Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Triangular formation control using range measurements: An application to marine robotic vehicles

This paper addresses the problem of maintaining an autonomous robotic vehicle in a moving triangular formation by regulating its position with respect to two leader vehicles. The robotic vehicle has no a priori knowledge of the path described by the leaders and its goal is to follow them by constantly regulating the inter-vehicle distances to a desired fixed value, using range-only measurements. To solve this station keeping problem, we propose a control strategy that estimates the formation speed and heading from the ranges obtained to the two leading vehicles, and uses simple feedback laws for speed and heading commands to drive suitably defined common and differential errors to zero. For straight-line motion, we provide guaranteed conditions under which the proposed control strategy achieves local convergence of the distance errors to zero. We also indicate how our design procedure can be extended to full dynamic models of marine robotic vehicles equipped with inner loops for yaw and speed control. Simulation results using realistic models are described and discussed.
Information retrieval in heterogeneous XML knowledge bases

We propose specific data structures dedicated to the indexing and retrieval of information elements embedded within heterogeneous XML data bases. The indexing scheme is well suited to the characterization of various contextual searches, expressed either at a structural level or at an information content level. Search mechanisms are based on context tree matching algorithms that involve a modified Levenstein editing distance and information fusion heuristics. Complexity of main algorithms is studied and performance analysed. The implementation that is finally described highlights the mixing of structured information presented as field/value instances and free text elements.
Prefetching linked data structures in systems with merged dram-logic

Recent advances in integrating logic and DRAM on the same chip potentially open up new avenues for addressing the long-standing problem of tolerating memory latency. This thesis exploits merged DRAM-logic technology to hide latency incurred by inherently serial accesses to linked data structures (LDS). We propose a programmable prefetch engine that sits close to memory and traverses LDS independently from the processor. The prefetch engine can run ahead of the processor because of its low latency, high bandwidth path to memory. This allows the prefetch engine to initiate data transfers much earlier than the processor and pipeline multiple such transfers over the network. We evaluate the proposed memory-side prefetching scheme for the pointer-intensive Olden benchmark suite, comparing both to a system without any prefetching and to a system with a state-ofthe-art processor-side software prefetching scheme for LDS. For the six benchmarks where LDS memory stall time is signi cant, the proposed memory-side scheme reduces execution time by an average of 27% (range of 0% to 62%) compared to a system without any prefetching. Compared to processor-side prefetching, the memory-side scheme reduces execution time in the range of 20% to 50% for three of the six applications, is about the same for two applications, and is worse by 18% for one application. We conclude that memory-side prefetching is e ective, but a combination of processor-side and memory-side prefetching is best and provide a qualitative framework to determine when either scheme should be used.
Topic Detection with Hypergraph Partition Algorithm

An algorithm named SMHP (Similarity Matrixbased Hypergraph Partition) algorithm is proposed, whichaims at improving the efficiency of Topic Detection. InSMHP, a T-MI-TFIDF model is designed by introducingMutual Information (MI) and enhancing the weight of termsin the title. Then Vector Space Model (VSM) is constructedaccording to terms' weight, and the dimension is reduced bycombining H-TOPN and Principle Component Analysis(PCA). Then topics are grouped based on SMHP.Experiment results show the proposed methods are moresuitable for clustering topics. SMHP with novel approachescan effectively solve the relationship of multiple storiesproblem and improve the accuracy of cluster results.
Elevated Estimated Pulmonary Artery Systolic Pressure is Associated with an Adverse Clinical Outcome in Patients Receiving Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy

Background: A substantial percentage of patients with heart failure remain nonresponsive to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). There is a paucity of information on the impact of baseline elevated pulmonary artery pressure on clinical outcome and on left ventricular reverse remodeling (LV‐RR) after CRT. We sought to investigate the impact of elevated estimated pulmonary artery systolic pressure (ePASP) on clinical outcome and LV‐RR after CRT.
The relationship between surface immunoglobulin isotype and immune function of murine B lymphocytes. I. Surface immunoglobulin isotypes on primed B cells in the spleen

