Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
V2V Spatiotemporal Interactive Pattern Recognition and Risk Analysis in Lane Changes

In complex lane change (LC) scenarios, semantic interpretation and safety analysis of dynamic interactive pattern are necessary for autonomous vehicles to make appropriate decisions. This study proposes an unsupervised learning framework that combines primitive-based interactive pattern recognition methods and risk analysis methods. The Hidden Markov Model with the Gaussian mixture model (GMM-HMM) approach is developed to decompose the LC scenarios into primitives. Then the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distance based K-means clustering is applied to gather the primitives to 13 types of interactive patterns. Finally, this study considers two types of time-to-collision (TTC) involved in the LC process as indicators to analyze the risk of the interactive patterns and extract high-risk LC interactive patterns. The results obtained from The Highway Drone Dataset (highD) demonstrate that the identified LC interactive patterns contain interpretable semantic information. This study explores the spatiotemporal evolution law and risk formation mechanism of the LC interactive patterns and the findings are useful for comprehensively understanding the latent interactive patterns, improving the rationality and safety of autonomous vehicle's decision-making.
Spectral Pruning for Recurrent Neural Networks

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are a class of neural networks used in sequential tasks. However, in general, RNNs have a large number of parameters and involve enormous computational costs by repeating the recurrent structures in many time steps. As a method to overcome this difficulty, RNN pruning has attracted increasing attention in recent years, and it brings us benefits in terms of the reduction of computational cost as the time step progresses. However, most existing methods of RNN pruning are heuristic. The purpose of this paper is to study the theoretical scheme for RNN pruning method. We propose an appropriate pruning algorithm for RNNs inspired by"spectral pruning", and provide the generalization error bounds for compressed RNNs. We also provide numerical experiments to demonstrate our theoretical results and show the effectiveness of our pruning method compared with existing methods.
Statistical testing under distributional shifts

We introduce statistical testing under distributional shifts. We are interested in the hypothesis P*∈H0 for a target distribution P*, but observe data from a different distribution Q*. We assume that P* is related to Q* through a known shift τ and formally introduce hypothesis testing in this setting. We propose a general testing procedure that first resamples from the observed data to construct an auxiliary data set (similarly to sampling importance resampling) and then applies an existing test in the target domain. We prove that if the size of the resample is of order o(n) and the resampling weights are well behaved, this procedure inherits the pointwise asymptotic level and power from the target test. If the map τ is estimated from data, we maintain the above guarantees under mild conditions on the estimation. Our results extend to finite sample level, uniform asymptotic level, a different resampling scheme, and statistical inference different from testing. Testing under distributional shifts allows us to tackle a diverse set of problems. We argue that it may prove useful in contextual bandit problems and covariate shift, show how it reduces conditional to unconditional independence testing and provide example applications in causal inference.
Whole-Body Control on Non-holonomic Mobile Manipulation for Grapevine Winter Pruning Automation *

Mobile manipulators that combine manipulability and mobility, are increasingly being used for various unstructured application scenarios in the field, e.g. vineyards. Therefore, coordinated motion of the manipulator and mobile base is an essential feature of the overall performance. In this paper, we explore a whole-body coordinated motion controller of a robot which is composed of a 2-DoFs non-holonomic wheeled mobile base with a 7-DoFs manipulator (non-holonomic wheeled mobile manipulator, NWMM). This robotic platform is designed to efficiently undertake complex grapevine pruning automation. In this control framework, a task priority coordinated motion of the NWMM is guaranteed. Tasks with lower priority are projected into the null space of the top-priority tasks so that higher-priority tasks are completed without interruption from lower-priority tasks. The proposed controller was evaluated in a grapevine spur pruning experiment scenario.
Cross-lingual Text Classification with Heterogeneous Graph Neural Network

