gebhart/patrepeval huggingface dataset:
Secure and Privacy Preserving Method for Biometric Template Protection using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (2020)

The rapid proliferation of biometrics has led to growing concerns about the security and privacy of the biometric data (template). A biometric uniquely identifies an individual and unlike passwords, it cannot be revoked or replaced since it is unique and fixed for every individual. To address this problem, many biometric template protection methods using fully homomorphic encryption have been proposed. But, most of them (i) are computationally expensive and practically infeasible (ii) do not support operations over real valued biometric feature vectors without quantization (iii) do not support packing of real valued feature vectors into a ciphertext (iv) require multishot enrollment of users for improved matching performance. To address these limitations, we propose a secure and privacy preserving method for biometric template protection using fully homomorphic encryption. The proposed method is computationally efficient and practically feasible, supports operations over real valued feature vectors without quantization and supports packing of real valued feature vectors into a single ciphertext. In addition, the proposed method enrolls the users using one-shot enrollment. To evaluate the proposed method, we use three face datasets namely LFW, FEI and Georgia tech face dataset. The encrypted face template (for 128 dimensional feature vector) requires 32.8 KB of memory space and it takes 2.83 milliseconds to match a pair of encrypted templates. The proposed method improves the matching performance by ~ 3% when compared to state-of-the-art, while providing high template security.
Gene Expression Profiling and Assessment of Vitamin D and Serotonin Pathway Variations in Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome (2018)

Values for serum 25(OH)D concentrations exhibited a trend towards lower vitamin D levels within the IBS cohort. In addition, the expression of select IBS genetic biomarkers, including tryptophan hydroxylase 1, was modulated by vitamin D. Strikingly, the direction of gene regulation elicited by vitamin D in colonic cells is "opposite" to the gene expression profile observed in IBS patients, suggesting that vitamin D may help "reverse" the pathological direction of biomarker gene expression in IBS. Thus, our results intimate that IBS pathogenesis and pathophysiology may involve dysregulated serotonin production and/or vitamin D insufficiency.
Bistable electroactive polymers (BSEP): large-strain actuation of rigid polymers (2010)

Reversible, large-strain, bistable actuation has been a lasting puzzle in the pursuit of smart materials and structures. Conducting polymers are bistable, but the achievable strain is small. Large deformations have been achieved in dielectric elastomers at the expense of mechanical strength. The gel or gel-like soft polymers generally have elastic moduli around or less than 10 MPa. The deformed polymer relaxes to its original shape once the applied electric field is removed. We report new, bistable electroactive polymers (BSEP) that are capable of electrically actuated strains as high as 335% area strain. The BSEP could be useful for constructing rigid structures. The structures can support high mechanical loads, and be actuated to large-strain deformations. We will present one unique application of the BSEP for Braille displays that can be quickly refreshed and maintain the displayed contents without a bias voltage.
Safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy of an inactivated avian polyomavirus vaccine (1998)

Until now, prevention of polyomavirus infection in psittacine birds could only be accomplished through strict isolation to reduce potential exposure to the virus. The USDA-registered inactivated avian polyomavirus vaccine can safely be used to protect vaccinates from infection and control spread of this virus in flocks.
Surface and interfacial tension measurement by drainage methods (1981)

Abstract The drainage of a liquid from a narrow vertical tube which is open at the bottom but closed at the top is prevented when the capillary forces exceed the gravitational forces acting on the liquid meniscus. The critical tube diameter for prevention of drainage is a function of surface or interfacial tension, and this effect forms the basis of three techniques for measuring surface or interfacial tension. Results are given for various liquid/air and liquid/liquid systems in (a) a tapered tube, (b) a rotating uniform tube and (c) a tilted uniform tube. Methods (a) and (b) appear capable of measuring surface or interfacial tension within about ± 1%.
Real-to-Virtual Domain Unification for End-to-End Autonomous Driving (2018)

