Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive pointing: implicit gain adaptation for absolute pointing devices

We present Adaptive Pointing, a novel approach to addressing the common problem of accuracy when using absolute pointing devices for distant interaction. The intention behind this approach is to improve pointing performance for absolute input devices by implicitly adapting the Control-Display gain to the current user's needs without violating users' mental model of absolute-device operation. First evaluation results show that Adaptive Pointing leads to a significant improvement compared with absolute pointing in terms of movement time (19%), error rate (63%), and user satisfaction.
Hydrogen sulfide postconditioning protects isolated rat hearts against ischemia and reperfusion injury mediated by the JAK2/STAT3 survival pathway

The JAK2/STAT3 signal pathway is an important component of survivor activating factor enhancement (SAFE) pathway. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway participates in hydrogen sulfide (H2S) postconditioning, protecting isolated rat hearts from ischemic-reperfusion injury. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (230-270 g) were divided into 6 groups (N = 14 per group): time-matched perfusion (Sham) group, ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) group, NaHS postconditioning group, NaHS with AG-490 group, AG-490 (5 µM) group, and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO; <0.2%) group. Langendorff-perfused rat hearts, with the exception of the Sham group, were subjected to 30 min of ischemia followed by 90 min of reperfusion after 20 min of equilibrium. Heart rate, left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP), left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), and the maximum rate of increase or decrease of left ventricular pressure (± dp/dtmax) were recorded. Infarct size was determined using triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining. Myocardial TUNEL staining was used as the in situ cell death detection method and the percentage of TUNEL-positive nuclei to all nuclei counted was used as the apoptotic index. The expression of STAT3, bcl-2 and bax was determined by Western blotting. After reperfusion, compared to the I/R group, H2S significantly improved functional recovery and decreased infarct size (23.3 ± 3.8 vs 41.2 ± 4.7%, P < 0.05) and apoptotic index (22.1 ± 3.6 vs 43.0 ± 4.8%, P < 0.05). However, H2S-mediated protection was abolished by AG-490, the JAK2 inhibitor. In conclusion, H2S postconditioning effectively protects isolated I/R rat hearts via activation of the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway.
Improving Automated Bug Triaging with Specialized Topic Model

Bug triaging refers to the process of assigning a bug to the most appropriate developer to fix. It becomes more and more difficult and complicated as the size of software and the number of developers increase. In this paper, we propose a new framework for bug triaging, which maps the words in the bug reports (i.e., the term space) to their corresponding topics (i.e., the topic space). We propose a specialized topic modeling algorithm named <italic> multi-feature topic model (MTM)</italic> which extends Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for bug triaging. <italic>MTM </italic> considers product and component information of bug reports to map the term space to the topic space. Finally, we propose an incremental learning method named <italic>TopicMiner</italic> which considers the topic distribution of a new bug report to assign an appropriate fixer based on the affinity of the fixer to the topics. We pair <italic> TopicMiner</italic> with MTM (<italic>TopicMiner<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{MTM}$</tex-math> <alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="xia-ieq1-2576454.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula></italic>). We have evaluated our solution on 5 large bug report datasets including GCC, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Netbeans, and Eclipse containing a total of 227,278 bug reports. We show that <italic>TopicMiner<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $^{MTM}$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="xia-ieq2-2576454.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> </italic> can achieve top-1 and top-5 prediction accuracies of 0.4831-0.6868, and 0.7686-0.9084, respectively. We also compare <italic>TopicMiner<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{MTM}$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="xia-ieq3-2576454.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula></italic> with Bugzie, LDA-KL, SVM-LDA, LDA-Activity, and Yang et al.'s approach. The results show that <italic>TopicMiner<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{MTM}$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="xia-ieq4-2576454.gif"/> </alternatives></inline-formula></italic> on average improves top-1 and top-5 prediction accuracies of Bugzie by 128.48 and 53.22 percent, LDA-KL by 262.91 and 105.97 percent, SVM-LDA by 205.89 and 110.48 percent, LDA-Activity by 377.60 and 176.32 percent, and Yang et al.'s approach by 59.88 and 13.70 percent, respectively.
Video motion detection algorithm using probabilistic time integrated RANSAC

