Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using Rule Extraction to Improve the Comprehensibility of Predictive Models

Whereas newer machine learning techniques, like artificial neural networks and support vector machines, have shown superior performance in various benchmarking studies, the application of these techniques remains largely restricted to research environments. A more widespread adoption of these techniques is foiled by their lack of explanation capability which is required in some application areas, like medical diagnosis or credit scoring. To overcome this restriction, various algorithms have been proposed to extract a meaningful description of the underlying 'blackbox' models. These algorithms' dual goal is to mimic the behavior of the black box as closely as possible while at the same time they have to ensure that the extracted description is maximally comprehensible. In this research report, we first develop a formal definition of 'rule extraction' and comment on the inherent trade-off between accuracy and comprehensibility. Afterwards, we develop a taxonomy by which rule extraction algorithms can be classified and discuss some criteria by which these algorithms can be evaluated. Finally, an in-depth review of the most important algorithms is given. This report is concluded by pointing out some general shortcomings of existing techniques and opportunities for future research.
Facial Expression Recognition Based on LBP-EHMM

Facial expression recognition can be divided into three steps: face detection, expression feature extraction and expression categorization. Facial expression feature extraction and categorization are the most key issue. To address this issue, we propose a method to combine local binary pattern (LBP) and embedded hidden markov model (EHMM), which is the key contribution of this paper. This paper first gives an introduction about facial expression recognition and then describes EHMM and LBP. Finally, we give out the LBP-EHMM method in facial expression recognition, and perform an experiment to obtain a comparison between LBP feature and discrete cosine transform (DCT) feature.
Arrest and Granulocytic Differentiation Promyelocytic Leukemia Cell Line NB 4 , Induces Cell Growth 4-Oxoretinol , a Metabolite of Retinol in the Human Updated

all-frans-Retinoic acid (RA) is used as a differentiation therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia. Patients can become resistant to RA, and this resistance is thought to be mediated in part by an increase in the rate of RA metabolism. We have characterized the metabolism of all-frans-retinol (ROL; vitamin A) in NB4 cells, which are human promy elocytic leukemia cells. NB4 cells metabolize ROL into a variety of com pounds, including all-frans-4-hydroxyretinol, all-/rans-4-oxoretinol (4oxoROL), 14-hydroxy-4,14-re/ro-retinol, anhydroretinol, and several ROL esters. No metabolism of ROL to RA or to RA derivatives in NB4 cells was detected. The rate of ROL metabolism increased after cell differentiation; in a 24-h period, differentiated cells metabolized 2-fold more ROL than did undifferentiated cells. The major difference in the ROL metabolism pattern between undifferentiated and differentiated cells was an approximately 10-fold increase in the production of a\\-trans4-hydroxyretinol and 4-oxoROL in differentiated cells. Furthermore, exogenously added 4-oxoROL was capable of eliciting NB4 cell differentia tion, as measured by growth inhibition, nitroblue tetrazolium reduction, nuclear body relocalization of PML, and surface expression of CD lib. In addition, 4-oxoROL synergized with IFN-y in the promotion of NB4 cell growth arrest. Following treatment of NB4 cells with 4-oxoROL to induce differentiation, the production of 4-oxoROL from ROL was observed; this indicated that 4-oxoROL induces its own synthesis in NB4 cells. In addi tion, 48 h after the administration of 1 Â¿tM4-oxoROL, NB4 cells main tained a high intracellular concentration (17 /IM) of 4-oxoROL. These unique properties of 4-oxoROL may provide advantages over RA in the treatment of promyelocytic leukemia cells because it may be possible to maintain cytodifferentiating concentrations of 4-oxoROL in the cells for extended periods of time.
Arfs at a Glance

