Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probabilistic Skylines on Uncertain Data

Uncertain data are inherent in some important applications. Although a considerable amount of research has been dedicated to modeling uncertain data and answering some types of queries on uncertain data, how to conduct advanced analysis on uncertain data remains an open problem at large. In this paper, we tackle the problem of skyline analysis on uncertain data. We propose a novel probabilistic skyline model where an uncertain object may take a probability to be in the skyline, and a p-skyline contains all the objects whose skyline probabilities are at least p. Computing probabilistic skylines on large uncertain data sets is challenging. We develop two efficient algorithms. The bottom-up algorithm computes the skyline probabilities of some selected instances of uncertain objects, and uses those instances to prune other instances and uncertain objects effectively. The top-down algorithm recursively partitions the instances of uncertain objects into subsets, and prunes subsets and objects aggressively. Our experimental results on both the real NBA player data set and the benchmark synthetic data sets show that probabilistic skylines are interesting and useful, and our two algorithms are efficient on large data sets, and complementary to each other in performance.
Quality of Life in Patients with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator: A Systematic Review

Despite the indisputable mortality advantages of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), no consensus exists regarding their impact on quality of life (QoL). This systematic review investigates differences in QoL between patients with ICDs and controls. We systematically searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, Web of Science, and PsychINFO databases. Articles were included if they were published after the year 2000 and reported on original studies with a control group. Five randomized controlled trials with a total of 5,138 patients and 10 observational studies with a total of 1,513 patients met the inclusion criteria. Nine studies found comparable QoL for ICD recipients and patients in the control groups, three studies found an increased QoL for ICD patients, and three studies found a decreased QoL for ICD patients. The question of whether QoL relates to ICD therapy cannot be answered conclusively due to the heterogeneity of the existing studies. Lower QoL was apparent among patients with an ICD who experienced several device discharges. Medical staff should be particularly aware of the signs of both psychological and physical disorders in these patients. Further investigations on QoL in ICD patients are desirable, but ethical reasons restrict the conduct of randomized trials.
Quantifying Residual, Eddy, and Mean Flow Effects on Mixing in an Idealized Circumpolar Current

AbstractMeridional diffusivity is assessed for a baroclinically unstable jet in a high-latitude idealized circumpolar current (ICC) using the Model for Prediction across Scales Ocean (MPAS-O) and the online Lagrangian in Situ Global High-Performance Particle Tracking (LIGHT) diagnostic via space–time dispersion of particle clusters over 120 monthly realizations of O(106) particles on 11 potential density surfaces. Diffusivity in the jet reaches values of O(6000) m2 s−1 and is largest near the critical layer supporting mixing suppression and critical layer theory. Values in the vicinity of the shelf break are suppressed to O(100) m2 s−1 because of the presence of westward slope front currents. Diffusivity attenuates less rapidly with depth in the jet than both eddy velocity and kinetic energy scalings would suggest. Removal of the mean flow via high-pass filtering shifts the nonlinear parameter (ratio of the eddy velocity to eddy phase speed) into the linear wave regime by increasing the eddy phase speed v.
Modeling and Synthesis of Hardware-Software Morphing

In state of the art hardware-software-co-design flows for FPGA based systems, the hardware-software partitioning problem is solved offline, thus, omitting the great flexibility provided through partial runtime reconfiguration. The decision which functions are best suitable to be implemented in hardware or software, is typically taken with respect to the expected worst case computational demands and certain objectives like power consumption, throughput or cost. However, if these parameters change at runtime, e.g., due to environmental changes, traditional designed systems lack to adapt to the new conditions, because the hardware-software partitioning is static. This paper systematically presents a new methodology that allows changing the implementation style of tasks at runtime by hardware-software morphing. Based on a formal model, how morphing can be performed without loosing internal states was demonstrated. Moreover, results from applying this methodology were demonstrated to a 16-tap FIR filter.
Power-efficient wireless OFDMA using limited-rate feedback

Emerging applications involving low-cost wireless sensor networks motivate well optimization of multi-user orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) in the power-limited regime. In this context, the present paper relies on limited-rate feedback (LRF) sent from the access point to terminals to minimize the total average transmit-power under individual average rate and error probability constraints. Along with the characterization of optimal bit, power and subcarrier allocation policies based on LRF, suboptimal yet simple schemes are developed for channel quantization. The novel algorithms proceed in two phases: (i) an off-line phase to construct the channel quantizer as well as the rate and power codebooks with moderate complexity; and (ii) an on-line phase to obtain, based on quantized channel state information, the optimum, rate, power and user-subcarrier allocation with linear complexity. Numerical examples corroborate the analytical claims and reveal that significant power savings result even with suboptimal schemes based on practically affordable LRF.
Active contour approach for accurate quantitative airway analysis

