Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human Apolipoprotein E Redistributes Fibrillar Amyloid Deposition in Tg-SwDI Mice

Human apolipoprotein (ApoE) genotype influences the development of Alzheimer's disease and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). Specific mutations within the amyloid-β protein (Aβ) peptide have been identified that cause familial forms of CAA. However, the effect of APOE genotype on accumulation of CAA mutant Aβ in brain is not well understood. In the present study, we determined how human ApoE3 or ApoE4 influence cerebral Aβ accumulation in transgenic mice (Tg-SwDI) that accumulate human Dutch/Iowa (E22Q/D23N) CAA mutant Aβ in brain, primarily in the form of fibrillar cerebral microvascular amyloid. Using Tg-SwDI mice bred onto a human APOE3/3 or human APOE4/4 background, we found that both human ApoE3 and ApoE4 proteins led to a strong reduction in the amount of cerebral microvascular amyloid with an unexpected concomitant appearance of extensive fibrillar parenchymal plaque amyloid. There was strong colocalization of all ApoE proteins with fibrillar amyloid deposits in the mice. In Tg-SwDI/hAPOE3/3 and Tg-SwDI/hAPOE4/4 mice, there was no change in the levels of total Aβ40 and Aβ42 or in the amounts of soluble and insoluble Aβ in brain compared with Tg-SwDI mice on the endogenous mouse APOE background. The shift from primarily cerebral microvascular amyloid to parenchymal plaque amyloid in Tg-SwDI/hAPOE3/3 and Tg-SwDI/hAPOE4/4 mice resulted in a parallel shift in the association of activated microglia. These findings indicate that human ApoE has a strong influence on the spatial development of human Dutch/Iowa CAA mutant amyloid accumulation in mouse brain and that microglial activation is in response to the spatial accumulation of fibrillar amyloid.
An Introduction to Floer Homology

Floer homology is a beautiful theory introduced in 1985 by Andreas Floer [8]. It combined new ideas about Morse theory, gauge theory, and Casson’s approach [1, 14] to homology 3-spheres and the representations of their fundamental groups into Lie groups such as SU(2) and SO(3). From its inception, it was related to the study of the anti-self-dual Yang-Mills equations on 4-manifolds, and is the receptacle for the relative Donaldson invariants of 4-manifolds with boundary [5]. Floer introduced two versions, one for Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold, and another (Instanton Homology) for homology spheres. These threads were reunited with the introduction of Heegaard Floer homology some years later by Ozsváth and Szabó, and monopole homology by Kronheimer and Mrowka [10]. Even with these great advances, the instanton theory retains great interest due to its close connection with the fundamental group–the most basic invariant of a 3-manifold. Remarkable results in knot theory were proved by Kronheimer and Mrowka by developing versions of instanton homology for knots and links in a 3-manifold. There is still much to be learned from Floer’s original ideas! The plan for these two lectures is to briefly review the (ordinary) Morse background and to introduce basic notions about connections. Then we will see the definition and basic properties of the Chern-Simons invariant, and a sketch of the construction of the instanton homology of a homology 3-sphere. A second pair of lectures by Nikolai Saveliev will develop the basics of the instanton knot homology. The prerequisites are a general understanding of
Using Mobile Phones to Spontaneously Authenticate and Interact with Multi-Touch Surfaces

The development of FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) technology has enabled the construction of large-scale, low-cost, multi-touch displays. These displays—capable of sensing fingers, hands, and whole arms—have great potential for exploring complex data in a natural manner and easily scale in size and the number of simultaneous users. In this context, access and security problems arise if a larger team operates the surface with different access rights. The team members might have different levels of authority or specific roles, which determines what functions they are allowed to access via the multi-touch surface. In this paper we present first concepts and strategies to use a mobile phone to spontaneously authenticate and interact with sub-regions of a large-scale multi-touch wall.
Human interaction based Robot Self-Learning approach for generic skill learning in domestic environment

