Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual worlds for Web site visualisation

Internet and intranet Web sites have become an integral part of software development as well as the wider fields of commercial, educational and recreational activity. In order to improve our understanding of Web based software engineering we must first understand how Web sites are used. Information about the structure and usage of sites is valuable to administrators, maintainers, content developers and users. The volume and complexity of the data generated by typical tools is a major limitation. We describe the use of virtual worlds, including a novel extension of the perspective wall, for visualising Web site activity. Examples from our university environment are presented and discussed.
Human-guided robot 3D mapping using virtual reality technology

Map building is a fundamental task in many robotic applications. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for 3D mapping of indoor environments which allows a robot avatar to collaborate with a human seamlessly through a virtual reality (VR) device. The 3D map is created using the 3D data from an RGB-D camera mounted on the robot and simultaneously transmitted to a remote server, and then rendered to the VR device. On the other hand, the intentions of the user are inferred using the motion of the head movement based on hidden Markov models (HMMs), and then interpreted into commands to control the robot. We implement the proposed approach based on a modified Pioneer robot platform. The experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed system.
Annals of General Psychiatry Prevalence and Demographics of Anxiety Disorders: a Snapshot from a Community Health Centre in Pakistan

Background: The developing world is faced with a high burden of anxiety disorders. The exact prevalence of anxiety disorders in Pakistan is not known. There is a need to develop an evidence base to aid policy development on tackling anxiety and depressive disorders in the country. This is the first pilot study to address the prevalence of anxiety disorders and their association with sociodemographic factors in Pakistan.
On the Algebraic Characterization of Nondeterministic Quantum Query Complexity

We improve a result on nondeterministic quantum query complexity given by Ronald de Wolf in his 2003 paper by showing that his algebraic characterization holds when the definition of a nondeterministic polynomial is taken to be a polynomial over the real numbers. In addition, we give an alternate proof of the original lower bound that doesn’t use the probabilistic method. Our proof uses elementary concepts from linear algebra.
In Vitro Glucuronidation of the Antibacterial Triclocarban and Its Oxidative Metabolites

Triclocarban (3,4,4′-trichlorocarbanilide; TCC) is widely used as an antibacterial in bar soaps. During use of these soaps, a significant portion of TCC is absorbed by humans. For the elimination from the body, glucuronidation plays a key role in both biliary and renal clearance. To investigate this metabolic pathway, we performed microsomal incubations of TCC and its hydroxylated metabolites 2′-OH-TCC, 3′-OH-TCC, and 6-OH-TCC. Using a new liquid chromatography-UV-mass spectrometry method, we could show a rapid glucuronidation for all OH-TCCs by the uridine-5′-diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferases (UGT) present in liver microsomes of humans (HLM), cynomolgus monkeys (CLM), rats (RLM), and mice (MLM). Among the tested human UGT isoforms, UGT1A7, UGT1A8, and UGT1A9 showed the highest activity for the conjugation of hydroxylated TCC metabolites followed by UGT1A1, UGT1A3, and UGT1A10. Due to this broad pattern of active UGTs, OH-TCCs can be efficiently glucuronidated in various tissues, as shown for microsomes from human kidney (HKM) and intestine (HIM). The major renal metabolites in humans, TCC-N-glucuronide and TCC-N′-glucuronide, were formed at very low conversion rates (<1%) by microsomal incubations. Low amounts of N-glucuronides were generated by HLM, HIM, and HKM, as well as by MLM and CLM, but not by RLM, according to the observed species specificity of this metabolic pathway. Among the human UGT isoforms, only UGT1A9 had activity for the N-glucuronidation of TCC. These results present an anomaly where in vivo the predominant urinary metabolites of TCC are N and N′-glucuronides, but these compounds are slowly produced in vitro.
Precise Vehicle Localization Using Multiple Sensors and Natural Landmarks

