Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Selection and application of peptide mimotopes of MPT 64 protein in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Antibody responses can be useful markers of tuberculosis (TB) infection, especially in the screening of extra-pulmonary TB. MPT64 is an important antigen in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection and is used in serological diagnosis. However, large variability in the diagnostic accuracy of MPT64 as a serological tool has limited its application. Phage-displayed random peptide libraries have emerged as a powerful technique to select peptides (epitopes) or mimotopes that may serve as surrogate diagnostic markers in serological tests. In the present study, this method was employed to identify mimotopes of the MPT64 protein of MTB by screening a linear heptapeptide library with rabbit antibodies raised against MPT64 protein. Two antigenic mimotopes (M2 and M6) resembling B-cell epitopes of MPT64 were identified that bound the affinity purified anti-MPT64 polyclonal antibodies and competed with MPT64 for antibody binding. From the results of sequence alignment and a structure modelling figure of MPT64, the sequence of the 2nd to 5th amino acids (DSML) of M2 was totally consistent with the sequence of the 224th to 227th amino acids of MPT64 and the peptide is located on the surface of the space structure of MPT64, suggesting that it might be a linear epitope of MPT64. The recognition of both phage-displayed and synthetic peptides of M2 by the anti-MPT64 polyclonal antibodies also supported this. Although no recurring sequence and no analogue to MPT64 of M6 were found for sequence alignment, the recognition of both phage-displayed and synthetic peptides of M6 by the anti-MPT64 polyclonal antibodies indicated that it might be a mimotope of a conformational epitope of MPT64. According to the results of the reactivity of human sera with synthetic M2 and M6 peptides and MPT64, M2 showed a significantly higher AUC and sensitivity than M6 and MPT64, especially for the sera from sputum-negative TB patients, suggesting that the M2 mimotope may be useful in serological diagnostic testing for TB.
Evaluation and verification of a short-range ensemble precipitation prediction system over Iberia

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is the verification of a short-range ensemble prediction system (SREPS) built with five different model physical process parameterization schemes and two different initial conditions from global models, allowing to construct several versions of the non-hydrostatic mesoscale MM5 model for a 1-month period of October 2006. From the SREPS, flow-dependent probabilistic forecasts are provided by means of predictive probability distributions over the Iberian Peninsula down to 10-km grid spacing. In order to carry out the verification, 25 km grid of observational precipitation records over Spain from the Spanish Climatic Network has been used to evaluate the ensemble accuracy together with the mean model performance and forecast variability by means of comparisons between such records and the ensemble forecasts. This verification has been carried out upscaling the 10 km probabilistic forecast to the observational data grid. Temporal evolution of precipitation forecasts for spatial averaged ensemble members and the ensemble mean is shown, illustrating the consistency of the SREPS. Such evolutions summarize the SREPS information, showing each of the members as well as the ensemble mean evolutions. The Talagrand diagram derived from the SREPS results shows underdispersion which indicates some bias behaviour. The Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve shows a very outstanding area, indicating potential usefulness of the forecasting system. The forecast probability and the mean observed frequency present good agreement with the SREPS results close to the no-skill line. Because the probability has a good reliability and a positive contribution to the brier skill score, a positive value of this skill is obtained. Moreover, the probabilistic meteogram of the spatial daily mean precipitation values shows the range of forecast values, providing discrete probability information in different quantile intervals. The epsgram shows different daily distributions, indicating the predictability of each day.
Fourth Competition on Legal Information Extraction / Entailment Legal Information Retrieval Using Topic Clustering and Neural Networks

This paper presents a description about our adopted approach for the information retrieval and textual entailment tasks of the COLIEE 2017 competition. We address the information retrieval task by implementing a partial string matching and a topic clustering method. For the textual entailment task, we propose a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model which utilizes word embeddings trained on the Google News vectors. We evaluated our approach for both tasks on the COLIEE 2017 dataset. The results demonstrate that the topic clustering method outperformed the partial string matching method in the information retrieval task. The performance of LSTM-CNN model was competitive with other textual entailment systems.
The Rietveld Refinement in the EXPO Software: A Powerful Tool at the End of the Elaborate Crystal Structure Solution Pathway

The Rietveld method is the most reliable and powerful tool for refining crystal structure when powder diffraction data are available. It requires that the structure model to be adjusted is as close as possible to the true structure. The Rietveld method usually represents the final step of the powder solution process, in particular when a new structure is going to be determined and published. EXPO is a software able to execute all the steps of the solution process in a mostly automatic way, by starting from the chemical formula and the experimental diffraction pattern, passing through computational methods for locating the structure model and optimizing it, and ending to the Rietveld refinement. In this contribution, we present the most recent solution strategies in EXPO, both in reciprocal and direct space, aiming at obtaining models suitable to be refined by the Rietveld method. Examples of Rietveld refinements are described, whose results are related to different solution procedures and types of compounds (organic and inorganic).
Making Online Discussions More Sense-able by Adding Richer Structure

