Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association pattern language modeling

Statistical n-gram language modeling is popular for speech recognition and many other applications. The conventional n-gram suffers from the insufficiency of modeling long-distance language dependencies. This paper presents a novel approach focusing on mining long distance word associations and incorporating these features into language models based on linear interpolation and maximum entropy (ME) principles. We highlight the discovery of the associations of multiple distant words from training corpus. A mining algorithm is exploited to recursively merge the frequent word subsets and efficiently construct the set of association patterns. By combining the features of association patterns into n-gram models, the association pattern n-grams are estimated with a special realization to trigger pair n-gram where only the associations of two distant words are considered. In the experiments on Chinese language modeling, we find that the incorporation of association patterns significantly reduces the perplexities of n-gram models. The incorporation using ME outperforms that using linear interpolation. Association pattern n-gram is superior to trigger pair n-gram. The perplexities are further reduced using more association steps. Further, the proposed association pattern n-grams are not only able to elevate document classification accuracies but also improve speech recognition rates
FLASH redshift survey — I. Observations and catalogue

The FLAIR Shapley‐Hydra (FLASH) redshift survey catalogue consists of 4613 galaxies brighter than bJ = 16.7 (corrected for Galactic extinction) over a 700-deg 2 region of sky in the general direction of the Local Group motion. The survey region is a 70 ◦ × 10 ◦ strip spanning the sky from the Shapley Supercluster to the Hydra cluster, and contains 3141 galaxies with measured redshifts. Designed to explore the effect of the galaxy concentrations in this direction (in particular the Supergalactic plane and the Shapley Supercluster) upon the Local Group motion, the 68 per cent completeness allows us to sample the large-scale structure better than similar sparsely-sampled surveys. The survey region does not overlap with the areas covered by ongoing wide-angle (Sloan or 2dF) complete redshift surveys. In this paper, the first in a series, we describe the observation and data reduction procedures, the analysis for the redshift errors and survey completeness, and present the survey data.
Cognitive Slowing and Working Memory Difficulties in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Objective Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) commonly report problems with attention, memory, learning, and speed of cognitive processing. This study attempted to evaluate these complaints using objective test criteria. Method A test battery composed of six tests assessing these cognitive functions was given on two consecutive days. Twenty CFS patients were compared with 20 healthy control subjects and 14 patients with a history of major depression or dysthymia matched by age, intelligence, education level, and sex. Results Compared with control subjects, CFS patients consistently scored lower on tests in which motor and cognitive processing speeds were a critical factor, eg, reaction-time tasks. They also had more difficulty on working-memory tests in which rapid cognitive processing speed is also an important factor. The effort made on the first day of testing did not result in a decline in cognitive function on the following day. CFS patients did not qualify as having affective disorder by several different diagnostic criteria. Nonetheless, CFS patients' test performances did not differ from patients with a history of major depression or dysthymia. Conclusions It is concluded that, although CFS and major depression and dysthymia have distinct clinical features, these disorders have slowed motor and cognitive processing speed in common.
Patient-specific walking pattern simulation in a gait trajectory guiding device

Repetitive training is of much importance for restoring full-fledged gait ability. At present, task-specific repetitive approach has been proved to be the most effective motor learning concept. In this regard, a gait trajectory guiding device with partial body weight support system can be a solution for gait rehabilitation. This paper presents a complete gait study with an objective to implement the motion of a natural walking pattern in the automated foot-boards of a gait trajectory guiding device. In our developed motion algorithm of foot-boards we have concentrated on adaptation of patient-specific true walking trajectory, determination of variable velocity pattern along different degrees of freedom and timedivision for simulating different phases of a complete gait cycle. Gait database, collected from disparate sources and previous gait-studies have been used for kinetic and kinematic analysis of human walking. We have modeled those data based on the previous researches done in this area and adopt them for our motion algorithm. A precise velocity pattern and time-division have been described along different axes so that patient’s biofeedback and postural stability in different walking phases can be recorded accordingly and motion-correction of the footboards can be done in consecutive cycles through iterative learning control algorithm with the help of motion sensors.
Maternal Cdx2 is dispensable for mouse development

