Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geometry and radiometry invariant matched manifold detection and tracking

We present a novel framework for detection, tracking and recognition of deformable objects undergoing geometric and radiometric transformations. Assuming the geometric deformations an object undergoes, belong to some finite dimensional family, it has been shown that the universal manifold embedding (UME) provides a set of nonlinear operators that universally maps each of the different manifolds, where each manifold is generated by the set all of possible appearances of a single object, into a distinct linear subspace. In this paper we generalize this framework to the case where the observed object undergoes both an affine geometric transformation, and a monotonic radiometric transformation. Applying to each of the observations an operator that makes it invariant to monotonic amplitude transformations, but is geometry-covariant with the affine transformation, the set of all possible observations on that object is mapped by the UME into a distinct linear subspace - invariant with respect to both the geometric and radiometric transformations. This invariant representation of the object is the basis of a matched manifold detection and tracking framework of objects that undergo complex geometric and radiometric deformations: The observed surface is tessellated into a set of tiles such that the deformation of each one is well approximated by an affine geometric transformation and a monotonic transformation of the measured intensities. Since each tile is mapped by the radiometry invariant UME to a distinct linear subspace, the detection and tracking problems are solved by evaluating distances between linear subspaces.
Understandings, Implications and Alternative Approaches to the Use of the Sex Offender Register in the UK

This paper reviews the current position in relation to sex offender registration and community notification in England and Wales. It reports on data collected as part of a wider research project evaluating law enforcement perspectives related to sex offender registration and notification and the management of sex offenders in the community. In examining law enforcement perceptions, it discusses issues that have been raised related to information sharing and the efficacy of such schemes. The authors also consider how the sex offenders register and Child Disclosure Scheme could be used more effectively in the future. Given that a similar child disclosure scheme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2016, issues that practitioners in that jurisdiction may find it useful to consider are highlighted.
CS229 Final Project: Predicting News Preferences

Our goal was to predict news stories that a user would read based on his or her reading history. We came up with a set of features for each story, including tf-idf values of the words in the title, the feed from which the story originated, and a measure of how many similar users read that story. Finally we weighted training stories more heavily if a user both read and clicked through that story. We fed this matrix of features into a linear Kernel SVM[1] and achieved an F1 score[2] of 0.45. While we consider the results to be satisfactory, we suspect the main obstacle preventing us from achieving higher accuracy was our inability to accurately determine which stories a user was exposed to, and, therefore, to determine whether a ‘non-read’ was because she was not interested in the story or simply because she did not see it.
UCN-01-Induced Cell Cycle Arrest Requires the Transcriptional Induction of p21waf1/cip1 by Activation of Mitogen-Activated Protein/Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Kinase/Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Pathway

The small molecule UCN-01 is a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) modulator shown to have antiproliferative effects against several in vitro and in vivo cancer models currently being tested in human clinical trials. Although UCN-01 may inhibit several serine-threonine kinases, the exact mechanism by which it promotes cell cycle arrest is still unclear. We have reported previously that UCN-01 promotes G1-S cell cycle arrest in a battery of head and neck squamous cancer cell lines. The arrest is accompanied by an increase in both p21waf1/cip1 and p27kip1 CDK inhibitors leading to loss in G1 CDK activity. In this report, we explore the role and the mechanism for the induction of these endogenous CDK inhibitors. We observed that p21 was required for the cell cycle effects of UCN-01, as HCT116 lacking p21 (HCT116 p21−/−) was refractory to the cell cycle effects of UCN-01. Moreover, UCN-01 promoted the accumulation of p21 at the mRNA level in the p53-deficient HaCaT cells without increase in the p21 mRNA half-life, suggesting that UCN-01 induced p21 at the transcriptional level. To study UCN-01 transcriptional activation of p21, we used several p21waf1/cip1 promoter-driven luciferase reporter plasmids and observed that UCN-01 activated the full-length p21waf1/cip1 promoter and a construct lacking p53 binding sites. The minimal promoter region required for UCN-01 (from −110 bp to the transcription start site) was the same minimal p21waf1/cip1 promoter region required for Ras enhancement of p21waf1/cip1 transcription. Neither protein kinase C nor PDK1/AKT pathways were relevant for the induction of p21 by UCN-01. In contrast, the activation of mitogen-activated protein/extracellular signal-regulated kinase kinase (MEK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways was required for p21 induction as UCN-01 activated this pathway, and genetic or chemical MEK inhibitors blunted p21 accumulation. These results demonstrated for the first time that p21 is required for UCN-01 cell cycle arrest. Moreover, we showed that the accumulation of p21 is transcriptional via activation of the MEK pathway. This novel mechanism, by which UCN-01 exerts its antiproliferative effect, represents a promising strategy to be exploited in future clinical trials.
Semantic Similarity Calculation Based on Sememe Set

