Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Revisiting the Predictability of Language: Response Completion in Social Media

The question "how predictable is English? " has long fascinated researchers. While prior work has focused on formal English typically used in news articles, we turn to texts generated by users in online settings that are more informal in nature. We are motivated by a novel application scenario: given the difficulty of typing on mobile devices, can we help reduce typing effort with message completion, especially in conversational settings? We propose a method for automatic response completion. Our approach models both the language used in responses and the specific context provided by the original message. Our experimental results on a large-scale dataset show that both components help reduce typing effort. We also perform an information-theoretic study in this setting and examine the entropy of user-generated content, especially in conversational scenarios, to better understand predictability of user generated English.
Pharmacokinetics and efficiency of brain targeting of ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1 given as Nao-Qing microemulsion

Abstract Nao-Qing solution has been shown to be clinically effective in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). The purpose of this study was to improve the pharmacokinetics and brain uptake of Nao-Qing, administered as an oil-in-water microemulsion. Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats were given Nao-Qing microemulsion by intranasal or intragastric routes. Samples of blood, brain, heart, liver, lung and kidney were collected at pre-determined time intervals, and the contents of ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1 (active ingredients of the Nao-Qing microemulsion) were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that contents of ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1 in Nao-Qing microemulsion was 8475.13 ± 54.61 μg/ml and 6633.42 ± 527.27 μg/ml, respectively, and that the particle size, pH and viscosity of the microemulsion were 19.9 ± 5.07 nm, 6.1 and 3.056 × 10−3 Pas, respectively. Absorption of ginsenoside Rg1 was higher than that of ginsenoside Rb1, which was barely detectable after intragastric administration; furthermore, the concentration of ginsenoside Rg1 in blood and other tissues at each time point was lower for intragastric than for intranasal administration. Compared with intragastric administration, intranasal administration resulted in a shorter tmax (0.08 versus 1 h), a higher Cmax (16.65 versus 11.29 μg/ml), and a higher area under the concentration–time curve (AUC) (592.91 versus 101.70 μgċh/ml) in the brain. The relative rates of uptake (Re) and the ratio of peak concentration (Ce) in the brain were 126.31% and 147.48% for ginsenoside Rg1, respectively. These data illustrate that intranasal administration can promote the absorption of drugs in Nao-Qing microemulsion and achieve fast effect.
Zero scrub, large contact area, three-degree-of-freedom holonomic vehicles for mobile robotics applications

Large contact area, zero scrub, three-degree-of-freedom holonomic vehicles (“LCA” “ZS-3” vehicles) are proposed for use in mobile robotics applications. ZS-3 vehicles avoid any rotational degree of freedom about a surface-normal axis between respective paired vehicle-ground contacting surfaces, resulting in nominally zero scrub at the surface contact plane. We briefly survey various forms of LCA ZS-3 vehicles and explore types utilizing arrayed omniwheels in more detail. Kinematic analysis shows these vehicles are holonomic—in the strict sense of having fully integrable velocity transforms—in all three degrees of freedom of motion in the plane, providing algebraic odometry and path-independent positioning analogous to fixed-base manipulators. We further propose ZS-3 vehicles as an additional category, and degree of holonomic mobility as an additional index of classification, of wheeled mobile robots and of vehicles generally. We explore torque balancing for a specific configuration.
Influenza Vaccination Rates Among Homeless Adults With Mental Illness in Toronto

Objective: To determine the incidence of influenza vaccination among homeless individuals with mental illness in Toronto. Methods: A retrospective chart review was carried out using a random sample of homeless individuals with mental illness who were participants of the At Home/Chez Soi Study. Primary care charts were obtained and reviewed for the incidence influenza vaccination within a 1-year period. Results: Of the 75 participants for whom charts were reviewed, 5 (6.7%) had documentation indicating receipt of the influenza vaccination in the year prior to study recruitment. Conclusion: This study raises awareness of the low incidence of homeless adults receiving the influenza vaccination in Toronto. The data are concerning given the high risk of morbidity from communicable respiratory illnesses in this group. Further research into the causes of low influenza vaccination rates among homeless Canadians is needed to develop strategies for increased delivery of the vaccination.
Protein Region Important for Regulation of Lipid Metabolism in Angiopoietin-like 3 (ANGPTL3)