ABSTRACT The Arf small G proteins regulate protein and lipid trafficking in eukaryotic cells through a regulated cycle of GTP binding and hydrolysis. In their GTP-bound form, Arf proteins recruit a specific set of protein effectors to the membrane surface. These effectors function in vesicle formation and tethering, non-vesicular lipid transport and cytoskeletal regulation. Beyond fundamental membrane trafficking roles, Arf proteins also regulate mitosis, plasma membrane signaling, cilary trafficking and lipid droplet function. Tight spatial and temporal regulation of the relatively small number of Arf proteins is achieved by their guanine nucleotide-exchange factors (GEFs) and GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs), which catalyze GTP binding and hydrolysis, respectively. A unifying function of Arf proteins, performed in conjunction with their regulators and effectors, is sensing, modulating and transporting the lipids that make up cellular membranes. In this Cell Science at a Glance article and the accompanying poster, we discuss the unique features of Arf small G proteins, their functions in vesicular and lipid trafficking in cells, and how these functions are modulated by their regulators, the GEFs and GAPs. We also discuss how these Arf functions are subverted by human pathogens and disease states.
8 Continuous Co-ordination Tools and their Evaluation

This chapter discusses a set of co-ordination tool s (the Continuous Co-ordination (CC) tool suite that includes A riadne, Workspace Activity Viewer (WAV), Lighthouse, Palantír, and YA NCEES) and details of our evaluation framework for these tools. Specifically, we discuss how we assessed the usefulness and the usabili ty of these tools within the context of a predefined evaluation frame work called DESMET. For example, for visualization tools we eva luated the suitability of the level of abstraction and the mode of displaying information of each tool. Whereas for an infrastructure tool we evaluate the effort required to implement co-ordination tools based on the given tool. We conclude with pointers on factors to consider when evaluating coordination tools in general.
Data Privacy in Cloud Computing - An Empirical Study in the Financial Industry

Cloud computing is of growing interest due to its potential for delivering scalable and self-managed services. Financial institutions, as “critical users” of cloud computing services, are still slow-going and careful in the usage of clouds, since outsourcing data from a “secure” internal IT infrastructure to an external cloud poses multiple data privacy issues. This paper provides an assessment of the relevance of data privacy requirements, based on interviews with eight representatives of a global international German bank that operates in over 50 countries. Our results indicate that despite technical advancement, administrative countermeasures and legal agreements, certain data privacy issues still form obstacles for the adoption of cloud computing by financial institutions.
Urban Anomaly Detection: a Use-Case for Participatory Infra-Structure Monitoring

Internet-enabled, location aware smart phones with sensor inputs have led to novel urban infra-structure monitoring applications exploiting unprecedented high levels of citizen participation in dense metropolitan areas. For policy makers, it is a key task to keep track of trends and developments of reported infra-structure issues for understanding and effectively reacting to problems around a city, specially in their early stages. In contrast to previous strategies which consider only limited information such as text and geographic locations, we analyze the urban dynamics of crowdsourced collected data using an existing approach that considers a novel modeling of heterogeneous attributes and relationships in the data. First, the underlying data is modeled into a heterogeneous network, in which it's measured for each node its current level of anomalousness for a desired time interval (e.g. a week) and then the most anomalous network's subgraph is extracted and described by means of problem category, geographical area, time and participants. First experiments illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of leveraging this anomaly detection approach in our use-case (participatory infra-structure monitoring).
Experimental validation of an energy efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor network

Energy-efficiency is generally regarded as one of the fundamental challenges for wireless sensor networks and the radio part is a major contributor to overall energy consumption of a sensor node. A Radio Triggered Sensor MAC (RTM) protocol was introduced in the literature, which could harvest the overall energy consumption in WSNs. In this paper, we propose, design and develop hardware which we refer as Passive Radio Sensor (PRS) and use is to study the RTM protocol in WSNs. A general radio transceiver, typically used in WSN, consumes a significant amount of energy when periodically listening to data messages. Our proposed transceiver hardware, PRS, powered by the incoming radio signals themselves and hence significantly reduces node energy consumption that is wasted in radio communications. The PRS circuit is independent of any other components on the node1.
Alternative symplectic structures for SO(3, 1) and SO(4) four-dimensional BF theories