Paste the appropriate copyright statement here. ACM now supports three different copyright statements: • ACM copyright: ACM holds the copyright on the work. This is the historical approach. • License: The author(s) retain copyright, but ACM receives an exclusive publication license. • Open Access: The author(s) wish to pay for the work to be open access. The additional fee must be paid to ACM. This text field is large enough to hold the appropriate release statement assuming it is single spaced in a sans-serif 7 point font. Every submission will be assigned their own unique DOI string to be included here. Abstract As more discussions take place online, within applications such as forums, social media, chat, and email, many discussions have grown to be too large for an individual to reasonably handle. While tools for filtering and sorting may help users find and consume a particular subset of comments, there exists few tools for individual and collaborative sensemaking of large-scale discussion data, towards the eventual goal of gaining an overview of the discussion as a whole. In this piece, we argue for systems that allow users to mark up online discussions to create richer structures, using techniques such as annotation, tagging, and summarization. The addition of structure assists readers by providing signposts and places to dive in during the exploration of many threads. Such techniques can also scaffold higher level synthesis of the major points of the discussion, through the characterization of small amounts of discussion that then get recursively combined until the entire discussion is summarized.
IN VITRO STUDIES ON ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIDIABETIC ACTIVITY OF PLEUROTUS EOUS MUSHROOM IN METHANOL AND AQUEOUS EXTRACT

Objective: The present study evaluates the antioxidant and antidiabetic activity of the mushroom. Methods: Antioxidant activity was evaluated using hydroxyl radical, hydrogen peroxide, and antidiabetic activity using α-amylase and α-glucosidase. Result : The antioxidant IC50 for the mushroom extracts methanol and aqueous(Hydroxyl radical) was found to be 290,440μg/ml (Hydrogen peroxide) 475,370 μg/ml and antidiabetic(α Amylase) IC50 was found to be 460,500 μg/ml and (α Glucosidase) 325,280 μg/ml respectively. Conclusion: The result obtained in the in vitro methods suggests that Pleurotus eous mushroom can be administered for its antioxidant and antidiabetic activity
On variational lower bounds of mutual information

Estimating and maximizing mutual information (MI) is core to many objectives in machine learning, but tractably lower bounding MI in high dimensions is challenging. Recent work has introduced variational lower bounds with neural networks to attack this problem, but the tradeoffs and relationships between these techniques remains unclear. Here, we present several results that begin to demys-tify these techniques: we show that the bias-corrected gradient in MINE (Belghazi et al., 2018) can be derived as an unbiased gradient of a new lower bound on MI, present a stabler Jensen-Shannon-based training algorithm for the critic, provide a new interpretation of contrastive predictive coding (CPC, van den Oord et al. (2018)) and prove this variant is a lower bound on MI, and demonstrate the batch-size dependence of CPC. Empirically, we show that the effectiveness of these bounds depends on properties of the data being modeled and the structure of the critic, with no one bound uniformly dominating.
Remarks on noise removal in infrared images

Noise removal in IR (Infra Red) images is very popular in recent years, however the same approach is utilized as for vision images, with no or minor changes. In this work we wanted to show the results of noise removal for selected filters. We focused on investigation of some filters normally used for image processing and their influence to IR image quality. In IR imaging the choice of filter depends mainly on the purpose of the processing, e.g. detection of small objects in complex images, edge and contour detection or removal of non-uniformity of the detector array. The performance of the selected noise reduction filters was evaluated using PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) and MAE (Mean Absolute Error) quality measure, greater value of the PSNR and lower value of the MAE indicate better noise reduction. The results are shown only for few images from our database which contain over 2000 of IR images.
User satisfaction and acceptance of web based marketing information system among microfinance institutions in Nairobi region, Kenya

Acceptance of web based marketing information system has remained a topic of interest for a last few decades. Several theories, specifically over the conceptualisation of the technology acceptance model (TAM) have emerged and they have been applied in different contexts to investigate new insights into the acceptance behaviour at individual and organisational levels. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a relationship exist between user satisfaction and acceptance of web based marketing information system (MKIs) among microfinance institutions in Nairobi Region, Kenya. Anonymous and self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 383 respondents. A total of 370 usable responses were received, resulting in a response rate of 96.6% which was considered satisfactory for subsequent analysis. Due to the quantitative nature of the study, the results are analysed with statistical measures. The results indicated that Satisfaction was influential determinant of acceptance with t= 5.1568, pvalue= 0.005 at 1% significant level. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented
Total Phenolic Content , Cytotoxic , Antioxidant , Thrombolytic , Membrane Stabilizing And Antimicrobial Activities of Eupatorium Ayapana Vent .

