Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distributed Stochastic Multi-Task Learning with Graph Regularization

We propose methods for distributed graph-based multi-task learning that are based on weighted averaging of messages from other machines. Uniform averaging or diminishing stepsize in these methods would yield consensus (single task) learning. We show how simply skewing the averaging weights or controlling the stepsize allows learning different, but related, tasks on the different machines.
Pre- or post-eruptive effects of strontium alone or in combination with fluoride on dental caries in the rat.

Doses of strontium were given pre-eruptively to rats at 0.0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 μg Sr/10 g body weight, with or without fluoride at 1.0 μg/l0 g body weight by esophageal intubation. In a second experiment strontium at concentrations of 0, 50, 100 and 150 mg Sr/l, with and without fluoride at 10 mg/l, were given via the drinking water post-eruptively. Caries scores were made for buccolingual, morsal, sulcal und proximal lesions in all rats. Slight reductions in buccolingual caries scores were seen in rats given 5.0 μg Sr/10 g body weight pre-eruptively. Rats given post-eruptive doses of strontium only showed marked reductions in buccolingual scores with 50 mg Sr/l, and 10 mg F/l. No effect was seen on morsal, sulcal or proximal caries scores for any of the treatment regimens. The greatest reductions in buccolingual caries scores were found when a combination of 50 mg Sr/l and 10 mg F/l was given post-eruptively.
Subexponential Algorithms for dto-1 Two-Prover Games and for Certifying Almost Perfect Expansion

A question raised by the recent subexponential algorithm for Unique Games (Arora, Barak, Steurer, FOCS 2010) is what other “hard-looking” problems admit good approximation algorithms with subexponential complexity. In this work, we give such an algorithm for d-to-1 two-prover games, a broad class of constraint satisfaction problems. Our algorithm has several consequences for Khot’s d-to-1 Conjectures. We also give a related subexponential algorithm for certifying that small sets in a graph have almost perfect expansion. Our algorithms follow the basic approach of the algorithms in (Arora, Barak, Steurer, FOCS 2010), but differ in the implementation of the individual steps. Key ingredients of our algorithms are a local version of Cheeger’s inequality that works in the regime of almost perfect expansion, and a graph decomposition algorithm that finds for every graph, a subgraph with at least an ε fraction of the edges such that every component has at most nO(log(1/λ)/ log(1/ε))1/2 eigenvalues larger than λ. ∗Microsoft Research New England, Cambridge, MA.
Query Driven Algorithm Selection in Early Stage Retrieval

Large scale retrieval systems often employ cascaded ranking architectures, in which an initial set of candidate documents are iteratively refined and re-ranked by increasingly sophisticated and expensive ranking models. In this paper, we propose a unified framework for predicting a range of performance-sensitive parameters based on minimizing end-to-end effectiveness loss. The framework does not require relevance judgments for training, is amenable to predicting a wide range of parameters, allows for fine tuned efficiency-effectiveness trade-offs, and can be easily deployed in large scale search systems with minimal overhead. As a proof of concept, we show that the framework can accurately predict a number of performance parameters on a query-by-query basis, allowing efficient and effective retrieval, while simultaneously minimizing the tail latency of an early-stage candidate generation system. On the 50 million document ClueWeb09B collection, and across 25,000 queries, our hybrid system can achieve superior early-stage efficiency to fixed parameter systems without loss of effectiveness, and allows more finely-grained efficiency-effectiveness trade-offs across the multiple stages of the retrieval system.
Vibrio2009: the third international conference on the biology of Vibrios

Vibrio2009, the third international conference on the biology of Vibrios, was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in November 2009. This conference united researchers studying various aspects of pathogenesis, symbiosis and environmental persistence of this diverse group of marine bacteria. Through many of the presentations, it became apparent how horizontal gene transfer and genetic flexibility has driven the incredible diversity of these microbes. Interestingly, unifying themes of behaviour could be seen in the interaction(s) of Vibrios with other organisms, such as with other bacteria, corals, invertebrates and humans. Presentations illuminated the idea that the path towards symbiosis is not that different from the path towards disease, and that alterations in environmental conditions, such as climate change, can tip the balance and change the Vibrio interactions from benign to pathogenic.
Effect of sodium carbonate concentrations on the degumming and regeneration process of silk fibroin