The calculation of semantic similarity is a key point in Chinese information processing. This paper presents a new method for calculating semantic similarity between two words. Different from previous methods, this paper focuses on the perspective of connotations, trying to highlight the essential attributes of words by which we can get the similarity value in words’ conceptual level. Firstly, we get definitions from machine-readable dictionaries. Every definition will be translated into an interpretation vector. Then we use sememe, which is the least significant unit of concept in HowNet, as the unit of definition in the iterative process. Evaluations show that the method is effective and achieves good results.
Identifying Stride-To-Stride Control Strategies in Human Treadmill Walking

Variability is ubiquitous in human movement, arising from internal and external noise, inherent biological redundancy, and from the neurophysiological control actions that help regulate movement fluctuations. Increased walking variability can lead to increased energetic cost and/or increased fall risk. Conversely, biological noise may be beneficial, even necessary, to enhance motor performance. Indeed, encouraging more variability actually facilitates greater improvements in some forms of locomotor rehabilitation. Thus, it is critical to identify the fundamental principles humans use to regulate stride-to-stride fluctuations in walking. This study sought to determine how humans regulate stride-to-stride fluctuations in stepping movements during treadmill walking. We developed computational models based on pre-defined goal functions to compare if subjects, from each stride to the next, tried to maintain the same speed as the treadmill, or instead stay in the same position on the treadmill. Both strategies predicted average behaviors empirically indistinguishable from each other and from that of humans. These strategies, however, predicted very different stride-to-stride fluctuation dynamics. Comparisons to experimental data showed that human stepping movements were generally well-predicted by the speed-control model, but not by the position-control model. Human subjects also exhibited no indications they corrected deviations in absolute position only intermittently: i.e., closer to the boundaries of the treadmill. Thus, humans clearly do not adopt a control strategy whose primary goal is to maintain some constant absolute position on the treadmill. Instead, humans appear to regulate their stepping movements in a way most consistent with a strategy whose primary goal is to try to maintain the same speed as the treadmill at each consecutive stride. These findings have important implications both for understanding how biological systems regulate walking in general and for being able to harness these mechanisms to develop more effective rehabilitation interventions to improve locomotor performance.
Low-Molecular-Weight Fucoidan Induces Endothelial Cell Migration via the PI3K/AKT Pathway and Modulates the Transcription of Genes Involved in Angiogenesis

Low-molecular-weight fucoidan (LMWF) is a sulfated polysaccharide extracted from brown seaweed that presents antithrombotic and pro-angiogenic properties. However, its mechanism of action is not well-characterized. Here, we studied the effects of LMWF on cell signaling and whole genome expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and endothelial colony forming cells. We observed that LMWF and vascular endothelial growth factor had synergistic effects on cell signaling, and more interestingly that LMWF by itself, in the absence of other growth factors, was able to trigger the activation of the PI3K/AKT pathway, which plays a crucial role in angiogenesis and vasculogenesis. We also observed that the effects of LMWF on cell migration were PI3K/AKT-dependent and that LMWF modulated the expression of genes involved at different levels of the neovessel formation process, such as cell migration and cytoskeleton organization, cell mobilization and homing. This provides a better understanding of LMWF’s mechanism of action and confirms that it could be an interesting therapeutic approach for vascular repair.
Single-party private web search

Web search engines profile their users by storing and analyzing their past searches. Profiles reflect the interests of the users and enable web search engines to offer a better service. In this way, search results are personalized to fulfill the expectations of each individual user. Nevertheless, this service is not provided without cost. User profiles contain information that can be considered private and personal. This represents a serious privacy threat which must be addressed. Several privacy-preserving techniques which try to prevent this situation can be found in the literature. In this paper, we focus on those that work directly in the computer of the users without requiring any external entity. More specifically, we propose a new single-party scheme that addresses the trade-off between privacy and quality of service but it does not require any change at the server side. The performance of this new method has been evaluated using real search queries extracted from the AOL's files. The results achieved show that our proposal works as expected and it can be considered a proper option for those users who are concerned about their privacy.
Utility-based resource allocation in LTE-Advanced heterogeneous networks

