Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Harnessing Evolution to Elucidate the Consequences of Symbiosis

Many organisms harbor microbial associates that have profound impacts on host traits. The phenotypic effect of symbionts on their hosts may include changes in development, reproduction, longevity, and defense against natural enemies. Determining the consequences of associating with a microbial symbiont requires experimental comparison of hosts with and without symbionts. Then, determining the mechanism by which symbionts alter these phenotypes can involve genomic, genetic, and evolutionary approaches; however, many host-associated symbionts are not amenable to genetic approaches that require cultivation of the microbe outside the host. In the current issue of PLOS Biology, Chrostek and Teixeira highlight an elegant approach to studying functional mechanisms of symbiont-conferred traits. They used directed experimental evolution to select for strains of Wolbachia wMelPop (a bacterial symbiont of fruit flies) that differed in copy number of a region of the genome suspected to underlie virulence. Copy number evolved rapidly when under selection, and wMelPop strains with more copies of the region shortened the lives of their Drosophila hosts more than symbionts with fewer copies. Interestingly, the wMelPop strains with more copies also increase host resistance to viruses compared to symbionts with fewer copies. Their study highlights the power of exploiting alternative approaches when elucidating the functional impacts of symbiotic associations.
Bachelor final project: socially interactive robots : an experiment on the assistive context

The Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR) field studies how robots can help humans through social rather than physical interaction. It may seem contrary to common sense expectation that physical robots can be used for social assistance, as one could just use software agents or other devices in order to do that. Researchers point out, however, that humans tend to attribute lifelike characteristics to robots and to socially engage with them, as they are embodied agents that have enough biological-like motion or appearance aspects. In this case, people commonly engage with physical machines, projecting intentions, goals, and emotions to them. In this study we have investigated, through a short-term experiment, blind persons perceptions of a physically collocated robot compared to a regular computer in regard to functional and social aspects. Results show that, in general, participants preferred to interact with the robot, demonstrating interest and being more engaged. In addition, our findings suggest that the physical embodiment evokes a positive attitude from the blind persons towards the robot, even when the physical capabilities of the robot are not explored (sic).
Electronic taste stimulation

In this paper, we present a system, which could digitally stimulate the sense of taste (gustation) on human. The system utilizes electrical stimulation on human tongue to produce taste sensations. The initial experiments reveal that the method is viable and deserves further developments. This requires further analyses of the properties of electric pulses (current, frequency, and voltage) on tongue along with the stimulating material. The experimental results suggested that sourness, bitterness, and saltiness are the main sensations that could be evoked at present.
Subretinal Fluid in Eyes with Active Ocular Toxoplasmosis Observed Using Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

Purpose To describe the clinical finding of subretinal fluid (SRF) in the posterior pole by spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in eyes with active ocular toxoplasmosis (OT). Design Retrospective case series. Participants Thirty-eight eyes from 39 patients with active OT. Methods Eyes with active OT which underwent SD-OCT were reviewed. SRFs in the posterior pole were further analyzed. Main Outcome Measures Presence of SRF; its accompanying features, e.g. retinal necrosis, cystoid macular edema (CME), choroidal neovascularization (CNV); and longitudinal changes of SRF, including maximum height and total volume before and after treatment. Results SRF presented in 45.5% (or 15/33) of eyes with typical active OT and in 51.3% (or 20/39) of eyes with active OT. The mean maximum height and total volume of SRF were 161.0 (range: 23–478) µm and 0.47 (range: 0.005–4.12) mm3, respectively. For 12 eyes with SRF related to active retinal necrosis, SRF was observed with complete absorption after conventional anti-toxoplasmosis treatment. The mean duration for observation of SRF clearance was 33.8 (range: 7–84) days. The mean rate of SRF clearance was 0.0128 (range: 0.0002–0.0665) mm3/day. Conclusions SRF (i.e., serous retinal detachment) is a common feature in patients with active OT when SD-OCT is performed. The majority of SRF was associated with retinal necrosis and reacted well to conventional therapy, regardless of total fluid volume. However, SRF accompanying with CME or CNV responded less favorably or remained refractory to conventional or combined intravitreal treatment, even when the SRF was small in size.
Latent profiling university students’ learning strategies use and effects on academic performance and retention