The most general action, quadratic in the B fields as well as in the curvature F, having SO(3, 1) or SO(4) as the internal gauge group for a four-dimensional BF theory is presented and its symplectic geometry is displayed. It is shown that the space of solutions to the equations of motion for the BF theory can be endowed with symplectic structures alternative to the usual one. The analysis also includes topological terms and cosmological constant. The implications of this fact for gravity are briefly discussed.
Data Query Protocol with Restriction Flooding in Wireless Sensor Networks

Directed diffusion (DD) is a typical data-centric protocol for wireless sensor networks, at the beginning of routing being established, interest must be flooded throughout the network, it leads heavy traffic. For this reason, a data query protocol with restriction flooding (DQPRF) in wireless sensor network is proposed in this paper. DQPRF classes nodes into different levels, each node only stores its higher level nodes’ information so storage energy consumption of each node is smaller than DD; QDPRF has no parallel gradient and no reverse gradient and data transmission can avoid loop route; during the path reinforcement, this protocol excludes the vulnerable nodes and selects the path with the largest residual energy as data gradient. So it can prolong the lifetime of WSN through these three aspects. Simulation results show that DQPRF has higher energy efficiency than DD.
The Galaxy Zoo survey for giant AGN-ionized clouds: past and present black hole accretion events

Some active galactic nuclei (AGN) are surrounded by extended emission-line regions (EELRs), which trace both the illumination pattern of escaping radiation and its history over the light-travel time from the AGN to the gas. From a new set of such EELRs, we present evidence that the AGN in many Seyfert galaxies undergo luminous episodes 0.2–2×10 5 years in duration. Motivated by the discovery of the spectacular nebula known as Hanny’s Voorwerp, ionized by a powerful AGN which has apparently faded dramatically within � 10 5 years, Galaxy Zoo volunteers have carried out both targeted and serendipitous searches for similar emission-line clouds around lowredshift galaxies. We present the resulting list of candidates and describe spectroscopy identifying 19 galaxies with AGN-ionized regions at projected radii rproj > 10 kpc. This search recovered known EELRs (such as Mkn 78, Mkn 266, and NGC 5252) and identified additional previously unknown cases, one with detected emission to r = 37 kpc. One new Sy 2 was identified. At least 14/19 are in interacting or merging systems, suggesting that tidal tails are a prime source of distant gas out of the galaxy plane to be ionized by an AGN. We see a mix of one- and two-sided structures, with observed cone angles from 23–112 ◦ . We consider the energy balance in the ionized clouds, with lower and upper bounds on ionizing luminosity from recombination and ionizationparameter arguments, and estimate the luminosity of the core from the far-infrared data. The implied ratio of ionizing radiation seen by the clouds to that emitted by the nucleus, on the assumption of a nonvariable nuclear source, ranges from 0.02 to > 12; 7/19 exceed unity. Small values fit well with a heavily obscured AGN in which only a small fraction of the ionizing output escapes to be traced by surrounding gas. However, large values may require that the AGN has faded over tens of thousands of years, giving us several examples of systems in which such dramatic long-period variation has occurred; this is the only current technique for addressing these timescales in AGN history. The relative numbers of faded and non-faded objects we infer, and the projected extents of the ionized regions, give our estimate (0.2–2×10 5 years ) for
Diversity-multiplexing tradeoff in a MIMO Gaussian interference channel with a relay

We derive upper and lower bounds on the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff of the multiple-input multiple-output interference channel with a relay. The upper bound is derived from the cut-set bound and the lower bound is obtained by performing compress-and-forward at the relay. Based on the obtained bounds, we derive conditions under which the two bounds coincide, resulting in the optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff.
Neisserial porin (PorB) causes rapid calcium influx in target cells and induces apoptosis by the activation of cysteine proteases

