Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How does the scaling for the polymer chain in the dissipative particle dynamics hold

We performed a series of simulations for a linear polymer chain in a solvent using dissipative particle dynamics to check the scaling relations for the end-to-end distance, radius of gyration and hydrodynamic radius in three dimensions. The polymer chains of up to 80 beads in explicit solvent of various quality are studied. To extract the scaling exponent \nu, the data are analyzed using linear fits, correction-to-scaling forms and analytical fits to the histograms of radius of gyration distribution. For certain combinations of the polymer characteristics and solvent quality, the correction-to-scaling terms are found to be essential while for the others these are negligibly small. In each particular case the final value for the exponent \nu was chosen according to the best least-squares fit. The values of \nu obtained in this way are found within the interval \nu=0.55-0.61 but are concentrated mostly around 0.59, which is very close to the best known theoretical result \nu=0.588. The existence of this interval is attributed both to the peculiarities of the method and to the moderate chain lengths being simulated. Within this shortcoming, the polymer chain in this kind of modeling is found to satisfy the scaling relations for all three radii being considered
Real Time Detection of Eye Corners and Iris Center from Images Acquired by Usual Camera

A precise iris center and eye corners detection algorithm for gaze tracking is proposed. The work is based on the common web camera under the natural light condition instead of the infrared illumination. The algorithm includes two parts. Firstly, the face region is detected by Adaboost method, Active Appearance Models is used to locate the rough area of the eyes. Secondly, an improved local integral algorithm based on Ahlberg’s method is proposed to locate the iris center and eye corners in the eye region. The features in a blink image are estimated by comparing with the consecutive images. This method provides a potential application in the gaze based aids tools for disabled people like the cerebral palsy.
Changes in gene expression near evolutionary breakpoints

We study the relation between genome rearrangements, breakpoints and gene expression. Genome rearrangement research has been concerned with the creation of breakpoints and their position in the chromosome, but the functional consequences of individual breakpoints remain virtually unknown, and there are no direct genome-wide studies of breakpoints from this point of view. A question arises of what the biological consequences of breakpoint creation are, rather than just their structural aspects. The question is whether proximity to the site of a breakpoint event changes the activity of a gene. We investigate this by comparing the distribution of distances to the nearest breakpoint of genes that are differentially expressed with the distribution of the same distances for the entire gene complement. We study this in data on whole blood tissue in human versus macaque, and in cerebral cortex tissue in human versus chimpanzee. We find in both data sets that the distribution of distances to the nearest breakpoint of "changed expression genes" differs little from this distance calculated for the rest of the gene complement. In focusing on the changed expression genes closest to the breakpoints, however, we discover that several of these have previously been implicated in the literature as being connected to the evolutionary divergence of humans from other primates.
Genomic and Functional Characterization of qnr-Encoding Plasmids from Municipal Wastewater Biosolid Klebsiella pneumoniae Isolates

Municipal wastewater treatment facilities are considered to be “hotspots” for antibiotic resistance, since they conjoin high densities of environmental and fecal bacteria with selective pressure in the form of sub-therapeutic concentrations of antibiotics. Discharged effluents and biosolids from these facilities can disseminate antibiotic resistant genes to terrestrial and aquatic environments, potentially contributing to the increasing global trend in antibiotic resistance. This phenomenon is especially pertinent when resistance genes are associated with mobile genetic elements such as conjugative plasmids, which can be transferred between bacterial phyla. Fluoroquinolones are among the most abundant antibiotic compounds detected in wastewater treatment facilities, especially in biosolids, where due to their hydrophobic properties they accumulate to concentrations that may exceed 40 mg/L. Although fluoroquinolone resistance is traditionally associated with mutations in the gyrA/topoisomerase IV genes, there is increasing evidence of plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance, which is primarily encoded on qnr genes. In this study, we sequenced seven qnr-harboring plasmids from a diverse collection of Klebsiella strains, isolated from dewatered biosolids from a large wastewater treatment facility in Israel. One of the plasmids, termed pKPSH-11XL was a large (185.4 kbp), multi-drug resistance, IncF-type plasmid that harbored qnrB and 10 additional antibiotic resistance genes that conferred resistance to five different antibiotic families. It was highly similar to the pKPN3-like plasmid family that has been detected in multidrug resistant clinical Klebsiella isolates. In contrast, the six additional plasmids were much smaller (7–9 Kbp) and harbored a qnrS -type gene. These plasmids were highly similar to each other and closely resembled pGNB2, a plasmid isolated from a German wastewater treatment facility. Comparative genome analyses of pKPSH-11XL and other pKPN3-like plasmids concomitant to phylogenetic analysis of housekeeping genes from host Klebsiella strains, revealed that these plasmids are limited to a predominantly human-associated sub-clade of Klebsiella, suggesting that their host range is very narrow. Conversely, the pGNB2-like plasmids had a much broader host range and appeared to be associated with Klebsiella residing in natural environments. This study suggests that: (A) qnrB-harboring multidrug-resistant pKPN3-like plasmids can endure the rigorous wastewater treatment process and may therefore be disseminated to downstream environments; and (B) that small qnrS-harboring pGNB2-like plasmids are ubiquitous in wastewater treatment facilities and are most likely environmental in origin.
Effects of salinity changes on the photodegradation and ultraviolet—visible absorbance of terrestrial dissolved organic matter