ABSTRACT Students’ learning strategies predict and explain academic performance and success in university. This study employed Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify students’ unique patterns of learning strategies in university. A total of 2502 first-year US university students participated in this study. LPA identified four profiles: low strategy use, high strategy use, moderate strategy use, and goal-engagement strategy use. A series of ANOVA tests revealed that students in the high strategy use profile earned higher grades than did students in the other profiles. However, there was no significant difference between the high strategy use and goal-engagement strategy use profiles for other academic outcomes. The distribution of profiles varied by gender, but not by race/ethnicity or financial need. Interventions designed to increase students’ academic success in university should include components that target the development of learning strategies, particularly students’ academic goal engagement.
Substitutional dynamical systems, Bratteli diagrams and dimension groups

We explore substitution minimal systems and their relation to stationary Bratteli diagrams and stationary dimension groups. The constructions involved are algorithmic and explicit and render an effective method to compute an invariant of (ordered) $K$-theoretic nature for these systems. This new invariant is independent of spectral invariants which have previously been extensively studied. Before we state the main results we give some background.
Physical modeling of drums by transfer function methods

Multidimensional (MD) physical systems are usually given in terms of partial differential equations (PDEs). Similar to one-dimensional systems, they can also be described by transfer function models (TFMs). In addition to including initial and boundary conditions as well as excitation functions exactly, the TFM can also be discretized in a simple way. This leads to suitable implementations for digital signal processors. Therefore it is possible to implement physics based digital sound synthesis algorithms derived from TFMs in real-time. This paper extends the previously presented solution for vibrating strings with one spatial dimension to two-dimensional drum models.
Multi-Agent AUTO Negotiation Model

In e-commerce, the negotiation based on Multi-Agent has become an active field. This paper brings a new Multi-Agent Auto Negotiation Model which is done using multi-Agent System, fuzzy evaluation algorithm and game theory. Firstly, we design negotiation model; secondly, we analyze the flow; finally, we build a negotiation platform in according to combination with Web technique and jade. The model solves information asymmetric, achieves auto-bargaining, and guarantees business security.
Robust Colour Image Segmentation

In this paper, we present a new method for segmenting a colour image into homogeneous regions. This method uses the discriminant properties of the three perceptual colour attributes : the hue H, the saturation S and the value V. In a preliminary step, each pixel is classiied according to a chromaticity degree which characterises its belonging to a colour space zone whose chromatic components are meaningful. In a second step, we apply a segmentation algorithm based on a recursive directed region grower, and which provides a hierarchical scene representation. Two examples are given where an indoor scene and a subsea image are processed to yield uniform regions. We compare the results obtained by using the diierent chromatic/achromatic classiication methods described in this paper.
Multi-channel customer management: A case study in Egypt

Channel management is one CRM systems component much influenced by the behaviour of customers in relation to the implementation and use of channel management CRM component. The consumers’ behaviours, preferences, perceptions and expectations are crucial for the implementation and use of channel management. Customers’ contact with the organization’s multi-channels can occur at several touch points through out customer lifecycle. Customers’ behaviours may be differentiated according to the individual or micro level, but it might also differ at an ecological or macro level of analysis (Ramaseshan et al., 2006). In this paper the author has conducted a case study in Egypt to analyze customers’ behaviours at a macro level and customers channel choices, through out the customer lifecycle. The author has used a Structurational Analysis model (Ali and Brooks, 2008) to identify the cultural factors (Ali, et al. 2008) that influence the multi-channel customer management in Egypt.
Spammer detection and tagging based user generated video search system — A survey

In this modern world everything is done using online. Most people tend to watch films, sports, songs and also play games in online. One such mostly used site to do all this activity is the You Tube. In such online sites there is a possibility to introduce unwanted information which leads to wastage of user time in searching the content. These unwanted information present in the online sites is referred to us the spammers. In the existing work related to the you Tube the user have to search for the videos which takes a long time and irrelevant videos not related to the user search is displayed. The aim of the proposed work is that, User-generated content (UGC) video systems by definition heavily depend on the input of their community of users and their social interactions for video diffusion and opinion sharing. As a UGC system can achieve a larger audience through improved connectivity, findings motivate to propose a mean to enhance the users' connectivity by taking benefit of friend recommendation and spammer detection of the online videos. The algorithm active lazy fuzzy classifier algorithm used to detect spammers. Two similarity metrics are constructed based on users' interests that are derived from their uploads and favorite tagging of videos. Two friend recommendation algorithms are then proposed. The algorithms use public information provided by users to suggest potential friends with similar interests as measured by the similarity metrics. This paper presents the survey of spammer detection and their technologies and also recommending videos to the user by means of friend function which reduces the time of searching the videos and various methods for rating the videos.
The Role of Strigolactones in Nutrient-Stress Responses in Plants

