Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Signal et information imparfaite : quelle efficacité pour les indications géographiques ? : une application aux fromages AOP d’Auvergne

Les Indications Geographiques (IG), designent un label particulier utilise pour assurer la qualite, l’origine et proteger les produits de la contrefacon. Elles lient la qualite et la reputation d’un produit a un territoire et sont tres presentes en Europe, notamment en France. A l’heure ou les consommateurs demandent davantage de transparence et d’information sur l’origine des biens qu’ils consomment, la valorisation des produits locaux represente un enjeu important. Nous analysons dans cette these, le consentement a payer des consommateurs pour les produits sous indications geographiques a l’aide de la base de donnees Kantar WorldPanel, qui regroupe des donnees d’achats des menages francais. L’accent etant mis sur les fromages AOP d’Auvergne, nous travaillons sur la periode 2008-2010 qui represente la periode de reforme et de restructuration des acteurs des filieres AOP fromageres auvergnates. Dans un premier temps nous realisons une meta-analyse afin d’observer ce que les etudes nous disent sur le sujet. Sachant que le consentement a payer est une prime du prix, nous estimons la dispersion et les determinants des prix des fromages AOP d’Auvergne dans un second temps. Enfin, dans un troisieme temps, nous repondons a notre question de recherche principale en estimant les determinants de choix et le consentement a payer (CAP) des consommateurs. De facon globale, nous trouvons que l’indication geographique joue un role important dans l’esprit des consommateurs durant les actes d’achats, mais pour qu’elle soit plus efficace, elle doit etre accompagnee par des strategies de promotion initiee par les distributeurs et producteurs. De meme les attributs des produits et les conditions de distributions jouent un role plus important dans les decisions d’achats, par rapport aux caracteristiques propres aux consommateurs. Enfin, nous notons que les consommateurs ont des CAP tres differents d’un fromage AOP d’Auvergne a l’autre, mais ces CAP convergent tous vers un prix unique, qui represente le prix espere par les consommateurs pour ces produits.
Alternative reproductive tactics of unflanged and flanged male orangutans revisited

In many slowly developing mammal species, males reach sexual maturity well before they develop secondary sexual characteristics. Sexually mature male orangutans have exceptionally long periods of developmental arrest. The two male morphs have been associated with behavioral alternative reproductive tactics, but this interpretation is based on cross‐sectional analyses predominantly of Northwest Sumatran populations. Here we present the first longitudinal analyses of behavioral changes of 10 adult males that have been observed in both unflanged and flanged morph. We also analyzed long‐term behavioral data on an additional 143 individually identified males from two study sites, Suaq (Sumatra, Pongo abelii) and Tuanan (Borneo, Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii), to assess male mating tactics cross‐sectionally in relation to population, male morph (unflanged and flanged), and other socio‐ecological factors. Both our longitudinal and cross‐sectional results confirm and refine previous cross‐sectional accounts of the differences in mating tactics between the unflanged and the flanged male morphs. In the unflanged morph, males exhibit higher sociability, particularly with females, and higher rates of both copulation and sexual coercion than in the flanged morph. Based on our results and those of previous studies showing that females prefer flanged males, and that flanged males have higher reproductive success, we conclude that unflanged males face a trade‐off between avoiding male‐male contest competition and gaining mating access to females, and thus follow a “best‐of‐a‐bad‐job” mating strategy.
Nucleolin-based targeting strategies in cancer treatment: Focus on cancer immunotherapy (Review)

The benefits of treating several types of cancers using immunotherapy have recently been established. The overexpression of nucleolin (NCL) in a number of types of cancer provides an attractive antigen target for the development of novel anticancer immunotherapeutic treatments. NCL is a multifunctional protein abundantly distributed in the nucleus, cytoplasm and cell membrane. It influences carcinogenesis, and the proliferation, survival and metastasis of cancer cells, leading to cancer progression. Additionally, the meta-analysis of total and cytoplasmic NCL overexpression indicates a poor prognosis of patients with breast cancer. The AS1411 aptamers currently appear to have therapeutic action in the phase II clinical trial. The authors' research group has recently explored the anticancer function of NCL through the activation of T cells by dendritic cell-based immunotherapy. The present review describes and discusses the mechanisms through which the multiple functions of NCL can participate in the progression of cancer. In addition, the studies that define the utility of NCL-dependent anticancer therapies are summarized, with specific focus being paid to cancer immunotherapeutic approaches.
The Association Between [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT Response and Biochemical Progression in Patients with High-Risk Prostate Cancer Receiving Neoadjuvant Therapy

