Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generating Personalized Summaries Using Publicly Available Web Documents

Many knowledge workers are increasingly using online resources to find out latest developments in their specialty and articles of interest. To extract relevant information from such multiple online information sources summarization is being used. Current summarization systems produce a uniform version of summary for all users. However summaries which are generic in nature do not cater to the userpsilas background and interests. In this paper we propose to make the summarization process user specific and present a design for generating personalized summaries of online articles that are tailored to each personpsilas interest. The userpsilas data available on Web is used for model their background and interest. A controlled user-centered qualitative evaluation carried out on news articles of science and technology domain, indicates better user satisfaction with personalized summaries compared to generic summaries.
Wideband Spectrum Sensing Order for Cognitive Radios with Sensing Errors and Channel SNR Probing Uncertainty

A secondary user (SU) seeks to transmit by sequentially sensing statistically independent primary user (PU) channels. If a channel is sensed free, it is probed to estimate the signal-to-noise ratio between the SU transmitter-receiver pair over the channel. We jointly optimize the channel sensing time, the sensing decision threshold, the channel probing time, together with the channel sensing order under imperfect synchronization between the PU and the SU. The sensing and probing times and the decision threshold are assumed to be the same for all channels. We maximize a utility function related to the SU throughput under the constraint that the collision probability with the PU is kept below a certain value and taking sensing errors into account. We illustrate the optimal policy and the variation of SU throughput with various system parameters.
Shallow Information Extraction for the knowledge Web

A new breed of Information Extraction tools has become popular and shown to be very effective in building massive-scale knowledge bases that fuel applications such as question answering and semantic search. These approaches rely on Web-scale probabilistic models populated through shallow language processing of the text, pre-existing knowledge, and structured data already on the Web. This tutorial provides an introduction to these techniques, starting from the foundations of information extraction, and covering some of its key applications.
Observations of a Shared Tabletop User Study

We present observational user study findings of UbiTable, a multi-user interactive table top that provides walk-up wireless connections for multiple personal devices. UbiTable offers shared interactions that allow writing, annotating, drawing, copying, and the transferring of content amoung the tabletop and associated user devices. Out findings uncovered general design considerations and tradeoffs in the area of multi-user audio feedback, document ownership, and crossdevice document transfer in multi-device multi-user co-located computational environment. CSCW
Cardiovascular Complications of Diabetes Mellitus in Sub-Saharan Africa

Background— Cardiovascular disease, the major cause of mortality and morbidity in modern societies, is set to overtake infectious diseases in the developing world as the most common cause of death. The increasing prevalence of major and emerging cardiovascular risk factors accounts for the growing burden of cardiovascular disease in the world. Diabetes in all its forms is one of the main cardiovascular risk factors. Two of 3 diabetic patients will die as a result of cardiovascular complications, and approximately 30% of patients treated in cardiovascular intensive care units have diabetes. Methods and Results— This review on the cardiovascular complications of diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa is a bibliographical MEDLINE search of published data over the past 2 decades. Diabetes-related cardiovascular disease complications are considered to be rare in Africa but are on the rise and are regularly associated with classic cardiovascular risk factors. Coronary heart disease may affect 5% to 8% of type 2 diabetic patients and cardiomyopathy, up to 50% of all patients. Close to 15% of patients with stroke have diabetes, and up to 5% of diabetic patients present with cerebrovascular accidents at diagnosis. Peripheral vascular disease prevalence varies across sites from 4% to 28%. Conclusions— It is obvious that diabetes mellitus and related cardiovascular complications are gaining more importance in sub-Saharan Africa. The relative contribution of putative risk factors is not well defined, and further research is therefore needed.
Automatic Classification of Microstructures in Thermal Barrier Coating Images

Thermal plasma spraying is an important manufacturing technique that creates a thermal barrier coating to protect the surface underneath from wear, erosion, oxidation and corrosion. In this paper, we develop a new microstructure classification and quantification (MCQ) module that could fully automatically classify and quantify two types of microstructures, globular and interlamellar, in the top coat layer of thermal barrier coating images captured from light microscope. The MCQ module utilizes the masks obtained from the Thermal Barrier Coating Porosity Measurement (TBCPM) framework and applies the morphological filtering of erosion to the images to differentiate globular and interlamellar that are physically distinct and are eroded away at a different rate. The microstructures exhibit complicated spatial relations, for example, a segment might contain microstructures of both types. To deal with this difficulty, we build a forest of hierarchical trees of segments when eroding the images and then traverse this forest of the trees in post order following a carefully designed rule to determine if two neighboring segments should be merged. Our experimental results on the synthesized images with non-overlapping and overlapping segments show an average accuracy of 98.77% and 93.12% respectively.
Causal inquiry in the social sciences : the promise of process tracing