Strigolactones (SLs) are a new group of plant hormones, which have been intensively investigated during the last few years. The wide spectrum of SLs actions, including the regulation of shoot/root architecture, and the stimulation of the interactions between roots and fungi or bacteria, as well as the stimulation of germination of parasitic plants, indicates that this group of hormones may play an important role in the mechanisms that control soil exploration, and the root-mediated uptake of nutrients. Current studies have shown that SLs might be factors that have an influence on the plant response to a deficiency of macronutrients. Experimental data from the last four years have confirmed that the biosynthesis and exudation of SLs are increased under phosphorus and nitrogen deficiency. All these data suggest that SLs may regulate the complex response to nutrient stress, which include not only the modification of the plant developmental process, but also the cooperation with other organisms in order to minimize the effects of threats. In this paper the results of studies that indicate that SLs play an important role in the response to nutrient stress are reviewed and the consequences of the higher biosynthesis and exudation of SLs in response to phosphorus and nitrogen deficiency are discussed.
Secure sharing of personal health records on cloud using key-aggregate cryptosystem

In modern health care environments, personal health record (PHR) owners store and share their PHR data via a cloud because of its on-demand resource access, measured service and rapid elasticity. To enable secure and flexible data sharing in the cloud, efficient management of encryption keys is required. Selective data sharing requires different documents to be encrypted with different keys, which implies data users like doctors to securely store the received keys and submit an equal number of keyword trapdoors (encrypted queries) to the cloud server to perform a keyword search over authorized encrypted files. The current work focuses on reducing key-size by generating a single aggregate key, but does not provide searchable encryption, which is required for flexible data sharing. Our proposed scheme addresses this issue by enabling a patient to distribute a single constant-size aggregate key to a data user for sharing a large number of documents and then user submits a single aggregate trapdoor to the cloud for searching over authorized encrypted documents. The novelty of this scheme lies in submitting a single trapdoor for keyword search over documents encrypted with different keys as opposed to traditional methods requiring submission of multiple trapdoors. Performance evaluation confirms that our proposed scheme is practically efficient and also reduces storage overhead by reducing both the number of keys and key-size without affecting security-level, which is highly desired in the resource constraint devices like smartphones.
Repairing split ends: SIRT6, mono-ADP ribosylation and DNA repair

The sirtuin gene family comprises an evolutionarily ancient set of NAD+ dependent protein deacetylase and mono-ADP ribosyltransferase enzymes. Found in all domains of life, sirtuins regulate a diverse array of biological processes, including DNA repair, gene silencing, apoptosis and metabolism. Studies in multiple model organisms have indicated that sirtuins may also function to extend lifespan and attenuate age-related pathologies. To date, most of these studies have focused on the deacetylase activity of sirtuins, and relatively little is known about the other biochemical activity of sirtuins, mono-ADP ribosylation. We recently reported that the mammalian sirtuin, SIRT6, mono-ADP ribosylates PARP1 to promote DNA repair in response to oxidative stress. In this research perspective we review the role of SIRT6 in DNA repair and discuss the emerging implications for sirtuin directed mono-ADP ribosylation in aging and age-related diseases.
Towards more paper-like input: flexible input devices for foldable interaction styles

This paper presents Foldable User Interfaces (FUI), a combination of a 3D GUI with windows imbued with the physics of paper, and Foldable Input Devices (FIDs). FIDs are sheets of paper that allow realistic transformations of graphical sheets in the FUI. Foldable input devices are made out of construction paper augmented with IR reflectors, and tracked by computer vision. Window sheets can be picked up and flexed with simple movements and deformations of the FID. FIDs allow a diverse lexicon of one-handed and two-handed interaction techniques, including folding, bending, flipping and stacking. We show how these can be used to ease the creation of simple 3D models, but also for tasks such as page navigation.
E-learning in Medical Diagnosis

The massive amount of data, required to learn how to diagnose, can be organized and turned into information to physicians using computers and Internet. In addition to atlases, the collaboration among professors, researchers, a nd students are decisive issues to consolidate the diagnostic knowledge. In order to tackle this problem, we propose a collaborative learning environment to support group activ ity, in the context of e-learning in the medical domain. The pedagogical approach of this environment is learning from case studies. The first step towards e-learning applied to diagnosis is to organize a blood image data base and their metadata available through a digital atlas (e-atlas). To ac complish this, we intend to: (1) collect a number of blood cell images organizing them into an e-atlas and (2) turn numerical measurements (real numbers) into medical reports, with suitable medical jargon.
Research in Automated Planning and Control for Micromanipulation