In the spectrum of vision-based autonomous driving, vanilla end-to-end models are not interpretable and suboptimal in performance, while mediated perception models require additional intermediate representations such as segmentation masks or detection bounding boxes, whose annotation can be prohibitively expensive as we move to a larger scale. More critically, all prior works fail to deal with the notorious domain shift if we were to merge data collected from different sources, which greatly hinders the model generalization ability. In this work, we address the above limitations by taking advantage of virtual data collected from driving simulators, and present DU-drive, an unsupervised real-to-virtual domain unification framework for end-to-end autonomous driving. It first transforms real driving data to its less complex counterpart in the virtual domain and then predicts vehicle control commands from the generated virtual image. Our framework has three unique advantages: 1) it maps driving data collected from a variety of source distributions into a unified domain, effectively eliminating domain shift; 2) the learned virtual representation is simpler than the input real image and closer in form to the "minimum sufficient statistic" for the prediction task, which relieves the burden of the compression phase while optimizing the information bottleneck tradeoff and leads to superior prediction performance; 3) it takes advantage of annotated virtual data which is unlimited and free to obtain. Extensive experiments on two public driving datasets and two driving simulators demonstrate the performance superiority and interpretive capability of DU-drive.
Acoustically Grounded Word Embeddings for Improved Acoustics-to-Word\n Speech Recognition (2019)

Direct acoustics-to-word (A2W) systems for end-to-end automatic speech\nrecognition are simpler to train, and more efficient to decode with, than\nsub-word systems. However, A2W systems can have difficulties at training time\nwhen data is limited, and at decoding time when recognizing words outside the\ntraining vocabulary. To address these shortcomings, we investigate the use of\nrecently proposed acoustic and acoustically grounded word embedding techniques\nin A2W systems. The idea is based on treating the final pre-softmax weight\nmatrix of an AWE recognizer as a matrix of word embedding vectors, and using an\nexternally trained set of word embeddings to improve the quality of this\nmatrix. In particular we introduce two ideas: (1) Enforcing similarity at\ntraining time between the external embeddings and the recognizer weights, and\n(2) using the word embeddings at test time for predicting out-of-vocabulary\nwords. Our word embedding model is acoustically grounded, that is it is learned\njointly with acoustic embeddings so as to encode the words' acoustic-phonetic\ncontent; and it is parametric, so that it can embed any arbitrary (potentially\nout-of-vocabulary) sequence of characters. We find that both techniques improve\nthe performance of an A2W recognizer on conversational telephone speech.\n
Liquid-crystal point-diffraction interferometer (1994)

A new point-diffraction interferometer has been developed with a liquid-crystal filter that permits arbitrary phase shifts to be introduced between the object and reference beams. A microsphere embedded within the liquid-crystal layer provides a locally generated reference beam. We phase shift the object beam by varying a voltage across the liquid crystals, thereby altering the refractive index of the birefringent nematic liquid crystals.
SHiP (2011)

The shared last-level caches in CMPs play an important role in improving application performance and reducing off-chip memory bandwidth requirements. In order to use LLCs more efficiently, recent research has shown that changing the re-reference prediction on cache insertions and cache hits can significantly improve cache performance. A fundamental challenge, however, is how to best predict the re-reference pattern of an incoming cache line.
Structure elucidation of A58365A and A58365B, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors produced by Streptomyces chromofuscus. (1988)

A58365A and A58365B, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors isolated from the culture filtrate of Streptomyces chromofuscus NRRL 15098, are homologous compounds of molecular formulas C12H13NO6 and C13H15NO6. The molecular similarities of the two inhibitors were established by comparison of their 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and UV spectra. Catalytic hydrogenation of A58365A led to a tetrahydro-deoxy derivative, C12H17NO5; extensive 1H NMR decoupling studies at 360 MHz allowed all the non-exchangeable protons of the derivative to be connected in a continuous substructure. This fragment was combined with information from other spectroscopic methods to suggest the structures for A58365A (1) and A58365B (2); the conclusions were confirmed by an X-ray crystallographic analysis of A58365A-dimethyl ester.
Porphyrin Nanotubes by Ionic Self-Assembly (2004)

