Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
USFD at SemEval-2016 Task 1: Putting different State-of-the-Arts into a Box

In this paper we describe our participa-tion in the STS Core subtask which is the determination of the monolingual seman-tic similarity between pair of sentences. In our participation we adapted state-of-the-art approaches from related work ap-plied on previous STS Core subtasks and run them on the 2016 data. We inves-tigated the performance of single meth-ods but also the combination of them. Our results show that Convolutional Neu-ral Networks (CNN) are superior to both the Monolingual Word Alignment and the Word2Vec approaches. The combination of all the three methods performs slightly better than using CNN only. Our results also show that the performance of our systems varies between the datasets.
Selection for long lifespan in men: benefits of grandfathering?

Life-history theory suggests that individuals should live until their reproductive potential declines, and the lifespan of human men is consistent with this idea. However, because women can live long after menopause and this prolonged post-reproductive life can be explained, in part, by the fitness enhancing effects of grandmothering, an alternative hypothesis is that male lifespan is influenced by the potential to gain fitness through grandfathering. Here we investigate whether men, who could not gain fitness through reproduction after their wife's menopause (i.e. married only once), enhanced their fitness through grandfathering in historical Finns. Father presence was associated with reductions in offspring age at first reproduction and birth intervals, but generally not increases in reproductive tenure lengths. Father presence had little influence on offspring lifetime fecundity and no influence on offspring lifetime reproductive success. Overall, in contrast to our results for women in the same population, men do not gain extra fitness (i.e. more grandchildren) through grandfathering. Our results suggest that if evidence for a ‘grandfather’ hypothesis is lacking in a monogamous society, then its general importance in shaping male lifespan during our more promiscuous evolutionary past is likely to be negligible.
Egg Hatching and Survival of Immature Stages of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) Under Natural Temperature Conditions During the Cold Season in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract In temperate regions, the seasonal dynamics of Aedes aegypti (L.) (Diptera: Culicidae) is mainly influenced by temperature. It is assumed that, during the winter season, the population remains as eggs and that the development and population growth of surviving eggs begin during the following spring. The aim of the current study was to assess egg hatching of Ae. aegypti during the winter in Buenos Aires city (Argentina), and analyze the survival of immature stages. The experiments consisted of immersing eggs and studying the development of immature stages of cohorts from June and September under natural temperature conditions. The proportion of hatched eggs was compared between weeks of immersion and related to environmental variables. Survival was compared among cohorts and the development rate was related to the mean temperature during development. The results showed that, with few exceptions, egg hatching was over 45% during the winter period. The proportion of hatched eggs was positively associated with immersion temperature, pre-immersion temperature and photoperiod. The immature stages completed the development during the cold season, with a trend toward increased survival of late-hatching cohorts. Survival was 30% at 13.2 °C and above 90% at 20 °C, whereas the development time at low temperatures was 49.4 d at 13.2 °C and 17.7 d at 20 °C. The high hatching and survival compared with other studies suggest that the local population might be adapting to winter conditions. The anticipated emergence of adults would be adaptive if they are able to reproduce successfully in the early spring.
Evolutionary Patterns of Bone Histology and Bone Compactness in Xenarthran Mammal Long Bones

Bone microstructure reflects physiological characteristics and has been shown to contain phylogenetic and ecological signals. Although mammalian long bone histology is receiving increasing attention, systematic examination of the main clades has not yet been performed. Here we describe the long bone microstructure of Xenarthra based on thin sections representing twenty-two species. Additionally, patterns in bone compactness of humeri and femora are investigated. The primary bone tissue of xenarthran long bones is composed of a mixture of woven, parallel-fibered and lamellar bone. The vascular canals have a longitudinal, reticular or radial orientation and are mostly arranged in an irregular manner. Concentric rows of vascular canals and laminar organization of the tissue are only found in anteater bones. The long bones of adult specimens are marked by dense Haversian bone, a feature that has been noted for most groups of mammals. In the long bones of armadillos, secondary osteons have an oblique orientation within the three-dimensional bone tissue, thus resulting in their irregular shape when the bones are sectioned transversely. Secondary remodeling is generally more extensive in large taxa than in small taxa, and this could be caused by increased loading. Lines of arrested growth are assumed to be present in all specimens, but they are restricted to the outermost layer in bones of armadillos and are often masked by secondary remodeling in large taxa. Parameters of bone compactness show a pattern in the femur that separates Cingulata and Pilosa (Folivora and Vermilingua), with cingulates having a lower compactness than pilosans. In addition, cingulates show an allometric relationship between humeral and femoral bone compactness.
An Indus-Sarasvatī Signboard

