Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Methods for Long Vehicles Speed Estimation Using Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) Sensors and Reference Piezoelectric Sensor

With rapidly increasing traffic occupancy, intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) are a vital feature for urban areas. This paper analyses methods for estimating long (L > 10 m) vehicle speed and length using a self-developed system, equipped with two anisotropic magneto-resistive (AMR) sensors, and introduces a method for verifying the results. A well-known cross-correlation method of magnetic signatures is not appropriate for calculating the vehicle speed of long vehicles owing to limited resources and a long calculation time. Therefore, the adaptive signature cropping algorithm was developed and used with a difference quotient of a magnetic signature. An additional piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) sensor and video camera provide ground truth to evaluate the performances. The prototype system was installed on the urban road and tested under various traffic and weather conditions. The accuracy of results was evaluated by calculating the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for different methods and vehicle speed groups. The experimental result with a self-obtained data set of 600 unique entities shows that the average speed MAPE error of our proposed method is lower than 3% for vehicle speed in a range between 40 and 100 km/h.
Decay-accelerating Factor Induction on Vascular Endothelium by Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) Is Mediated via a VEGF Receptor-2 (VEGF-R2)- and Protein Kinase C-α/ϵ (PKCα/ϵ)-dependent Cytoprotective Signaling Pathway and Is Inhibited by Cyclosporin A*

Decay-accelerating factor (DAF), a membrane-bound complement regulatory protein, is up-regulated on endothelial cells (ECs) following treatment with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), providing enhanced protection from complement-mediated injury. We explored the signaling pathways involved in this response. Incubation of human umbilical vein ECs with VEGF induced a 3-fold increase in DAF expression. Inhibition by flk-1 kinase inhibitor SU1498 and failure of placental growth factor (PlGF) to up-regulate DAF confirmed the role of VEGF-R2. The response was also blocked by pretreatment with phospholipase C-γ (PLCγ) inhibitor U71322 and protein kinase C (PKC) antagonist GF109203X. In contrast, no effect was seen with nitric oxide synthase inhibitor NG-monomethyl-l-arginine (l-NMMA). Use of PKC agonists and isozyme-specific pseudosubstrate peptide antagonists suggested a role for PKCα and -ϵ in VEGF-mediated DAF up-regulation. This was confirmed by transfection of ECs with PKCα and -ϵ dominant-negative constructs, which in combination completely abrogated induction of DAF by VEGF. In contrast, LY290042, a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor, significantly augmented DAF expression, suggesting a negative regulatory role for phosphoinositide 3-kinase. The widely used immunosuppressive drug cyclosporin A (CsA) inhibited DAF induction by VEGF in a dose-dependent manner. The VEGF-induced DAF expression was functionally effective, significantly reducing complement-mediated EC lysis, and this cytoprotective effect was reversed by CsA. These data provide evidence for a VEGF-R2-, phospholipase C-γ-, and PKCα/ϵ-mediated cytoprotective pathway in ECs. This may represent an important mechanism for the maintenance of vascular integrity during chronic inflammation involving complement activation. Moreover, inhibition of this pathway by CsA may play a role in CsA-mediated vascular injury.
Revisiting the complex architecture of ALS in Turkey: Expanding genotypes, shared phenotypes, molecular networks, and a public variant database

The last decade has proven that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is clinically and genetically heterogeneous, and that the genetic component in sporadic cases might be stronger than expected. This study investigates 1,200 patients to revisit ALS in the ethnically heterogeneous yet inbred Turkish population. Familial ALS (fALS) accounts for 20% of our cases. The rates of consanguinity are 30% in fALS and 23% in sporadic ALS (sALS). Major ALS genes explained the disease cause in only 35% of fALS, as compared with ~70% in Europe and North America. Whole exome sequencing resulted in a discovery rate of 42% (53/127). Whole genome analyses in 623 sALS cases and 142 population controls, sequenced within Project MinE, revealed well‐established fALS gene variants, solidifying the concept of incomplete penetrance in ALS. Genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) with whole genome sequencing data did not indicate a new risk locus. Coupling GWAS with a coexpression network of disease‐associated candidates, points to a significant enrichment for cell cycle‐ and division‐related genes. Within this network, literature text‐mining highlights DECR1, ATL1, HDAC2, GEMIN4, and HNRNPA3 as important genes. Finally, information on ALS‐related gene variants in the Turkish cohort sequenced within Project MinE was compiled in the GeNDAL variant browser (www.gendal.org).
Effects of climatic fluctuations and vertical mixing on the interannual trophic variability of Lake Garda, Italy