Angiopoietin-like 3 (ANGPTL3) is a secreted protein that is mainly expressed in the liver and regulates lipid metabolism by inhibiting the lipolysis of triglyceriderich lipoproteins. Using deletion mutants of human ANGPTL3, we demonstrated that the N-terminal coiled-coil domain-containing fragment-(17–207) and not the C-terminal fibrinogen-like domain-containing fragment-(207–460) increased the plasma triglyceride levels in mice. We also found that the N-terminal region 17–165 was required to increase plasma triglyceride levels in mice and that a substitution of basic amino acid residues in the region 61–66 of the fragment showed no increase in the plasma triglyceride levels and no inhibition of lipolysis by lipoprotein lipase. In addition, when we analyzed ANGPTL3 in human plasma, we detected cleaved fragments of ANGPTL3. By analyzing recombinant ANGPTL3 in mouse plasma, we found that it was cleaved at two sites, Arg221↓Ala222 and Arg224↓Thr225, which are located in the linker region between the coiled-coil domain and the fibrinogen-like domain. Furthermore, a cleavage-resistant mutant of ANGPTL3 was determined to be less active than wild-type ANGPTL3 in increasing mouse plasma triglyceride levels but not in inhibiting lipoprotein lipase activity. These findings suggest that the cleavage of ANGPTL3 is important for the activation of ANGPTL3 in vivo.
Death and Transfiguration in Static Staphylococcus epidermidis Cultures

The overwhelming majority of bacteria live in slime embedded microbial communities termed biofilms, which are typically adherent to a surface. However, when several Staphylococcus epidermidis strains were cultivated in static liquid cultures, macroscopic aggregates were seen floating within the broth and also sedimented at the test tube bottom. Light- and electron microscopy revealed that early-stage aggregates consisted of bacteria and extracellular matrix, organized in sheet-like structures. Perpendicular under the sheets hung a network of periodically arranged, bacteria-associated strands. During the extended cultivation, the strands of a subpopulation of aggregates developed into cross-connected wall-like structures, in which aligned bacteria formed the walls. The resulting architecture had a compartmentalized appearance. In late-stage cultures, the wall-associated bacteria disintegrated so that, henceforth, the walls were made of the coalescing remnants of lysed bacteria, while the compartment-like organization remained intact. At the same time, the majority of strand-containing aggregates with associated culturable bacteria continued to exist. These observations indicate that some strains of Staphylococcus epidermidis are able to build highly sophisticated structures, in which a subpopulation undergoes cell lysis, presumably to provide continued access to nutrients in a nutrient-limited environment, whilst maintaining structural integrity.
Potential Non-invasive Urine-Based Antigen (Protein) Detection Assay to Diagnose Active Visceral Leishmaniasis

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), also known as kala-azar, produces 500,000 new cases of disease per year around the world. VL is a serious and debilitating disease that affects economic productivity and quality of life, and is nearly 100% fatal if not treated promptly. VL occurs on four continents and is endemic in 47 countries, with approximately 200 million people at risk of infection. The number of cases is increasing, mostly due to deterioration of social and economic conditions and co-infection with HIV. Most of the approximately 50,000 deaths that occur each year due to VL happen in children (http://www.who.int/topics/leishmaniasis/en/). There is no vaccine for VL, and the drugs that are most effective to treat the disease are toxic and painful, and prolonged treatment is required. For these reasons, prophylactic treatment, particularly for HIV co-infected patients, is not feasible. The gold standard for diagnosis of VL is the aspiration of relevant tissues (biopsies) such as spleen, liver, bone marrow, or lymph nodes followed by direct visualization or isolation of the parasite in complex culture medium. Such sample collection is invasive and risky and requires trained personnel to identify the amastigote form of the parasite. Moreover, the sensitivity is variable and unsatisfactory, at about 60%–85% [1]–[4]. Conventional serological tests measure antibody responses to parasite antigens, but because antibodies can persist for years after cure, these tests cannot distinguish active VL from prior exposure [5]–[7]. In addition, these tests have low sensitivity in the rapidly growing populations that are co-infected with HIV [8], [9]. Therefore, for the above reasons, there is a critical unmet need for a rapid, sensitive, and specific test to identify people with active VL who need immediate treatment in order to save their lives and prevent the spread of VL to others in their communities.
Chapter 7 Craniocervical Developmental Anatomy and Its Implications

