Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Construction of heterogeneous multi-robot system based on knowledge model

This paper proposed a knowledge model-based method to construct a heterogeneous multi-robot system that can be regarded as a primitive prototype of a future symbiotic autonomous human-robot system. In this method, with using frame-based knowledge model, the features of heterogeneous robots as well as their behaviors according to human requests are described. The required knowledge for heterogeneous multi-robot system can be therefore integrated in a single model and shared by robots and users. Based on the knowledge model, the heterogeneous multi-robot system is defined in the software platform for agents and knowledge management (SPAK) by use of XML format. With the use of SPAK, distributed intelligent agents, tele-operation via wireless network and local robot control programs, the activities of heterogeneous multi-robot system can be flexibly carried out. In the heterogeneous multi-robot system, not only various heterogeneous robots and techniques for robots are integrated, but also human-robot interaction can be automatically performed and robot behaviors can be planned by taking into account different intelligence of robots corresponding to human requests. In this paper, an actual heterogeneous multi-robot system comprised by humanoid robots (Robovie, PINO), mobile robot (Scout) and entertainment robot dog (AIBO) is constructed in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method
Aldosterone activates transcription factor Nrf2 in kidney cells both in vitro and in vivo.

AIMS An increased kidney cancer risk was found in hypertensive patients, who frequently exhibit hyperaldosteronism, known to contribute to kidney injury, with oxidative stress playing an important role. The capacity of kidney cells to up-regulate transcription factor nuclear factor-erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), a key regulator of the cellular antioxidative defense, as a prevention of aldosterone-induced oxidative damage was investigated both in vitro and in vivo. RESULTS Aldosterone activated Nrf2 and increased the expression of enzymes involved in glutathione (GSH) synthesis and detoxification. This activation depended on the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and oxidative stress. In vitro, Nrf2 activation, GSH amounts, and target gene levels decreased after 24 h, while oxidant levels remained high. Nrf2 activation could not protect cells against oxidative DNA damage, as aldosterone-induced double-strand breaks and 7,8-dihydro-8-oxo-guanine (8-oxodG) lesions steadily rose. The Nrf2 activator sulforaphane enhanced the Nrf2 response both in vitro and in vivo, thereby preventing aldosterone-induced DNA damage. In vivo, Nrf2 activation further had beneficial effects on the aldosterone-caused blood pressure increase and loss of kidney function. INNOVATION This is the first study showing the activation of Nrf2 by aldosterone. Moreover, the results identify sulforaphane as a substance that is capable of preventing aldosterone-induced damage both in vivo and in vitro. CONCLUSION Aldosterone-induced Nrf2 adaptive response cannot neutralize oxidative actions of chronically increased aldosterone, which, therefore could be causally involved in the increased cancer incidence of hypertensive individuals. Enhancing the cellular antioxidative defense with sulforaphane might exhibit beneficial effects.
Renal cell carcinoma.

The global incidence of cases of kidney cancer has increased rapidly, and a relatively high incidence of kidney cancer has been reported in developed countries such as Northern and Eastern Europe. Various factors can affect the incidence and mortality of kidney cancer, including demographic risk factors, lifestyle factors, iatrogenic risk factors, nutritional factors and diet, occupation, and genetic factors. Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) refers to a tumor group with heterogeneity derived from renal tubular cells, which form almost all kidney cancer types. Clear cell RCC (ccRCC) is the most frequent renal tumor subtype, accounting for 75% of renal cancer, followed by papillar RCC(pRCC) making up approximately 10% of RCC. Hematoxylin-eosin staining shows a clear, eosinophilic cytoplasm in ccRCC cells. Epithelial cells forming the papillae and tubules have pRCC histological characteristics. Traditionally, genetic mutations of VHL and MET are the genetic features in ccRCC and pRCC, respectively. Recently, a new concept supports the contribution of mutations in some chromatin-modifier genes, including polybromo 1 (PBRM1), SET domain containing 2 (SETD2), BRCA1-associated protein-1 (BAP1), and lysine (K)-specific demethylase 5C (KDM5C). The metabolic disease concept in renal cancer is noted by researchers worldwide. The PD-1 pathway has been valued by researchers of kidney cancer in recent years, and new agents, such as anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibodies (nivolumab and pembrolizumab) and CTLA4 inhibitors (Ipilimumab), have been approved to treat advanced RCC. Partial nephrectomy (PN) and radical nephrectomy (RN) remain the standard management option for local RCC with a stage of T1 and T2, respectively. PN can also be selected for T2 stage RCC in suitable cases. Even though targeted therapy consisting of mainly the anti-VEGF and anti-mTOR pathways is recommended as the first-line and second-line treatment for RCC, the effectiveness and side effect of these therapies should be improved in future research.
Incremental visual text analytics of news story development

