Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Goal seeking in honeybees: matching of optic flow snapshots?

SUMMARY Visual landmarks guide humans and animals including insects to a goal location. Insects, with their miniature brains, have evolved a simple strategy to find their nests or profitable food sources; they approach a goal by finding a close match between the current view and a memorised retinotopic representation of the landmark constellation around the goal. Recent implementations of such a matching scheme use raw panoramic images (‘image matching’) and show that it is well suited to work on robots and even in natural environments. However, this matching scheme works only if relevant landmarks can be detected by their contrast and texture. Therefore, we tested how honeybees perform in localising a goal if the landmarks can hardly be distinguished from the background by such cues. We recorded the honeybees' flight behaviour with high-speed cameras and compared the search behaviour with computer simulations. We show that honeybees are able to use landmarks that have the same contrast and texture as the background and suggest that the bees use relative motion cues between the landmark and the background. These cues are generated on the eyes when the bee moves in a characteristic way in the vicinity of the landmarks. This extraordinary navigation performance can be explained by a matching scheme that includes snapshots based on optic flow amplitudes (‘optic flow matching’). This new matching scheme provides a robust strategy for navigation, as it depends primarily on the depth structure of the environment.
Ethnic density as a buffer for psychotic experiences: findings from a national survey (EMPIRIC)

Background Aetiological mechanisms underlying ethnic density associations with psychosis remain unclear. Aims To assess potential mechanisms underlying the observation that minority ethnic groups experience an increased risk of psychosis when living in neighbourhoods of lower own-group density. Method Multilevel analysis of nationally representative community-level data (from the Ethnic Minorities Psychiatric Illness Rates in the Community survey), which included the main minority ethnic groups living in England, and a White British group. Structured instruments assessed discrimination, chronic strains and social support. The Psychosis Screening Questionnaire ascertained psychotic experiences. Results For every ten percentage point reduction in own-group density, the relative odds of reporting psychotic experiences increased 1.07 times (95% CI 1.01–1.14, P = 0.03 (trend)) for the total minority ethnic sample. In general, people living in areas of lower own-group density experienced greater social adversity that was in turn associated with reporting psychotic experiences. Conclusions People resident in neighbourhoods of higher own-group density experience ‘buffering’ effects from the social risk factors for psychosis.
Protection: principles and practice

The protection mechanisms of computer systems control the access to objects, especially information objects. The range of responsibilities of these mechanisms includes at one extreme completely isolating executing programs from each other, and at the other extreme permitting complete cooperation and shared access among executing programs. Within this range one can identify at least seven levels at which protection mechanisms can be conceived as being required, each level being more difficult than its predecessor to implement: 1. No sharing at all (complete isolation). 2. Sharing copies of programs or data files. 3. Sharing originals of programs or data files. 4. Sharing programming systems or subsystems. 5. Permitting the cooperation of mutually suspicious subsystems---e.g., as with debugging or proprietary subsystems. 6. Providing "memoryless" subsystems---i.e., systems which, having performed their tasks, are guaranteed to have kept no secret record of the task performed (an income-tax computing service, for example, must be allowed to keep billing information on its use by customers but not to store information secretly on customers' incomes). 7. Providing "certified" subsystems---i.e., those whose correctness has been completely validated and is guaranteed a priori.
Floral to green: mating switches moth olfactory coding and preference

Mating induces profound physiological changes in a wide range of insects, leading to behavioural adjustments to match the internal state of the animal. Here, we show for the first time, to our knowledge, that a noctuid moth switches its olfactory response from food to egg-laying cues following mating. Unmated females of the cotton leafworm (Spodoptera littoralis) are strongly attracted to lilac flowers (Syringa vulgaris). After mating, attraction to floral odour is abolished and the females fly instead to green-leaf odour of the larval host plant cotton, Gossypium hirsutum. This behavioural switch is owing to a marked change in the olfactory representation of floral and green odours in the primary olfactory centre, the antennal lobe (AL). Calcium imaging, using authentic and synthetic odours, shows that the ensemble of AL glomeruli dedicated to either lilac or cotton odour is selectively up- and downregulated in response to mating. A clear-cut behavioural modulation as a function of mating is a useful substrate for studies of the neural mechanisms underlying behavioural decisions. Modulation of odour-driven behaviour through concerted regulation of odour maps contributes to our understanding of state-dependent choice and host shifts in insect herbivores.
A Notch and Su(H) dependent enhancer complex coordinates expression of nab in Drosophila

