Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Interactive Real‐Time Crowd Behavior Simulation

While virtual crowds are becoming common in non‐real‐time applications, the real‐time domain is still relativelyunexplored. In this paper we discuss the challenges involved in creating such simulations, especially the needto efficiently manage variety. We introduce the concept of levels of variety. Then we present our work oncrowd behaviour simulation aimed at interactive real‐time applications such as computer games or virtualenvironments. We define a modular behavioural architecture of a multi‐agent system allowing autonomous andscripted behaviour of agents supporting variety. Finally we show applications of our system in a virtual realitytraining system and a virtual heritage reconstruction.
Simultaneous Recognition and Modeling for Learning 3-D Object Models From Everyday Scenes

Object recognition and modeling have classically been studied separately, but practically, they are two closely correlated aspects. In this paper, by exploring the interrelations, we propose a framework to address these two problems at the same time, which we call simultaneous recognition and modeling. Differing from traditional recognition process which consists of off-line object model learning and on-line recognition procedures, our method is solely online. Starting with an empty object database, we incrementally build up object models while at the same time using these models to identify newly observed object views. In the proposed framework, objects are modeled as view graphs and a probabilistic observation model is presented. Both the appearance and the spatial structure of the object are examined, and a formulation based on maximum likelihood estimation is developed. Joint object recognition and modeling are achieved by solving the optimization problem. To evaluate the framework, we have developed a method for simultaneously learning multiple 3-D object models directly from the cluttered indoor environment and tested it using several everyday scenes. Experimental results demonstrate that the framework can cope with the recognition and modeling problem together nicely.
Towards 3D structure prediction of large RNA molecules: an integer programming framework to insert local 3D motifs in RNA secondary structure

Motivation: The prediction of RNA 3D structures from its sequence only is a milestone to RNA function analysis and prediction. In recent years, many methods addressed this challenge, ranging from cycle decomposition and fragment assembly to molecular dynamics simulations. However, their predictions remain fragile and limited to small RNAs. To expand the range and accuracy of these techniques, we need to develop algorithms that will enable to use all the structural information available. In particular, the energetic contribution of secondary structure interactions is now well documented, but the quantification of non-canonical interactions—those shaping the tertiary structure—is poorly understood. Nonetheless, even if a complete RNA tertiary structure energy model is currently unavailable, we now have catalogues of local 3D structural motifs including non-canonical base pairings. A practical objective is thus to develop techniques enabling us to use this knowledge for robust RNA tertiary structure predictors. Results: In this work, we introduce RNA-MoIP, a program that benefits from the progresses made over the last 30 years in the field of RNA secondary structure prediction and expands these methods to incorporate the novel local motif information available in databases. Using an integer programming framework, our method refines predicted secondary structures (i.e. removes incorrect canonical base pairs) to accommodate the insertion of RNA 3D motifs (i.e. hairpins, internal loops and k-way junctions). Then, we use predictions as templates to generate complete 3D structures with the MC-Sym program. We benchmarked RNA-MoIP on a set of 9 RNAs with sizes varying from 53 to 128 nucleotides. We show that our approach (i) improves the accuracy of canonical base pair predictions; (ii) identifies the best secondary structures in a pool of suboptimal structures; and (iii) predicts accurate 3D structures of large RNA molecules. Availability: RNA-MoIP is publicly available at: http://csb.cs.mcgill.ca/RNAMoIP. Contact: jeromew@cs.mcgill.ca
GBE kompakt

Mental health is an important prerequisite for individual quality of life, performance and socio-economic participation. It makes a decisive contribution to the humanity of a society and its socio-economic and economic success (Beddington et al. 2008). Accordingly, promoting the mental health of the population is an important priority of public health policy (Wahlbeck et al. 2010, WHO Europe 2008). Mental health impairments are widespread and have considerable individual and societal consequences (WHO 2001). Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses and has far-reaching consequences (RKI 2010). It is a major cause of illness-related impairments in everyday life worldwide and is responsible for the third largest proportion of the total burden of disease in Western countries (Lopez et al. 2006). Mental and physical health are closely connected and influence each other (Prince et al. 2007). For example, reciprocal associations are well documented between depression and cardiovascular disease (Charlson et al. 2011, Pan et al. 2011) and cardiometabolic risk factors such as diabetes and obesity (Luppino et al. 2010, Pan et al. 2010). This association can probably be partly explained by health-related behaviour. A healthy diet and regular physical activity are important protective factors not only against cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, but also for mental health (Teychenne et al. 2008, Jacka et al. 2010). Conversely, mental disorders are often associated with smoking, physical inactivity and an unhealthy diet (Prince et al. 2007). The combined influence of several lifestyle factors – such as diet, smoking, physical activity and overweight – is increasingly being analysed in studies on the relationship between lifestyle and health. Such studies have revealed associations between the combined number of individual lifestyle factors and a variety of chronic diseases (Ford et al. 2009). However, up to now there has been little research on the relationship between a healthy lifestyle – as indicated by a combination of healthy lifestyle factors – and mental health (Harrington et al. 2010). This issue therefore presents results of the 2009 »German Health Update« (GEDA) study on the relationship between mental health and a healthy lifestyle among adults in Germany (RKI 2011).
Implementing higher-kinded types in Dotty

