Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Techniques to Detect Spammers in Twitter- A Survey

With the rapid growth of social networking sites for communicating, sharing, storing and managing significant information, it is attracting cybercriminals who misuse the Web to exploit vulnerabilities for their illicit benefits. Forged online accounts crack up every day. Impersonators, phishers, scammers and spammers crop up all the time in Online Social Networks (OSNs), and are harder to identify. Spammers are the users who send unsolicited messages to a large audience with the intention of advertising some product or to lure victims to click on malicious links or infecting user’s system just for the purpose of making money. A lot of research has been done to detect spam profiles in OSNs. In this paper we have reviewed the existing techniques for detecting spam users in Twitter social network. Features for the detection of spammers could be user based or content based or both. Current study provides an overview of the methods, features used, detection rate and their limitations (if any) for detecting spam profiles mainly in Twitter.
Feature selection based on genetic algorithms and support vector machines for handwritten similar Chinese characters recognition

This paper presents a feature selection approach for handwritten similar Chinese characters recognition. The optimal features can be selected automatically by genetic algorithms from the representations in the form of elastic meshing based on wavelet transform. Three different combinations of binary support vector machines classifiers are discussed when multi-class classification problem must be dealt with. In our approach the fitness scores for different feature subset are derived from the cross-validation rate by using one-against-one strategy based support vector machines classifier with the Gaussian kernel function. The experiment results confirm the effectiveness and practicality of the approach.
The cost of fear

The National Wildlife Strike Database for Civil Aviation in the United States became operational in 1995 with the initiation of data entry of all strike reports beginning in 1990. The database contained 82,057 reported strikes from 1990 to 2007. About 9,800 of these strike reports noted damage to the aircraft, of which 2,700 indicated the damage was substantial. The database has proven to be a useful source of objective information on the extent and nature of wildlife strikes for personnel at individual airports and for researchers and regulatory agencies at the national level. With the impending requirement for airports in the United States to manage safety risks through a formal safety management system (SMS) approach, we propose that the database can be a key element for prioritizing wildlife risks and providing objective benchmarks of the effectiveness of wildlife hazard management plans (WHMP). We propose that airports use the number of damaging strikes ranked by causative species over the most recent 5-year interval in combination with species-specific wildlife count data prioritized by likelihood of damage. This would guide species-specific management actions to minimize future risk. We further propose that a benchmark or threshold rate of 0.96 damaging strikes per 100,000 aircraft movements per year be established. Any airport exceeding this damaging strike rate in a given year should reevaluate its WHMP, with a focus on those species posing the greatest risk. To enhance the utility of the database in an SMS, improvements are needed in the level and quality of reporting. In particular, all strikes and the wildlife species involved in them should be reported. During the past 13 years, the National Wildlife Strike Database has provided a scientific foundation for the various efforts underway to reduce the problem of wildlife strikes with aircraft. Improvements in reporting, as outlined above, will make the database even more useful as part of an SMS to enhance safety at airports nationwide.
Freeze‐drying shrinkage of glutaraldehyde fixed liver

Dimensional changes were recorded during the freeze drying (FD) of 1 mm cubes of glutaraldehyde (GA) fixed adult mouse liver. The areas of the front faces of these blocks was measured using a Quantimet 720 image analysing computer system. Interpolating the first straight line portion of the graphs of size versus time backwards to the origin allowed the determination of the original size even if the specimen was covered with some surface‐water ice at the beginning of the experiment.
Hybrid PI speed controllers for Permanent Magnet Brushless DC Motor

This paper present Hybrid Proportional Integral (PI) controllers (with fuzzy controller) as Series Hybrid or Parallel Hybrid configuration, for speed control of Permanent Magnet Brushless DC Motor drive for application to intermitted duty loads. The proposed configurations have superior performance compared to conventional PI controller amidst nonlinearities and parametric variations, when used as a continuous controller for the drive. In Series Hybrid configuration fuzzy controller provides precompensated input to the PI controller to reduce oscillation and fast operation, whereas, Parallel Hybrid utilizes Fuzzy logic based on-line parameters tuning, increasing the robustness under severe unknown plant nonlinearities. The dynamic characteristics of BLDCM such as speed, Torque, Current and Back EMF are observed and analyzed through simulation under MATLAB Simulink environment.
Long-Length Fiber Optic Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy Probes for On-Line Quality Control of Processed Land Animal Proteins