Unstructured domestic environments present a substantial challenge to effective robotic operation. Domestic environment requires service robots to deal with unexpected environment changes, novel objects, and user manipulations. We present an approach to enable service robots to actively learn high-level skills in an unstructured environment. This involves using a combination of processing environment changes, recording and learning user manipulation data, setting up meaningful hypothesis, proactively performing test actions and interacting with user feedback, and logic reasoning. We demonstrate our Robot Self-Learning (RSL) approach by using ROS (Robotic Operating System) and Care-O-bot (COB) 3. These methods enable service robots to learn generalized high-level skills in a sophisticated and changing environment. The RSL approach allows robots to learn new actions imposed by a human and action condition from perception changes from the environment. We also present logic based reasoning engine to speed up the self learning process.
Real-Time Scheduling Strategy for Wireless Sensor Networks

Most of the tasks in wireless sensor networks (WSN) are requested to run in a real-time way. Neither EDF nor FIFO can ensure real-time scheduling in WSN. In this paper some characteristics and limitation of operating design in wireless sensor network are discussed. During this paper the researchers will discuss about message scheduling and scheduling strategy for sensor network O.S, for this reason the researchers analysed system architecture of TinyOS, FIFO scheduling TinyOS, task mechanism and event-driven mechanism. Main purpose of these articles is presenting a real-time scheduling strategy (RTS). RTS utilizes a pre-emptive way to ensure hard real-time scheduling. The experimental results prove that RTS has a good performance both in communication throughput and over-load.
Towards Robot Autonomy in Group Conversations: Understanding the Effects of Body Orientation and Gaze

We conducted a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment to examine the effects of two orientation and two gaze behaviors during group conversations for a mobile, low degree-of-freedom robot. For this experiment, we designed a novel protocol to induce changes in the robot's group and study different social contexts. In addition, we implemented a perception system to track participants and control the robot's orientation and gaze with little human intervention. The results showed that the gaze behaviors under consideration affected the participants' perception of the robot's motion and that its motion affected human perception of its gaze. This mutual dependency implies that robot gaze and body motion must be designed and controlled jointly, rather than independently of each other. Moreover, the orientation behaviors that we studied led to similar feelings of inclusion and sense of belonging to the robot's group, suggesting that both can be primitives for more complex orientation behaviors.
CSF oligoclonal bands in multiple sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE To study the significance of oligoclonal bands in neurological disorders, specifically in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). METHODS The study was designed to assess the sensitivity and specificity of the test methodology of CSF electrophoresis by performing the retrospective analysis of CSF samples sent for oligoclonal bands (OCB). A total of 603 samples were received by the Clinical Laboratories, Department of Pathology of The Aga Khan University, during a period of 54 months (January 1993-June 1997). All of these samples were analyzed by performing CSF protein electrophoresis. One hundred thirty three out of 603 samples showed evidence of OCB. Out of these, 24 patients were registered with Section of Neurology, Department of Medicine, The Aga Khan University Hospital. These 24 patients were finally selected for analysis. Relevant clinical details such as age, sex and clinical presentations were recorded. RESULTS Fifteen (62%) out of 24 patients with positive OCB were diagnosed as cases of MS. Four (17%) patients were diagnosed to have subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). Five (21%) patients were having other inflammatory neurological disorders. CONCLUSION The overall relative sensitivity and specificity for multiple sclerosis were found to be 100% and 62.5% respectively. Lack of specificity was attributed to the fact that OCB were positive in other neurological disorders as well.
Tight SoS-Degree Bounds for Approximate Nash Equilibria