dotty is a new, experimental Scala compiler based on DOT, the calculus of Dependent Object Types. Higher-kinded types are a natural extension of first-order lambda calculus, and have been a core construct of Haskell and Scala. As long as such types are just partial applications of generic classes, they can be given a meaning in DOT relatively straightforwardly. But general lambdas on the type level require extensions of the DOT calculus to be expressible. This paper is an experience report where we describe and discuss four implementation strategies that we have tried out in the last three years. Each strategy was fully implemented in the dotty compiler. We discuss the usability and expressive power of each scheme, and give some indications about the amount of implementation difficulties encountered.
A new data structure to represent road networks

In the domain of Geographic information systems networks are often used to solve spatial problems. The majority of these problems involve path calculation. In order to calculate a realistic path, the real world needs to be represented as accurate as possible in a data structure. In this paper we present a new data structure combining the advantages of two well know network data structures.
Role of plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin as an emerging biomarker of acute renal failure following kidney transplantation and its correlation with plasma creatinine

Introduction: Graft function early after kidney transplantation is an important parameter in determining the outcome of operation. Urinary and plasma neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), a member of the lipocalin protein family, has been advocated as a sensitive, early biomarker for predicting early renal graft after transplantation. The functions of NGAL appears to be expressed in stress conditions and in tissues undergoing involution. It rapidly accumulates in the kidney tubules and urine after nephrotoxic and ischemic insults. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the prognostic role of NGAL early after renal transplantation. Patients and Methods: A total of 37 kidney recipients were enrolled from a teaching centre in Tabriz within a 6-month period of time. Plasma NGAL was measured immediately before and at 6 and 12 hours post-transplantation. Changes of serum creatinine were documented daily within the first week post-operation. Acute kidney injury (AKI)/graft rejection during the first week after transplantation was the outcome variable. Results: There were 22 males (59.5%) and 15 females (40.5%) with the mean age of 34.93 ± 14.97 years (range: 12-59) in the study group. AKI/graft rejection developed in 12 patients (32.4%). The mean post-transplantation plasma NGAL levels and serum creatinine at all time points were significantly higher in patients with AKI/graft rejection. The best prognostic role was found for plasma NGAL at 12 hours (sensitivity = 100%, specificity = 92%; cut-off value = 309 ng/ml), far better than the prognostic accuracy of corresponding serum creatinine (sensitivity = 66.7%, specificity = 61.9%). Conclusion: Plasma NGAL, particularly 12 hours after transplantation, is a very sensitive and specific biomarker for predicting acute renal injury.
Nonmechanical Roles of Dystrophin and Associated Proteins in Exercise, Neuromuscular Junctions, and Brains

Dystrophin-glycoprotein complex (DGC) is an important structural unit in skeletal muscle that connects the cytoskeleton (f-actin) of a muscle fiber to the extracellular matrix (ECM). Several muscular dystrophies, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Becker muscular dystrophy, congenital muscular dystrophies (dystroglycanopathies), and limb-girdle muscular dystrophies (sarcoglycanopathies), are caused by mutations in the different DGC components. Although many early studies indicated DGC plays a crucial mechanical role in maintaining the structural integrity of skeletal muscle, recent studies identified novel roles of DGC. Beyond a mechanical role, these DGC members play important signaling roles and act as a scaffold for various signaling pathways. For example, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS), which is localized at the muscle membrane by DGC members (dystrophin and syntrophins), plays an important role in the regulation of the blood flow during exercise. DGC also plays important roles at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) and in the brain. In this review, we will focus on recently identified roles of DGC particularly in exercise and the brain.
Overview of the SPEC Benchmarks

" The reputation of current benchmarketing claims regarding system performance is on par with the promises made by politicians during elections. " in cooperation with E. E. Times. SPEC is a nonprofit consortium of 22 major computer vendors whose common goals are " to provide the industry with a realistic yardstick to measure the performance of advanced computer systems " and to educate consumers about the performance of vendors' products. SPEC creates, maintains, distributes, and endorses a standardized set of application-oriented programs to be used as benchmarks.
Decreased Concentrations of Heparinoids Are Required to Inhibit Thrombin Generation in Plasma from Newborns and Children Compared to Plasma from Adults due to Reduced Thrombin Potential