A linked chain of causal factors—namely, winter air temperature, spring lake temperature, extent of the spring lake overturn, and extent of surface nutrient enrichment—had significant effects on the annual development of phytoplankton structure and biomass in Lake Garda, a large (49 × 109 m3), deep (350 m) lake located south of the Alps. The relationship between the winter climate and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) was unclear, probably because of the location of the lake, which was on the border between different centers of action of the NAO (the Mediterranean region and central and northern Europe). Soon after the major enrichment episodes, conjugatophytes and large diatoms developed with higher biovolumes during April, whereas from midsummer to midautumn, the cyanobacteria and, more irregularly, the conjugatophytes were more important. In two other deep southern subalpine lakes (Iseo and Lugano), the interannual variations in the extent of spring vertical mixing, nutrient replenishment, and phytoplankton development were closely related because of the common effects of winter climate on the subalpine region. The effect was proportionally more evident in the two meromictic and more eutrophic lakes, Iseo and Lugano, because of the higher nutrient content in their hypolimnia.
Optimization of Synthesis of Seleno-Sargassum fusiforme (Harv.) Setch. Polysaccharide by Response Surface Methodology, Its Characterization, and Antioxidant Activity

The response surface methodology was employed to optimize the synthesis conditions of seleno-Sargassum fusiforme (Harv.) Setch. polysaccharide. Three independent variables (reaction time, reaction temperature, and ratio of Na2SeO3 to SFPSI) were tested. Furthermore, the characterization and antioxidant activity of Se-SFPSI in vivo were investigated. The result showed that the actual experimental Se content of Se-SFPSI was 3.352 mg/g at the optimum reaction conditions of reaction time 8 h, reaction temperature 71°C, and ratio of Na2SeO3 to SFPSIB 1.0 g/g. A series of experiments showed that the characterization of Se-SFPSIB was significantly different from that of SFPSIB. Additionally, antioxidant activity assay indicated that the Se-SFPSIB could increase catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity of mice bearing tumor S180 in blood, heart, and liver while decreasing malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. It can be concluded that selenylation is a feasible approach to obtain seleno-polysaccharide which was utilized as highly biological medicine or functional food.
Mitochondrial F-type ATP synthase: multiple enzyme functions revealed by the membrane-embedded FO structure

Abstract Of the two main sectors of the F-type ATP synthase, the membrane-intrinsic FO domain is the one which, during evolution, has undergone the highest structural variations and changes in subunit composition. The FO complexity in mitochondria is apparently related to additional enzyme functions that lack in bacterial and thylakoid complexes. Indeed, the F-type ATP synthase has the main bioenergetic role to synthesize ATP by exploiting the electrochemical gradient built by respiratory complexes. The FO membrane domain, essential in the enzyme machinery, also participates in the bioenergetic cost of synthesizing ATP and in the formation of the cristae, thus contributing to mitochondrial morphology. The recent enzyme involvement in a high-conductance channel, which forms in the inner mitochondrial membrane and promotes the mitochondrial permeability transition, highlights a new F-type ATP synthase role. Point mutations which cause amino acid substitutions in FO subunits produce mitochondrial dysfunctions and lead to severe pathologies. The FO variability in different species, pointed out by cryo-EM analysis, mirrors the multiple enzyme functions and opens a new scenario in mitochondrial biology.
Compositional Generalization by Factorizing Alignment and Translation

Standard methods in deep learning for natural language processing fail to capture the compositional structure of human language that allows for systematic generalization outside of the training distribution. However, human learners readily generalize in this way, e.g. by applying known grammatical rules to novel words. Inspired by work in cognitive science suggesting a functional distinction between systems for syntactic and semantic processing, we implement a modification to an existing approach in neural machine translation, imposing an analogous separation between alignment and translation. The resulting architecture substantially outperforms standard recurrent networks on the SCAN dataset, a compositional generalization task, without any additional supervision. Our work suggests that learning to align and to translate in separate modules may be a useful heuristic for capturing compositional structure.
A social robot mediator to foster collaboration and inclusion among children

—Formation of subgroups and thereby the problem of intergroup bias is well-studied in psychology. Already from the age of ﬁve, children can show ingroup preferences. We developed a social robot mediator to explore how a robot could help overcome these intergroup biases, especially for children newly arrived to a country. By utilizing an online evaluation of collaboration levels, we allow the robot to perceive and act upon the current group dynamics. We investigated the effectiveness of the robot’s mediating behavior in a between-subject study with 39 children, of whom 13 children had arrived in Sweden within the last 2 years. Results indicate that the robot could help the process of inclusion by mediating the activity. The robot succeeds in encouraging the newly arrived children to act more outgoing and in increasing collaboration among ingroup children. Further, children show a higher level of prosociality after interacting with the robot. In line with prior work, this study demonstrates the ability of social robotic technology to assist group processes.
Social support, social context and nonadherence to treatment in young senior patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy followed-up in primary care. MULTIPAP Study

