Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The development of a paramics Web external interface - PWeb

This paper describes the development of a Web external interface (PWeb) to link the dynamic traffic control simulator: Paramics with real traffic controllers. The Web-based interface is used to administrate the access of multiple controllers to paramics SNMP external interface during the simulation process, to prevent conflicts among the controllers and to improve the efficiency of the usage of paramics data input/output. A rule-based system and the connection to the database were developed to arrange the priority of the data to access paramics. The proposed Web interface has a potential to be applied in online simulations to calibrate paramics microscopic traffic simulation models.
A General Framework for Describing Creative Agents

Computational creativity is a subfield of AI focused on developing and studying creative systems. Few academic studies analysing the behaviour of creative agents from a theoretical viewpoint have been proposed. The proposed frameworks are vague and hard to exploit; moreover, such works are focused on a notion of creativity tailored for humans. In this paper we introduce General Creativity, which extends that traditional notion. General Creativity provides the basis for a formalised theoretical framework, that allows one to univocally describe any creative agent, and their behaviour within societies of creative systems. Given the growing number of AI creative systems developed over recent years, it is of fundamental importance to understand how they could influence each other as well as how to gauge their impact on human society. In particular, in this paper we exploit the proposed framework for (i) identifying different forms of creativity; (ii) describing some typical creative agents behaviour, and (iii) analysing the dynamics of societies in which both human and non-human creative systems coexist.
Endovascular Therapy for Ischemic Stroke

The utility of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV t-PA) in improving the clinical outcomes after acute ischemic stroke has been well demonstrated in past clinical trials. Though multiple initial small series of endovascular stroke therapy had shown good outcomes as compared to IV t-PA, a similar beneficial effect had not been translated in multiple randomized clinical trials of endovascular stroke therapy. Over the same time, there have been parallel advances in imaging technology and better understanding and utility of the imaging in therapy of acute stroke. In this review, we will discuss the evolution of endovascular stroke therapy followed by a discussion of the key factors that have to be considered during endovascular stroke therapy and directions for future endovascular stroke trials.
Toward instant gradeification

Providing useful feedback to students about both the functional correctness and the internal structure of their submissions is the most labor-intensive part of teaching programming courses. The former can be automated through test scripts and other similar mechanisms; however, the latter typically requires a detailed inspection of the submitted code. This paper introduces AutoGradeMe, a tool that automates much (but not all) of the work required to grade the internal structure of a student submission in the Java programming language. It integrates with the Eclipse IDE and multiple third-party plug-ins to provide instructors with an easy-to-use grading environment. More importantly, unlike other automatic grading tools currently in use, it gives students continuous feedback about their work during the development process.
Establishing the National Chlamydia Screening Programme in England: results from the first full year of screening

Background: The phased implementation of the National Chlamydia Screening Programme (NCSP) began in September 2002. The NCSP offers opportunistic screening for chlamydia to women and men under 25 years of age attending clinical and non-clinical screening venues using non-invasive urine or vulvo-vaginal swab samples tested via nucleic acid amplification. This review describes the implementation of the NCSP, reports positivity rates for the first year, and explores risk factors for genital chlamydial infection. Methods: Cross sectional study of the first year’s screening data from the NCSP. A standardised core dataset for each screening test was collected from 302 screening venues, excluding genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics, across 10 phase 1 programme areas. We estimated chlamydia positivity by demographic and behavioural characteristics, and investigated factors associated with infection through univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Chlamydia positivity among people under 25 years of age screened in non-GUM settings was 10.1% (1538/15 241) in women and 13.3% (156/1172) in men. Risk factors varied by sex: for women—age 16–19, non-white ethnicity, and sexual behaviours were associated with infection; for men—only age 20–24 and non-white ethnicity were associated with infection. Discussion: In the first phase of the NCSP, 16 413 opportunistic screens among young adults under 25 years of age were performed at non-GUM settings and testing volume increased over time. Rates of disease were similar to those found during the English screening pilot and were comparable to the first year of widespread screening in Sweden and the United States. The screening programme in England will continue to expand as further phases are included, with national coverage anticipated by 2008.
Designing Interaction Models in a Multiparty 3 D Learning Environment