Cross-lingual text classification aims at training a classifier on the source language and transferring the knowledge to target languages, which is very useful for low-resource languages. Recent multilingual pretrained language models (mPLM) achieve impressive results in cross-lingual classification tasks, but rarely consider factors beyond semantic similarity, causing performance degradation between some language pairs. In this paper we propose a simple yet effective method to incorporate heterogeneous information within and across languages for cross-lingual text classification using graph convolutional networks (GCN). In particular, we construct a heterogeneous graph by treating documents and words as nodes, and linking nodes with different relations, which include part-of-speech roles, semantic similarity, and document translations. Extensive experiments show that our graph-based method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art models on all tasks, and also achieves consistent performance gain over baselines in low-resource settings where external tools like translators are unavailable.
PROPm Allocations of Indivisible Goods to Multiple Agents

We study the classic problem of fairly allocating a set of indivisible goods among a group of agents, and focus on the notion of approximate proportionality known as PROPm. Prior work showed that there exists an allocation that satisfies this notion of fairness for instances involving up to five agents, but fell short of proving that this is true in general. We extend this result to show that a PROPm allocation is guaranteed to exist for all instances, independent of the number of agents or goods. Our proof is constructive, providing an algorithm that computes such an allocation and, unlike prior work, the running time of this algorithm is polynomial in both the number of agents and the number of goods.
An Electricity Market Clearing Formulation for Harnessing Space-Time, Load-Shifting Flexibility from Data Centers

In this work, we provide a theoretical analysis of an electricity market clearing formulation that seeks to harness spatio-temporal, load-shifting ﬂexibility from data centers (DaCes). Central to our study is the concept of virtual links, which provide non-physical pathways that can be used by DaCes to shift power loads (by shifting computing loads) across space and time. We use virtual links to show that the clearing formulation treats DaCes as prosumers that simultaneously request load and provide a load-shifting ﬂexibility service. Our analysis also reveals that DaCes are remu-nerated for the provision of load shifting ﬂexibility based on nodal price differences (across space and time). We also show that DaCe ﬂexibility helps relieve space-time price volatility and show that the clearing formulation satisﬁes fundamental economic properties that are expected from co-ordinated markets (e.g., provides a competitive equilibrium and achieves revenue adequacy and cost recovery). Case studies are presented to demonstrate these properties.
Automated Knee X-ray Report Generation

Gathering manually annotated images for the purpose of training a predictive model is far more challenging in the medical domain than for natural images as it requires the expertise of qualified radiologists. We therefore propose to take advantage of past radiological exams (specifically, knee X-ray examinations) and formulate a framework capable of learning the correspondence between the images and reports, and hence be capable of generating diagnostic reports for a given X-ray examination consisting of an arbitrary number of image views. We demonstrate how aggregating the image features of individual exams and using them as conditional inputs when training a language generation model results in auto-generated exam reports that correlate well with radiologist-generated reports.
Advanced systems for biological treatment of high nitrogen-loaded wastewate

Esta tese propon o emprego de sistemas granulares para a eliminacion bioloxica de carbono e nitroxeno en diversos tipos de augas residuais (urbanas e industriais) como alternativa o proceso convencional de lamas activas. Estes sistemas poden operar con cargas mais elevadas (plantas mais compactas) e o mesmo tempo desenrolar unha biomasa, agregada en forma de granulos, con boas propiedades de sedimentabilidade, o que posibilita a sua facil separacion no reactor e constitue unha vantaxe adicional fronte os sistemas convencionais de lamas activas. Os sistemas granulares producen efluentes de boa calidade, en termos de contido en materia organica e nitroxeno, pero con concentracions de solidos en suspension que non se axustarian os requirimentos mais estrictos (maiores de 75 mg/L). Para reducir a concentracion de solidos en suspension no efluente os valores desexados, podense empregar membranas como sistema de postratamento. Na presente tese estudianse as condicions hidrodinamicas mais favorables para desenrolar granulos aerobios e tamen o efecto da composicion da auga residual na formacion de ditos granulos. O desenrolo e aplicacion de sistemas granulares levarase a cabo tanto con augas residuais caracterizadas pola sua alta relacion Carbono/Nitroxeno (C/N), mediante os procesos de nitrificacion-desnitrificacion como tamen en augas con baixa relacion C/N, usando neste ultimo caso o proceso avanzado de oxidacion anaerobia de amonio (Anammox). Ensaiaranse diferentes condicions operacionais para asi maximizar as eficacias de eliminacion de materia organica e nitroxeno para cada tipo de auga residual empregada. Caracterizarase e cuantificarase tamen a lama granular producida durante a operacion dos diferentes reactores. Empregaronse reactores SBRs (Sequencing Batch Reactors) para a obtencion e o estudio do comportamento dos granulos aerobios, nitrificantes e Anammox e asi estudiar a eliminacion de altas concentraci
Targeted sequencing reveals candidate causal variants for dairy bull subfertility