In many invertebrate and vertebrate species, cell fates are assigned through the cellular inheritance of differentially localized maternal determinants. Whether mammalian embryogenesis is also regulated by deterministic mechanisms is highly controversial. The caudal domain transcription factor CDX2 has been reported to act as a maternal determinant regulating cell fate decisions in mouse development. However, this finding is contentious because of reports that maternal Cdx2 is not essential for development. Notably, all of the previously published studies of maternal Cdx2 relied on injected RNA interference constructs, which could introduce experimental variation. Only deletion of the maternal gene can unambiguously resolve its requirement in mouse development. Here, we genetically ablated maternal Cdx2 using a Cre/lox strategy, and we definitively establish that maternal Cdx2 is not essential for mouse development.
Pre-B Cell Receptor Assesses the Quality of IgH Chains and Tunes the Pre-B Cell Repertoire by Delivering Differential Signals1

It is well understood how a variety of Ig H and L chains, components of BCR, are generated in the DNA level during B cell development. However, it has remained largely unknown whether and how each component is monitored for its quality and selected before the assembly into the BCR. Here we show that μH chains produced by pre-B cells display a wide spectrum of ability to form the pre-BCR, which is composed of μH and surrogate light (SL) chains and is crucial for B cell development. The level of surface pre-BCR expression varies among pre-B cells, depending on the ability of their μH chains to pair with SL chains. The higher the level of pre-BCR expression by pre-B cells, the stronger their pre-BCR signaling, and the better they proliferate and differentiate. Thus, the extent of survival, proliferation, and differentiation of individual pre-B cells is primarily determined by the SL-pairing ability of their μH chains. Furthermore, IgH chains with higher potential to assemble with IgL chains appear to be positively selected and amplified through the assessment of their ability to pair with SL chains at the pre-BCR checkpoint before the assembly into the BCR. These results indicate that the pre-BCR assesses the quality of μH chains and tunes the pre-B cell repertoire by driving the preferential expansion and differentiation of cells with the higher quality of μH chains.
Facilitating Monkey Test by Detecting Operable Regions in Rendered GUI of Mobile Game Apps

Graphical User Interface (GUI) is a component of many software applications. Many mobile game applications in particular have to provide excellent user experiences using graphical engines to render GUI screens. On a rendered GUI screen such as a treasury map, no GUI widget is embodied in it and the operable GUI regions, each of which is a region that triggers actions when certain events acting on these regions, may only be implicitly determinable. Traditional testing tools like monkey test do not effectively generate effective event sequences over such operable GUI regions. Our insight is that operable regions in a rendered GUI screen of many mobile game applications are given with visible hints to catch user attentions. In this paper, we propose Smart Monkey, which uses the fundamental features of a screen, including color, intensity, and texture, as visual signals to detect operable GUI region candidates, and iteratively identifies and confirms the real operable GUI regions by launching GUI events to the region. We have implemented Smart Monkey as a testing tool for Android apps and conducted case studies on real-world applications to compare it with a peer technique. The empirical results show that it effective in identifying such operable regions and thus able to generate functional event sequences more efficiently.
Modestobacter roseus sp. nov., an endophytic actinomycete isolated from the coastal halophyte Salicornia europaea Linn., and emended description of the genus Modestobacter.