Chronic airway disease causes structural changes in the lungs including peribronchial thickening and airway dilatation. Multi-detector computed tomography (CT) yields detailed near-isotropic images of the lungs, and thus the potential to obtain quantitative measurements of lumen diameter and airway wall thickness. Such measurements would allow standardized assessment, and physicians to diagnose and locate airway abnormalities, adapt treatment, and monitor progress over time. However, due to the sheer number of airways per patient, systematic analysis is infeasible in routine clinical practice without automation. We have developed an automated and real-time method based on active contours to estimate both airway lumen and wall dimensions; the method does not require manual contour initialization but only a starting point on the targeted airway. While the lumen contour segmentation is purely region-based, the estimation of the outer diameter considers the inner wall segmentation as well as local intensity variation, in order anticipate the presence of nearby arteries and exclude them. These properties make the method more robust than the Full-Width Half Maximum (FWHM) approach. Results are demonstrated on a phantom dataset with known dimensions and on a human dataset where the automated measurements are compared against two human operators. The average error on the phantom measurements was 0.10mm and 0.14mm for inner and outer diameters, showing sub-voxel accuracy. Similarly, the mean variation from the average manual measurement was 0.14mm and 0.18mm for inner and outer diameters respectively.
World-in-Miniature Interaction for Complex Virtual Environments

Object occlusion is a major handicap for efficient interaction with 3D virtual environments. The well-known World in Miniature WIM metaphor partially solves this problem by providing an additional dynamic viewpoint through a hand-held miniature copy of the scene. However, letting the miniature show a replica of the whole scene makes the WIM metaphor suitable for only relatively simple scenes due to occlusion and level of scale issues. In this paper, the authors propose several algorithms to extend the idea behind the WIM to arbitrarily complex scenes. The main idea is to automatically decompose indoor scenes into a collection of cells that define potential extents of the miniature replica. This cell decomposition works well for general indoor scenes and allows for simple and efficient algorithms for preserving the visibility of potential targets inside the cell. The authors also discuss how to support interaction at multiple levels of scale by allowing the user to select the WIM size according to the accuracy required for accomplishing the task.
SEROLOGIC TESTS FOR TREPONEMATOSES IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Background and Objective. Venereal syphilis is uncommon in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Gulf states in the Middle East. Although nonvenereal syphilis (bejel) has been reported to be endemic in some of these countries, the extent of treponematoses in the UAE is unknown. The objectives were therefore, to investigate those who attended the outpatient clinic of a hospital in the UAE and to establish the seroprevalence of treponematoses and related clinical conditions.
Human-robot proxemics: Physical and psychological distancing in human-robot interaction

To seamlessly integrate into the human physical and social environment, robots must display appropriate proxemic behavior-that is, follow societal norms in establishing their physical and psychological distancing with people. Social-scientific theories suggest competing models of human proxemic behavior, but all conclude that individuals' proxemic behavior is shaped by the proxemic behavior of others and the individual's psychological closeness to them. The present study explores whether these models can also explain how people physically and psychologically distance themselves from robots and suggest guidelines for future design of proxemic behaviors for robots. In a controlled laboratory experiment, participants interacted with Wakamaru to perform two tasks that examined physical and psychological distancing of the participants. We manipulated the likeability (likeable/dislikeable) and gaze behavior (mutual gaze/averted gaze) of the robot. Our results on physical distancing showed that participants who disliked the robot compensated for the increase in the robot's gaze by maintaining a greater physical distance from the robot, while participants who liked the robot did not differ in their distancing from the robot across gaze conditions. The results on psychological distancing suggest that those who disliked the robot also disclosed less to the robot. Our results offer guidelines for the design of appropriate proxemic behaviors for robots so as to facilitate effective human-robot interaction.
Deformed Phase Space in Cosmology and Black Holes

It is well known that one way to study canonical quantum cosmology is through the Wheeler DeWitt (WDW) equation where the quantization is performed on the minisuperspace variables. The original ideas of a deformed minisuperspace were done in connection with noncommutative cosmology, by introducing a deformation into the minisuperspace in order to incorporate an effective noncommutativity. Therefore, study- ing solutions to Cosmological models through the WDWequation with deformed phase space could be interpreted as studying quantum effects to Cosmology. In this chapter, we make an analysis of scalar field cosmology and conclude that under a phase space transformation and imposed restriction, the effective cosmological constant is positive. On the other hand, obtaining the wave equation for the noncommutativity Kantowski-Sachs model, we are able to derive a modified noncommutative version of the entropy. To that purpose, the Feynman-Hibbs procedure is considered in order to calculate the partition function of the system.
Maximizing muscle protein anabolism: the role of protein quality