In the present study, the Kupchan fractions of methanolic extract of Eupatorium ayapana were investigated for total phenolic content, in vitro cytotoxic, antioxidant, thrombolytic, membrane stabilizing and antimicrobial activities. The highest phenolic content was found in carbon tetrachloride soluble partitionate (1.203 mg of GAE / gm of extractives). In the Brine shrimp lethality bioassay, methanol extract revealed the highest activity (LC50 = 0.149 μg/mL) whereas, in thrombolytic activity test, pet-ether soluble partitionate revealed significant value with 15.75 % clot lyses. Among all fractions, the Pet-ether soluble fraction demonstrated highest antioxidant activity (IC50 = 1.67 μg/ml) and in the assay for membrane stabilizing activity, the carbon tetrachloride soluble fraction displayed significant result with 57.61 % and 55.13 % RBC hemolysis in hypotonic solution and heat-induced conditions. Carbon tetrachloride soluble extract exhibited good to excellent inhibitory activity towards microbial growth with average zone of inhibition of 14-29 mm for each species. This is the first report of cytotoxic, DPPH scavenging, thrombolytic and membrane stabilizing activities of different fractions of this plant.
Developing the Learning Outcomes of the Students through Microscale Experiments in Chemistry

The study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the designed microscale experiments in developing the learning outcomes of the students along the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. It was meant to describe and compare the learning outcomes of the students who were exposed and not exposed to microscale experiments and identified the learning experiences of the students exposed to the microscale experiments. The study used the pretest and posttest randomized control group design and subjected the experimental group to the microscale experiments and the control group to the traditional method of performing chemistry experiments. The results of the study showed that the designed microscale experiments were effective in developing the learning outcomes of the students in Chemistry. It was able to improve the learning competencies of the students in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain. The positive learning experiences of the students in performing microscale experiments in Chemistry accounts for the development of the students’ learning outcomes.
Making sense of confusion : Relating performance, confidence, and self-efficacy to expressions of confusion in an introductory physics class

Although confusion is generally perceived to be negative, educators dating as far back as Socrates, who asked students to question assumptions and wrestle with ideas, have challenged this notion. Can confusion be productive? How should instructors interpret student expressions of confusion? During two semesters of introductory physics that involved Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) and research-based reading materials, we evaluated performance on reading assignments while simultaneously measuring students ’ self-assessment of their confusion over the preclass reading material ( N ¼ 137 ; N fall ¼ 106 , N spring ¼ 88 ). We examined the relationship between confusion and correctness, confidence in reasoning, and (in the spring) precourse self-efficacy. We find that student expressions of confusion before coming to class are negatively related to correctness on preclass content-related questions, confidence in reasoning on those questions, and self-efficacy, but weakly positively related to final grade when controlling for these factors ( β ¼ 0 . 23 , p ¼ 0 . 03 ).
Q-factor enhancement in all-dielectric anisotropic nanoresonators

It is proposed and demonstrated that the $Q$ factor of optical resonators can be significantly enhanced by introducing an extra anisotropic cladding. We study the optical resonances of all-dielectric core-shell nanoresonators and show that radially anisotropic claddings can be employed to squeeze more energy into the core area, leading to stronger light confinement and thus significant $Q$-factor enhancement. We further demonstrate that the required homogenous claddings of unusual anisotropy parameters can be realized through all-dielectric multilayered isotropic structures. It is expected that the mechanism we have revealed not only offers extra flexibilities of resonance manipulations for conventional dielectric structures, but also may shed new light onto investigations into unconventional nanostructures consisting of two-dimensional materials that are intrinsically highly anisotropic.
ALTRUISM, EGOISM AND GROUP COHESION IN A LOCAL INTERACTION MODEL

In this paper we have introduced and parameterized the concept of ? group cohesion? in a model of local interaction with a population divided into groups. This allows us to control the level of ? isolation? of these groups: We thus analyze if the degree of group cohesion is relevant to achieve an efficient behaviour and which level would be the best one for this purpose. We are interested in situations where there is a trade off between efficiency and individual incentives. This trade off is stronger when the efficient strategy or norm is strictly dominated, as in the Prisoner? s Dilemma or in some cases of Altruism. In our model we have considered that agents could choose to be Altruist of Egoist, in fact, they behave as in Eshel, Samuelson and Shaked (1998) model.
Triggering and measuring social inhibitory response in humans immersed in interactions with virtual humans

