Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Expressive Auction Design for Online Display Advertising

We propose an expressive auction design that allows advertisers to specify the kinds of demographics and websites they wish to target within an advertising network. The design allows the network to differentiate impressions according to relevant attributes (e.g., geographic location of the user, topic of the webpage). Advertisers can place bids for different kinds of impressions according to their attributes, and can also specify volume constraints to control exposure. The novelty of the design is a bidding language that admits scalable allocation and pricing algorithms. We discuss the incentive properties of different pricing approaches. We also propose a bidder feedback mechanism to mitigate the complexity of expressive bidding.
PROSODIC TRANSFER IN LEARNER AND CONTACT VARIETIES

A remarkable example of Spanish-Italian contact is the Spanish variety spoken in Buenos Aires (Porteño), which is said to be prosodically “Italianized” due to migration-induced contact. The change in Porteño prosody has been interpreted as a result of transfer from the first language (L1) that occurred when Italian immigrants learned Spanish as a second language (L2; McMahon, 2004). This article aims to examine if and to what extent prosodic features that are typical of Italian show up in Porteño and in L2 Castilian Spanish produced by Italian native speakers. Specifically, we investigated speech rhythm and the realization of yes-no questions in Porteño and L2 Castilian Spanish in comparison to Italian and L1 Castilian Spanish. We hypothesized that Italian, Porteño, and L2 Castilian Spanish would exhibit similar rhythm patterns, showing high values for the percentage of vocalic material, the variation coefficient of vocalic intervals, and the speech-rate-normalized pairwise variability index for vowels as well as high frequencies of rising prenuclear accents, with the peak located at the end of the syllable (L+H*) and falling final contours in yes-no questions, in contrast to Castilian Spanish. The results confirm our predictions for speech rhythm but not entirely for the intonation of yes-no questions.
Urban Structure and Criminal Mobility

Llrban structure may be viewed as an abstract or generalized description of the distribution of phenomena in urban geographic space. The concept incorporates such ideas as pattern, distance, morphology, and relative location. Description of spatial I elements-linear features, nodes, and surfaces within urban areas-is but one facet considered in the study of urban structure, however. Explanation and prediction also form important, if not crucial, steps in understanding structural and behavioral changes in the urban system over time. Several methodological approaches have been utilized by urban researchers to achieve explanation and prediction; this study adopts the behavioral approach, defined as &dquo;an attempt to derive a set of empirically valid statements about individual, group, or mass behavior which can form postulates in a theory yielding statements of spatial structure as logical outputs&dquo; (Horton and Reynolds, 1971: 36). °
DNA methylation patterns at relapse in adult acute lymphocytic leukemia.

PURPOSE Aberrant DNA methylation of promoter-associated CpG islands is an epigenetic DNA modification observed in acute leukemias that in certain cases has been associated with a poor prognosis and increased relapse rates. To study the role of DNA methylation in relapse mechanisms in acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), we have compared the methylation status of five genes at the time of initial presentation and at first relapse in 25 adult patients with ALL. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Genes studied included the estrogen receptor (ER), multidrug resistance gene 1 (MDR1), p73, p15, and p16. DNA was extracted from paraffin-embedded bone marrow biopsies. DNA methylation was analyzed using PCR of bisulfite-modified DNA. RESULTS Results indicate that methylation at the time of relapse was stable in 92% of patients for p73, 88% for ER, 80% for p16, 72% for MDR1, and 60% for p15. Only one case had p16 methylation at initial presentation, whereas 6 patients (P = 0.0001) had methylation at relapse. Three cases had concomitant methylation of p15 and p16 at relapse. The degree of MDR1 methylation inversely correlated with the presence of MDR1 expression as detected by immunohistochemistry. Eighteen patients (72%) had acquired no or one methylation change, whereas the rest (28%) had methylation changes in two or three genes. No clinical-biological correlations were found between methylation of any particular gene or pattern. CONCLUSIONS In summary, DNA methylation patterns are stable in a majority of patients with relapsed ALL, but a subset of patients acquire new methylation changes, in particular affecting cell cycle regulatory genes.
Evaluation of Recombinant Leptospira Antigen-Based Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays for the Serodiagnosis of Leptospirosis

