Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stray light control for asteroid detection at low solar elongation for the NEOSSat micro-satellite telescope

The Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) is a small satellite dedicated to finding near Earth asteroids. Its surveying strategy consists of imaging areas of the sky to low solar elongation, while in a sun synchronous polar orbit (dawn-dusk). A high performance baffle will control stray light mainly due to Earth shine. Observation scenarios require solar shielding down to 45 degree solar elongation over a wide range of ecliptic latitudes. In order to detect the faintest objects (approx 20th v mag) given a 15 cm telescope and CCD detection system, background from stray light is a critical operational concern. The required attenuation is in the order of 10-12. The requirement was verified by analyses; testing was not attempted because the level of attenuation is difficult to measure reliably. We report consistent results of stray light optical modelling from two independent analyses. Launch is expected for late 2012.
The Adenylate Cyclase Toxin of Bordetella pertussis Binds to Target Cells via the αMβ2 Integrin (Cd11b/Cd18)

The adenylate cyclase toxin (CyaA) of Bordetella pertussis is a major virulence factor required for the early phases of lung colonization. It can invade eukaryotic cells where, upon activation by endogenous calmodulin, it catalyzes the formation of unregulated cAMP levels. CyaA intoxication leads to evident toxic effects on macrophages and neutrophils. Here, we demonstrate that CyaA uses the αMβ2 integrin (CD11b/CD18) as a cell receptor. Indeed, the saturable binding of CyaA to the surface of various hematopoietic cell lines correlated with the presence of the αMβ2 integrin on these cells. Moreover, binding of CyaA to various murine cell lines and human neutrophils was specifically blocked by anti-CD11b monoclonal antibodies. The increase of intracellular cAMP level and cell death triggered by CyaA intoxication was also specifically blocked by anti-CD11b monoclonal antibodies. In addition, CyaA bound efficiently and triggered intracellular cAMP increase and cell death in Chinese hamster ovary cells transfected with αMβ2 (CD11b/CD18) but not in cells transfected with the vector alone or with the αXβ2 (CD11c/CD18) integrin. Thus, the cellular distribution of CD11b, mostly on neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic and natural killer cells, supports a role for CyaA in disrupting the early, innate antibacterial immune response.
Vanishing Point estimation from monocular images

Depth estimation from monocular images can be retrieved from the perspective distortion. One major effect of this distortion is that a set of parallel lines in the real world converges into a single point in the image plane. The estimation of the coordinates of the vanishing point (VP) can be retrieved directly by different ways, like Hough Transform and First derivative approaches. Many of them work on specific real scene characteristics and often lead to spurious vanishing points. Technology and computational advances suggest that some refinements to these simple techniques or a combination of them could lead to more confident vanishing point detection than modelling and developing a new complicated ones. In this paper we study the behaviour of two classical approaches, introduce them some improvements and propose a new combinational technique to estimate the location of the vanishing point in an image. The solutions will be described and compared, also through the discussion of the results obtained from their application to real images.
HHU at SemEval-2017 Task 5: Fine-Grained Sentiment Analysis on Financial Data using Machine Learning Methods

In this Paper a system for solving SemEval-2017 Task 5 is presented. This task is divided into two tracks where the sentiment of microblog messages and news headlines has to be predicted. Since two submissions were allowed, two different machine learning methods were developed to solve this task, a support vector machine approach and a recurrent neural network approach. To feed in data for these approaches, different feature extraction methods are used, mainly word representations and lexica. The best submissions for both tracks are provided by the recurrent neural network which achieves a F1-score of 0.729 in track 1 and 0.702 in track 2.
An Open Conformation of Switch I Revealed by the Crystal Structure of a Mg2+-free Form of RHOA Complexed with GDP

Mg2+ ions are essential for guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) activity and play key roles in guanine nucleotide binding and preserving the structural integrity of GTP-binding proteins. We determined the crystal structure of a small GTPase RHOA complexed with GDP in the absence of Mg2+ at 2.0-Å resolution. Elimination of a Mg2+ ion induces significant conformational changes in the switch I region that opens up the nucleotide-binding site. Similar structural changes have been observed in the switch regions of Ha-Ras bound to its guanine nucleotide exchange factor, Sos. This RHOA-GDP structure reveals an important regulatory role for Mg2+ and suggests that guanine nucleotide exchange factor may utilize this feature of switch I to produce an open conformation in GDP/GTP exchange.
UN MODELO MOTIVACIONAL EXPLICATIVO DEL BIENESTAR PSICOLÓGICO

The aim of this study was to test a theoretical model based on the self-determination theory, which explains the psychological well-being in college students. The model hypothesized the influence of family self-concept, social self- concept and intrinsic motivation on psychological well-being. The participants were 234 students of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Results from structural equation modeling supported the model. The social self-concept best explained the psychological well-being of the college students.
Estimation of Simultaneously Sparse and Low Rank Matrices