This research was conducted using a spectral database comprising 346 samples of processed animal proteins (PAPs) with a range of compositions, analyzed using a Fourier transform near-infrared spectroscopy multichannel instrument (Matrix-F, Bruker Optics) coupled to a 100 m fiber optic cable. Using both its static and dynamic operating modes (on a conveyor belt), simulating the movement of the product in the plant, the predictive capabilities of both modes of analysis were assessed and compared, for the purposes of predicting moisture, protein, and ashes. The results show that both exhibit highly similar degrees of precision and accuracy for predicting these parameters. This research provides a foundation of scientific-technical knowledge, hitherto unknown, regarding the “on-line” incorporation of an instrument (equipped with a 100 m fiber optic cable) into a processing plant of by-products of animal origin.
A Comparative Approach for Analyzing Impact of Different Audio Features on Music Genre Classification

─ With the advancement of technology in today’s era, there is an utmost need for reliable music retrieval methods in order to organize and search through the large music archives that are available on the internet. Music genre classification is the most fundamental and essential component in music information retrieval (MIR) systems. An appropriate choice of music features and classifier is a crucial task for developing an accurate and efficient contentbased classification system. In this work, a comparative analysis for four different set of features, viz. dynamic, timbretexture, pitch and tonal features along with the statistical parameters is examined based on the performance of respective feature set. The performance evaluation is carried out on GTZAN musical database by using support vector machine (SVM) as a classifier. The experimental results show that out of all four set of features, better classification accuracy of 95.77% is achieved for dynamic and timbre texture features.
Mycobacterium marinum Infection of Adult Zebrafish Causes Caseating Granulomatous Tuberculosis and Is Moderated by Adaptive Immunity

ABSTRACT The zebrafish, a genetically tractable model vertebrate, is naturally susceptible to tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium marinum, a close genetic relative of the causative agent of human tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We previously developed a zebrafish embryo-M. marinum infection model to study host-pathogen interactions in the context of innate immunity. Here, we have constructed a flowthrough fish facility for the large-scale longitudinal study of M. marinum-induced tuberculosis in adult zebrafish where both innate and adaptive immunity are operant. We find that zebrafish are exquisitely susceptible to M. marinum strain M. Intraperitoneal injection of five organisms produces persistent granulomatous tuberculosis, while the injection of ∼9,000 organisms leads to acute, fulminant disease. Bacterial burden, extent of disease, pathology, and host mortality progress in a time- and dose-dependent fashion. Zebrafish tuberculous granulomas undergo caseous necrosis, similar to human tuberculous granulomas. In contrast to mammalian tuberculous granulomas, zebrafish lesions contain few lymphocytes, calling into question the role of adaptive immunity in fish tuberculosis. However, like rag1 mutant mice infected with M. tuberculosis, we find that rag1 mutant zebrafish are hypersusceptible to M. marinum infection, demonstrating that the control of fish tuberculosis is dependent on adaptive immunity. We confirm the previous finding that M. marinum ΔRD1 mutants are attenuated in adult zebrafish and extend this finding to show that ΔRD1 predominantly produces nonnecrotizing, loose macrophage aggregates. This observation suggests that the macrophage aggregation defect associated with ΔRD1 attenuation in zebrafish embryos is ongoing during adult infection.
Endoproteolytic Processing of Sst2, a Multidomain Regulator of G Protein Signaling in Yeast*