We present the text of a large wooden signboard in the IndusSarasvat̄ı that was recently found in Dholavira in Gujarat, India. The study of this signboard could be useful in the further analysis of the Indus-Sarasvat̄ı script. We examine its implications for the direction of writing in this script.
A comparison of techniques to detect similarities in cloud virtual machines

Scalability in monitoring and management of cloud data centres may be improved through the clustering of virtual machines VMs exhibiting similar behaviour. However, available solutions for automatic VM clustering present some important drawbacks that hinder their applicability to real cloud scenarios. For example, existing solutions show a clear trade-off between the accuracy of the VMs clustering and the computational cost of the automatic process; moreover, their performance shows a strong dependence on specific technique parameters. To overcome these issues, we propose a novel approach for VM clustering that uses Mixture of Gaussians MoGs together with the Kullback-Leiber divergence to model similarity between VMs. Furthermore, we provide a thorough experimental evaluation of our proposal and of existing techniques to identify the most suitable solution for different workload scenarios.
Drop-Coating Deposition Raman (DCDR) Spectroscopy as a Tool for Membrane Interaction Studies: Liposome–Porphyrin Complex

Drop-coating deposition Raman (DCDR) spectroscopy is based on the measurement of a sample that has been preconcentrated by being dried on a special hydrophobic plate. In addition to its higher sensitivity, the advantage of DCDR over the conventional Raman spectroscopy is the small sample volume needed, the lack of interference from solvents, and the capability of segregating any impurities present and separating components in more complex samples. In this study, DCDR spectroscopy was employed to investigate the complex of the cationic copper(II) 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(1-methyl-4-pyridyl) porphyrin (CuTMPyP) and 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) liposomes. Drop-coating deposition Raman spectra were treated using factor analysis (FA), which led to the following conclusions: (i) the distribution of CuTMPyP in the complex is not homogenous, (ii) the DCDR technique segregates complexed and noncomplexed parts of the sample, (iii) the spectral changes caused by the drying process and by the interaction of CuTMPyP with the DPPC liposomes can be distinguished, and (iv) the porphyrin molecules interacting with DPPC affect both the order–disorder properties of the lipid chains and the lipid head.
A low rank based seismic data interpolation via frequency- patches transform and low rank space projection

Summary We propose a new algorithm to improve computational efficiency for low rank based interpolation. The interpolation is carried out in the frequency spatial domain where each frequency slice is first transferred to the frequency-patches domain. A nice feature of this domain is that the number of non-zero singular values can be better related to seismic events, which favors low rank reduction. During the interpolation iteration, instead of applying singular value decomposition to limit low rank, the low rank reduction is carried out with a predetermined low rank space projection matrix. Moreover, the technique of matrix completion is employed to avoid repeated transforms during the interpolation iteration. Compared with conventional low rank Interpolation methods, our method has the advantage of increased computational efficiency. Data examples also show that this method can be applied to complicated seismic data sets with highly satisfactory results.
Fast calibration for augmented reality

Augmented Reality overlays computer generated images over the real world. These images have to be generated using transformations which correctly project a point in virtual space onto its corresponding point in the real world. We present a simple and fast calibration scheme for head-mounted displays (HMDs), which does not require additional instrumentation or complicated procedures. The user is interactively guided through the calibration process, allowing even inexperienced users to calibrate the display to their eye distance and head geometry. The calibration is stable - meaning that slight errors made by the user do not result in gross miscalibrations - and easily applicable for see-through and video-based HMDs.
Speech quality evaluation based on AM-FM time-frequency representations