Manipulation of microscopic objects, especially biological objects and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) components, has become an important area of robotics research over the past several years. Automation is necessary as it is challenging to manually control the microobjects due to the scaling effect of the surface forces, stochastic motion of objects in fluid media, and uncertainty associated with object state estimation. Automation requires real-time control of the position, orientation, and force applied by each of the operational manipulators, as governed by the system-level objectives of optimizing resource, time, and effort, by planning suitable actions for the manipulated objects. In this paper, we provide a survey of the research in planning and control of such automated micromanipulation operations. We present a broad taxonomy based on the underlying approach, and discuss the salient features and experimental success of each research effort. We also identify the major limitations and common trends across all the approaches, discuss the effectiveness of an approach depending on the operation characteristics, and outline promising future research directions.
Polynomial-Time Exact Schedulability Tests for Harmonic Real-Time Tasks

We study the preemptive scheduling of real-time sporadic tasks on a uniprocessor. We consider both fixed priority (FP) scheduling as well as dynamic priority scheduling by the Earliest Deadline First (EDF) algorithm. We investigate the problems of testing schedulability and computing the response time of tasks. Generally these problems are known to be computationally intractable for task systems with constrained deadlines. In this paper, we focus on the particular case of task systems with harmonic period lengths, meaning that the periods of the tasks pair wise divide each other. This is a special case of practical relevance. We present provably efficient exact algorithms for constrained-deadline task systems with harmonic periods. In particular, we provide an exact polynomial-time algorithm for computing the response time of a task in a system with an arbitrary fixed priority order. This also implies an exact FP-schedulability test. For dynamic priority scheduling, we show how to test EDF-schedulability in polynomial time. Additionally, we give a very simple EDF-schedulability test for the simpler case where relative deadlines and periods are jointly harmonic.
Partial order reduction for model checking interleaved multi-agent systems

We investigate partial order reduction for model checking of multiagent systems by focusing on interleaved interpreted systems. These are a particular class of interpreted systems, a mainstream MAS formalism, in which only one action at the time is performed in the system. We present a notion of stutteringequivalence, and prove the semantical equivalence of stuttering-equivalent traces with respect to LTLK−X , a linear temporal logic for knowledge without the next operator. We give an algorithm to reduce the size of the models before the model checking step and show it preserves LTLK−Xproperties. We evaluate the technique by discussing an implementation and the experimental results obtained against well-known examples in the MAS literature.
Biodiversity, molecular ecology and phylogeography of marine sponges: patterns, implications and outlooks1

Abstract Marine sponges are an ecologically important and highly diverse component of marine benthic communities, found in all the world's oceans, at all depths. Although their commercial potential and evolutionary importance is increasingly recognized, many pivotal aspects of their basic biology remain enigmatic. Knowledge of historical biogeographic affinities and biodiversity patterns is rudimentary, and there are still few data about genetic variation among sponge populations and spatial patterns of this variation. Biodiversity analyses of tropical Australasian sponges revealed spatial trends not universally reflected in the distributions of other marine phyla within the Indo-West Pacific region. At smaller spatial scales sponges frequently form heterogeneous, spatially patchy assemblages, with some empirical evidence suggesting that environmental variables such as light and/or turbidity strongly contribute to local distributions. There are no apparent latitudinal diversity gradients at larger spatial scales but stochastic processes, such as changing current patterns, the presence or absence of major carbonate platforms and historical biogeography, may determine modern day distributions. Studies on Caribbean oceanic reefs have revealed similar patterns, only weakly correlated with environmental factors. However, several questions remain where molecular approaches promise great potential, e.g., concerning connectivity and biogeographic relationships. Studies to date have helped to reveal that sponge populations are genetically highly structured and that historical processes might play an important role in determining such structure. Increasingly sophisticated molecular tools are now being applied, with results contributing significantly to a better understanding of poriferan microevolutionary processes and molecular ecology.
Audiences as Medium: Motivations and Emotions in News Sharing

Although social media is still not the mainstream option to disseminate news for the population as a whole, social media usage for this purpose increases every year. In particular, it has become widespread among young people, and it is expected to be of paramount importance in the future. This practice alters the way news is distributed and consumed, and it directly affects the media’s business model. Understanding this phenomenon is crucial to ensure the media’s financial feasibility. This article uses the uses and gratifications theory to present what we know so far about the motivations behind why users share news on social media, with special reference to the role of emotion in the process.