cost and good performance are achieved in both hardware and software. The design is intended to be extensible across a wide performance/cost spectrum.
Intercultural Research: The Current State of Knowledge

This paper gives a short overview of the main concepts and theories in intercultural and cross-cultural communication, thus providing a brief introduction into the field of empirical research into culture-based value variations and providing a short outline of the major works in this area (e.g. the works of Hall, Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, and Schwartz).
Paths of two-wheeled self-balancing vehicles in the horizontal plane

This article is devoted to the dynamical analysis of the two-wheeled self-balancing vehicles in the horizontal plane. We obtained a modified dynamical formulation of the system previously. This new formulation is more detailed, in comparison with the commonly used formulations. The most important difference is the appearing of a new nonlinear coupling term in our dynamical equations. This term has significant effects on the dynamical behavior of the system. In this paper the effect of the new term on the free response of the system is shown and paths of the chassis in the horizontal plane are depicted under different initial conditions. The importance of this term and its effects on the paths of the system is shown by different simulations.
Taxonomic and Environmental Variability in the Elemental Composition and Stoichiometry of Individual Dinoflagellate and Diatom Cells from the NW Mediterranean Sea

Here we present, for the first time, the elemental concentration, including C, N and O, of single phytoplankton cells collected from the sea. Plankton elemental concentration and stoichiometry are key variables in phytoplankton ecophysiology and ocean biogeochemistry, and are used to link cells and ecosystems. However, most field studies rely on bulk techniques that overestimate carbon and nitrogen because the samples include organic matter other than plankton organisms. Here we used X-ray microanalysis (XRMA), a technique that, unlike bulk analyses, gives simultaneous quotas of C, N, O, Mg, Si, P, and S, in single-cell organisms that can be collected directly from the sea. We analysed the elemental composition of dinoflagellates and diatoms (largely Chaetoceros spp.) collected from different sites of the Catalan coast (NW Mediterranean Sea). As expected, a lower C content is found in our cells compared to historical values of cultured cells. Our results indicate that, except for Si and O in diatoms, the mass of all elements is not a constant fraction of cell volume but rather decreases with increasing cell volume. Also, diatoms are significantly less dense in all the measured elements, except Si, compared to dinoflagellates. The N:P ratio of both groups is higher than the Redfield ratio, as it is the N:P nutrient ratio in deep NW Mediterranean Sea waters (N:P = 20–23). The results suggest that the P requirement is highest for bacterioplankton, followed by dinoflagellates, and lowest for diatoms, giving them a clear ecological advantage in P-limited environments like the Mediterranean Sea. Finally, the P concentration of cells of the same genera but growing under different nutrient conditions was the same, suggesting that the P quota of these cells is at a critical level. Our results indicate that XRMA is an accurate technique to determine single cell elemental quotas and derived conversion factors used to understand and model ocean biogeochemical cycles.
Software Aging Analysis of Web Server Using Neural Networks

Software aging is a phenomenon that refers to progressive performance degradation or transient failures or even crashes in long running software systems such as web servers. It mainly occurs due to the deterioration of operating system resource, fragmentation and numerical error accumulation. A primitive method to fight against software aging is software rejuvenation. Software rejuvenation is a proactive fault management technique aimed at cleaning up the system internal state to prevent the occurrence of more severe crash failures in the future. It involves occasionally stopping the running software, cleaning its internal state and restarting it. An optimized schedule for performing the software rejuvenation has to be derived in advance because a long running application could not be put down now and then as it may lead to waste of cost. This paper proposes a method to derive an accurate and optimized schedule for rejuvenation of a web server (Apache) by using Radial Basis Function (RBF) based Feed Forward Neural Network, a variant of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Aging indicators are obtained through experimental setup involving Apache web server and clients, which acts as input to the neural network model. This method is better than existing ones because usage of RBF leads to better accuracy and speed in convergence.
Hidden State Probabilistic Modeling for Complex Wavelet Based Image Registration

This article presents a computationally tractable probabilistic model for the relation between the complex wavelet coefficients of two images of the same scene. The two images are acquisitioned at distinct moments of times, or from distinct viewpoints, or by distinct sensors. By means of the introduced probabilistic model, we argue that the similarity between the two images is controlled not by the values of the wavelet coefficients, which can be altered by many factors, but by the nature of the wavelet coefficients, that we model with the help of hidden state variables. We integrate this probabilistic framework in the construction of a new image registration algorithm. This algorithm has sub-pixel accuracy and is robust to noise and to other variations like local illumination changes. We present the performance of our algorithm on various image types. Keywords—Complex wavelet transform, image registration, modeling using hidden state variables, probabilistic similarity measure.
AE—Automation and Emerging Technologies

This paper presents apple grading into four classes according to European standards. Two varieties were tested: Golden Delicious and Jonagold. The image database included more than a 1000 images of fruits (528 Golden Delicious, 642 Jonagold) belonging to the three acceptable categories—Extra, I and II—and the reject (each class represents, respectively, about 60, 10 and 20% of the sample size). The image grading was achieved in six steps: image acquisition; ground colour classification; defect segmentation; calyx and stem recognition; defects characterisation and finally the fruit classification into quality classes. The proposed method for apple external quality grading showed correct classification rates of 78 and 72%, for Golden Delicious and Jonagold apples, respectively. Taking into account that the healthy fruit were far better graded and considering that this class was under represented in the sample compared with the fruit population, the results of the proposed method (an error rate which drops to 5 and 10%, respectively) are compatible with the requirements of European standards.
A Pore-Based Method for Fingerprint Liveness Detection