Porphyrin nanotubes are made by ionic self-assembly of two oppositely charged synthetic porphyrin molecules. The diameter of the nanotubes can be altered by modifying the structure of one of the porphyrin tectons. The nanotubes are photocatalytically active, mechanically responsive to light, and are composed of J-aggregates that exhibit resonance light scattering.
Real-Time Memory-Efficient Video Object Segmentation in Dynamic Background with Multi-Background Registration Technique (2007)

Background subtraction video segmentation is the important first step for video surveillance applications with fixed camera. There are many existing methods in the literature. However, most of them are either too simple to handle complex environment, such as dynamic background, or too complex to be executed in real-time. Based on the proposed multi-background registration technique, this paper presents a real-time video object segmentation algorithm. The proposed algorithm can better handle non-static background cases compared with original single background registration segmentation. Compared with other works that can handle dynamic background cases, it is efficient in memory usage.
A simple and cost-effective metal coating method for reflective long period grating sensors (2020)

A novel and cost-effective technique to coat a fiber optic long period grating (LPG) sensor with silver paste to realize a reflection mode operation is presented here. LPGs have higher sensitivity compared to fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and are typically used as a transmission sensor. Recently, reflective LPG structures have been realized by coating the end of the LPG fiber with metal, but they have limitations as the fabrication process to coat the fiber with metal is either expensive or complex. In our work, we show a novel inexpensive technique to coat long lengths (60 cm or longer) of LPG with silver. The fabricated reflective LPG mimics the transmitted spectrum with improved selectivity. This simple coating method can be applied for other optical fiber sensors; such as metal embedded sensors for monitoring parameters at such critical locations not accessible to ordinary sensors.
Closed-Loop and Decision-Assist Resuscitation of Burn Patients (2008)

Effective resuscitation is critical in reducing mortality and morbidity rates of patients with acute burns. To this end, guidelines and formulas have been developed to define infusion rates and volume requirements during the first 48 hours postburn. Even with these standardized resuscitation guidelines, however, over- and under-resuscitation are not uncommon. Two approaches to adjust infusion rate are decision-assist and closed-loop algorithms based on levels of urinary output. Specific decision assist guidelines or a closed-loop system using computer-controlled feedback technology that supplies automatic control of infusion rates can potentially achieve better control of urinary output. In a properly designed system, closed-loop control has the potential to provide more accurate titration rates, while lowering the incidence of over- and under-resuscitation. Because the system can self-adjust based on monitoring inputs, the technology can be pushed to environments such as combat zones where burn resuscitation expertise is limited. A closed-loop system can also assist in the management of mass casualties, another scenario in which medical expertise is often in short supply. This article reviews the record of fluid balance of contemporary burn resuscitation and approaches, as well as the engineering efforts, animal studies, and algorithm development of our most recent autonomous systems for burn resuscitation.
Long-term prostate-specific antigen (PSA) control in prostate cancer (PCa) patients switched from leuprolide to degarelix or receiving continuous degarelix treatment. (2010)

