Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Viral Evasion Strategies in Type I IFN Signaling – A Summary of Recent Developments

The immune system protects the organism against infections and the damage associated with them. The first line of defense against pathogens is the innate immune response. In the case of a viral infection, it induces the interferon (IFN) signaling cascade and eventually the expression of type I IFN, which then causes an antiviral state in the cells. However, many viruses have developed strategies to counteract this mechanism and prevent the production of IFN. In order to modulate or inhibit the IFN signaling cascade in their favor, viruses have found ways to interfere at every single step of the cascade, for example, by inducing protein degradation or cleavage, or by mediate protein polyubiquitination. In this article, we will review examples of viruses that modulate the IFN response and describe the mechanisms they use.
An adaptive visual quality optimization method for Internet video applications

A substantial proportion of current Internet videos are poor in quality. To improve the visual experience, many visual quality optimization algorithms, such as denoising, sharpening are usually used. However, the unsuitable denoising will blur the image, the oversharpening will result in overshoot artifacts. To resolve this problem, many methods have been proposed to adaptively adjust the parameters based on the content of the videos. However, these methods are characterized with high computation complexity and are not easy for realtime video applications. In this paper, an effective visual optimization method, both denoising and sharpening, for low quality Internet videos is presented. A technique is used to get the approximate visual shape map from the video sequences. The shape information is exploited to adjust the denoising strength and sharpening masks. Thus a content adaptive visual optimization algorithm is achieved. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has good performance and can be used for Internet video applications.
ABC- and SLC-Transporters in Murine and Bovine Mammary Epithelium - Effects of Prochloraz

Some chemicals are ligands to efflux transporters which may result in high concentrations in milk. Limited knowledge is available on the influence of maternal exposure to chemicals on the expression and function of transporters in the lactating mammary gland. We determined gene expression of ABC and SLC transporters in murine mammary tissue of different gestation and lactation stages, in murine mammary cells (HC11) featuring resting and secreting phenotypes and in bovine mammary tissue and cells (BME-UV). Effects on transporter expression and function of the imidazole fungicide prochloraz, previously reported to influence BCRP in mammary cells, was investigated on transporter expression and function in the two cell lines. Transporters studied were BCRP, MDR1, MRP1, OATP1A5/OATP1A2, OCTN1 and OCT1. Gene expressions of BCRP and OCT1 in murine mammary glands were increased during gestation and lactation, whereas MDR1, MRP1, OATP1A5 and OCTN1 were decreased, compared to expressions in virgins. All transporters measured in mammary glands of mice were detected in bovine mammary tissue and in HC11 cells, while only MDR1 and MRP1 were detected in BME-UV cells. Prochloraz treatment induced MDR1 gene and protein expression in both differentiated HC11 and BME-UV cells and increased protein function in HC11 cells, resulting in decreased accumulation of the MDR1 substrate digoxin. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that murine (HC11) and bovine (BME-UV) mammary epithelial cells can be applied to characterize expression and function of transporters as well as effects of contaminants on the mammary transporters. An altered expression, induced by a drug or toxic chemical, on any of the transporters expressed in the mammary epithelial cells during lactation may modulate the well-balanced composition of nutrients and/or secretion of contaminants in milk with potential adverse effects on breast-fed infants and dairy consumers.
A new rate-minimizing matching criterion and a fast algorithm for block motion estimation

A new block matching criterion for motion estimation in video coding that will give better encoded video quality than the commonly used sum of absolute differences (SAD) or even sum of squared differences (SSD) criteria is presented. The new criterion tends to concentrate the discrete cosine transformed block energy into DC frequency which may allow coding the AC coefficients with less bits. The criterion gives best results on sequences which have varying lighting conditions. Furthermore, we modify the successive elimination algorithm (SEA) and multilevel successive elimination algorithm (MSEA) to be usable with the new criterion by deriving a new tighter lower bound for the SSD criterion. The new bound can be used either directly with the SSD criterion or with the new bit-rate minimizing criterion.
Category-Selectivity in Human Visual Cortex Follows Cortical Topology: A Grouped icEEG Study