Objective To estimate the prevalence of nonadherence to treatment and its relationship with social support and social context in patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy followed-up in primary care. Methods This was an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, multicenter study with an analytical approach. A total of 593 patients between 65–74 years of age with multimorbidity (≥3 diseases) and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs) during the last three months and agreed to participate in the MULTIPAP Study. The main variable was adherence (Morisky-Green). The predictors were social support (structural support and functional support (DUFSS)); sociodemographic variables; indicators of urban objective vulnerability; health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L-VAS & QALY); and clinical variables. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses with logistic regression models and robust estimators were performed. Results Four out of ten patients were nonadherent, 47% had not completed primary education, 28.7% had an income ≤1050 €/month, 35% reported four or more IUVs, and the average perceived health-related quality of life (HRQOL) EQ-5D-5L-VAS was 65.5. The items that measure functional support, with significantly different means between nonadherent and adherent patients were receiving love and affection (-0.23; 95%CI: -0.40;-0.06), help when ill (-0.25; 95%CI: -0.42;-0.08), useful advice (-0.20; 95%CI: -0.37;-0.02), social invitations (-0.22; 95%CI:-0.44;-0.01), and recognition (-0.29; 95%CI:-0.50;-0.08). Factors associated with nonadherence were belonging to the medium vs. low tertile of functional support (0.62; 95%CI: 0.42;0.94), reporting less than four IUVs (0.69; 95%CI: 0.46;1.02) and higher HRQOL perception (0.98; 95%CI: 0.98;0.99). Conclusions Among patients 65–74 years of age with multimorbidity and polypharmacy, lower functional support was related to nonadherence to treatment. The nonadherence decreased in those patients with higher functional support, lower urban vulnerability and higher perceived health status according to the visual analog scale of health-related quality of life.
Utilização de hipoclorito de sódio na esterilização de meio de cultura para multiplicação in vitro de Eucalyptus pellita L

Lately it has been observed a great interest in the research area of plant tissue culture in discovering new alternatives leading to cost reduction of the plants produced in commercial laboratories, in order to turn this alternative of plant propagation more economical. A potentially promising alternative for this reduction of costs, but which has not been receiving the due attention, is the possibility of substituting the autoclaving technique to a more economical one. With this purpose, two tests were carried out, using a new protocol of medium preparation, which consisted of the chemical sterilization of all the utensils used in the preparation and packaging of the culture medium as well, associated to the addition of the sterilizing agent to the medium, in different concentrations. The objective of the first test was to observe the influence of different concentrations of NaClO added to the culture medium, on its sterilization. The second test aimed at verifying the reaction of the Eucalyptus pellita tissues to different concentrations of NaClO in the culture medium. The addition of NaClO to the culture medium, equal or higher than 0.0005% in the fist test and of 0.005% in the second one, allowed complete sterilization of the medium, without observing any damage to the Eucalyptus pellita tissues, even when they were grown on culture medium containing up to 0.009%, the maximum concentration tried. The results showed the viability of eliminating the autoclave for the sterilization of culture media.
Research on Task Discovery for Transfer Learning in Deep Neural Networks

Deep neural network based machine learning models are shown to perform poorly on unseen or out-of-domain examples by numerous recent studies. Transfer learning aims to avoid overfitting and to improve generalizability by leveraging the information obtained from multiple tasks. Yet, the benefits of transfer learning depend largely on task selection and finding the right method of sharing. In this thesis, we hypothesize that current deep neural network based transfer learning models do not achieve their fullest potential for various tasks and there are still many task combinations that will benefit from transfer learning that are not considered by the current models. To this end, we started our research by implementing a novel multi-task learner with relaxed annotated data requirements and obtained a performance improvement on two NLP tasks. We will further devise models to tackle tasks from multiple areas of machine learning, such as Bioinformatics and Computer Vision, in addition to NLP.
Déclasser les voisins non sémantiques pour améliorer les thésaurus distributionnels

La plupart des méthodes d’amélioration des thésaurus distributionnels se focalisent sur les moyens – représentations ou mesures de similarité – de mieux détecter la similarité sémantique entre les mots. Dans cet article, nous proposons un point de vue inverse : nous cherchons à détecter les voisins sémantiques associés à une entrée les moins susceptibles d’être liés sémantiquement à elle et nous utilisons cette information pour réordonner ces voisins. Pour détecter les faux voisins sémantiques d’une entrée, nous adoptons une approche s’inspirant de la désambiguïsation sémantique en construisant un classifieur permettant de différencier en contexte cette entrée des autres mots. Ce classifieur est ensuite appliqué à un échantillon des occurrences des voisins de l’entrée pour repérer ceux les plus éloignés de l’entrée. Nous évaluons cette méthode pour des thésaurus construits à partir de cooccurrents syntaxiques et nous montrons l’intérêt de la combiner avec les méthodes décrites dans (Ferret, 2013b) selon une stratégie de type vote.
Octanove Labs’ Japanese-Chinese Open Domain Translation System