Summary Bull fertility is a key factor for successful reproductive performance in dairy cattle. Since the semen from a single bull can be used to inseminate hundreds of cows, one subfertile bull could have a major impact on herd reproductive efficiency. We have previously identified five genomic regions, located on BTA8 (72.2 Mb), BTA9 (43.7 Mb), BTA13 (60.2 Mb), BTA17 (63.3 Mb), and BTA27 (34.7 Mb), that show large dominance effects on bull fertility. Each of these regions explained about 5–8% of the observed differences in sire conception rate between Holstein bulls. Here, we aimed to identify candidate causal variants responsible for this variation using targeted sequencing (10 Mb per region). For each genomic region, two DNA pools were constructed from n≈20 high‐fertility and n≈20 low‐fertility Holstein bulls. The DNA‐sequencing analysis included reads quality control (using FastQC), genome alignment (using BWA and ARS‐UCD1.2), variant calling (using GATK) and variant annotation (using Ensembl). The sequencing depth per pool varied from 39× to 51×. We identified a set of nonsense mutations, missense mutations, and frameshift variants carried by low‐fertility bulls. Notably, some of these variants were classified as strong candidate causal variants, i.e., mutations with deleterious effects located on genes exclusively/highly expressed in testis. Genes affected by these candidate causal variants include AK9, TTLL9, TCHP, and FOXN4. These results could aid in the development of novel genomic tools that allow early detection and culling of subfertile bull calves.
Occupational allergic contact dermatitis to dibutyl maleate and dibutyl fumarate present in a safety shoe: A reason for concern?

ity to chlorhexidine digluconate. Contact Dermatitis. 2001;44 (1):59. 5. Mullins RJ. Systemic allergy to topical hexamidine. Med J Aust. 2006; 185(3):177. 6. Revuz J, Poli F, Wechsler J, Dubertret L. Contact dermatitis from hexamidine. Ann Dermatol Venereol. 1984;111(9):805-810. How to cite this article: Le Seac'h A, Castagna J, Chantran Y, et al. Occurrence of immediate and delayed hypersensitivity to hexamidine. Contact Dermatitis. 2021;85(5):580–582. https:// doi.org/10.1111/cod.13906
Synchronized Automatic Gain Control in Bilateral Cochlear Implant Recipients Yields Significant Benefit in Static and Dynamic Listening Conditions

Individuals with bilateral cochlear implants (BiCIs) rely mostly on interaural level difference (ILD) cues to localize stationary sounds in the horizontal plane. Independent automatic gain control (AGC) in each device can distort this cue, resulting in poorer localization of stationary sound sources. However, little is known about how BiCI listeners perceive sound in motion. In this study, 12 BiCI listeners’ spatial hearing abilities were assessed for both static and dynamic listening conditions when the sound processors were synchronized by applying the same compression gain to both devices as a means to better preserve the original ILD cues. Stimuli consisted of band-pass filtered (100–8000 Hz) Gaussian noise presented at various locations or panned over an array of loudspeakers. In the static listening condition, the distance between two sequentially presented stimuli was adaptively varied to arrive at the minimum audible angle, the smallest spatial separation at which the listener can correctly determine whether the second sound was to the left or right of the first. In the dynamic listening condition, participants identified if a single stimulus moved to the left or to the right. Velocity was held constant and the distance the stimulus traveled was adjusted using an adaptive procedure to determine the minimum audible movement angle. Median minimum audible angle decreased from 17.1° to 15.3° with the AGC synchronized. Median minimum audible movement angle decreased from 100° to 25.5°. These findings were statistically significant and support the hypothesis that synchronizing the AGC better preserves ILD cues and results in improved spatial hearing abilities. However, restoration of the ILD cue alone was not enough to bridge the large performance gap between BiCI listeners and normal-hearing listeners on these static and dynamic spatial hearing measures.
Sex and the G Protein–Coupled Estrogen Receptor Impact Vascular Stiffness