We performed laboratory studies to determine the effects of salinity on the photodegradation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) from the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia, an important source of terrestrial DOM to the lower Chesapeake Bay. Samples were created by mixing Great Dismal Swamp water (ionic strength ~ 0 mol L‐1) with modified artificial seawater solutions of differing salinities while keeping the final dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration constant. These samples were then irradiated for 24 h in a light box providing ultraviolet (UV) light similar to that of natural sunlight. Light absorbance and DOC concentrations decreased after photoexposure, whereas dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations increased. Variations in salinity affected both DIC production and UV absorption, with the higher salinity samples showing lower DIC production and less photobleaching. Addition of an iron chelator eliminated the relationship between photochemistry and salinity by reducing both photobleaching and DIC production at low salinities. As terrigenous DOM transits through an estuary, its photochemical reactivity and optical properties may change significantly as a function of salinity, probably as a result of changes in DOM conformation or changes in iron‐ DOM photochemistry, or both.
Exploring in partial views: Prediction of 3D shapes from partial scans

Recognition of shapes in the three dimensions is a challenging task when point clouds are at the input. Recognition from partial pieces is another challenging task in general. Recognizing objects from partial 3D data is a strong need in industrial automation, autonomous driving, cooperative robot systems including machine-machine and machine-human interactions and in surveillance. This papers investigates the needs and requirements of a system detecting partial point clouds of possible objects, and it proposes a new solution, including local scale estimation, key-point detection and local structure definition for building a 3D recognition or prediction framework.
Latent Learning in Agents

Various cognitive models have been proposed to determine optimal paths in spatial navigation tasks, some of which demonstrate latent learning in Agents. We view and present the model as a Reinforcement Learning problem by using QLearning and Model-Based Learning in a deterministic environment. This paper uses a QLearning algorithm and compares its performance with the Dyna (Model based) algorithm on Blocking and Shortcut problems. We conclude that using Model-Based Reinforcement learning provides an interesting and efficient solution to blocking and shortcut problems and that the agent demonstrates Latent Learning.
Interaction between Paraphraser and Transfer for Spoken Language Translation (自然言語処理特集号「言い換え」)

One of the problems in spoken language translation is the enormous variety of expressions not found in text translation. This volume can lead to a sparse translation coverage. In order to tackle this problem, we propose a machine translation model where an input is translated through both source-language and target-language paraphrasing processes. In this paper, we discuss the source paraphrasing and the language transfer processes, and the design of our translation model. In the source language paraphrasing, we take the practical approach of untangling slight variations in the source language before transferring a source expression to its target. We discuss how effective our paraphrasing process is in the sense of reducing varieties in a spoken language, with a focus on how many source language patterns are reduced by paraphrasing. In the translation model, we propose an interaction model between the source language paraphraser and the transfer, unlike the conventional assembly-line process flow. In our evaluation we illustrate that over 70% of the input utterances is expected to somehow be changed. Accordingly, we can achieve that one-fifth of all skeleton expressions can be merged into other skeletons, that increases chances of correct translations being obtained. Furthermore, we observe that our interaction model with the paraphraser increases 20-40 percentage points of translation capability, regardless of the transfer knowledge size.
Surface Electromyography Based Finger Flexion Recognition

Great effort is being taken since the last decade to make control interfaces for machines and robots less complicated and more natural, by taking signals directly from the body. This requires highly accurate signal interpretation. Researches have shown that electromyographic signals obtained from skeletal muscles can give very accurate information regarding limb movements, that can be used in human robot interface. In this paper, a novel approach toward classifying finger movements using surface Electromyography (sEMG) is discussed. Higuchi fractal dimensions and auto-regressive modeling are employed for extracting suitable features from a 6-channel EMG signal acquired indigenously using self-designed data acquisition hardware and classified using Multi Class Support Vector Machine. An average accuracy of 95.2% has been obtained.
A Convenient Method for the Synthesis of (Prop-2-Ynyloxy)Benzene Derivatives via Reaction with Propargyl Bromide, Their Optimization, Scope and Biological Evaluation

