Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dual-Tree wavelet scattering network with parametric log transformation for object classification

We introduce a ScatterNet that uses a parametric log transformation with Dual-Tree complex wavelets to extract translation invariant representations from a multi-resolution image. The parametric transformation aids the OLS pruning algorithm by converting the skewed distributions into relatively mean-symmetric distributions while the Dual-Tree wavelets improve the computational efficiency of the network. The proposed network is shown to outperform Mallat's ScatterNet [1] on two image datasets, both for classification accuracy and computational efficiency. The advantages of the proposed network over other supervised and some unsupervised methods are also presented using experiments performed on different training dataset sizes.
Ebola vaccination in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Significance Using a spatial model that incorporates human mobility, poverty, and population density, we assessed the effectiveness of the vaccination program that was implemented during the 2018 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our results demonstrate that even modest delays in initiating vaccination would have markedly eroded the impact of the program. The methodology we present has applicability for identifying areas at risk during outbreaks of other emerging and reemerging diseases, which is imperative for swift control. Following the April 2018 reemergence of Ebola in a rural region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the virus spread to an urban center by early May. Within 2 wk of the first case confirmation, a vaccination campaign was initiated in which 3,017 doses were administered to contacts of cases and frontline healthcare workers. To evaluate the spatial dynamics of Ebola transmission and quantify the impact of vaccination, we developed a geographically explicit model that incorporates high-resolution data on poverty and population density. We found that while Ebola risk was concentrated around sites initially reporting infections, longer-range dissemination also posed a risk to areas with high population density and poverty. We estimate that the vaccination program contracted the geographical area at risk for Ebola by up to 70.4% and reduced the level of risk within that region by up to 70.1%. The early implementation of vaccination was critical. A delay of even 1 wk would have reduced these effects to 33.3 and 44.8%, respectively. These results underscore the importance of the rapid deployment of Ebola vaccines during emerging outbreaks to containing transmission and preventing global spread. The spatiotemporal framework developed here provides a tool for identifying high-risk regions, in which surveillance can be intensified and preemptive control can be implemented during future outbreaks.
The northern flying squirrel in the Pacific Northwest: implications for management of the greater Fundy ecosystem

Recent investigations in the Pacific Northwest (USA) have evaluated the association of northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus) with older forests. The prominence of studies on northern flying squirrels in this region has been motivated primarily by the northern flying squirrel’s dominance in the diet of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), a federally (USA) listed threatened species, and the California spotted owl (S o. occidentalis). Northern flying squirrels have also been studied because of substantial reductions of older forests from timber harvesting and concern for wildlife associated with these forests. Northern flying squirrels, perhaps due to their use of cavities in live and standing dead (snag) trees, were described as “oldgrowth associated species” (Harris and Maser 1984, Brown 1985:164, Franklin 1988, Carey 1989)
Frontotemporal dementia complicated with schizophrenia

Dementia is known to occur in schizophrenia in elderly patients. De Vries et al . 1 have suggested that the neuropsychological profile of dementia in schizophrenia is similar to that of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) 2 but found no structural imaging abnormalities, except for frontotemporal hypoperfusion. Arnold et al . 3 and Harrison 4 also concluded that neurodegeneration and neural injury are absent in schizophrenia in the elderly. We report the case of an elderly patient with schizophrenia who showed characteristic language disorder and remarkable functional and structural imaging abnormalities suggesting FTD.
Fallout plume of submerged oil from Deepwater Horizon

Significance Following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico an unprecedented quantity of oil irrupted into the ocean at a depth of 1.5 km. The novelty of this event makes the oil’s subsequent fate in the deep ocean difficult to predict. This work identifies a fallout plume of hydrocarbons from the Macondo Well contaminating the ocean floor over an area of 3,200 km2. Our analysis suggests the oil initially was suspended in deep waters and then settled to the underlying sea floor. The spatial distribution of contamination implicates accelerated settling as an important fate for suspended oil, supports a patchwork mosaic model of oil deposition, and frames ongoing attempts to determine the event’s impact on deep-ocean ecology. The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico led to uncontrolled emission of oil to the ocean, with an official government estimate of ∼5.0 million barrels released. Among the pressing uncertainties surrounding this event is the fate of ∼2 million barrels of submerged oil thought to have been trapped in deep-ocean intrusion layers at depths of ∼1,000–1,300 m. Here we use chemical distributions of hydrocarbons in >3,000 sediment samples from 534 locations to describe a footprint of oil deposited on the deep-ocean floor. Using a recalcitrant biomarker of crude oil, 17α(H),21β(H)-hopane (hopane), we have identified a 3,200-km2 region around the Macondo Well contaminated by ∼1.8 ± 1.0 × 106 g of excess hopane. Based on spatial, chemical, oceanographic, and mass balance considerations, we calculate that this contamination represents 4–31% of the oil sequestered in the deep ocean. The pattern of contamination points to deep-ocean intrusion layers as the source and is most consistent with dual modes of deposition: a “bathtub ring” formed from an oil-rich layer of water impinging laterally upon the continental slope (at a depth of ∼900–1,300 m) and a higher-flux “fallout plume” where suspended oil particles sank to underlying sediment (at a depth of ∼1,300–1,700 m). We also suggest that a significant quantity of oil was deposited on the ocean floor outside this area but so far has evaded detection because of its heterogeneous spatial distribution.
Disjunctive normal unsupervised LDA for P300-based brain-computer interfaces

