Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Minimal Nonlinear Distortion Principle for Nonlinear Independent Component Analysis

It is well known that solutions to the nonlinear independent component analysis (ICA) problem are highly non-unique. In this paper we propose the “minimal nonlinear distortion” (MND) principle for tackling the ill-posedness of nonlinear ICA problems. MND prefers the nonlinear ICA solution with the estimated mixing procedure as close as possible to linear, among all possible solutions. It also helps to avoid local optima in the solutions. To achieve MND, we exploit a regularization term to minimize the mean square error between the nonlinear mixing mapping and the best-fitting linear one. The effect of MND on the inherent trivial and non-trivial indeterminacies in nonlinear ICA solutions is investigated. Moreover, we show that local MND is closely related to the smoothness regularizer penalizing large curvature, which provides another useful regularization condition for nonlinear ICA. Experiments on synthetic data show the usefulness of the MND principle for separating various nonlinear mixtures. Finally, as an application, we use nonlinear ICA with MND to separate daily returns of a set of stocks in Hong Kong, and the linear causal relations among them are successfully discovered. The resulting causal relations give some interesting insights into the stock market. Such a result can not be achieved by linear ICA. Simulation studies also verify that when doing causality discovery, sometimes one should not ignore the nonlinear distortion in the data generation procedure, even if it is weak.
Available from Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Cognitive Tools and User-centered Learning Environments: Rethinking Tools, Functions, and Applications Permission to Reproduce and Disseminate This Material Has Been Granted By

This paper introduces and analyzes problems and issues in the design and use of cognitive tools in open, user-centered learning environments. It introduces a classification scheme for tool functions, and showcases several tools in a current educational hypermedia research and development effort. Information-seeking, information-presentation, knowledgeorganization, knowledge-integration, and knowledge-generation tools are discussed, followed by a description of "The Human Body," an interactive CDROM based on the television series, "The Universe Within Human Body. The Human Body. " Implications for future research and development in the design and use of cognitive tools in hypermedia learning environments are addressed. (Contains 18 references and 6 figures.) (Author/AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 Cognitive Tools and User-Centered Learning Environments: Rethinking Tools, Functions, and Applications PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Modeling synthetic radar image from a digital terrain model

In this paper we propose to simulate SAR radar images that can be acquired by aircraft or satellite. This corresponds to a real problematic, in fact, an airborne radar data acquisition campaign, was conducted in the south east of France. We want to estimate the geometric deformations that a digital terrain model can be subjected. By extrapolation, this construction should also allow to understand the image distortion if a plane is replaced by a satellite. This manipulation allow to judge the relevance of a space mission to quantify geological and geomorphological data. The radar wave is an electromagnetic wave, they have the advantage of overcoming atmospheric conditions since more wavelength is large is better crossing the cloud layer. Therefore imaging radar provides continuous monitoring.
Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure during Intrauterine Period, Promotes Caspase Dependent and Independent DNA Fragmentation in Sertoli-Germ Cells

Objectives. To investigate the effect of cigarette smoke exposure during intrauterine period on neonatal rat testis. Methods. Twenty-five rats were randomized to be exposed to cigarette smoke with the Walton Smoking Machine or to room air during their pregnancies. The newborn male rats (n = 21) were grouped as group 1 (n = 15) which were exposed to cigarette smoke during intrauterine life and group 2 (n = 6) which were exposed to room air during intrauterine life. The orchiectomy materials were analyzed with TUNEL immunofluorescent staining for detection of DNA damage. To detect apoptosis, immunohistochemical analyses with caspase-3 were performed. Primary outcomes were apoptotic index and immunohistochemical scores (HSCORES); secondary outcomes were Sertoli-cell count and birth-weight of rats. Results. Sertoli cell apoptosis was increased in group 1 (HSCORE = 210.6 ± 41.9) when compared to group 2 (HSCORE = 100.0 ± 17.8) (P = 0.001). Sertoli cell count was decreased in group 1 (P = 0.043). The HSCORE for the germ cells was calculated as 214.0 ± 46.2 in group 1 and 93.3 ± 10.3 in group 2 (P = 0.001) referring to an increased germ cell apoptosis in group 1. The apoptotic indexes for group 1 were 49.6 ± 9.57 and 29.98 ± 2.34 for group 2 (P = 0.001). The immunofluorescent technique demonstrated increased DNA damage in seminiferous epithelium in group 1. Conclusions. Intrauterine exposure to cigarette smoke adversely affects neonatal testicular structuring and diminishes testicular reserve.
A Paracrine Loop between Tumor Cells and Macrophages Is Required for Tumor Cell Migration in Mammary Tumors

