Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FootSLAM: Pedestrian Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Without Exteroceptive Sensors—Hitchhiking on Human Perception and Cognition

In this paper, we describe FootSLAM, a Bayesian estimation approach that achieves simultaneous localization and mapping for pedestrians. FootSLAM uses odometry obtained with foot-mounted inertial sensors. Whereas existing approaches to infrastructure-less pedestrian position determination are either subject to unbounded growth of positioning error, or require either a priori map information, or exteroceptive sensors, such as cameras or light detection and ranging (LIDARs), FootSLAM achieves long-term error stability solely based on inertial sensor measurements. An analysis of the problem based on a dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) model reveals that this surprising result becomes possible by effectively hitchhiking on human perception and cognition. Two extensions to FootSLAM, namely, PlaceSLAM, for incorporating additional measurements or user provided hints, and FeetSLAM, for automated collaborative mapping, are discussed. Experimental data that validate FootSLAM and its extensions are presented. It is foreseeable that the sensors and processing power of future devices such as smartphones are likely to suffice to position the bearer with the same accuracy that FootSLAM achieves with foot-mounted sensors already today.
Surrogate regret bounds for bipartite ranking via strongly proper losses

The problem of bipartite ranking, where instances are labeled positive or negative and the goal is to learn a scoring function that minimizes the probability of mis-ranking a pair of positive and negative instances (or equivalently, that maximizes the area under the ROC curve), has been widely studied in recent years. A dominant theoretical and algorithmic framework for the problem has been to reduce bipartite ranking to pairwise classification; in particular, it is well known that the bipartite ranking regret can be formulated as a pairwise classification regret, which in turn can be upper bounded using usual regret bounds for classification problems. Recently, Kotlowski et al. (2011) showed regret bounds for bipartite ranking in terms of the regret associated with balanced versions of the standard (non-pairwise) logistic and exponential losses. In this paper, we show that such (nonpairwise) surrogate regret bounds for bipartite ranking can be obtained in terms of a broad class of proper (composite) losses that we term as strongly proper. Our proof technique is much simpler than that of Kotlowski et al. (2011), and relies on properties of proper (composite) losses as elucidated recently by Reid and Williamson (2010, 2011) and others. Our result yields explicit surrogate bounds (with no hidden balancing terms) in terms of a variety of strongly proper losses, including for example logistic, exponential, squared and squared hinge losses as special cases. An important consequence is that standard algorithms minimizing a (non-pairwise) strongly proper loss, such as logistic regression and boosting algorithms (assuming a universal function class and appropriate regularization), are in fact consistent for bipartite ranking; moreover, our results allow us to quantify the bipartite ranking regret in terms of the corresponding surrogate regret. We also obtain tighter surrogate bounds under certain low-noise conditions via a recent result of Clemencon and Robbiano (2011).
CXCR 3 Ligands γ IFN-Natural Killer Cell Accumulation in Tumors Is Dependent on Updated

Several studies have correlated high numbers of tumorinfiltrating natural killer (NK) cells with a good prognosis for cancer patients. Our study aimed at identifying factors controlling intratumoral NK cell accumulation in s.c. injected NK cell sensitive tumor models and at studying their effect on survival time of recipient mice. We observed that fewer NK cells infiltrated the tumors in IFN-; receptor knockout (IFN-;R / ) mice compared with wild-type controls that correlated with decreased survival rate. Exogenous application of IFN-; in the tumor augmented levels of ligands of the chemokine receptor CXCR3, increased NK cell accumulation, and prolonged survival. Furthermore, our data show that CD27 NK cells, which under steady-state conditions express CXCR3, preferentially accumulated in the tumor tissue. Accordingly, significantly lower numbers of tumor-infiltrating NK cells were detected in CXCR3 / mice, and the capacity of adoptively transferred CXCR3 / NK cells to accumulate in the tumor was severely impaired. Finally, exogenous application of the CXCR3 ligand CXCL10 in the tumor or ectopic expression of CXCL10 by tumor cells increased the numbers of NK cells in the tumors and prolonged NK cell–dependent survival. Our results identify IFN-; and the expression of CXCR3 on NK cells as prerequisites for NK cell infiltration into tumors. Exploiting strategies to augment NK cell accumulation in the tumor might lead to the development of effective antitumor therapies. [Cancer Res 2008;68(20):8437–45]
Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein Induces Synapse Loss through Acute Postsynaptic Translational Regulation