4673 Background: Gonadotropin releasing-hormone (GnRH) blockers are a new type of fast-acting hormonal therapy for prostate cancer, which are devoid of agonist-associated surge/microsurges. Degarelix (approved dose 240/80 mg), a new GnRH blocker, was recently compared with leuprolide over 1-year of prostate cancer treatment in the CS21 trial. Here we report long-term PSA and musculoskeletal adverse event (AE) data from the extension study (CS21A). Methods: Patients with histologically confirmed prostate cancer were randomized to degarelix [starting dose 240 mg, and monthly maintenance doses of 80 mg (n=207) or 160 mg (n=202)], or leuprolide 7.5 mg/month (n=201). After 1 year, patients receiving leuprolide were re-randomised to degarelix 240/80 mg or 240/160 mg treatment. PSA progression-free survival (PFS) was defined as time to first of PSA failure (i.e. two consecutive increases in PSA of 50% and ≥5 ng/mL compared with nadir) or death. Data were also assessed by baseline PSA level. Results: After 1 year of treatment, the PSA failure rate decreased in patients switched from leuprolide to degarelix and the Kaplan-Meier curves for PSA PFS became superimposed. An additional analysis (October 2009) indicated a significant PSA PFS hazard change from 0.20 events/year in the first year to 0.09 events/year following the switch for leuprolide patients (p=0.0059); the corresponding hazards for degarelix at these time points were 0.11 and 0.14 (p=0.45). The same pattern occurred in patients with baseline PSA levels >20 ng/mL (leuprolide year 1: 0.38 vs 0.20 post switch [p=0.0367]; degarelix: 0.23 vs 0.23 [p=0.94]). Up to 1 year, musculoskeletal and connective tissue AEs occurred in 17% (degarelix) vs 26% (leuprolide; p<0.05) of patients. Beyond 1 year, these AEs were similar in the two groups (16% vs 18% [p=0.75]). Conclusions: These data suggest that patients with hormone-sensitive PCa receiving leuprolide experience improved PSA control after switching to degarelix. Patients receiving continuous degarelix have fewer musculoskeletal AEs. Further studies are required to confirm these findings. Author Disclosure Employment or Leadership Position Consultant or Advisory Role Stock Ownership Honoraria Research Funding Expert Testimony Other Remuneration Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ferring Pharmaceuticals
Ectopic expression of specific<scp>GA</scp>2 oxidase mutants promotes yield and stress tolerance in rice (2016)

A major challenge of modern agricultural biotechnology is the optimization of plant architecture for enhanced productivity, stress tolerance and water use efficiency (WUE). To optimize plant height and tillering that directly link to grain yield in cereals and are known to be tightly regulated by gibberellins (GAs), we attenuated the endogenous levels of GAs in rice via its degradation. GA 2-oxidase (GA2ox) is a key enzyme that inactivates endogenous GAs and their precursors. We identified three conserved domains in a unique class of C<sub>20</sub> GA2ox, GA2ox6, which is known to regulate the architecture and function of rice plants. We mutated nine specific amino acids in these conserved domains and observed a gradient of effects on plant height. Ectopic expression of some of these GA2ox6 mutants moderately lowered GA levels and reprogrammed transcriptional networks, leading to reduced plant height, more productive tillers, expanded root system, higher WUE and photosynthesis rate, and elevated abiotic and biotic stress tolerance in transgenic rice. Combinations of these beneficial traits conferred not only drought and disease tolerance but also increased grain yield by 10-30% in field trials. Our studies hold the promise of manipulating GA levels to substantially improve plant architecture, stress tolerance and grain yield in rice and possibly in other major crops.
Author response: Dual targeting of salt inducible kinases and CSF1R uncouples bone formation and bone resorption (2021)

Simultaneous inhibition of two distinct kinase targets stimulates bone formation without concurrently increasing bone resorption, therefore representing a promising new treatment strategy for osteoporosis.
A Tunable Ultra-Wideband Pulse Generator Using a Variable Edge-Rate Signal (2006)

This paper presents a pulse-duration tunable ultra-wideband (UWB) generator that is developed using a variable edge-rate signal. Edge-rate variability is introduced by applying a step recovery diode (SRD) to compress the edges of the source and then employing a simple RC network to adjust the edge-rate. Afterwards, the compressed signal is differentiated using microstrip transmission lines in a short circuit stub configuration. The tunable generator resulting from this approach demonstrates Gaussian and monocycle pulses with: good symmetry and low distortion over the tunable range; pulse width variation from 800 to 1150ps over a 1-20pF capacitance range; and good agreement between simulated and measured results
Mitochondria as new therapeutic targets for eradicating cancer stem cells: Quantitative proteomics and functional validation via MCT1/2 inhibition (2014)