ABSTRACT There is an urgent need for development of new serodiagnostic strategies for leptospirosis, an emerging zoonosis with worldwide distribution. We have evaluated the diagnostic utility of five recombinant antigens in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for serodiagnosis of leptospirosis. Sera from 50 healthy residents of a high-incidence region were used to determine cutoff values for 96% specificity. In paired sera from 50 cases of leptospirosis confirmed by the microscopic agglutination test, immunoglobulin G (IgG) but not IgM reacted with the recombinant leptospiral proteins. The recombinant LipL32 IgG ELISA had the highest sensitivities in the acute (56%) and convalescent (94%) phases of leptospirosis. ELISAs based on recombinant OmpL1, LipL41, and Hsp58 had sensitivities of 16, 24, and 18% during the acute phase and 72, 44, and 32% during convalescence, respectively. Compared to sera from healthy individuals, patient sera did not react significantly with recombinant LipL36 (P > 0.05). Recombinant LipL32 IgG ELISA demonstrated 95% specificity among 100 healthy individuals, and specificities ranging from 90 to 97% among 30 dengue patients, 30 hepatitis patients, and 16 patients with diseases initially thought to be leptospirosis. Among 39 Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test-positive individuals and 30 Lyme disease patients, 13 and 23% of sera, respectively, reacted positively with the rLipL32 antigen. These findings indicate that rLipL32 may be an useful antigen for the serodiagnosis of leptospirosis.
Remote wideband data acquiring system based on ZC706 and AD9361

With the rapid development of embedded and wireless technology, the combination of embedded system with wireless technology has gradually become a research hotspot. This paper proposes a data acquiring embedded system based on AD9361 (high speed ADC) and ZC706 (high performance FPGA embedded platform). The purpose of the proposed system in this paper is to capture wireless signal from bandwidth varies from 70 MHz to 6 GHz. Also, the system provided interface for users to adjust parameters including sampling rate, bandwidth, sampling center frequency, sampling time length, data storage. This embedded system project consists of hardware system design and software design. The hardware system is based on the combination of ARM processor and FPGA, the software is based on Software Development Kit (SDK) provided by Xilinx. Most of all, a remote data acquiring system which is based on server and client model is developed for rapid data transmission and storage through ETHERNET.
A cost description of an adult cystic fibrosis unit and cost analyses of different categories of patients.

BACKGROUND: There is little information on the costs of running an adult cystic fibrosis centre. The aim of this study was to provide detailed costs to assist funding and planning for these patients. METHODS: The cost of a regional adult cystic fibrosis centre serving 119 cystic fibrosis patients, categorised according to four treatment regimens, was determined. District health authority, family health service authority, and voluntary resources used from April 1989 to March 1990 were determined, with appropriate bases for allocation of costs and patient based costs from local information. RESULTS: The total annual cost of treating the 119 patients was 980,646 pounds, with an average cost 8241 pounds per patient. An outpatient reviewed at three monthly intervals cost 2792 pounds a year; an outpatient receiving intravenous antibiotics cost 8606 pounds; an inpatient receiving intravenous antibiotics cost 13,501 pounds; and a patient needing a high level of care cost 19,955 pounds. Medication accounted for 57% (561,395 pounds) of the total cost. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis has helped us to secure funding for patients with cystic fibrosis and it facilitates the prediction of future requirements. The study also indicates the limitations of using average patient costs and difficulties as a result of the poorly structured British National Health Service accounting and information systems.
On the Complexity of Enumerating the Extensions of Abstract Argumentation Frameworks

Several computational problems of abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) such as skeptical and credulous reasoning, existence of a non-empty extension, verification, etc. have been thoroughly analyzed for various semantics. In contrast, the enumeration problem of AFs (i.e., the problem of computing all extensions according to some semantics) has been left unexplored so far. The goal of this paper is to fill this gap. We thus investigate the enumeration complexity of AFs for a large collection of semantics and, in addition, consider the most common structural restrictions on AFs.
Accurate Prediction of Docked Protein Structure Similarity

One of the major challenges for protein-protein docking methods is to accurately discriminate nativelike structures. The protein docking community agrees on the existence of a relationship between various favorable intermolecular interactions (e.g. Van der Waals, electrostatic, desolvation forces, etc.) and the similarity of a conformation to its native structure. Different docking algorithms often formulate this relationship as a weighted sum of selected terms and calibrate their weights against specific training data to evaluate and rank candidate structures. However, the exact form of this relationship is unknown and the accuracy of such methods is impaired by the pervasiveness of false positives. Unlike the conventional scoring functions, we propose a novel machine learning approach that not only ranks the candidate structures relative to each other but also indicates how similar each candidate is to the native conformation. We trained the AccuRMSD neural network with an extensive dataset using the back-propagation learning algorithm. Our method achieved predicting RMSDs of unbound docked complexes with 0. 4Å error margin.
Interpersonal Concordance in HIV-Affected Families Participating in a Structured Conflict Management Intervention