Fingerprint scanners usually suffer from spoofing attack of fake fingerprints. To address this issue, a pore based liveness detection method has been proposed in this paper. The method first extracts the sweat pores from the grayscale fingerprint image. This is achieved by processing the fingerprint image using the Gaussian filters, whose parameters are adaptively adjusted according to the local ridge period of fingerprints. Based on the extracted pores density feature, we then find an optimal threshold of the pores density to distinguish between the live and fake fingerprints. In the experiments, we evaluate the proposed method on ATVS-FFp database. The results show that our method is robust, achieving an average classification error rate (ACE) at 7.62%. Furthermore, the proposed method is simple and easy to be implemented, as it requires only one fingerprint image with 500 dpi for liveness detection.
Proteases and Protease Inhibitors of Urinary Extracellular Vesicles in Diabetic Nephropathy

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the major complications of diabetes mellitus (DM), leads to chronic kidney disease (CKD), and, ultimately, is the main cause for end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Beyond urinary albumin, no reliable biomarkers are available for accurate early diagnostics. Urinary extracellular vesicles (UEVs) have recently emerged as an interesting source of diagnostic and prognostic disease biomarkers. Here we used a protease and respective protease inhibitor array to profile urines of type 1 diabetes patients at different stages of kidney involvement. Urine samples were divided into groups based on the level of albuminuria and UEVs isolated by hydrostatic dialysis and screened for relative changes of 34 different proteases and 32 protease inhibitors, respectively. Interestingly, myeloblastin and its natural inhibitor elafin showed an increase in the normo- and microalbuminuric groups. Similarly, a characteristic pattern was observed in the array of protease inhibitors, with a marked increase of cystatin B, natural inhibitor of cathepsins L, H, and B as well as of neutrophil gelatinase-associated Lipocalin (NGAL) in the normoalbuminuric group. This study shows for the first time the distinctive alterations in comprehensive protease profiles of UEVs in diabetic nephropathy and uncovers intriguing mechanistic, prognostic, and diagnostic features of kidney damage in diabetes.
Human activity recognition based on mid-level representations in video surveillance applications

Human Action Recognition methods have prospered during the last decade. They seek to automatically analyze ongoing activities in different camera views by using machine-learning algorithms in video sequences. Various human action recognition methods match local features and global features using action class labels in which abundant visual spatio-temporal information can hardly be generalized. To overcome this problem, we propose a novel notion of mid-level representations to construct a discriminative and informative semantic concept for human action recognition. This work introduces a mid-level representation based on the Optical Flow (OF) method, Hu and Zernike moment together. First we extract from each video, Uh and Uv motion vectors by forming motions curvatures. Second, we determine the Hu moment and Zernike that serve as the feature vector of an action. Our method was tested and evaluated through a classification of the KTH and Weizmann datasets, with an Artificial Neural Network classifier (ANN). The results prove the accuracy of the suggested approach.
QFed: Query Set For Federated SPARQL Query Benchmark

Most of the existing benchmark systems for federated SPARQL query systems rely on a set of predefined static queries over a particular set of data sources. Such benchmark are useful for comparing general purpose SPARQL query federation systems such as FedX, SPLENDID etc. However, special purpose federation systems such as TopFed, SAFE etc. cannot be tested with these static benchmarks since these systems only operate on a specific data sets and the corresponding queries. To facilitate the process of benchmarking for such special purpose SPARQL query federation systems, we propose QFed, a dynamic SPARQL query set generator that takes into account the characteristics of both dataset and queries along with the cost of data communication. Our experimental results show that QFed can successfully generate a large set of meaningful federated SPARQL queries to be considered for the performance evaluation of different federated SPARQL query engines.
Re-thinking Security in Network Mobility

This application discloses an automation system whereby a number of different machines, test stands, and the like, previously operated as separate machines or installations, are grouped together with the aid of an accumulator conveyor system into a unitary system operating substantially as a single machine, with the operators merely loading and unloading workpieces at a predetermined place or station. The application discloses as a particular example an installation for combining into a single installation a number of test stands and machines directed to testing automobile engines, as well as operations related to such tests, such as filling the engines with oil, balancing the engines, hot-run testing the engines, removing rejected engines from the installation and directing them to repair stands and the like, and dynamometer load testing. The construction utilizes the nonpositive accumulator conveyor such as disclosed in detail in our copending application identified below. In some of its aspects the present invention relates to an improved method of automating industrial plants or portions thereof formerly composed of a large number of independent units, machines or devices, as single systems.
On the use of high-level information in speaker and language recognition

Automatic Speaker Recognition systems have been largely dominated by acoustic-spectral based systems, relying in proper modelling of the short-term vocal tract of speakers. However, there is scientific and intuitive evidence that speaker specific information is embedded in the speech signal in multiple short- and long-term characteristics. In this work, a multilevel speaker recognition system combining acoustic, phonotactic and prosodic subsystems is presented and assessed using NIST 2005 Speaker Recognition Evaluation data. For language recognition systems, the NIST 2005 Language Recognition Evaluation was selected to measure performance of a high-level language recognition systems.
Impacts of colonization on Indigenous Two-Spirit/LGBTQ Canadians’ experiences of migration, mobility and relationship violence

An exploratory, community-based research project examined the paths of migration and mobility of Canadian Indigenous people who identify as Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQ). A total of 50 participants in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada were interviewed, many of them telling stories about the multiple layers of domestic violence, violence in communities, state and structural violence that they experienced. In order to better respond to relationship violence experienced by Indigenous Two-Spirit/LGBTQ people it is necessary to understand the specific and historical context of colonization in which relationship violence occurs. We further need to align our efforts to end relationship violence with broader anti-violence struggles.