The porin (PorB) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae is an intriguing bacterial factor owing to its ability to translocate from the outer bacterial membrane into host cell membranes where it modulates the infection process. Here we report on the induction of programmed cell death after prolonged infection of epithelial cells with pathogenic Neisseria species. The underlying mechanism we propose includes translocation of the porin, a transient increase in cytosolic Ca2+ and subsequent activation of the Ca2+ dependent protease calpain as well as proteases of the caspase family. Blocking the porin channel by ATP eliminates the Ca2+ signal and also abolishes its pro‐apoptotic function. The neisserial porins share structural and functional homologies with the mitochondrial voltage‐dependent anion channels (VDAC). The neisserial porin may be an analogue or precursor of the ancient permeability transition pore, the putative central regulator of apoptosis.
Progress in cancer screening over a decade: results of cancer screening from the 1987, 1992, and 1998 National Health Interview Surveys.

BACKGROUND Screening to detect cancer early, an increasingly important cancer control activity, cannot be effective unless it is widely used. METHODS Use of Pap smears, mammography, fecal occult blood tests (FOBTs), sigmoidoscopy, and digital rectal examination (DRE) was evaluated in the 1987, 1992, and 1998 National Health Interview Surveys. Levels and trends in screening use were examined by sex, age, and racial/ethnic group. The effects of income, educational level, and health care coverage were examined within age groups. Logistic regression analyses of 1998 data were used to develop a parsimonious, policy-relevant model. RESULTS Use of all screening modalities increased over the period examined; for mammography and DRE, the increase was more rapid in the first half of the decade; for the Pap test and sigmoidoscopy, the increase was more rapid in the second half of the decade. Levels of colorectal cancer screening (both sigmoidoscopy and FOBTs) in 1998 were less than the level that prevailed a decade earlier for mammography. Patterns of change for all screening modalities differed between age, sex, and racial/ethnic groups, but prevalence of use during the study, within recommended time intervals, was consistently lower among groups with lower income and less education. Logistic regression analyses indicated that insurance coverage and, to a greater extent, usual source of care had strong independent associations with screening usage when age, sex, racial/ethnic group, and educational level were taken into account. CONCLUSIONS While cancer screening is generally increasing in the United States, usage is relatively low for colorectal cancer screening and among groups that lack health insurance or a usual source of care.
A 90μW 15-bit ΔΣ ADC for digital audio

Architecture, circuit design details and measurement results for a 15 bit audio continuous-time DeltaSigma modulator (CTDSM) are given. The converter, designed in a 0.18 mum CMOS technology, achieves a dynamic range of 93.5 dB in a 24 kHz bandwidth and dissipates 90 muW from a 1.8 V supply. It features a third order active-RC loop filter, a very low power 4-bit flash quantizer and an efficient excess delay compensation scheme to reduce power dissipation.
Similarity Assessment Techniques

This paper serves as a layman’s introduction to similarity assessment techniques, their distinction from contemporary computing paradigms, and their real-world applications. The following content derives from the experience gained by the authors in applying similarity assessment techniques to resolve the real-world problems of CDM customers, in particular those faced by the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM).
Relation entre sensibilisation locomotrice à la nicotine et les variations pondérales chez les rates gestantes et de leur descendance suite à un traitement chronique à la nicotine