A process model guided a qualitative study of a 10-week multifamily conflict management intervention, Family Pride. A central construct is interpersonal concordance, defined as the consensus within a family on their views of self and one another. Parent/caregivers and children described themselves and each other near the beginning and at the conclusion of this intervention. Hierarchical classes analysis (HICLAS) facilitated measurement of interpersonal concordance. A focused investigation of one family demonstrated a shift in their perceptions toward greater interpersonal concordance. Further analyses revealed a general shift toward more cooperative views of self and other family members, and toward greater interpersonal concordance.
Burden and prevention of HPV related diseases: Situation in Croatia

The role of persistent infection of high-risk human papillomaviruses (HR-HPV) in cervical cancer has become convincingly established. Other anogenital cancers in women and men are also caused, to a lesser extent, by HR-HPV. In addition, most of the benign anogenital warts and laryngeal papillomatosis are caused by low-risk (LR) HPV types. All these HPV-associated diseases represent high public health burden worldwide, cervical cancer being the leading one. Nowadays, several opportunities are available to prevent cervical cancer and other HPV-related diseases. The most promising cancer preventing intervention is the HPV vaccination against the most common HPV types (16 and 18). However, secondary prevention like education and early detection of the disease by screening has demonstrated in the past great efficacy and should be continued and improved by novel prognostic methods (HPV testing and other biomarkers) in countries where it is already in place, and implemented in those countries that lack cancer control programmes. Herein, the current knowledge on HPVs, HPV-related diseases and their preventive approaches are discussed. In addition, the situation in Croatia is presented.
Bridging the High Performance Computing Gap: the OurGrid Experience

High performance computing is currently not affordable for those users that cannot rely on having a highly qualified computing support team. To cater for these users' needs we have proposed, implemented and deployed OurGrid. OurGrid is a peer-to-peer grid middleware that supports the automatic creation of large computational grids for the execution of embarrassingly parallel applications. It has been used to support the OurGrid Community - a public free-to-join grid that is in production since December 2004. In this paper we show how the OurGrid Community has been used to support the execution of a number of applications. Further we discuss the main benefits brought up by the system and the difficulties that have been faced by the system developers and the users and managers of the OurGrid Community.
[HS1 and EMS1].

Both HS1 (hematopoiesis specific) and EMS1/ cortactin belong to a growing family of cytoskeletal SH3 proteins. Most proteins in this family, except for alpha-spectrin, contain a single SH3 domain at the C-terminus, and an F-actin binding domain (s) at the N-terminus. The main reason why EMS1 initially attracted great attention among molecular oncologists is the amplification and over-expression of EMS1 gene in mammary tumors. However, our recent study on HS1 suggests that EMS1 is a tumor suppressor rather than a proto-oncoprotein. First of all, full-length HS1 of 486 amino acids suppresses the malignant transformation caused by oncogenic Ras mutants such as v-Ha-Ras. Second, for its anti-oncogenicity, HS1 requires the C-terminal SH3 domain, and the N-terminal actin-binding motifs, in addition to two phosphorylatable Tyr residues at positions 378 and 397. Third, EMS1 shares with HS1 80% sequence identity in the C-terminal SH3 domain, and 70% identity in the N-terminal actin-binding motifs, and contains these two Tyr residues, all of which are required for the anti-oncogenicity of HS1. Lastly, overexpression of EMS1 does not transform normal cells, and rather disfavors their growth. Among several actin-binding tumor suppressors, HS1 is the first tumor suppressor whose actin-binding has been shown to be essential for its anti-oncogenicity.
A theory of contracts for strong service compliance

We investigate, in a process algebraic setting, a new notion of correctness for service compositions, which we call strong service compliance: composed services are strong compliant if their composition is both deadlock and livelock free (this is the traditional notion of compliance), and whenever a message can be sent to invoke a service, it is guranteed to be ready to serve the invocation. We also define a new notion of refinement, called strong subcontract pre-order, suitable for strong compliance: given a composition of strong compliant services, we can replace any service with any other service in subcontract relation while preserving the overall strong compliance. Finally, we present a characterisation of the strong subcontract pre-order by resorting to the theory of a (should) testing pre-order.
Facing up: psychotherapists writing about dealing with the idea of one’s own death

Abstract This article discusses psychotherapists writing about their own dealings with mortality. It includes a review of select literature with a focus on psychotherapists writing about dealing with the idea of his or her own future death. Themes that emerged from interviews with two existentially oriented psychotherapists are elaborated. The article includes personal/professional reflections by the author, along with possible clinical applications for psychotherapists, health care providers or other caring people who deal with mortality issues.
Learning texton models for real-time scene context

We present a new model for scene context based on the distribution of textons within images. Our approach provides continuous, consistent scene gist throughout a video sequence and is suitable for applications in which the camera regularly views uninformative parts of the scene. We show that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art for place recognition. We further show how to deduce the camera orientation from our scene gist and finally show how our system can be applied to active object search.
Homoisoflavones as the antioxidants responsible from bulbs of Scilla scilloides