Regulators of G protein signaling (RGS proteins) constitute a large family of G protein-binding proteins. All RGS proteins contain a conserved core domain that can accelerate G protein GTPase activity. In addition, many family members contain a unique N-terminal domain of unknown function. Here, we demonstrate that the RGS protein in yeast, Sst2, is proteolytically processed in vivo to yield separate but functional N-terminal and RGS core domain fragments. In whole cell lysates, the full-lengthSST2 product (82 kDa) as well as a prominent 36-kDa species are specifically recognized by antibodies against the C terminus of the Sst2 protein. Purification and chemical sequencing of the 36-kDa species revealed cleavage sites after Ser-414 and Ser-416, just preceding the region of RGS homology. Expression of a mutationally truncated form of the protein (C-Sst2) could not restore function to ansst2Δ mutant strain. In contrast, co-expression of C-Sst2 with the N-terminal domain (N-Sst2) partially restored the ability to regulate the growth arrest response but not the transcription induction response. Whereas the full-length protein was localized to the microsomal and plasma membrane fractions, the N-Sst2 species was predominantly in the microsomal fraction, and C-Sst2 was in the soluble fraction. Mutations that block proteasome or vacuolar protease function, or mutations in the cleavage site Ser residues of Sst2, did not alter processing. However, Sst2 processing did require expression of other components of the pheromone response pathway, including the receptor and the G protein. These results indicate that Sst2 is proteolytically processed, that this event is regulated by the signaling pathway, and that processing can profoundly alter the function and subcellular localization of the protein.
Extension of Pre-Image Speech De-Noising by Voice Activity Detection Using a Bone Conductive Microphone

In this paper, we use voice activity detection to improve the de-noising ability of the previously proposed pre-image iteration speech enhancement method. We use a speech database consisting of two-channel recordings where the audio signal is recorded by both a bone conductive microphone and a close-talking microphone. The bone channel is used for voice activity detection as it can be assumed to be robust against environmental noise. The pre-image iteration method is prone to residual noise around speech components – we use the voice activity detection to remove this noise. The approach is evaluated using objective quality measures of the PEASS toolbox and shows an increase of the de-noising capability compared to the original method.
Microblog Retrieval Using Ensemble of Feature Sets through Supervised Feature Selection

Microblog, especially twitter, has become an integral part of our daily life for searching latest news and events information. Due to the short length characteristics of tweets and frequent use of unconventional abbreviations, content-relevance based search cannot satisfy user’s information need. Recent research has shown that considering temporal and contextual aspects in this regard has improved the retrieval performance significantly. In this paper, we focus on microblog retrieval, emphasizing the alleviation of the vocabulary mismatch, and the leverage of the temporal (e.g., recency and burst nature) and contextual characteristics of tweets. To address the temporal and contextual aspect of tweets, we propose new features based on query-tweet time, word embedding, and query-tweet sentiment correlation. We also introduce some popularity features to estimate the importance of a tweet. A three-stage query expansion technique is applied to improve the relevancy of tweets. Moreover, to determine the temporal and sentiment sensitivity of a query, we introduce query type determination techniques. After supervised feature selection, we apply random forest as a feature ranking method to estimate the importance of selected features. Then, we make use of ensemble of learning to rank (L2R) framework to estimate the relevance of query-tweet pair. We conducted experiments on TREC Microblog 2011 and 2012 test collections over the TREC Tweets2011 corpus. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method over the baseline and known related works in terms of precision at 30 (P@30), mean average precision (MAP), normalized discounted cumulative gain at 30 (NDCG@30), and R-precision (R-Prec) metrics. key words: microblog search, temporal information retrieval, query expansion, feature selection, learning to rank, time-aware ranking
Patterns of pncA mutations in drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated from patients in South Korea.

