Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weighing obscured and unobscured quasar hosts with the cosmic microwave background

We cross-correlate a cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing map with the projected space densities of quasars to measure the bias and halo masses of a quasar sample split into obscured and unobscured populations, the first application of this method to distinct quasar subclasses. Several recent studies of the angular clustering of obscured quasars have shown that these objects likely reside in higher-mass halos compared to their unobscured counterparts. This has important implications for models of the structure and geometry of quasars, their role in growing supermassive black holes, and mutual quasar/host galaxy evolution. However, the magnitude and significance of this difference has varied from study to study. Using data from \planck, \wise, and SDSS, we follow up on these results using the independent method of CMB lensing cross-correlations. The region and sample are identical to that used for recent angular clustering measurements, allowing for a direct comparison of the CMB-lensing and angular clustering methods. At $z \sim 1$, we find that the bias of obscured quasars is $b_q = 2.57 \pm 0.24$, while that of unobscured quasars is $b_q = 1.89 \pm 0.19$. This corresponds to halo masses of $\log (M_h / M_{\odot} h^{-1}) = 13. 24_{-0.15}^{+0.14}$ (obscured) and $\log (M_h / M_{\odot} h^{-1}) = 12. 71_{-0.13}^{+0.15}$ (unobscured). These results agree well with with those from angular clustering (well within $1\sigma$), and confirm that obscured quasars reside in host halos $\sim$3 times as massive as halos hosting unobscured quasars. This implies that quasars spend a significant portion of their lifetime in an obscured state, possibly more than one half of the entire active phase.
Spatial Expression Patterns of Activin and Its Signaling System in the Zebrafish Ovarian Follicle: Evidence for Paracrine Action of Activin on the Oocytes1

Abstract We have previously demonstrated that activin is likely an ovarian mediator of pituitary gonadotropin(s) and local epidermal growth factor in their stimulating oocyte maturation and maturational competence in the zebrafish. However, the downstream events controlled by activin remain unknown. One possible mechanism is that activin may directly work on the oocytes to promote the development of oocyte maturational competence. To substantiate this hypothesis, we performed the present study to demonstrate the expression of the activin system in different compartments of zebrafish follicles, namely, the follicle cells and oocytes. The proteins examined include activin subunits (βA and βB), activin-binding protein (follistatin), activin type II receptors (type IIA and IIB), the type I activin receptor-like kinases (ALK1-like, ALK2-like, and ALK4-like), and the intracellular activin signaling molecules (Smad2, Smad3, Smad4, and Smad7). The results showed that the entire activin signaling system is expressed by the full-grown immature zebrafish oocytes (∼0.65 mm in diameter), including ALK4-like (ActRIB), ALK2-like (ActRIA), ActRIIA, ActRIIB, Smad2, Smad3, Smad4, and Smad7, therefore supporting our hypothesis that the oocytes are one of the direct targets of activin actions in the zebrafish ovary. In contrast, activin itself (βA and βB) and ALK1-like type I receptor are predominantly expressed in the follicle cells surrounding the oocytes. Interestingly, although follistatin is expressed in both the follicle cells and oocytes, its level of expression is significantly higher in the oocytes than the follicle cells, implying that follistatin may serve as a signal from the oocytes to modulate the activity of activin produced by the follicle cells. Taken together, the present study provides convincing evidence that although all members of the activin system are expressed in the whole follicle, they exhibit distinct spatial patterns of expression among different compartments of the follicle. It is likely that activin works directly on the oocytes in a paracrine manner to promote oocyte maturation and maturational competence. On the other hand, instead of being controlled passively by the follicle cells, the oocytes may actively participate in the regulation of follicle development by releasing various modulating molecules such as follistatin.
Therapeutic Effects of Novel Sphingosine-1-Phosphate Receptor Agonist W-061 in Murine DSS Colitis

Although IL-17 is a pro-inflammatory cytokine reportedly involved in various autoimmune inflammatory disorders, its role remains unclear in murine models of colitis. Acute colitis was induced by 2.5% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) treatment for 5 days. A novel sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor agonist W-061, a prototype of ONO-4641, was orally administered daily, and histopathological analysis was performed on the colon. The number of lymphocytes and their cytokine production were also evaluated in spleen, mesenteric lymph node, Peyer's patch and lamina propria of the colon. Daily administration of W-061 resulted in improvement of DSS-induced colitis, and significantly reduced the number of CD4+ T cells in the colonic lamina propria. Numbers of both Th17 and Th1 cells were reduced by W-061 treatment. W-061, however, had no influence on the number of Treg cells in lamina propria. Thus, Th17 and Th1 cells in lamina propria were thought to be the key subsets in the pathogenesis of DSS-induced colitis. In conclusion, W-061 may be a novel therapeutic strategy to ameliorate acute aggravation of inflammatory bowel diseases.
Fast sparse recovery via non-convex optimization