A novel actinomycete, designated strain KLBMP 1279(T), was isolated from surface-sterilized roots of a coastal halophyte, Salicornia europaea Linn. , collected from Jiangsu Province, in the east of China. The taxonomic status of this organism was established using a polyphasic approach. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that strain KLBMP 1279(T) was closely related to Modestobacter marinus 42H12-1(T) (99.5% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), Modestobacter versicolor CP153-2(T) (98.4%) and Modestobacter multiseptatus AA-826(T) (97.5%). Chemotaxonomic characteristics were consistent with its assignment to the genus Modestobacter in that the isolate had meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid in the cell wall, MK-9(H4) as major menaquinone and a polar lipid profile containing diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylinositol mannosides, two unknown aminophospholipids and an unknown phospholipid. The predominant fatty acids were iso-C16:0, iso-C15:0 and C17:1ω8c. The DNA G+C content was 71.7 mol%. However, DNA-DNA hybridization assays as well as physiological and biochemical analyses differentiated strain KLBMP 1279(T) from its closest phylogenetic relatives. On the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic evidence, the isolate KLBMP 1279(T) represents a novel species of the genus Modestobacter, for which the name Modestobacter roseus sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is KLBMP 1279(T) (=KCTC 19887(T)=NBRC 108673(T)=DSM 45764(T)). An emended description of the genus Modestobacter is also proposed.
Mx Is Not Responsible for the Antiviral Activity of Interferon-α against Japanese Encephalitis Virus

Mx proteins are interferon (IFN)-induced dynamin-like GTPases that are present in all vertebrates and inhibit the replication of myriad viruses. However, the role Mx proteins play in IFN-mediated suppression of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) infection is unknown. In this study, we set out to investigate the effects of Mx1 and Mx2 expression on the interferon-α (IFNα) restriction of JEV replication. To evaluate whether the inhibitory activity of IFNα on JEV is dependent on Mx1 or Mx2, we knocked down Mx1 or Mx2 with siRNA in IFNα-treated PK-15 cells and BHK-21 cells, then challenged them with JEV; the production of progeny virus was assessed by plaque assay, RT-qPCR, and Western blotting. Our results demonstrated that depletion of Mx1 or Mx2 did not affect JEV restriction imposed by IFNα, although these two proteins were knocked down 66% and 79%, respectively. Accordingly, expression of exogenous Mx1 or Mx2 did not change the inhibitory activity of IFNα to JEV. In addition, even though virus-induced membranes were damaged by Brefeldin A (BFA), overexpressing porcine Mx1 or Mx2 did not inhibit JEV proliferation. We found that BFA inhibited JEV replication, not maturation, suggesting that BFA could be developed into a novel antiviral reagent. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that IFNα inhibits JEV infection by Mx-independent pathways.
Signal Representations for Transmit-ReceiveAntenna Arrays

We propose a signal representation for transmit-receive uniform linear arrays operating over arbitrary time-varying spatial multipath channels encountered in mobile communications. The signal representation decomposes the multipath channel into a nite number of virtual channels that correspond to certain delays, Doppler shifts, angles that are xed a priori and are independent of the physical channel parameters. Temporal channel variations are captured linearly by the variations in the fading coeecients associated with the virtual channels. The utility of the canonical signal representation is illustrated with simple transceiver structures. The signal representation entails simple channel estimation procedures and can be leveraged for a variety of physical layer functions, including diversity signaling, spatially-selective multiuser signaling, and space-time coding.
Temporary Nerve Block at Selected Digits Revealed Hand Motor Deficits in Grasping Tasks

Peripheral sensory feedback plays a crucial role in ensuring correct motor execution throughout hand grasp control. Previous studies utilized local anesthesia to deprive somatosensory feedback in the digits or hand, observations included sensorimotor deficits at both corticospinal and peripheral levels. However, the questions of how the disturbed and intact sensory input integrate and interact with each other to assist the motor program execution, and whether the motor coordination based on motor output variability between affected and non-affected elements (e.g., digits) becomes interfered by the local sensory deficiency, have not been answered. The current study aims to investigate the effect of peripheral deafferentation through digital nerve blocks at selective digits on motor performance and motor coordination in grasp control. Our results suggested that the absence of somatosensory information induced motor deficits in hand grasp control, as evidenced by reduced maximal force production ability in both local and non-local digits, impairment of force and moment control during object lift and hold, and attenuated motor synergies in stabilizing task performance variables, namely the tangential force and moment of force. These findings implied that individual sensory input is shared across all the digits and the disturbed signal from local sensory channel(s) has a more comprehensive impact on the process of the motor output execution in the sensorimotor integration process. Additionally, a feedback control mechanism with a sensation-based component resides in the formation process for the motor covariation structure.
Retaining Local Image Information in Gamut Mapping Algorithms

