Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Agents in a Nutshell - A Very Brief Introduction

Agent-based approaches are becoming increasingly important because of their generality, flexibility, modularity, and ability to take advantage of distributed resources. Agents are used in information retrieval, entertainment, coordinating multiple robots, and modeling economic systems. Agents can recommend music, tell stories, and interact with people. They are useful for reducing humans' work and information load in tasks such as medical monitoring and battlefield reasoning. Agents are already changing the way in which we gather information, manage investments, and conduct business. This article provides an introduction to agent issues, outlines motivations for using agent-based paradigms, and describes some of their current uses.
An Organizational Approach to E cient Cooperation in An Agent Society?

A cooperative intelligent agent is a user's personal consultant that takes care of problems the user got, and solve them either by itself or through cooperation. To construct a suitable organization structure which allows individual agents to easily reason about the others' activities, and thus nd the peers, is a key issue for e cient cooperation. In this paper, we suggest an activity-oriented hierarchy organization structure, which uses the twin-base modeling technique for achieving e cient cooperation in an agent society. The twin-base consists of a cooperator-base and a task-base, and is originally developed for e cient cooperation in a small agent group. When facing a task beyond an agent's capabilities, the agent directly retrieves the best quali ed peer from its task-base, and asks the peer to take over the job. In a large agent group, agents sharing similar activities constitute a club, which can be regarded as a small agent group, and the twin-base modeling is employed for cooperation among club members. Each club has a club trader. Club traders with similar activities belong to a community, and adopt the twin-base modeling as well. The community traders are members of an agent society. This club-community-society organization achieves e cient cooperation in the sense that: (1) experimental results indicate that the twin-base modeling achieves more e cient cooperation in a club with high on-line performance and low maintenance cost; (2) with the twinbase modeling, agents (including traders) perform better heuristic searches in their peer locating processes by reducing the search chain; (3) the activity-oriented structure minimizes the computation and communication time of peer locating in the community and society.
Dynamics of the condensate in zero-range processes

For stochastic processes leading to condensation, the condensate, once it is formed, performs an ergodic stationary-state motion over the system. We analyse this motion, and especially its characteristic time, for zero-range processes. The characteristic time is found to grow with the system size much faster than the diffusive time scale, but not exponentially fast. This holds both in the mean-field geometry and on finite-dimensional lattices. In the generic situation where the critical mass distribution follows a power law, the characteristic time grows as a power of the system size.
Opportunistic network coding: Competitive analysis

It was recently shown that the reverse carpooling technique can realize the benefits of network coding while requiring only a simple coding scheme that can be efficiently implemented in practice. However, when no opportunity for coding exists at an intermediate (relay) node, it needs to decide whether to transmit an uncoded packet or wait for the next opportunity to create a coded packet. While the decision to wait for the next coding opportunity can reduce the number of transmissions, it incurs a penalty in terms of packet delay. In this paper we present an on-line algorithm for making transmit/wait decisions at the relay nodes. The algorithm minimizes the total system cost that includes both the number of transmissions as well as packet delay. Our algorithm is based on the primal-dual approach and achieves the competitive ratio of e/(e - 1).
GPU-accelerated evolutionary design of the complete exchange communication on wormhole networks

The communication overhead is one of the main challenges in the exascale era, where millions of compute cores are expected to collaborate on solving complex jobs. However, many algorithms will not scale since they require complex global communication and synchronisation. In order to perform the communication as fast as possible, contentions, blocking and deadlock must be avoided. Recently, we have developed an evolutionary tool producing fast and safe communication schedules reaching the lower bound of the theoretical time complexity. Unfortunately, the execution time associated with the evolution process raises up to tens of hours, even when being run on a multi-core processor. In this paper, we propose a revised implementation accelerated by a single Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) delivering speed-up of 5 compared to a quad-core CPU. Subsequently, we introduce an extended version employing up to 8 GPUs in a shared memory environment offering a speed-up of almost 30. This significantly extends the range of interconnection topologies we can cover.
How others affect your Twitter #hashtag adoption? Examination of community-based and context-based information diffusion in Twitter

Twitter has become a rich source of people’s opinions about a variety of topics, such as their daily life, and current news. Twitter’s retweeting and mentioning mechanisms enable users to disseminate information broadly. In this study, we investigate the effects of community-based and context-based features on the users’ information adoption and diffusion patterns in Twitter. Community-based features capture how the adoption of a hashtag by users within the target user’s community and users outside that community influences the target user’s selection of the target hashtag. Context-based features measure the influence of other users’ adoption of hashtags that are semantically similar with a hashtag on the target user’s adoption of this hashtag. We find the community-based features enhance the prediction of users’ hashtag adoption and diffusion. However, the further exploration of context-based features is needed.
A comparative analysis of media processing component implementations for the Brazilian digital TV middleware