Recovering sparse signals from noisy underdetermined linear measurements has been a concerning problem in the signal processing community. Lasso has been put forward to handle this problem well, yet recent research reveals that replacing ℓ1 norm with some non-convex functions leads to better recovery performance. In this paper, based on majorization-minimization and proximal operator, we propose a fast algorithm for the non-convex function regularized least squares problem. Theoretical analysis shows that any limit point of the iterative sequence is a stationary point of the problem, and if the non-convexity is below a threshold, the iterative sequence converges to a neighborhood of the sparse signal with superlinear convergence rate. Simulation results verify such theoretical rate of convergence, and demonstrate that the algorithm outperforms its convex counterpart in various aspects including more nonzero entries allowed, less running time required, and better denoising performance exhibited.
Multibiometric Cryptosystem: Model Structure and Performance Analysis

Single biometric cryptosystems were developed to obtain win-win scenarios for security and privacy. They are seriously threatened by spoof attacks, in which a forged biometric copy or artificially recreated biometric data of a legitimate user may be used to spoof a system. Meanwhile, feature alignment and quantization greatly degrade the accuracy of single biometric cryptosystems. In this paper, by trying to bind multiple biometrics to cryptography, a cryptosystem named multibiometric cryptosystem (MBC), is demonstrated from the theoretical point of view. First, an MBC with two fusion levels: fusion at the biometric level, and fusion at the cryptographic level, is formally defined. Then four models, namely biometric fusion model, MN-split model, nonsplit model, and package model, adopted at those two levels for fusion are presented. Shannon entropy analysis shows that even if the biometric ciphertexts and some biometric traits are disclosed, the new constructions still can achieve consistently data security and biometric privacy. In addition, the achievable accuracy is analyzed in terms of false acceptance rate/false rejection rate at each model. Finally, a comparison on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the proposed models is discussed.
In vivo effect of haemodilution with saline on coagulation.

EditorÐAs the in¯uence of i.v. ¯uids on the coagulation system is of importance and also sustains the discussion on optimal ¯uid therapy, we would like to comment on the results reported by Ng and colleagues 1 and the suggestions presented in the accompanying editorial. 2 The study design chosen by Ng and colleagues 1 to investigate coagulation and haemodilution might eliminate the in¯uence of tissue trauma provoked by surgery, but is not`without the effect of any confounding variables'. 2 First, the ratio of blood withdrawn:replacement with normal saline was 1:2, which suggests that the haemodiluted patients were hypovolaemic rather than haemodiluted. Second, all study subjects were patients with malignant disease, who are known to exhibit some state of hypercoagulability because of their underlying disease. Third, the shortening of the reaction time (r-time) by 30% and the coagulation time (k-time) by 36±45% was statistically different from the controls, but they also showed prolongation of the r-and k-times, although no intervention occurred. The question arises as to whether such changes are relevant in vivo, as they might be explained as an in vitro phenomenon attributable to sedimentation of red cells in the thrombelastograph (TEG) cup. Uraemic patients have been shown to have an increased bleeding time, but also exhibit thrombelasto-graphic signs of hypercoagulability measured by shorter r-and k-times, increased a-angle and maximum amplitude compared to normal controls. 3 Interestingly, the latter study showed a signi®cant negative correlation between haematocrit and signs of hypercoagulability. Moreover, isolated reduction of the haematocrit from 40 to 10% also resulted in thrombelastographic signs of hypercoagulability. 4 Reports of accelerated coagulation during haemodilution might therefore be in¯uenced by changes in red cell sedimentation occurring with changing haematocrit. It is likely that this effect also depends on the physicochemical properties of the dilution ¯uid used and the time needed to process the coagulation measurements. Our in vitro and in vivo data on the in¯uence of colloids and crystalloids on coagulation show an accelerated initiation of coagulation during moderate haemodilu-tion with Ringer's lactate and gelatin for the slow-reacting intrinsic TEG measurements only. 5 6 In contrast to the data of Ng 1 and Ruttmann, 2 our results for accelerated coagulation were always accompanied by a reduction in clot ®rmness. Furthermore, we were surprised that, in the study by Ng and colleagues, the a-angle increased by about 71% in the haemodiluted group at 30 min, although platelets and ®brinogen decreased markedly. …
Duration Dependent Codebooks for Change Detection

This paper describes a supervised system for pixel-level change detection for fixed, monocular surveillance cameras. Per-pixel intensity sequences are modeled by a class of Hidden Semi-Markov Models, Duration Dependent Hidden Markov Models (DDHMMs), to accurately account for stochastically periodic phenomena prevalent in real-world video. The per-pixel DDHMMs are used to assign discrete state labels to pixel intensity sequences which summarize the appearance and temporal statistics of the observations. State assignments are then used as a features for constructing per-pixel code books during a training phase to identify changes of interest in new video. The per-pixel intensity model is validated by showing superior predictive performance to pixel representations commonly used in change detection applications. A new data set is presented which contain dynamic, periodic backgrounds with larger time scale variability than previous data sets and the proposed method is compared to state-of-theart change detection methods using the new videos.
Relay Routing and Scheduling for Capacity Improvement in Cellular WLANs

