Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated Random Testing in Multiple Dispatch Languages

In programming languages that use multiple dispatch, a single function can have multiple implementations, each of which may specialise the function's operation. Which one of these implementations to execute is determined by the data types of all the arguments to the function. Effective testing of functions that use multiple dispatch therefore requires diverse test inputs in terms of the data types of the input's arguments as well as their values. In this paper we describe an approach for generating test inputs where both the values and types are chosen probabilistically. The approach uses reflection to automatically determine how to create inputs with the desired types, and dynamically updates the probability distribution from which types are sampled in order to improve both the test efficiency and efficacy. We evaluate the technique on 247 methods across 9 built-in functions of Julia, a technical computing language that applies multiple dispatch at runtime. In the process, we identify three real faults in these widely-used functions.
A Fuzzy Clustering Algorithm for Virtual Character Animation Representation

The use of realistic humanoid animations generated through motion capture (MoCap) technology is widespread across various 3-D applications and industries. However, the existing compression techniques for such representation often do not consider the implicit coherence within the anatomical structure of a human skeletal model and lacks portability for transmission consideration. In this paper, a novel concept virtual character animation image (VCAI) is proposed. Built upon a fuzzy clustering algorithm, the data similarity within the anatomy structure of a virtual character (VC) model is jointly considered with the temporal coherence within the motion data to achieve efficient data compression. Since the VCA is mapped as an image, the use of image processing tool is possible for efficient compression and delivery of such content across dynamic network. A modified motion filter (MMF) is proposed to minimize the visual discontinuity in VCA's motion due to the quantization and transmission error. The MMF helps to remove high frequency noise components and smoothen the motion signal providing perceptually improved VCA with lessened distortion. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is competitive in compression efficiency and decoded VCA quality against the state-of-the-art VCA compression methods, making it suitable for providing quality VCA animation to low-powered mobile devices.
NMDA antagonists potentiate antiparkinsonian actions of L‐dopa in monoamine‐depleted rats

Systemically administered N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate (NMDA) antagonists, MK‐801((+)5‐methyl‐10,11‐dihydro‐5H‐dibenzo(a, d)cyclohepten‐5,10‐imine maleate) and CPP(3‐[(±)‐2‐carboxypiperazin‐4‐y1]‐propyl‐1‐phosphonate), potentiate the ability of L‐dopa (L‐3,4‐dihydroxyphenylalanine) to reverse akinesia and to alleviate muscular rigidity in monoamine‐depleted rats. On the basis of these findings, it is proposed that NMDA antagonists may be beneficial as adjunctive treatment in the therapy of Parkinson's disease. CPP locally injected into the subthalamic nucleus, entopeduncular nucleus–the rat homologue of the internal pallidal segment–or substantia nigra pars reticulata of monoamine‐depleted rats stimulates locomotor activity and alleviates rigidity, whereas local microinjection of CPP into the neostriatum is ineffective. These results make it unlikely that the neostriatum is the site of the antiparkinsonian action of NMDA antagonists in monoamine‐depleted rats, whereas the subthalamic nucleus, internal pallidal segment, and substantia nigra pars reticulata appear to be important for the effects of NMDA antagonists.
$QRTT$ : Stateful Round Trip Time Estimation for Wireless Embedded Systems Using $Q$-Learning

Wireless embedded systems such as sensor nodes and smartphones highlight the importance of reliable data transmission in their advanced applications. Such reliable transmission frequently exhibits a performance below expectation due to inherent resource constraints of the systems. Accurate estimation of round trip time, an important parameter of reliable data transmission, has the potential to significantly improve the performance withstanding the resource constraints. However, contemporary round trip time estimation schemes cannot significantly improve the performance using their stateless estimation schemes as two different states of transmission, success and failure, are equally prominent over wireless mediums. To address this key fact, we propose a novel stateful round trip time estimation scheme for wireless embedded systems, incorporating a light-weight artificial intelligence method. We apply the proposed scheme in a retransmission timeout mechanism of TCP and compare the efficacy of the scheme against that of contemporary estimation schemes. Exhaustive simulation and a testbed experiment reveal that our scheme significantly improves network throughput and average energy per bit compared to other schemes.
In Vivo Interference with AtTCP20 Function Induces Severe Plant Growth Alterations and Deregulates the Expression of Many Genes Important for Development[C][W]