Invasion of tumor cells into the surrounding connective tissue and blood vessels is a key step in the metastatic spread of breast tumors. Although the presence of macrophages in primary tumors is associated with increased metastatic potential, the mechanistic basis for this observation is unknown. Using a chemotaxis-based in vivo invasion assay and multiphoton-based intravital imaging, we show that the interaction between macrophages and tumor cells facilitates the migration of carcinoma cells in the primary tumor. Gradients of either epidermal growth factor (EGF) or colony-stimulating factor 1 (CSF-1) stimulate collection into microneedles of tumor cells and macrophages even though tumor cells express only EGF receptor and macrophages express only CSF-1 receptor. Intravital imaging shows that macrophages and tumor cells migrate toward microneedles containing either EGF or CSF-1. Inhibition of either CSF-1– or EGF-stimulated signaling reduces the migration of both cell types. This work provides the first direct evidence for a synergistic interaction between macrophages and tumor cells during cell migration in vivo and indicates a mechanism for how macrophages may contribute to metastasis.
FUZZY-LOGIC BASED METHODOLOGIES FOR MOBILE MAPPING: ENHANCING POSITIONING ACCURACY OF GPS/GNSS MEASUREMENTS

This paper shows an application of the fuzzy-logic approach to mobile mapping issues, presenting results of fuzzy processing of the C/A-code-based GPS measurements (standalone static positioning), whose accuracy depends essentially on the satellite observation geometry, expressed numerically by the GDOP (Geometrical Dilution Of Precision) factor, and on the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). A fuzzy controller, developed in the Matlab environment, is presented together with the envisaged rule base and the design steps (fuzzification, inference engine, defuzzification). A quality index is derived from the fuzzy-logic based data analysis, which allows us to select the “best” GPS observables to be processed in the positioning equations. Experimental results are presented and discussed from real data gathered by a commercial GPS receiver (the Garmin® GPS25-LV 12-channel receiver). Significant improvements of the positioning accuracy have been obtained with respect to the “raw” fixes provided by the receiver, showing the usefulness of the fuzzy-processed position fixes.
Markers of accessory sex glands function in men with varicocele, relationship with seminal parameters.

INTRODUCTION Varicocele has been associated with decreased semen quality, not much is known about the effect of varicocele on the accessory sex glands function. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship among varicocele, seminal parameters and biochemical markers of accessory sex glands: neutral alpha glucosidase (NAG, epididymis), fructose (seminal vesicles), prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) and zinc (prostate). MATERIALS AND METHODS A clinical study was performed in 190 men with varicocele and 100 men normozoospermic as control group. Semen analysis, hypoosmotic swelling test (HOST), polymorphonuclear (PMN), fructose, zinc, PAP and NAG were determinate. Differences were evaluated by, t test, ANOVA and a Pearson's coefficient correlation. RESULTS Varicocele group showed a decrease in sperm motility, normal morphology, HOST and vitality. No differences were observed in fructose, PAP and zinc levels between control and varicocele group. The NAG was significantly decreased in varicocele group. A positive correlation was observed between both fructose and PAP with semen volume, sperm concentration, PMN, and zinc levels. Additionally, a decrease of NAG was correlated with a decrease of normal sperm morphology, motility, vitality and HOST. CONCLUSIONS Varicocele does not alter fructose secretion by seminal vesicles and PAP and zinc by prostate. Varicocele is associated with a decrease of NAG activity in seminal fluid, suggesting epididymal dysfunction possibly associated with a detrimental in sperm quality.
A Distributed Augmented Reality System for Medical Training and Simulation

