Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A hierarchical boosting algorithm based on feature selection for Synthetic Aperture Radar image retrieval

A hierarchical boosting algorithm based on feature selection is proposed for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image retrieval here. Motivated by Joint Boost and Shared feature frameworks, category combinations are adopted as the training and classification set of a hierarchical boosting-based classification frameworkpsilas middle layer. It has superiorities over the classical method which combines Boosting algorithm with many features as inputs. Meanwhile, different from the Joint Boost scheme, our method separates feature selection from training and retrieval processes. Thus more flexible feature selecting schemes can be used, e.g. nonlinear separating plane can be obtained. Some typical features such as Gabor, Edge Orientation Histogram, gray-level co-occurrence matrix, Grey Histogram and Tamura are used as the candidates of the input and statistics-based selecting method is used as the feature selection scheme. The experiments are carried on the KTH_TIPS and SAR image datasets and the results reveal our algorithmpsilas efficient performances and superiorities.
Investigating the Relative Difficulty of Complex Systems Ideas in Biology

A number of students’ biology misconceptions can be attributed to their lack of understanding in complex systems. Comprehending complex systems can be counterintuitive and difficult. A literature review reveals that we have yet to systematically determine a learning approach to address these learning challenges. In this paper, we propose that learning progressions research offers a methodical approach to organize the learning pathways students take to improve conceptual competence in complex systems. As a first step, we articulate a sequence of complex systems ideas from the least to most difficult by analyzing students’ written responses. Using an Item Response Theory model, we found that the easiest ideas to grasp are those that relate to the interconnected nature of these systems whereas the most difficult ideas are those concerning the decentralized organization of the system, and the predictability of the system effects.
Elevated Th22 as well as Th17 cells associated with therapeutic outcome and clinical stage are potential targets in patients with multiple myeloma

T helper (Th) cell imbalance plays important roles in tumor development and their effects in Multiple myeloma (MM) remain unclear. In the present study, we investigated the levels and clinical significance of Th22, Th17 and Th1 cells in patients with MM. Th subsets were examined by flow cytometry. Plasma IL-22, IL-17A and IFN-γ concentrations were measured by ELISA. AHR and RORC mRNA expression was examined by RT-PCR. Here, we found that the frequency of Th22 cells was significantly elevated in peripheral blood (PB) and bone marrow (BM) of newly-diagnosed MM patients, and recovered in complete remission patients after chemotherapy. The circulating Th17 cells accompanied by IL-17A levels were also up-regulated in MM patients and decreased after remission. We also found that there was a significantly positive correlation between Th22 and Th17 cells in MM patients. Moreover, the frequencies of Th22 and Th17 cells were higher in stage III than in stage I+II of MM. Our data demonstrated that Th22 and Th17 cells might be important therapeutic targets in multiple myeloma and could facilitate the effect of antitumor immunotherapy.
Diagnostic Value of Elevated D-Dimer Level in Venous Thromboembolism in Patients With Acute or Subacute Brain Lesions

Objective To define the risk factors that influence the occurrence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with acute or subacute brain lesions and to determine the usefulness of D-dimer levels for VTE screening of these patients. Methods Medical data from January 2012 to December 2013 were retrospectively reviewed. Mean D-dimer levels in those with VTE versus those without VTE were compared. Factors associated with VTE were analyzed and the odds ratios (ORs) were calculated. The D-dimer cutoff value for patients with hemiplegia was defined using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results Of 117 patients with acute or subacute brain lesions, 65 patients with elevated D-dimer levels (mean, 5.1±5.8 mg/L; positive result >0.55 mg/L) were identified. Logistic regression analysis showed that the risk of VTE was 3.9 times higher in those with urinary tract infections (UTIs) (p=0.0255). The risk of VTE was 4.5 times higher in those who had recently undergone surgery (p=0.0151). Analysis of the ROC showed 3.95 mg/L to be the appropriate D-dimer cutoff value for screening for VTE (area under the curve [AUC], 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.5-0.8) in patients with acute or subacute brain lesions. This differs greatly from the conventional D-dimer cutoff value of 0.55 mg/L. D-dimer levels less than 3.95 mg/L in the absence of surgery showed a negative predictive value of 95.8% (95% CI, 78.8-99.8). Conclusion Elevated D-dimer levels alone have some value in VTE diagnosis. However, the concomitant presence of UTI or a history of recent surgery significantly increased the risk of VTE in patients with acute or subacute brain lesions. Therefore, a different D-dimer cutoff value should be applied in these cases.
Combined system for reactive power control in wind farms