In classical infrastructure-based wireless systems, all mobile terminals communicate directly with the access point. In such systems, the transmission capacity, i.e., the amount of traffic successfully communicated to/from the access point, is important. This paper studies the possibility to increase this capacity by using mobile terminals as intermediate relays. These relays reduce the communication distance and hence mobile terminals can send their traffic at a maximum data rate while maintaining a target packet error rate and transmission power limit. We present algorithms that solve the relaying problem combining routing, scheduling and adaptive modulation. A crucial aspect is the fair sharing of resources in both direct and relaying systems; two different modes of fairness are identified. For one fairness mode, relaying can improve capacity by up to 30%. In addition, relaying allows to add additional resources, namely frequencies, to a cell, resulting in almost a doubling of capacity.
TASC: A Model for Trusted and Autonomic Service Cooperation

In an e-service environment, e-contract is one of the important ways to support autonomic service cooperation. However, because of the inherent non-controllability of agents across different management domains, this approach has been confronted with the challenge of so-called “trust” crisis that the success and benefit of cooperation cannot be ensured. This crisis has worried the research of autonomic computing and multi-agent systems for a long time. In order to conquer the crisis, this paper proposes a model for Trusted and Autonomic Service Cooperation, called TASC, which can eliminate the dilemma that the requirements of “Autonomy” and “Trust” conflict with each other. This model depends on three technologies to make service cooperation both trusted and autonomic: virtual society assistant management for providing cooperation assistance and maintaining cooperation order, contract templates for quickly creating e-contracts between agents, and norm-conforming policy-driven self-management for making agents conform rationally to the relevant regulations. It is the close coupling of those technologies that supports effectively both the resolution of “trust” crisis and the realization of autonomic service cooperation.
AN OOSTERHOFF ANALYSIS OF THE GALACTIC BULGE FIELD RR LYRAE STARS: IMPLICATIONS ON THEIR ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDES

We present an analysis of the period–V-amplitude plane for RR0 Lyrae stars (fundamental mode pulsators) with “normal” light curves in the bulge using the MACHO bulge fields. Although bulge globular clusters (GCs) have RR Lyraes that divide into two reasonable distinct groups according to the average period of the RR0 Lyraes, there is no evidence of a gap between Oosterhoff I (OoI) and II (OoII) stars in the bulge field star sample. The majority of the bulge RR0 Lyrae field star population have a difference in period compared to the OoI cluster M3 (Δlog P) that is shifted by about 0.02 days with regard to the Milky Way OoI population, and the sample includes stars with Δlog P > 0.06 days, a characteristic hardly seen in Milky Way GCs. The metal-rich RR0 Lyrae stars in the Galactic bulge sample have Δlog P values on the other side of the spectrum as those in the metal-rich GCs NGC 6388 and NGC 6441. We find that the V amplitude for a given period is a function of Δlog P, and not of metal abundance, similar to the result found by Clement and Shelton for RR Lyrae stars in Milky Way GCs. A comparative study of the bulge field stars with similar metallicities but different Oosterhoff types is carried out. Bulge field RR0 Lyrae variables with Δlog P values similar to OoII clusters are about 0.2 mag brighter than RR0 Lyrae variables with Δlog P similar to OoI clusters. Reliance upon a single MRR V–[Fe/H] relation may be inappropriate when considering populations with different Δlog P.
The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program: Programmatic Background and Design of the Cloud and Radiation Test Bed

Abstract The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, is a major new program of atmospheric measurement and modeling. The program is intended to improve the understanding of processes that affect atmospheric radiation and the description of these processes in climate models. An accurate description of atmospheric radiation and its interaction with clouds and cloud processes is necessary to improve the performance of and confidence in models used to study and predict climate change. The ARM Program will employ five (this paper was prepared prior to a decision to limit the number of primary measurement sites to three) highly instrumented primary measurement sites for up to 10 years at land and ocean locations, from the Tropics to the Arctic, and will conduct observations for shorter periods at additional sites and in specialized campaigns. Quantities to be measured at these sites include longwave and shortwave radiation, the spatial and temporal distributi.
Always-on Buffer Clustering implementation in low power physical design of 28nm process

This paper presents an Always-on buffer cluster implementation based on 28nm chip fabrication process. With the 28 nanometer process, area resources become more deficient than the previous node era in IC physical design. We have encountered serious congestion problems. Traditional method of low power physical design flow cannot make full use of the limited resources of the chip area. Therefore we put forward a low power physical optimization method, Always-on Buffer Clustering. It can save area resources and reduce power consumption dramatically, which can also solve the congestion problem due to lack of routing resources in the chip design process.
Learning to Classify Sensor Data

