Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive multimodal fusion by uncertainty compensation

While the accuracy of feature measurements heavily depends on changing environmental conditions, studying the consequences of this fact in pattern recognition tasks has received relatively little attention to date. In this work we explicitly take into account feature measurement uncertainty and we show how classification rules should be adjusted to compensate for its effects. Our approach is particularly fruitful in multimodal fusion scenarios, such as audiovisual speech recognition, where multiple streams of complementary time-evolving features are integrated. For such applications, provided that the measurement noise uncertainty for each feature stream can be estimated, the proposed framework leads to highly adaptive multimodal fusion rules which are widely applicable and easy to implement. We further show that previous multimodal fusion methods relying on stream weights fall under our scheme under certain assumptions; this provides novel insights into their applicability for various tasks and suggests new practical ways for estimating the stream weights adaptively. The potential of our approach is demonstrated in audio-visual speech recognition using either synchronous or asynchronous models. Index Terms: multimodal fusion, audiovisual speech recognition, uncertainty compensation, Active Appearance Models, product HMMs, stream weights
Afterburner: The Case for In-Browser Analytics

This paper explores the novel and unconventional idea of implementing an analytical RDBMS in pure JavaScript so that it runs completely inside a browser with no external dependencies. Our prototype, called Afterburner, generates compiled query plans that exploit typed arrays and asm.js, two relatively recent advances in JavaScript. On a few simple queries, we show that Afterburner achieves comparable performance to MonetDB running natively on the same machine. This is an interesting finding in that it shows how far JavaScript has come as an efficient execution platform. Beyond a mere technical curiosity, we discuss how our techniques could support ubiquitous in-browser interactive analytics (potentially integrating with browser-based notebooks) and also present interesting opportunities for split-execution strategies where query operators are distributed between the browser and backend servers.
Domain-Independent Strategies for an Affective Intelligent Tutoring System

Identifying and reacting to the student’s affective state in an affective Intelligent Tutoring System framework has gained researchers’ attention in recent years. In general, an affective Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) framework has two components: 1) to detect the student’s affective state and 2) to react to the student’s affective state by providing appropriate strategies as a means to help the student learn. Although emotional regulation theory suggests that individuals use both domaindependent and domain-independent strategies, current ITS frameworks exploit domain-independent strategies only. In this paper we indicate how domain-independent strategies and their components can be integrated into an affective ITS framework.
Interpreting functional diffusion tensor imaging

1 Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland 2 Department of Diagnostics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland 3 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland 4 Division of Brain Sciences, Academic Department of Neuro-otology, Imperial College London, Charing Cross Hospital Campus, London, UK *Correspondence: ed.roberts@imperial.ac. uk
All-Silicon 99.35% Efficient Three-Phase Seven-Level Hybrid Neutral Point Clamped/Flying Capacitor Inverter

With the increasing use of photovoltaic systems, a large demand for efficient, power-dense and lightweight grid-interface inverters is arising. Accordingly, new concepts like multi-level converters, which are able to reduce the converter losses while still keeping a low construction volume, have to be investigated. The hybrid seven-level topology analyzed in this paper comprises an active neutral point clamped stage, followed by a flying capacitor stage. Compared to a pure flying capacitor converter, the combination of these two stages allows to save more than half of the capacitor volume, while still having the same requirement for the output filter stage, and hence, the same output filter volume. Moreover, the topology employs low-voltage devices and ensures low conduction and switching losses, resulting in a higher efficiency. The principle of operation of the system is briefly reviewed, and based on a detailed component modeling, an efficiency vs. power density optimization is carried out, for which switching loss measurements of state-of-the-art 200 V semiconductors are performed. From the optimization, a high-efficiency design is selected and the practical hardware realization is discussed. The simulation and optimization results are then verified by realizing an all-silicon 99.35% efficient three-phase seven-level system, featuring a volumetric power density of 3.4 kW/dm 3 (55.9 W/in 3 ), a gravimetric power density of 3.2 kW/kg, and fulfilling CISPR Class A EMI requirements. Finally, it is shown that an all-silicon realization with next generation silicon switches can achieve 99.5% efficiency with the same hardware, and 99.6% with commercial state-of-the-art GaN switches.
Example-Based Modeling of Facial Texture from Deficient Data

We present an approach to modeling ear-to-ear, high-quality texture from one or more partial views of a face with possibly poor resolution and noise. Our approach is example-based in that we reconstruct texture with patches from a database composed of previously seen faces. A 3D morphable model is used to establish shape correspondence between the observed data across views and training faces. The database is built on the mesh surface by segmenting it into uniform overlapping patches. Texture patches are selected by belief propagation so as to be consistent with neighbors and with observations in an appropriate image formation model. We also develop a variant that is insensitive to light and camera parameters, and incorporate soft symmetry constraints. We obtain textures of higher quality for degraded views as small as 10 pixels wide, than a standard model fitted to non-degraded data. We further show applications to super-resolution where we substantially improve quality compared to a state-of-the-art algorithm, and to texture completion where we fill in missing regions and remove facial clutter in a photorealistic manner.
TOPO-GEOMETRIC SHAPE MODEL FOR 3 D OBJECT REPRESENTATION