Online news sources produce thousands of news articles every day, reporting on local and global real-world events. New information quickly replaces the old, making it difficult for readers to put current events in the context of the past. Additionally, the stories have very complex relationships and characteristics that are difficult to model: they can be weakly or strongly connected, or they can merge or split over time. In this paper, we present a visual analytics system for exploration of news topics in dynamic information streams, which combines interactive visualization and text mining techniques to facilitate the analysis of similar topics that split and merge over time. We employ text clustering techniques to automatically extract stories from online news streams and present a visualization that: 1) shows temporal characteristics of stories in different time frames with different level of detail; 2) allows incremental updates of the display without recalculating the visual features of the past data; 3) sorts the stories by minimizing clutter and overlap from edge crossings. By using interaction, stories can be filtered based on their duration and characteristics in order to be explored in full detail with details on demand. To demonstrate the usefulness of our system, case studies with real news data are presented and show the capabilities for detailed dynamic text stream exploration.
A Generic Operational Metatheory for Algebraic Effects

We provide a syntactic analysis of contextual preorder and equivalence for a polymorphic programming language with effects. Our approach applies uniformly across a range of {algebraic effects}, and incorporates, as instances: errors, input/output, global state, nondeterminism, probabilistic choice, and combinations thereof. Our approach is to extend Plotkin and Power's structural operational semantics for algebraic effects (FoSSaCS 2001) with a primitive "basic preorder" on ground type computation trees. The basic preorder is used to derive notions of contextual preorder and equivalence on program terms. Under mild assumptions on this relation, we prove fundamental properties of contextual preorder (hence equivalence) including extensionality properties and a characterisation via applicative contexts, and we provide machinery for reasoning about polymorphism using relational parametricity.
On the capacity of full-duplex causal cognitive interference channels to within a constant gap

This paper considers the two-user Gaussian Causal Cognitive Interference Channel (GCCIC), which consists of two source-destination pairs that share the same channel and where one full-duplex cognitive source can causally learn the message of the primary source through a noisy link. The GCCIC is an interference channel with unilateral source cooperation that models practical cognitive radio networks. Different achievable strategies are shown to be at most a finite number of bits away from an outer bound for a set of the channel parameters that, roughly speaking, excludes the case of weak interference at both receivers.
Collisions and Gravitational Reaccumulation: Forming Asteroid Families and Satellites

Numerical simulations of the collisional disruption of large asteroids show that although the parent body is totally shattered, subsequent gravitational reaccumulation leads to the formation of an entire family of large and small objects with dynamical properties similar to those of the parent body. Simulations were performed in two different collisional regimes representative of asteroid families such as Eunomia and Koronis. Our results indicate that all large family members must be made of gravitationally reaccumulated fragments; that the post-collision member size distribution and the orbital dispersion are steeper and smaller, respectively, than for the evolved families observed today; and that satellites form frequently around family members.
Report of an unusual complication of radiofrequency neurotomy of medial branches of dorsal rami.