Augmented Reality (AR) systems describe the class of systems that use computers to overlay virtual information on the real world. AR environments allow the development of promising tools in several application domains. In medical training and simulation the learning potential of AR is significantly amplified by the capability of the system to present 3D medical models in real-time at remote locations. Furthermore the simulation applicability is broadened by the use of real-time deformable medical models. This work presents a distributed medical training prototype designed to train medical practitioners' hand-eye coordination when performing endotracheal intubations. The system we present accomplishes this task with the help of AR paradigms. An extension of this prototype to medical simulations by employing deformable medical models is possible. The shared state maintenance of the collaborative AR environment is assured through a novel adaptive synchronization algorithm (ASA) that increases the sense of presence among participants and facilitates their interactivity in spite of infrastructure delays. The system will allow paramedics, pre-hospital personnel, and students to practice their skills without touching a real patient and will provide them with the visual feedback they could not otherwise obtain. Such a distributed AR training tool has the potential to: allow an instructor to simultaneously train local and remotely located students and, allow students to actually "see" the internal anatomy and therefore better understand their actions on a human patient simulator (HPS).
Oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition of major Indian rivers: a first global assessment

Nine major rivers have been sampled around the Indian subcontinent to give an overview of the surface water characteristics. Both 18O and deuterium have been measured to determine the origin of the water and the possible evapotranspiration process. The major ions have also been analysed to obtain complementary information. Although some basins have been studied previously (mainly in the north), this is the first attempt at a wider investigation of major Indian rivers. The results are discussed from the perspective of the hydroclimatological, geographical and geological specificity of the river basins. δ18O values vary from light‐isotope‐enriched Himalayan rivers to heavy‐isotope‐enriched peninsular Indian rivers in a northwest–southeast gradient across the subcontinent. There is more evapotranspiration, leading to heavy isotope enrichment, in the peninsular (southern Deccan) rivers compared with the light‐isotope‐enriched snow‐ and glacier‐melt‐derived waters of the Himalayan rivers. The δ18O values of Indian rivers correspond roughly to the δ18O values of the rains falling over the subcontinent. However, the influence of tributaries is dominant over rainfall in rivers like the Narmada and Tapti. The Cauvery and Krishna rivers show maximum evapotranspiration and sodium pollution, as indicated by the δ18O values, deuterium excess and major ion data. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Specific Isoforms of Translation Initiation Factor 4GI Show Differences in Translational Activity

ABSTRACT The eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 4GI gene locus (eIF4GI) contains three identified promoters, generating alternately spliced mRNAs, yielding a total of five eIF4GI protein isoforms. Although eIF4GI plays a critical role in mRNA recruitment to the ribosomes, little is known about the functions of the different isoforms, their partner binding capacities, or the role of the homolog, eIF4GII, in translation initiation. To directly address this, we have used short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) expressed from DNA vectors to silence the expression of eIF4GI in HeLa cells. Here we show that reduced levels of specific mRNA and eIF4GI isoforms in HeLa cells promoted aberrant morphology and a partial inhibition of translation. The latter reflected dephosphorylation of 4E-BP1 and decreased eIF4F complex levels, with no change in eIF2α phosphorylation. Expression of siRNA-resistant Myc-tagged eIF4GI isoforms has allowed us to show that the different isoforms exhibit significant differences in their ability to restore translation rates. Here we quantify the efficiency of eIF4GI promoter usage in mammalian cells and demonstrate that even though the longest isoform of eIF4GI (eIF4GIf) was relatively poorly expressed when reintroduced, it was more efficient at promoting the translation of cellular mRNAs than the more highly expressed shorter isoforms used in previous functional studies.
An efficient implementation scheme of concurrent object-oriented languages on stock multicomputers