A highly convenient method has been developed for the synthesis of (prop-2-ynyloxy) benzene and its derivatives. Differently substituted phenol and aniline derivatives were allowed to react with propargyl bromide in the presence of K2CO3 base and acetone as solvent. The compounds were synthesized in good yields (53–85%). Low cost, high yields and easy availability of compounds helped in the synthesis. Electron withdrawing groups favor the formation of stable phenoxide ion thus in turn favors the formation of product while electron donating groups do not favor the reaction. Phenol derivatives gave good yields as compared to that of aniline. As aprotic polar solvents favor SN2 type reactions so acetone provided best solvation for the reactions. K2CO3 was proved to be good for the synthesis. Antibacterial, Antiurease and NO scavenging activity of synthesized compounds were also examined. 4-bromo-2-chloro-1-(prop-2-ynyloxy)benzene 2a was found most active compound against urease enzyme with a percentage inhibition of 82.00±0.09 at 100 µg/mL with IC50 value of 60.2. 2-bromo-4-methyl-1-(prop-2-ynyloxy)benzene 2d was found potent antibacterial against Bacillus subtillus showing excellent inhibitory action with percentage inhibition of 55.67±0.26 at 100 µg/ml wih IC50 value of 79.9. Based on results, it can be concluded that some of the synthesized compounds may have potential antiurease and antibacterial effects against several harmful substances.
Homological localizations of Eilenberg–MacLane spectra

Abstract We discuss the Bousfield localization LEX for any spectrum E and any HR-module X, where R is a ring with unit. Due to the splitting property of HR-modules, it is enough to study localizations of Eilenberg–MacLane spectra. Using general results about stable localizations, we give a method to compute the localization LEHG for any spectrum E and any abelian group G, and describe it explicitly when G belongs to certain classes of abelian groups. The results depend basically on the E-acyclicity patterns of Hℚ and Hℤ/p for each prime p, as in earlier work of Bousfield in the unstable case.
Design and fabrication of tunable microstrip antenna using photodiode as optical switching controlled by Infrared

In this paper, design, fabrication, and characterization new tunable microstrip antenna using photodiode as optical switching has been proposed. The proposed antenna is fabricated in FR-4 substrate 4.8 relative permittivity value. The dimension of the substrate is 47 mm × 75 mm × 1.6 mm. The measurement result indicates that, if photodiode unilluminated by Infrared (OFF state) the proposed antenna works at frequency 4400 MHz with S11 value -16 dB. Meanwhile, if photodiode is illuminated by Infrared (ON state), antenna works at a frequency of 4500 MHz with S11 value - 15 dB. There was a shift of 100 MHz of resonant frequency and -1 dB in S11 value. The proposed antenna are more easily fabricated and the switching methods more simple than other techniques. Also, the cost is relatively cheaper than the other techniques of optical switching.
Question categorization for a question answering system using a vector space model

The purpose of the thesis is to assign questions to sense categories, where the sense categories are represented by predefined paraphrase sets of questions. The paraphrase sets are available for each domain in the Question Answering system and consist of different framings of questions that will lead to the same answer in the Question Answering system. A Java program was developed for the categorization of the questions. The program implements a vector space model for representing and comparing the terms in the questions. The Java program supports a method for extracting different features for indexing the vectors. The features used as index terms are keywords expanded with synonyms, unigrams, and bigrams of words or characters. The synonyms that the keywords are expanded with are retrieved from the domain lexicon in the Question Answering system. Experiments with removing stopwords from the questions in order to reduce the number of index terms were also performed. The program has been evaluated for two different domains for the Question Answering system. The highest accuracy rate accomplished for one domain was 62% and 29% for the second domain. The difference in the results is mainly due to the high number of paraphrase sets used during the categorization for the second domain. In experiments where the numbers of paraphrase sets were reduced, the accuracy rate improved to 40 %. The task was proposed by Dialogue Technologies AB, a company which provides Question Answering systems. All the user questions to the Question Answering applications are saved in log files. To be able to retrieve information about what questions the users ask, automatic categorization of the log files is essential.
Planet Play: Designing a Game for Children to Promote Environmental Awareness