Localization of automobiles in road environments is an important task in the field of developing driver assistance systems, focussing on the improvement of safety and comfort. It is not only essential for navigation systems but offers the possibility to create reliable and precise warning systems and vehicle control functions. Besides the internal odometric sensors, especially the GPS and DGPS are standard sensors for localization. But the DGPS is not sufficient for localization in adverse – especially urban – areas, because the satellite information is often not available. This is the reason why a system for an urban environment is presented that uses additionally absolute position measurements based on natural landmarks. A Kalman filter fuses the standard odometric measurements and DGPS with measurements of landmarks in the form of a point or a line, which are detected in video images and laser scanner measurements. So the system reaches high precision for vehicle localization.
Modified electrode shape for the improved determination of piezoelectric material parameters

Piezoceramic materials are widely used in ultrasonic devices. To reduce the development time of piezoelectric sensors or actuators numerical methods like the finite element method (FEM) are often applied (e.g. Lahmer et al. (2008)). Therefore a precise knowledge of the piezoelectric material parameters is required to obtain a realistic simulative representation of the real piezoelectric material behavior. There are several inverse identification methods using a comparison between simulated and measured electrical impedance characteristics in order to determine and to optimize the piezoelectric material parameter set (e.g. Kybartas (2002), Rupitsch (2009)). It was shown that the electrical impedance curve is influenced differently by all these material parameters. For example the electrical impedance is less sensitive to some of the material parameters (e.g. c44E) if the used specimen has symmetrical properties or dimensions (e.g. Rautenberg et al. (2011)). Hence the goal of this work is the modification of the electrode shape in order to increase the influence of all material parameters on the electrical impedance characteristic to get more accurate values for these less sensitive and therefore critical material parameters. To achieve this goal a variable FEM-model for the piezoceramic disc is used. The influence of the electrode shape on the sensitivity of material parameters on the electrical impedance curve is investigated. An adapted electrode shape is determined to increase the sensitivity of the electrical impedance curve particularly concerning the selected critical material parameters.
Ray-tracing through the Millennium Simulation: Born corrections and lens-lens coupling in cosmic shear and galaxy-galaxy lensing

Context. Weak-lensing surveys need accurate theoretical predictions for interpretation of their results and cosmologicalparameter estimation. Aims. We study the accuracy of various approximations to cosmic shear and weak galaxy-galaxy lensing and investigate eects of Born corrections and lens-lens coupling. Methods. We use ray-tracing through the Millennium Simulation, a large N-body simulation of cosmic structure formation, to calculate various cosmic-shear and galaxy-galaxy-lensing statistics. We compare the results from ray-tracing to semi-analytic predictions. Results. (i) We conrm
Irbesartan but Not Amlodipine Suppresses Diabetes-Associated Atherosclerosis

Background—It remains controversial whether specific blockade of the renin-angiotensin system confers superior antiatherosclerotic effects over other antihypertensive agents in diabetes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare equihypotensive doses of the angiotensin II subtype 1 (AT1) receptor blocker irbesartan with the calcium antagonist amlodipine on diabetes-induced plaque formation in the apolipoprotein E (apoE)–null mouse and to explore molecular and cellular mechanisms linked to vascular protection. Methods and Results—Diabetes was induced by injection of streptozotocin in 6-week-old apoE-null mice. Diabetic animals were randomized to no treatment, irbesartan, or amlodipine for 20 weeks. Diabetes was associated with an increase in plaque area and complexity in the aorta in association with a significant increase in aortic AT1 receptor expression, cellular proliferation, collagen content, macrophage- and &agr;-smooth muscle actin–positive cell infiltration, as well as an increased expression of platelet-derived growth factor-B (PDGF-B), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1). Irbesartan but not amlodipine treatment attenuated the development of atherosclerosis, collagen content, cellular proliferation, and macrophage infiltration as well as diabetes-induced AT1 receptor, PDGF-B, MCP-1, and VCAM-1 overexpression in the aorta despite similar blood pressure reductions by both treatments. Conclusions—Diabetes-associated atherosclerosis is ameliorated by AT1 receptor blockade but not by calcium channel antagonism, providing further evidence for the vascular renin-angiotensin system playing a pivotal role in the development and acceleration of atherosclerosis in diabetes.
PATTER % BASED SUBSPACE CLUSTERI % G : A REVIEW