Visual Abstract Our previous study found that the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT response of primary prostate cancer (PCa) to neoadjuvant therapy can predict the pathologic response. This study was designed to investigate the association between [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT changes and biochemical progression-free survival (bPFS) in high-risk patients who underwent neoadjuvant therapy before radical prostatectomy (RP). Methods: Seventy-five patients with high-risk PCa in 2 phase II clinical trials who received neoadjuvant therapy before RP were included. The patients received androgen deprivation therapy plus docetaxel (n = 33) or androgen deprivation therapy plus abiraterone (n = 42) as neoadjuvant treatment. All patients had serial [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT scans before and after neoadjuvant therapy. Age, initial prostate-specific antigen level, nadir prostate-specific antigen level before RP, tumor grade at biopsy, treatment regimen, clinical T stage, PET imaging features, pathologic N stage, and pathologic response on final pathology were included for univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses to identify independent predictors of bPFS. Results: With a median follow-up of 30 mo, 18 patients (24%) experienced biochemical progression. Multivariate Cox regression analyses revealed that only SUVmax derived from posttreatment [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT and pathologic response on final pathology were independent factors for the prediction of bPFS, with hazard ratios of 1.02 (95% CI, 1.00–1.04; P = 0.02) and 0.12 (95% CI, 0.02–0.98; P = 0.048), respectively. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that patients with a favorable [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT response (posttreatment SUVmax < 8.5) or a favorable pathologic response (pathologic complete response or minimal residual disease) had a significantly lower rate of 3-y biochemical progression. Conclusion: Our results indicated that [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT response was an independent risk factor for the prediction of bPFS in patients with high-risk PCa receiving neoadjuvant therapy and RP, suggesting [68Ga]PSMA PET/CT to be an ideal tool to monitor response to neoadjuvant therapy.
Cotransfer of antigen and contextual information harmonizes peripheral and lymph node conventional dendritic cell activation

T cell responses against infections and cancer are directed by conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) in lymph nodes distant from the site of challenge. Migratory cDCs, which travel from the tissue to the lymph node, not only drive initial T cell activation but also transfer antigen to lymph node–resident cDCs. These resident cells have essential roles defining the character of the resulting T cell response; however, it is unknown how they can appropriately process and present antigens to suitably direct responses given their spatial separation. Here, using a novel strain of influenza A and a modified melanoma model, we show that tissue and lymph node cDC activation is harmonized and that this is driven by cotransfer of contextual cues. In the tumor, incomplete cDC activation in the tumor microenvironment is mirrored by lymph node–resident cDCs, whereas during influenza infection, pathogen-associated molecular patterns cotransferred with antigen drive TLR signaling in resident cDCs and their subsequent robust activation. This cotransfer mechanism explains how individual antigens can be handled distinctly by resident cDCs and how signals driving poor tumoral cDC activation further impact the lymph node. Our findings clarify how tissue context dictates antigenic and, consequently, T cell fate in the lymph node. Description Migratory dendritic cells transfer both antigen and contextual cues to lymph node resident cDCs, allowing their appropriate activation. Editor’s summary Conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) convey antigen to resident cDCs (rDCs) in lymph nodes (LNs) to drive appropriate T cell responses, yet how rDCs acquire contextual information given their physical segregation from infection sites is unclear. To track antigen from the tissue to LNs, Pirillo et al. generated “BrightFlu,” a fluorescently labeled strain of influenza. They found that rDC activation in LNs mirrored cDC activation in the periphery, and activation was independent of CD4+ T cell help or type I interferon. Instead, cDCs cotransferred viral antigen along with pattern-associated molecular patterns in the form of TLR ligands, which directly promoted rDC activation through MyD88 signaling. These findings explain how immune responses are coordinated between the tissue and LN, with broad implications for vaccine design. —Hannah Isles
Superlattice design for optimal thermoelectric generator performance

We consider the design of an optimal superlattice thermoelectric generator via the energy bandpass filter approach. Various configurations of superlattice structures are explored to obtain a bandpass transmission spectrum that approaches the ideal ‘boxcar’ form, which is now well known to manifest the largest efficiency at a given output power in the ballistic limit. Using the coherent non-equilibrium Green’s function formalism coupled self-consistently with the Poisson’s equation, we identify such an ideal structure and also demonstrate that it is almost immune to the deleterious effect of self-consistent charging and device variability. Analyzing various superlattice designs, we conclude that superlattice with a Gaussian distribution of the barrier thickness offers the best thermoelectric efficiency at maximum power. It is observed that the best operating regime of this device design provides a maximum power in the range of 0.32–0.46 MW/m2 at efficiencies between 54%–43% of Carnot efficiency. We also analyze our device designs with the conventional figure of merit approach to counter support the results so obtained. We note a high zTel = 6 value in the case of Gaussian distribution of the barrier thickness. With the existing advanced thin-film growth technology, the suggested superlattice structures can be achieved, and such optimized thermoelectric performances can be realized.
SliceLens: Guided Exploration of Machine Learning Datasets