Le tabagisme est la consommation quotidienne de la nicotine qui constitue un serieux probleme de sante publique. Parmi ces effets qui favorisent le maintien du tabagisme et meme son etablissement, celui sur le poids est important. Les nombreuses etudes publiees jusqu’a present, permettent d'une part d’elucider les differents effets de cette drogue et d'autre part ont revele les mecanismes impliques. Dans ce travail, nous presenterons les resultats obtenus a la suite d’un traitement chronique a la nicotine (0,4mg/kg) des rates gestantes et de leur descendance. Cette etude a ete menee en parallele a une etude de sensibilisation locomotrice a la nicotine. Elle consiste a prelever quotidiennement le poids des rats avant meme d’enregistrer leur activite locomotrice dans des couloirs circulaires (cyclotrons) en fonction du temps et pour une periode de 2 mois. Les resultats obtenus sont tres significatifs. Des les premieres injections on constate, chez les rates nicotinees, une augmentation ponderale plus faible par rapport aux temoins. A long terme, cette difference de poids se maintient et le sous poids alors constate s’installe definitivement meme apres l’arret du traitement. Fait curieux dans la mesure ou seule la nicotine semblerait responsable de cet effet, d’autant plus que les memes observations ont ete faites sur la descendance. Mots-cles : tabagisme, nicotine, rates gestantes, descendance, poids, activite locomotrice. Smoking is the daily consumption of nicotine is a serious public health problem. Among these effects that promote continued smoking and even its establishment, that the weight is important. Numerous studies published so far, on the one hand allow to elucidate the different effects of this drug and also revealed the mechanisms involved. In this work, we present the results obtained after chronic treatment with nicotine (0.4 mg / kg) of pregnant rats and their progeny. This study was conducted in parallel with a study of locomotor sensitization to nicotine. It involves taking daily weights of the rats before they register their locomotor activity in circular corridors (cyclotrons) versus time for a period of 2 months. The results are highly significant. From the first there injections, rats nicotinic, increased weight lower compared to controls. In the long term, this difference in weight and maintaining weight then observed under settled permanently, even after cessation of treatment. Curious fact to the extent that only the nicotine seems responsible for this effect, especially since the same observations were made on the progeny. Keywords : smoking, nicotine, gestating rats, progeny, weight, locomotor activity.
Posttraumatic Growth:Conception,Influential Factors and Relationships with Mental Health

The term posttraumatic growth (PTG) refers to positive psychological change experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances. Many factors,including demographics,characteristics of event,personality,cognition,social support,coping strategy,etc. will exert influences on PTG. Four possible explanations can be used to make clear the disagreements of relationship between PTG and psychological health. Future studies should pay more attention to the differences between PTG and some related concepts,try to find more new methods and new evidences to validate its effectiveness.
Balancing of two wheeled inverted pendulum using SOSMC and validation on LEGO EV3

This paper presents Second Order Sliding Mode Controller using Super Twisting algorithm for the two-wheeled inverted pendulum (TWIP). A mathematical model incorporating the dynamics of LEGO EV3 TWIP is considered here. A Sliding Mode Control (SMC) is designed first, then switching surface is synthesized by converting the state space model into regular form. The corresponding system response is plotted, the problem encountered in SMC is that the control input suffers from Chattering. To overcome the drawback a Second Order Sliding Mode Controller (SOSMC) using super twisting algorithm is designed. The contribution of this paper is real time implementation of Super Twisting SOSMC algorithm to balance the lego TWIP in an upright position. The performance and merit of the SOSMC are exemplified by conducting simulations and real-time validation on the LEGO Mindstorms EV3. The issues related to hardware implementation is discussed.
A Survey of Online Collaboration Tools

Nowadays using online tools to support group collaboration has become a necessity. Online collaboration tools allow users to work together in easy and efficient way. A great number of such tools have been developed that provide a variety of different features. In this paper, we investigate the available features of online collaboration tools, the meanings of these features and identify their common and key features. Based to our review, we propose to divide features provided by these tools into three main categories: collaboration, coordination, and communication. Each tool supports different sets of features each of which belongs to a specific category. The proposed categorization aims to identify how well a collaborative tool supports a group work by offering different ways of collaboration, coordination, and/or communication functionalities.
An Improved Genetic Algorithm Based on Variable Step-Size Search

Genetic algorithms (GAs) are global optimization algorithms which can be used to solve different kinds of problems. However, in the situation that the size of feasible solution space is far less than that of search space, GAs may degrade to random searches. This paper presents an improved genetic algorithm, which adopts variable step-size algorithm to obtain a feasible solution, and reduce search space during the same process. The theoretical analysis and experiments in comparison with the random search are also presented,which indicate that this improved algorithm would reduce the search time in solving problems that have a large search space.