In this thesis I investigate causal inquiry in the social sciences, drawing on examples from various disciplines and in particular from conflict studies. In a backlash against the pervasiveness of statistical methods, in the last decade certain social scientists have focused on finding the causal mechanisms behind observed correlations. To provide evidence for such mechanisms, researchers increasingly rely on ‘process tracing’, a method which attempts to give evidence for causal relations by specifying the chain of events connecting a putative cause and effect of interest. I will ask whether the causal claims process tracers make are defensible, and where they are not defensible I will ask how we can improve the method. Throughout these investigations, I show that the conclusions of process tracing (and indeed ofthe social sciences more generally) are constrained both by the causal structure ofthe social world and by social scientists’ aims and values. My central argument is this: all instances of social phenomena have causally relevant differences, which implies that any research design that requires some comparison between cases (like process tracing) is limited by how we systematize these phenomena. Moreover, such research cannot rely on stable regularities. Nevertheless, to forego causal conclusions altogether is not the right response to these limitations; by carefully outlining our epistemic assumptions we can make progress in causal inquiry. While I use philosophical theories of causation to comment on the feasibility of a social scientific method, I also do the reverse: by investigating a popular contemporary method in the social sciences, I show to what extent our philosophical theories of causation are workable in practice. Thus, this thesis is both a methodological and a philosophical work. Every chapter discusses both a fundamental philosophical position on the social sciences and a relevant case study from the social sciences.
HYDROGEN GREENHOUSE PLANETS BEYOND THE HABITABLE ZONE

We show that collision-induced absorption allows molecular hydrogen to act as an incondensible greenhouse gas and that bars or tens of bars of primordial H2–He mixtures can maintain surface temperatures above the freezing point of water well beyond the “classical” habitable zone defined for CO2 greenhouse atmospheres. Using a one-dimensional radiative–convective model, we find that 40 bars of pure H2 on a three Earth-mass planet can maintain a surface temperature of 280 K out to 1.5 AU from an early-type M dwarf star and 10 AU from a G-type star. Neglecting the effects of clouds and of gaseous absorbers besides H2, the flux at the surface would be sufficient for photosynthesis by cyanobacteria (in the G star case) or anoxygenic phototrophs (in the M star case). We argue that primordial atmospheres of one to several hundred bars of H2–He are possible and use a model of hydrogen escape to show that such atmospheres are likely to persist further than 1.5 AU from M stars, and 2 AU from G stars, assuming these planets have protecting magnetic fields. We predict that the microlensing planet OGLE-05-390Lb could have retained an H2–He atmosphere and be habitable at ∼2.6 AU from its host M star.
Guidelines for the Development and Incorporation of Biomarker Studies in Early Clinical Trials of Novel Agents

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Investigational Drug Steering Committee (IDSC) charged the Biomarker Task Force to develop recommendations to improve the decisions about incorporation of biomarker studies in early investigational drug trials. The Task Force members reviewed biomarker trials, the peer-reviewed literature, NCI and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance documents, and conducted a survey of investigators to determine practices and challenges to executing biomarker studies in clinical trials of new drugs in early development. This document provides standard definitions and categories of biomarkers, and lists recommendations to sponsors and investigators for biomarker incorporation into such trials. Our recommendations for sponsors focus on the identification and prioritization of biomarkers and assays, the coordination of activities for the development and use of assays, and for operational activities. We also provide recommendations for investigators developing clinical trials with biomarker studies for scientific rationale, assay criteria, trial design, and analysis. The incorporation of biomarker studies into early drug trials is complex. Thus the decision to proceed with studies of biomarkers should be based on balancing the strength of science, assay robustness, feasibility, and resources with the burden of proper sample collection on the patient and potential impact of the results on drug development. The Task Force provides these guidelines in the hopes that improvements in biomarker studies will enhance the efficiency of investigational drug development. Clin Cancer Res; 16(6); 1745–55
Black and White Men at Risk for Memory Impairment

BackgroundBlacks are under-represented in government-funded research. Epidemiological data indicate that morbidity and mortality in the United States are higher in Blacks than in Whites. ObjectiveTo examine memory performance in a sample of Black and White healthy men 70 years of age and older. MethodSixty-nine (24 Black, 45 White) men participated in a study of memory performance. All individuals lived either in private homes or subsidized high-rise apartments. ResultsBlack men had higher anxiety about their memories, used fewer internal and external memory strategies, and had less confidence and less understanding of their everyday memory than White men. Based on their depression scores, more Black men (35%) were at risk for depression than White men (10%). Even though there were no differences in the numbers of men who lived alone, White men were five times more likely to be married and live with a spouse (27 vs. 5). ConclusionIn this sample of Black and White men, there were no differences in actual memory performance, but significant differences were found in the subjective aspects of memory evaluation.
Real-time bipedal walking adjustment modes using Truncated Fourier Series formulation