The paper introduces a penalized matrix estimation procedure aiming at solutions which are sparse and low-rank at the same time. Such structures arise in the context of social networks or protein interactions where underlying graphs have adjacency matrices which are block-diagonal in the appropriate basis. We introduce a convex mixed penalty which involves l1-norm and trace norm simultaneously. We obtain an oracle inequality which indicates how the two effects interact according to the nature of the target matrix. We bound generalization error in the link prediction problem. We also develop proximal descent strategies to solve the optimization problem efficiently and evaluate performance on synthetic and real data sets.
Informed Recommender Agent: Utilizing Consumer Product Reviews through Text Mining

Consumer reviews, opinions and shared experiences in the use of a product form a powerful source of information about consumer preferences that can be used for making recommendations. A novel framework, which utilizes this valuable information sources first time to create recommendations in recommender agents was recently developed by the authors. In this recommender agent, the most critical issue is how to convert the review comments into ontology instances that can be understood and utilized by computers. This problem was not addressed in our previous work. This paper presents an automatic mapping process using text mining techniques. The ontology contains a controlled vocabulary and their relationships. The attributes of the ontology are learnt from the semantic features in the review comments using supervised learning techniques. The proposed approach is demonstrated using a case study of digital camera reviews
Autocrine control of human meningioma proliferation: Secretion of platelet‐derived growth‐factor‐like molecules

We have used cell‐culture techniques to investigate growth‐ factor production by human meningioma cells. Meningioma tissue was dispersed with collagenase and the cells grown to high density in tissue‐culture flasks. The cultures were used to generate conditioned medium (MEN‐CM), which was used to cultivate IMR32 cells (a human neuroblastoma line) and freshly dispersed primary meningioma cells. MEN‐CM profoundly stimulated the in vitro growth of both IMR32 and meningioma cells. In addition, H3‐thymidine uptake by cultured meningioma cells was increased in a dose‐dependent manner by varying concentrations of MEN‐CM. A neutralizing anti‐body against platelet‐derived growth factor (PDGF) completely abolished the stimulatory effects of MEN‐CM, whereas an antibody against TGF‐α was without effect. The mitogenic activity of MEN‐CM, as assayed by promotion of H3‐thymidine uptake by cultured meningioma cells, eluted from a Sephadex G‐100 column in 3 peaks corresponding to molecular weights of ≥ 150, 56 and 28 kDa. Our results show that proliferation of human meningiomas may be under autocrine control via secretion of PDGF‐like molecules.
Efficient Attribute-Based Encryption Schemes for Secure Communications in Cyber Defense

AbstractHow to securely transmit data over the cyber is an important problem in cyber defense. In this paper, we propose a ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) scheme, in which the messages are encrypted together with access policy, while secret keys are associated with specified sets of attributes, and the secret keys can correctly decrypt the ciphertexts only when the attributes satisfy the associated access policy. Our proposed CP-ABE scheme is provably secure in the full model without random oracles, and has a tight security reduction. We stress that a tight security reduction implies a higher security or the requirement of smaller keys and ciphertext sizes to obtain the same security level, and thus make the scheme more efficient. Thus our scheme can be efficiently used to encrypt the transmitted data over cyber in a fine-grained manner.
Obvious Decisions

This paper investigates the decision-making procedures in a technical assembly, the assemblée des Ponts et Chaussées, at the turn of the 19th century. The assemblée was the central institution of a French public-works administration, in which projects were discussed and adopted. The paper describes the transformations of this institution, its routine functioning, and focuses especially on a very controversial case during the Consulate, the Saint-Quentin canal, where conflicting opinions about the use of the vote emerged. The paper studies the engineers' preference for a consensus procedure and their mistrust for the vote. It analyses the epistemological justifications of such a consensus, especially the references to different forms of `obviousness', and its practical social forms, especially the importance (and ambiguous meaning) of silence.
Density‐based clustering

Clustering refers to the task of identifying groups or clusters in a data set. In density‐based clustering, a cluster is a set of data objects spread in the data space over a contiguous region of high density of objects. Density‐based clusters are separated from each other by contiguous regions of low density of objects. Data objects located in low‐density regions are typically considered noise or outliers. In this review article we discuss the statistical notion of density‐based clusters, classic algorithms for deriving a flat partitioning of density‐based clusters, methods for hierarchical density‐based clustering, and methods for semi‐supervised clustering. We conclude with some open challenges related to density‐based clustering.
Ion activities and potassium uptake mechanisms of glial cells in guinea‐pig olfactory cortex slices.