Congenital and developmental osseous anomalies and abnormalities that affect the craniovertebral complex can result in neural compression, vascular compromise, and can manifest with abnormal cerebrospinal fluid dynamics. The basis for understanding these problems is derived from knowledge of the embryology, developmental anatomy, and the biomechanics of the region. This chapter discusses the embryology, normal development, and abnormal development of the craniovertebral junction and its implications.
Functional Identification of a Hydroxyproline-O-galactosyltransferase Specific for Arabinogalactan Protein Biosynthesis in Arabidopsis*

Background: Little is known about the enzymes involved in O-glycosylation of arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs) in plants. Results: Heterologously expressed AtGALT2 (At4g21060) catalyzed the addition of galactose to hydroxyproline in AGP peptide substrates. Conclusion: AtGALT2 is a galactosyltransferase responsible for initial galactosylation of AGPs. Significance: This work broadens our understanding of plant cell wall biosynthesis and provides an access point to identify other AGP glycosyltransferases. Although plants contain substantial amounts of arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs), the enzymes responsible for AGP glycosylation are largely unknown. Bioinformatics indicated that AGP galactosyltransferases (GALTs) are members of the carbohydrate-active enzyme glycosyltransferase (GT) 31 family (CAZy GT31) involved in N- and O-glycosylation. Six Arabidopsis GT31 members were expressed in Pichia pastoris and tested for enzyme activity. The At4g21060 gene (named AtGALT2) was found to encode activity for adding galactose (Gal) to hydroxyproline (Hyp) in AGP protein backbones. AtGALT2 specifically catalyzed incorporation of [14C]Gal from UDP-[14C]Gal to Hyp of model substrate acceptors having AGP peptide sequences, consisting of non-contiguous Hyp residues, such as (Ala-Hyp) repetitive units exemplified by chemically synthesized (AO)7 and anhydrous hydrogen fluoride-deglycosylated d(AO)51. Microsomal preparations from Pichia cells expressing AtGALT2 incorporated [14C]Gal to (AO)7, and the resulting product co-eluted with (AO)7 by reverse-phase HPLC. Acid hydrolysis of the [14C]Gal-(AO)7 product released 14C-radiolabel as Gal only. Base hydrolysis of the [14C]Gal-(AO)7 product released a 14C-radiolabeled fragment that co-eluted with a Hyp-Gal standard after high performance anion-exchange chromatography fractionation. AtGALT2 is specific for AGPs because substrates lacking AGP peptide sequences did not act as acceptors. Moreover, AtGALT2 uses only UDP-Gal as the substrate donor and requires Mg2+ or Mn2+ for high activity. Additional support that AtGALT2 encodes an AGP GALT was provided by two allelic AtGALT2 knock-out mutants, which demonstrated lower GALT activities and reductions in β-Yariv-precipitated AGPs compared with wild type plants. Confocal microscopic analysis of fluorescently tagged AtGALT2 in tobacco epidermal cells indicated that AtGALT2 is probably localized in the endomembrane system consistent with its function.
Neuromechanical Cost Functionals Governing Motor Control for Early Screening of Motor Disorders