We investigated the ability of IgM-, IgD-, and IgG-bearing cells from the spleens of (BALB/c x C57BL/Ka)F1 mice primed to dinitrophenyl- bovine serum albumin (DNP-BSA) to restore the adoptive secondary anti- BSA and anti-DNP antibody responses. A rabbit anti-mouse IgD antiserum was prepared and the specificity documented by radioimmunoprecipitation, and cell surface staining. Purified populations of IgM-, IgD-, and IgG-bearing cells were prepared by immunofluorescent staining with isotype-specific reagents, and sorting on the fluorescence activated cell sorter. Bright or dull cells were transferred to irradiated syngeneic recipients which were challenged with DNP-BSA in saline. Unfractionated spleen cells restored an adoptive secondary serum antibody response which was all IgG (2- mercaptoethanol resistant). Purified IgM- or IgD-bearing cells restored both the secondary IgM and IgG antibody response. IgG-bearing cells restored only the IgG response. In addition, the IgG-bearing cells appear to suppress the adoptive secondary IgM response, since depletion of IgG-bearing cells from transferred spleen cells results in a marked increase in the adoptive IgM response.
Comparative Analyses of Phase Noise in 28 nm CMOS LC Oscillator Circuit Topologies: Hartley, Colpitts, and Common-Source Cross-Coupled Differential Pair

This paper reports comparative analyses of phase noise in Hartley, Colpitts, and common-source cross-coupled differential pair LC oscillator topologies in 28 nm CMOS technology. The impulse sensitivity function is used to carry out both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the phase noise exhibited by each circuit component in each circuit topology with oscillation frequency ranging from 1 to 100 GHz. The comparative analyses show the existence of four distinct frequency regions in which the three oscillator topologies rank unevenly in terms of best phase noise performance, due to the combined effects of device noise and circuit node sensitivity.
Sense of coherence and illness appraisal in older women's quality of life.

The purpose of this descriptive, correlational study was to test a conceptual model of proposed relationships between physical health limitation, the sense of coherence, illness appraisal, and quality of life in a sample of 137 older women. The typical respondent was 76, widowed, with an income less than $12,000, and several health problems. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that physical health limitation, particularly symptom bother and functional health, had a significant negative influence on quality of life. However this effect was mediated by sense of coherence and illness appraisal. Regardless of the level of symptoms or functional health, women with higher sense of coherence and more positive illness appraisals had higher levels of quality of life. The findings support the proposed model and further our understandings regarding the protective role of personality resources in perceived quality of life in older women with chronic illnesses.
A unified framework for constructing, tuning and assessing photometric redshift density estimates in a selection bias setting

Abstract Photometric redshift estimation is an indispensable tool of precision cosmology. One problem that plagues the use of this tool in the era of large-scale sky surveys is that the bright galaxies that are selected for spectroscopic observation do not have properties that match those of (far more numerous) dimmer galaxies; thus, ill-designed empirical methods that produce accurate and precise redshift estimates for the former generally will not produce good estimates for the latter. In this paper, we provide a principled framework for generating conditional density estimates (i.e. photometric redshift PDFs) that takes into account selection bias and the covariate shift that this bias induces. We base our approach on the assumption that the probability that astronomers label a galaxy (i.e. determine its spectroscopic redshift) depends only on its measured (photometric and perhaps other) properties \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{upgreek} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} }{}$\boldsymbol {x}$\end{document} and not on its true redshift. With this assumption, we can explicitly write down risk functions that allow us to both tune and compare methods for estimating importance weights (i.e. the ratio of densities of unlabelled and labelled galaxies for different values of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{upgreek} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} }{}$\boldsymbol {x}$\end{document}) and conditional densities. We also provide a method for combining multiple conditional density estimates for the same galaxy into a single estimate with better properties. We apply our risk functions to an analysis of ≈106 galaxies, mostly observed by Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and demonstrate through multiple diagnostic tests that our method achieves good conditional density estimates for the unlabelled galaxies.
Information theory for multi-party peer-to-peer communication protocols. (Théorie de l'information pour protocoles de communication peer-to-peer)