Nash equilibria always exist, but are widely conjectured to require time to find that is exponential in the number of strategies, even for two-player games. By contrast, a simple quasi-polynomial time algorithm, due to Lipton, Markakis and Mehta (LMM), can find approximate Nash equilibria, in which no player can improve their utility by more than e by changing their strategy. The LMM algorithm can also be used to find an approximate Nash equilibrium with near-maximal total welfare. Matching hardness results for this optimization problem were found assuming the hardness of the planted-clique problem (by Hazan and Krauthgamer) and assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis (by Braverman, Ko and Weinstein). In this paper we consider the application of the sum-squares (SoS) algorithm from convex optimization to the problem of optimizing over Nash equilibria. We show the first unconditional lower bounds on the number of levels of SoS needed to achieve a constant factor approximation to this problem. While it may seem that Nash equilibria do not naturally lend themselves to convex optimization, we also describe a simple LP (linear programming) hierarchy that can find an approximate Nash equilibrium in time comparable to that of the LMM algorithm, although neither algorithm is obviously a generalization of the other. This LP can be viewed as arising from the SoS algorithm at log n levels -- matching our lower bounds. The lower bounds involve a modification of the Braverman-Ko-Weinstein embedding of CSPs into strategic games and techniques from sum-of-squares proof systems. The upper bound (i.e. analysis of the LP) uses information-theory techniques that have been recently applied to other linear- and semidefinite-programming hierarchies.
Master ’ s Thesis Tracking on-line learned Natural Features for Mobile Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) systems present a mixture of the real world and virtual, computer generated objects to the user. One of the most challenging tasks when building an AR system is camera tracking. This process of determining the exact current location and orientation of the camera with respect to the scene is essential to be able to render objects registered with the real world. In this thesis a novel approach to vision based camera tracking on mobile devices is presented. Building on previous work by Grabner et al. an on-line learning natural feature tracker is implemented and adapted to the needs of an AR system. This special approach of on-line learning of natural features of objects in the scene allow for Anywhere Augmentation, i.e. the use of AR in completely unprepared and previously unknown environments. The resulting tracker is integrated into the OpenTracker framework which in turn can be used as the tracking sub-component of the Studierstube AR application framework. The system is tested within the Vidente application scenario, aiming at the support of architects and field workers of utility and infrastructure companies. In this case the AR systems provide a natural way to explore and interactively modify georeferenced 3D data by letting the user walk around at the construction site and visualizing models of the existing subsurface infrastructure right in place. The results of the experiments show a real-time capable, flexible and adaptive yet robust tracking system.
Satisfiability degree computation for linear temporal logic

Temporal logic is used to describe any system of rules and symbolism for representing, and reasoning about, propositions qualified in terms of time. The satisfiability degree for temporal logic is introduced in this paper. It is used to precisely express to what extent a model satisfies a property and provides a quantitative analysis of the formal logic model. Then the computation of satisfiability degree for temporal logic is concerned. Based on the discrete-time Markov chains, an intelligent path selection algorithm for the satisfiability degree of the temporal logic is proposed. In the intelligent path selection algorithm the mother states, which are used to form all the paths, is calculated firstly. Those paths satisfy the concerned property and the satisfiability degree expressed by a temporal logic formula is then computed. It is shown that the intelligent path selection algorithm has a polynomial time complexity and O(n2) space complexity. A popular puzzle known as The Ferryman is used to illustrate the feasibility of the intelligent path selection algorithm.
A Measurement Study of TCP Performance for Chunk Delivery in DASH

Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) has emerged as an increasingly popular paradigm for video streaming [13], in which a video is segmented into many chunks delivered to users by HTTP request/response over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) con- nections. Therefore, it is intriguing to study the performance of strategies implemented in conventional TCPs, which are not dedicated for video streaming, e.g., whether chunks are efficiently delivered when users per- form interactions with the video players. In this paper, we conduct mea- surement studies on users chunk requesting traces in DASH from a rep- resentative video streaming provider, to investigate users behaviors in DASH, and TCP-connection-level traces from CDN servers, to investi- gate the performance of TCP for DASH. By studying how video chunks are delivered in both the slow start and congestion avoidance phases, our observations have revealed the performance characteristics of TCP for DASH as follows: (1) Request patterns in DASH have a great impact on the performance of TCP variations including cubic; (2) Strategies in conventional TCPs may cause user perceived quality degradation in DASH streaming; (3) Potential improvement to TCP strategies for better delivery in DASH can be further explored.
Europe, laboratory for a-democracy?