Silk degumming process is regarded as the first key point in the preparation of silk-based materials. Emphasis of this paper is placed on the effect of sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) concentrations on degummed silk fibers, the derived aqueous silk solutions, and the final regenerated silk films. Obvious damage with exposure of silk fibrils was caused at 5% Na2CO3 concentration but no microstructure destruction was observed at 0.005% Na2CO3 concentration. Weight loss increased dramatically with increasing Na2CO3 concentration, further leading to a reduction in the degummed silk diameter and poorer thermal stability. Although little change has been found on β-sheet content of degummed silks, differences in molecular weight and rheological behavior of aqueous silk solutions from different Na2CO3 concentrations are clearly found which are associated with the subsequent structure and physical properties of the regenerated silk films. The results indicate that there is an inverse relationship between Na2CO3 concentrations and the thermal degradation, wettability, and mechanical properties of regenerated silk films. Hence, a suitable choice of Na2CO3 concentrations should be seriously considered to promote the development of different performances and applications of silk-based materials.
Multichannel and Wide-Angle SAR Imaging Based on Compressed Sensing

The multichannel or wide-angle imaging performance of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can be improved by applying the compressed sensing (CS) theory to each channel or sub-aperture image formation independently. However, this not only neglects the complementary information between signals of each channel or sub-aperture, but also may lead to failure in guaranteeing the consistency of the position of a scatterer in different channel or sub-aperture images which will make the extraction of some scattering information become difficult. By exploiting the joint sparsity of the signal ensemble, this paper proposes a novel CS-based method for joint sparse recovery of all channel or sub-aperture images. Solving the joint sparse recovery problem with a modified orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm, the recovery precision of scatterers is effectively improved and the scattering information is also preserved during the image formation process. Finally, the simulation and real data is used for verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with single channel or sub-aperture independent CS processing, the proposed method can not only obtain better imaging performance with fewer measurements, but also preserve more valuable scattering information for target recognition.
Sensor solutions for an energy-efficient and user-centered heating system

Abstract. In contrast to conventional hydronic heating systems, in which the air is used as a medium for the convective heat transfer, an alternative approach is based on the usage of infrared (IR) radiant heating foils. These foils, which are applied to the walls and the ceiling of a laboratory, can be controlled individually. This leads to the possibility of heating the room zonewise and only when a person is present in a zone. A local comfortable climate is provided only in occupied zones, with the remaining zones being kept at a lower base temperature. Consequently, the measurement system has to detect persons in each zone and to determine the putative thermal comfort at relevant locations in the room. For the first problem, we examined and evaluated different sensor types capable of localizing persons without infringing on their anonymity. For the second problem, we used the fact that the thermal comfort mainly depends on the operative temperature (Li et al., 2010; DIN EN ISO 7730, 2006; de Dear and Brager, 2002). According to Simone et al. (2007), this temperature can be measured directly by an easily producible, planar sensor. The sensors were integrated in a wireless sensor network which consists of Wi-Fi-capable microcontroller boards, wireless smart home equipment, a Wi-Fi router, and a server.
High-performance low-voltage tetracene phototransistors with polymer/AlOx bilayer dielectric

We report on the tetracene-based photo thin-film transistors (photo-TFTs) which adopt thin poly-4-vinylphenol (PVP)/aluminum oxide (AlO x ) bilayer and semitransparent NiO, for a gate dielectric and source/drain (S/D) electrode, respectively. Quite a large capacitance of 31 nF/cm 2 was effectively achieved from the thin polymer/high-k oxide dielectric bilayer that also showed a high dielectric strength of ∼4 MV/cm. Our tetracene-based TFTs exhibited quite a good field effect mobility (∼0.23 cm 2 /V s) and a high on/off current ratio of ∼10 5 , while operating at a voltage less than -8 V. The tetracene-TFTs demonstrated good static photoresponses to green (540 nm), blue (450 nm), and ultraviolet (364 nm) illuminations under the low voltage.
Resource Allocation in NOMA-Based Fog Radio Access Networks