Can people use text-entry based brain-computer interface (BCI) systems and start a free spelling mode without any calibration session? Brain activities differ largely across people and across sessions for the same user. Thus, how can the text-entry system classify the desired character among the other characters in the P300-based BCI speller matrix? In this paper, we introduce a new unsupervised classifier for a P300-based BCI speller, which uses a disjunctive normal form representation to define an energy function involving a logistic sigmoid function for classification. Our proposed classifier updates the initialized random weights performing classification for the P300 signals from the recorded data exploiting the knowledge of the sequence of row/column highlights. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we performed an experimental analysis on data from 7 healthy subjects, collected in our laboratory. We compare the proposed unsupervised method to a baseline supervised linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classifier and demonstrate its effectiveness.
BigBench V2: The New and Improved BigBench

Benchmarking Big Data solutions has been gaining a lot of attention from research and industry. BigBench is one of the most popular benchmarks in this area which was adopted by the TPC as TPCx-BB. BigBench, however, has key shortcomings. The structured component of the data model is the same as the TPC-DS data model which is a complex snowflake-like schema. This is contrary to the simple star schema Big Data models in real life. BigBench also treats the semi-structured web-logs more or less as a structured table. In real life, web-logs are modeled as key-value pairs with unknown schema. Specific keys are captured at query time - a process referred to as late binding. In addition, eleven (out of thirty) of the BigBench queries are TPC-DS queries. These queries are complex SQL applied on the structured part of the data model which again is not typical of Big Data workloads. In this paper1, we present BigBench V2 to address the aforementioned limitations of the original BigBench. BigBench V2 is completely independent of TPC-DS with a new data model and an overhauled workload. The new data model has a simple structured data model. Web-logs are modeled as key-value pairs with a substantial and variable number of keys. BigBench V2 mandates late binding by requiring query processing to be done directly on key-value web-logs rather than a pre-parsed form of it. A new scale factor-based data generator is implemented to produce structured tables, key-value semistructured web-logs, and unstructured data. We implemented and executed BigBench V2 on Hive. Our proof of concept shows the feasibility of BigBench V2 and outlines different ways of implementing late binding.
The dopaminergic hyper‐responsiveness of the shell of the nucleus accumbens is hormone‐dependent

The dopaminergic projection to the shell of the nucleus accumbens is the most reactive to stress, reward and drugs of abuse and this subregion of the nucleus accumbens is also considered a target of therapeutic effects of atypical antipsychotic drugs (APD). In this report we show, by means of in vivo microdialysis and Fos immunohistochemistry, that the hyper‐responsiveness which characterizes the dopaminergic transmission to the shell is dependent on glucocorticoid hormones. In Sprague‐Dawley rats, after suppression of endogenous glucocorticoids by adrenalectomy, extracellular dopamine levels selectively decreased in the shell, whilst they remained unchanged in the core. This effect was observed in basal conditions, after a mild stress (vehicle injection), as well as after subcutaneous administration of morphine (2 mg/kg, s.c.) or intraperitoneal injection of cocaine (15 mg/kg, i.p.). The decrease in dopamine observed in the shell had a postsynaptic impact, as shown by less induction of Fos‐like proteins selectively in the shell in response to cocaine. However, the induction of Fos‐like proteins by the full D1 agonist SKF82958 (1.5 mg/kg, i.p.) remained unchanged after adrenalectomy, suggesting that the changes in Fos expression after cocaine injection were likely to depend on changes in extracellular dopamine levels rather than on changes in postsynaptic sensitivity to dopamine. The effects of adrenalectomy were glucocorticoid‐specific given that they were prevented by corticosterone treatment. This anatomical specificity in the control of neuronal activity by a hormonal input highlights the role of steroid hormones in shaping the functional activity of the brain.
Bis(ethylenediamine-κ2 N,N′)(nitrato-κ2 O,O′)cobalt(III) hydroxide nitrate