This paper deals with the application of information extracted from AM and FM time-frequency representations of speech to the task of determining speech quality. The representations are introduced and then the procedure for data extraction is outlined. The experimental setup for the assessment of objective quality covers distortions typically found in speech communication systems. To determine how well these quality measures perform, regression analysis is used to evaluate how well they estimate the results of subjective testing. Considering each class of distortions individually the objective measures demonstrate good performance, however, this level does not seem to hold as well in the aggregate case. This leads to suggestions as to where possible improvements can be made to the procedure.
Expression of endogenous retroviruses is negatively regulated by the pluripotency marker Rex1/Zfp42

Rex1/Zfp42 is a Yy1-related zinc-finger protein whose expression is frequently used to identify pluripotent stem cells. We show that depletion of Rex1 levels notably affected self-renewal of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells in clonal assays, in the absence of evident differences in expression of marker genes for pluripotency or differentiation. By contrast, marked differences in expression of several endogenous retroviral elements (ERVs) were evident upon Rex1 depletion. We demonstrate association of REX1 to specific elements in chromatin-immunoprecipitation assays, most strongly to muERV-L and to a lower extent to IAP and musD elements. Rex1 regulates muERV-L expression in vivo, as we show altered levels upon transient gain-and-loss of Rex1 function in pre-implantation embryos. We also find REX1 can associate with the lysine-demethylase LSD1/KDM1A, suggesting they act in concert. Similar to REX1 binding to retrotransposable elements (REs) in ES cells, we also detected binding of the REX1 related proteins YY1 and YY2 to REs, although the binding preferences of the two proteins were slightly different. Altogether, we show that Rex1 regulates ERV expression in mouse ES cells and during pre-implantation development and suggest that Rex1 and its relatives have evolved as regulators of endogenous retroviral transcription.
Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Grouted Joints in Monopiles Subjected to Early-Age Cycling

Submission November 10, 2015 KEY DATES Manuscript for Review January 20, 2016 Final Papers Due March 24, 2016 Suggested Technical Topics: • Offshore Wind Energy and Resources: Fixed/Floating Structures, Foundation • Wind Turbines: Test, Measurements, Control, Simulation, Design Optimization • Aero-, Hydroand Geo-mechanics, Loads and Structural Responses, CFD • Ocean Energy and Resources; Waves, Tidal, OTEC and Bioenergy • Environmental Modeling and Impact Assessment: Coastal, Marine, Arctic & Antarctic Symposium Organizing Committee: Prof. F. Dias, University College Dublin, Ireland Mr. P. Valverde, EDP, Lisboa, Portugal Dr. S. Herion, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany Dr. Seok W. Hong, MOERI/KIOST, Korea Prof. B. S. Hyun, Korea Maritime University, Korea Prof. M. Kashiwagi, Osaka University, Japan Dr. J. P. Kofoed, Aalborg University, Denmark Prof. I. Langen, University of Stavanger, Norway Mr. D. Matha, Universität Stuttgart, Germany Dr. T. Mathai, The Glosten Associates, USA Prof. M. Muskulus, NTNU, Norway Prof. S. Nagata, Saga University, IOES, Japan Prof. J. Niedzwecki, Texas A&M University, USA Dr. T. Sapsis, M.I. T. , USA Prof. A.J.N.A. Sarmento, Technical University IST, Portugal Prof. John D. Sørensen, Aalborg University & DTU Wind Energy, Denmark Mr. F. Vorpahl, Fraunhofer IWES, Germany Dr. T. Xing, University of Idaho, USA Prof. Jin S. Chung, ISOPE, USA Interested authors should send abstracts to one of the organizing committee members or submit online at: http://www.isope. org/call4papers/2016/HowToSubmitAbstractOnline.htm. The abstracts MUST include the contact author’s postal address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address to facilitate communications. First Call For Papers www.isope. org for updates
An Implemented Formalism for Computing Linguistic Presuppositions and Existential Commitments