Purpose of reviewMuscle protein synthesis (MPS) and muscle protein breakdown are simultaneous ongoing processes. Here, we examine evidence for how protein quality can affect exercise-induced muscle protein anabolism or protein balance (MPS minus muscle protein breakdown). Evidence is highlighted showing differences in the responses of MPS, and muscle protein accretion, with ingestion of milk-based and soy-based proteins in young and elderly persons. Recent findingsProtein consumption, and the accompanying hyperaminoacidemia, stimulates an increase in MPS and a small suppression of muscle protein breakdown. Beyond the feeding-induced rise in MPS, small incremental addition of new muscle protein mass occurs following intense resistance exercise which over time (i.e. resistance training) leads to muscle hypertrophy. Athletes make use of the paradigm of resistance training and eating to maximize the gains in their skeletal muscle mass. Importantly, however, metabolically active skeletal muscle can offset the morbidities associated with the sarcopenia of aging such as type II diabetes, decline in aerobic fitness and the reduction in metabolic rate that can lead to fat mass accumulation. SummaryRecent evidence suggests that consumption of different proteins can affect the amplitude and possibly duration of MPS increases after feeding and this effect interacts and is possibly accentuated with resistance exercise.
Suppression of CHK1 by ETS Family Members Promotes DNA Damage Response Bypass and Tumorigenesis.

UNLABELLED The ETS family of transcription factors has been repeatedly implicated in tumorigenesis. In prostate cancer, ETS family members, such as ERG, ETV1, ETV4, and ETV5, are frequently overexpressed due to chromosomal translocations, but the molecular mechanisms by which they promote prostate tumorigenesis remain largely undefined. Here, we show that ETS family members, such as ERG and ETV1, directly repress the expression of the checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1), a key DNA damage response cell-cycle regulator essential for the maintenance of genome integrity. Critically, we find that ERG expression correlates with CHK1 downregulation in human patients and demonstrate that Chk1 heterozygosity promotes the progression of high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia into prostatic invasive carcinoma in Pten(+) (/-) mice. Importantly, CHK1 downregulation sensitizes prostate tumor cells to etoposide but not to docetaxel treatment. Thus, we identify CHK1 as a key functional target of the ETS proto-oncogenic family with important therapeutic implications. SIGNIFICANCE Genetic translocation and aberrant expression of ETS family members is a common event in different types of human tumors. Here, we show that through the transcriptional repression of CHK1, ETS factors may favor DNA damage accumulation and consequent genetic instability in proliferating cells. Importantly, our findings provide a rationale for testing DNA replication inhibitor agents in ETS-positive TP53-proficient tumors.
T-Cell Activation by Recombinant Receptors : CD 28 Costimulation Is Required for Interleukin 2 Secretion and Receptor-mediated T-Cell Proliferation but Does Not Affect Receptor-mediated Target Cell Lysis 1

Recombinant T-cell receptors with antibody-like specificity are successfully used to direct CTLs toward a MHC-independent immune response against target cells. Here we monitored the specific activation of receptor grafted CTLs in the context of CD28 costimulation. Peripheral blood T cells were retrovirally engrafted with recombinant anti-CD30 and anticarcinoembryonic antigen receptors, respectively, that harbor either the FceRI-g or the CD3-z intracellular signaling domain. Cross-linking of recombinant receptors by solid-phase bound ligand,i.e., CD30 and a carcinoembryonic antigen receptor-specific anti-idiotypic antibody, respectively, induces IFNg secretion that is further enhanced by CD28 costimulation of grafted T cells. Induction of interleukin (IL)-2 secretion, in contrast, requires CD28 costimulation in addition to receptor crosslinking, irrespective of T-cell preactivation by anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody plus IL-2 or by anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody plus anti-CD28 monoclonal antibody. Accordingly, induction of IL-2 secretion upon receptor cross-linking by membrane-bound antigen requires CD28/B7 costimulation whereas IFN-g secretion and cell proliferation does not. The efficiency of cytolysis by receptor-grafted CTLs does not depend on and is not affected by CD28 costimulation. The data demonstrate that CTL proliferation, cytokine secretion, and cytolysis upon receptor cross-linking are differentially modulated by CD28 costimulation and that cytolysis does not require B7 expression on target cells.
Deterministic and Non-blocking Hybrid Automata

