Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extracting Resources that Help Tell Events' Stories

Social media platforms constitute a valuable source of information regarding real-world happenings. In particular, user generated content on mobile-oriented platforms like Twitter allows for real-time narrations thanks to the instantaneous nature of publishing. A common practice for users is to include in the tweets links pointing to articles, media files and other resources. In this paper, we are interested in how the resources shared in a stream of tweets for an event can be analyzed, and how can they help tell the event story. We describe a system that extracts, resolves, and eventually filters the resources shared in tweets content according to two different ranking functions. We are interested in how these two ranking functions perform (with respect to speed and accuracy) for discovering important and relevant resources that will tell the event story. We describe an experiment on a sample set of events where we evaluate those functions. We finally comment on the stories we obtained and we provide statistics that give meaningful insights for improving the system.
Gastric cancer below the age of 55: implications for screening patients with uncomplicated dyspepsia

Aims—To test the hypothesis that gastric cancer presenting with uncomplicated dyspepsia is rare below the age of 55. Patients and methods—The area studied was the postcode defined catchment area of a district general hospital (Gloucestershire Royal) serving a population of 280 500. An open access endoscopy service has been available in this district for more than 17 years. All cases of gastric cancer during a seven year period (1986–92) were drawn from the local pathology database. The database of the neighbouring hospital and the South West Cancer Registry were searched for missed cases from the postcoded area. Hospital and general practitioner records were retrospectively reviewed with respect to duration of symptoms, and previous consultation and investigation for dyspepsia; and alarming symptoms and signs suggestive of underlying malignancy (unexplained recent weight loss, dysphagia, haematemesis or melaena, anaemia, previous gastric surgery, palpable mass, and perforation). Results—Twenty five of 319 cases of gastric cancer detected during the seven year period were aged less than 55. Twenty four of these 25 patients presented with one or more suspicious symptoms or signs. Only one patient (4%) aged less than 55 presented with uncomplicated dyspepsia. In two patients there was a delay in diagnosis of more than six months after first presenting to the general practitioner. Both these patients had significant symptoms at presentation. Conclusion—Gastric cancer is rare below the age of 55 (7.8% of all cases) and, even in the presence of established open access endoscopy, presents with suspicious symptoms or signs in 96% of cases. The age limit for screening uncomplicated dyspepsia can be raised safely to 55.
Amrita_CEN at SemEval-2016 Task 1: Semantic Relation from Word Embeddings in Higher Dimension

Semantic Textual Similarity measures similarity between pair of texts, even though the similar context is projected using different words. This work attempted to incorporate the context space of the sentence from that sentence alone. It proposes combination of Word2Vec and Non-Negative Matrix Factorization to represent the sentence as context embedding vector in context space. Distance and correlation values between context embedding vector pairs used as a features for Support Vector Regression to built the domain independent similarity measuring model. The proposed model yielding performance 0.41 in terms of correlation.
Rayleigh-Bénard Convection for Nanofluids for More Realistic Boundary Conditions (Rigid-Free and Rigid-Rigid) Using Darcy Model

In this article, Rayleigh-Bénard convection for nanofluids for more realistic boundary conditions (rigid-free and rigid-rigid) under the influence of the magnetic field is investigated. Presence of nanoparticles in base fluid has introduced one additional conservation equation of nanoparticles that incorporates the effect of thermophoretic forces and Brownian motion and the inclusion of magnetic field has introduced Lorentz’s force term in the momentum equation along with Maxwell’s equations. The solution of the Eigen value problem is found in terms of Rayleigh number by implementing the technique of normal modes and weighted residual Galerkin approximation. It is found that the stationary as well as oscillatory motions come into existence and heat transfer takes place through oscillatory motions. The critical Rayleigh number for alumina water nanofluid has an appreciable increase in its value with the rise in Chandrasekhar number and it increases moderately as we move from rigid-free to both rigid boundaries. The effect of different nanofluid parameters on the onset of thermal convection for two types of boundaries is investigated.
Local Pattern Collocations Using Regional Co-occurrence Factorization

Human vision benefits a lot from pattern collocations in visual activities such as object detection and recognition. Usually, pattern collocations display as the co-occurrences of visual primitives, e.g., colors, gradients, or textons, in neighboring regions. In the past two decades, many sophisticated local feature descriptors have been developed to describe visual primitives, and some of them even take into account the co-occurrence information for improving their discriminative power. However, most of these descriptors only consider feature co-occurrence within a very small neighborhood, e.g., 8-connected or 16-connected area, which would fall short in describing pattern collocations built up by feature co-occurrences in a wider neighborhood. In this paper, we propose to describe local pattern collocations by using a new and general regional co-occurrence approach. In this approach, an input image is first partitioned into a set of homogeneous superpixels. Then, features in each superpixel are extracted by a variety of local feature descriptors, based on which a number of patterns are computed. Finally, pattern co-occurrences within the superpixel and between the neighboring superpixels are calculated and factorized into a final descriptor for local pattern collocation. The proposed regional co-occurrence framework is extensively tested on a wide range of popular shape, color, and texture descriptors in terms of image and object categorizations. The experimental results have shown significant performance improvements by using the proposed framework over the existing popular descriptors.
Increases in human motoneuron excitability after cervical spinal cord injury depend on the level of injury.

