Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Current versus past ambiguity in intertrial priming

Visual search is speeded when the target is repeated from trial to trial compared to when it changes, suggesting that selective attention learns from previous events. Such intertrial effects are stronger when there is more competition for selection, for example in ambiguous displays where the target is accompanied by a salient distractor. Here we investigate whether this is because the competition strengthens the learning itself, or because it allows for a learned representation to exert a greater effect. The results point to the latter. Observers looked for a colour-defined target that could repeat or change from trial to trial. A salient distractor could be present on the current trial, the previous trial, both, or neither. Intertrial effects were greater when a distractor was present on the current trial, suggesting that a primed target representation is more beneficial under conditions of competition. In contrast, distractor presence on the previous trial had no effects whatsoever, indicating that the learning process itself is not affected by competition. This suggests that the source of the learning resides at postselection stages, whereas the effects may occur at the perceptual level.
FEATURES HOW ADVANCED IMAGE PROCESSING HELPS FOR SAR IMAGE RESTORATION AND ANALYSIS

The past few years have seen important advances in remote sensing imagery. The new sensors have improved resolutions in all dimensions, spatial resolution with reduced pixel sizes, temporal resolution with shorter revisit times and spectral resolution with increased number of spectral bands. With these new specifications, new challenges have appeared. The huge amount of remote sensing data raises new computational issues [1] and asks for faster processing approaches. New applications are accessible or can achieve new results like change detection, natural disaster monitoring, urban and landscape planning, biomass measurement. Theses advances are especially true for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors , with metric resolution available for civil satellite data, new spectral bands (L band with ALOS, X band for TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMed), new interferometric potential thanks to TanDEM-X [2], reduced revisit time with constellations like COSMO-SkyMed. In spite of these improvements, SAR images remain difficult to interpret. New difficulties arose with the increase of spatial resolution: previously unnoticeable targets are now visible, bright scat-terers are more numerous. Beyond speckle noise intrinsic to coherent imagery, geometric distortions due to distance sampling limit our visual understanding of such images, and direct interpretation of an urban area imaged by a SAR sensor is still reserved to expert photo-interpreters. Together with progress made with recent sensors, new powerful image processing methods have emerged in the recent years. Among the major advances made last decade by the image processing and computer vision communities, we have chosen to emphasize three of them for their long-term potential and applicative interest for SAR imaging. The first family of advances in signal and image processing is related to the progress in statistical modeling of multiplica-tive noise, which is particularly important to deal with SAR imagery. Therefore, the first point we would like to mention is the Mellin framework proposed in [3] to deal with positive random variables and their multiplication. The second family of methods is based on the idea of " patches ". Patches are small image parts (typically 5 3 5 or 7 3 7 pixels). They capture fine scale information such as texture, bright dots or edges. Given their very local extent, they are highly redundant, i.e., many similar patches can be found in an image. These similar patches can then be combined to reduce noise [4]. But patch similarity can also be applied to stereovision or change detection. The third family are the " graph-cut …
Randomized Double-Blind Clinical Trial of Autologous Serum Versus Artificial Tears in Dry Eye Syndrome

Purpose: To determine symptoms improvement in dry eye patients with short-term autologous serum (AS) eyedrops treatment using the standardized Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) survey. Materials and methods: A double-blind randomized crossover clinical trial was conducted, comparing short-term (2 weeks) topical treatment with AS eyedrops diluted at 20% versus conventional artificial tears treatment in adult severe dry eye syndrome (DES) patients. The main outcome measure was assessment of symptoms with OSDI survey. Secondary outcomes were corneal and conjunctival fluorescein staining score of OXFORD and tear break up time (TBUT). The protocol was registered in www.clinicaltrials. gov, ID number: NCT00779987. Results: Twelve severe DES patients were included. Autologous serum treatment showed a statistically significant (p = 0.002) higher OSDI decrease (50%) versus conventional treatment (22%). There were no significant changes in objectives parameters (OXFORD and TBUT). Conclusions: Severe DES patients treated with AS achieve better symptoms improvement compared to artificial tears in a short-term treatment.
Two-Year College Faculty and Administrator Thoughts about the Transition to a Learning-Centered College

