Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Finding new sub-stellar co-moving companion candidates - the case of CT Cha

Abstract We have searched for close and faint companions around T Tauri stars in the Chamaeleon star forming region. Two epochs of direct imaging data were taken with the VLT Adaptive Optics instrument NaCo in February 2006 and March 2007 in Ks band for the classical T Tauri star CT Cha together with a Hipparcos binary for astrometric calibration. Moreover a J band image was taken in March 2007 to get color information. We found CT Cha to have a very faint companion (Ks0=14.6 mag) of ∼2.67” separation corresponding to ∼440AU. We show that CT Cha A and the faint object form a common proper motion pair and that the companion is not a non-moving background object (with 4σ significance).
Study of pool fire heat release rate using video fire detection

To provide fire safety for high performance buildings, various types of fire/smoke detection systems are developed. Video fire detection is one of the important aspects in the development of fire detection system. It is particularly useful in large spaces with high headroom and buildings with cross ventilation design where traditional spot type smoke detection methods may not be effective. For the development of video fire detection system, spatial, spectral and temporal parameters are used to identify the fire source. One of the parameters captured by the video fire detection system is the flame height. With the information of flame height, real time heat release rate of fire can be estimated which is a very important parameter in determining the smoke generation rate and fire severity. Such information is very important in assisting evacuation and smoke control. In this study, experiments of pool fires with different pool diameters of 100mm, 200mm, 300mm and 400mm are conducted in the fire chamber of the laboratory in Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The flame images, room temperatures and mass loss rates of the fuel are measured. The flame images are segmented using multi – threshold algorithm in a modified Otsu method and Rayleigh distribution analysis (modified segmentation algorithm). The algorithm use the optimum threshold values calculated to extract the pool fire images from a video sequence. After segmentation, flame height information can be obtained. In addition, other flame characteristics are also used for recognizing the flame region including flame color, flame light intensity, flame shape, and flicker frequency. Once the flame height is identified by the system, the heat release rate can be estimated using the equation developed by McCaffrey. The calculated heat release rates are then compared with measured heat release rate data. The results show that using flame height image for estimating real time heat release rate is promising.
The Endowment Effect: Rose-Tinted and Dark-Tinted Glasses

The endowment effect, predicted by prospect theory, is a robust finding in behavioral decision theory. Extending recent examinations of the underlying processes, we present evidence for differential perceptions of the traded item, with sellers focusing more on positive features and less on negative features, relative to buyers. In experiment 1, sellers and buyers access information of differing valence in a free recall task. Experiment 2 utilizes error rates and response latencies to demonstrate systematic, and differing, patterns of errors and biases in reactions to valenced stimuli. Experiment 3 utilizes contrast effects to manipulate these foci, thereby moderating the endowment effect. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.
Enhanced Healing of Diabetic Wounds by Topical Administration of Adipose Tissue-Derived Stromal Cells Overexpressing Stromal-Derived Factor-1: Biodistribution and Engraftment Analysis by Bioluminescent Imaging

Chronic ulcers represent a major health problem in diabetic patients resulting in pain and discomfort. Conventional therapy does not guarantee adequate wound repair. In diabetes, impaired healing is partly due to poor endothelial progenitor cells mobilisation and homing, with altered levels of the chemokine stromal-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) at the wound site. Adipose tissue-associated stromal cells (AT-SCs) can provide an accessible source of progenitor cells secreting proangiogenic factors and differentiating into endothelial-like cells. We demonstrated that topical administration of AT-SCs genetically modified ex vivo to overexpress SDF-1, promotes wound healing into diabetic mice. In particular, by in vivo bioluminescent imaging analysis, we monitored biodistribution and survival after transplantation of luciferase-expressing cells. In conclusion, this study indicates the therapeutic potential of AT-SCs administration in wound healing, through cell differentiation, enhanced cellular recruitment at the wound site, and paracrine effects associated with local growth-factors production.
Nutritional Evaluation of a High-Oil Sunflower Meal in Broiler Starter Diets

SUMMARY Two experiments were conducted with broiler chicks to determine the nutritive value of highoil sunflower meal (HO-SFM), a sunflower oil extraction by-product obtained through screw-press extraction and expanding processes with a proximate composition of 32% CP, 12% crude fiber, and 19% ether extract. In Experiment 1, the effects of a high level (46.4%) of HO-SFM on chick performance and gastrointestinal organs were tested. The objective of Experiment 2 was to determine if pelleting the feed could overcome the bulkiness resulting from inclusion of HO-SFM at a high level. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that addition of 46.4% HO-SFM to broiler starter diets significantly (P < 0.05) depressed body weight, feed intake, and gain but not feed conversion. Fat pad and liver lipid were again significantly (P < 0.05) decreased in the HO-SFM treatment. Impaired performance might have been due to the difference of the density of HOSFM diet (608 g/L) compared with the soybean meal control (723 g/L). When bulkiness was overcome by pelleting in Experiment 2, it was found that pelleting the feed significantly enhanced growth of broiler chicks compared with SFM or soybean meal mash diets. Liver weights and lipid content were again decreased in HO-SFM diets. The results of this study suggest that HO-SFM canbeused upto28%withoutadverse effectsonbroilerchicks.Further improvementwasobserved with pelleting. Liver weight and lipid content were consistently reduced by feeding HO-SFM.
Fundamental groups,inverse schützenberger automata,and monoid presentations