This paper presents three basic bipedal walking gait adjustment modes: stride-frequency adjustment, step-length adjustment and biped lower extremities' pattern adjustment. All the adjustment modes are based on the simple Fourier series formulation named as Truncated Fourier Series (TFS) model newly proposed as a walking pattern generator. Making use of these three gait adjustment modes, bipedal walking can be modified in real-time adaptive to the environment changes and resemble human walking response and features. Through dynamic walking simulations under various conditions, the gait adjustment modes are shown to be effective for adaptive walking on uneven terrains and real-time walking pace adjustment.
Energy Landscape and Global Optimization for a Frustrated Model Protein

The three-color (BLN) 69-residue model protein was designed to exhibit frustrated folding. We investigate the energy landscape of this protein using disconnectivity graphs and compare it to a Go̅ model, which is designed to reduce the frustration by removing all non-native attractive interactions. Finding the global minimum on a frustrated energy landscape is a good test of global optimization techniques, and we present calculations evaluating the performance of basin-hopping and genetic algorithms for this system. Comparisons are made with the widely studied 46-residue BLN protein. We show that the energy landscape of the 69-residue BLN protein contains several deep funnels, each of which corresponds to a different β-barrel structure.
Myocardial resistance assessed by guidewire‐based pressure‐temperature measurement: In vitro validation

By injecting a few cubic centimeters of saline into the coronary artery and using thermodilution principles, mean transit time (Tmn) of the injectate can be calculated and is inversely proportional to coronary blood flow. Because microvascular resistance equals distal coronary pressure (Pd) divided by myocardial flow, the product Pd · Tmn provides an index of myocardial resistance (IMR). In this in vitro study in a physiologic model of the coronary circulation, we compared IMR to true myocardial resistance (TMR) at different degrees of myocardial resistance and at different degrees of epicardial stenosis. Absolute blood flow was varied from 42 to 203 ml/min and TMR varied from 0.39 to 1.63 dynes · sec/cm5. Inverse mean transit time correlated well to absolute blood flow (R2 = 0.93). Furthermore, an excellent correlation was found between IMR and TMR (R2 = 0.94). IMR was independent on the severity of epicardial stenosis and thus specific for myocardial resistance. Thus, using one single guidewire, both fractional flow reserve and IMR can be measured simultaneously as indexes of epicardial and microvascular disease, respectively, enabling separate assessment of both coronary arterial and microvascular disease. Catheter Cardiovasc Interv 2004; 62:56–63. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Development of a Near Ground Remote Sensing System

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have shown great potential in agriculture and are increasingly being developed for agricultural use. There are still a lot of experiments that need to be done to improve their performance and explore new uses, but experiments using UAVs are limited by many conditions like weather and location and the time it takes to prepare for a flight. To promote UAV remote sensing, a near ground remote sensing platform was developed. This platform consists of three major parts: (1) mechanical structures like a horizontal rail, vertical cylinder, and three axes gimbal; (2) power supply and control parts; (3) onboard application components. This platform covers five degrees of freedom (DOFs): horizontal, vertical, pitch, roll, yaw. A stm32 ARM single chip was used as the controller of the whole platform and another stm32 MCU was used to stabilize the gimbal. The gimbal stabilizer communicates with the main controller via a CAN bus. A multispectral camera was mounted on the gimbal. Software written in C++ language was developed as the graphical user interface. Operating parameters were set via this software and the working status was displayed in this software. To test how well the system works, a laser distance meter was used to measure the slide rail’s repeat accuracy. A 3-axis vibration analyzer was used to test the system stability. Test results show that the horizontal repeat accuracy was less than 2 mm; vertical repeat accuracy was less than 1 mm; vibration was less than 2 g and remained at an acceptable level. This system has high accuracy and stability and can therefore be used for various near ground remote sensing studies.
The breast cancer-associated stromelysin-3 gene is expressed during mouse mammary gland apoptosis