We propose a new method for representing the topology and geometry of 2D compact surfaces embedded in a three-dimensional space. Topology is modeled through a skeletal graph, where a distance function is employed as a Morse function. Invariance to rigid transformations follows directly from this choice of Morse function. Geometry is captured by modeling the evolution of level curves of the distance function along topologically homogenous parts of the surface, which in turn correspond to various graph edges. Combining topological and geometric information leads to a weighted skeletal graph representation of a surface, which is sufficient for reconstructing the original surface. The uniqueness and completeness of representation make the method particularly suitable for shape recognition applications, where weighted graph isomorphism may be employed.
9 Skilled Cities and Efficient Urban Transport Stef Proost

This chapter surveys the fundamental forces that drive the formation and size of cities. We discuss the different types of agglomeration economies generated by a dense web of activities, with special emphasis on the benefits associated with the clustering of highly skilled workers. The distribution of activities within cities results from the trade-off between commuting and housing costs. We show that in this trade-off commuting costs are the cause and land rent is the consequence. The land rent capitalizes the advantages associated with proximity to particular urban locations such as employment centres. We identify the main sources of inefficiency in various urban policies implemented in Europe. Special attention is paid to the regulation of the land market and the pricing of urban transport.
Good character at school: positive classroom behavior mediates the link between character strengths and school achievement

Character strengths have been found to be substantially related to children’s and adolescents’ well-being. Initial evidence suggests that they also matter for school success (e.g., Weber and Ruch, 2012). The present set of two studies aimed at replicating and extending these findings in two different age groups, primary school students (N = 179; mean age = 11.6 years) and secondary school students (N = 199; mean age = 14.4 years). The students completed the VIA-Youth (Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth), a self-report measure of the 24 character strengths in the VIA classification. Their teachers rated the students’ positive behavior in the classroom. Additionally, school achievement was assessed: For the primary school students (Study 1), teachers rated the students’ overall school achievement and for the secondary school students (Study 2), we used their grades as a measure of school achievement. We found that several character strengths were associated with both positive classroom behavior and school achievement. Across both samples, school achievement was correlated with love of learning, perseverance, zest, gratitude, hope, and perspective. The strongest correlations with positive classroom behavior were found for perseverance, self-regulation, prudence, social intelligence, and hope. For both samples, there were indirect effects of some of the character strengths on school achievement through teacher-rated positive classroom behavior. The converging findings from the two samples support the notion that character strengths contribute to positive classroom behavior, which in turn enhances school achievement. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and for school interventions based on character strengths.
Guiding Web Proxy and Server Placement for High Performance Internet Content Delivery

The performance of a network designed for efficient web content delivery largely depends on the strategic placement of (forward or reverse) web proxies and/or full-server replicas of web origin servers. This paper presents a tool, coined ProxyTeller, which we developed specifically for guiding such placement decisions. ProxyTeller decides on the position and the number of proxies and/or full server replicas required in order to achieve given performance constraints, which are expressed as percentage improvements in terms of network bandwidth, origin server load, and user-latency. ProxyTeller would be very helpful to ISPs/CDNs, content providers, and end-users and is, thus, very much lacking. We overview the design and implementation of ProxyTeller and present scenarios of its use and related results. ProxyTeller is available through the internet and our hope is that it will prove to be of real use to the community.
A Mouse Model for the AF 508 Allele of Cystic Fibrosis

The most common cause of cystic fibrosis is a mutation that deletes phenylalanine 508 in cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). The AF508 protein is misprocessed and degraded rather than traveling to the apical membrane. We used a novel strategy to introduce the AF508 mutation into the mouse CFTR gene. Affected epithelia from homozygous AF508 mice lacked CFTR in the apical membrane and were Cl impermeable. These abnormalities are the same as those observed in patients with AF508 and suggest that these mice have the same cellular defect. 40% of homozygous AF508 animals survived into adulthood and displayed several abnormalities found in human disease and in CFTR null mice. These animals should provide an excellent model to investigate pathogenesis and to examine therapies directed at correcting the AF508 defect. (J. Clin. Invest. 1995. 96:2051-2064.)
On the Optimal Power Allocation for Nonregenerative OFDM Relay Links