AtTCP20 is a transcription factor belonging to the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) TCP-P subfamily, characterized by its capacity to bind to site II motifs (TGGGCY). Our aim was to understand the role of AtTCP20 in plant development. The expression pattern of a translational fusion of PromTCP20:CDS20∷GUS∷GFP suggested a function for AtTCP20 in several plant organs and stages of development. The role of AtTCP20 was challenged in planta by inducing expression of AtTCP20 proteins fused with either a transcriptional activator domain (VP16) or a repressor domain (EAR). Expression of both modified proteins led to severe developmental phenotypes. In-depth analysis suggested that AtTCP20 may participate in the regulation of cell expansion, cell division, and cell differentiation. Gene expression profiling in roots and hypocotyls revealed that 252 genes were down-regulated in both organs after induction of the AtTCP20∷EAR repressor gene. Site II motifs (TGGGCY) were underrepresented in their promoters. Conversely, GG(A/T)CCC sequences related to binding sites identified for TCP proteins in rice (Oryza sativa) were overrepresented, and a TCP20 fusion protein was shown to bind to these sequences in vitro. Gene ontology indicated that many targeted genes were involved in cell wall biogenesis and modification during expansion and also encoded numerous transcription factors controlling plant development. Our results are consistent with the previous proposal that AtTCP20 is involved in cell division and growth coordination. Moreover, they further suggest that AtTCP20 also contributes to cell expansion control and indicate a different involvement of this protein in plant morphogenesis depending on the organ and the developmental stage.
Effects of continuous venovenous haemofiltration-induced cooling on global haemodynamics, splanchnic oxygen and energy balance in critically ill patients.

BACKGROUND A number of haemodialysis studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of cooler dialysates on global haemodynamics in chronic dialysis patients. However, the effects of continuous venovenous haemofiltration (CVVH)-induced cooling on regional perfusion and energy metabolism in critically ill septic patients have not been well defined. METHODS Nine septic mechanically ventilated patients (age 40-69 years) were investigated during CVVH (ultrafiltration 30-35 ml/kg/h). Baseline data (=WARM 1) were collected when core temperature (Tc) was >37.5 degrees C; the second data set (=COLD) was obtained after 120 min of 'cooling'; and a third set (=WARM 2) was obtained after 120 min of 'rewarming'. During 'warming' (WARM 1 and 2, respectively), both substitution fluids (SFs) and 'returned' blood (RB) were warmed (37 degrees C), whereas during 'cooling', the SFs were at 20 degrees C and RB was not warmed. We measured hepatic venous (HV) haemoglobin oxygen saturation (ShvO(2)), blood gases, lactate and pyruvate. Gastric mucosal PCO(2) (PgmCO(2)) was measured by air tonometry and the gastric mucosal - arterial PCO(2) difference (PCO(2) gap) was calculated. Haemodynamic monitoring was performed with arterial and pulmonary arterial thermodilution catheters. RESULTS Tcs were significantly altered [WARM 1, 37.9 degrees C (37.6, 38.3); COLD, 36.8 degrees C (36.3, 37.1); WARM 2, 37.5 degrees C (37.0, 38.0); P<0.001; data are median, 25th and 75th percentiles, respectively]. Systemic vascular resistance significantly increased during cooling. As a result, mean arterial pressure increased. Cooling was associated with significant decreases in heart rate, cardiac output, systemic oxygen delivery and consumption. ShvO(2) did not change [WARM 1, 51.0% (44.0, 59.5); COLD, 49.0% (42.0, 58.0); WARM 2, 51.0% (46.0, 57.0); P = NS]. The splanchnic oxygen extraction ratio, the HV lactate to pyruvate ratio, HV acid base status and PCO(2) gap remained unchanged. CONCLUSION Mild core cooling induced by CVVH may not affect hepatosplanchnic oxygen and energy balance in septic critically ill patients, even though it affects global haemodynamics.
Pushing Chord into the Underlay: Scalable Routing for Hybrid MANETs