1. Double‐barrelled ion‐sensitive micro‐electrodes were used to measure changes in the intracellular activities of K+, Na+ and Cl‐ (aiK, aiNa, aiCl) in glial cells of slices from guinea‐pig olfactory cortex during repetitive stimulation of the lateral olfactory tract. 2. Base‐line levels of aiK, aiNa and aiCl were about 66, 25 and 6 mM, respectively, for cells with resting potentials higher than ‐80 mV. During stimulation, intraglial aiK and aiCl increased, whereas aiNa decreased. Within about 2 min after stimulation the ion activities returned to their base‐line levels. 3. The Cl‐ equilibrium potential was found to be close to the membrane potential (Em). There was also a strong correlation between changes of Em and aiCl. These observations indicate a high Cl‐ conductance of the glial cell membrane. 4. In the presence of Ba2+, the usual depolarizing response of the glial cells to a rise of the extracellular K+ activity (aeK) reversed into a membrane hyperpolarization. Furthermore, Ba2+ strongly reduced the stimulus‐related rise of intraglial aiK. An additional application of ouabain blocked both the membrane hyperpolarization as well as the remaining rise of aiK. 5. In conclusion, our data show that glial cells in guinea‐pig olfactory cortex slices possess at least two mechanisms of K+ accumulation. One mechanism is sensitive to the K+ channel blocker Ba2+ and might be a passive KCl influx. The other appears to be the electrogenic Na+/K+ pump, which can be activated by excess extracellular K+.
Auditory Display Design PhD Position Statement

The need for alternative interaction modalities emerges from the change in requirements of users and technology alike. Pervasive and ubiquitous computing as well as the mobility of users demands methods that exploit all channels of interaction. The efficient use of audio in human-technology interaction can benefit usability and accessibility, but the lack of design guidelines most often leads to ad-hoc solutions and inappropriate use of audio. My work aims at developing a framework that allows for capturing valid design knowledge and making it available to user interface designers to create better auditory displays more effectively. The proposed approach is based on design patterns to share, re-use and transfer auditory design knowledge among designers. A method is developed to create valid patterns from common practice, individual experience and related disciplines like graphical design. To avoid auditory design being over-influenced by predominating visual concepts, our implementation of pattern design uses abstract and mode independent descriptions of user interfaces as the starting point. Guidance for the creation of concrete artefacts is subsequently derived from this description and tailored specifically to the auditory domain. My work addresses the need for guidance in the process of auditory display design and intends to bridge the gap between the existing design knowledge in the field and its application. It aims at contributing methods for the community to effectively create useful and useable design knowledge and make it available and easily accessible. This document describes the motivation behind Auditory Display Design and what specific aims and objectives are pursued. It describes the chosen methodology and provides a review of relevant research. Finally, the timeframe of this work is given and a report on the status and other work I was involved in during the course of my thesis.
Design and Implementation of the 3D Virtual Learning Environment

This article presents three educational applications developed in these worlds. The first, for virtual museum of history and culture, shows a set of virtual worlds designed in VRML where the student interacts with different objects. When an object is selected, its name can be show and the student can listen to its history. In the following application, a virtual classroom,the created world can be shared simultaneously by several users. Finally, the latest advances in the creation of virtual environments have been applied in the third application using a game server. This has made possible the design of a more realistic world where the student can interact with other users and share his experiences.
Real-time modeling of dynamic environments in traffic scenarios using a stereo-vision system

Real-time modeling of dynamic environments is one of the most demanding research problems in the field of driving assistance systems. The representation module may be affected by several factors such as occlusions, unpredictable nature of the traffic participants, wrong associations or noisy measurements. In this paper we propose two different methods for real-time modeling of dynamic environments. Both motion estimation techniques are vision-based and rely on information provided by a Digital Elevation Map. The first approach consists in determining the differences between the previous and current frames. These differences are then used for computing the speeds of the traffic participants. The second motion estimation technique consists in using a fast pairwise alignment of object delimiters that are extracted by radial scanning of the Elevation Map. The final result is a more compact polygonal map with associated static and dynamic features.
Prevention of myocardial fibrosis by N-acetyl-seryl-aspartyl-lysyl-proline in diabetic rats.