We rely on the strength of linguistic and philosophical perspectives in constructing a framework that offers a unified explanation for presuppositions and existential commitment. We use a rich ontology and a set of methodological principles that embed the essence of Meinong’s philosophy and Grice’s conversational principles into a stratified logic, under an unrestricted interpretation of the quantifiers. The result is a logical formalism that yields a tractable computational method that uniformly calculates all the presuppositions of a given utterance, including the existential ones.
Estrogen Receptor Regulates E2F1 Expression to Mediate Tamoxifen Resistance

Antiestrogen resistance often develops with prolonged exposure to hormone therapies, including tamoxifen, and is a major problem in the treatment of breast cancer. Understanding the mechanisms involved in the development of antiestrogen resistance is an important step in the development of new targeted therapies. Two forms of antiestrogen resistance exist: de novo resistance and acquired resistance. To mimic acquired resistance, we have established a tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer cell line (MCF-7TamR) by treating parental MCF-7 cells with tamoxifen over a period of 6 months to select for cells with the resistant phenotype. Characterization of the MCF-7TamR cells under normal, hormone-deprived, and tamoxifen-treated conditions suggests that these cells continue to grow in the presence of tamoxifen. Additionally, a greater percentage of resistant cells enter the S phase under tamoxifen conditions, compared with parental MCF-7 cells. Consistent with these growth results, molecular analysis indicates that tamoxifen-resistant cells express higher levels of cyclin E1, cdk2, ACTR, and E2F1. Faslodex or ICI 182, 780 (ICI)-mediated degradation of estrogen receptor (ER) reduced the proliferation of these cells, as well as the level of E2F1 expression in tamoxifen-resistant cells, suggesting that tamoxifen resistance and E2F1 expression are in part dependent on ER. We further showed that tamoxifen enhances the ERα/Sp-1 interaction and promotes the recruitment of ERα and Sp-1 to the proximal promoter of E2F1 in resistant cells. Collectively, our findings suggest that tamoxifen resistance is a result of increased ERα/Sp-1 interaction, which enhances the expression of E2F1 to promote tamoxifen resistance. Mol Cancer Res; 8(3); 343–52
KYOTO at the NTCIR-12 Temporalia Task: Machine Learning Approach for Temporal Intent Disambiguation Subtask

This paper describes the Kyoto system for Temporal Intent Disambiguation (TID) subtask in the NTCIR-12 Temporal Information Access (Temporalia-2) challenge. The task is to estimate the distribution of temporal intents ( Past, Re-cency, Future, Atemporal ) of a given query. We took a supervised machine learning approach, using features of bag of words, POS and word vectors. We also incorporated knowledge about temporal and holiday expressions. Our system resulted in a competitive performance
Heuristic search towards the invention of an optimal-ignition internal combustion engine

Most internal combustion engines are built on compression or spark ignition, which is far from optimal and the problem of which is more than optimization. This paper first improves a genetic algorithm (GA) for such an application, aiming at the potential invention of a homogeneous charge microwave ignition (HCMI) engine. For an HCMI system, search for optimal emitters under the intrinsic constraints of resonant frequencies forms a coupled constraint optimization problem and poses an intractable challenge to the GA and virtual prototyping for the invention. A predefined GA (PGA) is then developed to handle appropriate frequency ranges for this problem so as to allow the parameters of the emitter, as well as its structure, to be optimized in an evolutionary process. The heuristic search is compared with the deterministic NM simplex and the nondeterministic conventional GA. Results show that while the NM and GA heuristics find an insufficient mode, the PGA often finds the global maximum, with a higher convergence rate and independent of the algorithm's initial settings. When the complexity of the problem increases with the number of variables, the PGA also delivers a robust performance while the NM and the GA yield divergent results. This application confirms the viability and power of evolutionary heuristics in inventing novel real-world solutions if properly adapted.
Plant Size as Determinant of Species Richness of Herbivores, Natural Enemies and Pollinators across 21 Brassicaceae Species