Operation of wind turbine installations may affect the steady-state voltage in the connected network. The voltage fluctuations imposed by the wind farm will depend on the characteristics of the grid. This paper presents a combined system of a capacitor, a thyristor controlled reactor (TCR) and a small-rated active filter (PWM-VSI) whose goal is to obtain a regulation of reactive power in wind farms with a generation of harmonic currents very reduced. The electrical analysis and filtering characteristics are discussed theoretically and several situations are simulated.
Towards Broad-coverage Meaning Representation: The Case of Comparison Structures

Representing the underlying meaning of text has been a long-standing topic of interest in computational linguistics. Recently there has been a renewed interest in computational modeling of meaning for various tasks such as semantic parsing (Zelle and Mooney, 1996; Berant and Liang, 2014). Opendomain and broad-coverage semantic representation (Banarescu et al., 2013; Bos, 2008; Allen et al., 2008) is essential for many language understanding tasks such as reading comprehension tests and question answering. One of the most common way for expressing evaluative sentiment towards different entities is to use comparison. Comparison can happen in very simple structures such as ‘John is taller than Susan’, or more complicated constructions such as ‘The table is longer than the sofa is wide’. So far the computational semantics of comparatives and how they affect the meaning of the surrounding text has not been studied effectively. That is, the difference between the existing semantic and syntactic representation of comparatives has not been distinctive enough for enabling deeper understanding of a sentence. For instance, the general logical form representation of the sentence ‘John is taller than Susan’ using the Boxer system (Bos, 2008) is the following:
Cross talk of tyrosine kinases with the DNA damage signaling pathways

Tyrosine kinases respond to extracellular and intracellular cues by activating specific cellular signaling cascades to regulate cell cycle, growth, proliferation, differentiation and survival. Likewise, DNA damage response proteins (DDR) activated by DNA lesions or chromatin alterations recruit the DNA repair and cell cycle checkpoint machinery to restore genome integrity and cellular homeostasis. Several new examples have been uncovered in recent studies which reveal novel epigenetic and non-epigenetic mechanisms by which tyrosine kinases interact with DDR proteins to dictate cell fate, i.e. survival or apoptosis, following DNA damage. These studies reveal the ability of tyrosine kinases to directly regulate the activity of DNA repair and cell cycle check point proteins by tyrosine phosphorylation. In addition, tyrosine kinases epigenetically regulate DNA damage signaling pathways by modifying the core histones as well as chromatin modifiers at critical tyrosine residues. Thus, deregulated tyrosine kinase driven epigenomic alterations have profound implications in cancer, aging and genetic disorders. Consequently, targeting oncogenic tyrosine kinase induced epigenetic alterations has gained significant traction in overcoming cancer cell resistance to various therapies. This review discusses mechanisms by which tyrosine kinases interact with DDR pathways to regulate processes critical for maintaining genome integrity as well as clinical strategies for targeted cancer therapies.
Network-based H&#8734;Control of Systems with Transmission Delays

This paper is concerned with an Hinfin control problem for a class of networked control systems (NCSs) with transmission delays, where the delays are time-varying and uncertain. Based on the LMI approach, a new method for designing a memoryless static state feedback control law is proposed to stabilize this class of NCSs and to reduce the effect of the disturbance input on the controlled output to a prescribed level for all admissible transmission delays. The results depend on the solvability of a certain linear matrix inequality and may be less conservative
Red-sequence galaxies with young stars and dust: the cluster Abell 901/902 seen with COMBO-17

We report the discovery of a rich component of dusty star-forming galaxies contaminating the red-sequence in the supercluster system comprising Abell 901a, 901b and A902 at redshift ~0.17. These galaxies do not fit into the colour-density relation, because their preferred habitat is different from that of regular red-sequence galaxies, which are typically dust-poor, old and passively evolving. The dusty red galaxies prefer the medium-density outskirts of clusters while being rare in both the low-density field and the high-density cluster cores. This new result is based on the information content in the medium-band photometry of the COMBO-17 survey. The photo- z accuracy of the ~800 brightest cluster galaxies is <0.01 and of the order of the velocity dispersion of the cluster. This enables us to select a rich and clean cluster sample, in which we can trace age-sensitive and dust-sensitive spectral features independently with the detailed medium-band SED data. We find the red colour of the dusty galaxies to be a result of dust extinction combined with relatively old stellar ages. We speculate that the dusty red galaxies could either be a product of minor mergers between established old red cluster galaxies with infalling blue field galaxies, or mark a period in the internal transformation of blue field galaxies into red cluster galaxies, which is triggered by the environmental influences experienced during cluster infall.
International Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences and Technology Mechanism and Chemical Reaction of Fly Ash Geopolymer Cement-a Review

