Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Efficient Heuristic for Security against Multiple Adversaries in Stackelberg Games

In adversarial multiagent domains, security, commonly defined as the ability to deal with intentional threats from other agents, is a critical issue. This paper focuses on domains where these threats come from unknown adversaries. These domains can be modeled as Bayesian games; much work has been done on finding equilibria for such games. However, it is often the case in multiagent security domains that one agent can commit to a mixed strategy which its adversaries observe before choosing their own strategies. In this case, the agent can maximize reward by finding an optimal strategy, without requiring equilibrium. Previous work has shown this problem of optimal strategy selection to be NP-hard. Therefore, we present a heuristic called ASAP, with three key advantages to address the problem. First, ASAP searches for the highest-reward strategy, rather than a Bayes-Nash equilibrium, allowing it to find feasible strategies that exploit the natural first-mover advantage of the game. Second, it provides strategies which are simple to understand, represent, and implement. Third, it operates directly on the compact, Bayesian game representation, without requiring conversion to normal form. We provide an efficient Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) implementation for ASAP, along with experimental results illustrating significant speedups and higher rewards over other approaches.
S-LOC AND MY ENVIRONMENT: A NEW LOCALIZATION SYSTEM FOR AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank to my supervisor Prof. H. Levent Akın for his encouragement, guidance and enthusiastic support. This thesis would not be possible without his contributions. I would like to thank to the people of AILab and Cerberus Team, who has taken place in every single moment of this work with their valuable friendship, discussions, brilliant ideas and support. Their friendship and professional collaboration meant a great deal to me. My appreciations go to my sincere jury members Prof. Cem Say and Prof. Okyay Kaynak. I would like to thank all my teachers, who have shared their knowledge and ideas with me over the years, and enlightened my path. I would like to express my gratitude to my family for their endless love and support as well as helping me to form my personality. I owe them everything. In addition, I am also grateful to my real friends for their morale support, friendship and remarkable discussions about the life, universe and everything. The localization problem is the detection of the pose of a robot relative to the environment using the information about the environment sensed by the robot when the starting position is unknown. In short, it is answering the question " Where am I? ". Localization is an active field of study where many approaches are introduced into the literature. Robot soccer is a good platform to develop and test localization techniques since the robots have limited and noisy sensorial information as in the real life and the environment is also highly dynamic. In this work, a new module that will stand between the perception module and the other modules that uses its output and a new localization technique are introduced, and they are together proposed as a new localization system. The proposed new module is My Environment, which stores the perceptional data and provides a filtered and more robust data, and the new localization technique is S-Loc, which is a sample based localization technique where only one sample is used for each perception data. This system is implemented in Cerberus'05, which won the Technical Challenges in the RoboCup 2005-Sony Four-Legged League. This success, together with the experimental study, has shown that the proposed solution has a high performance for the application domain.
New Family of Deamination Repair Enzymes in Uracil-DNA Glycosylase Superfamily*

DNA glycosylases play a major role in the repair of deaminated DNA damage. Previous investigations identified five families within the uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) superfamily. All enzymes within the superfamily studied thus far exhibit uracil-DNA glycosylase activity. Here we identify a new class of DNA glycosylases in the UDG superfamily that lacks UDG activity. Instead, these enzymes act as hypoxanthine-DNA glycosylases in vitro and in vivo. Molecular modeling and structure-guided mutational analysis allowed us to identify a unique catalytic center in this class of DNA glycosylases. Based on unprecedented biochemical properties and phylogenetic analysis, we propose this new class of DNA repair glycosylases that exists in bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes as family 6 and designate it as the hypoxanthine-DNA glycosylase family. This study demonstrates the structural evolvability that underlies substrate specificity and catalytic flexibility in the evolution of enzymatic function.
Expansion of Gas Bubbles by Nitrous Oxide and Xenon