The aim of the proposed study is to determine if a virtual human can evoke a measurable inhibitory response to anti-social stimuli within the prefrontal cortex. Justification, protocol and demonstrator are described here. The work follows a previous study demonstrating that neural inhibitory responses can be measured within an immersive virtual reality display. We have adopted the approach of combining functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) and virtual reality head-mounted display. Haemodynamic changes will be measured in healthy participants and subsequently, subjects with mental deficits, as both engage in interactions that seek to evoke a response that would normally be inhibited. Disinhibition is an aspect of social response exaggerated by several deficits of mind, including dementia, autism and Tourette’s syndrome. This research could improve tools for understanding, diagnosis and treatment of such condition.
CERN-TH / 2018-124 TUM-HEP-1140 / 18 M INLO t-channel single-top plus jet

We present a next-to-leading order accurate simulation of t-channel single-top plus jet production matched to parton showers via the Powheg method. The calculation underlying the simulation is enhanced with a process-specific implementation of the multiscale improved NLO (Minlo) method, such that it gives physical predictions all through phase space, including regions where the jet additional to the t-channel single-top process is unresolved. We further describe a tuning procedure for the Minlo Sudakov form factor, fitting the coefficient of the first subleading term in its exponent using an artificial neuralnetwork. The latter tuning, implemented as a straightforward event-by-event reweighting, renders the Minlo simulation NLO accurate for t-channel single-top observables, in addition to those of the analogous single-top plus jet process.
Computation of invariants in the theory of cyclotomic fields

for every sufficiently large integer $n^{1)}$ . In the present paper, we shall determine, by the help of a computer, the coefficients $\lambda_{p},$ $\mu_{p}$ , and $1_{I)}^{1}$ in the above formula for all prime numbers $p\leqq 4001$ . We shall see in particular that $\mu_{p}=0$ for every $p\leqq 4001$ . Let $S_{n}$ denote the Sylow p-subgroup of the ideal class group of $F_{n}$ . For the above primes, we shall determine not only the order
Deletion of Ellipse Enclosing Characters

In this paper, we introduce a new simple proposal for deletion of ellipse enclosing character in documentary images. In this proposal, ellipse enclosing character is labeled, parameters for the center point of an ellipse are found using circumscribing rectangle of the labeled ellipse, the parameters for half-lengths of the major axis and minor axis are determined by finding the farthest point and the nearest point on labeled ellipse from the center point, the ellipse orientation is determined by finding the angle between major axis and horizontal direction, then the ellipse is modeled using these parameters. Ellipse detection is conducted counting the number of black pixels on the ellipse model. Finally, ellipse enclosing characters are distinguished from characters having an ellipse shape. Results of the experiments using appropriate images showed the effectiveness of our proposal. The sections that follow detail problems overcome and our projected work.
Prediction of maximum dry density of local granular fills

The paper presents a relation. developed to predict maximum dry density (MDD) in terms of the solid density and the gradation coefficients that characterize the grain size distribution of locally employed granular fill materials. For this purpose, two geologically different soils commonly used as selected fill materials are blended. A large number of compaction tests as required by statistical principles are conducted using the modified Proctor compaction procedure. The gradation envelopes, within which the ((ontrolparameterS are varied, are selected on the basis of local specifications for sub-base materials. A strong correlation is found between the MDD and the specific gravity of the solid grains. In contrast, the correlation between the MDD and the gradation coefficients including the coefficient of gradation, Cg and the uniformity coefficient, Cu, is weak. The developed predicting formula is compared with existing methods. It is observed that the developed relations predict well the MDD of soils of the nature studied in this work than do the existing methods. A test on a soil of relatively high solid density revealed that the developed relation looses its power of prediction when applied on soils of solid density beyond the range studied. Keywords : Compaction, gradation coefficients, granular soil, maximum dry density, mooified Proctor test, solid unit weight, optimum moisture content
Privacy-aware Remote Monitoring System by Skeleton Recognition

As the number of elderly people living alone increases, the need for remote monitoring system is also increasing. The system automatically checks the safety of the elderly and notifies the state to remote areas in case of anomalies. However, how to protect the privacy of the watched person becomes a problem. We propose that skeleton recognition technology is useful to monitor people with high accuracy while protecting the privacy. It can be used not only to investigate his/her posture and motion, but also to selectively analyze the voice emitted by himself/herself. We developed a system that combines skeleton recognition and selective speech recognition by the audio direction. In this paper, we will explain the improvement of our system and report some experiment results.