A single qualitative case study design was used to determine the opinions of administrators and faculty from a community college that is considered to be transitioning to a learning-centered college. The researcher conducted the case study to describe, explain, and evaluate the phenomenon. The researcher also recorded facilitators or roadblocks identified during the transition process. As a result, a model was used to help produce an auditing procedure that identified the progress, perceptions, and status of the community college as it transitioned to become a learning-centered college. Interviews of administrators and faculty, a survey of all full-time faculty, and document reviews of the college were the primary means of collecting the data for the audit process. The research on the learning-centered college was conducted to find out what it is that notable writers say a learning college does and what the writers say learner-centered instruction is and what actions faculty and students take to make the college more learning-centered. The specific questions and statements used for interview and survey purposes were derived from information gathered from research on the topic. The writings of O'Banion (1997), Tagg (2003), Fink (2003), and Senge (1990) contributed to the concepts and components identified with learning-centered colleges. Also, Fink (2003), Tagg (2003) and Weimer (2002) contributed to the concepts and components identified with learner-centered instruction. Other research authors' works were consulted, but these were the major contributors.
Detection and Tracking of Objects in Airborne Video Imagery

We address the detection and tracking of moving objects in a video stream obtained from a moving airborne platform. The approach is based on the compensation of the image flow induced by the motion of observation platform and the detection and tracking of moving regions. The use of such an approach leads us to deal with stabilization inaccuracies, false alarms and non detection of moving objects and tracking difficulties due to partial occlusion or stop and go motion. Our approach use a hierarchical, feature based stabilization scheme and normal component of the residual flow for detecting moving objects. These objects are tracked using a dynamic template for each object, and extracts trajectories as the result of a graph searching algorithm. The proposed framework shows that an integration of well known tools and an efficient description of the moving objects can give very accurate detection and tracking of moving objects.
Library Functions, Scholarly Communication, and the Foundation of the Digital Library: Laying Claim to the Control Zone

As libraries prepare to convert an increasing proportion of their services to online form, it is essential that they pause to review and define the core qualities of those services; only in that way can the systematic and conscious transfer of such services to an online environment be assured. This definition of core services is especially important for academic libraries, which face special economic and political challenges. Some of the most fundamental aspects of library operations entail the existence of a border, across which objects of information are transferred and maintained. Such a parameter, demarcating a single, distributed digital library (the "control zone"), needs to be created and managed by the academic library community at the earliest opportunity. One basic objective of such a single digital research library should be to serve as an alternative publishing mechanism for specialized scholarly communication. In order to achieve that combination of the collection and the publication functions in the coming online environment, some responsibilities now performed by academic library collection development will probably need to be transferred to the faculty.
Frequency Band Allocation in MIMO System Based on Received Power Difference among Users

To achieve a high speed transmission with limited frequency bandwidth, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been gaining much attention. QR-decomposition based successive interference canceller (SIC) can provide good detection performance with reasonable complexity. In MIMO system, there could be spatial antenna correlation among antennas and this degrades the transmission performance. The performance severely degrades owing to the correlation among transmit antennas in the case of uplink transmission. In this paper, we propose a frequency band allocation in MIMO system based on received power difference among users that each user utilizes several frequency bands that overlap with other users'. At the receiver, QR-decomposition based SIC is performed by utilizing the received power difference. It is shown that the proposed scheme yields superior error rate performance over the conventional scheme by computer simulations.
Quantitative Mass Spectrometric Multiple Reaction Monitoring Assays for Major Plasma Proteins*

Quantitative LC-MS/MS assays were designed for tryptic peptides representing 53 high and medium abundance proteins in human plasma using a multiplexed multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) approach. Of these, 47 produced acceptable quantitative data, demonstrating within-run coefficients of variation (CVs) (n = 10) of 2–22% (78% of assays had CV <10%). A number of peptides gave CVs in the range 2–7% in five experiments (10 replicate runs each) continuously measuring 137 MRMs, demonstrating the precision achievable in complex digests. Depletion of six high abundance proteins by immunosubtraction significantly improved CVs compared with whole plasma, but analytes could be detected in both sample types. Replicate digest and depletion/digest runs yielded correlation coefficients (R2) of 0.995 and 0.989, respectively. Absolute analyte specificity for each peptide was demonstrated using MRM-triggered MS/MS scans. Reliable detection of L-selectin (measured at 0.67 μg/ml) indicates that proteins down to the μg/ml level can be quantitated in plasma with minimal sample preparation, yielding a dynamic range of 4.5 orders of magnitude in a single experiment. Peptide MRM measurements in plasma digests thus provide a rapid and specific assay platform for biomarker validation, one that can be extended to lower abundance proteins by enrichment of specific target peptides (stable isotope standards and capture by anti-peptide antibodies (SISCAPA)).
More Debugging in Parallel