The transcription factor Suppressor of Hairless and its co-activator, the Notch intracellular domain, are polyglutamine (pQ)-rich factors that target enhancer elements and interact with other locally-bound pQ-rich factors. To understand the functional repertoire of such enhancers, we identify conserved regulatory belts with binding sites for the pQ-rich effectors of both Notch and BMP/Dpp signaling, and the pQ-deficient tissue selectors Apterous (Ap), Scalloped (Sd), and Vestigial (Vg). We find that the densest such binding site cluster in the genome is located in the BMP-inducible nab locus, a homolog of the vertebrate transcriptional co-factors NAB1/NAB2. We report three major findings. First, we find that this nab regulatory belt is a novel enhancer driving dorsal wing margin expression in regions of peak phosphorylated-Mad in wing imaginal discs. Second, we show that Ap is developmentally required to license the nab dorsal wing margin enhancer (DWME) to read-out Notch signaling in the dorsal wing compartment. Third, we find that the nab DWME is embedded in a complex of intronic enhancers, including a wing quadrant enhancer, a proximal wing disc enhancer, and a larval brain enhancer. This enhancer complex coordinates global nab expression via both tissue-specific activation and inter-enhancer silencing. We suggest that DWME integration of BMP signaling maintains nab expression in proliferating margin descendants that have divided away from Notch-Delta boundary signaling. As such, uniform expression of genes like nab and vestigial in proliferating compartments would typically require both boundary and non-boundary lineage-specific enhancers.
Evaluation of the Hypoglycemic Activity of Cucumis metuliferus (Cucurbitaceae) Fruit Pulp Extract in Normoglycemic and Alloxan-Induced Hyperglycemic Rats

The hypoglycemic effects of the fruit extract of C. metuliferus was investigated in normoglycemic and alloxan-induced hyperglycemic rats. The results showed that there was an insignificant (P > 0.05) decrease in the blood glucose concentration of normoglycemic rats treated with oral doses of 1000 and 1500 mg/kg of the extract. On the other hand, 500 mg/kg of the fruit extract produced an insignificant (P > 0.05) decrease in blood glucose levels of alloxan-treated rats, while 1000 and 1500 mg/kg oral dose points produced a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in the blood glucose concentration of hyperglycemic rats comparable to that produced by tolbutamide. From this study, the data suggested that the fruit extract did not alter the BGC level in normoglycemic rats, but had a potential hypoglycemic property in alloxan-induced hyperglycemic rats.
A Forensic Authorship Classification in SMS Messages: A Likelihood Ratio Based Approach Using N-gram

Due to its convenience and low–cost, short message service (SMS) has been a very popular medium for communication for quite some time. Unfortunately, however, SMS messages are sometimes used in illicit acts, such as communication between drug dealers and buyers, extortion, fraud, scam, hoax, false reports of terrorist threats, and many more. This study is a forensic study on the authorship classification of SMS messages in the Likelihood Ration (LR) framework with the N–gram modelling technique. The aims of this study are to investigate 1) how accurately it is possible to classify the authors of SMS messages; 2) what degree of strength of evidence (LR) can be obtained from SMS messages and 3) how the classification performance and the LRs are affected by the sample size for modelling. The resultant LRs are calibrated by means of the logistic regress calibration technique. The results of the classification tests will be rigorously assessed from different angles, using the techniques proposed for automatic speaker recognition and forensic voice comparison.
Interactive Classification of Sound Objects for Polyphonic Electro-Acoustic Music Annotation