Here, we used quantitative proteomics analysis to identify novel therapeutic targets in cancer stem cells and/or progenitor cells. For this purpose, mammospheres from two ER-positive breast cancer cell lines (MCF7 and T47D) were grown in suspension using low-attachment plates and directly compared to attached monolayer cells grown in parallel. This allowed us to identify a subset of proteins that were selectively over-expressed in mammospheres, relative to epithelial monolayers. We focused on mitochondrial proteins, as they appeared to be highly upregulated in both MCF7 and T47D mammospheres. Key mitochondrial-related enzymes involved in beta-oxidation and ketone metabolism were significantly upregulated in mammospheres, as well as proteins involved in mitochondrial biogenesis, and specific protein inhibitors of autophagy/mitophagy. Overall, we identified >40 "metabolic targets" that were commonly upregulated in both MCF7 and T47D mammospheres. Most of these "metabolic targets" were also transcriptionally upregulated in human breast cancer cells in vivo, validating their clinical relevance. Based on this analysis, we propose that increased mitochondrial biogenesis and decreased mitochondrial degradation could provide a novel mechanism for the accumulation of mitochondrial mass in cancer stem cells. To functionally validate our observations, we utilized a specific MCT1/2 inhibitor (AR-C155858), which blocks the cellular uptake of two types of mitochondrial fuels, namely ketone bodies and L-lactate. Our results indicate that inhibition of MCT1/2 function effectively reduces mammosphere formation, with an IC-50 of ~1 µM, in both ER-positive and ER-negative breast cancer cell lines. Very similar results were obtained with oligomycin A, an inhibitor of the mitochondrial ATP synthase. Thus, the proliferative clonal expansion of cancer stem cells appears to require oxidative mitochondrial metabolism, related to the re-use of monocarboxylic acids, such as ketones or L-lactate. Our findings have important clinical implications for exploiting mitochondrial metabolism to eradicate cancer stem cells and to prevent recurrence, metastasis and drug resistance in cancer patients. Importantly, a related MCT1/2 inhibitor (AZD3965) is currently in phase I clinical trials in patients with advanced cancers: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01791595.
Resampling Method For Unsupervised Estimation Of Cluster Validity (2000)

We introduce a method for validation of results obtained by clustering analysis of data. The method is based on resampling the available data. A figure of merit that measures the stability of clustering solutions against resampling is introduced. Clusters which are stable against resampling give rise to local maxima of this figure of merit. This is presented first for a one-dimensional data set, for which an analytic approximation for the figure of merit is derived and compared with numerical measurements. Next, the applicability of the method is demonstrated for higher dimensional data, including gene microarray expression data.
AM/FM halftoning: digital halftoning through simultaneous modulation of dot size and dot density (2004)

Conventional digital halftoning approaches function by modulating either the dot size [amplitude modulation (AM)] or the dot density [frequency modulation (FM)]. Generally, AM halftoning methods have the advantage of low computation and good print stability, while FM halftoning methods typically have higher spatial resolution and resistance to moiré artifacts. In this paper, we present a new class of AM/FM halftoning algorithms that simultaneously modulate the dot size and density. The major advantages of AM/FM halftoning are better stability than FM methods through the formation of larger dot clusters; better moiré resistance than AM methods through irregular dot placement; and improved quality through systematic optimization of the dot size and dot density at each gray level. We present a general method for optimizing the AM/FM method for specific printers, and we apply this method to an electrophotographic printer using pulse width modulation technology.
Synthesis and Characterization of Polymaleimide (2003)

Simplified syntheses of polymaleimide employing anionic polymerization (from the melt and from solution) and metal compound−alcohol initiators such as PbO, SnO, tin bis(2-ethyl hexanoate) in the presence of tert-butyl benzyl alcohol are presented. The resulting polymers contain a combination of C−N- and C−C-connected monomers. Preliminary structures of the polymers were determined using NMR spectroscopy. The ratio of C−N- and C−C-connected monomers was determined, and the percentage of C−N-connected monomer units was found to vary from 40 to 80%, with the higher percentage resulting from anionic polymerization. The molecular weights of the polymers, as determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) with aqueous mobile phase and sodium polyacrylates standards, ranged between 1100 and 4200 for anionic polymerization and were about 11 500 for metal oxide−alcohol initiated polymerization. Solution-phase properties of the polymaleimides were evaluated by calcium chelation and precipitation inhibition studies. On the basis of the measured properties of these polymers, they are proposed as biodegradable, low-impact detergent additives to substitute currently used compounds.