In the wake of growth in intelligent mobile devices and wide usage of bandwidth-hungry applications in mobile Internet, the demand for wireless data traffic and ubiquitous mobile broadband is rapidly increasing. Because of these developments, the research on next generation networks presents an accelerative tendency on a global scale. Edge computing is drawing lots of attention for reducing the time delay and improving the quality of service for networks. F-RAN is an emergent architecture that makes full use of edge computing and distributed storing capabilities in edge devices. In this article, we propose an architecture of NOMA-based F-RANs that has strong capability of edge computing and can meet the heterogeneous requirements in 5G/6G systems. NOMA with SIC is regarded as a critical multi-user access technology. In NOMA, more than one user can access the same time, code domain, and frequency resources. By assigning different power levels to multiple users and implementing SIC, multi-user detection can be achieved. In this article, we provide a description of the NOMAbased F-RANs architecture, and discuss the resource allocation in it. We focus on the power and subchannel allocation in consideration of using NOMA and edge caching. Simulation results show that the proposed NOMA-based F-RANs architecture and the resource management mechanisms can achieve high net utility for the RANs.
Resolvability on Continuous Alphabets

We characterize the resolvability region for a large class of point-to-point channels with continuous alphabets. In our direct result, we prove not only the existence of good resolvability codebooks, but adapt an approach based on the Chernoff-Hoeffding bound to the continuous case showing that the probability of drawing an unsuitable codebook is doubly exponentially small. For the converse part, we show that our previous elementary result carries over to the continuous case easily under some mild continuity assumption.
Frontal Variant Alzheimer Disease or Frontotemporal Lobe Degeneration With Incidental Amyloidosis?

The clinical presentation of Alzheimer disease (AD) is typically characterized by episodic memory impairment at onset, followed by the progressive involvement of other cognitive domains. Nevertheless, deviations from this pattern are recognized,1,2 leading to identification of 3 main syndromes considered as nonamnestic AD variants, namely logopenic primary progressive aphasia, posterior cortical atrophy, and frontal variant AD. These 3 identities have been incorporated into the National Institute of Aging-Alzheimer’s Association diagnostic criteria for dementia due to AD3 and more recently into the International Working Group-2 research criteria.4 It has been suggested that individuals with a clinical diagnosis of AD presenting with prominent features of executive dysfunction and language impairment as well as early behavioral abnormalities could be defined as AD with “high frontality,” or FvAD.5 FvAD is thought to be relatively more frequent in early onset AD (below 65y of age) in which a subset of patients displays a prominent dysexecutive and behavioral phenotype at presentation, supposedly due to a selective neurodegeneration in frontal control networks.6 The most significant study7 on neuropathologically confirmed AD patients presenting with relevant executive function impairment describes an increased and disproportioned neurofibrillary tangles pathology in the frontal cortex. This pattern of neurodegeneration correlates with hypometabolism of the frontal regions as shown by F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) studies conducted in AD patients with an atypical dysexecutive presentation.6 Differential diagnosis between FvAD and frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTLD) could be difficult, and specific diagnostic criteria to define FvAD are still lacking. Early-onset AD patients with associated frontal lobe hypometabolism on FDG-PET do not display a higher degree of amyloid deposition in frontal regions, based on C-labeled Pittsburgh compound B (CPiB) PET results, when compared with other AD patients, although no systematic studies with amyloid imaging have been performed yet in individuals with suspected FvAD.6 Several studies showed significantly lower neocortical C-PiB retention in FTLD in comparison with AD, although some C-PiB–positive FTLD patients have been reported.8 Moreover, a recent study demonstrated that F-florbetapir PET could provide good discrimination between AD and FTLD.9 In this scenario, we present and discuss the case of an AD patient with atypical presentation suggesting the diagnosis of FvAD, focusing on the results of FDG-PET, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and F-florbetapir PET examinations.
In situ Observation of the Influence of Al on Deformation-induced Twinning in TWIP Steel