Programs may contain multiple faults, in which case their debugging can be parallelized. However, effective parallelization requires some guarantees that parallel debugging tasks do not address the same fault, an inherent problem of earlier, clustering-based approaches to parallel debugging. In this paper, we identify a number of fundamental trade-offs to be made when selecting algorithms for parallel debugging, and explore these trade-offs using one clustering algorithm and three algorithms from integer linear programming. Results of an evaluation involving a total of 75,000 faulty versions (with up to 32 injected faults) of 15 subject programs suggest that depending on the number of faults present and the trade-offs one is willing to accept, speed-ups much larger than previously reported can be achieved, even if all derived parallel debugging tasks are handled sequentially.
Structural and functional characterization of proteins adsorbed on hydrophilized polylactide-co-glycolide microfibers

Background: Hydrophobic biopolymers such as polylactide-co-glycolide (PLGA, 85:15) have been extensively explored as scaffolding materials for tissue engineering applications. More recently, electrospun microfiber-based and nanofiber-based scaffolds of PLGA have received increased attention because they act as physical mimics of the fibrillar extracellular matrix. However, the hydrophobicity of the PLGA microfiber surface can limit its use in biomedical applications. Therefore, in a previous study, we fabricated Pluronic® F-108 (PF-108)-blended PLGA microfibrous scaffolds that alleviated the hydrophobicity associated with PLGA by enriching the surface of microfibers with the ethylene oxide units present in PF-108. Methods: In this study, we report the influence of the extent of surface enrichment of PLGA microfibers on their interaction with two model proteins, ie, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and lysozyme. BSA and lysozyme were adsorbed onto PLGA microfiber meshes (unmodified and modified) and studied for the amount, secondary structure conformation, and bioactivity of released protein. Results: Irrespective of the type of protein, PF-108-blended PLGA microfibers showed significantly greater protein adsorption and release than the unblended PLGA samples. However, in comparison with BSA, lysozyme showed a 7–9-fold increase in release. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies for secondary structure determination demonstrated that irrespective of type of microfiber surface (unblended or blended), adsorbed BSA and lysozyme did not show any significant change in secondary structure (α-helical content) as compared with BSA and/or lysozyme in the free powder state. Further, the bioactivity assay of lysozyme released from blended PLGA microfiber meshes demonstrated 80%–85% bioactivity, indicating that the process of adsorption did not significantly affect biological activity. Therefore, this study demonstrated that the decreased hydrophobicity of blended PLGA microfibrous meshes not only improved the amount of protein adsorbed (lysozyme and BSA) but also maintained the secondary structure and bioactivity of the adsorbed proteins. Conclusion: Modulating the hydrophobicity of PLGA via blending with PF-108 could be a viable strategy to improve its interaction with proteins and subsequent cell interaction in tissue engineering applications.
Mixture of support vector machines for text-independent speaker recognition

In this paper, the mixture of support vector machines is proposed and applied to text-independent speaker recognition. The mixture of experts is used and is implemented by the divide-and-conquer approach. The purpose of adopting this idea is to deal with the large scale speech data and improve the performance of speaker recognition. The principle is to train several parallel SVMs on the subsets of the whole dataset and then combine them in the distance or probabilistic fashion. The experiments have been run on the YOHO database, and the results show that the mixture model is superior to the basic Gaussian mixture model.
Efficient, rapid and reliable establishment of human trophoblast cell lines using poly-L-ornithine.