In this paper, we study the strategic coexistence of macro and pico cells and investigate a utility based resource allocation technique for heterogeneous networks. Aiming at finding an objective driven allocation of resources, we focus on time domain inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) techniques. Macro and pico cells optimally select their almost blank subframe (ABS) muting rate and cell range bias values, so that inter-cell offloading and enhanced ICIC (e-ICIC) are jointly performed. A theoretical closed form solution is provided for our utility based resource allocation algorithm as well as a heuristic solution. To substantiate our theoretical findings, system level simulations are carried out in which the proposed heuristic solution is compared to a baseline ICIC technique. Interestingly, our proposed solution is shown to yield significant gains of up to 36% compared to the baseline approach.
Healthcare Databases in Thailand and Japan: Potential Sources for Health Technology Assessment Research

Background Health technology assessment (HTA) has been continuously used for value-based healthcare decisions over the last decade. Healthcare databases represent an important source of information for HTA, which has seen a surge in use in Western countries. Although HTA agencies have been established in Asia-Pacific region, application and understanding of healthcare databases for HTA is rather limited. Thus, we reviewed existing databases to assess their potential for HTA in Thailand where HTA has been used officially and Japan where HTA is going to be officially introduced. Method Existing healthcare databases in Thailand and Japan were compiled and reviewed. Databases’ characteristics e.g. name of database, host, scope/objective, time/sample size, design, data collection method, population/sample, and variables were described. Databases were assessed for its potential HTA use in terms of safety/efficacy/effectiveness, social/ethical, organization/professional, economic, and epidemiological domains. Request route for each database was also provided. Results Forty databases– 20 from Thailand and 20 from Japan—were included. These comprised of national censuses, surveys, registries, administrative data, and claimed databases. All databases were potentially used for epidemiological studies. In addition, data on mortality, morbidity, disability, adverse events, quality of life, service/technology utilization, length of stay, and economics were also found in some databases. However, access to patient-level data was limited since information about the databases was not available on public sources. Conclusion Our findings have shown that existing databases provided valuable information for HTA research with limitation on accessibility. Mutual dialogue on healthcare database development and usage for HTA among Asia-Pacific region is needed.
Putting the fun factor into gaming: The influence of social contexts on the experiences of playing videogames

The increasingly social nature of gaming suggests the importance of understanding its associated experiences and potential outcomes. This study examined the influence of social processes in gameplay and different gaming contexts on the experience of individual and group flow when engaged in the activity. It also examined the affective experiences associated with different types of social gaming. The research consisted of a series of focus groups with regular gamers. The results of the thematic analysis revealed the importance of social belonging, opportunities for social networking and the promotion of social integration for game enjoyment. However, social experiences could also facilitate feelings of frustration in gameplay as a result of poor social dynamics and competitiveness. The analysis also suggested that group flow occurs in social gaming contexts, particularly in cooperative gameplay. A number of antecedents of this shared experience were identified (e.g., collective competence, collaboration, task-relevant skills). Taken together, the findings suggest social gaming contexts enhance the emotional experiences of gaming. The study demonstrates the importance of examining social gaming processes and experiences to further understand their potential influence on associated affective outcomes. Areas of further empirical research are discussed in reference to the study’s findings.
Hierarchical discriminative sparse coding via bidirectional connections

Conventional sparse coding learns optimal dictionaries of feature bases to approximate input signals; however, it is not favorable to classify the inputs. Recent research has focused on building discriminative sparse coding models to facilitate the classification tasks. In this paper, we develop a new discriminative sparse coding model via bidirectional flows. Sensory inputs (from bottom-up) and discriminative signals (supervised from top-down) are propagated through a hierarchical network to form sparse representations at each level. The ℓ0-constrained sparse coding model allows highly efficient online learning and does not require iterative steps to reach a fixed point of the sparse representation. The introduction of discriminative top-down information flows helps to group reconstructive features belonging to the same class and thus to benefit the classification tasks. Experiments are conducted on multiple data sets including natural images, hand-written digits and 3-D objects with favorable results. Compared with unsupervised sparse coding via only bottom-up directions, the two-way discriminative approach improves the recognition performance significantly.
DETC 2012-71436 COOPERATIVE MICROMANIPULATORS FOR 3 D MICROMANIPULATION AND ASSEMBLY

In this paper we demonstrate coordinated control of multiple micromanipulators for use in automated 3D micromanipulation and assembly tasks. We build on our previous work on caging micromanipulation by using a similar methodology and extend it to the 3D case. Simultaneous movements of the coordinated micromanipulators normal to the caging polygon allows for the transition of 2D planar micro-caging grasps to micro-force closure grasps suitable for 3D micro-transporting tasks. Experimental results illustrate the success and accuracies of both the micro-grasps’ transitions and 3D pick-and-place tasks. Finally, the new 3D transportation primitive is used in conjunction with our previous 2D micromanipulation primitives and an encoded XY stage to semi-autonomously execute some representative 3D microassembly tasks.
Self-administration of cocaine-heroin combinations by rhesus monkeys: antagonism by naltrexone.