The deformation twinning behavior of Fe18Mn0.6C and Fe18Mn0.6C-2.5Al twinning-induced plasticity steels was compared by in-situ electron backscattering diffraction. Al suppressed deformation-induced twinning. A constitutive model considering the effect of Al on the twin formation kinetics was used to show that the work hardening and the ultimate tensile strength were lowered by the suppression of deformation twinning despite the pronounced solution hardening contribution of Al.
Downregulation of NIMA-related kinase-7 inhibits cell proliferation by inducing cell cycle arrest in human retinoblastoma cells

NIMA-related kinase-7 (Nek7) is a centrosomal kinase involved in various types of cancer, including gallbladder cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the biological function and the potential underlying mechanism of Nek7 in retinoblastoma remain largely unknown. Therefore, the present study investigated the effects of Nek7 in retinoblastoma cells. The expression of Nek7 was initially determined and observed to be commonly upregulated in retinoblastoma cell lines (Y79, SO-RB50 and WERI-RB1) as compared with that in normal retinal pigment epithelium cells. Next, the endogenous expression of Nek7 was efficiently knocked down in Y79 and SO-RB50 cells using a lentivirus-mediated RNA interference approach, as confirmed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blot analysis. Loss-of-function assays, including MTT, colony formation and flow cytometry, indicated that knockdown of Nek7 significantly inhibited cell growth, impaired the colony formation ability and induced cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 phase. Furthermore, mechanistic studies demonstrated that silencing of Nek7 resulted in reduced cyclin-dependent kinase 2, cyclin D1 and cyclin E levels in vitro. In conclusion, the present study highlights the crucial role of Nek7 in promoting retinoblastoma cell proliferation, and Nek7-silencing may serve as a novel therapeutic target for retinoblastoma.
Deposit Formation and Corrosion in the Air Pre-heater of a Straw-fired Combined Heat and Power Production Boiler

In 1998, during maintenance of the biomass-fired Masnedo Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Plant, serious corrosion problems were revealed in the cooler part of the flue gas path, i.e. the area just outside the air pre-heater. An investigation, caused by irregularly operational conditions in January 1999, revealed an air leakage in the air pre-heater. Most of the tubes in the bottom (coldest) section of the air pre-heater were significantly corroded. A tube from the bottom section of the air pre-heater, was mounted in epoxy, cross sectioned, polished without access to water and investigated in a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). This analysis showed a heavily corroded tube, covered by a 3-layer oxide scale structure, rich in Fe and Cl in the innermost layer (closest to the tube), FeXOY in the middle layer, and K and Cl, with minor amounts of Ca and S in the outer layer. On the top of the oxide scale, the remnants of an ash layer rich in K, Cl, Si, Ca, P, and S was seen. A bank of four St37 cylindrical probes, having metal temperatures of app. 60, 70, 80, and 87 oC was installed just outside the bottom section of the air pre-heater. The probe bank was exposed to intermitting plant operation in 7 weeks, withdrawn, mounted in epoxy, cross sectioned, polished without access to water and investigated by SEM. The 60oC probe was thoroughly corroded during this relatively short exposure time. The other probes were oxidized, i.e. an oxide scale was formed on each probe, but they were not nearly as corroded as the 60oC probe. This suggest that the corrosion observed in the air pre-heater is caused by a combination of the presence of hygroscopic (i.e. water-absorbing) species in the deposits, particularly iron chlorides, and temperature variations due to intermitting plant operation. The latter may cause the flue gas temperature to oscillate around the water and hydrochloric acid dew points. IFRF Combustion Journal 3 Frandsen et al. Article No 200204 May 2002 This paper provides an outline of the observations made as well as a discussion of the practical implications of low-temperature ash deposit formation and corrosion in biomass-fired boilers.
The Effectiveness of Nutrition Education and Labeling in Dutch Supermarkets