Radiofrequency neurotomy (RFN) of the medial branches (MB) of the lumbar dorsal rami is a common procedure to treat facetogenic backache. Serious complications are unusual when guidelines are followed (1). We report for the first time, the development of severely painful camptocormia (inability to straighten the back in the upright position that disappears in the recumbent position) as a complication immediately following MB RFN. The myofascial consequences of MB RFN are highlighted.
Postovariectomy Hypertension Is Linked to Increased Renal AT1 Receptor and Salt Sensitivity

Abstract—The functional balance between angiotensin II (Ang II) and nitric oxide (NO) plays a key role in modulating salt sensitivity. Estrogen has been shown to downregulate angiotensin type 1 (AT1) receptor expression and to increase the bioavailability of endothelium-derived NO, which decreases AT1 receptor expression. The present study tests the hypothesis that in the presence of genetic salt sensitivity, deficiency of endogenous estrogens after ovariectomy (OVX) fosters an upregulation of Ang II. Female Dahl salt-resistant (DR), Dahl salt-sensitive (DS), Wistar-Kyoto (WKY), and spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) rats underwent bilateral OVX or sham surgery (SHX) and were fed a normal salt diet (0.5% NaCl) for 14 weeks. Systolic blood pressures were measured every 2 weeks and were not significantly different between OVX and SHX for DR, WKY, and SHR groups. However, at the end of 14 weeks of normal salt diet, hypertension developed in DS OVX but not SHX rats (160±3 versus 136±3 mm Hg; P <0.05). Hypertension also developed in DS OVX rats pair-fed a normal salt diet (166±7 mm Hg). Development of hypertension in DS OVX rats was prevented by estrogen replacement (132±3 mm Hg), AT1 receptor blockade (119±3 mm Hg), or feeding a very low salt diet (0.1% NaCl; 129±4 mm Hg). Renal AT1 receptor protein expression was significantly elevated 2-fold in DS OVX relative to SHX rats and was prevented by estrogen replacement. These data strongly suggest that after OVX in salt-sensitive rats there is a lower threshold for the hypertensinogenic effect of salt that is linked to an activation of Ang II.
The effect of an outdoor residential environmental education program on the development of grade seven students environmental attitudes and ecological knowledge

This study deals with the educational effectiveness of an outdoor residential environmental education program. The main purpose was to obtain insight concerning the effect of an outdoor education program on environmental attitudes and ecological knowledge. The study also examined the contribution of students' past informal and non-formal environmental experiences, and gender on ecological knowledge and environmental attitude. The research was conducted in the context of a three day residential environmental field trip by 315 students in Grade seven who attended the program and 243 students who did not attend the program. The study used a quantitative research method and data was collected before and after the field trip, using questionnaires and an ecological knowledge test. The study investigated a) the relationship between environmental attitude and ecological knowledge, b) students' ecological knowledge and environmental attitudes before the field trip, c) changes in students' ecological knowledge and environmental attitudes after the field trip, and d) the relationship and contribution of students' past informal and formal environmental experiences and gender on ecological knowledge and environmental attitude. The findings suggest that the educational effectiveness of the outdoor residential program on ecological knowledge was significant, but decreased a year later although not to original levels. The outdoor program did not significantly change environmental attitude. There was a slight but significant relationship between ecological knowledge and environmental attitudes. Students' past experiences and gender predict a small but significant percentage of environmental attitudes and ecological knowledge.
Towards Relational POMDPs for Adaptive Dialogue Management

Open-ended spoken interactions are typically characterised by both structural complexity and high levels of uncertainty, making dialogue management in such settings a particularly challenging problem. Traditional approaches have focused on providing theoretical accounts for either the uncertainty or the complexity of spoken dialogue, but rarely considered the two issues simultaneously. This paper describes ongoing work on a new approach to dialogue management which attempts to fill this gap. We represent the interaction as a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) over a rich state space incorporating both dialogue, user, and environment models. The tractability of the resulting POMDP can be preserved using a mechanism for dynamically constraining the action space based on prior knowledge over locally relevant dialogue structures. These constraints are encoded in a small set of general rules expressed as a Markov Logic network. The first-order expressivity of Markov Logic enables us to leverage the rich relational structure of the problem and efficiently abstract over large regions of the state and action spaces.
DCs Pulsed with Novel HLA-A2-Restricted CTL Epitopes against Hepatitis C Virus Induced a Broadly Reactive Anti-HCV-Specific T Lymphocyte Response