This paper gives decidable conditions for when a finitely generated subgroup of a free group is the fundamental group of a Schützenberger automaton corresponding to a monoid presentation of an inverse monoid. Also, generalizations are given to specific types of inverse monoids as well as to monoids which are "nearly inverse. " This result has applications to computing membership for inverse monoids in a Mal'cev product of the pseudovariety of semilattices with a pseudovariety of groups. This paper also shows that there is a bijection between strongly connected inverse automata and subgroups of a free group, generated by positive words. Hence, we also obtain that it is decidable whether a finite strongly connected inverse automaton is a Schützenberger automaton corresponding to a monoid presentation of an inverse monoid. Again, we have generalizations to other types of inverse monoids and to "nearly inverse" monoids. We show that it is undecidable whether a finite strongly connected inverse automaton is a Schützenberger automaton of a monoid presentation of anE-unitary inverse monoid.
Map-aided localization with lateral perception

Accurate localization of a vehicle is a challenging task as GPS available on the market are not designed for lane-level accuracy application. Although dead reckoning helps, cumulative errors from inertial sensors result in a integration drift. This paper presents a new method of localization based on sensors data fusion. An accurate digital map of the lane marking is used as a powerful additional sensor. Road markings are detected by processing two lateral cameras to estimate their distance to the vehicle. Coupled with the map data in a EKF filter it improves the ego-localization obtained with inertial and GPS measurements. The result is a vehicle localization at an ego-lane level of accuracy, with a lateral error of less than 10 centimeters.
Serologic Markers in Relation to Parasite Exposure History Help to Estimate Transmission Dynamics of Plasmodium vivax

Plasmodium vivax infection has been gaining attention because of its re-emergence in several parts of the world. Southeastern Turkey is one of the places in which persistent focal malaria caused exclusively by P. vivax parasites occurs. Although control and elimination studies have been underway for many years, no detailed study has been conducted to understand the mechanisms underlying the ineffective control of malaria in this region. Here, for the first time, using serologic markers we try to extract as much information as possible in this region to get a glimpse of P. vivax transmission. We conducted a sero-immunological study, evaluating antibody responses of individuals living in Sanliurfa to four different P. vivax antigens; three blood-stage antigens (PvMSP119, PvAMA1-ecto, and PvSERA4) and one pre-erythrocytic stage antigen (PvCSP). The results suggest that a prior history of malaria infection and age can be determining factors for the levels and sustainability of naturally acquired antibodies. Significantly higher antibody responses to all the studied antigens were observed in blood smear-negative individuals with a prior history of malaria infection. Moreover, these individuals were significantly older than blood smear-negative individuals with no prior history of infection. These data from an area of sole P. vivax-endemic region may have important implications for the global malaria control/elimination programs and vaccine design.
Identification of a Writer ’ s Native Language by Error Analysis

This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text. This dissertation does not exceed the regulation length of 15, 000 words, including tables and footnotes. Summary In this project, we investigate the task of native language identification. We study a set of Indo-European languages, and demonstrate how machine learning techniques can be used to identify native language of a text's author. A number of different features are extracted and applied to this task. Their contribution to overall performance is investigated and reported. We explore the hypotheses that the choice of words in a free text is influenced by a writer's native language, and that the errors committed by a writer are based on the differences between the writer's native language system and that of English. We identify the error types typical for speakers of different native languages, and show how using different features based on the discriminative error types can improve classification. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Ted Briscoe, for his guidance and constant support. I am grateful for his encouragement and valuable suggestions throughout the course of this work. I would also like to thank Helen Yannakoudakis and Øistein Andersen for their much appreciated help and their ability to identify the weak spots in my work and offer suggestions for improvement.
Multi-document summaries using n-gram graphs : salience and redundancy

This paper describes a summarization system that aims to provide a set of languageindependent and generic methods for generating extractive summaries. The proposed methods are realized as operators to a generic character n-gram graph representation of texts, towards the selection of content and removal of redundancy. This work defines the set of generic operators upon n-gram graphs and proposes a number of ways for using these operators within the summarization process. The experimental results, performed upon widely used corpora from the Document Understanding and the Text Analysis Conferences, are promising, providing evidence for the potential of the generic methods introduced. 2 George Giannakopoulos, George Vouros, Vangelis Karkaletsis
Enhancing Social Life with Path Solvers: Rendezvous without Constraints on Meeting Place and Time