We have cloned from a mouse placenta cDNA library a mouse homologue of the human stromelysin-3 (ST3) cDNA, which codes for a putative matrix metalloproteinase expressed in breast carcinomas. The ST3 protein is well conserved between humans and mice, and the pattern of ST3 gene expression is similar in both species, and shows expression in the placenta, in the uterus, and during limb bud morphogenesis. We show that the ST3 gene can also be expressed in the normal mouse mammary gland. ST3 gene expression was not detected during mammary growth, neither in virgin nor in pregnant mice, but was specifically observed during postlactating involution of the gland, an apoptotic process associated with intense extracellular matrix remodeling. ST3 transcripts were found in fibroblasts immediately surrounding degenerative ducts, suggesting that ST3 gene expression may be associated with the basement membrane dissolution, which occurs during mammary gland involution. Since the ST3 gene is also specifically expressed in fibroblastic cells surrounding invasive neoplastic cells of breast carcinomas, we suggest that ST3 is implicated in extracellular matrix remodeling processes common to mammary apoptosis and breast cancer progression.
Tree-based Shape Descriptor for scalable logo detection

Detecting logos in real-world images is a great challenging task due to a variety of viewpoint or light condition changes and real-time requirements in practice. Conventional object detection methods, e.g., part-based model, may suffer from expensively computational cost if it was directly applied to this task. A promising alternative, triangle structural descriptor associated with matching strategy, offers an efficient way of recognizing logos. However, the descriptor fails to the rotation of logo images that often occurs when viewpoint changes. To overcome this shortcoming, we propose a new Tree-based Shape Descriptor (TSD) in this paper, which is strictly invariant to affine transformation in real-world images. The core of proposed descriptor is to encode the shape of logos by depicting both appearance and spatial information of four local key-points. In the training stage, an efficient algorithm is introduced to mine a discriminate subset of four tuples from all possible key-point combinations. Moreover, a root indexing scheme is designed to enable to detect multiple logos simultaneously. Extensive experiments on three benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of proposed approach over state-of-the-art methods.
The design and implementation of SPIRIT: a spatially aware search engine for information retrieval on the Internet

Much of the information stored on the web contains geographical context, but current search engines treat such context in the same way as all other content. In this paper we describe the design, implementation and evaluation of a spatially aware search engine which is capable of handling queries in the form of the triplet of ⟨theme⟩⟨spatial relationship⟩⟨location⟩. The process of identifying geographic references in documents and assigning appropriate footprints to documents, to be stored together with document terms in an appropriate indexing structure allowing real‐time search, is described. Methods allowing users to query and explore results which have been relevance‐ranked in terms of both thematic and spatial relevance have been implanted and a usability study indicates that users are happy with the range of spatial relationships available and intuitively understand how to use such a search engine. Normalised precision for 38 queries, containing four types of spatial relationships, is significantly higher (p<0.001) for searches exploiting spatial information than pure text search.
Deadline-sensitive User Recruitment for mobile crowdsensing with probabilistic collaboration

Mobile crowdsensing is a new paradigm in which a group of mobile users exploit their smart devices to cooperatively perform a large-scale sensing job over urban environments. In this paper, we focus on the Deadline-sensitive User Recruitment (DUR) problem for probabilistically collaborative mobile crowdsensing. Unlike previous works, mobile users in this problem perform sensing tasks with probabilities, and multiple users might be recruited to cooperatively perform a common task, ensuring that the expected completion time is no larger than a deadline. Owing to such a probabilistic collaboration, DUR can be formalized as a non-trivial set cover problem with non-linear programming constraints and an optimization objective of real function. We first prove that the DUR problem is NP-hard. Then, we propose a greedy DUR algorithm, called gDUR, to solve this problem. Next, we prove that the gDUR algorithm can achieve a logarithmic approximation ratio. Furthermore, we extend the problem to a more complex case where sensing duration is taken into consideration, and we propose a sensing-duration-aware user recruitment algorithm, called dDUR. Finally, we validate the performance of the proposed algorithms through extensive simulations, based on a real mobile social network trace and a synthetic trace.
Multirobot coordination by auctioning POMDPs

We consider the problem of task assignment and execution in multirobot systems, by proposing a procedure for bid estimation in auction protocols. Auctions are of interest to multirobot systems because they provide a flexible way to coordinate the assignment of tasks to robots. The main idea is to exploit task execution controllers that rely on the availability of value functions. These provide a natural way to obtain the bid values for a given task, compared to the heuristic and ad-hoc bid estimation procedures in common use. The Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) framework is used to compute policies for the execution of tasks by each agent, with the task bid values obtained directly from the respective value functions. Several simulation examples are presented for an urban surveillance environment, illustrating the applicability of our ideas.
Role of Testis-Specific Gene Expression in Sex-Chromosome Evolution of Anopheles gambiae

Gene expression in Anopheles gambiae shows a deficiency of testis-expressed genes on the X chromosome associated with an excessive movement of retrogene duplication. We suggest that the degeneration of sex chromosomes in this monandrous species is likely the result of pressures from X inactivation, dosage compensation, and sexual antagonism.