Video motion detection (VMD) is a critical task demanded for surveillance and monitoring applications for both static and moving camera setup. A new VMD algorithm is proposed: the probabilistic time integrated RANSAC (PTIR) which robustly detects and tracks objects in the difficult long range scenario. The problem of detecting long range moving objects in a wide field of view from a moving camera is difficult especially in poor visibility, cluttered and noisy environments. The suggested method also copes with cases where no time correspondence information is available. The experimental results demonstrate the performance and robustness of the proposed method.
A Stabilized Headless Measles Virus Attachment Protein Stalk Efficiently Triggers Membrane Fusion

ABSTRACT Paramyxovirus attachment and fusion (F) envelope glycoprotein complexes mediate membrane fusion required for viral entry. The measles virus (MeV) attachment (H) protein stalk domain is thought to directly engage F for fusion promotion. However, past attempts to generate truncated, fusion-triggering-competent H-stem constructs remained fruitless. In this study, we addressed the problem by testing the hypothesis that truncated MeV H stalks may require stabilizing oligomerization tags to maintain intracellular transport competence and F-triggering activity. We engineered H-stems of different lengths with added 4-helix bundle tetramerization domains and demonstrate restored cell surface expression, efficient interaction with F, and fusion promotion activity of these constructs. The stability of the 4-helix bundle tags and the relative orientations of the helical wheels of H-stems and oligomerization tags govern the kinetics of fusion promotion, revealing a balance between H stalk conformational stability and F-triggering activity. Recombinant MeV particles expressing a bioactive H-stem construct in the place of full-length H are viable, albeit severely growth impaired. Overall, we demonstrate that the MeV H stalk represents the effector domain for MeV F triggering. Fusion promotion appears linked to the conformational flexibility of the stalk, which must be tightly regulated in viral particles to ensure efficient virus entry. While the pathways toward assembly of functional fusion complexes may differ among diverse members of the paramyxovirus family, central elements of the triggering machinery emerge as highly conserved.
Genetic and physiological characterization of Bacillus subtilis mutants resistant to purine analogs

Bacillus subtilis mutants defective in purine metabolism have been isolated by selecting for resistance to purine analogs. Mutants resistant to 2-fluoroadenine were found to be defective in adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (apt) activity and slightly impaired in adenine uptake. By making use of apt mutants and mutants defective in adenosine phosphorylase activity, it was shown that adenine deamination is an essential step in the conversion of both adenine and adenosine to guanine nucleotides. Mutants resistant to 8-azaguanine, pbuG mutants, appeared to be defective in hypoxanthine and guanine transport and normal in hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activity. Purine auxotrophic pbuG mutants grew in a concentration-dependent way on hypoxanthine, while normal growth was observed on inosine as the purine source. Inosine was taken up by a different transport system and utilized after conversion to hypoxanthine. Two mutants resistant to 8-azaxanthine were isolated: one was defective in xanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (xpt) activity and xanthine transport, and another had reduced GMP synthetase activity. The results obtained with the various mutants provide evidence for the existence of specific purine base transport systems. The genetic lesions causing the mutant phenotypes, apt, pbuG, and xpt, have been located on the B. subtilis linkage map at 243, 55, and 198 degrees, respectively.
Effect of incorporating sodium molybdate in the form of salt lick or in mixed ration on growth and performance of sheep fed palm kernel cake.

