Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanisms underlying the role of DISC1 in synaptic plasticity

Disrupted in schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) is an important hub protein, forming multimeric complexes by self‐association and interacting with a large number of synaptic and cytoskeletal molecules. The synaptic location of DISC1 in the adult brain suggests a role in synaptic plasticity, and indeed, a number of studies have discovered synaptic plasticity impairments in a variety of different DISC1 mutants. This review explores the possibility that DISC1 is an important molecule for organizing proteins involved in synaptic plasticity and examines why mutations in DISC1 impair plasticity. It concentrates on DISC1's role in interacting with synaptic proteins, controlling dendritic structure and cellular trafficking of mRNA, synaptic vesicles and mitochondria. N‐terminal directed mutations appear to impair synaptic plasticity through interactions with phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B) and hence protein kinase A (PKA)/GluA1 and PKA/cAMP response element‐binding protein (CREB) signalling pathways, and affect spine structure through interactions with kalirin 7 (Kal‐7) and Rac1. C‐terminal directed mutations also impair plasticity possibly through altered interactions with lissencephaly protein 1 (LIS1) and nuclear distribution protein nudE‐like 1 (NDEL1), thereby affecting developmental processes such as dendritic structure and spine maturation. Many of the same molecules involved in DISC1's cytoskeletal interactions are also involved in intracellular trafficking, raising the possibility that impairments in intracellular trafficking affect cytoskeletal development and vice versa. While the multiplicity of DISC1 protein interactions makes it difficult to pinpoint a single causal signalling pathway, we suggest that the immediate‐term effects of N‐terminal influences on GluA1, Rac1 and CREB, coupled with the developmental effects of C‐terminal influences on trafficking and the cytoskeleton make up the two main branches of DISC1's effect on synaptic plasticity and dendritic spine stability.
A System Attack Surface Based MTD Effectiveness and Cost Quantification Framework

Moving Target Defense (MTD) is a game-changing method to thwart adversaries and reverses the imbalance situation in network countermeasures. Introducing Attack Surface (AS) into MTD security assessment brings productive concepts to qualitative and quantitative analysis. The quantification of MTD effectiveness and cost (E&C) has been under researched, using simulation models and emulation testbeds, to give accurate and reliable results for MTD technologies. However, the lack of system-view evaluation impedes MTD to move toward large-scale applications. In this paper, a System Attack Surface Based Quantification Framework (SASQF) is proposed to establish a system-view based framework for further research in Attack Surface and MTD E&C quantification. And a simulated model based on SASQF is developed to provide illustrations and software simulation methods. A typical C/S scenario and Cyber Kill Chain (CKC) attacks are presented in case study and several simulated results are given. From the simulated results, IP mutation frequency is the key to increase consumptions of adversaries, while the IP mutation pool is not the principal factor to thwart adversaries in reconnaissance and delivery of CKC steps. For system user operational cost, IP mutation frequency influence legitimate connections in relative values under ideal link state without delay, packet lose and jitter. The simulated model based on SASQF also provides a basic method to find the optimal IP mutation frequency through simulations.
From Data Warehouse to Information Warehouse: Application to Social Media

Data and information are different constructs and Data become information when they supply a content from several elements, generating thus a meaning. From this observation, in this paper, we introduce the paradigm of information warehousing and explain our motivation. We propose a generic and original information warehouse architecture for the storage and analysis of all types of information sources such as scientific papers, press articles and social media. The described infrastructure is then illustrated for the case of Twitter where a multidimensional information model is defined. The collected information flow is analyzed using a data mining technique, which is the Apriori algorithm, to discover association rules that would reflect the topics discussed in the tweets collection. The obtained results are promising and confirm the potential of the proposed paradigm.
Adaptive RBF Network Based Direct Voltage Control for Interior PMSM Based Vehicles

This paper presents an adaptive radial basis function (RBF) network based speed control approach for interior permanent magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) based vehicles. The presented control strategy achieves speed tracking without current measurement or control by acting directly on the machine's voltages. As a result, the current control loop is avoided, greatly simplifying the overall control strategy when compared to most existing speed control schemes. Moreover, no parameter knowledge is required unlike other control strategies. Furthermore, the closed-loop control system's stability is guaranteed by a Lyapunov theorem. Simulation and experimental results for different scenarios along with comparison against the well-established field oriented vector control technique demonstrate the controller's satisfactory behavior in both transient and steady state. The proposed method yields 99% and 97% tracking accuracy in the presence of parametric uncertainties and friction nonlinearities, respectively.
Location Augmentation for CNN