The Co ion in the title salt, [Co(NO3)(H2NCH2CH2NH2)2](OH)(NO3), has oxidation state + III and is coordinated by four N atoms from two ethylenediamine molecules and two O atoms from a nitrate anion in a distorted octahedral geometry. The charge of the complex cation is balanced by a hydroxide anion and a nitrate anion. The cations and anions are connected by N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, resulting in a three-dimensional supramolecular framework. There are two independent ion pairs with similar configurations in the unit cell. Both uncoordinated nitrate counter-anions are disordered.
Strong Heterogeneity in Mutation Rate Causes Misleading Hallmarks of Natural Selection on Indel Mutations in the Human Genome

Elucidating the mechanisms of mutation accumulation and fixation is critical to understand the nature of genetic variation and its contribution to genome evolution. Of particular interest is the effect of insertions and deletions (indels) on the evolution of genome landscapes. Recent population-scaled sequencing efforts provide unprecedented data for analyzing the relative impact of selection versus nonadaptive forces operating on indels. Here, we combined McDonald–Kreitman tests with the analysis of derived allele frequency spectra to investigate the dynamics of allele fixation of short (1–50 bp) indels in the human genome. Our analyses revealed apparently higher fixation probabilities for insertions than deletions. However, this fixation bias is not consistent with either selection or biased gene conversion and varies with local mutation rate, being particularly pronounced at indel hotspots. Furthermore, we identified an unprecedented number of loci with evidence for multiple indel events in the primate phylogeny. Even in nonrepetitive sequence contexts (a priori not prone to indel mutations), such loci are 60-fold more frequent than expected according to a model of uniform indel mutation rate. This provides evidence of as yet unidentified cryptic indel hotspots. We propose that indel homoplasy, at known and cryptic hotspots, produces systematic errors in determination of ancestral alleles via parsimony and advise caution interpreting classic selection tests given the strong heterogeneity in indel rates across the genome. These results will have great impact on studies seeking to infer evolutionary forces operating on indels observed in closely related species, because such mutations are traditionally presumed homoplasy-free.
PAriCheck: an efficient pointer arithmetic checker for C programs

Buffer overflows are still a significant problem in programs written in C and C++. In this paper we present a bounds checker, called PAriCheck, that inserts dynamic runtime checks to ensure that attackers are not able to abuse buffer overflow vulnerabilities. The main approach is based on checking pointer arithmetic rather than pointer dereferences when performing bounds checks. The checks are performed by assigning a unique label to each object and ensuring that the label is associated with each memory location that the object inhabits. Whenever pointer arithmetic occurs, the label of the base location is compared to the label of the resulting arithmetic. If the labels differ, an out-of-bounds calculation has occurred. Benchmarks show that PAriCheck has a very low performance overhead compared to similar bounds checkers. This paper demonstrates that using bounds checkers for programs or parts of programs running on high-security production systems is a realistic possibility.
Continuous Runtime Profiling of OpenMP Applications

In this paper we investigate the merits of combining tracing and profiling with the goal of limiting data volume and enabling a manual interpretation, while retaining some temporal information about the program execution characteristics. We discuss the general dimensions of performance data and which new kind of performance displays can be derived by adding a temporal dimension to profiling-type data. Among the most useful new displays are overheads over time which allows the location of when overheads such as synchronization arise in the target application and performance counter heatmaps that show performance counters for each thread over time.
Gd-EOB-DTPA-Enhanced MR Guidance in Thermal Ablation of Liver Malignancies

Objective To evaluate the potency of Gd-EOB-DTPA to support hepatic catheter placement in laser ablation procedures by quantifying time-dependent delineation effects for instrumentation and target tumor within liver parenchyma. Monitoring potential influence on online MR thermometry during the ablation procedure is a secondary aim. Materials and Methods 30 cases of MR-guided laser ablation were performed after i.v. bolus injection of gadoxetic acid (0.025 mmol/Kg Gd-EOB-DTPA; Bayer Healthcare, Berlin, Germany). T1-weighted GRE sequences were used for applicator guidance (FLASH 3D) in the catheter placement phase and for therapy monitoring (FLASH 2D) in the therapy phase. SNR and consecutive CNR values were measured for elements of interest plotted over time both for catheter placement and therapy phase and compared with a non-contrast control group of 19 earlier cases. Statistical analysis was realized using the paired Wilcoxon test. Results Sustainable signal elevation of liver parenchyma in the contrast-enhanced group was sufficient to silhouette both target tumor and applicator against the liver. Differences in time dependent CNR alteration were highly significant between contrast-enhanced and non-contrast interventions for parenchyma and target on the one hand (p = 0.020) and parenchyma and instrument on the other hand (p = 0.002). Effects lasted for the whole procedure (monitoring up to 60 min) and were specific for the contrast-enhanced group. Contrasting maxima were seen after median 30 (applicator) and 38 (tumor) minutes, in the potential core time of a multineedle procedure. Contrast influence on T1 thermometry for real-time monitoring of thermal impact was not significant (p = 0.068–0.715). Conclusion Results strongly support anticipated promotive effects of Gd-EOB-DTPA for MR-guided percutaneous liver interventions by proving and quantifying the delineating effects for therapy-relevant elements in the procedure. Time benefit, cost effectiveness and oncologic outcome of the described beneficiary effects will have to be part of further investigations.
Supernovae : Simulations of the Deflagration Stage and Their Implications