Neuroimaging studies suggest that category-selective regions in higher-order visual cortex are topologically organized around specific anatomical landmarks: the mid-fusiform sulcus (MFS) in the ventral temporal cortex (VTC) and lateral occipital sulcus (LOS) in the lateral occipital cortex (LOC). To derive precise structure-function maps from direct neural signals, we collected intracranial EEG (icEEG) recordings in a large human cohort (n = 26) undergoing implantation of subdural electrodes. A surface-based approach to grouped icEEG analysis was used to overcome challenges from sparse electrode coverage within subjects and variable cortical anatomy across subjects. The topology of category-selectivity in bilateral VTC and LOC was assessed for five classes of visual stimuli—faces, animate non-face (animals/body-parts), places, tools, and words—using correlational and linear mixed effects analyses. In the LOC, selectivity for living (faces and animate non-face) and non-living (places and tools) classes was arranged in a ventral-to-dorsal axis along the LOS. In the VTC, selectivity for living and non-living stimuli was arranged in a latero-medial axis along the MFS. Written word-selectivity was reliably localized to the intersection of the left MFS and the occipito-temporal sulcus. These findings provide direct electrophysiological evidence for topological information structuring of functional representations within higher-order visual cortex.
Fully Symmetrical Monolithic Transformer (True 1 : 1) for Silicon RFIC

A novel on-chip transformer configuration that gives an identical inductor pair, a higher individual coil self-resonant frequency (SRF), and excellent area efficiency are presented. This technique involves the unique way of inter-crossing the transformer's primary and secondary coils using multiple metallization layers. Truly symmetrical transformer configuration (100%) is demonstrated using minimum die size. Thus, a true 1 : 1 transformer has been realized on silicon. The effects of the parasitic within the transformer are represented by an equivalent-circuit model. Accurate semiempirical expressions describing the circuit components are provided based on the various layout parameters. Of all the transformer structures presented, the two designs occupying the minimum silicon area by a factor of > 2&times; have been selected for performance evaluation of the SRF, coupling coefficient, input impedance, quality factor, and inductance. The transmission line transformer mode has also been studied to examine the designs' performance in the differential mode. The second proposed design reported in this paper, with enhancements in S21 and k performance, is created by adding a unique routing technique onto the first proposed structure. The method presented is fully compatible with the standard foundry CMOS processes. The silicon data reported in this study are based on chartered semiconductor manufacturing's 0.13-mum RF CMOS technology node.
Low complexity bandwidth compression mappings for sensor networks

Compressive (2 ∶ 1) joint source-channel coding using direct mappings from source to channel symbol space is considered. To enable the use of prior information due to e.g. correlated samples at the receiver, or statistical knowledge of the source, minimum mean square error decoding is considered. The prior information is incorporated in the form of the a-priori distribution in the decoding. Four mapping methods are presented and evaluated using the generic Bayesian minimum mean square error estimator. The schemes are evaluated for transmitting a memoryless Gaussian source over additive white Gaussian noise channel with a quadratic distortion measure. The simplicity of implementation and applicability to a wider variety of sources is discussed.
Practice, substance and history: reframing institutional logics

Roger Friedland’s characterization of institutional logics as a combination of substance and practices opens the door to a more complex reading of their influence on organizational life. His focus suggests attention to feelings and belief as much as cognition and choice. In this article I use history to develop these ideas by paying attention to the perennial features of our embodied relations with the world and other persons. Historical work draws our attention to neglected domains of social life, such as play, which can have profound impacts on organizations. The study of history suggests that such institutions have a long-run conditioning influence that calls into question accounts that stress individual agential choice and action in bringing about change. Analytical narratives of the emergence of practices can provide the means to combine the conceptual apparatus of organization theory with the attention to temporality of history.
A New Attempt to Detect Polymorphic Worms Based on Semantic Signature and Data-Mining

In recent years, Internet worms increasingly threaten the Internet hosts and service and polymorphic worms can evade signature-based intrusion detection systems. In this paper, we propose new methods to detect polymorphic worms based on semantic signature and data-mining. Our main contributions of this work are as follows: (1) we propose a worm attack model - the OSJUMP model. (2) Based on the attack model, we analyze the feature of polymorphic worms and the feature of perfect ones. (3) We propose methods to detect worms by recognizing the JUMP address based on data-mining such as Bayes and ANN. We evaluate some famous worm and polymorphic ones generated from them, the results show that the false negative and performance improved a lot compared to signature-based IDSes.
An Improved APIT Algorithm Based on Direction Searching

Nowadays, wireless sensor network can be widely used in the military field, precision agriculture, environmental monitoring[1], intelligent home environment, urban transport and so on. As a core support technology of it, self-location node technology is the basis of most practical applications in WSN. Sensor's self-location methods can mainly be divided into two categories: range-based algorithm and range-free algorithm. In this paper, taking into account of the low positioning accuracy in the location-free APIT algorithm as a result of the sparse anchor nodes, we bring forward an improved APIT algorithm based on the direction searching. Simulation results show that by searching for the reliable direction, compared with the original APIT algorithm, the improved one can significantly improve positioning accuracy, with a higher reference value.
Extended and Unscented Kalman Filters for mobile robot localization and environment reconstruction