The task of biclustering or subspace clustering is a data mining technique that allows simultaneous clustering of rows and columns of a matrix. Though the definition of similarity varies from one biclustering model to another, in most of these models the concept of similarity is often based on such metrics as Manhattan distance, Euclidean distance or other L p distances. In other words, similar objects must have close values in at least a set of dimensions. Pattern-based clustering is important in many applications, such as DA micro-array data analysis, automatic recommendation systems and target marketing systems. However, pattern-based clustering in large databases is challenging. On the one hand, there can be a huge number of clusters and many of them can be redundant and thus makes the pattern-based clustering ineffective. On the other hand, the previous proposed methods may not be efficient or scalable in mining large databases. The objective of this paper is to perform a comparative study of all subspace clustering algorithms in terms of efficiency, accuracy and time complexity.
HARDNESS AND FRACTURE TOUGHNESS OF A CEMENTED CARBIDE

In this paper the hardness and fracture toughness values for nanostructured cemented carbides were tested and analyzed. The experimental part included the testing of three samples: WC with 5% cobalt (WC-5Co), WC with 10% cobalt (WC-10Co) and WC with 15% cobalt (WC-15Co). Hardness was tested by Vickers method (HV30) according to HR EN ISO 6507-1: 2005, and fracture toughness was determined by the Palmqvist method according to ISO 28079: 2009. Palmqvist's method uses the length of cracks that propagate from the tip of the Vickers pyramid imprint to determine fracture toughness. The results show that by increasing the amount of cobalt in cemented carbides hardness values drop, and the fracture toughness increases. They also indicate that using nanostructured cemented carbides increases hardness with a slight change in toughness.
Atlantic Subsurface Temperatures: Response to a Shutdown of the Overturning Circulation and Consequences for Its Recovery

Abstract Using the coupled climate model of intermediate complexity, CLIMBER-3α, changes in the vertical thermal structure associated with a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) are investigated. When North Atlantic Deep Water formation is inhibited by anomalous freshwater forcing, intermediate depth ventilation can remain active and cool the subsurface water masses (i.e., the “cold case”). However, if intermediate ventilation is completely suppressed, relatively warm water coming from the south penetrates to a high northern latitude beneath the halocline and induces a strong vertical temperature inversion between the surface and intermediate depth (i.e., the “warm case”). Both types of temperature anomalies emerge within the first decade after the beginning of the freshwater perturbation. The sign of subsurface temperature anomaly has a strong implication for the recovery of the AMOC once the anomalous freshwater forcing is removed. While the AMOC recovers from the cold case.
A model of virtual competition between remote agents

When multi-agent research is used in electronic commerce, most of time, the study relates to the negotiation. The general idea is to send agents negotiating in place of human negotiator, after preliminary allotted the appropriate behavior. The behavior depends on the type of transaction. The negotiation is however only one angle of vision. We should not either be unaware of the trade under its competing aspect; i.e. the purchasers are virtuall y in competition to obtain common resources. The term virtual is justified by the fact that agents which are in competition do not have any direct link between them. In this paper, we would like to contribute our share on this second aspect, which is the competition. The case study is typically the electronic commerce in its aspect of remote competition between several purchasers. We then propose an agent approach for analyzing this kind of situation. Our objective is to build software agents which can manage competition in a distributed environment.
The Role of Self-compassion in Women's Self-determined Motives to Exercise and Exercise-related Outcomes