OBJECTIVE Human trophoblast cells in primary culture are difficult to use for the rigorous study of trophoblast function because of contamination with other cell types, paucity of numbers, poor viability and inter-experiment variation engendered by the need to prepare fresh cells for each experiment. DNA-transfection to produce immortalized cells, or cells with extended life-span, has been the obvious approach to solve this problem. Although there have been a few reports in the literature describing trophoblast cell lines generated in this way, it is clear that to date the methods are difficult and few lines have been generated. The basic problem is that transfection efficiencies of different methods are cell type-specific. The objectives of this study were therefore to compare the transfection efficiencies of three commonly used techniques, to use the best technique to generate trophoblast cell lines, and to conduct preliminary characterization studies. METHODS We have compared calcium phosphate co-precipitation, DEAE-dextran and poly-L-ornithine (PLO) DNA transfection protocols. We then used the most efficient to transfect human extravillous trophoblast with pSV3neo. RESULTS Our modification of the PLO method has a transfection efficiency greater than 30 times that of the next best method. Several cell lines were established which had an extended life span and displayed an invasive phenotype, including the expression of MHC Class I framework antigens, human placental lactogen and human chorionic gonadotrophin, and thus have characteristics of extravillous trophoblast. In addition these cells express the integrin subunits b1, a1, and a3, all of which are known to be expressed in human trophoblast, and respond to IL-1alpha by increased secretion of GM-CSF. CONCLUSIONS PLO is a highly efficient, rapid, reliable, simple and low-cost technique for the procurement of human trophoblast cell lines which retain most, if not all, the phenotype of the parental cell. These lines are potentially powerful tools in the rigorous study of trophoblast function.
Learning through Research: A Regional University and Its Community

Abstract Regional universities bring a research capacity to their home locations that is rarely available through other mechanisms in the region. University initiated research projects conducted locally can provide an opportunity for regional communities to examine their practices through a different lens. Through these projects, researchers in regional universities whose research includes sites internal and external to the region are able to connect their region to national and global contexts. Research presents many opportunities for regional universities and their communities to learn together. There is some evidence that policy-makers are aware of the importance of behavioural relationships in the engagement of regional universities with communities. Policy documents tend to focus on the macro, institutional level benefits, structural incentives and impediments to university and community engagement. This paper examines research from one faculty based on a regional university campus: the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania in Launceston in Australia. It takes a micro view, considering benefits and factors influencing success for small research teams and individual researchers and their community research associates. A learning community approach, where synergies from collaboration can generate newknowledge for the benefit of all university and community players, emerges as an effective model for regional engagement through research.
Diode-Clamped Three-Level Inverter-Based Battery/Supercapacitor Direct Integration Scheme for Renewable Energy Systems

This paper describes a diode-clamped three-level inverter-based battery/supercapacitor direct integration scheme for renewable energy systems. The study is carried out for three different cases. In the first case, one of the two dc-link capacitors of the inverter is replaced by a battery bank and the other by a supercapacitor bank. In the second case, dc-link capacitors are replaced by two battery banks. In the third case, ordinary dc-link capacitors are replaced by two supercapacitor banks. The first system is supposed to mitigate both long-term and short-term power fluctuations while the last two systems are intended for smoothening long-term and short-term power fluctuations, respectively. These topologies eliminate the need for interfacing dc-dc converters and thus considerably improve the overall system efficiency. The major issue in aforementioned systems is the unavoidable imbalance in dc-link voltages. An analysis on the effects of unbalance and a space vector modulation method, which can produce undistorted current even in the presence of such unbalances, are presented in this paper. Furthermore, small vector selection-based power sharing and state of charge balancing techniques are proposed. Experimental results, obtained from a laboratory prototype, are presented to verify the efficacy of the proposed modulation and control techniques.
Evaluation of Automatically Reformulated Questions in Question Series

Having gold standards allows us to evaluate new methods and approaches against a common benchmark. In this paper we describe a set of gold standard question reformulations and associated reformulation guidelines that we have created to support research into automatic interpretation of questions in TREC question series, where questions may refer anaphorically to the target of the series or to answers to previous questions. We also assess various string comparison metrics for their utility as evaluation measures of the proximity of an automated system's reformulations to the gold standard. Finally we show how we have used this approach to assess the question processing capability of our own QA system and to pinpoint areas for improvement.
Collaborative Ranking with Social Relationships for Top-N Recommendations

Recommendation systems have gained a lot of attention because of their importance for handling the unprecedentedly large amount of available content on the Web, such as movies, music, books, etc. Although Collaborative Ranking (CR) models can produce accurate recommendation lists, in practice several real-world problems decrease their ranking performance, such as the sparsity and cold start problems. Here, to account for the fact that the selections of social friends can leverage the recommendation accuracy, we propose SCR, a Social CR model. Our model learns personalized ranking functions collaboratively, using the notion of Social Reverse Height, that is, considering how well the relevant items of users and their social friends have been ranked at the top of the list. The reason that we focus on the top of the list is that users mainly see the top-N recommendations, and not the whole ranked list. In our experiments with a benchmark data set from Epinions, we show that our SCR model performs better than state-of-the-art CR models that either consider social relationships or focus on the ranking performance at the top of the list.