Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Locating ceramics system based on computer vision

In this paper, a locating ceramics system based on computer vision is introduced. The system is used to indirectly measure the ceramics' poses on the automatic product line of the robot spraying unburned ceramics. The structure, locating principle and method of the system are described and some application results are given. The locating principle of the system adopts the camera calibration, image segmentation through finding the valley at an image saturation histogram, and the image morphological operation. The locating ceramics system based on computer vision has been applied in practice.
The Sulfolobus solfataricus radA paralogue sso0777 is DNA damage inducible and positively regulated by the Sta1 protein

Little is known about the regulation of the DNA damage-mediated gene expression in archaea. Here we report that the addition of actinomycin D to Sulfolobus solfataricus cultures triggers the expression of the radA paralogue sso0777. Furthermore, a specific retarded band is observed when electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) with crude S. solfataricus cell extracts and the sso0777 promoter were carried out. The protein that binds to this promoter was isolated and identified as Sta1. Footprinting experiments have shown that the Sta1 DNA-binding site is included in the ATTTTTTATTTTCACATGTAAGATGTTTATT sequence, which is located upstream the putative TTG translation starting codon of the sso0777 gene. Additionally, gel electrophoretic mobility retardation experiments using mutant sso0777 promoter derivatives show the presence of three essential motifs (TTATT, CANGNA and TTATT) that are absolutely required for Sta1 DNA binding. Finally, in vitro transcription experiments confirm that Sta1 functions as an activator for sso0777 gene expression being the first identified archaeal regulatory protein associated with the DNA damage-mediated induction of gene expression.
A Proposed Architecture for Query Anomaly Detection and Prevention against SQL Injection Attacks

SQL injection is a predominant type of attack which targets web applications and databases. SQL injection bypasses the authentication logic and breaks the confidentiality of the database or manipulates the database. It helps the attacker to obtain unauthorized access into the back end database. Vulnerability exists within a web application when it does not provide a proper validation system for the data entered by the user in the input field. Vulnerability scanners aid in checking vulnerabilities embedded in a web application and has the potential to test invalid forms of input query. However, the limitation lies in the reduction of system availability due to denial of service, especially in case of false positives. In this paper, an approach which focuses on query template based detection of SQL injection attack and reconstruction of queries is proposed. Thus the proposed architecture can mitigate the denial of service and increase the availability by potentially reconstructing malicious queries.
The Value of Agile in Experiential Learning of Software Development

A primary measure of success in both student and commercial software development projects is the value delivered to the client. Of equal instructional importance is to what extent the student perceives value in the process used to achieve this goal: is it a support or an impediment? Previous experience with heavy weight processes produced anecdotal evidence that students perceived them as onerous and irrelevant. To determine student perceptions of the relevancy of agile principles, we conducted a year long study during senior student software development projects in which they applied agile principles working with industry clients under minimal supervision. Results indicate a strong relationship between student perception of value delivered to the client and their perception of the value of utilizing agile principles to achieve their goal. This paper describes our study and supports the validity of using agile principles in student experiential learning of software development.
Using Unified Modelling Language (UML) as a process-modelling technique for clinical-research process improvement

The Primary Care Data Quality programme (PCDQ) is a quality-improvement programme which processes routinely collected general practice computer data. Patient data collected from a wide range of different brands of clinical computer systems are aggregated, processed, and fed back to practices in an educational context to improve the quality of care. Process modelling is a well-established approach used to gain understanding and systematic appraisal, and identify areas of improvement of a business process. Unified modelling language (UML) is a general purpose modelling technique used for this purpose. We used UML to appraise the PCDQ process to see if the efficiency and predictability of the process could be improved. Activity analysis and thinking-aloud sessions were used to collect data to generate UML diagrams. The UML model highlighted the sequential nature of the current process as a barrier for efficiency gains. It also identified the uneven distribution of process controls, lack of symmetric communication channels, critical dependencies among processing stages, and failure to implement all the lessons learned in the piloting phase. It also suggested that improved structured reporting at each stage—especially from the pilot phase, parallel processing of data and correctly positioned process controls—should improve the efficiency and predictability of research projects. Process modelling provided a rational basis for the critical appraisal of a clinical data processing system; its potential maybe underutilized within health care.
Vibration signal forecasting on rotating machinery by means of signal decomposition and neuro-fuzzy modeling

Vibration monitoring plays a key role in the industrial machinery reliability since it allows enhancing the performance of the machinery under supervision through the detection of failure modes. Thus, vibration monitoring schemes that give information regarding future condition, that is, prognosis approaches, are of growing interest for the scientific and industrial communities. This work proposes a vibration signal prognosis methodology, applied to a rotating electromechanical system and its associated kinematic chain. The method combines the adaptability of neuro-fuzzy modeling with a signal decomposition strategy to model the patterns of the vibrations signal under different fault scenarios. The model tuning is performed by means of genetic algorithms along with a correlation-based interval selection procedure. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed method is validated experimentally with an electromechanical test bench containing a kinematic chain. The results of the study indicate the suitability of the method for vibration forecasting in complex electromechanical systems and their associated kinematic chains.
Sexual conflict over care: antagonistic effects of clutch desertion on reproductive success of male and female penduline tits

