Learning Variable-Length Markov Models of Behavior

In recent years there has been an increased interest in the modeling and recognition of human activities involving highly structured and semantically rich behavior such as dance, aerobics, and sign language. A novel approach for automatically acquiring stochastic models of the high-level structure of an activity without the assumption of any prior knowledge is presented. The process involves temporal segmentation into plausible atomic behavior components and the use of variable-length Markov models for the efficient representation of behaviors. Experimental results that demonstrate the synthesis of realistic sample behaviors and the performance of models for long-term temporal prediction are presented.     

ChoiceNet: CNN learning through choice of multiple feature map representations

Pattern Analysis and Applications - We introduce a new architecture called ChoiceNet where each layer of the network is highly connected with skip connections and channelwise concatenations. This...     

Taxonomy of attacks and defense mechanisms in P2P reputation systems—Lessons for reputation system designers

Robust and credible reputation systems are essential for the functionality of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications. However, they themselves are susceptible to various types of attacks. Since most current efforts lack an exploration of a comprehensive adversary model, we try to fill in this gap by providing a thorough view of the various credibility threats against a decentralized reputation system and the respective defense mechanisms. Therefore, we explore and classify the types of potential attacks against reputation systems for P2P applications. We also study and classify the defense mechanisms which have been proposed for each type of attack and identify conflicts between defense mechanisms and/or desirable characteristics of credible reputations systems. We finally propose a roadmap for reputation system designers on how to use the results of our survey for the design of robust reputation systems for P2P applications.     

Review of Dreams and the growth of personality.

Reviews the book, Dreams and the growth of personality, 2nd ed by Ernest Lawrence Rossi. Rossi presents a step-by-step, concise procedure for using dream material as a way of changing how we look at and define ourselves; and thus of helping patients find new understanding of themselves, new ways of behaving, new aspects of personality. The setting for change is the psychotherapeutic environment. His book is an attempt to balance "laboratory research on biology of sleep and dreams, the place of dreams in the psychology of the individual" and what he calls "the significance of dreams as harbingers of broad developments in the evolution of consciousness and culture." A comprehensive review of current psychophysiological theories and research on dreaming comprises the last section of this highly useful book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Overview of Standards and Related Technology in Web Services

The Internet is revolutionizing business by providing an affordable and efficient way to link companies with their partners as well as customers. Nevertheless, there are problems that degrade the profitability of the Internet: closed markets that cannot use each other's services; incompatible applications and frameworks that cannot interoperate or built upon each other; difficulties in exchanging business data. Web Services is a new paradigm for e-business that is expected to change the way business applications are developed and interoperate. A Web Service is a self-describing, self-contained, modular application accessible over the web. It exposes an XML interface, it is registered and can be located through a Web Service registry. Finally, it communicates with other services using XML messages over standard Web protocols. This paper presents the Web Service model and gives an overview of existing standards. It then sketches the Web Service life-cycle, discusses related technical challenges and how they are addressed by current standards, commercial products and research efforts. Finally it gives some concluding remarks regarding the state of the art of Web Services.     

Dissecting the role of single regions of an IAPP mimic and IAPP in inhibition of Aβ40 amyloid formation and cytotoxicity

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are linked to the self-association of β-amyloid peptide (Aβ) and islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP), respectively. We have shown that IAPP-GI, a soluble IAPP analogue and mimic of nonamyloidogenic and nontoxic IAPP, binds Aβ with high affinity and blocks its cytotoxic self-assembly and fibrillogenesis. We have also shown that IAPP and Aβ interact with each other into nonfibrillar and nontoxic heterocomplexes that suppress cytotoxic self-association by both polypeptides. The Aβ-IAPP interaction might thus be a molecular link between AD and T2D. We studied the role of individual IAPP-GI and IAPP regions in their inhibitory function on Aβ40 self-association and cytotoxicity. We found that the presence of the two hot-spot regions of the Aβ-IAPP interaction interface in IAPP(8-28) is not sufficient for inhibitory function and that, in addition to IAPP(8-28), the presence of the N-terminal region IAPP(1-7) is absolutely required. By contrast, the C-terminal region, IAPP(30-37), is not required although its presence together with IAPP(1-7) in IAPP-GI results in a marked enhancement of the inhibitory effect as compared to IAPP(1-28)-GI. We suggest that the inhibitory effect of IAPP-GI and IAPP on Aβ40 fibrillogenesis and cell toxicity is mediated primarily by interactions involving the hot regions of the Aβ-IAPP interaction interface and the N terminus of IAPP while a concerted and likely structure-stabilizing action of the N- and C-terminal IAPP regions potentiates this effect. These results identify important molecular determinants of the amyloid suppressing function of the Aβ40-IAPP interaction and could contribute to the design of novel inhibitors of Aβ40 aggregation and cell degeneration.     

Formation of 3-nitrotyrosines in carbonic anhydrase III is a sensitive marker of oxidative stress in skeletal muscle

Oxidation of skeletal muscle proteins has been reported to occur following contractions, with ageing, and with a variety of disease states, but the nature of the oxidised proteins has not been identified. A proteomics approach was utilised to identify major proteins that contain carbonyls and/or 3‐nitrotyrosine (3‐NT) groups in the gastrocnemius (GTN) muscles of adult (5–11 months of age) and old (26–28 months of age) wild type (WT) mice and adult mice lacking copper, zinc superoxide dismutase (Sod1^?/? mice), manganese superoxide dismutase (Sod2^+/? mice) or glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx1^?/? mice). In quiescent GTN muscles of adult and old WT mice, protein carbonylation and/or formation of 3‐NT occurred in several proteins involved in glycolysis, as well as creatine kinase and carbonic anhydrase III. Following contractions, the 3‐NT intensity was increased in specific protein bands from GTN muscles of both adult and old WT mice. In quiescent GTN muscles from adult Sod1^?/?, Sod2^+/? or GPx1^?/? mice compared with age‐matched WT mice only carbonic anhydrase III showed a greater 3‐NT content. We conclude that formation of 3‐NT occurs readily in response to oxidative stress in carbonic anhydrase III and this may provide a sensitive measure of oxidative damage to muscle proteins.