Self-compassion is emerging in the literature as a healthy conceptualization of the self (Neff, 2003a). This study explored how self-compassion is related to, and explains unique variance beyond self-esteem on, women's motives to exercise and exercise-related outcomes. Participants were 252 women exercisers. Self-compassion was positively related to intrinsic motivation and negatively related to external and introjected motivation, ego goal orientation, social physique anxiety, and obligatory exercise behavior. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that self-compassion contributed unique variance beyond self-esteem on introjected motivation, ego goal orientation, social physique anxiety, and obligatory exercise. This study provides evidence that self-compassion is related to well-being in the exercise context, raising the possibility that the development of self-compassion may be important for women who exercise.
A New Clipping Approach for Robust ACF Estimation

The importance of working with sufficiently robust methods has been rising in recent years. This growth is related to the extensive usage of highly frequent data, which we currently encounter in many fields including finance. Since with an increasing number of observations, the probability of outlier presence also rises. Moreover, as it is known, standard methods are not able to work correctly with outliers and, consequently, standard estimates are often biased. We focus on estimators of autocorrelation function for univariate time series, for which we propose a method based on clipping an original time series and working with a binary time series instead. The clipping helps to deal with outliers and the estimation is not affected as much as with standard methods. We also derive an asymptotical distribution of the estimator, what gives our method a major advantage in comparison with other robust methods, which are often presented without this. Furthermore, knowing the distribution of the estimator allows us to perform statistical inference.
About Forensic Bayesian Networks Using Argumentation

Bayesian networks (BNs) are powerful tools that are increasingly being used by forensic and legal experts to reason about the uncertain conclusions that can be inferred from the evidence in a case. Although in BN construction it is good practice to document the model itself, the importance of documenting design decisions has received little attention. Such decisions, including the (possibly conflicting) reasons behind them, are important for legal experts to understand and accept probabilistic models of cases. Moreover, when disagreements arise between domain experts involved in the construction of BNs, there are no systematic means to resolve such disagreements. Therefore, we propose an approach that allows domain experts to explicitly express and capture their reasons pro and con modelling decisions using argumentation, and that resolves their disagreements as much as possible. Our approach is based on a case study, in which the argumentation structure of an actual disagreement between two forensic BN experts is analysed.
Adaptive Multi-Agent Architecture to Track Students' Self-Regulated Learning

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) can be designed to improve learning and performance through Pedagogical Agents (PAs) that are designed to foster self-regulated learning through interactions and exchange of information with human learners. PAs are intelligent and follow rational behaviors, but to adaptively track students’ progress, they need to be systematically and specifically designed. However, in order to follow a common goal, different self-regulatory systems have been designed that use PAs, but fail to provide an adaptive multi-agent architecture which provides such feature that agents adaptively track students’ scaffolding. In this paper, we introduce a multi-agent framework designed for an agent-based ITS. We also define the agent architecture, multi-agent framework and communication mechanism. Keyword. Pedagogical Agents, Self-Regulated Learning, Multi-Agent Systems, Agent Communication Mechanism.
Publishing Graph Degree Distribution with Node Differential Privacy

Graph data publishing under node-differential privacy (node-DP) is challenging due to the huge sensitivity of queries. However, since a node in graph data oftentimes represents a person, node-DP is necessary to achieve personal data protection. In this paper, we investigate the problem of publishing the degree distribution of a graph under node-DP by exploring the projection approach to reduce the sensitivity. We propose two approaches based on aggregation and cumulative histogram to publish the degree distribution. The experiments demonstrate that our approaches greatly reduce the error of approximating the true degree distribution and have significant improvement over existing works. We also present the introspective analysis for understanding the factors of publishing the degree distribution with node-DP.
RG7212 Anti-TWEAK mAb Inhibits Tumor Growth through Inhibition of Tumor Cell Proliferation and Survival Signaling and by Enhancing the Host Antitumor Immune Response