In this paper, we present an interactive approach for the classiﬁcation of sound objects in electro-acoustic music. For this purpose, we use relevance feedback combined with active-learning segment selection in an interactive loop. Validation and correction information given by the user is injected in the learning process at each iteration to achieve more accurate classiﬁcation. Three active learning criteria are compared in the evaluation of a system classifying polyphonic pieces (with a varying degree of polyphony). The results show that the interactive approach achieves satisfying performance in a reasonable number of iterations.
On the fuzzy modeling of uncertain nonlinear systems

This paper deals with fuzzy modeling of nonlinear systems affected by bounded uncertainties. The proposed model is composed of two parts: a linear uncertain part and a nonlinear part. The linear uncertain part is obtained by system linearization around some operating points. Nonlinear part parameters are estimated through the use of the descent gradient method. Finally, two examples are treated to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method.
A pilot survey of decisions by acute medicine staff after thunderclap headache.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Traditionally, neurologically pristine patients with a thunderclap headache are investigated with a non-contrast computed tomography (CT) brain scan, which if negative is followed by a lumbar puncture (LP) to exclude important secondary causes, particularly subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). However, misdiagnosis of such patients is still a cause of significant human and financial cost and a regular reason for medical litigation. This study explores the approach of emergency medicine and acute medicine clinicians to the investigation of a patient with thunderclap headache. METHODS Clinicians were invited to complete an online survey based on a clinical vignette of a 45-year-old man presenting with a thunderclap headache who had a pristine neurological examination. RESULTS A total of 160 clinicians responded. The majority (89%) elected to perform a non-contrast CT brain as their first investigation, though five clinicians discharged the patient without investigation. If the CT was negative, only 84% would then proceed to LP, but 20% would undertake this investigation before 12 hours from headache onset. CONCLUSIONS Most clinicians investigate neurologically intact patients with thunderclap headache following a CT/LP strategy, but deviations from recommended practice are common.
Baseline and previous physical activity in relation to mortality in elderly men: the Zutphen Elderly Study.

Understanding the effect of changes in physical activity on mortality risk may help researchers clarify intervention strategies. This study investigated associations of physical activity at baseline and 5 years previously with all-cause mortality risk in a cohort of 472 elderly Dutch men. Relative risks were estimated for relations between mortality in 1990-1995 and physical activity levels in 1990 and 1985. Adjustments were made for baseline age, chronic diseases, functional status, and lifestyle factors. In contrast to previous levels of physical activity (adjusted p-trend = 0.39), baseline total time spent in physical activity was inversely associated with mortality risk (p-trend = 0.004; for the most active tertile vs. the least active, relative risk = 0.44; 95% confidence interval: 0.25, 0.80). No consistent associations were observed after fractionating total physical activity into activities of differing intensity or into four different types of activity. Relative to maintaining a physically active lifestyle (i.e., walking or bicycling for 20 minutes at least three times per week) in both survey years, a gradient of increasing risk was observed from adopting an active lifestyle to becoming sedentary to remaining sedentary (p-trend = 0.004). Recent levels of physical activity were more important for mortality risk among elderly men than activity 5 years previously. Becoming or remaining sedentary was significantly associated with increased mortality risk in comparison with remaining physically active.
The Catalytic Properties of PtSn/Al2O3 for Acetic Acid Hydrogenation

Abstract—Alumina supported platinum and tin catalysts with different loadings of Pt and Sn were prepared and characterized by low temperature N2 adsorption/desorption, H2-temperature programed reduction and CO pulse chemisorption. Pt and Sn below 1% loading were suitable for acetic acid hydrogenation. The best performance over 0.75Pt1Sn/Al2O3 can reach 87.55% conversion of acetic acid and 47.39% selectivity of ethanol. The operating conditions of acetic acid hydrogenation over 1Pt1Sn/Al2O3 were investigated. High reaction temperature can enhance the conversion of acetic acid, but it decreased total selectivity of ethanol and acetyl acetate. High pressure and low weight hourly space velocity were beneficial to both conversion of acetic acid and selectivity to ethanol.
OPEN PROBLEMS IN DATA STREAMS AND RELATED TOPICS IITK WORKSHOP ON ALGORITHMS FOR DATA STREAMS ’06