Low, nonreinforcing doses of heroin have been shown to shift the dose-response function of cocaine leftward in rhesus monkeys trained under a progressive-ratio schedule of i.v. drug injection. Our study sought to determine 1) whether a reciprocal enhancement of heroin self-administration would be observed when heroin was combined with low, nonreinforcing doses of cocaine, and 2) whether self-administration of cocaine-heroin combinations could be antagonized by the opioid antagonist naltrexone. Rhesus monkeys (n = 4) were prepared with i.v. catheters and trained to self-administer cocaine under a progressive-ratio schedule. The initial response requirement of this schedule was fixed-ratio 120, which doubled across the session to a maximum of 1920. Injections were separated by a 30-min time out. Cocaine dose-response functions (6.4-100 micrograms/kg/injection) for injections/session and breakpoints were monophasic, i.e., increased with dose until responding reached a maximum. Heroin dose-response functions (1.6-25 micrograms/kg/ injection) either increased to a peak and then decreased or reached an asymptote. When nonreinforcing doses of cocaine (3.2-25 micrograms/kg/injection) were combined with heroin, the heroin dose-response function was shifted to the left, without change in maximum injections/session. Pressession treatments with naltrexone (3.2-1600 micrograms/kg, i.m., 10-min presession) antagonized self-administration of heroin and heroin + cocaine combinations in a dose-dependent fashion. However, naltrexone treatment had no effect on cocaine self-administration. Antagonism by naltrexone of self-administration of heroin and heroin + cocaine was surmounted by increasing the dose of heroin either alone or in the heroin + cocaine combination. In vivo apparent pA2 and pKB analyses of these data revealed values of approximately 8.0, consistent with a role for mu opioid receptors in the self-administration of heroin and cocaine-heroin (i.e., "speedball") combinations.
RELIABILITY PREDICTION MODEL USING RAYLEIGH FUNCTION

Predicţia fiabilităţii produselor software poate determina fiabilitatea prezentă a unui produs, folosind tehnici statistice bazate pe datele de eşec, obţinute în timpul testării sau a folosirii sistemului. Scopul acestei lucrări este să studieze evoluţia unui produs real de-a lungul a trei variante, folosind funcţia Rayleigh pentru a prezice numărul de defecte. Articolul oferă două posibilităţi pentru calculul parametrilor modelului, iar apoi vom putea decide care model este mai bun şi cum poate fi îmbunătăţit. Rezultatele acestui studiu vor fi folosite pentru a stabili cea mai bună abordare. Modelul propus a fost folosit în diferite variante ale aceluiaşi produs, având complexităţi diferite şi întinzându-se pe perioade diferite de timp.
Drosophila as a model to study the role of blood cells in inflammation, innate immunity and cancer

Drosophila has a primitive yet effective blood system with three types of haemocytes which function throughout different developmental stages and environmental stimuli. Haemocytes play essential roles in tissue modeling during embryogenesis and morphogenesis, and also in innate immunity. The open circulatory system of Drosophila makes haemocytes ideal signal mediators to cells and tissues in response to events such as infection and wounding. The application of recently developed and sophisticated genetic tools to the relatively simple genome of Drosophila has made the fly a popular system for modeling human tumorigensis and metastasis. Drosophila is now used for screening and investigation of genes implicated in human leukemia and also in modeling development of solid tumors. This second line of research offers promising opportunities to determine the seemingly conflicting roles of blood cells in tumor progression and invasion. This review provides an overview of the signaling pathways conserved in Drosophila during haematopoiesis, haemostasis, innate immunity, wound healing and inflammation. We also review the most recent progress in the use of Drosophila as a cancer research model with an emphasis on the roles haemocytes can play in various cancer models and in the links between inflammation and cancer.
Corpus Use in Language Learning: A Meta-Analysis.

This study applied systematic meta-analytic procedures to summarize findings from experimental and quasi-experimental investigations into the effectiveness of using the tools and techniques of corpus linguistics for second language learning or use, here referred to as data-driven learning (DDL). Analysis of 64 separate studies representing 88 unique samples reporting sufficient data indicated that DDL approaches result in large overall effects for both control/experimental group comparisons (d = 0.95) and for pre/posttest designs (d = 1.50). Further investigation of moderator variables revealed that small effect sizes were generally tied to small sample sizes. Research has barely begun in some key areas, and durability/transfer of learning through delayed posttesting remains an area in need of further investigation. Although DDL research demonstrably improved over the period investigated, further changes in practice and reporting are recommended.