Objective To determine the capacity of dendritic cells (DCs) loaded with single or multiple-peptide mixtures of novel hepatitis C virus (HCV) epitopes to stimulate HCV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) effector functions. Methods A bioinformatics approach was used to predict HLA-A2-restricted HCV-specific CTL epitopes, and the predicted peptides identified from this screen were synthesized. Subsequent IFN-γ ELISPOT analysis detected the stimulating function of these peptides in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from both chronic and self-limited HCV infected subjects (subjects exhibiting spontaneous HCV clearance). Mature DCs, derived in vitro from CD14+ monocytes harvested from the study subjects by incubation with appropriate cytokine cocktails, were loaded with novel peptide or epitope peptide mixtures and co-cultured with autologous T lymphocytes. Granzyme B (GrB) and IFN-γ ELISPOT analysis was used to test for epitope-specific CTL responses. T-cell-derived cytokines contained in the co-cultured supernatant were detected by flow cytometry. Results We identified 7 novel HLA-A2-restricted HCV-specific CTL epitopes that increased the frequency of IFN-γ-producing T cells compared to other epitopes, as assayed by measuring spot forming cells (SFCs). Two epitopes had the strongest stimulating capability in the self-limited subjects, one found in the E2 and one in the NS2 region of HCV; five epitopes had a strong stimulating capacity in both chronic and self-limited HCV infection, but were stronger in the self-limited subjects. They were distributed in E2, NS2, NS3, NS4, and NS5 regions of HCV, respectively. We also found that mDCs loaded with novel peptide mixtures could significantly increase GrB and IFN-γ SFCs as compared to single peptides, especially in chronic HCV infection subjects. Additionally, we found that DCs pulsed with multiple epitope peptide mixtures induced a Th1-biased immune response. Conclusions Seven novel and strongly stimulating HLA-A2-restricted HCV-specific CTL epitopes were identified. Furthermore, DCs loaded with multiple-epitope peptide mixtures induced epitope-specific CTLs responses.
Organizational Power and Information Security Implementation

implementation of information systems security policies in an organization can be improved by applying a power exercise model. It argues that stakeholders' awareness of the power being exercised by the policy enforcers, affects the success of the policy implementation. The model is developed by adapting, and extending, a power exercise framework presented by Markus and Bjørn-Andersen [20]. The information systems security policy model is applied to the introduction and compliance of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) at HealthCo Systems, a non-profit health care organization in a major United States city.
Soot and sulfate aerosol particles in the remote marine troposphere

Sulfate aerosol particles containing soot aggregates were observed in the marine troposphere in both hemispheres under conditions that ranged from extremely clean to heavily polluted. Even in clean air above the remote Southern Ocean during the First Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE 1), depending on the sample, between 10 and 45% of sulfate particles contained soot inclusions. We identified aircraft emissions and biomass burning as the most likely major sources of soot. Internally mixed soot and sulfate appear to comprise a globally significant fraction of aerosols in the troposphere. Anthropogenic combustion aerosols can thus potentially change the radiative climate effects of sulfate aerosols and may have an impact on cloud properties even in the remote troposphere.
On the Push&Pull Protocol for Rumour Spreading: [Extended Abstract]