SCALABLE SOURCE ROUTING is a novel routing approach for large unstructured networks, for example hybrid mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), mesh networks, or sensor-actuator networks. It is especially suited for organically growing networks of many resource-limited mobile devices supported by a few fixed-wired nodes. SCALABLE SOURCE ROUTING is a full-fledged routing protocol that directly provides the semantics of a structured peer-to-peer overlay. Hence, it can serve as an efficient basis for fully decentralized applications on mobile devices.
Genomic Prediction of Sunflower Hybrids Oil Content

Prediction of hybrid performance using incomplete factorial mating designs is widely used in breeding programs including different heterotic groups. Based on the general combining ability (GCA) of the parents, predictions are accurate only if the genetic variance resulting from the specific combining ability is small and both parents have phenotyped descendants. Genomic selection (GS) can predict performance using a model trained on both phenotyped and genotyped hybrids that do not necessarily include all hybrid parents. Therefore, GS could overcome the issue of unknown parent GCA. Here, we compared the accuracy of classical GCA-based and genomic predictions for oil content of sunflower seeds using several GS models. Our study involved 452 sunflower hybrids from an incomplete factorial design of 36 female and 36 male lines. Re-sequencing of parental lines allowed to identify 468,194 non-redundant SNPs and to infer the hybrid genotypes. Oil content was observed in a multi-environment trial (MET) over 3 years, leading to nine different environments. We compared GCA-based model to different GS models including female and male genomic kinships with the addition of the female-by-male interaction genomic kinship, the use of functional knowledge as SNPs in genes of oil metabolic pathways, and with epistasis modeling. When both parents have descendants in the training set, the predictive ability was high even for GCA-based prediction, with an average MET value of 0.782. GS performed slightly better (+0.2%). Neither the inclusion of the female-by-male interaction, nor functional knowledge of oil metabolism, nor epistasis modeling improved the GS accuracy. GS greatly improved predictive ability when one or both parents were untested in the training set, increasing GCA-based predictive ability by 10.4% from 0.575 to 0.635 in the MET. In this scenario, performing GS only considering SNPs in oil metabolic pathways did not improve whole genome GS prediction but increased GCA-based prediction ability by 6.4%. Our results show that GS is a major improvement to breeding efficiency compared to the classical GCA modeling when either one or both parents are not well-characterized. This finding could therefore accelerate breeding through reducing phenotyping efforts and more effectively targeting for the most promising crosses.
THE EFFECTS OF SOME FACTORS ON THE INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOR

Цель этой работы - описать влияние мотивации достижения, которая смягчает климат молчания и факторы сложности рабочих задач, связанные с инновационным поведением. В работе принимается количественный подход. После анализа конструктивной достоверности и надежности выдвинутых гипотез осуществляется их эмпирическая проверка при помощи иерархического регрессионного анализа данных, полученных от 394 лиц.
Mouse Models to Study Dengue Virus Immunology and Pathogenesis

The development of a compelling murine model of dengue virus (DENV) infection has been challenging, because DENV clinical isolates do not readily replicate or cause pathology in immunocompetent mice. However, research using immunocompromised mice and/or mouse-adapted viruses allows investigation of questions that may be impossible to address in human studies. In this review, we discuss the potential strengths and limitations of existing mouse models of dengue disease. Human studies are descriptive by nature; moreover, the strain, time, and sequence of infection are often unknown. In contrast, in mice, the conditions of infection are well defined and a large number of experimental parameters can be varied at will. Therefore, mouse models offer an opportunity to experimentally test hypotheses that are based on epidemiological observations. In particular, gain-of-function or loss-of-function models can be established to assess how different components of the immune system (either alone or in combination) contribute to protection or pathogenesis during secondary infections or after vaccination. In addition, mouse models have been used for pre-clinical testing of anti-viral drugs or for vaccine development studies. Conclusions based on mouse experiments must be extrapolated to DENV-infection in humans with caution due to the inherent limitations of animal models. However, research in mouse models is a useful complement to in vitro and epidemiological data, and may delineate new areas that deserve attention during future human studies.
Characterization and crystallization of the helicase domain of bacteriophage T7 gene 4 protein