CNNs have made a tremendous impact on the field of computer vision in the last several years. The main component of any CNN architecture is the convolution operation, which is translation invariant by design. However, location in itself can be an important cue. For example, a salient object is more likely to be closer to the center of the image, the sky in the top part of an image, etc. To include the location cue for feature learning, we propose to augment the color image, the usual input to CNNs, with one or more channels that carry location information. We test two approaches for adding location information. In the first approach, we incorporate location directly, by including the row and column indexes as two additional channels to the input image. In the second approach, we add location less directly by adding distance transform from the center pixel as an additional channel to the input image. We perform experiments with both direct and indirect ways to encode location. We show the advantage of augmenting the standard color input with location related channels on the tasks of salient object segmentation, semantic segmentation, and scene parsing.
Suppression of surface charge on micro- and nano-structured superhydrophobic silicone rubber

Laser-ablated template and fluoroalkyl silane modified composite coatings are used to prepare a micro- and nano-structure on silicone rubber surfaces. By testing the surface potential accumulation and dissipation process, we assess the suppression of surface charge on superhydrophobic silicone rubber. The surface physicochemical properties and resistivity are examined. The electron and hole trap distribution are analysed using isothermal current decay theory. Peak density of traps associated with the superhydrophobic surfaces are found to be promoted to lower energy levels relative to unmodified silicone. Surface micro-structure increases trap density and reduce trap depth; nano coatings are shown to further reduce surface trap depth. The improvements shown to suppress surface charge accumulation is beneficial to a range of electrical industries and helps mitigate surface flashover on insulation.
Comparative Study of Digital Fingerprint Quality Assessment Metrics

The quality assessment of biometric data proceeds as a toll to decide whether a biometric sample may be used to generate the user's reference template. Many studies showed its signi? cant impact on the subsequent performance of the biometric system. Since many metrics are proposed for this purpose by researchers or standardization institutions, their relevance should be studied in particular to evaluate their relative usefulness. This paper provides a comparative study of fingerprint quality assessment (FQA) metrics. We consider the enrollment selection validation approach to perform an objective comparison of them. We show the efficiency of 7 well known FQA metrics on 9 datasets. Results show a dependency of these metrics to the dataset (i.e. the fingerprint sensor) and for matchers a similar behavior.
Joint Modeling and Optimization of Search and Recommendation

Despite the somewhat different techniques used in developing search engines and recommender systems, they both follow the same goal: helping people to get the information they need at the right time. Due to this common goal, search and recommendation models can potentially benefit from each other. The recent advances in neural network technologies make them effective and easily extendable for various tasks, including retrieval and recommendation. This raises the possibility of jointly modeling and optimizing search ranking and recommendation algorithms, with potential benefits to both. In this paper, we present theoretical and practical reasons to motivate joint modeling of search and recommendation as a research direction. We propose a general framework that simultaneously learns a retrieval model and a recommendation model by optimizing a joint loss function. Our preliminary results on a dataset of product data indicate that the proposed joint modeling substantially outperforms the retrieval and recommendation models trained independently. We list a number of future directions for this line of research that can potentially lead to development of state-of-the-art search and recommendation models.
PIK3CA mutations are specifically localized to lymphatic endothelial cells of lymphatic malformations

Lymphatic malformations (LM) are characterized by the overgrowth of lymphatic vessels during pre- and postnatal development. Macrocystic, microcystic and combined forms of LM are known. The cysts are lined by lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs). Resection and sclerotherapy are the most common treatment methods. Recent studies performed on LM specimens in the United States of America have identified activating mutations in the phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha (PIK3CA) gene in LM. However, whole tissue but not isolated cell types were studied. Here, we studied LM tissues resected at the University Hospitals Freiburg and Regensburg, Germany. We isolated LECs and fibroblasts separately, and sequenced the commonly affected exons 8, 10, and 21 of the PIK3CA gene. We confirm typical monoallelic mutations in 4 out of 6 LM-derived LEC lines, and describe two new mutations i. ) in exon 10 (c.1636C>A; p.Gln546Lys), and ii. ) a 3bp in-frame deletion of GAA (Glu109del). LM-derived fibroblasts did not possess such mutations, showing cell-type specificity of the gene defect. High activity of the PIK3CA—AKT- mTOR pathway was demonstrated by hyperphosphorylation of AKT-Ser473 in all LM-derived LECs (including the ones with newly identified mutations), as compared to normal LECs. Additionally, hyperphosphorylation of ERK was seen in all LM-derived LECs, except for the one with Glu109del. In vitro, the small molecule kinase inhibitors Buparlisib/BKM-120, Wortmannin, and Ly294002, (all inhibitors of PIK3CA), CAL-101 (inhibitor of PIK3CD), MK-2206 (AKT inhibitor), Sorafenib (multiple kinases inhibitor), and rapamycin (mTOR inhibitor) significantly blocked proliferation of LM-derived LECs in a concentration-dependent manner, but also blocked proliferation of normal LECs. However, MK-2206 appeared to be more specific for mutated LECs, except in case of Glu109 deletion. In sum, children that are, or will be, treated with kinase inhibitors must be monitored closely.
A Model for Evaluating Algorithmic Systems Accountability