The asynchronous push&pull protocol, a randomized distributed algorithm for spreading a rumour in a graph G, is defined as follows. Independent exponential clocks of rate 1 are associated with the vertices of G, one to each vertex. Initially, one vertex of G knows the rumour. Whenever the clock of a vertex x rings, it calls a random neighbour y: if x knows the rumour and y does not, then x tells y the rumour (a push operation), and if x does not know the rumour and y knows it, y tells x the rumour (a pull operation). The average spread time of G is the expected time it takes for all vertices to know the rumour, and the guaranteed spread time of G is the smallest time t such that with probability at least 1 - 1/n, after time t all vertices know the rumour. The synchronous variant of this protocol, in which each clock rings precisely at times 1,2,. , has been studied extensively. We prove the following results for any n-vertex graph: in either version, the average spread time is at most linear even if only the pull operation is used, and the guaranteed spread time is within a logarithmic factor of the average spread time, so it is O(n log n). In the asynchronous version, both the average and guaranteed spread times are Omega(log n). We give examples of graphs illustrating that these bounds are best possible up to constant factors. We also prove the first theoretical relationships between the guaranteed spread times in the two versions. Firstly, in all graphs the guaranteed spread time in the asynchronous version is within an O(log n) factor of that in the synchronous version, and this is tight. Next, we find examples of graphs whose asynchronous spread times are logarithmic, but the synchronous versions are polynomially large. Finally, we show for any graph that the ratio of the synchronous spread time to the asynchronous spread time is O(n2/3).
Late Pliocene‐early Pleistocene 100‐ka problem

Little is known about the 100‐ka ice volume cycles immediately before 1 Ma except that they are coherent with the 100‐ka eccentricity cycles. Here we show that ice volume and ocean circulation change/global carbon mass balance are phase‐locked and highly coupled regarding amplitude envelopes at the 100‐ka band, but neither is phase‐locked to and amplitude‐coupled to the 100‐ka eccentricity orbital forcing signal between 3‐1 Ma. We describe this phasing and amplitude mismatch at the 100‐ka band between 3‐1 Ma between eccentricity forcing and paleo‐ice volume records as the “late Pliocene‐early Pleistocene 100‐ka problem. ” A free 100‐ka oscillation internal to our climate system, especially those related to oscillations of atmospheric CO2 concentration, operating on an Earth characterized by a high‐inertia deep thermohaline ocean that can store carbon and heat, might hold the key for the “late Pliocene‐early Pleistocene 100‐ka problem. ”
Improving TCP Throughput in 802.11 WLANs with High Delay Variability

Reduced throughput of TCP over wireless networks is mainly due to misinterpretation of wireless losses as congestion signals and high delay variability because of fluctuating radio channel quality. High delay variability often leads to spurious TCP timeouts which result in severe throughput degradation. In this paper, we show the negative impact of large delay variations in a mixed wired and 802.11 network scenario with bursty errors, and propose an adaptive algorithm that adds delay to packets in order to prevent spurious timeouts. Our algorithm can adjust to specific network characteristics such as propagation delays, loss rate, and number of mobile nodes, and is applied at the access point of a wireless LAN
Competitive interactions among zoanthids (cnidaria: zoanthidae) in an intertidal zone of northeastern Brazil

Sessile organisms that live in consolidated substrates frequently compete for space. Coral species have many strategies to face this competition, including harming their opponents or hindering their growth. In the present study, the competitive interactions between three species of zoanthids were investigated in the intertidal zone of a sandstone reef environment in northeastern Brazil. The competitive abilities of the three species were evaluated by periodic observation of the natural fringes of contact and experimental evaluation of their growth rate through removal of 100 cm2 of colonies of each species. Palythoa caribaeorum and Zoanthus sociatus had similar growth rates, and both species grew faster than Protopalythoa variabilis. The recolonization strategy seems to differ among species. The contact fringes between P. caribaeorum and Z. sociatus remained unchanged over time, without any type of aggressive interaction between them, suggesting that stand-off was the strategy used by these organisms. Palythoa caribaeorum and Z. sociatus grew among the polyps of P. variabilis, often killing its colonies. The coexistence of zoanthids reveals a capacity for survival in the face of competition for limited resources such as free substrate, which led to the colonization and establishment of zoanthids in intertidal environments.