A fundamental tenet of sexual conflict theory is that one sex may increase its reproductive success (RS) even if this harms the other sex. Several studies supported this principle by showing that males benefit from reduced paternal care whereas females suffer from it. By investigating penduline tits Remiz pendulinus in nature, we show that parental conflict may be symmetric between sexes. In this small passerine a single female (or male) cares for the offspring, whereas about 30% of clutches are deserted by both parents. Deserting parents enhance their RS by obtaining multiple mates, and they reduce the RS of their mates due to increased nest failure. Unlike most other species, however, the antagonistic interests are symmetric in penduline tits, because both sexes enhance their own RS by deserting, whilst harming the RS of their mates. We argue that the strong antagonistic interests of sexes explain the high frequency of biparental desertion.
Animal phylogeny and the ancestry of bilaterians: inferences from morphology and 18S rDNA gene sequences

SUMMARY Insight into the origin and early evolution of the animal phyla requires an understanding of how animal groups are related to one another. Thus, we set out to explore animal phylogeny by analyzing with maximum parsimony 138 morphological characters from 40 metazoan groups, and 304 18S rDNA sequences, both separately and together. Both types of data agree that arthropods are not closely related to annelids: the former group with nematodes and other molting animals (Ecdysozoa), and the latter group with molluscs and other taxa with spiral cleavage. Furthermore, neither brachiopods nor chaetognaths group with deuterostomes; brachiopods are allied with the molluscs and annelids (Lophotrochozoa), whereas chaetognaths are allied with the ecdysozoans. The major discordance between the two types of data concerns the rooting of the bilaterians, and the bilaterian sister‐taxon. Morphology suggests that the root is between deuterostomes and protostomes, with ctenophores the bilaterian sister‐group, whereas 18S rDNA suggests that the root is within the Lophotrochozoa with acoel flatworms and gnathostomulids as basal bilaterians, and with cnidarians the bilaterian sister‐group. We suggest that this basal position of acoels and gnathostomulids is artifactal because for 1000 replicate phylogenetic analyses with one random sequence as outgroup, the majority root with an acoel flatworm or gnathostomulid as the basal ingroup lineage. When these problematic taxa are eliminated from the matrix, the combined analysis suggests that the root lies between the deuterostomes and protostomes, and Ctenophora is the bilaterian sister‐group. We suggest that because chaetognaths and lophophorates, taxa traditionally allied with deuterostomes, occupy basal positions within their respective protostomian clades, deuterostomy most likely represents a suite of characters plesiomorphic for bilaterians.
Identifying digital threats in a hacker web forum

Information threatening the security of critical infrastructures are exchanged over the Internet through communication platforms, such as online discussion forums. This information can be used by malicious hackers to attack critical computer networks and data systems. Much of the literature on the hacking of critical infrastructure has focused on developing typologies of cyber-attacks, but has not examined the communication activities of the actors involved. To address this gap in the literature, the language of hackers was analyzed to identify potential threats against critical infrastructures using automated analysis tools. First, discussion posts were collected from a selected hacker forum using a customized web-crawler. Posts were analyzed using a parts of speech tagger, which helped determine a list of keywords used to query the data. Next, a sentiment analysis tool scored these keywords, which were then analyzed to determine the effectiveness of this method.
Comorbidity as a contributor to frequent severe acute exacerbation in COPD patients

Background Comorbidities have a serious impact on the frequent severe acute exacerbations (AEs) in patients with COPD. Previous studies have used the Charlson comorbidity index to represent a conglomerate of comorbidities; however, the respective contribution of each coexisting disease to the frequent severe AEs remains unclear. Methods A retrospective, observational study was performed in 77 COPD patients who experienced severe AE between January 2012 and December 2014 and had at least 1-year follow-up period from the date of admission for severe AE. We explored the incidence of frequent severe AEs (≥2 severe AEs during 1-year period) in these patients and investigated COPD-related factors and comorbidities as potential risk factors of these exacerbations. Results Out of 77 patients, 61 patients (79.2%) had at least one comorbidity. During a 1-year follow-up period, 29 patients (37.7%) experienced frequent severe AEs, approximately two-thirds (n=19) of which occurred within the first 90 days after admission. Compared with patients not experiencing frequent severe AEs, these patients were more likely to have poor lung function and receive home oxygen therapy and long-term oral steroids. In multiple logistic regression analysis, coexisting asthma (adjusted odds ratio [OR] =4.02, 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.30–12.46, P=0.016), home oxygen therapy (adjusted OR =9.39, 95% CI =1.60–55.30, P=0.013), and C-reactive protein (adjusted OR =1.09, 95% CI =1.01–1.19, P=0.036) were associated with frequent severe AEs. In addition, poor lung function, as measured by forced expiratory volume in 1 second (adjusted OR =0.16, 95% CI =0.04–0.70, P=0.015), was inversely associated with early (ie, within 90 days of admission) frequent severe AEs. Conclusion Based on our study, among COPD-related comorbidities, coexisting asthma has a significant impact on the frequent severe AEs in COPD patients.
Low dose amiodarone and sotalol in the treatment of recurrent, symptomatic atrial fibrillation: a comparative, placebo controlled study