After human spinal cord injury (SCI), motoneuron recruitment and firing rate during voluntary and involuntary contractions may be altered by changes in motoneuron excitability. Our aim was to compare F waves in single thenar motor units paralyzed by cervical SCI to those in uninjured controls because at the single-unit level F waves primarily reflect the intrinsic properties of the motoneuron and its initial segment. With intraneural motor axon stimulation, F waves were evident in all 4 participants with C4-level SCI, absent in 8 with C5 or C6 injury, and present in 6 of 12 Uninjured participants (P < 0.001). The percentage of units that generated F waves differed across groups (C4: 30%, C5 or C6: 0%, Uninjured: 16%; P < 0.001). Mean (±SD) proximal axon conduction velocity was slower after C4 SCI [64 ± 4 m/s (n = 6 units), Uninjured: 73 ± 8 m/s (n = 7 units); P = 0.037]. Mean distal axon conduction velocity differed by group [C4: 40 ± 8 m/s (n = 20 units), C5 or C6: 49 ± 9 m/s (n = 28), Uninjured: 60 ± 7 m/s (n = 45); P < 0.001]. Motor unit properties (EMG amplitude, twitch force) only differed after SCI (P ≤ 0.004), not by injury level. Motor units with F waves had distal conduction velocities, M-wave amplitudes, and twitch forces that spanned the respective group range, indicating that units with heterogeneous properties produced F waves. Recording unitary F waves has shown that thenar motoneurons closer to the SCI (C5 or C6) have reduced excitability whereas those further away (C4) have increased excitability, which may exacerbate muscle spasms. This difference in motoneuron excitability may be related to the extent of membrane depolarization following SCI. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Unitary F waves were common in paralyzed thenar muscles of people who had a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) at the C4 level compared with uninjured people, but F waves did not occur in people that had SCI at the C5 or C6 level. These results highlight that intrinsic motoneuron excitability depends, in part, on how close the motoneurons are to the site of the spinal injury, which could alter the generation and strength of voluntary and involuntary muscle contractions.
Tetracycline Antibiotics: Mode of Action, Applications, Molecular Biology, and Epidemiology of Bacterial Resistance

SUMMARY Tetracyclines were discovered in the 1940s and exhibited activity against a wide range of microorganisms including gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, chlamydiae, mycoplasmas, rickettsiae, and protozoan parasites. They are inexpensive antibiotics, which have been used extensively in the prophlylaxis and therapy of human and animal infections and also at subtherapeutic levels in animal feed as growth promoters. The first tetracycline-resistant bacterium, Shigella dysenteriae, was isolated in 1953. Tetracycline resistance now occurs in an increasing number of pathogenic, opportunistic, and commensal bacteria. The presence of tetracycline-resistant pathogens limits the use of these agents in treatment of disease. Tetracycline resistance is often due to the acquisition of new genes, which code for energy-dependent efflux of tetracyclines or for a protein that protects bacterial ribosomes from the action of tetracyclines. Many of these genes are associated with mobile plasmids or transposons and can be distinguished from each other using molecular methods including DNA-DNA hybridization with oligonucleotide probes and DNA sequencing. A limited number of bacteria acquire resistance by mutations, which alter the permeability of the outer membrane porins and/or lipopolysaccharides in the outer membrane, change the regulation of innate efflux systems, or alter the 16S rRNA. New tetracycline derivatives are being examined, although their role in treatment is not clear. Changing the use of tetracyclines in human and animal health as well as in food production is needed if we are to continue to use this class of broad-spectrum antimicrobials through the present century.
Antioxidant Properties of Seeds from Lines of Artichoke, Cultivated Cardoon and Wild Cardoon