Learning how to classify sensor data is one of the basic learning tasks in engineering. Data from sensors are usually made available over time and are classiied according to the behavior they exhibit in speciic time intervals. I address the problem of classifying nite, univariate, time series that are governed by unknown deterministic processes contaminated by noise. Time series in the same class are allowed to follow diierent processes. In this context, I investigate the appropriateness of using induction algorithms not speciically designed for temporal data. I present a simple supervised induction algorithm that uses serial correlation as its inductive bias in a Bayesian framework, and compare it empirically to a popular general-purpose classiier, in a NASA telemetry monitoring application. Two comparisons were performed: one in which the general purpose classiier was applied directly to the data, and another in which features that captured serial correlations were extracted before the induction. Serial correlation appeared to be an important form of inductive bias, most eeectively utilized as an integral part of the learning algorithm. Feature extraction occurs too early in the training process to utilize correlation knowledge eeectively.
Evaluation of cytotoxic and chemotherapeutic properties of boldine in breast cancer using in vitro and in vivo models

To date, plants have been the major source of anticancer drugs. Boldine is a natural alkaloid commonly found in the leaves and bark of Peumus boldus. In this study, we found that boldine potently inhibited the viability of the human invasive breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231 (48-hour IC50 46.5±3.1 μg/mL) and MDA-MB-468 (48-hour IC50 50.8±2.7 μg/mL). Boldine had a cytotoxic effect and induced apoptosis in breast cancer cells as indicated by a higher amount of lactate dehydrogenase released, membrane permeability, and DNA fragmentation. In addition, we demonstrated that boldine induced cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase. The anticancer mechanism is associated with disruption of the mitochondrial membrane potential and release of cytochrome c in MDA-MB-231. Boldine selectively induced activation of caspase-9 and caspase-3/7, but not caspase-8. We also found that boldine could inhibit nuclear factor kappa B activation, a key molecule in tumor progression and metastasis. In addition, protein array and Western blotting analysis showed that treatment with boldine resulted in downregulation of Bcl-2 and heat shock protein 70 and upregulation of Bax in the MDA-MB-231 cell line. An acute toxicity study in rats revealed that boldine at a dose of 100 mg/kg body weight was well tolerated. Moreover, intraperitoneal injection of boldine (50 or 100 mg/kg) significantly reduced tumor size in an animal model of breast cancer. Our results suggest that boldine is a potentially useful agent for the treatment of breast cancer.
Training Phrase-Based Machine Translation Models on the Cloud: Open Source Machine Translation Toolkit Chaski

Training Phrase-Based Machine Translation Models on the Cloud: Open Source Machine Translation Toolkit Chaski In this paper we present an opensource machine translation toolkit Chaski which is capable of training phrase-based machine translation models on Hadoop clusters. The toolkit provides a full training pipeline including distributed word alignment, word clustering and phrase extraction. The toolkit also provides an extended error-tolerance mechanism over standard Hadoop error-tolerance framework. The paper will describe the underlying methodology and the design of the system, together with instructions of how to run the system on Hadoop clusters.
Evaluating the Validity and Reliability of PDQ-II and Comparison with DDST-II for Two Step Developmental Screening

Objective This research was designed to identify the validity and reliability of the Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire 2 (PDQ-II) in Tehran in comparison with the Denver Developmental Screening Test-II (DDST-II). Methods After translation and back translation, the final Persian version of test was verified by three pediatricians and also by reviewing relevant literature for content validity. The test was performed on 237 children ranging from 0 to 6 years old, recruited by convenient sampling, from four health care clinics in Tehran city. They were also evaluated by DDST II simultaneously. Interrater methods and Cronbach's α were used to determine reliability of the test. The Kappa agreement coefficient between PDQ and DDST II was determined. The data was analyzed by SPSS software. Findings All of the questions in PDQ had satisfactory content validity. The total Cronbach's α coefficient of 0–9 months, 9–24 months, 2–4 years and 4–6 years questionnaires were 0.951, 0.926, 0.950 and 0.876, respectively. The Kappa measure of agreement for interrater tests was 0.89. The estimated agreement coefficient between PDQ and DDST II was 0.383. Based on two different categorizing possibilities for questionable scores, that is, "Delayed" or "Normal", sensitivity and specificity of PDQ was determined to be 35.7–63% and 75.8–92.2%, respectively. Conclusion PDQ has a good content validity and reliability and moderate sensitivity and specificity in comparison with the DDST-II, but by considering their relatively weak agreement coefficient, using it along with DDST-II for a two-stage developmental screening process, remains doubtful.