Summary Thrombin generation is decreased and delayed in plasma from newborns and children compared to adults. We hypothesized that lower doses of heparinoid anticoagulants are required to give similar thrombin generation in newborn (umbilical cord) and child plasmas compared to that of adults. Thrombin generation was performed in either the absence or presence of unfractionated heparin (UFH), low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) or a covalent antithrombin-heparin complex (ATH). After contact activation and recalcification of each plasma, thrombin activity was measured by periodic sub-sampling into chromogenic substrate. UFH inhibited thrombin generation to a greater extent compared to LMWH in all plasmas. Cord plasma was more sensitive to inhibition and displayed a greater difference in the effectiveness of UFH compared to LMWH than other plasmas. Lower concentrations of UFH and LMWH were required to inhibit thrombin generation in cord and child plasmas compared to adult plasma. In comparison, ATH strongly inhibited thrombin generation in all 3 plasmas. Similar peak thrombin concentrations were observed at lower ATH concentrations (0.1 U/mL) compared to either UFH (0.25 U/mL) or LMWH (0.25 U/mL). As with UFH and LMWH, cord plasma was more sensitive to inhibition by ATH than the other plasmas and lower ATH concentrations inhibited thrombin generation in cord and child plasmas compared to adult plasma. Decreased thrombin generation with heparinoids in cord and child plasmas compared to adult plasma coincided with decreased rates of prothrombin consumption and increased proportion of thrombin- α2-macroglobulin inhibitor complexes. In summary, lower doses of UFH, LMWH or ATH result in similar peak thrombin generation in newborn and child plasmas compared to adult plasma. Cord plasma was the most sensitive to inhibition, with ATH being more effective than UFH or LMWH.
Caenorhabditis elegans male sensory-motor neurons and dopaminergic support cells couple ejaculation and post-ejaculatory behaviors

The circuit structure and function underlying post-coital male behaviors remain poorly understood. Using mutant analysis, laser ablation, optogenetics, and Ca2+ imaging, we observed that following C. elegans male copulation, the duration of post-coital lethargy is coupled to cellular events involved in ejaculation. We show that the SPV and SPD spicule-associated sensory neurons and the spicule socket neuronal support cells function with intromission circuit components, including the cholinergic SPC and PCB and the glutamatergic PCA sensory-motor neurons, to coordinate sex muscle contractions with initiation and continuation of sperm movement. Our observations suggest that the SPV and SPD and their associated dopamine-containing socket cells sense the intrauterine environment through cellular endings exposed at the spicule tips and regulate both sperm release into the hermaphrodite and the recovery from post-coital lethargy. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.02938. 001
A fluid model analysis of streaming media in the presence of time-varying bandwidth

This paper is motivated by the increasing popularity of streaming media applications that are offered via the Internet. Packet streams generated by media application servers are distorted due to variability in the available bandwidth; at the receiving end, a play-out buffer compensates for the distortion. We study the dynamics of this system in a queuing-theoretical setting, using fluid analysis. To this end, we consider a model in which a constant bit-rate (CBR) media application is streamed over an unreliable network. Our model consists of a tandem of two fluid queues. The first queue is a Markov Modulated fluid queue that models the network congestion, and the second queue represents the play-out buffer. For this model the distribution of the total amount of fluid in the congestion and play-out buffers corresponds to the distribution of the maximum attained level of the first buffer. We show that the distribution of the total amount of fluid converges to a Gumbel extreme value distribution. From this result, we derive a simple closed-form expression for the initial playout-buffer level that provides a probabilistic guarantee for undisturbed playback.
Multimodal Biometric Authentication Methods : A COTS Approach

We examine the performance of multimodal biometric authentication systems using state-of-the-art Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) fingerprint and face biometrics on a population approaching 1000 individuals. Prior studies of multimodal biometrics have been limited to relatively low accuracy non-COTS systems and populations approximately 10% of this size. Our work is the first to demonstrate that multimodal fingerprint and face biometric systems can achieve significant accuracy gains over either biometric alone, even when using already highly accurate COTS systems on a relatively large-scale population. In addition to examining well-known multimodal methods, we introduce novel methods of fusion and normalization that improve accuracy still further through population analysis.
Nanomedicine and cancer immunotherapy: focus on indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase inhibitors