Limited proteolysis of bacteriophage T7 primase/helicase with endoproteinase Glu-C produces several proteolytic fragments. One of these fragments, which is derived from the C-terminal region of the protein, was prepared and shown to retain helicase activity. This result supports a model in which the gene 4 proteins consist of functionally separable domains. Crystals of this C-terminal fragment of the protein have been obtained that are suitable for X-ray diffraction studies.
No Reference and Reduced Reference Video Quality Metrics for End to End QoS Monitoring

This paper describes an objective measurement method designed to assess the perceived quality for digital videos. The proposed approach can be used either in the context of a reduced reference quality assessment or in the more challenging situation where no reference is available. In that way, it can be deployed in a QoS monitoring strategy in order to control the end-user perceived quality. The originality of the approach relies on the very limited computation resources which are involved, such a system could be integrated quite easily in a real time application. It uses a convolutional neural network (CNN) that allows a continuous time scoring of the video. Experiments conducted on different MPEG-2 videos, with bit rates ranging from 2 to 6 Mbits/s, show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. More specifically, a linear correlation criterion, between objective and subjective scoring, ranging from 0.90 up to 0.95 has been obtained on a set of typical TV videos in the case of a reduced reference assessment. Without any reference to the original video, the correlation criteria remains quite satisfying since it still lies between 0.85 and 0.90, which is quite high with respect to the difficulty of the task, and equivalent and more in some cases than the traditional PSNR, which is a full reference measurement.
Association Between Serum Uric Acid and Development of Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE To systematically evaluate the association between serum uric acid (SUA) level and subsequent development of type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We searched Medline (31 March from 1966 to 2009) and Embase (31 March from 1980 to 2009) for observational cohort studies examining the association between SUA and the risk of type 2 diabetes by manual literature search. Relative risks (RRs) for each 1 mg/dl increase in SUA were pooled by using a random-effects model. The studies included were stratified into subgroups representing different study characteristics, and meta-regression analyses were performed to investigate the effect of these characteristics on the association between SUA level and type 2 diabetes risk. RESULTS The search yielded 11 cohort studies (42,834 participants) that reported 3,305 incident cases of type 2 diabetes during follow-up periods ranging from 2.0 to 13.5 years. The pooled RR of a 1 mg/dl increase in SUA was 1.17 (95% CI 1.09–1.25). Study results were consistently significant (i.e., >1) across characteristics of participants and study design. Publication bias was both visually and statistically suggested (P = 0.03 for Egger's test, 0.06). Adjustment for publication bias attenuated the pooled RR per mg/dl increase in SUA (RR 1.11 [95% CI 1.03–1.20]), but the association remained statistically significant (P = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS The current meta-analysis suggests that SUA level is positively associated with the development of type 2 diabetes regardless of various study characteristics. Further research should attempt to determine whether it is effective to utilize SUA level as a predictor of type 2 diabetes for its primary prevention.
Fast environmental lighting for local-PCA encoded BTFs

Rendering geometric models with complex surface materials in arbitrary lighting environments is a challenging problem. In order to relight and render geometries covered with complex, measured BTFs two problems have to be addressed: the memory problem resulting from the large size of the measured BTF data and the light integration problem resulting from summing up the contributions from all measured light-sources. In this paper we describe how highly efficient BTF compression methods like local-PCA and suitable representations of environmental light based on spherical harmonics can be combined leading to fast environmental lighting for efficiently encoded BTFs. As a side effect the method supports precomputed radiance transfer
Content Based Image Retrieval by Using M-Band Wavelet based Texture Features