The objective of the present experiments are to determine if sheep could safely consume high amount of PKC in their diets and if sheep's consumption of PKC require a chelating agent to tie up the high copper level in PKC to protect it against toxicity. Two experiments were carried out. Experiment 1, with four treatment groups of animals, using from 30 to 100% PKC, mixed with other feed ingredients except minerals. Mineral mixtures were separately mixed with Sodium Molybdate, acting as the chelating agent, and the mineral was offered in separate feed troughs ad.libitum, in the pens for each animal group. Although all groups gave high ADG, the animals in the 100% group had high copper in their blood, which were above4 the normal physiological level at the end of the experimental duration of three months. Three animals from this group died and their liver copper contents were very high. The groups fed up to 72% PKC in their ration did not show any significant elevation of copper or toxicity. Sheep fed similar proportions of ingredients in experiment 2, but with Molybdate incorporated together into all the four similar rations as in experiment 1, did not show any signs of toxicity or elevated blood copper. The animals in all groups produced high ADG. The experiment proved that sheep can take up to 100% PKC in their diet, but a chelating agent must be incorporated into the feed to ensure its sufficient uptake to protect it against toxicity. Giving Molybdate separately from the feed would not ensure sufficient intake of the chelating agent voluntarily. This would result in copper toxicity in the animals.
Headword Percolation in a Multi-Parser Architecture for Natural Language Understanding

This paper describes an approach for identifying the information goal(s) of informationseeking queries, such as those in the ATIS domain (Price, 1990). The approach is based the Multi-Parser Architecture (MPA) extended with a headword percolation procedure. MPA can generate full and robust parses for input natural language queries. Headword percolation identifies the prime constituent(s) in the parse trees. These constituents are incorporated in goal identification rules derived from training parse trees using an automatic, data-driven technique. The rules are then evaluated with a test set in terms of in single goal identification, multiple goal identification and out-of-domain rejection. We compare the current approach with a previous one based on Belief Networks (BN) (Meng et al. 1999). Results show that the former gave statistically significant improvements. This is indicative of the merits of rich semantic/syntactic analysis in the parse structures for goal identification.
Adaptive training using simple target models [speech recognition applications]

Adaptive training aims at reducing the influence of speaker, channel and environment variability on the acoustic models. We describe an acoustic normalization approach to adaptive training. Phonetically irrelevant acoustic variability is reduced at the beginning of the training procedure w.r. t. a set of target models. The set of target models can be a set of HMMs or a Gaussian mixture model (GMM). CMLLR is applied to normalize the acoustic features. The normalized data contains less unwanted variability and is used to generate and train the recognition models. Employing a GMM as a target model leads to a text-independent procedure that can be embedded into the acoustic front-end. On a broadcast news transcription task we obtain relative reductions in WER of 7.8% in the first recognition pass over a conventionally trained system and of 3.4% in the second recognition pass over a SAT-trained system.
An imbalance in Akt/mTOR is involved in the apoptotic and acantholytic processes in a mouse model of pemphigus vulgaris

Abstract: Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune blistering disease characterized by the presence of IgG autoantibodies against Dsg3. Our aim was to investigate the molecular events implicated in the development and localization of apoptosis and acantholysis in PV. We used a passive transfer mouse model together with immunohistochemical (IHC) techniques and the TUNEL assay, with quantification analysis in the basal layer of the epidermis. The activated signalling molecules analysed and apoptotic cells detected showed an identical localization. Herein, we found for the first time in vivo an increased expression of activated HER receptor isoforms in the basal layer in PV lesions. Besides, we observed the almost total lack of activated Akt compared with a higher level of activated mTOR within the basal cells of the epidermis. Our observations strongly support that the restriction of acantholysis to the basal layer may be due, at least in part, to the selective and increased presence of activated HER receptor isoforms in these cells. After phosphorylation of HER receptor isoforms, intracellular signalling pathways are activated in the basal layer. In addition, the imbalance in Akt/mTOR that takes place in the basal cells may provide intracellular signals necessary for the development of apoptosis and acantholysis.
Programming the InfiniBand Network Architecture for High Performance Message Passing Systems