This paper presents a novel approach to help rendezvous between a group of people by means of their own mobile device. The group is dynamically created and consists of pedestrians who take part to a common activity, share a common context and have some kind of social relationship. When the rendezvous is called by a group member, he/she becomes the group leader and a light-weight path-solving algorithm guides all the other group members right away to their leader, who is not constrained to wait in a predefined meeting place, as he becomes the dynamic target of the path solver.
Characterization and Expression of Genes Encoding Three Small Heat Shock Proteins in Sesamia inferens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

The pink stem borer, Sesamia inferens (Walker), is a major pest of rice and is endemic in China and other parts of Asia. Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) encompass a diverse, widespread class of stress proteins that have not been characterized in S. inferens. In the present study, we isolated and characterized three S. inferens genes that encode members of the α-crystallin/sHSP family, namely, Sihsp21.4, Sihsp20.6, and Sihsp19.6. The three cDNAs encoded proteins of 187, 183 and 174 amino acids with calculated molecular weights of 21.4, 20.6 and 19.6 kDa, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequences of the three genes showed strong similarity to sHSPs identified in other lepidopteran insects. Sihsp21.4 contained an intron, but Sihsp20.6 and Sihsp19.6 lacked introns. Real-time quantitative PCR analyses revealed that Sihsp21.4 was most strongly expressed in S. inferens heads; Whereas expression of Sihsp20.6 and Sihsp19.6 was highest in eggs. The three S. inferens sHSP genes were up-regulated during low temperature stress. In summary, our results show that S. inferens sHSP genes have distinct regulatory roles in the physiology of S. inferens.
JSSDR: Joint-Sparse Sensory Data Recovery in wireless sensor networks

Data loss is ubiquitous in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) mainly due to the unreliable wireless transmission, which results in incomplete sensory data sets. However, the completeness of a data set directly determines its availability and usefulness. Thus, sensory data recovery is an indispensable operation against the data loss problem. However, existing solutions cannot achieve satisfactory accuracy due to special loss patterns and high loss rates in WSNs. In this work, we propose a novel sensory data recovery algorithm which exploits the spatial and temporal joint-sparse feature. Firstly, by mining two real datasets, namely the Intel Indoor project and the GreenOrbs project, we find that: (1) for one attribute, sensory readings at nearby nodes exhibit inter-node correlation; (2) for two attributes, sensory readings at the same node exhibit inter-attribute correlation; (3) these inter-node and inter-attribute correlations can be modeled as the spatial and temporal joint-sparse features, respectively. Secondly, motivated by these observations, we propose two Joint-Sparse Sensory Data Recovery (JSSDR) algorithms to promote the recovery accuracy. Finally, real data-based simulations show that JSSDR outperforms existing solutions. Typically, when the loss rate is less than 65%, JSSDR can estimate missing values with less than 10% error. And when the loss rate reaches as high as 80%, the missing values can be estimated by JSSDR with less than 20% error.
Functional, c-myc-tagged Cf-9 resistance gene products are plasma-membrane localized and glycosylated.

The Cf-9 resistance gene from tomato confers resistance to races of the fungal pathogen Cladosporium fulvum that express the corresponding avirulence gene, Avr9. Avr9 encodes a secreted peptide. To investigate Cf-9 function, we tagged the Cf-9 protein with a triple myc epitope at either the amino- or carboxy-terminus of the mature protein. Tobacco plants carrying these constructs activate a defence response to Avr9 peptide. The Cf-9 sequence predicts a protein of 94 kDa, with 22 glycosylation sites. Using c-myc antibodies, c-myc : Cf-9 protein was detected as a unique band with a molecular size of 160 kDa. The band shifted to approximately 105 kDa after glucosidase treatment, indicating that Cf-9 protein is highly glycosylated. Plasma membranes were isolated using two-phase partitioning, and c-myc : Cf-9 was enriched in these fractions, indicating that Cf-9 is a plasma membrane protein. This was confirmed by silver-enhanced immunogold labelling of tobacco protoplasts carrying the amino-terminal c-myc tag; a higher labelling density was observed on the surface of protoplasts derived from c-myc : Cf-9 tobacco compared to untransformed control. The presence of Cf-9 in the plasma membrane is consistent with its role in conferring recognition of the extracellular Avr9 peptide.
Modeling coherence in mixed-initiative dialogues based on Conversational Acts Theory