Biorthonormal M-band wavelet transform is used to decompose the image into MxM sub-bands for constructing the feature database in content-based image retrieval of 1856 Brodatz texture images. Texture features are obtained by computing the measure of energy, standard deviation and its combination on each band. Results are far superior and impressive than conventional two-band wavelet decomposition.
Predicting the long term course of low back pain and its consequences for sickness absence and associated work disability

Background: Low back pain is characterised by a dynamic pattern of episodes and recovery but little is known about the long term course of back pain due to lack of cohort studies with sufficiently long follow up periods. Methods: A cohort of 523 workers in nursing homes and homes for the elderly was followed for two years. Physical load was measured by observations at the workplace. Psychosocial factors at work, individual characteristics, and low back pain were determined by questionnaire once a year. The effect of work load on low back pain and the transition of low back pain into sickness absence was calculated with logistic regression analysis. A Markov model was used to construct a hypothetical cohort of workers with follow up of 40 years (40 cycles of 1 year) with transitional probabilities between no complaints, low back pain, and sickness due to low back pain. Permanent disability was used as end state of health. Results: The transitional probability from no complaints to low back pain varied between p = 0.25 and p = 0.29, from low back pain to sickness absence between p = 0.09 and p = 0.25, and recurrence of sickness absence varied between p = 0.27 and p = 0.50, depending on the level of physical load. During a 40 year career, total sickness absence due to low back pain was approximately 140 weeks (6.6%) among workers with high physical load and about 30 weeks (1.4%) among those with low physical load. Conclusion: The Markov approach illustrated the potential impact of physical load on (permanent) disability due to low back pain among workers with exposure to physical load. These consequences may go unnoticed in cohort studies with follow up periods of a few years.
Vocal tract acoustics using the transmission line matrix (TLM) method

Most traditional theories of speech production are currently based on plane waves and on one-dimensional analysis. It is however well-known that when the frequency of sound reaches a cut-on frequency, higher acoustical modes start to propagate and can become predominant. It is therefore important to evaluate the effects of these higher modes, especially in order to improve acoustical models of the vocal tract. The paper describes a new numerical method to study the propagation and the radiation of speech sounds, and to compute acoustic characteristics of the vocal tract. This method, named transmission line matrix or modelling (TLM), has been used for simulating electromagnetic wave propagation and is used for the first time in acoustics. The TLM method provides time domain solutions in 2D and 3D spaces. The main advantage of this method is the simplicity of formulation and programming for a large range of applications. The authors first describe the principle on which the TLM method is based. The method as well as the boundary conditions used are validated using classical tests. A systematic study of higher order mode propagation and radiation is then presented. They focus on the influence of some critical parameters such as vocal tract width and location of the sound source. In particular, they show how, using TLM simulation, it is possible to derive modal reflection and transmission characteristics of the vocal tract. A typical example of simulation is presented and discussed.
Motivation, Emotions, and Leadership: The Silent Side of Management

The article argues for considering bodily and emotional dimensions into an extended understanding of demotivation in organization. Based on phenomenal indicators and signs and motivational barriers, demotivation is described as a multidimensional phenomenon. Following an experiential “demotivation-syndrome“, a phenomenology of embodiment and emotions will be outlined, allowing a more comprehensive understanding of demotivation. Finally, some practical implications for preventing and overcoming demotivation are presented. By concluding, some research perspectives of further phenomenological investigations of demotivation will be discussed.
Motivational Interviewing and the Person-Centered Approach

Although motivational interviewing is deeply rooted in the PCA, it has grown up in relative isolation from the mainstream person-centered community. The MINT meeting in Sheffield included a useful dialogue with Pete Sanders on MI and client-centered counseling, and he encouraged me to connect with the PCA community in the United States. So I decided it was time and enrolled in the first annual Carl Rogers Birthday conference, intending to encourage some bridging between MI and PCA.