The artichoke (Cynara cardunculus L. subsp. scolymus L.), the cultivated cardoon (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis DC.) and the wild cardoon (Cynara cardunculus var. sylvestris L.) are species widely distributed in the Mediterranean area. The aim of this research was to evaluate the antioxidant properties of seeds from lines of artichoke and cultivated and wild cardoon in both aqueous-organic extracts and their residues by FRAP (Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power) and TEAC (Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity) evaluations. Both artichoke and cardoon seeds are a good source of antioxidants. Among artichoke seeds, hydrolysable polyphenols contribution to antioxidant properties ranged from 41% to 78% for FRAP values and from 17% to 37% for TEAC values. No difference between cultivated and wild cardoon in antioxidant properties are reported. Our results could provide information about the potential industrial use and application of artichoke and/or cardoon seeds.
COX-2 Expression and Survival in Patients With Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer Treated With Chemoradiotherapy and Celecoxib: A Quantitative Immunohistochemical Analysis of RTOG C0128

Purpose This study aimed to measure expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and CD34 in pretreatment tumor biopsies from patients on the RTOG C0128 phase II study, and to correlate expression of these biomarkers, using quantitative immunohistochemistry, with clinical outcome parameters. Methods and Materials Pretreatment biopsies were placed into tissue microarrays. COX-2 and CD34 expression were measured using automated quantitative immunohistochemistry (AQUA®). Cox regression models and Fisher’s exact test were used to explore associations between expression of the biomarkers and clinical end points. Results Eighty-four patients were accrued between 2001 and 2004; 78 were eligible and analyzable. Pathology specimen submission was optional; COX-2 expression was determined for 37 (47%) of patients, and CD34 scoring was determined for 34 (44%) of patients. Median follow-up was 44.5 months. In tumors where COX-2 data were available, 6 (16%) of 37 patients had local-regional failure; 4 of these patients had tumors with COX-2 scores below the AQUA® score median (hazard ratio, 0.39; 95% confidence interval, 0.07–2.16; P = 0.28). Of the 8 patients with disease-free survival failures, 5 had tumors with COX-2 levels below the median (hazard ratio, 0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.12–2.04; P = 0.32). The 4 patients who died all had COX-2 levels below the median value. COX-2 levels below the median were associated with worse 2-year survival (Fisher’s P = 0.046). There was no statistically significant association between CD34 status and clinical outcome. Conclusions Low COX-2 expression measured by AQUA® was associated with worse overall survival in this subset of patients available for analysis from RTOG C0128. Application of AQUA® technology, in a larger study, will be required to definitively evaluate the association COX-2 with clinical outcome in cervical cancer.
Superelastic tensegrities: matrix formulation and antagonistic actuation

Superelastic tensegrity systems are prestressed structures composed by bars and cables in which some cables are realized with superelastic shape-memory alloys. These systems combine the peculiar features of tensegrity structures with those of shape-memory alloys and are particularly suitable for adaptive and variable-geometry systems. The main goal of this work is the design of systems with antagonistic actuation, that is to say, systems where two sets of superelastic cables can be actuated against each other in a reversible way. Superelasticity is here exploited to improve the stability of systems withstanding external loads. We show that the evolution of superelastic tensegrities, subjected to load and temperature changes, is described by a system of ordinary differential equations written in matrix form, a system that we solve by standard numerical routines. We then focus on a particular class of tensegrities and state a basic design criterion for an effective antagonistic actuation. Several case studies are presented. In particular, we applied our procedure to analyze different modules that can be assembled together in larger structures. Results show that the proposed procedure is able to replicate experimental data reasonably well and that it can be used to design complex systems in three-dimensions.
A generic component for exchanging user models between web-based systems

Educational web-based systems exemplify the increasing need for personalisation. Applications that adapt to individual users need a model of the user that contains as accurate data as possible. On the web, learners use multiple educational systems and spend their time over many applications: these are individually limited in their user modelling but can gain from joining forces. This boils down to establishing semantic interoperability of user or learner models. While semantic interoperability is hard, the emerging Semantic Web (SW) might offer just the mechanisms we need. In this paper, we develop the Generic User model Component (GUC): a generic software that utilises SW technology to support the exchange of user model data between applications. For a semantically effective user model exchange, GUC allows the configuration of a distributed management of mappings between user models. Thus, applications can choose different levels of uniting user models to maximise their personalisation.
Anisakidae in beluga whales Delphinapterus leucas from Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait.

A total of 190 nematodes was isolated from the stomachs of 13 beluga whales Delphinapterus leucas from the Arctic part of Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait. Infection intensity ranged from 1 to 57 specimens and prevalence was 84.62%. Morphological examination of the nematodes revealed the presence of 3 species: Pseudoterranova decipiens sensu lato, Contracaecum osculatum s.l. , and Anisakis simplex s.l. Molecular analysis by PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) resulted in the identification of 4 species: Pseudoterranova bulbosa, Contracaecum osculatum A and C, and Anisakis simplex sensu stricto. The nematodes were present in 3 developmental stages: L3 (159 specimens), L4 (16 larvae), and adults (15 worms: 11 males and 4 females).
THE COMPETITIVE FACILITY LOCATION PROBLEM IN A DUOPOLY