Background:Nitrous oxide is well known to expand gas bubbles trapped in enclosed spaces and is contraindicated in situations where this may occur. Xenon, an anesthetic gas with similar physical properties to nitrous oxide, is also likely to expand gas bubbles, and it has been predicted that microbubbles in the circulation may expand dramatically when exposed to xenon. Because of the possibility that xenon will be used during cardiopulmonary bypass surgery, a procedure that is likely to introduce microbubbles into the circulation, the authors reinvestigated the extent to which xenon expands gas bubbles in aqueous solution. Methods:Gas bubbles of either air or oxygen were formed in an aqueous solution, and their size was monitored using optical microscopy when they were exposed to a rapidly flowing solution of xenon, nitrous oxide, or a xenon-oxygen mixture. Results:Both nitrous oxide and xenon rapidly expanded air bubbles, although nitrous oxide caused a much larger expansion. The observed expansion was not greatly dependent on the initial size of the bubble but was significantly greater at lower temperatures. Under conditions relevant to cardiopulmonary bypass surgery (50% xenon-50% oxygen, 30°C), the increase in diameter was modest (9.7 ± 0.8%). Conclusions:Although xenon does expand small air and oxygen bubbles, the extent to which this occurs under clinically relevant conditions of concentration and temperature is modest.
Ageratum conyzoides: A Tropical Source of Medicinal and Agricultural Products

BOTANY Ageratum is derived from the Greek “a geras,” meaning non-aging, referring to the longevity of the flowers or the whole plant. The specific epithet “conyzoides” is derived from “konyz,” the Greek name of Inula helenium, which it resembles (Kissmann and Groth 1993). The synonyms of A. conyzoides include A. album Stend; A. caeruleum Hort. ex. Poir. ; A. coeruleum Desf. ; A. cordifolium Roxb. ; A. hirsutum Lam. ; A. humile Salisb. ; A. latifolium Car. ; A. maritimum H.B. K. ; A. mexicanum Sims. ; A. obtusifolium Lam. ; A. odoratum Vilm. and Cacalia mentrasto Vell. (Jaccoud 1961). In Brazil, A. conyzoides has the following vernacular names: catinga de bode, catinga de barrao, erva de sao joao, maria preta, mentrasto, erva de sao jose, picao roxo, erva de santa-lucia, camara-opela, agerato, camara apeba, camara iapo, camara jape, erva de santa maria, macela de sao joao, macela francesa, matruco (Jaccoud 1961; Oliveira et al. 1993). Ageratum ranges from Southeastern North America to Central America, but the center of origin is in Central America and the Caribbean. Most taxa are found in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Florida. Ageratum conyzoides now is found in several countries in tropical and sub-tropical regions, including Brazil ( Baker 1965; Lorenzi 1982; Correa 1984; Cruz 1985). Johnson (1971), classifies two subspecies, latifolium and conyzoides. Subspecies latifolium is found in all the Americas and subsp. conyzoides has a pantropical distribution. The basic chromosome number is 2n = 20 but natural tetraploids are found. A. conyzoides subsp. latifolium is diploid and A. conyzoides subsp. conyzoides is tetraploid. Ageratum conyzoides is an erect, herbaceous annual, 30 to 80 cm tall; stems are covered with fine white hairs, leaves are opposite, pubescent with long petioles and include glandular trichomes. The inflorescence contain 30 to 50 pink flowers arranged as a corymb and are self-incompatible (Jhansi and Ramanujam 1987; Kaul and Neelangini 1989; Ramanujam and Kalpana 1992; Kleinschimidt 1993). The fruit is an achene with an aristate pappus and is easily dispersed by wind. In some countries the species is considered a weed, and control is often difficult (Lorenzi 1982; Scheffer 1990; Kalia and Singh 1993; Lam et al. 1993, Paradkar et al. 1993; Waterhouse 1993; Kshatriya et al. 1994). Seeds are positively photoblastic, and viability is often lost within 12 months (Marlks and Nwachuku 1986; Ladeira et al. 1987). The optimum germination temperature ranges from 20 to 25°C (Sauerborn and Koch 1988). The species has great morphological variation, and appears highly adaptable to different ecological conditions.
Learning About Writing: The Early Years

Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Literacy in Communities andClassrooms. 2. Writing and Speech. 3. Symbols and Spellings. 4. Becoming A Writer. 5. Writing in The Classroom. 6. Writing with and for Others. 7. What are they Writing About. 8. Different Types of Writing. 9. Knowing About Writing. Bibliography. Index.
Statistical Analysis of Stationary Solutions of Coupled Nonconvex Nonsmooth Empirical Risk Minimization