Purpose: To explore the role of TWEAK in tumor growth and antitumor immune response and the activity and mechanism of RG7212, an antagonistic anti-TWEAK antibody, in tumor models. Experimental Design: TWEAK-induced signaling and gene expression were explored in tumor cell lines and inhibition of these effects and antitumor efficacy with RG7212 treatment was assessed in human tumor xenograft-, patient-derived xenograft, and syngeneic tumor models and phase I patients. Genetic features correlated with antitumor activity were characterized. Results: In tumor cell lines, TWEAK induces proliferation, survival, and NF-κB signaling and gene expression that promote tumor growth and suppress antitumor immune responses. TWEAK-inducible CD274, CCL2, CXCL-10 and -11 modulate T-cell and monocyte recruitment, T-cell activation, and macrophage differentiation. These factors and TWEAK-induced signaling were decreased, and tumor, blood, and spleen immune cell composition was altered with RG7212 treatment in mice. RG7212 inhibits tumor growth in vivo in models with TWEAK receptor, Fn14, expression, and markers of pathway activation. In phase I testing, signs of tumor shrinkage and stable disease were observed without dose-limiting toxicity. In a patient with advanced, Fn14-positive, malignant melanoma with evidence of tumor regression, proliferation markers were dramatically reduced, tumor T-cell infiltration increased, and tumor macrophage content decreased. Antitumor activity, a lack of toxicity in humans and animals and no evidence of antagonism with standard of care or targeted agents in mice, suggests that RG7212 is a promising agent for use in combination therapies in patients with Fn14-positive tumors. Clin Cancer Res; 19(20); 5686–98. ©2013 AACR.
An Overview of Syntactic and Semantic Issues in Software Product Lines

Feature models are at the core of Software Product Lines (SPL). Along the years different feature modeling languages have been proposed. Although they share a set of core concepts, feature languages present differences such as specification meta language, visual and textual emphasis and language constructs, among others. The result of this situation is a contemporary set of dialects with dissimilarities. This paper presents a metamodel and a semantic framework to categorize syntactic variations and semantic anomalies in SPL.
Improved Knowledge of SAR Geometry through Atmospheric Modelling

Satellites observing and measuring the Earth’s surface with electromagnetic waves are subject to atmospheric path delays. These atmospheric effects on radar signal propagation modify the signal velocity and direction and can be considered by simple modeling. In order to increase the geolocation accuracy of spaceborne SAR applications we developed a software tool that accounts for atmospheric path delays. Well-calibrated spaceborne ENVISAT-ASAR data are used to investigate improvements to knowledge of the geometry of the scene.
N = 8 matter coupled AdS 3 supergravities

Following the recent construction of maximal ( N = 16) gauged supergravity in three dimensions, we derive gauged D = 3, N = 8 supergravities in three dimensions as deformations of the corresponding ungauged theories with scalar manifolds SO(8, n)/(SO(8) × SO(n)). As a special case, we recover the N = (4,4) theories with localSO(4) = SO(3)L × SO(3)R , which reproduce the symmetries and massless spectrum of D = 6,N = (2,0) supergravity compactified on AdS 3 ×S3.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Factors Affecting the Adoption of EHRs by Primary Healthcare Physicians in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Integrated Theoretical Framework

Implementing Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in primary healthcare has the potential to improve the population health, and to enhance the overall healthcare system of the country. Current policy initiatives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are attempting major reforms in primary care with EHRs as a key component. Understanding human factors involved in the implementation process of technology is crucial for its successful implementation. The aim of this paper is to support current policy initiatives by investigating and identifying factors that are likely to affect primary care physicians’ acceptance of EHRs. Factors were identified based on extensive literature reviews and empirical findings. Three main stages of literature review were conducted: (1) factors influencing user adoption of IT, (2) factors affecting physician adoption of EHR, and (3) findings of relevant studies pertaining EHR adoption by physicians in the KSA. As a result, we developed an integrated framework of eight factors that were proven to have a significant direct influence on physicians’ acceptance of EHRs: attitude, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social influence, computer self-efficacy, perceived threat to physician autonomy, confidentiality concerns, and physician participation. The proposed framework will be of great potential to policy makers to make the transition to EHRs run smoothly.