BACKGROUND Pyrazinamide (PZA), one of the most effective anti-tuberculosis drugs, becomes toxic to Mycobacterium tuberculosis when converted to pyrazinoic acid by pyrazinamidase (PZase). PZA resistance is caused mainly by the loss of enzyme activity by mutation. OBJECTIVE To investigate the patterns of pncA mutations in PZA-resistant mycobacteria isolated from South Korean patients. METHODS Mycobacterial isolates with clinically proven drug resistance were cultured to determine susceptibility to anti-tuberculosis agents. pncA mutations were recognised by sequencing and compared with the relevant wild-type DNA sequence. RESULTS Among 108 isolates, 102 were successfully cultured and underwent drug susceptibility testing; all were multidrug-resistant (MDR). pncA mutations were found in 86 cultured isolates (85.1%): 55 (84.6%) in MDR and 31 (86.1%) in extensively drug-resistant isolates. Substitution of a single nucleotide was most common. The most frequent mutations were a deletion that caused a frameshift at nucleotide (nt) 71, a substitution at nt 403 and a substitution at nt 11. Combined, these accounted for ≈ 40% of all mutations. However, 15 samples (14.9%) with defective PZase activity showed no mutation. CONCLUSION pncA mutation in M. tuberculosis is a major mechanism of PZA resistance in MDR isolates from patients in South Korea. The patterns of mutation might be more scattered and diverse. DNA-based diagnosis of PZA resistance has potential for the rapid detection of drug resistance.
Bone mineral density and bone turnover in spinal osteoarthrosis.

OBJECTIVES--To determine whether there was a generalised increase in bone mineral density (BMD) in spinal osteoarthrosis (OA), and to determine the mechanism of this possible protection against osteoporosis as assessed by biochemical markers of bone turnover. METHODS--We studied 375 women (ages 50 to 85) from a population based group. Spinal OA was defined from radiographs as the presence of degenerative changes affecting intervertebral or facet joints. BMD of the lumbar spine (LS), femoral neck (FN) and total body (TB) was measured by dual energy x ray absorptiometry (Lunar DPX). Bone turnover rates were estimated from measurement of biochemical markers of bone formation and resorption (urine deoxypyridinoline (Dpyr) and serum bone specific alkaline phosphatase (BAP)). RESULTS--BMD at each site was greater in the women with spinal OA (mean increase in LS-BMD 7.9%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0 to 15.1; TB-BMD 8.4%, 95% CI 1.9 to 9.7; FN-BMD 6.4%, 95% CI 0.3 to 12.6). Twenty four hour urinary excretion of Dpyr, corrected for TB bone mineral content, and serum BAP were 19% lower in the women with spinal OA (95% CI for Dpyr 4.3 to 31.9%; for BAP 6.3 to 32.0%). CONCLUSIONS--Spinal OA is associated with a generalised increase in BMD and a decreased rate of bone turnover. This suggests that the protective effect of spinal OA against osteoporosis may be mediated by decreased bone turnover.
Enhanced cellular immune response in women with PTSD related to childhood abuse.

OBJECTIVE Disturbed regulation of both the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathoadrenomedullary system in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggests that immune function, which is modulated by these systems, also may be dysregulated in individuals with PTSD. METHOD Delayed-type hypersensitivity skin test responses were measured in 16 women with PTSD due to childhood sexual or physical abuse and 15 women who did not have a history of abuse, other trauma, or psychiatric disorders. HPA axis activity was assessed by examination of circadian salivary cortisol levels and a single time point measurement of plasma cortisol. RESULTS Delayed-type hypersensitivity was enhanced in women with PTSD. Cortisol measures did not differ between PTSD and healthy comparison subjects. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that cell-mediated inflammatory reactions are greater in individuals with PTSD.
Estrogen receptor status prediction by gene component regression: a comparative study

The aim of the study is to evaluate gene component analysis for microarray studies. Three dimensional reduction strategies, Principle Component Regression (PCR), Partial Least Square (PLS) and Reduced Rank Regression (RRR) were applied to publicly available breast cancer microarray dataset and the derived gene components were used for tumor classification by Logistic Regression (LR) and Linear Discriminative Analysis (LDA). The impact of gene selection/filtration was evaluated as well. We demonstrated that gene component classifiers could reduce the high-dimensionality of gene expression data and the collinearity problem inherited in most modern microarray experiments. In our study gene component analysis could discriminate Estrogen Receptor (ER) positive breast cancers from negative cancers and the proposed classifiers were successfully reproduced and projected into independent microarray dataset with high predictive accuracy.
Epidemiology and Molecular Characterization of Clostridium difficile Strains from Patients with Diarrhea: Low Disease Incidence and Evidence of Limited Cross-Infection in a Swedish Teaching Hospital