Fragile X syndrome, as well as other forms of mental retardation and autism, is associated with altered dendritic spine number and structure. Fragile X syndrome is caused by loss-of-function mutations in Fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), an RNA-binding protein that regulates protein synthesis in vivo. It is unknown whether FMRP plays a direct, cell-autonomous role in regulation of synapse number, function, or maturation. Here, we report that acute postsynaptic expression of FMRP in Fmr1 knock-out (KO) neurons results in a decrease in the number of functional and structural synapses without an effect on their synaptic strength or maturational state. Similarly, neurons endogenously expressing FMRP (wild-type) have fewer synapses than neighboring Fmr1 KO neurons. An intact K homology domain 2 (KH2) RNA-binding domain and dephosphorylation of FMRP at S500 were required for the effects of FMRP on synapse number, indicating that FMRP interaction with RNA and translating polyribosomes leads to synapse loss.
Automating comments

This paper addresses the problem of source code documentation. Source code documentation has two components: the description of the statement and the description of the steps required to go from the specifications in natural language to programming language statements. We propose a model that provides a different mechanism for each form of documentation. A tool is used to implement and automate this approach. Results show that this approach provides a systematic and coherent mechanism for source code documentation. Productivity is increased and maintenance effort is greatly reduced.
Laser mode-locking with saturable absorbers

In this paper we describe a mode-locked laser in terms of traveling pulses of light. We show that the energy absorbed by a saturable absorber is a minimum if the pulselength is a minimum, and that two pulses are essentially as favorable as one if they meet at the position of the dye cell. Under steady-state pulsing conditions, however, we show that the pulses will have a width which depends on their energy. We find that for parameters appropriate to present Nd: glass experiments, the expected length is about 10-11seconds, in agreement with observations. Finally, we demonstrate the rather surprising result that a linearly dispersive medium does not broaden the mode-locked laser pulses to first order.
Social media photography: construing subjectivity in Instagram images

This article explores interpersonal meaning in social media photographs, using the representation of motherhood in Instagram images as a case study. It investigates the visual choices that are made in these images to construe relationships between the represented participants, the photographer, and the ambient social media viewer. The author draws upon existing work on the visual systems of point of view and focalization to explore interpersonal meaning in these images, and proposes that an additional system – subjectification – is needed to account for the kinds of relationship between the viewer and the photographer that are instantiated in social photographs, as well as the ways in which subjectivity is signaled in these images. The dataset analyzed is the entire Instagram feed of a single user who posts images of her experience of motherhood and a collection of 500 images using the hashtag #motherhood.
Waste Cooking Oil as an Alternate Feedstock for Biodiesel Production

As crude oil price reach a new high, the need for developing alternate fuels has become acute. Alternate fuels should be economically attractive in order to compete with currently used fossil fuels. In this work, biodiesel (ethyl ester) was prepared from waste cooking oil collected from a local restaurant in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Ethyl alcohol with sodium hydroxide as a catalyst was used for the transesterification process. The fatty acid composition of the final biodiesel esters was determined by gas chromatography. The biodiesel was characterized by its physical and fuel properties including density, viscosity, acid value, flash point, cloud point, pour point, cetane index, water and sediment content, total and free glycerin content, diglycerides and monoglycerides, phosphorus content and sulfur content according to ASTM standards. The viscosity of the biodiesel ethyl ester was found to be 5.03 mm 2 /sec at 40 o C. The viscosity of waste cooking oil measured in room temperature (at 21° C) was 72 mm 2 /sec. From the tests, the flash point was found to be 164 o C, the phosphorous content was 2 ppm, those of calcium and magnesium were 1 ppm combined, water and sediment was 0 %, sulfur content was 2 ppm, total acid number was 0.29 mgKOH/g, cetane index was 61, cloud point was -1 o C and pour point was -16 o C. Production of biodiesel from waste cooking oils for diesel substitute is particularly important because of the decreasing trend of economical oil reserves, environmental problems caused due to fossil fuel use and the high price of petroleum products in the international market.
Upper time bounds for executing PRAM-programs on the LogP-machine