Our topic is the potential of combining global gamut mapping with spatial methods to retain the percepted local image information in gamut mapping algorithms. The main goal is to recover the original local contrast between neighboring pixels in addition to the usual optimization of preserving lightness, saturation, and global contrast. Special emphasis is placed on avoiding artifacts introduced by the gamut mapping algorithm itself. We present an unsharp masking technique based on an edge-preserving smoothing algorithm allowing to avoid halo artifacts. The good performance of the presented approach is verified by a psycho-visual experiment using newspaper printing as a representative of a small destination gamut application. Furthermore, the improved mapping properties are documented with local mapping histograms
Stochastic local search in continuous domains: questions to be answered when designing a novel algorithm

Several population-based methods (with origins in the world of evolutionary strategies and estimation-of-distribution algorithms) for black-box optimization in continuous domains are surveyed in this article. The similarities and differences among them are emphasized and it is shown that they all can be described in a common framework of stochastic local search -- a class of methods previously defined mainly for combinatorial problems. Based on the lessons learned from the surveyed algorithms, a set of algorithm features (or, questions to be answered) is extracted. An algorithm designer can take advantage of these features and by deciding on each of them, she can construct a novel algorithm. A few examples in this direction are shown.
Robust Portfolio Optimization Using a Simple Factor Model

In this paper we examine the performance of a traditional mean-variance optimized portfolio, where the objective function is the Sharpe ratio. We show results of constructing such portfolios using global index data, and provide a test for robustness of input parameters. We continue by formulating a robust counterpart based on a linear factor model presented here. Using a dynamic universe of stocks, the results for this robust portfolio are contrasted with a naive, evenly weighted portfolio as well as with two traditional Sharpe optimized portfolios. We find compelling evidence that the robust formulation provides significant risk protection as well as the ability to provide risk adjusted returns superior to the traditional method. We also find that the naive portfolio we present outperforms the traditional Sharpe portfolios in terms of many summary metrics.
Handling continuous attributes in Ant Colony Classification algorithms

Most real-world classification problems involve continuous (real-valued) attributes, as well as, nominal (discrete) attributes. The majority of Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) classification algorithms have the limitation of only being able to cope with nominal attributes directly. Extending the approach for coping with continuous attributes presented by cAnt-Miner (Ant-Miner coping with continuous attributes), in this paper we propose two new methods for handling continuous attributes in ACO classification algorithms. The first method allows a more flexible representation of continuous attributes' intervals. The second method explores the problem of attribute interaction, which originates from the way that continuous attributes are handled in cAnt-Miner, in order to implement an improved pheromone updating method. Empirical evaluation on eight publicly available data sets shows that the proposed methods facilitate the discovery of more accurate classification models.
Logging every footstep: quantile summaries for the entire history

Quantiles are a crucial type of order statistics in databases. Extensive research has been focused on maintaining a space-efficient structure for approximate quantile computation as the underlying dataset is updated. The existing solutions, however, are designed to support only the current, most-updated, snapshot of the dataset. Queries on the past versions of the data cannot be answered. This paper studies the problem of historical quantile search. The objective is to enable ε-approximate quantile retrieval on any snapshot of the dataset in history. The problem is very important in analyzing the evolution of a distribution, monitoring the quality of services, query optimization in temporal databases, and so on. We present the first formal results in the literature. First, we prove a novel theoretical lower bound on the space cost of supporting ε-approximate historical quantile queries. The bound reveals the fundamental difference between answering quantile queries about the past and those about the present time. Second, we propose a structure for finding ε-approximate historical quantiles, and show that it consumes more space than the lower bound by only a square-logarithmic factor. Extensive experiments demonstrate that in practice our technique performs much better than predicted by theory. In particular, the quantiles it returns are remarkably more accurate than the theoretical precision guarantee.
Fully Functional Static and Dynamic Succinct Trees