The technology of virtual 3D learning environment creates the opportunity for virtual human interactions. These interactions should enrich learning experience and improve learning quality. However, inappropriate interactions often confuse users about the real underlying learning goal, instead of achieving effective and efficient learning. This situation becomes more serious in a learning environment which contains multiple agents and users. Thus, there is a strong motivation to design a robust interaction model to guide collaboration activities effectively. In this paper, a group interaction pattern approach is introduced to improve the quality of collaboration activities, hence achieves effective learning. A planning system integrated with interaction controller is purposed to guide the learning process. Our discussion focuses on how the design of interaction models flexibly supports task-oriented scenarios consisting of multiple agents and users, and how the interaction patterns enhance learning. In the later part, a Newtonian physics 3D learning environment is presented to illustrate the interaction among agents and users in a virtual pedagogical scenario based on our design.
Transmit Antenna Selection and Receive User Scheduling for the Downlink of Multi-User MISO Systems

We consider the downlink of multiuser multiple input single-output (MISO) wireless systems, where the base station is equipped with multiple antennas and each mobile user is constrained to one single antenna. In particular, we consider linear precoding systems such that the single antenna receivers do not have to estimate the channel, but only scale and quantize the received data. In this scenario, we propose a low complexity transmit antenna selection and user scheduling algorithm. The low complexity transmit antenna selection and user scheduling algorithms shown that the proposed algorithm obtains near optimal performance.
Effect of the Antibiotic Neomycin on the Toxicity of the Glycoside Vicine in Rats

Vicine is hydrolyzed by microflora to highly reactive free radical generating compound divicine which causes mortality and other adverse effects. This study in the rats established the effect of a broad spectrum and poorly absorbed antibiotic, neomycin sulfate on the toxicity of vicine. The results showed extremely decrease in mortality rate in the group pretreated with neomycin. Hemoglobin (Hb) concentration, hematocrit (Hct) value, and red blood cells (RBCs) count were significantly decreased after injection of vicine and the improvement of these values in the group pretreated with neomycin. The same results were observed in white blood cells (WBCs). The results showed a significant decrease in glucose level and returned to normal in group pretreated with neomycin. Glutathione (GSH) was significantly decreased in the vicine group and returned to normal value in the group pretreated with neomycin. Lipid peroxide (TBARs) was significantly increased in the group treated with vicine and neomycin pretreated group decreased to the normal level. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6-PD) activity was significantly decreased and returned to normal level in rats pretreated with neomycin. Serum protein and globulin were significantly decreased but serum albumin showed insignificant decrease in vicine and neomycin groups compared to control. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were significantly decreased in the vicine group. The group pretreated with neomycin showed significantly increased activities of AST and ALT compared with vicine group. In conclusion, neomycin pretreatment of rats injected with glycoside vicine decreased to a great extent of its toxic and mortality effects and is useful in favism and hemolytic anemia.
User-search time analysis for hierarchical peer-to-peer overlay networks with time-dependent user-population process

Traditional Internet telephony systems heavily rely upon central servers, especially during call initiations. The absence of these servers in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) implementations results in a significant increase in delay during the user search process. With this issue in mind, we focus on a hierarchical P2P overlay network with a tree structure where node groups form sub-network cells of a constant size bound. In our model, users are assumed to arrive into the system according to a non-stationary Poisson process. The sojourn time for a node is assumed to be exponentially distributed. Through this modeling, we analyze the time-dependent user population process with an Mt/G/∞ queue. The mean user search time is then calculated by examining the overall shape of the hierarchical overlay network structure at a given time. Numerical results indicate that fluctuations in the number of layers generated in the system produce a greater impact on the user search latency when compared with the effects of changes in the cell size bound.
Joint Routing and Power Allocation Optimization for Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

Efficient routing protocols for equal power and optimal power allocation in a multi-hop decode-and-forward network in fading are proposed. The end-to-end outage probability from source to destination is used as the optimization criterion. The problem of finding the optimal route is investigated when either the mean channel state information (CSI) or the instantaneous CSI for all the links of the network is known at a central controller. The analysis shows that the proposed routing strategy achieves full diversity, equal to the total number of nodes in the network excluding the destination, only when instantaneous CSI is known and used. The average number of hops and the performances of the proposed schemes are examined for several numbers of nodes in the network and different values of path loss exponent.
Top-k Queries in Uncertain OLAP CMSC 724 Project

Top-k is the most important query type in OLAP, the most common data warehouses model. Recently, OLAP was extended to represent data ambiguity, specifically imprecision and uncertainty. However, how to deal with top-k queries in uncertain OLAP still remain an unanswered question. This project introduces a complete solution for top-k query in uncertain OLAP including query semantic definition, query processing algorithm and data materialization. An experimental evaluation showed that the proposed solution is feasible.
Innate Diversity of Adult Human Arterial Smooth Muscle Cells: Cloning of Distinct Subtypes From the Internal Thoracic Artery