This paper has two main goals: (a) establish several statistical properties---consistency, asymptotic distributions, and convergence rates---of stationary solutions and values of a class of coupled nonconvex and nonsmoothempirical risk minimization problems, and (b) validate these properties by a noisy amplitude-based phase retrieval problem, the latter being of much topical interest.Derived from available data via sampling, these empirical risk minimization problems are the computational workhorse of a population risk model which involves the minimization of an expected value of a random functional. When these minimization problems are nonconvex, the computation of their globally optimal solutions is elusive. Together with the fact that the expectation operator cannot be evaluated for general probability distributions, it becomes necessary to justify whether the stationary solutions of the empirical problems are practical approximations of the stationary solution of the population problem. When these two features, general distribution and nonconvexity, are coupled with nondifferentiability that often renders the problems "non-Clarke regular", the task of the justification becomes challenging. Our work aims to address such a challenge within an algorithm-free setting. The resulting analysis is therefore different from the much of the analysis in the recent literature that is based on local search algorithms. Furthermore, supplementing the classical minimizer-centric analysis, our results offer a first step to close the gap between computational optimization and asymptotic analysis of coupled nonconvex nonsmooth statistical estimation problems, expanding the former with statistical properties of the practically obtained solution and providing the latter with a more practical focus pertaining to computational tractability.
Carbon, forests and the REDD paradox

Abstract The institutional arrangements governing forests will be a critical factor in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) as part of the global effort to mitigate climate change. A growing body of empirical research demonstrates how local forest governance can be as, if not more, effective than centralized state-based regimes. Local forest governance can secure improvements in multiple forest outcomes such as biomass and carbon storage and livelihoods contributions for the poor, and it can do so at lower cost than is possible through centralized governance. Many national governments have implicitly recognized these findings in their pursuit of decentralized forest governance and in strengthening local rights and capacities to use and manage forests. However, such reforms are often politically resisted, particularly where the value of forest resources is high and central government bodies are able to capture the majority of benefits. Ongoing negotiations related to the design and delivery of REDD policy and practice must take into account both the importance of local forest governance arrangements and the political–economic barriers to devolving secure rights over forests to local communities. These political dimensions of forest tenure and policy create a paradox for REDD: increasing the value of forest resources through global carbon markets without attending to local governance and rights will create political incentives towards centralized governance, which could lead to greater forest loss and lower forest-related benefits for the poor.
Modellierung höhenstrahlungsinduzierter Ausfälle in Halbleiterleistungsbauelementen

Seit etwa 10 Jahren ist bekannt, das elektronische Halbleiterleistungsbauelemente aus Silizium durch kosmische Strahlung zerstort werden konnen. Betroffen sind davon Bauelemente von 500V bis hin zu den hochsten Spannungsklassen. Der Ausfallmechanismus wird auf Meeresniveau hauptsachlich durch Neutronen initiiert, die aus der Wechselwirkung der kosmischen Strahlung mit den Atomen der Erdatmosphare entstanden sind. Durch eine inelastische Kernreaktion zwischen einem eindringenden Neutron und einem Siliziumatomkern des Substratmaterials wird ein leichtes Ion erzeugt. Dieses Ruckstosion generiert durch seinen Energieverlust ein hochlokalisiertes Elektron/Loch-Plasma, welches in der Hochfeldzone eines in Sperrichtung gepolten Leistungsbauelements verstarkt wird. Letztendlich kann dies zur Zerstorung des Bauelements durch ein lokalisiertes Aufschmelzen fuhren. Das Auftreten hohenstrahlungsinduzierter Ausfalle ist mitentscheidend fur die Lebensdauer und Zuverlassigkeit von Halbleiterleistungsbauelementen. Die experimentelle Bestimmung der Ausfallraten von Bauelementen ist jedoch sehr langwierig und teuer. Aus diesem Grund ist ein Simulationsmodell zur Bestimmung der Empfindlichkeit von Bauelementen sehr hilfreich. Wertvolle Erkenntnisse zum Ausfallmechanismus konnen durch Ionenbestrahlungsexperimente gewonnen werden. Die Bestrahlungen mit Ionen haben den Vorteil, das die statistische Verteilung der Reaktionskanale der Kernreaktion hier nicht berucksichtigt werden mus. Daher sind sie zur Validierung von Simulationsmodellen auch besser geeignet. Basierend auf einer Berechnung des Energieverlustes von verschiedenen Ionen in Silizium wurde in dieser Arbeit zunachst ein Modell zur Beschreibung der initialen ortlichen und zeitlichen Verteilung des ioneninduzierten Ladungsplasmas entwickelt und in den Bauelementsimulator TeSCA implementiert. Damit kann der Multiplikationseffekt, den ionisierende Teilchen im Innern eines sperrgepolten Bauelements auslosen, erstmalig erklart und visualisiert werden. Durch die sehr gute Ubereinstimmung von Messung und Simulation wird die Genauigkeit und Anwendbarkeit der entwickelten Modelle demonstriert. Es wird in dieser Arbeit gezeigt, das die Schwellspannung fur das Auftreten der Ereignisse mit einer massiven Multiplikation von Ladung bei den Ionenbestrahlungsexperimenten auch ein Mas fur die Robustheit von Bauelementen gegen Hohenstrahlung ist. Diese Spannung kann sowohl durch nicht-zerstorende Bestrahlung mit Ionen gemessen als auch durch numerische Simulation berechnet werden. Damit ist es moglich, die relative Hohenstrahlungsempfindlichkeit von Leistungsbauelementen mit Hilfe eines physikalischen Modells zu ermitteln.
Cross-stream migration and coalescence of droplets in a microchannel co-flow using magnetophoresis