The Brazilian digital TV system, known as International System for Digital Television (ISDTV) specifies the Ginga middleware, supporting both the declarative Ginga-NCL and the procedural Ginga-J subsystems. To make feasible the integration of these two disjoint sub-systems, it was specified the Ginga Common Core (GingaCC), being developed by the Ginga Code Development Network (GingaCDN) project. The GingaCC is composed by 13 components, including a video and audio decoding one, named Media Processing. This paper investigates two media processing implementations for the GingaCC using two different decoding open-source libraries, libVLC and xine-lib, a component model named FlexCM, and the CppUnit test framework. In order to evaluate these implementations, performance tests are executed and a discussion regarding memory usage and CPU load are carried out.
Characterization of Guinea Pig Antibody Responses to Salivary Proteins of Triatoma infestans for the Development of a Triatomine Exposure Marker

Background Salivary proteins of Triatoma infestans elicit humoral immune responses in their vertebrate hosts. These immune responses indicate exposure to triatomines and thus can be a useful epidemiological tool to estimate triatomine infestation. In the present study, we analyzed antibody responses of guinea pigs to salivary antigens of different developmental stages of four T. infestans strains originating from domestic and/or peridomestic habitats in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. We aimed to identify developmental stage- and strain-specific salivary antigens as potential markers of T. infestans exposure. Methodology and Principal Findings In SDS-PAGE analysis of salivary proteins of T. infestans the banding pattern differed between developmental stages and strains of triatomines. Phenograms constructed from the salivary profiles separated nymphal instars, especially the 5th instar, from adults. To analyze the influence of stage- and strain-specific differences in T. infestans saliva on the antibody response of guinea pigs, twenty-one guinea pigs were exposed to 5th instar nymphs and/or adults of different T. infestans strains. Western blot analyses using sera of exposed guinea pigs revealed stage- and strain-specific variations in the humoral response of animals. In total, 27 and 17 different salivary proteins reacted with guinea pig sera using IgG and IgM antibodies, respectively. Despite all variations of recognized salivary antigens, an antigen of 35 kDa reacted with sera of almost all challenged guinea pigs. Conclusion Salivary antigens are increasingly considered as an epidemiological tool to measure exposure to hematophagous arthropods, but developmental stage- and strain-specific variations in the saliva composition and the respective differences of immunogenicity are often neglected. Thus, the development of a triatomine exposure marker for surveillance studies after triatomine control campaigns requires detailed investigations. Our study resulted in the identification of a potential antigen as useful marker of T. infestans exposure.
E ffi cient , strategy-proof and almost budget-balanced assignment

Call a Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism to assign p identical objects among n agents, feasible if cash transfers yield no deficit. The efficiency loss of such a mechanism is the worst (largest) ratio of the budget surplus to the efficient surplus, over all profiles of non negative valuations. The optimal (smallest) efficiency loss L(n, p) satisfies L(n, p) ≤ L(n, { 2 }) ≤ 4 3 √ n for all n. If p n is strictly smaller or strictly larger than 1 2 , the convergence of L(n, p) to zero is exponential in n. The optimal mechanism achieving L(n, p) is individually rational (participation is voluntary) if p = 1, but not if p ≥ 2. Among all feasible and voluntary mechanisms, the optimal efficiency loss L∗(n, p) is not significantly larger than L(n, p) if p n ≤ 2. But it does not converge to zero if p n > 2. 1 The problem and the punch line A group of n agents must assign p identical objects, where p < n. These objects are desirable so we talk of “goods” and we have a simple rationing problem: each agent claims a unit but all claims can’t be met. For instance the n friends share p tickets to a popular show; the city assigns a few alcohol licenses to bar owners; a school principal distributes scarce computers to classrooms, or a manager distributes fancy machines in short supply between several divisions. Cash transfers are used to compensate the losers (who get no object) from the winner’s pocket, and to align incentives and efficiency. Preferences are quasi-linear in money, described by a non negative valuation (willingness to pay) for an object. A Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism performs monetary transfers inducing truthful revelation of individual valuations and implements an efficient assignment, i.e., assigns the objects to the p ∗Thanks to Sandeep Baliga, Geoffroy de Clippel, Olivier Gossner, Jason Hartline, and Jay Sethuraman for their comments.
Assembly and turnover of detyrosinated tubulin in vivo