We consider a two-hop communication scheme using OFDM modulation. The relay is assumed to be nonregenerative (or amplify-and-forward). We examine the possibilities of power allocation (PA) over the frequency subchannels at source and relay, with respect to separate transmit power constraints, if channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) is given. We provide the optimal PA at the relay (source) that maximizes the instantaneous rate for a given source (relay) PA. Furthermore, we show that alternate, separate optimization of source and relay PA converges to the solution of the joint optimization of source and relay PA. To further enhance the rate of the considered scheme, the OFDM subchannels of the source to relay and relay to destination channel can be paired according to their actual magnitude. In the case of a joint sum power constraint, we propose to allocate the transmit power between source and relay with respect to average channel attenuation of first and second hop. It is shown that this leads to a information rate that is near to the optimal rate achieved by a joint optimization of source and relay PA with joint transmit power constraint.
Cut-Set Bounds for Networks With Zero-Delay Nodes

In a network, a node is said to incur a delay if its encoding of each transmitted symbol involves only its received symbols obtained before the time slot in which the transmitted symbol is sent (hence the transmitted symbol sent in a time slot cannot depend on the received symbol obtained in the same time slot). A node is said to incur no delay if its received symbol obtained in a time slot is available for encoding its transmitted symbol sent in the same time slot. Under the classical model, every node in a discrete memoryless network (DMN) incurs a unit delay, and the capacity region of the DMN satisfies the well-known cut-set outer bound. In this paper, we propose a generalized model for the DMN where some nodes may incur no delay. Under our generalized model, we obtain a new cut-set outer bound, which is proved to be tight for some two-node DMN and is shown to subsume an existing cut-set bound for the causal relay network. In addition, we establish under the generalized model another cut-set outer bound on the positive-delay region-the set of achievable rate tuples under the constraint that every node incurs a delay. We use the cut-set bound on the positive-delay region to show that for some two-node DMN under the generalized model, the positive-delay region is strictly smaller than the capacity region.
Genome-Scale Reconstruction of Escherichia coli's Transcriptional and Translational Machinery: A Knowledge Base, Its Mathematical Formulation, and Its Functional Characterization

Metabolic network reconstructions represent valuable scaffolds for ‘-omics’ data integration and are used to computationally interrogate network properties. However, they do not explicitly account for the synthesis of macromolecules (i.e., proteins and RNA). Here, we present the first genome-scale, fine-grained reconstruction of Escherichia coli's transcriptional and translational machinery, which produces 423 functional gene products in a sequence-specific manner and accounts for all necessary chemical transformations. Legacy data from over 500 publications and three databases were reviewed, and many pathways were considered, including stable RNA maturation and modification, protein complex formation, and iron–sulfur cluster biogenesis. This reconstruction represents the most comprehensive knowledge base for these important cellular functions in E. coli and is unique in its scope. Furthermore, it was converted into a mathematical model and used to: (1) quantitatively integrate gene expression data as reaction constraints and (2) compute functional network states, which were compared to reported experimental data. For example, the model predicted accurately the ribosome production, without any parameterization. Also, in silico rRNA operon deletion suggested that a high RNA polymerase density on the remaining rRNA operons is needed to reproduce the reported experimental ribosome numbers. Moreover, functional protein modules were determined, and many were found to contain gene products from multiple subsystems, highlighting the functional interaction of these proteins. This genome-scale reconstruction of E. coli's transcriptional and translational machinery presents a milestone in systems biology because it will enable quantitative integration of ‘-omics’ datasets and thus the study of the mechanistic principles underlying the genotype–phenotype relationship.
Design and Rationale of a Real-Life Study to Compare Treatment Strategies for Cardiovascular Risk Factors: The CRUCIAL Study

Abstract The CRUCIAL trial was designed to compare the relative reduction in calculated Framingham coronary heart disease risk when a multiple risk factor intervention strategy, based on single-pill amlodipine besylate/atorvastatin calcium, was compared with a usual-care strategy. Eligible patients had treated or untreated hypertension, ≥ 3 additional cardiovascular risk factors, and baseline total cholesterol ≤ 6.5 mmol/L, but no coronary heart disease. The CRUCIAL trial was a 12-month, international, multicenter, prospective, stratified, cluster-randomized, parallel-design, open-label trial conducted in 20 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. We anticipate the results of this study will be available in mid to late 2010. In this article we report the rationale for and design of the CRUCIAL trial and discuss how the challenges in the design and conduct of this cluster-randomized trial were addressed. The cluster-randomized trial design, with the investigator as the unit of randomization, was chosen to minimize contamination between the trial arms. The intent of the study was to compare the new therapeutic strategy with customary treatment practices, so no recommendation was made regarding the choice of antihypertensive or lipid-lowering drugs in the usual-care arm. It was considered that if the investigator managed both arms of the trial it would be difficult to prevent crossover of treatment strategies. Patients were enrolled in the study before the investigators were randomized to avoid selection bias. Investigators were randomized in a 1:1 ratio within each country to explicitly balance the treatment arms with respect to potential confounding factors. The cluster effect was taken into account in the sample size calculation. The findings from the CRUCIAL trial have the potential to inform current thinking on how to effectively reduce the cardiovascular risk of patients with hypertension and additional risk factors but only modestly elevated total cholesterol.
Osteoporosis in men: an Endocrine Society clinical practice guideline.