Large plants are often more conspicuous and more attractive for associated animals than small plants, e.g. due to their wider range of resources. Therefore, plant size can positively affect species richness of associated animals, as shown for single groups of herbivores, but studies usually consider intraspecific size differences of plants in unstandardised environments. As comprehensive tests of interspecific plant size differences under standardised conditions are missing so far, we investigated effects of plant size on species richness of all associated arthropods using a common garden experiment with 21 Brassicaceae species covering a broad interspecific plant size gradient from 10 to 130 cm height. We recorded plant associated ecto- and endophagous herbivores, their natural enemies and pollinators on and in each aboveground plant organ, i.e. flowers, fruits, leaves and stems. Plant size (measured as height from the ground), the number of different plant organ entities and their biomass were assessed. Increasing plant size led to increased species richness of associated herbivores, natural enemies and pollinating insects. This pattern was found for ectophagous and endophagous herbivores, their natural enemies, as well as for herbivores associated with leaves and fruits and their natural enemies, independently of the additional positive effects of resource availability (i.e. organ biomass or number of entities and, regarding natural enemies, herbivore species richness). We found a lower R2 for pollinators compared to herbivores and natural enemies, probably caused by the high importance of flower characteristics for pollinator species richness besides plant size. Overall, the increase in plant height from 10 to 130 cm led to a 2.7-fold increase in predicted total arthropod species richness. In conclusion, plant size is a comprehensive driver of species richness of the plant associated arthropods, including pollinators, herbivores and their natural enemies, whether they are endophagous or ectophagous or associated with leaves or fruits.
Using a Semantic Wiki as a Knowledge Source for Rich Modeling and Question Answering

The traditional focus of knowledge engineering has been to acquire knowledge that can be used in deductive inference. Acquiring such knowledge invariably requires users to undergo extensive training. There are, however, aspects of the knowledge necessary for deductive inference that require much less training and sophistication. For example, capturing knowledge involving ground facts and concept taxonomies requires much less training and sophistication than acquiring knowledge about deductive rules. On the basis of this observation and the recent successes of knowledge capture on the web, we are exploring the following hypothesis at the intersection between knowledge engineering and the semantic web: Can we use a semantic wiki to acquire symbolic knowledge on the web that can then be used in the context of a deductive question answering system? We are conducting this work in the context of Project Halo and the AURA system with the goal of answering Advanced Placement (AP) questions in physics, chemistry, and biology.
Clothes handling based on recognition by strategic observation

In this paper, we propose a method to recognize clothing shape based on strategic observation during handling. When a robot handles largely deformed objects like clothes, it is important for the robot to recognize a constantly varying shape. Large variation in shape and complex self-occlusion, however, make recognition very difficult. To address these difficulties, we have proposed a model-driven strategy using actions for informative observation and have developed some core methods based on this strategy [1][2][3]. In this paper, we show how these core methods can be used for an actual task that involves handling an item of clothing. In addition to proposing a sequence for this task, basic functions for realizing the sequence are also described. Using a robot, the experimental results demonstrated practical utility of the proposed strategy.
Dielectric and Optical Properties of Blood with Different RBCs Concentrations in the THz Band

Nano-devices operating inside the human body enabled many new applications in the healthcare domain. Communication between nano-devices is a crucial task that aids the rising new applications in thriving. Unfortunately, in-vivo medium contains biomaterials and fluids, e.g., blood, that contaminate the THz signal. In this paper we investigate the effect of the Red Blood Cells (RBCs) concentration (i.e. hematocrit) in blood on its dielectric and optical properties. We present an electromagnetic model for blood with the flexibility of specifying the volume fraction and the particle shape of its RBCs by using Effective Medium Theory (EMT). Results show that the effect of RBCs concentrations on dielectric and optical properties is minimal while favoring the blood with high RBCs concentration as a better communication medium. Obtained results clearly highlight that the RBCs particle shape has no effect on blood's dielectric and optical properties.