Vijay Velusamy, Changzheng Rao Mississippi State University Department of Computer Science and Engineering Box 9637 Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA {vijay, cr90}@hpcl.cs. msstate.edu Srigurunath Chakravarthi, Jothi Neelamegam, Weiyi Chen, Sanjay Verma, MPI Software Technology, Inc. * 101, S. Lafayette St., Suite 33 Starkville, MS 39759, USA {ecap, jothi, wychen, sanjay}@mpisofttech.com Anthony Skjellum Department of Computer and Information Sciences 115A Campbell Hall, 1300 University Boulevard University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294, USA tony@cis.uab. edu
The Rab GTPase-Activating Protein AS160 Integrates Akt, Protein Kinase C, and AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Signals Regulating GLUT4 Traffic

Insulin-dependent phosphorylation of Akt target AS160 is required for GLUT4 translocation. Insulin and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) (Akt activators) or activation of conventional/novel (c/n) protein kinase C (PKC) and 5′ AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) all promote a rise in membrane GLUT4 in skeletal muscle and cultured cells. However, the downstream effectors linking these pathways to GLUT4 traffic are unknown. Here we explore the hypothesis that AS160 is a molecular link among diverse signaling cascades converging on GLUT4 translocation. PDGF and insulin increased AS160 phosphorylation in CHO-IR cells. Stimuli that activate c/n PKC or AMPK also elevated AS160 phosphorylation. We therefore examined if these signaling pathways engage AS160 to regulate GLUT4 traffic in muscle cells. Nonphosphorylatable AS160 (4P-AS160) virtually abolished the net surface GLUT4myc gains elicited by insulin, PDGF, K+ depolarization, or 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-β-d-ribofuranoside but partly, yet significantly, inhibited the effects of 4-phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate. However, the hypertonicity or 2,4-dinitrophenol–dependent gains in surface GLUT4myc were unaffected by 4P-AS160. RK-AS160 (GTPase-activating protein [GAP] inactive) or 4PRK-AS160 (GAP inactive, nonphosphorylatable) had no effect on surface GLUT4myc elicited by all stimuli. Collectively, these results indicate that activation of Akt, c/n PKC, or α2-AMPK intersect at AS160 to regulate GLUT4 traffic, as well as highlight the potential of AS160 as a therapy target to increase muscle glucose uptake.
Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

The present study investigated fear-potentiated startle and autonomic learning in brain-lesioned patients in a classical fear-conditioning paradigm. Startle blink and skin conductance responses of 30 patients who underwent unilateral temporal lobectomy because of drug-resistant epilepsy were compared with those of 32 healthy controls. As expected, temporal lobectomy patients showed a general impairment in fear conditioning relative to controls. This impairment did not differ with respect to the affected hemisphere. Moreover, while fear-conditioned startle potentiation in healthy controls was independent of contingency awareness, skin conductance discrimination was only observed for those participants who correctly recognized the stimulus contingencies. Patients who acquired a declarative memory of the contingencies also showed intact skin conductance discrimination but failed to exhibit fear-potentiated startle. The present findings support a two-levels-of-learning account of human fear conditioning and also demonstrate that the amygdala is crucially involved in fear learning.
Signaling through the A2B Adenosine Receptor Dampens Endotoxin-Induced Acute Lung Injury

Sepsis and septic acute lung injury are among the leading causes for morbidity and mortality of critical illness. Extracellular adenosine is a signaling molecule implicated in the cellular adaptation to hypoxia, ischemia, or inflammation. Therefore, we pursued the role of the A2B adenosine receptor (AR) as potential therapeutic target in endotoxin-induced acute lung injury. We gained initial insight from in vitro studies of cultured endothelia or epithelia exposed to inflammatory mediators showing time-dependent induction of the A2BAR (up to 12.9 ± 3.4-fold, p < 0.05). Similarly, murine studies of endotoxin-induced lung injury identified an almost 4.6-fold induction of A2BAR transcript and corresponding protein induction with LPS exposure. Studies utilizing A2BAR promoter constructs and RNA protection assays indicated that A2BAR induction involved mRNA stability. Functional studies of LPS-induced lung injury revealed that pharmacological inhibition or genetic deletion of the A2BAR was associated with dramatic increases in lung inflammation and histologic tissue injury. Studies of A2BAR bone marrow chimeric mice suggested pulmonary A2BAR signaling in lung protection. Finally, studies with a specific A2BAR agonist (BAY 60-6583) demonstrated attenuation of lung inflammation and pulmonary edema in wild-type but not in gene-targeted mice for the A2BAR. These studies suggest the A2BAR as potential therapeutic target in the treatment of endotoxin-induced forms of acute lung injury.
Visual Object Recognition with Bagging of One Class Support Vector Machines