This paper describes Octanove Labs’ submission to the IWSLT 2020 open domain translation challenge. In order to build a high-quality Japanese-Chinese neural machine translation (NMT) system, we use a combination of 1) parallel corpus filtering and 2) back-translation. We have shown that, by using heuristic rules and learned classifiers, the size of the parallel data can be reduced by 70% to 90% without much impact on the final MT performance. We have also shown that including the artificially generated parallel data through back-translation further boosts the metric by 17% to 27%, while self-training contributes little. Aside from a small number of parallel sentences annotated for filtering, no external resources have been used to build our system.
Tabouid: a Wikipedia-based word guessing game

We present Tabouid, a word-guessing game automatically generated from Wikipedia. Tabouid contains 10,000 (virtual) cards in English, and as many in French, covering not only words and linguistic expressions but also a variety of topics including artists, historical events or scientific concepts. Each card corresponds to a Wikipedia article, and conversely, any article could be turned into a card. A range of relatively simple NLP and machine-learning techniques are effectively integrated into a two-stage process. First, a large subset of Wikipedia articles are scored - this score estimates the difficulty, or alternatively, the playability of the page. Then, the best articles are turned into cards by selecting, for each of them, a list of banned words based on its content. We believe that the game we present is more than mere entertainment and that, furthermore, this paper has pedagogical potential.
Hatchability and Early Chick Growth Potential of Broiler Breeder Eggs with Hairline Cracks

SUMMARY Eggs with hairline cracks are often placed in incubators, as they can appear structurally sound and, hence, capable of producing a saleable chick. The relative incubation weight loss, embryonic mortality, hatchability, and early chick growth rates associated with normally shelled broiler eggs andthose withhairlinecracks underpracticalconditions arenotknown. Todeterminethe incidence of hairline cracks, eggs from 5 commercial flocks of various strains were candled, and equal numbers of hairline-cracked and normal eggs were collected and incubated for 21 d. All eggs were weighed and candled at 18 d, and any nonviable eggs were removed. All unhatched eggs remaining after 21 d of incubation were broken open to assess the stage of embryonic development. Transfer weights,hatchability,andchickhatchweightswerelower(P <0.05)inhairline-crackedascompared with normal eggs, whereas the percentage of weight loss was higher in hairline-cracked eggs. Hatchability was 74.37% for normal eggs as compared with 50.52% for hairline-cracked eggs. The incidence of mid (8 to 14 d of incubation) and late (over and including 15 d of incubation) embryonic mortality was higher in hairline-cracked eggs as compared with normal eggs. Significantly more hairline-cracked eggs were contaminated, broken, or both during incubation as compared with normal eggs. An increase in chick mortality was associated with hairline-cracked eggs compared with the normal eggs during the 14-d chick growth trial. Hairline cracks reduced hatchability of hatching eggs, increased the likelihood of contamination in the incubator due to putrefaction, and resulted in greater chick mortality. For these reasons, hairline-cracked eggs should not be incubated.
Désambiguïsation d’entités pour l’induction non supervisée de schémas événementiels

Cet article présente un modèle génératif pour l’induction non supervisée d’événements. Les précédentes méthodes de la littérature utilisent uniquement les têtes des syntagmes pour représenter les entités. Pourtant, le groupe complet (par exemple, ”un homme armé”) apporte une information plus discriminante (que ”homme”). Notre modèle tient compte de cette information et la représente dans la distribution des schémas d’événements. Nous montrons que ces relations jouent un rôle important dans l’estimation des paramètres, et qu’elles conduisent à des distributions plus cohérentes et plus discriminantes. Les résultats expérimentaux sur le corpus de MUC-4 confirment ces progrès.
Embryogenesis plasticity and the transmission of maternal effects in Daphnia pulex

Understanding how genetic, nongenetic, and environmental cues are integrated during development may be critical in understanding if, and how, organisms will respond to rapid environmental change. Normally, only post‐embryonic studies are possible. But in this study, we developed a real‐time, high‐throughput confocal microscope assay that allowed us to link Daphnia embryogenesis to offspring life history variation at the individual level. Our assay identified eight clear developmental phenotypes linked by seven developmental stages, the duration of which were correlated with the expression of specific offspring life history traits. Daphnia embryogenesis varied not only between clones reared in the same environment, but also within a single clone when mothers were of different ages or reared in different food environments. Our results support the hypothesis that Daphnia embryogenesis is plastic and can be altered by changes in maternal state or maternal environment. As well as furthering our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning parental effects, our assay may also have an industrial application if it can be used as a rapid ecotoxicological prescreen for testing the effect that pollutant doses have on offspring life histories traditionally assayed with a 21‐day Daphnia reproduction test.