Detyrosinated (Glu) tubulin was prepared from porcine brain and microinjected into human fibroblasts and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Glu tubulin assembled onto the ends of preexisting microtubules and directly from the centrosome within minutes of its microinjection. Incorporation into the cytoskeleton continued until almost all of the microtubules were copolymers of Glu and tyrosinated (Tyr) tubulin. However, further incubation resulted in the progressive and ultimately complete loss of Glu-staining microtubules. Glu tubulin injected into nocodazole-treated cells was converted to Tyr tubulin by a putative tubulin/tyrosine ligase activity. The observed decrease in staining with the Glu antibody over time was used to analyze microtubule turnover in microinjected cells. The mode of Glu disappearance was analyzed quantitatively by tabulating the number of Glu-Tyr copolymers and Tyr-only microtubules at fixed times after injection. The proportion of Glu-Tyr copolymers decreased progressively over time and no segmentally labeled microtubules were observed, indicating that microtubules turn over rapidly and individually. Our results are consistent with a closely regulated tyrosination-detyrosination cycle in living cells and suggest that microtubule turnover is mediated by dynamic instability.
Augmenting tutoring of students using Tangible Smart Learning Objects: An IOT based approach to assist student learning in laboratories

This paper presents a work in progress on development and use of Tangible Smart Learning Objects for Electronic Engineering curriculum laboratories. When such objects are connected together, they form an Internet of Things (IOT) and can be used to assist students and enhance their learning about various experiments. Two scenarios have been discussed to make these objects a part of IOT in educational spaces along with the use of Augmented Reality technology.
Face authentication with sparse grid Gabor information

This paper investigates the application of statistical pattern recognition methods in the framework of the dynamic link matching approach. This method describes objects by means of local frequency information on nodes of a sparse grid. Matching of an input image with a reference is achieved by displacement and deformation of the grid. This method is applied here to the authentication of human faces in a cooperative scenario where candidates claim an identity that is to be checked. The matching error is not powerful enough to provide satisfying results in this case. We introduce an automatic weighting of the nodes according to their significance. Results show that for regular grids, this weighting leads to a significant improvement of the performance.
Putting CYP2C19 genotyping to the test: utility of pharmacogenomic evaluation in a voriconazole-treated haematology cohort.

OBJECTIVES The clinical utility of pharmacogenomic testing in haematology patients with invasive fungal disease (IFD) receiving azole therapy has not been defined. We report our experience with CYP2C19 testing in haematological patients requiring voriconazole therapy for IFD. METHODS As a single-centre pilot study, 19 consecutive patients with a haematological malignancy undergoing active chemotherapy with a possible, probable or proven IFD requiring voriconazole therapy underwent CYP2C19 testing from 2013 to 2014. Baseline patient demographics, concurrent medications, voriconazole levels and IFD history were captured. RESULTS The median voriconazole levels for intermediate metabolizer (IM) (CYP2C19*2 or 3/*1 or 17), extensive metabolizer (EM) (CYP2C19*1/*1) and heterozygote ultrarapid metabolizer (HUM)/ultrarapid metabolizer (UM) (UM, CYP2C19*17/*17; HUM, CYP2C19*1/*17) patients were 5.23, 3.3 and 1.25 mg/L, respectively. Time to therapeutic voriconazole levels was longest in the IM group, whilst voriconazole levels <1 mg/L were only seen in UM, HUM and EM phenotypes. The highest rates of clinical toxicity were seen in the IM group (3/5, 60%). CONCLUSIONS Voriconazole exposure and toxicity was highest for IM and lowest for HUM/UM phenotypes. Time to therapeutic voriconazole level was longest in IM, whilst refractory subtherapeutic levels requiring CYP2C19 inhibition were only seen in the EM, HUM and UM phenotypes. CYP2C19 genotyping may predict those likely to have supratherapeutic or subtherapeutic levels and/or toxicity. Prospective evaluation of clinical pathways incorporating genotyping and voriconazole dose-titrating algorithms is required.
Query biased snippet generation in XML search

Snippets are used by almost every text search engine to complement ranking scheme in order to effectively handle user searches, which are inherently ambiguous and whose relevance semantics are difficult to assess. Despite the fact that XML is a standard representation format of web data, research on generating result snippets for XML search remains untouched. In this paper we present a system, eXtract, which addresses this important yet open problem. We identify that a good XML result snippet should be a self-contained meaningful information unit of a small size that effectively summarizes this query result and differentiates it from others, according to which users can quickly assess the relevance of the query result. We have designed and implemented a novel algorithm to satisfy these requirements and verified its efficiency and effectiveness through experiments.
On probabilistic modeling in fault detection

This paper provides a unified background of probabilistic modeling methods which should serve to model-based fault detection (FD). This background should help in orientation within within the set of the problems to be addressed when developing a novel method as well as within a wide set of available methods and in recognition of their suitability to a particular problem in hands.
IMPROVED SENSITIVITY OF DIRECT MICROSCOPY FOR ACID FAST BACILLI: SEDIMENTATION AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO CENTRIFUGATION FOR CONCENTRATION OF TUBERCLE BACILLI