Manipulation of aqueous droplets in microchannels has great significance in various emerging applications such as biological and chemical assays. Magnetic-field based droplet manipulation that offers unique advantages is consequently gaining attention. However, the physics of magnetic field-driven cross-stream migration and the coalescence of aqueous droplets with an aqueous stream are not well understood. Here, we unravel the mechanism of cross-stream migration and the coalescence of aqueous droplets flowing in an oil based ferrofluid with a coflowing aqueous stream in the presence of a magnetic field. Our study reveals that the migration phenomenon is governed by the advection (τa) and magnetophoretic (τm) time scales. Experimental data show that the dimensionless equilibrium cross-stream migration distance δ* and the length Lδ* required to attain equilibrium cross-stream migration depend on the Strouhal number, St = (τa/τm), as δ* = 1.1 St0.33 and Lδ*=5.3 St−0.50, respectively. We find that the droplet-stream coalescence phenomenon is underpinned by the ratio of the sum of magnetophoretic (τm) and film-drainage time scales (τfd) and the advection time scale (τa), expressed in terms of the Strouhal number (St) and the film-drainage Reynolds number (Refd) as ξ = (τm + τfd)/τa = (St−1 + Refd). Irrespective of the flow rates of the coflowing streams, droplet size, and magnetic field, our study shows that droplet-stream coalescence is achieved for ξ ≤ 50 and ferrofluid stream width ratio w* < 0.7. We utilize the phenomenon and demonstrated the extraction of microparticles and HeLa cells from aqueous droplets to an aqueous stream.Manipulation of aqueous droplets in microchannels has great significance in various emerging applications such as biological and chemical assays. Magnetic-field based droplet manipulation that offers unique advantages is consequently gaining attention. However, the physics of magnetic field-driven cross-stream migration and the coalescence of aqueous droplets with an aqueous stream are not well understood. Here, we unravel the mechanism of cross-stream migration and the coalescence of aqueous droplets flowing in an oil based ferrofluid with a coflowing aqueous stream in the presence of a magnetic field. Our study reveals that the migration phenomenon is governed by the advection (τa) and magnetophoretic (τm) time scales. Experimental data show that the dimensionless equilibrium cross-stream migration distance δ* and the length Lδ* required to attain equilibrium cross-stream migration depend on the Strouhal number, St = (τa/τm), as δ* = 1.1 St0.33 and Lδ*=5.3 St−0.50, respectively. We find that the droplet.
The extracellular matrix protein TasA is a developmental cue that maintains a motile subpopulation within Bacillus subtilis biofilms