Large-scale three-dimensional numerical simulations of the deflagration stage of a thermonuclear supernova explosion show the formation and evolution of a highly convoluted turbulent flame in a gravitational field of an expanding carbon-oxygen white dwarf. The flame dynamics is dominated by the gravity-induced Rayleigh-Taylor instability that controls the burning rate. The thermonuclear deflagration releases enough energy to produce a healthy explosion. The turbulent flame, however, leaves large amounts of unburnt and partially burnt material near the star center, whereas observations imply these materials only in outer layers. This disagreement could be resolved if the deflagration triggers a detonation.
Depletion of Brain Docosahexaenoic Acid Impairs Recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury

Omega-3 fatty acids are crucial for proper development and function of the brain where docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the primary omega-3 fatty acid in the brain, is retained avidly by the neuronal membranes. We investigated the effect of DHA depletion in the brain on the outcome of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Pregnant mice were put on an omega-3 fatty acid adequate or deficient diet from gestation day 14 and the pups were raised on the respective diets. Continuation of this dietary regime for three generations resulted in approximately 70% loss of DHA in the brain. Controlled cortical impact was delivered to both groups of mice to produce severe TBI and the functional recovery was compared. Compared to the omega-3 adequate mice, the DHA depleted mice exhibited significantly slower recovery from motor deficits evaluated by the rotarod and the beam walk tests. Furthermore, the DHA deficient mice showed greater anxiety-like behavior tested in the open field test as well as cognitive deficits evaluated by the novel object recognition test. The level of alpha spectrin II breakdown products, the markers of TBI, was significantly elevated in the deficient mouse cortices, indicating that the injury is greater in the deficient brains. This observation was further supported by the reduction of NeuN positive cells around the site of injury in the deficient mice, indicating exacerbated neuronal death after injury. These results suggest an important influence of the brain DHA status on TBI outcome.
Developmental programming: State‐of‐the‐science and future directions–Summary from a Pennington Biomedical symposium

On December 8–9, 2014, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center convened a scientific symposium to review the state‐of‐the‐science and future directions for the study of developmental programming of obesity and chronic disease. The objectives of the symposium were to discuss: (i) past and current scientific advances in animal models, population‐based cohort studies, and human clinical trials, (ii) the state‐of‐the‐science of epigenetic‐based research, and (iii) considerations for future studies.
Contrasts between classes of assets in fixed investment panel equations as a way of testing real option theory

This paper reports estimation of investment equations for two classes of fixed assets: plant & machinery and building for a large sample of UK manufacturing industries. It exploits the different degree of irreversibility that characterises these assets to test the power of real options theory to explain investment under uncertainty. Additionally, the paper uses a specially constructed industry-specific measure of irreversibility for plant and machinery investment to test for real options effects within that class of investment.
An Online Estimation of Rotational Velocity of Flying Ball via Aerodynamics

Abstract We propose a novel estimation method of the rotational velocity of a flying ball as well as its position and translational velocity via aerodynamics model by measuring the ball trajectory using the middle speed cameras for table tennis system. The aerodynamics model is complex nonlinear and the measured data of the ball trajectory has quantization errors because the size of the ball is very small in the field of view of the middle speed cameras. Then, we consider the estimation by minimizing the difference between the trajectories which are measured by the cameras and numerically solved by integrating the aerodynamics model respectively. Since the difference is not analytical function, the minimization is solved by the downhill simplex method, where some modification is introduced for improving the converge speed. The effectiveness of the method is verified by numerical simulations.
Children's web search with Google: the effectiveness of natural language queries

In this paper, we present work in progress on how elementary school children use modern search engines to solve informational search tasks. Specifically, in a laboratory study with 21 children aged 8-10 we investigated whether the use of natural-language queries leads to more successful search outcomes than keyword queries when searching the Internet with Google. Both quantitative and qualitative data are reported that indicate the advantages of natural-language queries. Along, based on our observations we present a query-reformulation tool for a search engine interface for children that we are currently developing.