In corpus-based response generation, dialogue utterances and strategies are constructed in the form of dialogue models. Previous approaches in dialogue modeling are based on speech acts at different level of abstractions, but often constructed as grammar-based. This paper presents modeling dialogue utterances and strategies based on Conversational Acts Theory. In this approach, learning is more intuitive in the sense that response utterance should robustly satisfy the intention of input utterance. At the same time the response must maintain coherence and relevance, regardless of the surface presentation. This means response generation is constrained by the content of intentions, rather than the lexicons and grammar. Modeling the coherence is performed on a mixed-initiative, transaction dialogue corpus of 64 conversations in theater information and reservation system.
What Do You Expect? Imperfect Policy Credibility and Tests of the Expectations Hypothesis

The expectations hypothesis is a theory of the term structure of interest rates that describes a conventional view of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. According to the expectations hypothesis, bond rates are related to current and expected movements in the policy-controlled rate. However, empirical rejections of the expectations hypothesis are commonplace and lead many to question this description of policy transmission. This paper argues that failure to account for imperfect policy credibility may explain empirical rejections. Empirical rejections may occur even when changing anticipations of future short rates are the primary source of variation in bond rates and the standard term structure transmission channel remains valid.
Isotropy and visual modulation of haptic force direction discrimination on the human finger

In this review, we summarize the findings from two recent studies that have investigated haptic force direction discrimination thresholds in adult humans. Haptic force vectors originating from one of five different force directions were presented to the index finger of participants. Discrimination thresholds were measured using a three-interval one-up threedown adaptive procedure. In contrast to the literature on the anisotropy of haptic perception, the results of the two experiments suggest that the acuity of the haptic perception of force direction is not directionally dependent. This review paper also examines the relative contributions of haptic and visual information to the generation of coherent multisensory percepts.
Speechreading in context: an ERP study

Aim - To determine whether single-word speechreading is sensitive to prior phrase context. Background - We used a well-established Event Related Potential (ERP) paradigm to elicit the N400, a negative wave around 400 ms. The N400 reflects activation by lexical semantic features and is modulated by contextual integration. Methods - Seventeen adult native English speakers participated. They were shown written three-word contexts followed by a final word (cloze) presented as a silent video clip. Context and cloze formed typical phrases (60 trials, e.g. “No smoke without fire”) and anomalous phrases (120 trials, e.g. “Two of a trade”). Subjects were instructed to identify the cloze at the end of each trial. Typicality (typical/anomalous) and accuracy were used to classify trials. ERPs were computed off-line by averaging epochs aligned to the onset of articulatory movements. Results and discussion - For all four conditions, reliable evoked activity emerged only after 500 ms postonset. Topographical analysis revealed a symmetrical sustained negative field at the frontal sites and positive field at the posterior sites. Statistical comparisons showed that only the waveform for the typical-correct condition differed from the other three. The difference, however, was not compatible with an N400. This finding suggests that the speechreading process integrates lexical semantic features differently from spoken and written language perception. We speculate on those cognitive mechanisms which may be responsible for the observed effects. Index Terms: speechreading, ERP, linguistic context 1. Aim This experiment sought to determine whether the process of single-word speechreading, as indexed by ERP responses, is sensitive to prior phrase context. If visual speech is processed in a similar way to written and spoken (auditory) language, then the characteristic ERP signature for out-of-context words should be present also in the visual speech modality. Topographical analysis and statistical comparison of the ERP waveforms were the main measures used to test the hypothesis.
Investigation of antitumor effects of sorafenib and lapatinib alone and in combination on MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

BACKGROUND Breast cancer evolution and tumor progression are controlled by complex interactions between steroid receptors and growth factor receptor signaling. Aberrant growth factor receptor signaling can augment or suppress estrogen receptor function in hormone-dependent breast cancer cells. Thus, we aimed to investigate antitumor effects of sorafenib and lapatinib alone and in combination on MCF-7 breast cancer cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS Cytotoxicity of the sorafenib and lapatinib was tested in MCF-7 cells by XTT assays. 50, 25, 12.5 and 6. 25μM concentrations of sorafenib and 200, 100, 50 and 25μM concentrations of lapatinib were administered alone and in combination. Results were evaluated as absorbance at 450nM and IC50 values are calculated according to the absorbance data RESULTS Both sorafenib and lapatinib showed concentration dependent cytotoxic effects on MCF-7 cells. Sorafenib exerted cytotoxic effects with an IC50 value of 32. 0μM; in contrast with lapatinib the IC50 was 136. 6μM. When sorafenib and lapatinib combined, lapatinib increased cytotoxic effects of sorafenib at its ineffective concentrations. Also at the concentrations where both drugs had cytotoxic effects, combination show strong anticancer effects and killed approximately 70 percent of breast cancer cells. CONCLUSIONS Combinations of tyrosine kinase inhibitors and cytotoxic agents or molecular targeted therapy has been successful for many types of cancer. The present study shows that both sorafenib and lapatinib alone are effective in the treatment of breast cancer. Also a combination of these two agents may be a promising therapeutic option in treatment of breast cancer.