Several novel techniques for efficient implementtion of concurrent object-oriented languages on general purpose, stock multicomputers are presented. These techniques have been developed in implementing our concurrent object-oriented language ABCL on a Fujitsu Laboratory's experimental multicomputer AP1000 consisting of 512 SPARC chips. The propsed intra-node scheduling mechanism reduces the cost of local message passing. The cost of intra-node asynchronous message passing is about 20 SPARC instructions in the bst case, including locality checking, dynamic method lookup, and scheduling. The minimum latency of asynchronous internode message passing is about 9μs, or about 120 instructions, employing the self-dispatching mechanism independently proposed by Eicken et al. A large scale benchmark which involves 9,000,000 message passings shows 440 times speedup on the 512 nodes system compared to the sequential version of the same algorithm. We rely on simple hardware support for message passing and use no specialized architectural supports for object-oriented computing. Thus, we are able to enjoy the benefits of future progress in standard processor technology. Our result shows that concurrent object-oriented languages can be implemented efficiently on conventional multicomputers.
Using Realistic Internet Topology Data for Large Scale Network Simulations in OMNeT

Results from simulation models can be used to derive implications for real scenarios only when the model is designed very close to reality. Besides solving the question of how to generate data traffic in the simulation, one has to solve also the problem of how to generate larger realistic topologies. The latter are required in many cases to evaluate protocols and mechanisms with respect to scalability. Instead of using algorithms for generating Internet-like topologies artificially, it is possible to use sources of the Internet’s real Autonomous System topology for generating the simulation topology. This paper describes a first approach of how to make use of such data for OMNeT++ simulations and presents first experiences with this approach.
Escherichia coli–Mediated Impairment of Ureteric Contractility Is Uropathogenic E. coli Specific

Background. Ureters are fundamental for keeping kidneys free from uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), but we have shown that 2 strains (J96 and 536) can subvert this role and reduce ureteric contractility. To determine whether this is (1) a widespread feature of UPEC, (2) exhibited only by UPEC, and (3) dependent upon type 1 fimbriae, we analyzed strains representing epidemiologically important multilocus sequence types ST131, ST73, and ST95 and non-UPEC E. coli. Methods. Contractility and calcium transients in intact rat ureters were compared between strains. Mannose and fim mutants were used to investigate the role of type 1 fimbriae. Results. Non-UPEC had no significant effect on contractility, with a mean decrease after 8 hours of 8.8%, compared with 8.8% in controls. UPEC effects on contractility were strain specific, with decreases from 9.47% to 96.7%. Mannose inhibited the effects of the most potent strains (CFT073 and UTI89) but had variable effects among other UPEC strains. Mutation and complementation studies showed that the effects of the UTI89 cystitis isolate were fimH dependent. Conclusions. We find that (1) non-UPEC do not affect ureteric contractility, (2) impairment of contractility is a common feature of UPEC, and (3) the mechanism varies between strains, but for the most potent UPEC type 1 fimbriae are involved.
Evolution of the Walden's Paths Authoring Tools

Changing user skills, available infrastructure, and work practices have caused many differences in the authoring support provided by the Walden’s Paths project since its conception. In this paper we trace these changes and the transition from the earlier authoring tools that supported an integrated authoring process, to the more recent tools designed to work with the Web applications that teachers have become accustomed to.
Characterizing the spatial structure of endangered species habitat using geostatistical analysis of IKONOS imagery