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Because arterial stiffness increases following menopause, estrogen may be a protective factor. Our previous work indicates that the GPER (G protein–coupled estrogen receptor) mediates estrogen’s vascular actions. In the current study, we assessed arterial stiffening using pulse wave velocity (PWV), a clinically relevant measurement that independently predicts cardiovascular mortality. We hypothesized that genetic deletion of GPER would attenuate sex differences in PWV and would be associated with changes in passive vascular mechanics. Control and Ang II (angiotensin II)–infused male and female wild-type and GPER knockout mice were assessed for blood pressure, intracarotid PWV, cardiac function, passive biaxial mechanics, constitutive modeling, and histology. Sex differences in PWV and left ventricular mass were detected in wild-type mice but absent in GPER knockout and Ang II–infused mice, regardless of genotype. Despite lower PWV, the material stiffness of female wild-type carotids was greater than males in control conditions and was maintained in response to Ang II due to increased wall thickness. PWV positively correlated with unloaded thickness as well as circumferential and axial stiffness only in females. In contrast, blood pressure positively associated with circumferential and axial stiffness in males. Taken together, we found that female wild-type mice were unique in their vascular adaptation to hypertension by increasing wall thickness to maintain stiffness. Given that carotid arteries are easily accessible clinically, systematic assessment of intracarotid PWV in women may provide insight into vascular damage that cannot be assumed from blood pressure measurements alone.
Extraction of Th(IV) from an HNO3 Solution by Diglycolamide in Ionic Liquids

Extraction of thorium(IV) from a nitric acid solution into various 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([Cnmim][PF6], n = 4,6,8) ionic liquids (ILs) was investigated using N,N,N′,N′-tetrabutyl-3-oxapentanediamide (TBDA) and N,N′-dimethyl-N,N′-dibutyl-3-oxapentanediamide (MBDA) as the extractants. The extraction efficiency of Th4+ ions in the ionic liquid is higher than that obtained in chloroform under low nitric acid concentration. The extraction mechanism has been studied by slope analysis, UV–vis measurement, and extraction tests. The conventional log–log plot analysis of the extraction equilibrium data reveals that Th4+ ions are extracted as cation complexes characterized by a metal/ligand ratio of 1:2 using MBDA as an extractant. In addition Th4+ ions form 1:2 complexes with TBDA in [bmim]PF6 and [hmim]PF6 and 1:1 complexes in [omim][PF6] and chloroform. The mode of partitioning of thorium ions into [bmim]PF6 and [hmim]PF6 with TBDA appears to proceed predominantly via a cation-exchange m.
No Significant Difference in Post-ERCP Bleeding Rates Between Dual Antiplatelet Agents and Aspirin Alone

Background: Several professional society guidelines suggest holding antiplatelet agents before high-risk procedures. However, there is lack of high-grade evidence to support the recommendation as most of the studies have been single center with small sample sizes. We aimed to perform the first systematic review and meta-analysis comparing dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) versus aspirin alone in terms of postendoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) bleeding. Methods Three independent reviewers performed a comprehensive review of all original articles published from inception to May 2020, evaluating the post-ERCP bleeding rate in setting of DAPT. Primary outcomes were the overall post-ERCP bleeding rate with the use of dual antiplatelet therapy; comparison of post-ERCP bleeding rate in patients with DAPT versus aspirin alone. Secondary outcomes were comparison of immediate and delayed post-ERCP bleeding outcomes in the 2 cohorts. Results: Six studies were included after a thorough search was concluded using the key words. The pooled analysis of studies revealed an overall post-ERCP bleeding rate of 5.7% (95% confidence interval: 3-10.6) on sustained DAPT. Post-ERCP bleeding in DAPT Cohort was not significantly higher as compared with aspirin only Cohort (odds ratio: 1.14, 95% confidence interval: 0.46-2.81). The immediate bleeding and delayed bleeding rates cannot be generalized due to low number of studies. Conclusions: The first systematic review and meta-analysis showed that post-ERCP bleeding rates are not significantly higher in DAPT cohort as compared with aspirin alone. Therefore, the risk of bleeding is less likely related to the antiplatelet agents and more likely related to the procedure itself.
The Association between Gender Role Attitudes and Alcohol Use among Early Adolescents in Shanghai, China