Consider the ordinary diierential equation _ xt = F , x t ; x 0 = x 0 : 1 A solution 1 on 0; T , T T 0, to 1 is a continuously diierentiable function x : : 0 ; T ! R n satisfying xt = x 0 + Z t 0 F , x s ds: We m a y ask for which functions F there exist a solution to 1 and, if so, if the solution is unique. Is it, for instance, suucient that F is a continuous function? The answer is no concerning the uniqueness issue, as illustrated by the following example: Example 1. Let F z = p z and consider the diierential equation 1 for x 0 = 0. Then both xt = t 2 = 4 and xt = 0 are solutions. 2 If we, however, not only assume continuity but also restrict the rate of change of F , w e can show some nice properties. The following deenition is needed, where k k denotes the Euclidean norm kzk 2 = z 2 1 + + z 2 n : a function F is locally Lipschitz continuous if there exist r; L 0 such that kFz , F yk L k z , y k for all kzk; kyk r. If there exists L L 0 independent o f r such that the condition holds for any r r 0, then F is globally Lipschitz continuous. Theorem 1 Existence and Uniqueness. If F is locally Lipschitz continuous , then there exists 0 such that 1 has a unique solution on 0; ;. Moreover , if F is globally Lipschitz continuous, then 1 c an be chosen arbitrarily large. 1 This solution is called a solution in the sense of Caratheodory. 2 Actually, for any t0 0, xt = 0 for t 2 0; t 0 and xt = t , t 0 2 = 4 for t 2 t0; 1 is a solution.
Model predictive control for drivability enhancement with input dead-segment

Optimization between comfortability and an accelerating power which drivers desire is a significant issue in powertrain control. When torque demand of the drivers changes drastically, like tip-in/out, the drivers experience severe vibrations called jerking. Although torque reduction up to a certain extent alleviates the vibration of drive shaft, an excessive reduction deteriorates a power of acceleration. In this paper, optimal suppression of unpleasant vibration in a drive shaft will be presented via a model predictive control (MPC). As output variables to be tracked in MPC scheme, torsion angle and its rate are considered with analysis of dynamical characteristics. The proposed approach takes into account inherent input dead-segment of internal combustion engines. Simulation results show that the suggested MPC approach for active torque control suppresses the vibration of driveline efficiently while avoiding a critical loss of accelerating power.
Evidence for Adaptation to the Tibetan Plateau Inferred from Tibetan Loach Transcriptomes

Abstract Triplophysa fishes are the primary component of the fish fauna on the Tibetan Plateau and are well adapted to the high-altitude environment. Despite the importance of Triplophysa fishes on the plateau, the genetic mechanisms of the adaptations of these fishes to this high-altitude environment remain poorly understood. In this study, we generated the transcriptome sequences for three Triplophysa fishes, that is, Triplophysa siluroides, Triplophysa scleroptera, and Triplophysa dalaica, and used these and the previously available transcriptome and genome sequences from fishes living at low altitudes to identify potential genetic mechanisms for the high-altitude adaptations in Triplophysa fishes. An analysis of 2,269 orthologous genes among cave fish (Astyanax mexicanus), zebrafish (Danio rerio), large-scale loach (Paramisgurnus dabryanus), and Triplophysa fishes revealed that each of the terminal branches of the Triplophysa fishes had a significantly higher ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions than that of the branches of the fishes from low altitudes, which provided consistent evidence for genome-wide rapid evolution in the Triplophysa genus. Many of the GO (Gene Ontology) categories associated with energy metabolism and hypoxia response exhibited accelerated evolution in the Triplophysa fishes compared with the large-scale loach. The genes that exhibited signs of positive selection and rapid evolution in the Triplophysa fishes were also significantly enriched in energy metabolism and hypoxia response categories. Our analysis identified widespread Triplophysa-specific nonsynonymous mutations in the fast evolving genes and positively selected genes. Moreover, we detected significant evidence of positive selection in the HIF (hypoxia-inducible factor)-1A and HIF-2B genes in Triplophysa fishes and found that the Triplophysa-specific nonsynonymous mutations in the HIF-1A and HIF-2B genes were associated with functional changes. Overall, our study provides new insights into the adaptations and evolution of fishes in the high-altitude environment of the Tibetan Plateau and complements previous findings on the adaptations of mammals and birds to high altitudes.
Prediction of small‐for‐gestational‐age neonates: screening by uterine artery Doppler and mean arterial pressure at 19–24 weeks

To investigate the potential value of uterine artery (UtA) pulsatility index (PI) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) at 19–24 weeks' gestation, in combination with maternal characteristics and medical history and fetal biometry in the prediction of delivery of small‐for‐gestational‐age (SGA) neonates in the absence of pre‐eclampsia (PE) and to examine the potential value of such assessment in deciding whether the third‐trimester scan should be performed at 32 and/or 36 weeks' gestation.
Survey of research on relationship between development of financial system and economic growth

Veza između razvijenosti financijskog sustava i gospodarskog rasta predmet je istraživanja mnogih ekonomista. U ovom clanku prikazuju se empirijska istraživanja i teorijski radovi koji se bave objasnjavanjem navedene veze. Premda se cini logicnim da razvoj financijskog sustava pozitivno utjece na gospodarski rast, konacan odgovor na to pitanje jos nije dan. U istraživanju veze fiancije - rast posebno je i pitanje kauzalnosti odnosno smjera veze financije – rast. U slucaju tranzicijskih zemalja empirijski radovi uglavnom ne potvrđuju da financijski razvoj potice gospodarski rast