Abstract— Vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) perform diverse functions and this functional heterogeneity could be based on differential recruitment of distinct SMC subsets. In humans, however, there is little support for such a paradigm, partly because isolation of pure human SMC subsets has proven difficult. We report the cloning of 12 SMC lines from a single fragment of human internal thoracic artery and the elucidation of 2 distinct cellular profiles. Epithelioid clones (n=9) were polygonal at confluence, 105±9 &mgr;m in length, and had a doubling time of 39±2 hours. Spindle-shaped clones (n=3) were larger (267±18 &mgr;m long, P <0.01) and grew slower (doubling time 65±4 hours, P <0.01). Both types of clones expressed smooth muscle (SM) &agr;-actin, SM-myosin heavy chains, h-caldesmon, and calponin, but only spindle-shaped clones expressed metavinculin. Epithelioid clones displayed greater proliferation in response to platelet-derived growth factor-BB and fibroblast growth factor-2 and were more responsive to the migratory effect of platelet-derived growth factor-BB. Spindle-shaped clones showed more robust Ca2+ transients in response to angiotensin II, histamine, and norepinephrine, crawled more quickly, and expressed more type I collagen. On serum withdrawal, spindle-shaped clones differentiated into a contraction-competent cell. A regional basis for diversity among SMCs was suggested by stepwise arterial digestion, which liberated small, SM &agr;-actin–positive cells from the abluminal medial layers and larger SMCs from all layers. These results identify inherent SMC diversity in the media of the adult internal thoracic artery and suggest differential participation of SMC subsets in the regulation of human arterial behavior.
From eSpace to coSpace : Integrating shared surfaces and physical spaces to support collaborative working

My research is concerned with how to facilitate fluid collaborative interactions in physical and digital spaces; by this, is meant the easy transition between (i) different activities at a surface, (ii) individual and group work, and (iii) display-based and external work. The goal is to design new forms of workspaces that enable different stakeholders (e.g., clients, agents, families) to engage in more equal participation when carrying out various everyday planning and design tasks, such as developing a round the world trip, designing a new kitchen or creating a new garden layout. This involves optimizing workspaces that enable a variety of online, paper-based and interlinked resources and information to be created and accessed by collocated groups. To this end, I have been experimenting with multiple interlinked displays, interactive shared tabletops, tangibles and sensor-based technologies. Part of this work involves explicating the ‘physical-social’ factors that affect group working. Another aspect involves experimenting with different combinations and arrangements of artifacts, displays, technologies and representations. A further part involves conducting user studies to assess the designs and evaluate my underlying assumptions.
Distinct Roles of Calcineurin-Nuclear Factor of Activated T-Cells and Protein Kinase A-cAMP Response Element-Binding Protein Signaling in Presynaptic Differentiation

Synaptic vesicle accumulation and morphological changes are characteristic features of axon terminal differentiation during synaptogenesis. To investigate the regulatory mechanism that orchestrates synaptic molecules to form mature presynaptic terminals, we visualized a single axon terminal of zebrafish olfactory sensory neurons in vivo and examined the effects of the neuron-specific gene manipulations on the axon terminal differentiation. Synaptic vesicles visualized with vesicle-associated membrane protein 2 (VAMP2)-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) fusion protein gradually accumulated in axon terminals, whereas the axon terminals visualized with GAP43 fused with EGFP remodeled from complex shapes with filopodia to simple shapes without filopodia from 50 h postfertilization (hpf) to 84 hpf. Expression of dominant-negative protein kinase A (PKA) or cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) suppressed the VAMP2-EGFP punctum formation in axon terminals during synaptogenesis. Consistently, constitutively active PKA or CREB stimulated VAMP2-EGFP puncta formation. On the other hand, cyclosporine A treatment or suppression of nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) activation prevented the axon terminal remodeling from complex to simple shapes during synaptogenesis. Consistently, expression of constitutively active calcineurin accelerated the axon terminal remodeling. These results suggest that calcineurin-NFAT signaling regulates axon terminal remodeling, and PKA-CREB signaling controls synaptic vesicle accumulation.
Adaptive Iterative Learning Control with Initial State Learning for Nonlinear Parameterized-Systems

In this paper, for a class of non-linearly parameterized systems with time-varying parameters, an adaptive iterative learning control method based on initial state learning is proposed. by using the parameter separation and the initial state learning, a novel adaptive control strategy is designed to ensure the tracking error converge to zero in the mean-square sense on a finite time-interval. a sufficient condition for the convergence is also given by constructing a Lyapunov function. the approach can be applied to the nonlinear systems with time-varying parameters and a certain degree of orientation bias in the initial condition. Based on the convergence condition, the learning gain of initial learning principle, the gain of input learning principle and the gain of adaptive principle can be determined. the simulation example shows that the proposed learning algorithms are effective.
Association of Antiretroviral Resistance Genotypes with Response to Therapy – Comparison of Three Models