This paper presents the work carried out on the chemical reaction, mechanism, role of materials, applications and microstructure of fly ash geopolymer cement. Geopolymer is a type of amorphous alumino-silicate cementitious material. Geopolymer can be synthesized by polycondensation reaction of geopolymeric precursor, and alkali polysilicates. Literature demonstrates that the exact geopolymerization mechanism is not well understood because the geopolymerization process involves a substantially fast chemical reaction. However, the most proposed mechanism includes three stages: (1) dissolution of Si and Al atoms from the source material through the action of hydroxide ions, (2) transportation or orientation or condensation of precursor ions into monomers, (3) setting or polycondensation/polymerisation of monomers into polymeric structures. Every materials used in geopolymer cement have their own function and role to create a chemical reaction and mechanism. The atomic ratio Si:Al in the polysialate structure determines the application fields. A low ratio Si:Al (1,2,3) initiates a 3D-Network that is very rigid. A high ratio Si:Al, higher than 15, provides polymeric character to the geopolymeric material.
Issues in Dynamic Software Architectures

Software architecture is probably one of the best approaches to take non-functional requirements into consideration early on in a development process. Some of these requirements, for instance performance and high availability, are usually implemented as dynamic reconfigurations. Current architecture design methodology does not provide sufficient support for these types of systems. These dynamic changes require new “tools”, for specification and assessment, both during modeling and at run-time. A classification of dynamic architecture types is presented and based on this we discuss important issues that must be resolved if development of applications, where conflicting non-functional requirements are partially implemented using dynamic behavior, should be fully supported.
Prediction of Post-Collegiate Earnings and Debt

Considering the soaring cost of higher education as well as the accompanying rise of student debt, prospective students can greatly benefit from such information. However, College Scorecard has faced scrutiny due to its omission of over 700 colleges, particularly community colleges, in its data set [2]. Hence, applying machine learning to fill in omissions in the data set, particularly related to earnings and debt, and finding correlations between characteristics of colleges and the future success of their alumni has great value to society.
Improving Robustness of Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) Services Related to Soft-Errors

Nowadays, more critical applications that have stringent real-time constraint are placed and run in an environment with real-time operating system (RTOS). The provided services of RTOSs are subject to faults that affect both functional and timing of Tasks which are running based on RTOS. In this paper, we try to evaluate and analyze robustness of services due to soft-errors in two proposed architecture of RTOS which are (SW-RTOS and HW/SW- RTOS). According to experimental result we finally propose an architecture which provides more robust services in term of soft-error. Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) users desire predictable response time at an affordable cost, due to this demand Hardware/Software Real-Time Operating Systems (HW/SW-RTOS) appeared. This paper analyzes the impact of soft-errors in real-time systems running applications under purely Software RTOS versus HW/SW-RTOS. The proposed model is used to evaluate robustness of services like scheduling, synchronization time management and memory management and inter process communication in Software based RTOS and HW/SW-RTOS. Experimental results show HW/SW-RTOS provide more robust services in term of soft-err or against purely software based RTOS.
Breast Cancer Screening for Women at Average Risk: 2015 Guideline Update From the American Cancer Society.

IMPORTANCE Breast cancer is a leading cause of premature mortality among US women. Early detection has been shown to be associated with reduced breast cancer morbidity and mortality. OBJECTIVE To update the American Cancer Society (ACS) 2003 breast cancer screening guideline for women at average risk for breast cancer. PROCESS The ACS commissioned a systematic evidence review of the breast cancer screening literature to inform the update and a supplemental analysis of mammography registry data to address questions related to the screening interval. Formulation of recommendations was based on the quality of the evidence and judgment (incorporating values and preferences) about the balance of benefits and harms. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS Screening mammography in women aged 40 to 69 years is associated with a reduction in breast cancer deaths across a range of study designs, and inferential evidence supports breast cancer screening for women 70 years and older who are in good health. Estimates of the cumulative lifetime risk of false-positive examination results are greater if screening begins at younger ages because of the greater number of mammograms, as well as the higher recall rate in younger women. The quality of the evidence for overdiagnosis is not sufficient to estimate a lifetime risk with confidence. Analysis examining the screening interval demonstrates more favorable tumor characteristics when premenopausal women are screened annually vs biennially. Evidence does not support routine clinical breast examination as a screening method for women at average risk. RECOMMENDATIONS The ACS recommends that women with an average risk of breast cancer should undergo regular screening mammography starting at age 45 years (strong recommendation). Women aged 45 to 54 years should be screened annually (qualified recommendation). Women 55 years and older should transition to biennial screening or have the opportunity to continue screening annually (qualified recommendation). Women should have the opportunity to begin annual screening between the ages of 40 and 44 years (qualified recommendation). Women should continue screening mammography as long as their overall health is good and they have a life expectancy of 10 years or longer (qualified recommendation). The ACS does not recommend clinical breast examination for breast cancer screening among average-risk women at any age (qualified recommendation). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE These updated ACS guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations for breast cancer screening for women at average risk of breast cancer. These recommendations should be considered by physicians and women in discussions about breast cancer screening.
Decomposition-Based Consistent Query Answering in Databases with Universal Constraints under Cardinality-Based Semantics