Scilla scilloides Druce has been used as a folk medicine to treat dermal inflammation; however, the medicinal property of this plant remains to be entirely clarified. The ethyl acetate extract prepared from bulbs of S. scilloides exhibited antioxidative activities on 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and nitric oxide (NO) scavenging assays. Nine homoisoflavones (1–9) yielded from this extract were further examined for their antioxidative activities. Among these chemicals tested, five homoisoflavones (1–3, 5 and 7), six homoisoflavones (1–3 and 5–7) and two homoisoflavones (4 and 5) resulted in showing higher activities than the others in DPPH radical, H2O2 and NO scavenging assays, respectively. Calculated EC50 values indicate 3 as the strongest in the DPPH radical scavenging analysis. These results may indicate a potential role of S. scilloides for its medicinal use and homoisoflavones as the antioxidants responsible.
Using Multicast Dependence Tree Model for Network Delay Tomography

It is essential to have link-level performance data for understanding the features of a network. Network tomography is based on end-to-end measurement to infer the network internal information. In the paper, we use the multicast dependence tree model and upward-downward algorithm to infer link delay distribution, which requires a relatively small number of free parameters by making Markov-like assumptions on the tree. The simulation result shows that the method works efficiently and produces reasonable accurate results
Optimal Perfusion Computed Tomographic Thresholds for Ischemic Core and Penumbra Are Not Time Dependent in the Clinically Relevant Time Window

Background and Purpose— This study aims to determine whether perfusion computed tomographic (PCT) thresholds for delineating the ischemic core and penumbra are time dependent or time independent in patients presenting with symptoms of acute stroke. Methods— Two hundred seventeen patients were evaluated in a retrospective, multicenter study. Patients were divided into those with either persistent occlusion or recanalization. All patients received admission PCT and follow-up imaging to determine the final ischemic core, which was then retrospectively matched to the PCT images to identify optimal thresholds for the different PCT parameters. These thresholds were assessed for significant variation over time since symptom onset. Results— In the persistent occlusion group, optimal PCT parameters that did not significantly change with time included absolute mean transit time, relative mean transit time, relative cerebral blood flow, and relative cerebral blood volume when time was restricted to 15 hours after symptom onset. Conversely, the recanalization group showed no significant time variation for any PCT parameter at any time interval. In the persistent occlusion group, the optimal threshold to delineate the total ischemic area was the relative mean transit time at a threshold of 180%. In patients with recanalization, the optimal parameter to predict the ischemic core was relative cerebral blood volume at a threshold of 66%. Conclusions— Time does not influence the optimal PCT thresholds to delineate the ischemic core and penumbra in the first 15 hours after symptom onset for relative mean transit time and relative cerebral blood volume, the optimal parameters to delineate ischemic core and penumbra.
The 3-D multidomain pseudospectral time-domain algorithm for inhomogeneous conductive media

A three-dimensional multidomain pseudospectral time-domain algorithm has been developed to model electromagnetic scattering by inhomogeneous objects as well as perfect conductors. The numerical results have been validated by analytical solutions and the FDTD method. Compared to the FDTD method, this multidomain PSTD algorithm has shown a marked improvement in terms of sampling density, execution time and memory requirement. The algorithm has been applied to calculate the radar cross section.
Role of Interleukin-4 in Regulation of Age-related Inflammatory Changes in the Hippocampus*

It is well documented that long term potentiation (LTP) is impaired in the hippocampus of the aged animal. Among the changes that contribute to this impairment is an increase in hippocampal concentration of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and increased IL-1β-induced signaling. In this study we investigated the possibility that these changes were a consequence of decreased concentration of the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-4, and decreased IL-4-stimulated signaling. We report that functional IL-4 receptors are expressed on granule cells of the dentate gyrus and that receptor activation results in phosphorylation of JAK1 and STAT6. Hippocampal IL-4 concentration was decreased with age, and this was accompanied by a decrease in phosphorylation of JAK1 and STAT6. The evidence indicates that IL-4 modulates expression of IL-1β mRNA and protein and that it attenuates IL-1β-induced impairment of LTP and phosphorylation of JNK and c-Jun. We argued that, if a decrease in hippocampal IL-4 concentration significantly contributed to the age-related impairment in LTP, then restoration of IL-4 should restore LTP. To test this, we treated rats with VP015 (phospholipid microparticles-incorporating phosphatidylserine), which increases IL-4 concentration in hippocampus. The data indicate that the VP015-induced increase in IL-4 concentration in hippocampus of aged rats and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated rats was accompanied by a reversal of the age-related and LPS-induced impairment in LTP in perforant path granule cell synapses. We propose that interplay between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses impact significantly on synaptic function in the hippocampus of the aged rat.