Genotype-based resistance assays are commonly used to aid treatment in HIV-infected individuals failing anti-retroviral therapy. The relationship between genotype and antiretroviral therapy comes mostly from in vitro assays of the response to a single drugs although there is a need for a prediction of clinical response to combination therapy. We have compared three different methods of analysing genotype data as a predictor of clinical response in a small clinical cohort of highly antiretro-viral-experienced individuals failing therapy. No method performed well beyond 8 weeks into a new therapeutic regimen. A model based on the number of ‘primary’ mutations was statistically significant, but a multiple regression model, which identified specific mutations explained threefold more variation in response. Optimal prediction in this dataset was given by a model obtained from a classification tree analysis, in which genotype at amino acid sites 135 and 202 were combined with amino acid site 184, which explained over 50% of the deviance in the data and had a classification success of 86%.
Augmented Reality in the Classroom

Evaluations of AR experiences in an educational setting provide insights into how this technology can enhance traditional learning models and what obstacles stand in the way of its broader use. A related video can be seen here: http://youtu.be/ndUjLwcBIOw. It shows examples of augmented reality experiences in an educational setting.
Sub-band based speaker verification using dynamic recombination weights

This paper describes a new method for generating the recombination weights in sub-band based speaker verification. The approach, which is based on the use of background speaker models, attempts to reduce the effect of any mismatch between the band-limited segments of the test utterance and the corresponding sections in the target speaker model. The discussion also includes an analysis of other possible methods for determining these weights. Moreover, a problem generally associated with the sub-band cepstral features is pointed out and a possible solution is presented
Exact Performance Expressions for Optimum Combining of Correlated Signals in the Presence of Unequal-Power Interference and Noise

Optimum combining (OC) is a powerful means for combating co-channel interference. The characteristic function (CHF) of output signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) is an important tool for the performance analysis with optimum combining of faded signals in the presence of both co-channel interferers and noise. However, so far there has not existed an exact closed-form expression available for the output SINR CHF except for some special cases. The difficulty arises from the quadratic form of interference term. Based on the theory of complex matrix variate distributions, this paper considers the correlated Rayleigh/Rayleigh scenarios, and derives an exact closed-form expression for the output SINR CHF in the presence of unequal-power interference and noise.
Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo Simulations, and Langevin Dynamics: A Computational Review

Macromolecular structures, such as neuraminidases, hemagglutinins, and monoclonal antibodies, are not rigid entities. Rather, they are characterised by their flexibility, which is the result of the interaction and collective motion of their constituent atoms. This conformational diversity has a significant impact on their physicochemical and biological properties. Among these are their structural stability, the transport of ions through the M2 channel, drug resistance, macromolecular docking, binding energy, and rational epitope design. To assess these properties and to calculate the associated thermodynamical observables, the conformational space must be efficiently sampled and the dynamic of the constituent atoms must be simulated. This paper presents algorithms and techniques that address the abovementioned issues. To this end, a computational review of molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo simulations, Langevin dynamics, and free energy calculation is presented. The exposition is made from first principles to promote a better understanding of the potentialities, limitations, applications, and interrelations of these computational methods.
The Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire and BMI in adolescents: results from the Québec Family Study

Eating behaviour traits are associated with body weight variations in adults. The Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ) measures cognitive restraint, disinhibition and hunger, as well as their corresponding subscales, e.g. rigid and flexible control. The TFEQ has not been widely used in adolescents to investigate eating behaviour traits associated with body weight. The aim of the present study was to assess whether eating behaviour traits were associated with BMI in male and female adolescents. Sixty adolescents (thirty females and thirty males; mean age 15·0 (sd 2·4) years) from the Québec Family Study completed the TFEQ and 3 d dietary records. There were no sex differences in the TFEQ scores. Rigid control, disinhibition and emotional susceptibility (to overeat) were positively related to BMI z-scores for the entire sample (r 0·3, P < 0·05). There was a positive relationship between BMI z-scores and rigid control (r 0·39, P < 0·05) in females, while BMI z-scores were positively related to emotional susceptibility (r 0·42, P < 0·02) and disinhibition (r 0·41, P < 0·03) in males. Adolescents characterised by both high disinhibition and high rigid control had significantly higher BMI z-scores than those by both low disinhibition and low rigid control. There were no significant differences in BMI z-scores between the flexible control categories. Dietary macronutrient content was not consistently related to eating behaviour traits. These results show that the eating behaviour traits of disinhibition and rigid control are independently related to BMI z-scores in this group of adolescents.