Our study used geostatistics to extract measures that characterize the spatial structure of vegetated landscapes from satellite imagery for mapping endangered Sonoran pronghorn habitat. Fine spatial resolution IKONOS data provided information at the scale of individual trees or shrubs that permitted analysis of vegetation structure and pattern. We derived images of landscape structure by calculating local estimates of the nugget, sill, and range variogram parameters within 25 × 25-m image windows. These variogram parameters, which describe the spatial autocorrelation of the 1-m image pixels, are shown in previous studies to discriminate between different species-specific vegetation associations. We constructed two independent models of pronghorn landscape preference by coupling the derived measures with Sonoran pronghorn sighting data: a distribution-based model and a cluster-based model. The distribution-based model used the descriptive statistics for variogram measures at pronghorn sightings, whereas the cluster-based model used the distribution of pronghorn sightings within clusters of an unsupervised classification of derived images. Both models define similar landscapes, and validation results confirm they effectively predict the locations of an independent set of pronghorn sightings. Such information, although not a substitute for field-based knowledge of the landscape and associated ecological processes, can provide valuable reconnaissance information to guide natural resource management efforts.
Learning Negotiation Policies Using Ensemble-Based Drift Detection Techniques

In this work we compare drift detection techniques and we show how they can improve the performance of trade agents in multi-issue bilateral dynamic negotiations. In a dynamic negotiation the utility values and functions of trade agents can change on the fly. Intelligent trade agents must identify and take such drift in the competitors into account changing also the offer policies to improve the global utility throughout the negotiation. However, traditional learning mechanisms disregard possible changes in a competitor's offer/counter-offer policy. In that case, the agent performance may decrease drastically. In our approach, a trade agent has a staff of weighted learner agents used to predict interesting offers. The staff uses the Dynamic Weighted Majority (DWM) algorithm to adapt itself creating, deleting and adapting staff members. The results obtained with the IB3 (Instance-based) learners and IB3-DWM learners show that ensemble methods like DWM are suitable for correctly identifying changes in agent negotiations.
AlphaSort: a RISC machine sort

A new sort algorithm, called AlphaSort, demonstrates that commodity processors and disks can handle commercial batch workloads. Using Alpha AXP processors, commodity memory, and arrays of SCSI disks, AlphaSort runs the industry-standard sort benchmark in seven seconds. This beats the best published record on a 32-cpu 32-disk Hypercube by 8:1. On another benchmark, AlphaSort sorted more than a gigabyte in a minute. AlphaSort is a cache-sensitive memory-intensive sort algorithm. It uses file striping to get high disk bandwidth. It uses QuickSort to generate runs and uses replacement-selection to merge the runs. It uses shared memory multiprocessors to break the sort into subsort chores. Because startup times are becoming a significant part of the total time, we propose two new benchmarks: (1) Minutesort: how much can you sort in a minute, and (2) DollarSort: how much can you sort for a dollar.
Chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer.

only unnecessary but may be unwanted. What is needed is to identify predictors of poor psychosocial outcome. " The implementation of such a "blanket" service might have consequences for survival. We recently published findings3 from a prospective study which showed that recurrence-free survival at five years was significantly more common among early breast cancer patients who reacted to knowledge of their diagnosis at three months by a denial or fighting spirit attitude than among patients who responded with an apparently more balanced approach of stoic acceptance. On the other hand, the helpless and hopeless had greatly reduced survival. Exhaustive analysis showed that these attitudes were unrelated to underlying differences in the burden ofphysical disease between the groups, and, furthermore, were as powerful as predictors of survival as conventional prognostic indicators such as stage, tumour size, and histological grade. Until such time as the effects on physical outcome of different psychological response patterns to illness are better understood, it seems wise to concentrate resources on education aimed at improving recognition of patients who need, and will benefit from, psychiatric and social care.
A novel approach for efficient handling of small files in HDFS

The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is a representative cloud storage platform having scalable, reliable and low-cost storage capability. It is designed to handle large files. Hence, it suffers performance penalty while handling a huge number of small files. Further, it does not consider the correlation between the files to provide prefetching mechanism that is useful to improve access efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to handle small files in HDFS. The proposed approach combines the correlated files into one single file to reduce the metadata storage on Namenode. We integrate the prefetching and caching mechanisms in the proposed approach to improve access efficiency of small files. Moreover, we analyze the performance of the proposed approach considering file sizes in range 32KB-4096KB. The results show that the proposed approach reduces the metadata storage compared to HDFS.