In sequential computing the step from programming in machine code to programming in machine independent high level languages has been done for decades. Although high level programming languages are available for parallel machines today’s parallel programs highly depend on the archit ectures they are intended to run on. Designing efficient parallel programs is a difficult task that can be performed by specialists only. Porting those programs to other parallel architectures is nearly impossible without a considerable loss of performance. Abstract machine models for parallel computing like the PRAM-model are accepted by theoreticians but have no practical relevance since these models don’t take into account properties of existing architectures. However, the PRAM is easy to program. Recently, Culler et al. defined the LogP machine model which better reflects the behaviour of massively parallel computers. In this work, we show transformations of a subclass of PRAM-programs leading to efficient LogP programs and give upper bounds for executing them on the LogP machine. Therefore, we first briefly summarize the transformations from PRAM to LogP programs. Second, we extend the LogP machine model by a set of machine instructions. Third, we define the classes of coarse and fine grained LogP programs. The former class of programs can be executed within the factor two of the optimum. The latter class of programs has an upper time bound for execution that is a little worse. Finally, we show how to decide statically which strategy is promising for a given program optimization problem.
The Drosophila bifocal gene encodes a novel protein which colocalizes with actin and is necessary for photoreceptor morphogenesis

Photoreceptor cells of the Drosophila compound eye begin to develop specialized membrane foldings at the apical surface in midpupation. The microvillar structure ultimately forms the rhabdomere, an actin-rich light-gathering organelle with a characteristic shape and morphology. In a P-element transposition screen, we isolated mutations in a gene, bifocal (bif), which is required for the development of normal rhabdomeres. The morphological defects seen in bif mutant animals, in which the distinct contact domains established by the newly formed rhabdomeres are abnormal, first become apparent during midpupal development. The later defects seen in the mutant adult R cells are more dramatic, with the rhabdomeres enlarged, elongated, and frequently split. bif encodes a novel putative protein of 1063 amino acids which is expressed in the embryo and the larval eye imaginal disc in a pattern identical to that of F actin. During pupal development, Bif localizes to the base of the filamentous actin associated with the forming rhabdomeres along one side of the differentiating R cells. On the basis of its subcellular localization and loss-of-function phenotype, we discuss possible roles of Bif in photoreceptor morphogenesis.
(Not) Hanging on the Telephone: Payment Systems in the New Sweatshops

'The ultimate objective of empirical work on incentives should be to find out why firms use the compensation systems they doahuge advances in our understanding could be made by a concerted effort to collect data on contracts. '' So concludes the 1998 Journal of Economic Literature survey on compensation systems. This paper does just that. It presents very detailed case study evidence on contracts in four organizations, three of which are call centres, the fastest growing sector of employment in the UK. This evidence is used to test predictions from the New Economics of Personnel (NEP) concerning the incidence of payment systems. We also contrast and test predictions from NEP with those of the earlier British Institutional School, which anticipated many of NEP''s ideas on payment systems. Variations in the ratio of performance-related to basic pay among our organizations can, broadly, be explained by the costs and benefits of monitoring inputs and measuring output, which comprises the core of NEP. Indeed, the monitoring of our case study employees is the theme which binds the paper together u for call centres Jeremy Bentham''s 1791 Panopticon was truly the vision of the future.
Robustness in Genetic Threshold Boolean Random Regulatory Networks: A Mathematical Approach