SliceLens is a tool for exploring labeled, tabular, machine learning datasets. To explore a dataset, the user selects combinations of features in the dataset that they are interested in. The tool splits those features into bins and then visualizes the label distributions for the subsets of data created by the intersections of the bins. SliceLens guides the user in determining which feature combinations to explore. Guidance is based on a user-selected rating metric, which assigns a score to the subsets created by a given combination of features. The purpose of the metrics are to detect interesting patterns in the subsets, such as subsets that have high label purity or an uneven distribution of errors. SliceLens uses the metrics to guide the user towards combinations of features that create potentially interesting subsets in two ways. First, SliceLens assigns a rating to each feature based on the subsets that would be created by selecting that feature. This incremental guidance can help the user determine which feature to select next. Second, SliceLens can suggest combinations of features ranked according to the chosen metric, which the user can then cycle through.
Data Makes Better Data Scientists

With the goal of identifying common practices in data science projects, this paper proposes a framework for logging and understanding incremental code executions in Jupyter notebooks. This framework aims to allow reasoning about how insights are generated in data science and extract key observations into best data science practices in the wild. In this paper, we show an early prototype of this framework and ran an experiment to log a machine learning project for 25 undergraduate students.
An Iterative Semi-supervised Approach with Pixel-wise Contrastive Loss for Road Extraction in Aerial Images

Extracting roads in aerial images has numerous applications in artificial intelligence and multimedia computing, including traffic pattern analysis and parking space planning. Learning deep neural networks, though very successful, demand vast amounts of high-quality annotations, of which acquisition is time-consuming and expensive. In this work, we propose a semi-supervised approach for image-based road extraction in which only a small set of labeled images are available for training to address this challenge. We design a pixel-wise contrastive loss to self-supervise the network training to utilize the large corpus of unlabeled images. The key idea is to identify pairs of overlapping image regions (positive) or non-overlapping image regions (negative) and encourage the network to make similar outputs for positive pairs or dissimilar outputs for negative pairs. We also develop a negative sampling strategy to filter false-negative samples during the process. An iterative procedure is introduced to apply the network over raw images to generate pseudo-labels, filter and select high-quality labels with the proposed contrastive loss, and retrain the network with the enlarged training dataset. We repeat these iterative steps until convergence. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods by performing extensive experiments on the public SpaceNet3 and DeepGlobe Road datasets. Results show that our proposed method achieves state-of-the-art results on public image segmentation benchmarks and significantly outperforms other semi-supervised methods.
High-resolution CT image retrieval using sparse convolutional neural network

We propose a high-resolution CT image retrieval method based on sparse convolutional neural network. The proposed framework is used to train the end-to-end mapping from low-resolution to high-resolution images. The patch-wise feature of low-resolution CT is extracted and sparsely represented by a convolutional layer and a learned iterative shrinkage threshold framework, respectively. Restricted linear unit is utilized to non-linearly map the low-resolution sparse coefficients to the high-resolution ones. An adaptive high-resolution dictionary is applied to construct the informative signature which is highly connected to a high-resolution patch. Finally, we feed the signature to a convolutional layer to reconstruct the predicted high-resolution patches and average these overlapping patches to generate high-resolution CT. The loss function between reconstructed images and the corresponding ground truth highresolution images is applied to optimize the parameters of end-to-end neural network. The well-trained map is used to generate the high-resolution CT from a new low-resolution input. This technique was tested with brain and lung CT images and the image quality was assessed using the corresponding CT images. Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index (SSIM) and mean absolute error (MAE) indexes were used to quantify the differences between the generated high-resolution and corresponding ground truth CT images. The experimental results showed the proposed method could enhance images resolution from low-resolution images. The proposed method has great potential in improving radiation dose calculation and delivery accuracy and decreasing CT radiation exposure of patients.
Surface Passivation of CIGS Solar Cells Using Gallium Oxide

This work proposes gallium oxide grown by plasma‐enhanced atomic layer deposition, as a surface passivation material at the CdS buffer interface of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells. In preliminary experiments, a metal‐insulator‐semiconductor (MIS) structure is used to compare aluminium oxide, gallium oxide, and hafnium oxide as passivation layers at the CIGS‐CdS interface. The findings suggest that gallium oxide on CIGS may show a density of positive charges and qualitatively, the least interface trap density. Subsequent solar cell results with an estimated 0.5 nm passivation layer show an substantial absolute improvement of 56 mV in open‐circuit voltage (VOC), 1 mA cm−2 in short‐circuit current density (JSC), and 2.6% in overall efficiency as compared to a reference (with the reference showing 8.5% under AM 1.5G).
Glottal spreading bias in Germanic