ABSTRACT We prospectively studied the epidemiology of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD) in a 900-bed hospital over the course of 12 months by PCR-ribotyping of C. difficile isolates. A total of 304 cases were diagnosed, corresponding to an overall incidence of 7/1,000 admissions, with higher rates in nephrology, hematology, and organ transplantation wards (37, 30, and 21/1,000), and 72% were classified as hospital associated (onset in hospital or onset at home but after a hospital stay within 2 months). All 382 isolates from 227 of 304 (75%) patients available for PCR-ribotyping were typeable, yielding 70 PCR-ribotypes. The three most common types comprised 30% of hospital-associated and 34% of community-associated cases, indicating import via admitted patients as a major source of C. difficile strains occurring in the hospital. Of the 227 patients studied, 38% each contributed 2 to 13 fecal samples positive for C. difficile over the course of the study period. Repeat isolates of the same PCR-ribotype as the first isolate were found in 79% of these patients and in 95% of specimens delivered within 30 days, compared to 63% of those obtained at 31 to 204 days. Nosocomial acquisition of CDAD, defined as the proportion of cases sharing C. difficile type and admitted to the same ward within 2 or 12 months, was 20% and 32% of hospital-associated cases and 14% and 23% of all cases, respectively. Thus, most CDAD cases diagnosed over the course of the study period, including those associated with hospitalization, appeared to be caused by endogenous C. difficile strains rather than by strains truly being acquired in the hospital.
Multiple Mobile Robots Path-Planning with MCA

In this paper is described a fast path-planner for multi-robot composed by mobile robots having generic shapes and sizes (user defined) and different kinematics. We have developed an algorithm that computes the shortest collision-free path for each robot, from the starting pose to the goal pose, while considering their real shapes, avoiding the collisions with the static obstacles and the other robots. It is based on a directional (anisotropic) propagation of attracting potential values in a 4D space-time, using a multilayered cellular automata (MCA) architecture. This algorithm makes a search for all the optimal collision-free trajectories following the minimum valley of a potential hypersurface embedded in a 5D space
Protective Role for Interferon-&bgr; in Coxsackievirus B3 Infection

Background—Coxsackievirus-induced myocarditis can be a serious cause of heart failure. In the absence of a specific antiviral therapy, modulating the host immune response may be protective. Interferons (IFNs)-&agr; and -&bgr; perform a fundamental role in innate and adaptive antiviral responses, thereby presenting as candidate therapeutics for coxsackievirus infections. Methods and Results—To examine the contribution of IFN-&bgr; in protection from coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) infection, mice lacking the IFN-&bgr; gene were infected with 103 plaque-forming units of CVB3. In contrast to wild-type mice that exhibit an intact IFN-&bgr; response, we observed increased susceptibility to infection (70% mortality), a downregulation of IFN-stimulated gene targets (2′-5′ oligoadenylate synthetase, serine/threonine protein kinase, the GTPase Mx), and cardiomyocyte breakdown and disruption in the IFN-&bgr;−/− mice. Conclusions—Viewed together, these results clearly demonstrate that IFN-&bgr; is important in mediating protection against CVB3-induced myocarditis.
Determination of allele frequencies in nine short tandem repeat loci of five human sub-populations in Botswana

Allele frequencies for nine short tandem repeat (STR) loci from the AmpFlSTR® Profiler Plus PCR Amplification Kit were determined in five subpopulations across Botswana and tested for suitability for use in individual identification. DNA was extracted from whole blood samples collected from 150 unrelated individuals. Targeted regions of DNA (vWA, FGA, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D18S51, D21S11 and the sex determining locus Amelogenin) were amplified using multiplexed PCR. The alleles showed a high degree of polymorphism, with heterozygosity above 67%, indicating that there is no significant inbreeding within the subpopulations. Matching probability was below 0.2 hence power of discrimination was high, indicating that the alleles from the five subpopulations can be used in human identifications. The present study is the first reported attempt at determining allele frequencies of subpopulations in Botswana and could possibly be used in developing a national DNA database.