On one hand, different indices of complexity have been introduced in biological networks: the number of their components, their connectance (or connectivity) or the number of the strong connected components of their interaction graph. On the other hand, indices of robustness for a biological network characterize its ability to recover from dynamical or parametric disturbance and are linked to the spectrum of the operator defining its dynamics. Here complexity will be quantified by the evolutionary entropy, which describes the way the asymptotic presence distribution of the corresponding dynamical system is spread over the state space and robustness will be characterized by the stability rate at which the system returns to this equilibrium distribution after a perturbation. The paper shows mathematical relationships between entropy and stability rate, in the general framework of Markov chains and in the specific case of Markov chains related to the genetic threshold Boolean random regulatory networks (getBren).
The effect of ginger supplementation on serum C-reactive protein, lipid profile and glycaemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Aim To undertake a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies to determine the effect of ginger supplementation on serum C-reactive protein (CRP), lipid profile, and glycaemia. Method PubMed-MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cochrane Database, and Google Scholar databases were searched (up until July 2016) to identify prospective studies evaluating the impact of ginger supplementation on serum CRP. Random-effects model meta-analysis was used for quantitative data synthesis. Sensitivity analysis was conducted using the leave-one-out method. Heterogeneity was quantitatively assessed using the I2 index. Systematic review registration: CRD42016035973. Results From a total of 265 entries identified via searches, 9 studies were included in the final selection. The meta-analysis indicated a significant reduction in serum CRP concentrations following ginger supplementation [weighted mean difference (WMD)−0.84 mg/L (95% CI −1.38 to −0.31, I2 56.3%)]. The WMD for fasting blood glucose and HbA1c was −1.35 mg/dl (95% CI −2.04 to −0.58, I2 12.1%) and −1.01 (95% CI −1.28 to −0.72, I2 9.4%), respectively. Moreover, high-density lipoprotein and triglyceride significantly improved after ginger administration [1.16 mg/dl (95% CI 0.52 to 1.08, I2 12.3%) and −1.63 mg/dl (95% CI −3.10 to −0.17, I2 8.1%), respectively]. These findings were robust in sensitivity analyses. Random-effects meta-regression revealed that changes in serum CRP levels were independent of the dosage of ginger supplementation (slope −0.20; 95% CI −0.95 to 0.55; p=0.60). Conclusions This meta-analysis suggests that ginger supplementation significantly reduces serum CRP and improves glycaemia indexes and lipid profile. Randomized control trials with larger sample size and with a longer-term follow-up period should be considered for future investigations.
Filarial Lymphedema Is Characterized by Antigen-Specific Th1 and Th17 Proinflammatory Responses and a Lack of Regulatory T Cells

Background Lymphatic filariasis can be associated with development of serious pathology in the form of lymphedema, hydrocele, and elephantiasis in a subset of infected patients. Methods and Findings To elucidate the role of CD4+ T cell subsets in the development of lymphatic pathology, we examined specific sets of cytokines in individuals with filarial lymphedema in response to parasite antigen (BmA) and compared them with responses from asymptomatic infected individuals. We also examined expression patterns of Toll-like receptors (TLR1–10) and Nod-like receptors (Nod1, Nod2, and NALP3) in response to BmA. BmA induced significantly higher production of Th1-type cytokines—IFN-γ and TNF-α—in patients with lymphedema compared with asymptomatic individuals. Notably, expression of the Th17 family of cytokines—IL-17A, IL-17F, IL-21, and IL-23—was also significantly upregulated by BmA stimulation in lymphedema patients. In contrast, expression of Foxp3, GITR, TGFβ, and CTLA-4, known to be expressed by regulatory T cells, was significantly impaired in patients with lymphedema. BmA also induced significantly higher expression of TLR2, 4, 7, and 9 as well Nod1 and 2 mRNA in patients with lymphedema compared with asymptomatic controls. Conclusion Our findings implicate increased Th1/Th17 responses and decreased regulatory T cells as well as regulation of Toll- and Nod-like receptors in pathogenesis of filarial lymphedema.
Hedonic and eudaimonic motives for watching feature films. Validation of the Spanish version of Oliver – Raney’s scale