Cette these a pour sujet les protocoles de communication peer-to-peer asynchrones. Nous introduisons deux mesures basees sur la theorie de l'information,la Public Information Complexity (PIC) et la Multi-party Information Complexity (MIC), etudions leurs proprietes et leur relation avec d'autres mesures fondamentales en calcul distribue, telles que la communication complexity et la randomness complexity. Nous utilisons ensuite ces deux mesures pour etudier la fonction parite et la fonction disjointness.
Mycotoxin production by three different toxigenic fungi genera on formulated abalone feed and the effect of an aquatic environment on fumonisins

ABSTRACT Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by various filamentous fungi, of which Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium are the three main genera. Fusarium verticillioides is one of the most dominant toxigenic fungal species, associated with fumonisin contamination in grain-based feeds, such as compound abalone feed. Mycotoxin production is influenced by temperature and available nutrients. In this study the aims were: to determine if abalone feed as growth substrate favours mycotoxin production for toxigenic fungi; to determine the most effective temperature for fumonisin production by F. verticillioides on abalone feed; and to assess the effect of the aquatic environment on fumonisin-contaminated abalone feed. A total of 93 fungal isolates were inoculated onto abalone feed, including species belonging to the genera Fusarium, Aspergillus and Penicillium. Feed inoculated with F. verticillioides were incubated at two different temperatures and fumonisin-contaminated feed was submerged into seawater for 24 h. Results showed that mycotoxins were produced when abalone feed was inoculated with toxigenic fungi, and that F. verticillioides produced higher concentrations of fumonisins at a lower temperature. Submerging fumonisin-contaminated feed in seawater showed that this toxin leached into the seawater, lowering the risk of fumonisins to be consumed by abalone.
CDK4/6 inhibitors have potent activity in combination with pathway selective therapeutic agents in models of pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) has a poor prognosis, in part, due to the therapy-recalcitrant nature of the disease. Loss of the CDK4/6 inhibitor CDKN2A is a signature genetic event in PDA. Therefore, PDA may be amenable to treatment with pharmaceutical CDK4/6 inhibitors. Surprisingly, response to CDK4/6 inhibition was highly variable in PDA models, and associated with differential suppression of gene expression. Mitotic genes were repressed and FOXM1 was uniformly attenuated; however, genes involved in DNA replication were uniquely suppressed in sensitive models. Aberrant induction of Cyclin E1 was associated with resistance, and knockdown demonstrated synergistic suppression of the cell cycle with CDK4/6 inhibition. Combination therapies are likely required for the effective treatment of disease, and drug screening demonstrated additive/antagonistic interactions with CDK4/6 inhibitors. Agents dependent on mitotic progression (taxanes/PLK1 inhibitors) were antagonized by CDK4/6 inhibition, while the response to 5-FU and gemcitabine exhibited drug specific interactions. PI3K/MTOR and MEK inhibitors potently cooperated with CDK4/6 inhibition. These agents were synergistic with CDK4/6 inhibition, blocked the aberrant upregulation of Cyclin E1, and yielded potent inhibition of tumor cell growth. Together, these data identify novel mechanisms of resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitions and provide a roadmap for combination therapies in the treatment of PDA.
The Arts of Leadership