»Europa, Laboratorium für A-Demokratie? «. A-democracy is for a given society a state in which, like the apples sold in supermarkets, democracy has now only the appearance of democracy, without the taste (no real practice and effectivity) that should go along with it. This contribution claims that, for the leaders of the neoliberal global market and finance, the searched political solution for its crisis is how to change everything without changing anything. The construction of Europe appears a de facto laboratory for experiments aimed at this objective. For the European Union is using in different fields forms of democracy whose specificity is to imply participants (peoples, actors, organizations, national political elites) in a game in which they control neither the rules, nor the data, the agendas, or the outcomes. The contribution reviews a series of these forms; which describe passages to a-democracy in the current crisis.
Assuring Quality Health Care in the Emergency Department

The provision of quality healthcare is an international mandate. The provision of quality healthcare for mental health patients poses unique challenges. Nowhere is this challenge greater than in the emergency department. The purpose of this manuscript is to describe evidence-based initiatives for improving the quality of care of mental health patients in the emergency department. Specifically, the use of telepsychiatry and reducing provider biases will be presented.
A Two-Dimensional Hierarchy for Parallel Rewriting Systems

The class of parallel rewriting systems is considered in this work and the interaction between two complexity measures that in the liter ature have been called synchronous parallelism and independent paral lelism is investigated It is shown that when the degree of synchronous parallelism is bounded by some constant greater than one the degree of independent parallelism induces an in nite non collapsing hierarchy within the family of generated languages The result is obtained using an original characterization of parallel rewriting systems Our result combines with other well known properties of synchronous parallelism to reveal the existence of a two dimensional hierarchy for the family of languages generated by so called nite copying parallel We are grateful to Joost Engelfriet and Ryuichi Nakanisi for helpful discussion on topics related to this paper This research was conducted while the second author was a post doctoral fellow at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania The research was sponsored by the following grants ARO DAAL C DARPA N J NSF IRI and Ben Franklin S C rewriting systems This gives a new picture of many formalisms in this class Other language theoretic properties of parallel rewriting systems are proved in this work that together with our main result provide an answer to some questions that were left open in the literature
C-type Lectin Receptors for Tumor Eradication: Future Directions

Dendritic cells are key regulators in directing immune responses and therefore are under extensive research for the induction of anti-tumor responses. DCs express a large array of receptors by which they scan their surroundings for recognition and uptake of pathogens. One of the receptor-families is the C-type lectins (CLR), which bind carbohydrate structures and internalize antigens upon recognition. Intracellular routing of antigen through CLR enhances loading and presentation of antigen through MHC class I and II, inducing antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell proliferation and skewing T-helper cells. These characteristics make CLRs very interesting targets for DC-based immunotherapy. Profound research has been done on targeting specific tumor antigens to CLR using either antibodies or the natural ligands such as glycan structures. In this review we will focus on the current data showing the potency of CLR-targeting and discuss improvements that can be achieved to enhance anti-tumor activity in the near future.
Strategic maneuvering with presentational choices in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports

In the framework of the extended pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting is approached in this study as a particular communicative activity type, which can be reconstructed as part of a critical discussion. CSR reports excerpts are viewed in the analysis as parts of a virtual critical discussion in which a company acts as a protagonist maneuvering strategically to defend the standpoint according to which the business is operated ethically, and to convince the audience about what is mentioned in the standpoint. The reconstructed standpoint of a CSR report, We are doing business responsibly , may be regarded as stereotypical, since it corresponds to the institutional point of this regulated type of communicative activity. In the first part of the study, a brief overview is given of the CSR reporting activity, then the concept of strategic maneuvering is presented, under its three aspects (topical potential, audience demand, and presentational techniques), as well as the notion of communicative activity type, with a highlight on the role of the (macro-)context and of institutional preconditions in analytical studies on argumentation. The analysis in the latter part of the study concerns presentational techniques used by the protagonist in the confrontation and in the argumentation stages in CSR reporting, in order to reconcile rhetorical and dialectical aims by maneuvering strategically. The coordinatively and the subordinatively compound structure of argumentation, the symptomatic argument scheme, as well as reformulations of the standpoint, use of emotionally endowed words, concentration of the arguments in the form of nominal sentences acting as headings are among the most important presentational devices constitutive of argumentative moves aimed at convincing the audience that the company acts ethically, but also at promoting a positive image of its business responsibility, which appears to be the ground for winning the discussion.
L’instauration des ERP pour la modernisation du tissu entrepreneurial marocain : cas des PME agroalimentaires du Grand Agadir

Resume : Aujourd’hui, les entreprises font face a une situation economique, sociale et financiere en perpetuelle mouvance, leurs competitivite et attractivite dependent fortement de leur reactivite vis-a-vis de ces fluctuations et de leur aptitude d’adaptation. Afin d’affronter ces defis, les PME se trouvent devant l’obligation de moderniser et ameliorer leurs Systemes d’Information, pour qu’ils repondent a leurs problematiques de gestion metier. Les ERP peuvent jouer un role incontestable dans ce sens et rendre le SI plus evolutif et reactif. Le present papier cherche a traiter la problematique relative a la capacite des entreprises agroalimentaires du Grand Agadir a instaurer des Progiciel de Gestion Integres pour l’amelioration de leur processus de gestion quotidien, et le role que puissent jouer ces progiciels pour faire evoluer le mode d’organisation desdites entreprises.
Investigate Factors and Moderators of the Quasicollective Behavior in Virtual Communities

The frequencies of collective behavior are getting higher in virtual communities. Most studies regarding collective behavior on Internet focuses on investigating the behavior per se, and few are addressing the contributing factors and the moderating effects of the community platforms. Even if a swarm of people gathering and interacting on virtual communities, they are just one single person sitting behind their individual computers and using their created identities to act. Spatially, they are not assembled at the same spot; therefore the effect of emotional contagion is restricted. Temporally, they are not concentrated at the same time; as a result they have more time to react. This study thus proposed the concept of Quasi-collective Behavior to denote collective behavior on virtual communities and make distinctions with general collective behavior in physical world. Since people are not gathered at the same physical place, the ambiance of the virtual space is obviously transmitted by the community platforms. This study employs the notion of para-social presence to be the moderator influencing contributors on quasi-collective behavior. We plan to examine the proposed model and expect to gain insights into the quasi-collective behavior and thereby provide practical managerial implications.
COLOR IMAGE RETRIEVAL SCHEMES USING INDEX HISTOGRAMS BASED ON VARIOUS SPATIAL-DOMAIN VECTOR QUANTIZERS

This paper proposes two new compressed-domain features for color image retrieval based on the YCbCr color space. They are named Multi-Stage Vector Quan- tization Index Histograms (MSVQIH) and Mean-Removed Vector Quantization Index Histograms (MRVQIH). For each color component, to obtain the MSVQIH features, we extract two MSVQ Index histograms from the two stage VQ index sequences respectively. Similarly, to obtain the MRVQIH features, we extract two MRVQ index histograms from the mean index and residual VQ index sequences respectively. The retrieval simulation results show that, compared with the traditional Spatial-domain Color-Histogram-based (SCH) features and Vector Quantization Index Histograms-based (VQIH) features, the proposed two kinds of features can largely improve the recall and precision performance. Keywords: Image retrieval, Vector quantization, Index histogram