This document contains a list of open problems and research directions that have been suggested by participants at the IITK Workshop on Algorithms for Data Streams. Many of the questions were discussed at the workshop or were posed during presentations. Further details, including videos of discussion sections, can be found at http://www.cse. iitk.ac. in/users/sganguly/workshop.html . Please send any comments/corrections regarding this document to andrewm@ucsd.edu. Workshop Speakers. Pankaj Agarwal Surender Baswana Amit Chakarabarti Graham Cormode Sudipto Guha Piotr Indyk T. S. Jayram Ravi Kannan Sampath Kannan Ravi Kumar Stefano Leonardi Yossi Matias Michael Mahoney Andrew McGregor S. Muthukrishnan Rajeev Raman Nicole Schweikardt D. Sivakumar Christian Sohler Divesh Srivastava Martin Strauss Subhash Suri Srikanta Tirthapura
Butyrate and retinoic acid imprint mucosal‐like dendritic cell development synergistically from bone marrow cells

Accumulating data show that the phenotypes and functions of distinctive mucosal dendritic cells (DCs) in the gut are regulated by retinoic acid (RA). Unfortunately, the exact role of butyrate in RA‐mediated mucosal DC differentiation has not been elucidated thoroughly to date. Mucosal‐like dendritic cell differentiation was completed in vitro by culturing bone marrow cells with growth factors [granulocyte–macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF/interleukin (IL)‐4], RA and/or butyrate. The phenotypes, cytokine secretion, immune functions and levels of retinal dehydrogenase of different DCs were detected using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and flow cytometry, respectively. The results showed that RA‐induced DCs (RA‐DCs) showed mucosal DC properties, including expression of CD103 and gut homing receptor α4β7, low proinflammatory cytokine secretion and low priming capability to antigen‐specific CD4+ T cells. Butyrate‐treated RA‐DCs (Bu‐RA‐DCs) decreased CD11c, but increased CD103 and α4β7 expression. Moreover, the CD4+ T priming capability and the levels of retinal dehydrogenase of RA‐DCs were suppressed significantly by butyrate. Thus, butyrate and retinoic acid have different but synergistic regulatory functions on mucosal DC differentiation, indicating that immune homeostasis in the gut depends largely upon RA and butyrate to imprint different mucosal DC subsets, both individually and collectively.
A Splitting Method for Optimal Control

We apply an operator splitting technique to a generic linear-convex optimal control problem, which results in an algorithm that alternates between solving a quadratic control problem, for which there are efficient methods, and solving a set of single-period optimization problems, which can be done in parallel, and often have analytical solutions. In many cases, the resulting algorithm is division-free (after some off-line pre-computations) and can be implemented in fixed-point arithmetic, for example on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). We demonstrate the method on several examples from different application areas.
Prevalence of Lipohypertrophy and Associated Risk Factors in Insulin-Treated Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: Secondary failure of oral hypoglycemic agents is common in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM); thus, patients often need insulin therapy. The most common complication of insulin treatment is lipohypertrophy (LH). Objectives: This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of LH among insulin-treated patients with Patients with T2DM, to identify the risk factors for the development of LH, and to examine the association between LH and glycemic control. Patients and Methods: A total of 1090 patients with T2DM aged 20 to 89 years, who attended the diabetes clinics at the National Center for Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Genetics (NCDEG, Amman, Jordan) between October 2011 and January 2012, were enrolled. The presence of LH was examined by inspection and palpation of insulin injection sites at the time of the visit as relevant clinical and laboratory data were obtained. The LH was defined as a local tumor-like swelling of subcutaneous fatty tissue at the site of repeated insulin injections. Results: The overall prevalence of LH was 37.3% (27.4% grade 1, 9.7% grade 2, and 0.2% grade 3). The LH was significantly associated with the duration of diabetes, needle length, duration of insulin therapy, lack of systematic rotation of insulin injection sites, and poor glycemic control. Conclusions: The LH is a common problem in insulin-treated Jordanian patients with T2DM. More efforts are needed to educate patients and health workers on simple interventions such as using shorter needles and frequent rotation of the insulin injection sites to avoid LH and improve glycemic control.
Interactions between Purkinje neurones and Bergmann glia