Algorithmic systems make decisions that have a great impact in our lives. As our dependency on them is growing so does the need for transparency and holding them accountable. This paper presents a model for evaluating how transparent these systems are by focusing on their algorithmic part as well as the maturity of the organizations that utilize them. We applied this model on a classification algorithm created and utilized by a large financial institution. The results of our analysis indicated that the organization was only partially in control of their algorithm and they lacked the necessary benchmark to interpret the deducted results and assess the validity of its inferencing.
Query-Conditioned Three-Player Adversarial Network for Video Summarization

Video summarization plays an important role in video understanding by selecting key frames/shots. Traditionally, it aims to find the most representative and diverse contents in a video as short summaries. Recently, a more generalized task, query-conditioned video summarization, has been introduced, which takes user queries into consideration to learn more user-oriented summaries. In this paper, we propose a query-conditioned three-player generative adversarial network to tackle this challenge. The generator learns the joint representation of the user query and the video content, and the discriminator takes three pairs of query-conditioned summaries as the input to discriminate the real summary from a generated and a random one. A three-player loss is introduced for joint training of the generator and the discriminator, which forces the generator to learn better summary results, and avoids the generation of random trivial summaries. Experiments on a recently proposed query-conditioned video summarization benchmark dataset show the efficiency and efficacy of our proposed method.
Counting Integral Points in Polytopes via Numerical Analysis of Contour Integration

In this paper, we address the problem of counting integer points in a rational polytope described by $P(y) = \{ x \in \mathbb{R}^m \colon Ax = y, x \geq 0\}$, where $A$ is an $n \times m$ integer matrix and $y$ is an $n$-dimensional integer vector. We study the Z-transformation approach initiated by Brion-Vergne, Beck, and Lasserre-Zeron from the numerical analysis point of view, and obtain a new algorithm on this problem: If $A$ is nonnegative, then the number of integer points in $P(y)$ can be computed in $O(\mathrm{poly} (n,m, \|y\|_\infty) (\|y\|_\infty + 1)^n)$ time and $O(\mathrm{poly} (n,m, \|y\|_\infty))$ space.This improves, in terms of space complexity, a naive DP algorithm with $O((\|y\|_\infty + 1)^n)$-size DP table. Our result is based on the standard error analysis to the numerical contour integration for the inverse Z-transform, and establish a new type of an inclusion-exclusion formula for integer points in $P(y)$. We apply our result to hypergraph $b$-matching, and obtain a $O(\mathrm{poly}( n,m,\|b\|_\infty) (\|b\|_\infty +1)^{(1-1/k)n})$ time algorithm for counting $b$-matchings in a $k$-partite hypergraph with $n$ vertices and $m$ hyperedges. This result is viewed as a $b$-matching generalization of the classical result by Ryser for $k=2$ and its multipartite extension by Bj{\"o}rklund-Husfeldt.
Effect of denosumab on bone mineral density in Japanese women with osteopenia treated with aromatase inhibitors for breast cancer: subgroup analyses of a Phase II study

Background The aim of the study was to conduct subgroup analyses of therapeutic effects of 12-month denosumab therapy on the percentage change in bone mineral density (BMD) from baseline in the lumber spine and femoral neck. Materials and methods We prospectively evaluated the BMD of the lumbar spine and femoral neck of 100 hormone receptor-positive, clinical stage I–IIIA postoperative postmenopausal breast cancer patients, for whom treatment with aromatase inhibitors (AIs) as adjuvant endocrine therapy was scheduled. The primary endpoint was the percent change in lumbar spine BMD from baseline to 12 months. Patient subgroups were analyzed according to baseline variables that are known risk factors for bone loss, including previous AI therapy, age, time since menopause, baseline body mass index (BMI), and baseline BMD T-score. Results At 12 months, lumbar spine BMD increased by 4.7%; the patients who were administered AI therapy prior to denosumab (n=70) demonstrated a 4.7% increase in BMD, and the patients who received denosumab at the start of AI therapy (n=30) demonstrated a 4.5% increase in BMD (p=0.8385). Additionally, 2.4% and 1.4% increases in BMD of the right and left femoral neck, respectively, were observed. Initiation of AI (with denosumab, before denosumab), type of AI (non-steroidal, steroidal), age (<65, ≥65 years), time since menopause (≤5, >5 years), BMI (<25, ≥25 kg/m2), and T-score (≤−1.0, >−1.0) of the right femoral neck were as follows: (2.2%, 2.5%, p=0.7773), (2.6%, 0.9%, p=0.1726), (2.5%, 2.3%, p=0.7594), (2.1%, 2.4%, p=0.2034), (2.1%, 2.9%, p=0.2034), and (2.3%, 2.7%, p=0.6823), respectively. Initiation of AI (with denosumab, before denosumab), type of AI (non-steroidal, steroidal), age (<65, ≥65 years), time since menopause (≤5, >5 years), BMI (<25, ≥25 kg/m2), and T-score (≤−1.0, >−1.0) of the left femoral neck were as follows: (1.0%, 1.5%, p=0.1972), (1.2%, 2.7%, p=0.2931), (1.4%, 1.3%, p=0.8817), (−0.1%, 1.6%, p=0.1766), (1.3%, 1.9%, p=0.6465), and (1.5%, 1.1%, p=0.6573), respectively. Conclusion Twice-yearly treatment with denosumab was associated with increased BMD among Japanese women receiving adjuvant AI therapy, regardless of the baseline characteristics or skeletal site.
Increased Expression of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis

BACKGROUND Previous studies have indicated an elevated level of serum Interleukin (IL)-22 in patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). However, there are no experimental data on the master transcription factor (aryl hydrocarbon receptor) that plays an important role in the development of T helper type 22 (Th22) cells as major producers of IL-22. The aim of the present study was to examine the expression of aryl hydrocarbon receptor in patients with AIH and in normal controls. METHODS Levels of mRNA transcripts were measured in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 18 patients with AIH and compared with 18 normal controls by a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS mRNA expression of aryl hydrocarbon receptor was significantly higher in patients with AIH compared with the healthy control group (P = 0.006). CONCLUSION Th22 cells may play an important role in the pathogenesis of AIH.
Multi-spectral Iris Segmentation in Visible Wavelengths

While traditional iris recognition systems operate using near-infrared images, visible wavelength approaches have gained attention in recent years due to a variety of reasons, such as the deployment of iris recognition in consumer grade mobile devices. Iris segmentation, the process of localizing the iris part of an image, is a vital step in iris recognition. The segmentation of the iris usually involves a detection of inner and outer iris boundaries, a detection of eyelids, an exclusion of eyelashes as well as contact lens rings and a scrubbing of specular reflections. This work presents a comprehensive multi-spectral analysis to improve iris segmentation accuracy in visible wavelengths by transforming iris images before their segmentation, which is done by extracting spectral components in form of RGB color channels. The procedure is evaluated by utilizing the MobBIO dataset, open-source iris segmentation tools, and the NICE.I error measures. Additionally, a segmentation-level fusion procedure based on existing work is performed; an eye color analysis is examined, with no clear connection to the multi-spectral procedure being found; and another analysis highlights further potential improvement by assuming perfect selection within various multi-spectral segmentation result sets.
New Algorithms for Subset Sum Problem

Given a set (or multiset) S of n numbers and a target number t, the subset sum problem is to decide if there is a subset of S that sums up to t. There are several methods for solving this problem, including exhaustive search, divide-and-conquer method, and Bellman's dynamic programming method. However, none of them could generate universal and light code. In this paper, we present a new deterministic algorithm based on a novel data arrangement, which could generate such code and return all solutions. If n is small enough, it is efficient for usual purpose. We also present a probabilistic version with one-sided error and a greedy algorithm which could generate a solution with minimized variance.
Fabrication by Laser Irradiation in a Continuous Flow Jet of Carbon Quantum Dots for Fluorescence Imaging

Fluorescent carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are synthesized by laser irradiation of carbon glassy particles suspended in polyethylene glycol 200 by two methods, a batch and a flow jet configuration. The flow jet configuration is carried out by the simple combination of common laboratory objects to construct a home-made passage reactor of continuous flow. Despite the simplicity of the system, the laser energy is better harvested by the carbon microparticles, improving the fabrication efficiency a 15% and enhancing the fluorescence of CQDs by an order of magnitude in comparison with the conventional batch. The flow jet-synthesized CQDs have a mean size of 3 nm and are used for fluorescent imaging of transparent healthy and cancer epithelial human cells. Complete internalization is observed with a short incubation time of 10 min without using any extra additive or processing of the cell culture. The CQDs are well fixed in the organelles of the cell even after its death; hence, this is a simple manner to keep the cell information for prolonged periods of time. Moreover, the integrated photostability of the CQDs internalized in in vitro cells is measured and it remains almost constant during at least 2 h, revealing their outstanding performance as fluorescent labels.