Much theoretical phonology in the 1990s has focused on the characterization of voicing assimilations, nearly always assuming presence of the feature [voice] versus its absence in order to distinguish voiced obstruents from voiceless. While [voice] is uncontestably at play in Romance and Slavic, as well as in many other languages we show here that laryngeal assimilations in German and English provide evidence for positing instead the feature [spread glottis] as the phonologically relevant privative feature. The description of German and English laryngeal patterns in terms of [spread glottis] also simplifies our understanding of German final fortition (Auslautverhartung) and related phenomena
Multiperiod portfolio optimization for asset-liability management with quadratic transaction costs

This paper investigates the multiperiod asset-liability management problem with quadratic transaction costs. Under the mean-variance criteria, we construct tractability models with/without the riskless asset and obtain the pre-commitment and time-consistent investment strategies through the application of embedding scheme and backward induction approach, respectively. In addition, some conclusions in the existing literatures can be regarded as the degenerated cases under our setting. Finally, the numerical simulations are given to show the difference of frontiers derived by different strategies. Also, some interesting findings on the impact of quadratic transaction cost parameters on efficient frontiers are discussed.
Modeling surface tension of a two‐dimensional droplet using smoothed particle hydrodynamics

Surface tension plays a significant role at the dynamic interface of free‐surface flows especially at the microscale in capillary‐dominated flows. A model for accurately predicting the formation of two‐dimensional viscous droplets in vacuum or gas of negligible density and viscosity resulting from axisymmetric oscillation due to surface tension is solved using smoothed particle hydrodynamics composed of the Navier‐Stokes system and appropriate interfacial conditions for the free‐surface boundaries. The evolution of the droplet and its free‐surface interface is tracked over time to investigate the effects of surface tension forces implemented using a modified continuous surface force method and is compared with those performed using interparticle interaction force. The dynamic viscous fluid and surface tension interactions are investigated via a controlled curvature model and test cases of nonsteady oscillating droplets; attention is focused here on droplet oscillation that is released from an initial static deformation. Accuracy of the results is attested by demonstrating that (i) the curvature of the droplet that is controlled; (ii) uniform distribution of fluid particles; (iii) clean asymmetric forces acting on the free surface; and (iv) nonsteady oscillating droplets compare well with analytical and published experiment findings. The advantage of the proposed continuous surface force method only requires the use of physical properties of the fluid, whereas the interparticle interaction force method is restricted by the requirement of tuning parameters.
A1-homotopy theory

We study the Koras-Russell cubic threefold, i.e., the hypersurface in AC given by the equation x2y + x+ z2 + t3 = 0. We prove that the Koras-Russell cubic threefold is not diffeomorphic to Euclidean space as a smooth manifold but isomorphic to affine three space as a complex algebraic variety. Furthermore, we prove that the Koras-Russell cubic threefold is A1-contractible. Then we study other examples of affine varieties with similar properties.
Frequency-domain parametric downconversion for efficient broadened idler generation

An opposite-chirped frequency-domain optical parametric amplification (OC-FOPA) design is demonstrated and numerically verified. This scheme combines both an ultrabroad seeding generation and the subsequent effective amplification in one single optical parametric amplification stage. Based on a slightly asymmetrical 4-f optical system, the spectral contents of both pump and signal waves are spectrally dispersed with opposite spatial chirps, to broaden the initial idler seeding. Via a properly designed fan-out periodically poled LiNbO3 chip, nearly perfect quasi phase matching can be realized across the full spectrum, whereby each individual spectral pair precisely maps to its required grating period. Full-dimensional simulations based on commercial ∼110 fs (FWHM) near-infrared (near-IR) lasers at 790 and 1030 nm are quantitatively discussed, and few-cycle mid-IR laser pulses (∼60 fs at 3.4 μm) plus a high conversion efficiency exceeding 50% are theoretically predicted. By means of a high-power pump source, the OC-FOPA scheme can be also applied to directly produce high-intensity carrier-envelope-phase-stabilized mid-IR idler pulses.
Sequential Peripartum Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Disease in Parents and Their Newborn Mimicking Intrafamily Spread of Common Viruses

Herpes simplex type 2 (HSV2) disease developed sequentially among two parents and their newborn. The father first became ill with up per-respiratory symptoms and fever. Then, 5 days later, shortly after delivery, the mother had fever, pharyngitis, and diarrhea. Subsequently, the infant developed undifferentiated febrile illness at the age of 3 days. HSV etiology was recognized by incidental isolation of HSV2 from the new-born naospharynx. The father never developed genital lesions and the mother's symptoms remained nonspecific for several days prior to the onset of genital manifestations. The sequential emergence and manifestations of these infections could have been mis-construed for an intrafamily spread of respiratory or enteric viruses. This cluster illustrates that HSV2 may cause sequential symptomatic disease in susceptible individuals mimicking other viruses.