OBJECTIVE To assess and compare the safety and efficacy of amiodarone and sotalol in the treatment of patients with recurrent symptomatic atrial fibrillation. DESIGN Prospective, randomised, single blind, placebo controlled study. SETTING Tertiary cardiac referral centre. PATIENTS 186 consecutive patients (97 men, 89 women; mean (SD) age, 63 (10) years) with recurrent, symptomatic atrial fibrillation. INTERVENTIONS 65 patients were randomised to amiodarone, 61 to sotalol, and 60 to placebo. Patients receiving amiodarone were maintained at a dose of 200 mg/day after a 30 day loading phase. The sotalol dose was 160–480 mg daily, as tolerated. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Recurrence of atrial fibrillation or side effects. RESULTS In the amiodarone group, 31 of the 65 patients developed atrial fibrillation after an average of six months, while 15 (11 in sinus rhythm and four in atrial fibrillation) experienced significant side effects after an average of 16 months. In the sotalol group, relapse to atrial fibrillation occurred in 47 of the 61 patients after an average of eight months; three experienced side effects during the titration phase. In the placebo group, 53 of the 60 patients developed atrial fibrillation after an average of four months (p < 0.001 for amiodarone and sotalol v placebo; p < 0.001 for amiodaronev sotalol). CONCLUSIONS Both amiodarone and sotalol can be used for the maintenance of normal sinus rhythm in patients with symptomatic atrial fibrillation. Amiodarone is more effective but causes more side effects.
Learning feature mapping using deep neural network bottleneck features for distant large vocabulary speech recognition

Automatic speech recognition from distant microphones is a difficult task because recordings are affected by reverberation and background noise. First, the application of the deep neural network (DNN)/hidden Markov model (HMM) hybrid acoustic models for distant speech recognition task using AMI meeting corpus is investigated. This paper then proposes a feature transformation for removing reverberation and background noise artefacts from bottleneck features using DNN trained to learn the mapping between distant-talking speech features and close-talking speech bottleneck features. Experimental results on AMI meeting corpus reveal that the mismatch between close-talking and distant-talking conditions is largely reduced, with about 16% relative improvement over conventional bottleneck system (trained on close-talking speech). If the feature mapping is applied to close-talking speech, a minor degradation of 4% relative is observed.
Early Accurate Results for Advanced Analytics on MapReduce

Approximate results based on samples often provide the only way in which advanced analytical applications on very massive data sets can satisfy their time and resource constraints. Unfortunately, methods and tools for the computation of accurate early results are currently not supported in MapReduce-oriented systems although these are intended for 'big data'. Therefore, we proposed and implemented a non-parametric extension of Hadoop which allows the incremental computation of early results for arbitrary work-flows, along with reliable on-line estimates of the degree of accuracy achieved so far in the computation. These estimates are based on a technique called bootstrapping that has been widely employed in statistics and can be applied to arbitrary functions and data distributions. In this paper, we describe our Early Accurate Result Library (EARL) for Hadoop that was designed to minimize the changes required to the MapReduce framework. Various tests of EARL of Hadoop are presented to characterize the frequent situations where EARL can provide major speed-ups over the current version of Hadoop.
Crystal Structure of the Toll/Interleukin-1 Receptor Domain of Human IL-1RAPL*

The Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain is conserved in the intracellular regions of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and interleukin-1 receptors (IL-1Rs) as well as in several cytoplasmic adapter molecules. This domain has crucial roles in signal transduction by these receptors for host immune response. Here we report the crystal structure at 2.3-Å resolution of the TIR domain of human IL-1RAPL, the first structure of a TIR domain of the IL-1R superfamily. There are large structural differences between this TIR domain and that of TLR1 and TLR2. Helix αD in IL-1RAPL is almost perpendicular to its equivalent in TLR1 or TLR2. The BB loop contains a hydrogen bond unique to IL-1RAPL between Thr residues at the 8th and 10th positions. The structural and sequence diversity among these domains may be important for specificity in the signal transduction by these receptors. A dimer of the TIR domain of IL-1RAPL is observed in the crystal, although this domain is monomeric in solution. Residues in the dimer interface are mostly unique to IL-1RAPL, which is consistent with the distinct functional roles of this receptor. Our functional studies show IL-1RAPL can activate JNK but not the ERK or the p38 MAP kinases, whereas its close homolog, TIGIRR, cannot activate JNK. Deletion mutagenesis studies show that the activation of JNK by IL-1RAPL does not depend on the integrity of its TIR domain, suggesting a distinct mechanism of signaling through this receptor.
Affect Interpretation from Dramatic Improvisation using Character and Contextual Profiles