Consistent query answering (CQA) in relational databases under cardinality-based semantics is a well-known approach to dealing with inconsistency between databases and certain integrity constraints (ICs). It computes from a given database all consistent answers to a query that are satisfied by all the C-repairs, where a C-repair is a database that satisfies all the given ICs and minimizes the cardinality of the set of tuples in the symmetric difference with the given database. In this paper we address the problem of CQA in databases with universal constraints under cardinality-based semantics. This problem has no worst-case optimal solutions by now. We present a novel method for such problem which is worst-case optimal in terms of time data complexity and is further optimized by a decomposition-based framework. Experimental results on synthetic databases demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method.
Non-linear modeling of eye gaze perception as a function of gaze and head direction

In this paper, we further the characterization of a fundamental limit of human perception: the accuracy of human estimation of others' eye gaze directions. In particular, we introduce a non-linear model that describes how both the head direction and the gaze direction of a looker relative to an observer jointly affect the observer's perception of the looker's gaze direction. Ours is the first to explain in a single model the biases introduced by the looker's head direction, the relative accuracy of eye contact detection, and the relative accuracy of estimating gaze direction when the looker's head and gaze directions are aligned. We put our results into context with other perception studies.
Enhancing financiers’ accountability for the social and environmental impacts of biofuels

This report summarises 20 case studies on investments in the production of biofuel and the feedstocks used for biofuel (palm oil, soybeans, sugarcane and jatropha) in forest-rich countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The investments were financed by private entrepreneurs, public financing and private financial institutions. A large number of private financial institutions such as banks, asset managers and pension funds were investing, most of which are located outside the country where the investment took place. Dozens of public financial institutions—many of which are foreign—play a significant role. Since the availability of finance is a crucial precondition for the further growth of the biofuel sector, these actors could play an important role in leveraging more sustainability in the sector. However, our findings suggest that most investors are not yet effectively addressing key environmental and social sustainability challenges, either because they lack sustainability policies or because their policies are of insufficient quality. Realising the potential influence of investors on minimising the negative social and environmental costs associated with feedstock expansion and biofuel production requires improved dissemination of high-quality governance instruments. Whilst private and public investors could develop and adopt better policies voluntarily, we also discuss regulatory options available to governments in production and consumption countries. These options could motivate or assist private financial institutions in developing and applying sound, responsible financing policies.
Association between Common Genetic Variation in Cockayne Syndrome A and B Genes and Nucleotide Excision Repair Capacity among Smokers

Mutagen sensitivity in in vitro cultured lymphocytes challenged by benzo[a]pyrene diolepoxide (BPDE) has been validated as an intrinsic susceptibility factor for several cancers. Bulky BPDE-DNA adducts are repaired via either transcription-coupled repair or global genome nucleotide excision repair depending on the location of lesions. Cockayne syndrome A (CSA) and B (CSB) play essential roles in integrating the recognition of damage, chromatin remodeling, and the core nucleotide excision repair proteins. This study evaluated the hypothesis that common genetic variation in CSA and CSB is associated with mutagen sensitivity induced by BPDE in 276 cancer-free smokers. Tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP; n = 37) selected across the entire coding and putative regulatory regions of CSA and CSB based on a high-density SNP database were genotyped by the Illumina Golden Gate assay. Major principal components of CSA and CSB that captured the linkage disequilibrium from multiple SNPs were globally associated with the number of breaks per cell at the threshold of 80% (P ≤ 0.02 for both genes). Haplotype H125 in CSA and H97 in CSB as well as SNPs in high linkage disequilibrium with these two haplotypes were significantly associated with a 13% to 15% reduction in the mean number of chromatid breaks per cell (P < 0.05). A resampling-based omnibus test supported the significant association between SNPs and haplotypes in CSA and mutagen sensitivity induced by BPDE (P = 0.035). This study implicates transcription-coupled repair in protecting the cell from BPDE-induced DNA damage. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(8):2062–9)