Abstract Background Adolescent alcohol use was a major social and public health concern given its negative impacts. Previous studies indicated gender role attitudes (GRA) were associated with alcohol use; however, few studies focused on early adolescents (10 to 14 years) and similar researches were not found in China. Objective: This study sought to explore the association between GRA and alcohol use among early adolescents. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among students in grades six to eight across three public secondary schools in Shanghai, China. Data were collected by Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (CASI) questionnaire on mobile tablets. Alcohol use was measured by self-report, and six items with 5-point Likert-type options assessed the attitude toward traditional gender roles. The logistic regression model was adopted to examine the associations between GAR and alcohol use. Results: Totally 1,631 adolescents aged 10 to 14 years with 50.33% of boys included in this study. The mean score of GRA in drinkers was significantly higher than nondrinkers among boys (3.03 vs. 2.78, p < 0.001) but not girls (2.15 vs. 2.18, p = 0.499). After controlling the covariates of age, depression, peers’ substance use, social cohesion, etc., we found that more traditional GRA was associated with a higher risk of alcohol use among boys (OR = 1.39, 95%CI: 1.11–1.75), whereas the association was not significant among girls (OR = 0.96, 95%CI: 0.74–1.24). Conclusions: Traditional GRA may increase the risk of alcohol use among early adolescent boys, suggesting that altering traditional GRA among this population group may help to prevent alcohol use.
Characterisation of dysplastic liver nodules using low‐pass DNA sequencing and detection of chromosome arm‐level abnormalities in blood‐derived cell‐free DNA

High‐grade dysplasia carries significant risk of transformation to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Despite this, at the current standard of care, all non‐malignant hepatic nodules including high‐grade dysplastic nodules are managed similarly. This is partly related to difficulties in distinguishing high‐risk pathology in the liver. We aimed to identify chromosome arm‐level somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) that characterise the transition of liver nodules along the cirrhosis–dysplasia–carcinoma axis. We validated our findings on an independent cohort using blood‐derived cell‐free DNA. A repository of non‐cancer DNA sequences obtained from patients with HCC (n = 389) was analysed to generate cut‐off thresholds aiming to minimise false‐positive SCNAs. Tissue samples representing stages from the multistep process of hepatocarcinogenesis (n = 184) were subjected to low‐pass whole genome sequencing. Chromosome arm‐level SCNAs were identified in liver cirrhosis, dysplastic nodules, and HCC to assess their discriminative capacity. Samples positive for 1q+ or 8q+ arm‐level duplications were likely to be either HCC or high‐grade dysplastic nodules as opposed to low‐grade dysplastic nodules or cirrhotic tissue with an odds ratio (OR) of 35.5 (95% CI 11.5–110) and 16 (95% CI 6.4–40.2), respectively (p < 0.0001). In an independent cohort of patients recruited from Nottingham, UK, at least two out of four alterations (1q+, 4q−, 8p−, and 8q+) were detectable in blood‐derived cell‐free DNA of patients with HCC (n = 22) but none of the control patients with liver cirrhosis (n = 9). Arm‐level SCNAs on 1q+ or 8q+ are associated with high‐risk liver pathology. These can be detected using low‐pass sequencing of cell‐free DNA isolated from blood, which may be a future early cancer screening tool for patients with liver cirrhosis. © 2021 The Authors. The Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. on behalf of The Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Fluorescence activated cell sorting—A selective tool for plant cell isolation and analysis

Instrumentation for flow cytometry and sorting is designed around the assumption that samples are single‐cell suspensions. However, with few exceptions, higher plants comprise complex multicellular tissues and organs, in which the individual cells are held together by shared cell walls. Single‐cell suspensions can be obtained through digestion of the cells walls and release of the so‐called protoplasts (plants without their cell wall). Here we describe best practices for protoplast preparation, and for analysis through flow cytometry and cell sorting. Finally, the numerous downstream applications involving sorted protoplasts are discussed.