This book provides case-based analyses of leadership across business, political, military, and social contexts. Its rich historical detail and arts-of-leadership metaphors help separate this book from many others taking new approaches to leadership. This breadth across various historical time periods and contexts should help bolster the value of this book for both academics and non-academics alike.
Virulence Gene Profiles and Population Genetic Analysis for Exploration of Pathogenic Serogroups of Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT Infection with Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is a serious public health concern, causing severe diarrhea and hemolytic-uremic syndrome. Patient symptoms are varied among STEC strains, possibly implying the presence of markers for STEC virulence other than Stx. To reveal the genotypic traits responsible for STEC virulence, we investigated 282 strains of various serogroups for the presence of 17 major virulence genes, i.e., stx 1, stx 2a, stx 2c, stx 2d, stx 2e, stx 2f, eae, tir, espB, espD, iha, saa, subA, ehxA, espP, katP, and stcE. Next, we examined the prevalence of virulence genes according to the seropathotypes in which serotypes were classified (seropathotypes A through E) based on the reported frequencies in human illness, as well as known associations with outbreaks and with severe disease. Our results demonstrate that the presence of both katP and stcE in STEC, in addition to the genes located in the locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE), including eae, tir, espB, and espD, may indicate the most pathogenic genotype of STEC. A population structure analysis of the profiles of virulence genes statistically supported the pathogenic genotype and, furthermore, revealed that there are serogroups with potentially higher pathogenicity than previously thought. Some strains in serogroups O26, O145, and O165 may have high virulence equivalent to that of serogroup O157. Several serogroups, including O14, O16, O45, O63, O74, 119, O128, and O untypeable, also may be potentially pathogenic, although rarely in humans.
for All Global Monitoring Strong foundations : early childhood ca Changing perspectives childhood : theory , researc

4 INTRODUCTION . 4 I. A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE . 6 The formative years of life.6 A critical. or a sensitive period? 8 Implications of neuroscience . 9 A time of vulnerability.and resilience? 11 II. A POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE . 12 Compensating for disadvantage and equalising educational opportunities . 12 Evaluating long-term outcomes from early intervention . 12 Early childhood and human capital.14 Human capital, ethics and politics . 15 III. A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE . 16 ‘Developmentally appropriate practices’ in context . 17 Diversities in early childhood . 18 A social and cultural process . 20 Constructions and reconstructions of early childhood.21 Quality, critical perspectives and the politics of early childhood.22 IV. A HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE.23 A new, universal paradigm . 23 Implementing child rights in early childhood.27 Participatory rights in theory and practice . 29 Rights and evolving capacities.31 CONCLUSION.33 REFERENCES . 35
Correcting Principal Component Maps for Effects of Spatial Autocorrelation in Population Genetic Data

In many species, spatial genetic variation displays patterns of “isolation-by-distance. ” Characterized by locally correlated allele frequencies, these patterns are known to create periodic shapes in geographic maps of principal components which confound signatures of specific migration events and influence interpretations of principal component analyses (PCA). In this study, we introduced models combining probabilistic PCA and kriging models to infer population genetic structure from genetic data while correcting for effects generated by spatial autocorrelation. The corresponding algorithms are based on singular value decomposition and low rank approximation of the genotypic data. As their complexity is close to that of PCA, these algorithms scale with the dimensions of the data. To illustrate the utility of these new models, we simulated isolation-by-distance patterns and broad-scale geographic variation using spatial coalescent models. Our methods remove the horseshoe patterns usually observed in PC maps and simplify interpretations of spatial genetic variation. We demonstrate our approach by analyzing single nucleotide polymorphism data from the Human Genome Diversity Panel, and provide comparisons with other recently introduced methods.
The prevalence and health care use of overweight children in an integrated health care system.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence, health care use, and costs of overweight children when compared with healthy-weight children. DESIGN Longitudinal cohort. SETTING Kaiser Permanente Colorado is an integrated, nonprofit health care system. Patients Eleven thousand six hundred thirty-six children who completed at least 1 body mass index (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) assessment between 2000 and 2004. MAIN EXPOSURE Overweight. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Health care use. Based on previous research that demonstrated a higher cost for obese adults when compared with healthy-weight adults, we hypothesized that, when compared with healthy-weight children, overweight children would have higher health care use patterns. RESULTS Thirteen percent and 14% of the sample, respectively, were classified as overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. At both year 1 (rate ratio [RR] = 1.11 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.06-1.17]) and year 3 (RR = 1.06 [95% CI, 1.01-1.11]), overweight children had significantly more internal Kaiser Permanente Colorado medical visits, although the magnitude of the relationship was relatively small. Of particular note was the relationship between being overweight and increased use of mental health resources at both points (year 1 RR = 1.47; year 3 RR = 1.48). The calculated additional annual cost of use for 1000 overweight children (regression adjusted to control for comorbidities) was approximately $42 000 for primary care sick visits and $32 000 for mental health visits. CONCLUSION There is potential for cost savings or cost realignment with weight-management interventions from dollars that could be saved through the reduction of childhood overweight.
Protein Fingerprinting of Seminal Plasma Reveals Dysregulation of Exosome-Associated Proteins in Infertile Men with Unilateral Varicocele