We propose new succinct representations of ordinal trees and match various space/time lower bounds. It is known that any <i>n</i>-node static tree can be represented in 2<i>n</i> + <i>o</i>(<i>n</i>) bits so that a number of operations on the tree can be supported in constant time under the word-RAM model. However, the data structures are complicated and difficult to dynamize. We propose a simple and flexible data structure, called the <i>range min-max tree</i>, that reduces the large number of relevant tree operations considered in the literature to a few primitives that are carried out in constant time on polylog-sized trees. The result is extended to trees of arbitrary size, retaining constant time and reaching 2<i>n</i> + <i>O</i>(<i>n</i>/polylog(<i>n</i>)) bits of space. This space is optimal for a core subset of the operations supported and significantly lower than in any previous proposal. For the dynamic case, where insertion/deletion (indels) of nodes is allowed, the existing data structures support a very limited set of operations. Our data structure builds on the range min-max tree to achieve 2<i>n</i> + <i>O</i>(<i>n</i>/log <i>n</i>) bits of space and <i>O</i>(log <i>n</i>) time for all operations supported in the static scenario, plus indels. We also propose an improved data structure using 2<i>n</i> + <i>O</i>(<i>n</i>log log <i>n</i>/log <i>n</i>) bits and improving the time to the optimal <i>O</i>(log <i>n</i>/log log <i>n</i>) for most operations. We extend our support to forests, where whole subtrees can be attached to or detached from others, in time <i>O</i>(log<sup>1+ε</sup> <i>n</i>) for any ε > 0. Such operations had not been considered before. Our techniques are of independent interest. An immediate derivation yields an improved solution to range minimum/maximum queries where consecutive elements differ by ± 1, achieving <i>n</i> + <i>O</i>(<i>n</i>/polylog(<i>n</i>)) bits of space. A second one stores an array of numbers supporting operations <i>sum</i> and <i>search</i> and limited updates, in optimal time <i>O</i>(log <i>n</i>/log log <i>n</i>). A third one allows representing dynamic bitmaps and sequences over alphabets of size σ, supporting rank/select and indels, within zero-order entropy bounds and time <i>O</i>(log <i>n</i> log σ/(log log <i>n</i>)<sup>2</sup>) for all operations. This time is the optimal <i>O</i>(log <i>n</i>/log log <i>n</i>) on bitmaps and polylog-sized alphabets. This improves upon the best existing bounds for entropy-bounded storage of dynamic sequences, compressed full-text self-indexes, and compressed-space construction of the Burrows-Wheeler transform.
Optimal Resource Allocation for Two-Way Relay-Assisted OFDMA

This paper studies the resource allocation problem for the relay-assisted orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA)-based multiuser system. A new transmission protocol, named hierarchical OFDMA, is proposed to support two-way communications between the base station (BS) and each mobile user (MU) with or without an assisting relay station (RS) in ldquorelayrdquo or ldquodirectrdquo mode, respectively. In particular, the recently discovered two-way relaying technology, based on the principle of network coding, is applied to MUs in relay mode with two possible relay-operations, namely, decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF). By applying convex optimization techniques, efficient algorithms are developed for optimal allocation of transmit resources such as power levels, bit rates, and OFDM subcarriers at the BS, RSs, and MUs. Simulation results show that substantial system throughput gains are achievable by the proposed two-way relaying and optimal resource allocation schemes over the traditional one-way relaying and fixed resource allocation schemes for relay-assisted OFDMA-based wireless networks.