In this work we compare the performance of two algorithms, respectively based on the Extended Kalman Filter and the Unscented Kalman Filter, for the mobile robot localization and environment reconstruction problem. The proposed algorithms do not require any assumption on the robot working space: they are driven only by the measurements taken using ultrasonic sensors located onboard the robot. We also devise a switching sensors activation policy, which allows energy saving still achieving accurate tracking and reliable mapping of the workspace. The results show that the two filters work comparably well, in spite of the superior theoretical properties of the Unscented Filter.
The role of intelligent agents in customer knowledge management

Customers are known as a brilliant source of knowledge for the companies, because they gain knowledge and expertise while selecting and using products or services. Customer knowledge management is a new stage of relationship management between organizations and the customers. Most of the models in the literature are focused on human resources to set up a framework to exchange knowledge with the customers. In this paper, the applicability of agent-based systems to the customer knowledge management was investigated. As a feasibility study, characteristics of the agents and their role in knowledge management systems were reviewed in advance. Then, the requirements of customer knowledge management systems were described. Finally, using an introductory model, the applicability of the intelligent agents in customer knowledge management systems were shown and discussed.
Executive Stock Option Exercises , Insider Information and Earnings Management

In this study I examine whether insiders exercise employee stock options based on private information, and furthermore, whether the private information is associated with earnings management within firms. Using a unique sample of over 30,000 option exercises by top executives at 2,741 firms from 1996 to 2002, I document strong evidence of insider trading by top managers who exercise large option holdings 1) highly deep in the money and, 2) abnormally early relative to what is predicted by an empirical model of exercise decision. I show that the above mentioned exercise pattern is associated with reliable negative abnormal stock returns in the post-exercise period, and that the poor stock performance is systematically related to deteriorating earnings performance relative to consensus analyst forecasts as well as market expectations. Furthermore, I provide evidence of aggressive earnings management within these firms in the pre-exercise period that reverses significantly following option exercises. Taken together, the evidence suggests that in some cases top executives manage earnings prior to option exercises and use the private information of poor future earnings performance to time option exercises.
An Adaptive Mechanism for End-to-End Multirate Multicast Congestion Control

One of the most significant challenges that confront end-to-end multicast congestion control is providing a scalable solution that addresses the heterogeneity of the receivers. There exist two categories of rate based multicast congestion control approaches. The first category is a single rate where the source adjusts the sending rate dynamically according to the slowest receiver within the session. The second category is the multirate where the source has to disseminate the data in multiple-layers and each receiver could subscribe to the desired layer according to its own capacities. Multirate mechanisms exhibit better flexibility at the expense of a higher complexity. Furthermore, they are less mature than single-rate schemes. This paper proposes an improved version of a recently proposed scheme SMCC. The first improvement consists of using an equation to estimate the rates of the individual layers. The second improvement is with respect to the join/leave rules followed by the multicast receivers to migrate between the layers. Experimental results show remarkable performance improvement with respect to achieved throughput, without affecting the TCP friendliness property of the protocol.
Ranking and clustering of nodes in networks with smart teleportation

Random teleportation is a necessary evil for ranking and clustering directed networks based on random walks. Teleportation enables ergodic solutions, but the solutions must necessarily depend on the exact implementation and parametrization of the teleportation. For example, in the commonly used PageRank algorithm, the teleportation rate must trade off a heavily biased solution with a uniform solution. Here we show that teleportation to links rather than nodes enables a much smoother trade-off and effectively more robust results. We also show that, by not recording the teleportation steps of the random walker, we can further reduce the effect of teleportation with dramatic effects on clustering.
A new type of judgement theorems for attribute characters in information system

The research of attribute characters in information system which contains core, necessary, unnecessary is a basic and important issue in attribute reduct. Many methods for the judgement of attribute characters are based on the relationship between the objects and attributes. In this paper, a new type of judgement theorems which are absolutely based on the relationship among attributes is proposed for the judgement of attribute characters. The method is through comparing the two new attribute sets $E(a)$ and $N(a)$ with respect to the designated attribute $a$ which is proposed in this paper. We conclude that which type of the attribute $a$ belongs to is determined by the relationship between $E(a)$ and $N(a)$ in essence. Secondly, more concise and clear results are given about the judgment of the attribute characters through analyzing the properties of refinement and precise-refinement between $E(a)$ and $N(a)$ in topology. In addition, the relationship among attributes are discussed which is useful for constructing a reduct in the last section of this paper. In the last, we propose a reduct algorithm based on $E(a)$, and this algorithm is an extended application of the analysis of attribute characters above.
Conceptualising and testing the Narnian Character Virtue Scales: a study among 12- to 13-year-old students