Purpose Aberrant expression of seminal plasma proteins are associated with altered homeostasis that may affect the fertilizing ability of spermatozoa. However, the precise roles of seminal exosomes on sperm function remain unclear. The objective of this study was to identify the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) associated with varicocele-mediated infertility by comparing seminal plasma protein profile of unilateral varicocele patients with proven fertile donors. Materials and Methods Semen samples were obtained from 10 proven fertile donors with normal semen parameters and 33 infertile patients with unilateral varicocele. For proteomic analysis, 5 samples from each group were pooled and run in triplicate. Key DEPs (ANXA2, TF, CD63, KIF5B, SEMG1) associated with the exosome function were selected by bioinformatic tools and validated using Western blotting. Results A total of 47 seminal plasma proteins were differentially expressed in unilateral varicocele patients compared to fertile donors. Validation of exosome-associated DEPs in unilateral varicocele patients (n=7) and fertile donors (n=7) revealed significant upregulation of ANXA2 (p=0.0016) and downregulation of KIF5B (p=0.009). The main upstream regulators of the DEPs in seminal plasma of unilateral varicocele group were androgen receptor, YB1 and NRF2. Conclusions This is the first report to identify DEPs in seminal plasma of unilateral varicocele patients compared to fertile donors. Based on the detection of DEPs associated with exosomal function, Western blotting was used to validate the presence of defective exosome machinery in seminal plasma of unilateral varicocele patients. KIF5B and ANXA2 can be utilized as potential biomarkers of infertility in unilateral varicocele patients.
Global epidemiology of hepatitis C virus infection: An up-date of the distribution and circulation of hepatitis C virus genotypes

AIM To review Hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence and genotypes distribution worldwide. METHODS We conducted a systematic study which represents one of the most comprehensive effort to quantify global HCV epidemiology, using the best available published data between 2000 and 2015 from 138 countries (about 90% of the global population), grouped in 20 geographical areas (with the exclusion of Oceania), as defined by the Global Burden of Diseases project (GBD). Countries for which we were unable to obtain HCV genotype prevalence data were excluded from calculations of regional proportions, although their populations were included in the total population size of each region when generating regional genotype prevalence estimates. RESULTS Total global HCV prevalence is estimated at 2.5% (177.5 million of HCV infected adults), ranging from 2.9% in Africa and 1.3% in Americas, with a global viraemic rate of 67% (118.9 million of HCV RNA positive cases), varying from 64.4% in Asia to 74.8% in Australasia. HCV genotype 1 is the most prevalent worldwide (49.1%), followed by genotype 3 (17.9%), 4 (16.8%) and 2 (11.0%). Genotypes 5 and 6 are responsible for the remaining < 5%. While genotypes 1 and 3 are common worldwide, the largest proportion of genotypes 4 and 5 is in lower-income countries. Although HCV genotypes 1 and 3 infections are the most prevalent globally (67.0% if considered together), other genotypes are found more commonly in lower-income countries where still account for a significant proportion of HCV cases. CONCLUSION A more precise knowledge of HCV genotype distribution will be helpful to best inform national healthcare models to improve access to new treatments.