We consider a competitive facility location problem on a network in which consumers located on vertices wish to connect to the nearest facility. Knowing this, each competitor locates a facility on a vertex, trying to maximize her market share. We focus on the two-player case and study conditions that guarantee the existence of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium in this nite non-cooperative game, for progressively more complicated classes of networks. For general graphs, we show that attention can be restricted to a subset of vertices referred to as the central block. By constructing trees of maximal bi-connected components, we obtain sucient conditions for equilibrium existence. Moreover, when the central block is a vertex or a cycle (e.g., cactus graphs), this provides a complete and ecient characterization of equilibria: at equilibrium both competitors locate their facilities in a solution to the 1-median problem, generalizing a well-known insight arising from Hotelling's model. We further show that an equilibrium must solve the 1-median problem in other classes of graphs, including grids which essentially capture the topology of urban networks. In addition, when both players select a 1-median, the solution must be at equilibrium for strongly-chordal graphs, generalizing a previously known result for trees. We perform an eciency analysis and show that removing edges from a graph whose central block is a cycle or a vertex increases the consumer cost. This implies that the worst-possible equilibria are achieved in trees. While equilibria can be arbitrarily inecient relative to centralized solutions, we quantify the ineciency gap with parametric upper bounds that depend on topological network parameters. Finally, we consider the practical robustness of our results by taking random neighborhoods of a real city and solving for equilibria. We show that the insights derived from theory hold with high probability for urban topologies even when not a grid or when players are not homogeneous.
Catheter-associated urinary tract infection

Purpose of review Catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) is the commonest nosocomial infection worldwide. Here we review the recent advances in the prevention of CAUTI. Recent findings After more than 30 years, new guidelines were issued in 2008–2011 by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and European Association of Urology. These guidelines addressed novel technologies such as silver alloy or antimicrobial coatings on catheters, hydrophilic catheters, urethral stents, use of sealed catheter–tube junctions and antiinfective bladder irrigation. In addition, multiple trials have been published recently on the reduction of inappropriate urinary tract catheterization. Summary Numerous strategies have been developed to reduce the incidence of CAUTI but few have proven effective. Reducing the inappropriate use of catheters and development of novel technologies targeted against these increasingly multidrug-resistant pathogens may be useful in the prevention of CAUTI in our vulnerable patients.
How to design efficient watermarks?

Digital watermarking is an emerging technique to protect intellectual property right and to transmit secondary data. Communication of secret messages or verification of watermarking patterns can be achieved by detecting watermarks in received signals. This paper investigates efficient designs of watermarking patterns by minimizing the probability of detection errors. For an encoder with the knowledge of a decoder and with side information from host signals, a small signal approximation is used in designing efficient watermark patterns. For a decoder without the knowledge of the host signal, accurate statistical modeling can help achieving optimal decoding performance. The design method opens the door for seeking efficient watermarks for many watermarking systems.
The Emergence of GitHub as a Collaborative Platform for Education

The software development community has embraced GitHub as an essential platform for managing their software projects. GitHub has created efficiencies and helped improve the way software professionals work. It not only provides a traceable project repository, but it acts as a social meeting place for interested parties, supporting communities of practice. Recently, educators have seen the potential in GitHub's collaborative features for managing and improving---perhaps even transforming---the learning experience. In this study, we examine how GitHub is emerging as a collaborative platform for education. We aim to understand how environments such as GitHub---environments that provide social and collaborative features in conjunction with distributed version control---may improve (or possibly hinder) the educational experience for students and teachers. We conduct a qualitative study focusing on how GitHub is being used in education, and the motivations, benefits and challenges it brings.
Exploiting the Bandwidth-Memory Tradeoff in Multicast State Aggregation

Multicast data distribution is achieved through three mechanisms: rendezvous of senders with receivers, distribution tree building protocol, and multicast forwarding. While the first two mechanisms have been extensively studied, scaling multicast forwarding state has not been addressed. The lack of efficient strategies for multicast forwarding state aggregation could seriously inhibit the deployment of inter-domain multicast, because there is no ”natural” limit to the number of concurrent multicast groups, especially given the possible proliferation of low-bandwidth multicast groups (e.g. events notification). We analyze two classes of aggregation strategies: non-leaky and leaky. A non-leaky strategy preserves the semantics of multicast joins, distributing data only in the direction of receivers. A leaky strategy, on the other hand, carefully trades off gratuitous data distribution for reduced forwarding state. Our simulations show that the leaky strategy ensures that under expected operating conditions forwarding state scales as the number of ”high-bandwidth” groups. This is desirable scaling behavior, given that network capacity limits the number of such groups.