ABSTRACT This paper sets out to examine and to operationalise 12 key character virtues identified within C. S. Lewis’ Narnian texts: courage, curiosity, forgiveness, fortitude, gratitude, hard work, humility, integrity, justice, love, self-control, and wisdom. A pilot study among 56 year eight students (12–13 years of age) generated nine five-item instruments displaying adequate internal consistency reliability, and suggested ways in which the other three measures (curiosity, integrity, and love) could be enhanced in future work. Construct validity was explored by examining the correlations between these 12 character virtues and sex, self-concept, and empathy, and by locating these 12 character virtues within the three-dimensional psychological space proposed by Eysenck’s model of personality.
Wavelet Analysis of Long Range Dependent Traac

A Wavelet based tool for the analysis of long range dependence is introduced and a related semi-parametric estimator of the Hurst parameter. The estimator is shown to be unbiased under very general conditions, and eecient under Gaussian assumptions. It can be implemented very eeciently allowing the direct analysis of very large data sets, and is highly robust against the presence of de-terministic trends, as well as allowing their detection and identiication. Statistical, computational and numerical comparisons are made against traditional estimators including that of Whittle. The estimator is used to perform a thorough analysis of the long range dependence in Ethernet traf-c traces. New features are found with important implications for the choice of valid models for performance evaluation. A study of mono vs multi-fractality is also performed, and a preliminary study of the stationarity with respect to the Hurst parameter and deterministic trends.
A new approach to multiple vehicle tracking in intersections using harris corners and adaptive background subtraction

This work presents a new methodology based on video processing for recording and counting vehicles in intersections and urban roads, allowing the control and management of urban traffic and support to inspection of public road security in large cities. The aim of this work is to show the viability of computer vision techniques for the construction of a portable equipment able to perform urban vehicles flow counting and classification into routes in an automatic way and in real time. Image processing techniques, such as background subtraction, definition and tracking of object features are used in the prototype development and implementation. The obtained results show the viability of use of the proposed portable monitoring system in real-time, achieving correct rates in the vehicle counting of about 96% for simple roads and 72% at complex intersections.
Appendix to “ Strategic Trading in Informationally Complex Environments ”

The proof of Theorem 2 in the main body of the paper applies to the special case in which the covariance matrix of random vector (θ; θM ;u) is full rank. In this Online Appendix, we prove Theorem 2 for the general case, imposing only Assumptions 1 and 2L: Cov(v, θ|θM ) 6= 0 and V ar(u|θ, θM ) > 0. Proof of Theorem 2 (General Case) Before proceeding to the proof, we first prove the following lemma. Lemma OA.1 Let φ be a random vector normally distributed with mean zero and variance-covariance matrix Σ. Let α be a vector of the same dimensionality, and let {αk} be a sequence of vectors such that lim k→∞ (αk) T φ̃→ α φ̃ for every realization φ̃ of random vector φ except possibly on a set of probability zero. Then the limit also holds in the L2 sense, that is, lim k→∞ E [( (αk) φ− αφ )2]→ 0. Proof. Let N be the rank of matrix V ar(φ), and take an orthogonal matrix Φ such that ΦV ar(φ)Φ = ( M 0 0 0 ) , where M is a symmetric positive definite matrix of size N (if matrix V ar(φ) is itself positive definite, and thus full rank, then we can simply take Φ to be the identity matrix and thus M = V ar(φ). ) Let ψ := ΦTφ (and thus, since Φ is orthogonal, φ = Φψ). If, for almost all realizations φ̃ of φ, we have (αk) T φ̃ → αT φ̃, then for almost all realizations ψ̃ of ψ, we also have (αk)Φψ̃ → αTΦψ̃, which can be rewritten as (Φαk) T ψ̃ → (Φα) ψ̃. (OA.1) Since ψ is distributed normally with mean zero and variance ( M 0 0 0 ) , where M is a positive definite matrix of rank N , the fact that the convergence in equation (OA.1) holds for almost all
3D point cloud map reconstruction of cultural assets and terrain

In this paper, we propose a method of generating 3D point clouds of terrain and cultural assets using the images acquired by ground and aerial photography. 3D point cloud data are made actually through the camera calibration process and image matching process. From 3D point cloud data, camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters are calculated, and the point cloud data and the camera parameters are optimized by the bundle adjustment method. Experiments results illustrate the validity and utilization of the present 3D point cloud map reconstruction.