Due to a progressive deterioration of our planet and its resources, environmental education has become crucial and children should be trained to understand environmental issues at an early age so they can cultivate positive change in the future. Children attending Alberta-based schools are introduced to ecological conservation issues in the fourth grade through an inquiry-based, activelearning curriculum. This study combines research in child development & educational strategies with environmentally related issues into a game that promotes active learning. Data for the study is gathered in a qualitative manner, introducing child participants to existing environmental games and collecting their feedback into graphic organizers. A prototype of an environmental education game that combines various styles of play will then be designed based on the gathered data. The game aims to explore concepts, scenarios, and strategies of environmental preservation, encouraging children to become active participants in preserving the planet and promoting environmentally responsible behavior.
General relativistic simulations of passive-magneto-rotational core collapse with microphysics

This paper presents results from axisymmetric simulations of magneto-rotational stellar core collapse to neutron stars in general relativity using the passive field approximation for the magnetic field. These simulations are performed using a new general relativistic numerical code specifically designed to study this astrophysical scenario. The code is an extension of an existing (and thoroughly tested) hydrodynamics code, which has been applied in the recent past to study relativistic rotational core collapse. It is based on the conformally-flat approximation of Einstein’s field equations and conservative formulations of the magneto-hydrodynamics equations. The code has been recently upgraded to incorporate a tabulated, microphysical equation of state and an approximate deleptonization scheme. This allows us to perform the most realistic simulations of magneto-rotational core collapse to date, which are compared with simulations employing a simplified (hybrid) equation of state, widely used in the relativistic core collapse community. Furthermore, state-of-the-art (unmagnetized) initial models from stellar evolution are used. In general, stellar evolution models predict weak magnetic fields in the progenitors, which justifies our simplification of performing the computations under the approach that we call the passive field approximation for the magnetic field. Our results show that for the core collapse models with microphysics the saturation of the magnetic field cannot be reached within dynamical time scales by winding up the poloidal magnetic field into a toroidal one. We estimate the effect of other amplification mechanisms including the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) and several types of dynamos. We conclude that for progenitors with astrophysically expected (i.e. weak) magnetic fields, the MRI is the only mechanism that could amplify the magnetic field on dynamical time scales. The uncertainties about the strength of the magnetic field at which the MRI saturates are discussed. All our microphysical models exhibit post-bounce convective overturn in regions surrounding the inner part of the proto-neutron star. Since this has a potential impact on enhancing the MRI, it deserves further investigation with more accurate neutrino treatment or alternative microphysical equations of state.
Near Misdiagnosis of Glioblastoma as Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma

Primary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma, most frequently a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, is a rare aggressive lymphoma confined to the CNS, thus requiring differentiation from other brain malignancies such as glioblastoma. Although stereotactic biopsy can confirm the diagnosis, this is invasive, not always feasible and can be inconclusive after steroid use. Hence, cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with contrast and cerebrospinal fluid analysis are frequently used to make a prompt diagnosis. We report a case of a woman with two brain masses who presented unique diagnostic challenge.
The meaning of life intervention for patients with advanced-stage cancer: development and pilot study.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To develop the Meaning of Life Intervention in response to the need for brief and meaning-focused interventions in palliative care and to establish potential effect sizes for future full-scale randomized, controlled trials. DESIGN A randomized, controlled trial conducted to pilot test the Meaning of Life Intervention. SETTING A 68-bed oncology inpatient ward in an urban acute general hospital in Hong Kong. SAMPLE 84 patients with advanced-stage cancer. Fifty-eight completed the study. METHODS Assessments of outcome variables were conducted at baseline and one day and two weeks after the intervention. Patients were randomly allocated to the intervention group or the control group. Repeated measures analysis of covariance were conducted to assess the impact of the Meaning of Life Intervention on participants' quality of life. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES The primary outcome was quality of life and was measured by the Quality-of-Life Concerns in the End-of-Life (QOLC-E) questionnaire and with a single-item scale on global quality of life. The eight subscales of the QOLC-E served as secondary outcomes. FINDINGS Statistically significant main effects were noted for the group in the QOLC-E questionnaire total score, the single-item scale on global quality of life, and the existential distress subscale of the QOLC-E questionnaire. The effects represented a medium effect size. CONCLUSIONS The results of this pilot study show that the Meaning of Life Intervention can improve quality of life, particularly existential distress. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING The Meaning of Life Intervention represents a potentially effective and efficient intervention that is feasible for implementation by nursing staff for patients with advanced-stage cancer in a palliative care setting.