Throughout the development of the cerebellar cortex, Purkinje neurones interact closely with Bergmann glial cells, a specialized form of astrocyte. This review summarizes the intimate developmental, anatomical and functional relationships between these two cell types, with particular emphasis on recent discoveries regarding glutamate release from climbing and parallel fibres as a pathway for signalling synaptic activity to Bergmann glia
Habitat Ecology of the Bull Shark, Carcharhinus leucas, on Urban Coasts in Eastern Queensland, Australia

The habitat ecology of the euryhaline bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is poorly understood, yet vital for their conservation and management on our rapidly urbanising coastlines. This study investigated the habitat ecology of the bull shark in relation to ontogeny using a variety of approaches, including long-term catch data, acoustic telemetry, chemical indicators for trophic and habitat preferences and conventional methods for dietary analysis. Fishery-independent data from 1,060 C. leucas caught at ten locations along the east coast of Queensland (17 to 28°S) by the Queensland Shark Control Program (QSCP) from 1996 to 2006 indicated size of sharks captured ranged from 0.6 to 4 m total length (TL). Onset of female maturity was determined at 1.8 to 2 m TL. Catch per unit effort (CPUE) was higher during summer for drumlines and gill nets in tropical north QLD. Significantly larger individuals were caught on both gears in the sub-tropical southeast of Queensland compared to the tropical north. Principal components-regression analysis indicated this difference could be attributed to coastal bathymetry, i.e. distance to the 100 m contour. The number of estuaries in a region also directly influenced the C. leucas catch. General linear models (GLMs) indicated latitudinal differences in CPUE along the eastern Queensland coast with a significant decline in sub-tropical areas. QSCP data from 1996 to 2007 were analysed to investigate the effects of climate parameters on catch of this species in the nearshore habitat. Conditional generalised linear modelling (CGLM) showed that the numbers of C. leucas caught by both techniques were significantly correlated with total rainfall within eight days prior to capture. C. leucas catch on drumlines increased with prior rainfall > 300 mm and sea surface temperature, as these conditions may encourage feeding in nearshore areas. Pregnant C. leucas caught in gill nets increased with a positive Southern Oscillation Index, suggesting higher pupping during wet periods. Catch of sharks < 2 m in TL in nets increased with prior rainfall and were negatively correlated with lunar phase (i.e. lowest catches during full moon).
Research on algorithm of state recognition of students based on facial expression

Facial expression recognition has become one important research direction in HCI area, because facial expression can effectively reflect the inner emotion of people. In some areas (e.g. remote education), expression recognition system, as an auxiliary tool, is used to analyze mental states of students and plays an important role. In this paper, we developed a student-state recognition system based on facial expression. We improved local binary pattern (LBP) into an algorithm that based on specific area to extract facial features, and presented features with LBP histograms of expression image. Finally, support vector machine and nearest neighbor classification are combined to classify expressions, then classify the mental states of students based on expression. We conducted experiments with samples from a Japanese female facial expression database. Our study obtained an average facial expression recognition rate of 71.35%. High accuracy and real-time make the system applied in classroom well to recognize mental states of students.
Computer aided diagnosis semantic model for the report of medical image via LDA and LSA

In this paper, we build a probabilistic model used to represent medical text data which contents latent semanteme. We manage “hidden topic” with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) respectively, and use Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to construct the semantic structure. The medical text data that we use is reports of medical image which include two parts: image description and diagnoses. Traditional task demand expert to diagnose illness according to the image description and his/her own subjective assumptions whose accuracy is based on expert's experience, and bring more workload. Here we present models that require no manual diagnosis and also automatically give the diagnoses with high readability. The learning models can be used for both classification and analysis of medical text data.