Developing a quantifier of the neural control of motion is extremely useful in characterizing motor disorders and personalizing the model equations using data. We approach this problem using a top-down optimal control methodology, with an aim that the quantity estimated from the collected data is representative of the underlying neural controller. For this purpose, we assume that during the flexion of an arm, human brain optimizes a functional. A functional is defined as a function of a function that returns a scalar. Generally, in forward problems, this functional is chosen to be a function of metabolic energy spent, jerkiness, variance of motion, etc., integrated throughout the trajectory of motion. Current states (angular configuration and velocity) and torque applied can approximately determine the motion of a joint. Therefore, any internal cost functional optimized by the brain has to have its effect in the control of the torque. In this work, we study the flexion of the arm in normals and patient groups and intend to find the cost functionals governing the motion. To achieve this, we parametrize the cost functional governing the motion into the variables θp and ωp, which are then estimated using marker data obtained from the subjects. These parameters are shown to vary significantly for the normal and patient populations. The θp values were shown to be significantly higher in the case of patients than in the case of normals and ωp values showed an exactly opposite trend. We also studied how these cost functionals govern the applied torques in both subject groups and how is it affected while perturbed with sinusoidal frequencies. A time frequency analysis of the resulting solutions revealed a distinguishing pattern for the normals compared with the patient groups.
A CMOS particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) concentration to frequency converter with calibration circuits for air quality monitoring applications

In this paper, a CMOS particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) concentration to frequency converter with calibration circuits for air quality monitoring applications is newly proposed. A calibration technique is proposed in this work. Another innovation is that the outputs of the proposed chip are directly digitized, they could be easily sent over a wide range of transmission media, such as PSN, radio, optical, IR, ultrasonic, and etc. Before performing the proposed calibration circuits, the maximum linear error is 16.22%. After calibration, the maximum linear error is reduced to 0.08%. The PM2.5 concentration ranges from 6.64 to 55.62 μg/m3, and the corresponding output frequency range is 0.66 to 3.98 MHz. The chip area is 1.15 × 1.15 mm2. The proposed chip is suitable for devices of measuring PM2.5 concentration, such as monitoring air quality of industrial areas.
Beneficial Effects of Temperate Forage Legumes that Contain Condensed Tannins

The two temperate forage legumes containing condensed tannins (CT) that promote ruminant production are birdsfoot trefoil ( Lotus corniculatus L.; BFT) and sainfoin ( Onobrychis viciifolia Scop.; SF). Both are well-adapted to the cool-temperate climate and alkaline soils of the Mountain West USA. Condensed tannins comprise a diverse family of bioactive chemicals with multiple beneficial functions for ruminants, including suppression of internal parasites and enteric methane. Birdsfoot trefoil contains 10 to 40 g·CT·kg −1 dry matter (DM), while SF contains 30 to 80 g·CT·kg −1 DM. Our studies have focused on these two plant species and have demonstrated consistently elevated rates of gain for beef calves grazing both BFT and SF. Novel results from our BFT research include carcass dressing percentages and consumer sensory evaluations equivalent to feedlot-finished steers and significantly greater than grass-finished steers, but with omega-3 fatty acid concentrations equal to grass-finished beef. We have further demonstrated that ruminants fed BFT or SF will consume more endophyte-infected tall fescue ( Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.) Dumort. ) forage or seed than ruminants fed a non-CT forage legume. There is great potential value for sustainable livestock production in the use of highly digestible, nitrogen-fixing legumes containing tannins demonstrated to improve ruminant productivity.
Second generation web services-oriented architecture in production in the finance industry