Affect detection from open-ended text-based dialogue and contextual profiles is challenging but essential for the building of effective intelligent user interfaces. In this paper, we report updated developments of an affect detection model from text, including affect detection from two particular types of metaphorical affective expressions (food and cooking metaphors) and affect detection based on context. We use Markov chains and dynamic algorithm to simulate the improvisational mood of a particular character for contextual affect analysis and explore an alternative approach for emotional context modelling in a comparatively complex story context. The overall affect detection model has been embedded in an intelligent conversational AI agent interacting with human users under loose scenarios. Evaluation for the updated affect detection component is also provided. Our work contributes to the journal themes on human-agent interaction, affective computing and dialogue based systems.
AMBER/VLTI and MIDI/VLTI spectro-interferometric observations of the B[e] supergiant CPD-57°2874 . Size and geometry of the circumstellar envelope in the near- and mid-IR

We present the first high spatial and spectral observations of the circumstellar envelope (CSE) of a B[e] supergiant (CPD-5't' 2874), performed with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Spectra, visibilities, and closure phase, were obtained using the beam-combiner instruments AMBER (near-IR interferometry with three 8.3 m Unit Telescopes or UTs) and MIDI (mid-IR interferometry with two UTs). The interferometric observations of the CSE are well fitted by an elliptical Gaussian model with FVVHM diameters varying linearly with wavelength. Typical diameters measured are ~ 1.8 X 3.4 mas or ~ 4.5 X 8.5 AU (adopting a distance of 2.5 kpc) at 2.2 pm, and ~ 12 X 15 mas or ~ 30 X 38 AU at 12 pm. The size of the region emitting the Brr flux is ~ 2.8 X 5.2 mas or ~ 7.0 X 13.0 AU. The major-axis position angle of the elongated CSE in the mid-IR (~144°) agrees well with previous polarimetric data, hinting that the hot-dust emission originates in a disk-like structure. In addition to the interferometric observations we also present new optical (UBVRclc) and near-IR (JHKL) broadband photometric observations of CPD-57° 2874. Our spectro-interferometric VLTI observations and data analysis support the non-spherical CSE paradigm for B[e] supergiants.
Pre‐ and posttest evaluation of a breast cancer risk assessment program for nurse practitioners

Purpose: Numerous studies have shown that healthcare providers, including nurse practitioners (NPs) fail to provide breast cancer risk assessment (BrCRA) in primary care settings. A potential barrier to the use of BrCRA is insufficient knowledge or training of risk assessment. The purpose of this study was to analyze the outcome of a BrCRA program developed to enhance NPs' knowledge of risk assessment and use of empiric risk assessment models. Data sources: Thirty‐five NPs participated in a before‐after (pretest–posttest design) study evaluating the effectiveness of a BrCRA education program conducted at a national NP conference. Demographics, pre/post knowledge, and course satisfaction measures were all examined as a part of this pilot study. Conclusion: Continuing education through the implementation of a BrCRA program significantly increased NPs knowledge in assessing breast cancer risk and the use of empiric risk assessment models. Implications for practice: Many healthcare providers, including NPs, are inadequately prepared to assess a woman's risk for breast cancer. Understanding breast cancer risk assessment is essential if NPs are to provide appropriate counseling, management, and referral strategies needed to reduce a woman's risk for developing the disease. Continuing education provides one means to enhance NP's knowledge of BrCRA.
Measurement of the maximum SAR in a spherical phantom when operating a mobile phone near a metallic wall

The aim of this paper is to present an experimental investigation of the specific absorption rate (SAR) in a spherical phantom head when operating a mobile phone close to a metallic wall. The mobile phone is modeled as a half-wavelength dipole antenna. The effect of the wall on the peak 10-g SAR and input characteristics of the antenna for two wall orientations are measured. The antenna is set to transmit maximum output power of 250 mW at 900 MHz. A slowly decaying sinusoidal form of the peak 10-g SAR curves, which has been predicted by numerical simulation from several authors including ourselves, is confirmed experimentally for the first time. Under the valid antenna-wall distances used in this work, maximum peak 10-g SAR increase of 7% over the free space value was recorded at the distance of 394 mm away from the wall. Simulated results obtained by the FDTD technique are also presented. Good agreement between the measured and simulated results is obtained.