The matrix protein TasA maintains a subpopulation of motile cells within Bacillus subtilis biofilms. Maintaining motile reserves During biofilm formation, bacterial cells switch from a motile planktonic state to a matrix-producing, adherent state. Although bacterial biofilms are generally sessile, some, such as those formed by Bacillus subtilis, can spread to overtake and kill neighboring colonies of competitor species. Steinberg et al. found that a motile subpopulation of cells within B. subtilis biofilms was required for the biofilms to spread over foreign objects. This process required the matrix protein TasA, which stimulated a subset of cells within the biofilm to revert from a matrix-producing state to a motile state, thus ensuring that the colony could spread. In nature, bacteria form biofilms—differentiated multicellular communities attached to surfaces. Within these generally sessile biofilms, a subset of cells continues to express motility genes. We found that this subpopulation enabled Bacillus subtilis biofilms to expand on high-friction surfaces. The extracellular matrix (ECM) protein TasA was required for the expression of flagellar genes. In addition to its structural role as an adhesive fiber for cell attachment, TasA acted as a developmental signal stimulating a subset of biofilm cells to revert to a motile phenotype. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that TasA stimulated the expression of a specific subset of genes whose products promote motility and repress ECM production. Spontaneous suppressor mutations that restored motility in the absence of TasA revealed that activation of the biofilm-motility switch by the two-component system CssR/CssS antagonized the TasA-mediated reversion to motility in biofilm cells. Our results suggest that although mostly sessile, biofilms retain a degree of motility by actively maintaining a motile subpopulation.
Batch fermentation kinetics of acetoin produced by Bacillus subtilis HB-32

Abstract Objectives The aim of this work was to study the changes of bacterial cell growth, acetion formation and glucose consumption with fermentation time during batch cultivation. Results A mathematical model of cell growth, product synthesis, and substrate consumption changes with time during the batch cultivation of acetion was established. By analyzing the fitting curve of the kinetic model, it is found that the calculated value of the model fits well with the experimental value, and the fitting model R2 is greater than 0.98. Conclusions The kinetic model established in this experiment can better reflect the batch cultivation process of acetion
Response to Chaouloff – Serotonin, Stress and corticoids

Sirs, With respect to Serotonin stress and corticoids (Chaouloff 2000), we drew attention to the omission of a robust model of 5HT1A autoreceptor function, namely, 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino)tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) induced hypothermia. Dr Chaouloff states that this model lacks specificity and gave as an example the serotonin independent corticoid regulation of body temperature via cholinergic pathways. On the basis of this, she states that [this model] ‘did not add further to our understanding of corticoidserotonin interactions’. We would dispute these assertions. In rodents the 8-OH DPAT induced hypothermia is blocked by the highly selective 5-HT1A antagonist WAY-100635 (Fletcher et al., 1996). In mice it is attenuated by inhibiting 5-HT synthesis with p-chlorphenylalanine, depleting neurones of 5-HT with fenfluramine and by destroying 5HT neurones with the neurotoxin 5,7 -dihydroxytryptamine (Bill et al., 1991; Goodwin et al., 1987; Martin et al., 1992). It has therefore been proposed that 8-OH-DPAT induced hypothermia is a useful in vivo model of somatodendritic 5-HT1A receptor function. The question of whether the effects of corticosteroids on 8-OHDPAT hypothermia in mice is a specific action on 5-HT receptors rather than a non specific effect on thermo-regulation has been addressed in a study by McAllister-Williams et al. They demonstrated that 3 days administration of corticosterone had no effect on dopaminergic (apomorphine) or adrenergic (clonidine) induced hypothermic challenges. Although nicotine induced hypothermia was attenuated by corticosterone, this effect was blocked by the selective 5-HT1A antagonist, WAY-100635, suggesting that it is a 5-HT dependant effect. This data is consistent with the proposal that corticosterone selectively attenuates somatodendritic 5-HT1A receptor function (McAllisterWilliams RH et al., 1997, 2000). We therefore conclude that 8-OHDPAT induced hypothermia is a useful model with which to examine cortisol-5-HT interactions. Further this model has advanced our understanding of these interactions demonstrating for example, that repeated peaks rather than persistently raised corticosterone is necessary to attenuate 5-HT1A autoreceptor function (Man et al., 2000). While the techniques used by Laaris et al. (1995) have exquisite sensitivity and selectivity, the 8-OH DPAT hypothermic model offers the advantage of being an in vivo method of studying the effects of stress and corticosteroids on 5HT1A autoreceptor function.