Effective and affordable business process integration is a key concern in the finance industry. A large German joint-use centre, supplying services to 237 individual savings banks, enhanced the integration capabilities of its core banking system, consisting of more than 500 complex functions, through aggressive use of Web services. Advanced requirements such as heterogeneous client environment, sub-second response times, 300% traffic growth, and interface complexity did challenge today's Web services implementations. To achieve true interoperability between Microsoft (MS) Office<sup>™</sup>/. NET<sup>™</sup> and Java<sup>™</sup>, and to implement more than 500 Web service providers in a short time frame were two of the most important issues that had to be solved. The current, second release of this solution complies with the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Basic Profile 1.0. Leveraging the Basic Profile reduced the development and testing efforts significantly. This report discusses the rationale behind the decision for Web services, and gives an architectural overview of the integration approach. Furthermore, it features the lessons learned and best practices identified during the design, implementation and rollout of the solution.
Change of intensity fails to produce an irrelevant sound effect: implications for the representation of unattended sound.

Sequences of changing sounds that are irrelevant to the task at hand disrupt serial recall appreciably even though participants are instructed to ignore the sounds. Three experiments, which compared the effect of changing token identity with that of changing intensity in the 55- to 85-dB (A) range, were conducted. Although serial recall was impaired by changes in token identity, no disruptive effects of a change in intensity were found. This was replicated using speech and nonspeech. Overall, the absence of a changing intensity effect was based on an analysis of the performance of 115 participants in a design whose power was . 98. This outcome suggests that the representation of intensity in preattentive processing of auditory stimuli is somewhat different from that of other acoustic features.
Demystifying and mitigating TCP stalls at the server side

TCP is an important factor affecting user-perceived performance of Internet applications. Diagnosing the causes behind TCP performance issues in the wild is essential for better understanding the current shortcomings in TCP. This paper presents a TCP flow performance analysis framework that classifies causes of TCP stalls. The framework forms the basis of a tool that is publicly available to the research community. We use our tool to analyze packet-level traces of three services (cloud storage, software download and web search) deployed by a popular Chinese service provider. We find that as many as 20% of the flows are stalled for half of their lifetime. Network-related causes, especially timeout retransmission, dominate the stalls. A breakdown of the causes for timeout retransmission stalls reveals that double retransmission and tail retransmission are among the top contributors. The importance of these causes depends however on the specific service. We also propose S-RTO, a mechanism that mitigates timeout retransmission stalls. S-RTO has been deployed on production front-end servers and results show that it is effective at improving TCP performance, especially for short flows.
CHANGES CAUSED BY CORTICAL DAMAGE AND EVENT PAIRED VAGUS NERVE STIMULATION

All Rights Reserved For being my motivation and my better half, this work is dedicated to Amy. v PREFACE This dissertation was produced in accordance with guidelines which permit the inclusion as part of the dissertation the text of an original paper or papers submitted for publication. The dissertation must still conform to all other requirements explained in the "Guide for the Preparation of Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations at The University of Texas at Dallas. " It must include a comprehensive abstract, a full introduction and literature review and a final overall conclusion. Additional material (procedural and design data as well as descriptions of equipment) must be provided in sufficient detail to allow a clear and precise judgment to be made of the importance and originality of the research reported. It is acceptable for this dissertation to include as chapters authentic copies of papers already published, provided these meet type size, margin and legibility requirements. In such cases, connecting texts which provide logical bridges between different manuscripts are mandatory. Where the student is not the sole author of a manuscript, the student is required to make an explicit statement in the introductory material to that manuscript describing the student's contribution to the work and acknowledging the contribution of the other author(s). The signatures of the Supervising Committee which precede all other material in the dissertation attest to the accuracy of this statement. January, 2011 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the army of volunteers who have made the research reported here possible. Without them training the animals, helping with histological and mapping procedures, helping develop new training methods, and countless other contributions, this work would not have been accomplished. A few exceptional volunteers have earned co-authorships on papers with me that I would like to further acknowledge: Khodaparast, and Tracy Rosen-who have been sources of information and support during the oft-times uncertain process of earning this degree. Mary Felipe and Bonnie Dougherty have also provided excellent advice and guidance in their roles as graduate student advisor. Justin, Clay, and many, many other fellow students-thank you for several happy hours to " discuss " classes and lab work in the good atmosphere of friends.