Nanomedicine application in cancer immunotherapy is currently one of the most challenging areas in cancer therapeutic intervention. Innovative solutions have been provided by nanotechnology to deliver cytotoxic agents to the cancer cells partially affecting the healthy cells of the body during the process. Nanoparticle-based drug delivery is an emerging approach to stimulate the immune responses against cancer. The inhibition of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) is a pivotal area of research in cancer immunotherapy. IDO is a heme-containing immunosuppressive enzyme, which is responsible for the degradation of tryptophan while increasing the concentration of kynurenine metabolites. Various preclinical studies showed that IDO inhibition in certain diseases may result in significant therapeutic effects. Here, we provide a review of the natural and synthetic inhibitors of IDO. These inhibitors are classified according to their source, inhibitory concentrations, the chemical structure, and the mechanism of action. Tumor-targeted chemotherapy is an advanced technique and has more advantages as compared to the conventional chemotherapy. Search for more efficient and less toxic nanoparticles in conjunction with compounds to inhibit IDO is still an area of interest for several research groups worldwide, especially revealing to be an extensive and a promising area in cancer therapeutic innovations.
Algorithms for Traffic Engineering

Traffic Engineering in IP networks with MPLS In the past, routing protocols for IP networks (e.g. BGP, IS-IS, OSPF) used the shortest path to forward the traffic on network links, each of which is assigned by a routing weight. This may lead to an unbalanced distribution of the traffic in the network with high utilization of some links while others remain underutilized. Network planing and an adaptive provisioning of bandwidth to each link can improve the situation only to a limited extend, since there are constraints on the network topology and since dynamically changing network loads cannot be adequately handled in this way. Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) [6] has been introduced by the IETF with one of its main goals to support traffic engineering for an appropriate distribution of the traffic over a service provider network. Approaches for traffic engineering in pure IP networks have also been studied by fitting the routing weights such that shortest paths meet a predefined distribution of the traffic on the links, see e.g. [2]. MPLS facilitates traffic engineering by explicitly providing one or several paths for each traffic demand from a source to a destination in a concept of label switched paths (LSP) and enables to measure the traffic flowing on each LSP [6]. Thus the traffic matrix of source-to-destination flows in a network becomes available from a full mesh of LSPs, which is more difficult to obtain by IP level measurement.
Evaluation of the effect of allograft with doxycycline versus the allograft alone in the treatment of infrabony defects: A controlled clinical and radiographical study

Background: Successful prevention and treatment of periodontal disease are contingent on effective control of periodontopathic microbiota based on the premise of periodontal disease being infectious disorders. An anti-microbial agent, i.e., doxycycline has been incorporated into the allograft to control infection and facilitate healing during and after periodontal therapy. Materials and Methods: Using a split-mouth design, 15 patients showing clinical evidence of almost identical bilateral infrabony defects requiring bone grafting procedures were randomly selected. In each patient, infrabony defects on one side were designated as Group A (control group) and infrabony defects of the contralateral side of the same arch were designated as Group B (test group). Clinical assessment of probing pocket depth and attachment level and radiographic evaluation of the defect depth was done pre-operatively and at 12-week and 24-week post-operatively. The relative efficacy of the two treatment modalities was evaluated using paired Student's t-test and the comparative evaluation between the two groups over the 3 time intervals was done using independent Student's t-test. Results: Both the groups exhibited a highly significant reduction in probing depth and gain in clinical attachment level (CAL) and a linear bone fill at the end of 12 and 24 weeks. Comparative evaluation showed a statistically significant gain in bone fill in Group B as compared to Group A, whereas a non-significant reduction in probing depth and gain in CALs between the two groups at the end of 24 weeks (whereas mean reduction in probing depth and gain in CAL were also greater in Group B but the difference was statistically non-significant). Conclusion: The increase in linear bone fill in Group B signifies the role of doxycycline in augmenting regenerative potential of allograft by combating residual infection and through host modulation.
Measuring the Motives of Sport Event Attendance: Bridging the Academic-Practitioner Divide to Understanding Behavior

The ability to draw attendees to performances is vital to the success of a sport organization. As a result, sport managers and academics attempt to investigate motivations that drive decisions to attend events. In order to make predictions, academic demands have lead to the proliferation of instruments and constructs to capture a wide variety of motives, but these tools have limited ability to explain game attendance; and practitioners demand shorter scales to increase efficiency. The purpose of this research is to provide a parsimonious measuring tool of motives to explain sport event attendance. A 10-item scale was distributed to sport spectators and the general population (N = 2831) to measure five facets of motivation: Socialization, Performance, Excitement, Esteem and Diversion (SPEED). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the psychometric properties of the SPEED scale. MANOVA results indicate the five SPEED motives are able to differentiate prior game attendance behavior. Multiple Linear Regression results indicate three facets explain 30% of the variance in the frequency of game attendance. The SPEED scale also demonstrated the ability to explain 75% of the variance in team commitment. Suggestions are made for further application and employment of the SPEED scale, along with the marketing of Excitement, Performance and Esteem.