OBJECTIVE The aim was to formulate practice guidelines for management of osteoporosis in men. EVIDENCE We used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system to describe the strength of recommendations and evidence quality. CONSENSUS PROCESS Consensus was guided by systematic evidence reviews, one in-person meeting, and multiple conference calls and e-mails. Task Force drafts were reviewed successively by The Endocrine Society's Clinical Guidelines Subcommittee and Clinical Affairs Core Committee; representatives of ASBMR, ECTS, ESE, ISCD; and members at large. At each stage, the Task Force received written comments and incorporated needed changes. The reviewed document was approved by The Endocrine Society Council before submission for peer review. CONCLUSIONS Osteoporosis in men causes significant morbidity and mortality. We recommend testing higher risk men [aged ≥70 and men aged 50-69 who have risk factors (e.g. low body weight, prior fracture as an adult, smoking, etc.)] using central dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. Laboratory testing should be done to detect contributing causes. Adequate calcium and vitamin D and weight-bearing exercise should be encouraged; smoking and excessive alcohol should be avoided. Pharmacological treatment is recommended for men aged 50 or older who have had spine or hip fractures, those with T-scores of -2.5 or below, and men at high risk of fracture based on low bone mineral density and/or clinical risk factors. Treatment should be monitored with serial dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry testing.
The cell surface proteoglycan syndecan‐1 mediates fibroblast growth factor‐2 binding and activity

Binding of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) to receptor tyrosine kinases (FGFRs) and signaling is facilitated by binding of FGF to heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs). There are multiple families of HSPGs, including extracellular and cell surface forms. An important and potentially controversial question is whether cell surface forms of HSPGs act as positive or negative regulators of FGF signaling. This study examines the ability of the cell surface HSPG syndecan‐1 to regulate FGF binding and signaling. HSPG‐deficient Raji lymphoma cells, expressing a transfected syndecan‐1 cDNA (Raji S1 cells), were used as HSPG “donor” cells. BaF3 cells, expressing an FGFR1 cDNA (FR1C‐11 cells), were used as FGFR “reporter” cells. Using Raji S1 cells preincubated with FGF, it was found that they formed heterotypic aggregates with FR1C‐11 cells in the presence of FGF‐2, but not FGF‐1. In addition, the FR1C‐11 cells demonstrated FGF‐2, but not FGF‐1, dependent survival when cultured on fixed Raji S1 cells. Thus, Raji syndecan‐1 (1) differentially regulates the binding and signaling of FGFs 1 and 2 and (2) acts as a positive regulator of FGF‐2 signaling. J. Cell. Physiol. 174:310–321, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Variation in C-reactive Protein Following Weight Loss in Obese Insulin Resistant Postmenopausal Women: is there an Independent Contribution of Lean Body Mass?

Abstract Background: We showed that obese insulin resistant postmenopausal women are characterized by higher lean body mass and elevated C-reactive protein. Although counterintuitive, we hypothesized that losses in muscle mass following caloric restriction and increase in muscle quality will be associated with improvements in glucose homeostasis through decreases in C-reactive protein. Objectives: To determine 1) if improvements in C-reactive protein concentrations occurs through losses in lean body mass; and 2) if decreases in C-reactive protein levels contribute to improvements in insulin sensitivity. Methods: 50 postmenopausal women (body mass index>26 kg/m²) with impaired glucose disposal (<7.5 mg/kg/min) completed a 6-month caloric restriction program. Outcome measures were: Glucose disposal rate: M value (by hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp), body composition (total, trunk, and appendicluar). LBM and FM by DXA), LBM index (LBM (kg)/height (m2), body fat distribution (VAT and SAT by CT scan) and plasma high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and interleukin-6 (Il-6). Results: Significant correlations were observed between Δ hsCRP levels with Δ Il-6 (r=0.33, p≤0.05), Δ total LBM index (r=0.44, p≤0.01), Δ trunk LBM (r=0.38, p≤0.01) Δ SAT (r=0.35, p≤0.05) and ∆ glucose disposal rate (r=− 0.44, p≤0.01). After including all the correlated variables in Stepwise linear regression model, Δ LBM index was the only independent predictor of the reduction in hsCRP levels (R2=0.20, p≤0.01). Conclusion: Losses in total lean body mass are independently associated with improvements in inflammatory state (CRP levels) in obese postmenopausal women with impaired glucose disposal.