Purpose. Nutrition education and labeling may help consumers to eat less fat. The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of nutrition education with and without shelf labeling on reduced fat intake in Dutch supermarkets. Methods. The design consisted of a randomized, pretest-posttest, experimental control group design. In total, 2203 clients of 13 supermarkets were included in the sample. Total fat intake of clients and behavioral determinants of eating less fat were measured by a questionnaire. A mixed-effect regression model was used for the analysis. Results. No significant effects were found for the educational intervention, alone or with the labeling, on total fat intake and the psychosocial determinants of eating less fat. Conclusion. Nutrition education and labeling of low-fat food products in supermarkets did not prove to be effective strategies. The fact that the supermarket is a highly competitive environment may have accounted for this lack of effect.
Compositional Model-Based Sketch Generator in Facial Entertainment

Face sketch synthesis (FSS) plays an important role in facial entertainment, which includes face sketch morphing among two styles, multiview FSS and face sketch expression manipulation. For facial entertainment, most existing FSS methods generate sketches with over-smoothing effects, i.e., fine details are suppressed more or less. In this paper, we propose a face sketch generator based on the compositional model to handle this issue. It decomposes a face into different components instead of patches as before, and each component has several candidate templates. Multilevel B-spline approximation is utilized to delicately polish the chosen templates of all components. To fuse these components, Poisson blending is employed instead of the weighted average operator. The proposed compositional method crucially reduces the high frequency loss and improves the synthesis performance in comparison to the state-of-the-art methods. Experiments on face sketch morphing, expression manipulation, and multiview FSS, make further efforts to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A Double-Edged Sword: Roles of Helicobacter Pylori in Gastric Carcinoma

Gastric carcinoma (GC) remains one of the most malignant tumors either in morbidity or mortality rates around the world (IARC, 2002). Development of GC is influenced by multiple factors including genetic, biological, social, and psychological ones, etc., however, the function mechanisms of which are too sophisticated and still under explorations (Matysiak-Budnik & Megraud, 2006). Similar to other malignant tumors, GC leads to death mainly due to system or organ failure because of cancer advancement and metastasis. Chemotherapy-based regimens combined with radiological and immunomodulating therapies are fundamental but unsatisfactory because most GC patients are in advanced stage when diagnosed, although radical operation throws those at early stage a light of prolonged survival and even clinical cure (Quiros & Bui, 2009). As for prophylaxis, many reports have mentioned the protective role of eradication of Helicobacter pylori, which has been identified as a definite carcinogen for GC, but few evidences proved a successful H. pylori vaccine showing effects on GC prevention, just as Hepatitis B virus vaccine on prevention of primary hepatocellular carcinoma (IARC, 1994; Murakami et al., 2005; Cai et al., 2005; Di Bisceglie 2009). H. pylori, a stomach colonizing spiral gram-negative bacterium, interacts with the host in a multiplicity of ways during its adhesion, colonization, invasion, and induction of inflammatory and immune responses (Peek 2005). The great majority of researchers link H. pylori infection with development or even recurrence of GC according to some clinical trials, meta-analyses, and in vitro experiments (Wong et al., 2004; Fukase et al., 2008). However, a few recent studies have disclosed the other side of the coin, in which positive H. pylori status appears to be associated with better outlook in GC patients (Meimarakis et al., 2006; Marrelli et al., 2009). Therefore, H. pylori probably factually play a bi-directional role in GC just like a double-edged sword. To learn about both edges of H. pylori infection will provides us with new sights in vaccine design, prevention, and even therapy of GC. Herein, we try to re-elucidate the relationship between H. pylori and GC from novel angles, in which GC consists of H. pylori-related (Hp-GC) and non-H. pylori-related (nHp-GC) ones,