Abstract Three studies are presented to validate the Spanish version of Oliver and Raney’s (2008; 2011) eudaimonic and hedonic motivations scale. In Study 1, 132 university students watched a dramatic (sad) film, filling out the scales to evaluate motivations regarding cinema consumption and reception processes. Eudaimonic motivation was associated with deeper cognitive processes during the reception and stronger identification with the protagonist. Study 2 evaluated the test-retest reliability of the eudaimonic and hedonic motivations scale (n = 44). In Study 3 (n = 537), statistically significant age differences were observed in hedonic and eudaimonic motivations. Furthermore, convergent correlations were detected between hedonic and eudaimonic motivations and preferences of different film genres. These results allow us to conclude that the Spanish version of the hedonic and eudaimonic motivations scale presents adequate psychometric properties, thus being convergent with those obtained by Oliver and Raney.
Extending the POSIX I/O interface: a parallel file system perspective.

The POSIX interface does not lend itself well to enabling good performance for high-end applications. Extensions are needed in the POSIX I/O interface so that high-concurrency HPC applications running on top of parallel file systems perform well. This paper presents the rationale, design, and evaluation of a reference implementation of a subset of the POSIX I/O interfaces on a widely used parallel file system (PVFS) on clusters. Experimental results on a set of micro-benchmarks confirm that the extensions to the POSIX interface greatly improve scalability and performance.
Multiservice Admission on Sectored CDMA Networks An Analytical Model

We develop an analytical approach of omni-directional and sectored CDMA systems, adapted to each given zone of the network: we establish explicit expressions of the interference factors, which represent a characteristic of these networks. This model considers the base stations transmitting powers as a continuum field. We show this assumption is accurate even for low base stations densities. Thanks to this model we analyze, without simulation, the multiservice mobile admission in CDMA systems. We particularly show the advantage of a sectorisation and the influence of the admission control strategy chosen by a provider.
Exploiting Subjectivity Classification to Improve Information Extraction

Information extraction (IE) systems are prone to false hits for a variety of reasons and we observed that many of these false hi ts occur in sentences that contain subjective language (e.g., opinions, emotions, and sentiments). Motivated by these observations, we explore the idea of using subjectivity analysis to improve the precision of information extraction systems. In this paper, we describe an IE system that uses a subjective sentence classifier to filter its extractions. We experimented with several different strategies for using the subjectivity classifications, including an aggressive strategy that discards all extractions found in subjective sentences and more complex strategies that selectively discard extractions. We evaluated the performance of these different approaches on the MUC-4 terrorism data set. We found that indiscriminately filtering extractions from subjective sentences was overly aggressive, but more selective filtering strategies improved IE precision with minimal recall loss.
Research Summary

The mammalian carotid body (CB) senses decreases in blood oxygen (hypoxia) to increase breathing within seconds. In hypoxia, neuroendocrine cells in the CB called glomus cells are activated to signal to afferent nerves that are a branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve (cranial nerve IX). Signals ascending through this nerve are ultimately transmitted to respiratory rhythm generators in the brainstem to regulate breathing.
Image compression based on SVD for BoVW model in fingerprint classification

Fingerprint is the oldest techniques for biometric identiﬁcation. This limb has its own characteristics for each individual to distinguish from each other. Fingerprint is unique and the pattern will never change. Many approaches have been developed in this ﬁeld research. Bag-of-Visual Words (BoVW) is an approach for ﬁngerprint classiﬁcation, where the classiﬁcationisbasedonthehistogramofthefrequencyofvisualwords. Theproblemariseswhentheﬁngerprintclassiﬁcation usestheoriginalimagesinwhichtheseimageshavealargesizeandinlargenumbers.Itrequireslargestoragespaceandhigh computationaltime.Inordertoovercomethisproblem,weproposeSingularValueDecomposition(SVD)ascompression methodthatcanreducethestoragespace. Ourproposedmethodhasbeenevaluatedwithsomeexperimentsbasedonﬁve differenttypesofﬁngerprint(whorl,arch,leftloop,rightloop,andtwinloop). Experimentalresultsshowthattheproposed methodreducesthestoragespaceandcomputationaltime. Moreovertheaccuracyofﬁngerprintclassiﬁcationcouldbe improved.