Ac-SDKP (N-acetyl-seryl-aspartyl-lysyl-proline) is a physiological tetrapeptide hydrolysed by ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme). In experimental models of hypertension, Ac-SDKP has antifibrotic effects in the heart; however, the role of Ac-SDKP in diabetic cardiomyopathy is currently unknown. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of Ac-SDKP on cardiac systolic and diastolic function, and interstitial and perivascular fibrosis in the heart of diabetic rats.Diabetes was induced in 55 Sprague-Dawley rats by streptozotocin injection. Control rats (n=18)underwent only buffer injection.Out of the 55 diabetic rats, 19 were chronically treated with insulin and 13 with the ACEI (ACE inhibitor) ramipril (3 mg x kg(-1 )of body weight x day(-1)). At 2 months after the onset of diabetes, Ac-SDKP (1 mg x kg(-1) of body weight x day(-1)) was administered by osmotic minipumps for 8 weeks to eight control rats, 13 diabetic rats, seven diabetic rats treated with ramipril and nine insulin-treated diabetic rats. Diabetic rats had a significant increase in blood glucose levels. Left ventricular interstitial and perivascular fibrosis, and TGF-beta1 (transforming growth factor-beta1) protein levels were increased in diabetic rats, but not in insulin-treated diabetic rats and ramipril-treated diabetic rats, compared with control rats. Ac-SDKP administration significantly reduced left ventricular interstitial and perivascular fibrosis in diabetic rats and in diabetic rats treated with ramipril. This was accompanied by a significant reduction in active TGF-beta1 and phospho-Smad2/3 protein levels in myocardial tissue of diabetic rats. Echocardiography showed that diabetes was associated with increased end-systolic diameters, and depressed global systolic function and diastolic dysfunction, as assessed by transmitral Doppler velocity profile. These changes were completely reversed by insulin or ramipril treatment. Ac-SDKP treatment partially restored diastolic function in diabetic rats. In conclusion, Ac-SDKP administration in diabetic rats reduces left ventricular interstitial and perivascular fibrosis, active TGF-beta1 and phospho-Smad2/3levels, and improves diastolic function. Taken together, these findings suggest that, by inhibiting theTGF-beta/Smad pathway, Ac-SDKP protects against the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy
A quasi-delay-insensitive method to overcome transistor variation

Synchronous design methods have intrinsic performance overheads due to their use of the global clock and timing assumptions. In future manufacturing processes not only may it become impractical to distribute the clock globally but any timing assumptions will require increasingly large timing margins. This paper presents a method of overcoming these overheads to take full advantage of the improved manufacturing processes. By removing the clock and using self-timed techniques clock related constraints can be discarded. Removing its timing assumptions allows a circuit to perform at a higher speed. An asynchronous logic method allowing the generation of results before the presentation of all input and techniques to allow speculatively fetched data to be removed with a reduced impact on the performance are presented.
Nonbone Marrow-Derived Circulating Progenitor Cells Contribute to Postnatal Neovascularization Following Tissue Ischemia

Circulating progenitor cells home to sites of postnatal neovascularization and differentiate into endothelial cells but questions remain regarding the source of these cells. Indeed, a recent study suggests that nonbone marrow-derived cells may be even more important than bone marrow-derived cells in the setting of transplant arteriosclerosis. Thus, we aimed to thoroughly investigate the contribution of nonbone marrow-derived progenitor cells for neovascularization. We exclusively identified nonbone marrow-derived progenitor cells by combining a parabiosis model with reverse bone marrow transplantation followed by hindlimb ischemia. In this model, nonbone marrow-derived circulating progenitor cells attributed for 74±13% of the circulating progenitor cells that incorporated into the ischemic hindlimb. Increasing evidence suggests that organs such as small intestine and liver contain a considerable number of tissue resident progenitor cells and, thus, represent putative sources for nonbone marrow-derived progenitors. To track organ-derived progenitors, we transplanted sex-mismatched small intestine or liver, respectively, into rats followed by induction of hindlimb ischemia. These experiments show that organ-derived progenitor cells are contributing to postnatal vasculogenesis (intestine: 4.7±3.7%; liver: 6.3±2.2%). Based on the subsequent observation that liver-derived nonhematopoietic c-kit+CD45– progenitors are mobilized on induction of hindlimb ischemia, we prospectively isolated and intravenously infused these progenitors from murine livers. The isolated cells demonstrated a marked capacity for enhancing neovascularization and restoring blood flow to the ischemic hindlimb (no cells: 26.4±4.8% of normal blood flow; c-kit+CD45– cells: 67.0±8.0% of normal flow; P<0.01). In conclusion, we find that nonbone marrow-derived c-kit+CD45– progenitors contribute to postnatal neovascularization to an extent that is similar to that of bone marrow-derived progenitor cells. Intestine and liver represent a rich source for mobilized tissue-residing progenitor cells.
Co-Transformation of Type and Instance Graphs Supporting Merging of Types with Retyping-Long Version-⋆

Algebraic graph transformation is a well known rule-based approach to manipulate graphs that can be applied in many contexts. In this paper we use it in the context of model-driven engineering (MDE). Graph transformation rules usually only describing changes of one graph, however there are use cases such as model co-evolution where not only a single graph should be manipulated but related ones. The co-transformation of type graphs together with their instance graphs has shown to be a promising approach to formalize model and meta-model co-evolution. In this paper, we extend our earlier work on co-evolution by allowing transformation rules that have less restrictions so that graph manipulations such as merging and retyping of graph elements become possible.