Tuberculosis is a global health problem so there is a need for cost effective as well as rapid diagnostic methods to address this perennial problem. We aimed to compare the efficiency of concentration of AFB from NaOCl treated samples by centrifugation with that by sedimentation with the direct smear. 138 Sputum samples from patients suspected with tuberculosis were subjected to Ziehl-Neelsen staining before concentration and NaOCl centrifugation & NaOCl sedimentation techniques and the results are tabulated. Concludes there was significant increase in positivity rate of sputum smears for acid fast bacilli after NaOCl centrifugation method and NaOCl sedimentation method. In these centrifugation showed the highest rate (26.81%) and where as sedimentation showed (25.36%). By comparing these two, there is no statistically significant difference between the concentration methods. Overnight sedimentation significantly increases the sensitivity of microscopy and this method could be alternative for diagnostic centers that are not equipped with a centrifuge.
A context free grammar and its predictive parser for bangla grammar recognition

Parsing is a process of transforming natural language into an internal system representation, which can be trees, dependency graphs, frames or some other structural representations. If a natural language be successfully parsed then grammar checking from this language becomes easy. In this paper we describe a context free grammar for Bangla language and hence we develop a Bangla parser based on the grammar. Our approach is very much general to apply in Bangla Sentences and the method is well accepted for parsing a language of a grammar. The scheme is based on Top down parsing method and to avoid the left recursion the idea of left factoring is adopted.
Viewpoint Paper: Repurposing the Clinical Record: Can an Existing Natural Language Processing System De-identify Clinical Notes?

Electronic clinical documentation can be useful for activities such as public health surveillance, quality improvement, and research, but existing methods of de-identification may not provide sufficient protection of patient data. The general-purpose natural language processor MedLEE retains medical concepts while excluding the remaining text so, in addition to processing text into structured data, it may be able provide a secondary benefit of de-identification. Without modifying the system, the authors tested the ability of MedLEE to remove protected health information (PHI) by comparing 100 outpatient clinical notes with the corresponding XML-tagged output. Of 809 instances of PHI, 26 (3.2%) were detected in output as a result of processing and identification errors. However, PHI in the output was highly transformed, much appearing as normalized terms for medical concepts, potentially making re-identification more difficult. The MedLEE processor may be a good enhancement to other de-identification systems, both removing PHI and providing coded data from clinical text.
Pixel resolution plenoptic disparity using cost aggregation

We present a hierarchical method for estimating pixel resolution disparity from a raw Plenoptic 2.0 light field capture. Accurate pixel resolution disparity is essential for reconstruction of a high quality conventional image, and also for various applications that depend on disparity, like object segmentation, bokeh etc. Most light field disparity estimation methods in the literature compute disparity at microlens resolution, which is much lower than the resolution of the final reconstructed image. The algorithms that do compute pixel resolution disparity are iterative, making them computationally complex. The proposed method computes disparity hierarchically, in two steps. In the first step, microlens resolution disparity is computed, using which a conventional high resolution image is reconstructed. In the second step, globally smooth and accurate disparity is estimated at a pixel level on the reconstructed image, using the computationally efficient minimum spanning tree based cost aggregation approach. Experimental results demonstrate that the accuracy of the disparity maps generated by our method, in comparison to the Multibaseline and Raytrix algorithms is superior.
Abnormal central integration of a dual somatosensory input in dystonia. Evidence for sensory overflow.

Several observations suggest impaired central sensory integration in dystonia. We studied median and ulnar nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in 10 patients who had dystonia involving at least one upper limb (six had generalized, two had segmental and two had focal dystonia) and in 10 normal subjects. We compared the amplitude of spinal N13, brainstem P14, parietal N20 and P27 and frontal N30 SEPs obtained by stimulating the median and ulnar nerves simultaneously (MU), the amplitude value being obtained from the arithmetic sum of the SEPs elicited by stimulating the same nerves separately (M + U). Throughout the somatosensory system, the MU : (M + U) ratio indicates the interaction between afferent inputs from the two peripheral nerves. No significant difference was found between SEP amplitudes and latencies for individually stimulated median and ulnar nerves in dystonic patients and normal subjects, but recordings in patients yielded a significantly higher percentage ratio [MU : (M + U)x100] for spinal N13 brainstem P14 and cortical N20, P27 and N30 components. The SEP ratio of central components obtained in response to stimulation of the digital nerves of the third and fifth fingers was also higher in patients than in controls but the difference did not reach a significant level. The possible contribution of subliminal activation was ruled out by recording the ratio of SEPs in six normal subjects during voluntary contraction. This voluntary contraction did not change the ratio of SEP suppression. These findings suggest that the inhibitory integration of afferent inputs, mainly proprioceptive inputs, coming from adjacent body parts is abnormal in dystonia. This inefficient integration, which is probably due to altered surrounding inhibition, could give rise to an abnormal motor output and might therefore contribute to the motor impairment present in dystonia.