A large number of training samples is requiredin developing visual object recognition systems. However, the size of samples is limited sometimes. This paper investigates bagging of one class support vector machines (OCSVM), which just use one class of objects for training. Experiments are performed on Caltech101 database. Our findings show that the performance with bagging method is better than single OCSVM. Furthermore, bagging of OCSVM can also keep better performance with limited number of training samples.
Survey of captive parrot populations around Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia, for psittacine beak and feather disease virus, avian polyomavirus and psittacine adenovirus.

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the prevalence of psittacine beak and feather disease virus (BFDV), avian polyomavirus (APV) and psittacine adenovirus (PsAdV) in captive psittacine birds around Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia. METHODS Samples of fresh droppings were collected from 118 psittacine birds (109 clinically normal and 9 with feather abnormalities) from 11 avaries in different locations and were used for detection of BFDV, APV and PsAdV using PCR. RESULTS BFDV, APV and PsAdV were detected in 31%, 13% and 4%, respectively, of the specimens tested. One budgerigar was found to be co-infected with BFDV and PsAdV. At least one sample tested positive for BFDV at each location. CONCLUSION This is the first report of the prevalence of BFDV, APV and PsAdV in Victoria and provides a foundation for future studies examining the influence of these viruses on the health of aviary birds in Victoria.
MRI MEASURES OF BRAIN INTEGRITY AND THEIR RELATION TO PROCESSING SPEED IN THE ELDERLY

A significant percentage of the elderly population experiences at least one geriatric disability. Previous studies have shown that geriatric disabilities are preceded by sub-clinical cognitive changes of aging and brain changes seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Decreased information processing speed has been identified as a common factor associated with age-related disabilities in gait, cognition, and mood. However, the current neurocognitive model of aging is incomplete; there remains uncertainty about the relationships between the different components of brain integrity and cognitive function. The goals of this dissertation are to characterize the relationships between different functional and structural MRI markers (for example: macro-structural, micro-structural, physiologic) with respect to cognitive aging and to improve the neuroimaging toolset for oldest old.We studied the relationship between functional MRI markers, structural MRI markers, and information processing speed in a sample of twenty-five healthy elderly subjects. We found that recruitment of fronto-parietal brain areas was associated with higher performance. Also, greater structural damage (white matter integrity) was associated with lower activation in prefrontal and anterior cingulate regions. In the presence of underlying brain connectivity structural abnormalities, additional posterior parietal activation was found to be important for maintaining higher task performance.MRI MEASURES OF BRAIN INTEGRITY AND THEIR RELATION TO PROCESSING SPEED IN THE ELDERLYVijay Krishna Venkatraman, Ph.D.University of Pittsburgh, 2010vWe also studied MRI measures of brain structure in a sample of 277 community-dwelling older adults free from neurological diseases. This study used a set of neuroimage analysis pathways optimized for the MRI images and examined the macro- and micro-structural indices. The results indicate that both the macro- and micro-structural MRI indices may provide complementary information on neuroanatomical correlates of information processing speed. The micro-structural MRI indices of white matter integrity were found to be the strongest correlate of information processing speed in this sample.While developing the image analysis pipelines for this dataset, we noticed that the diffusion tensor-imaging pathway was particularly sensitive to the approach of localizing the white matter tracts. We used both empirical and simulated datasets to confirm our hypothesis that the mean fractional anisotropy of the white matter tract is more sensitive to individual differences in the elderly when compared to a skeleton based approach.