Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolutionary Pruning for Fast and Robust Face Detection

Face detection task can be considered as a classifier training problem. It is a process to find the parameters of the classifier model by using the training data. To solve such a complex problem, evolutionary algorithm is employed in cascade structure of classifiers. In this paper, evolutionary pruning is proposed to reduce the number of weak classifiers in AdaBoost-based cascade detector while maintaining the detection accuracy. The computation time is proportional to the number of weak classifiers and therefore the reduction causes fast detection speed. The proposed cascade structure experimentally proves its efficient computation time. It is also compared with the state-of-the-art face detectors in terms of the detection accuracy, and the results show that the proposed method outperforms the previous studies.
Diperna-Lions and Ambrosio’s approach to ordinary differential equations

We shall give a concise and self-contained exposition on Diperna-Lions and Ambrosio’s approach to ordinary differential equations with coefficient in Sobolev spaces. We focus on the case where the reference measure is the standard Gaussian measure on R, the case having been studied by F. Cipriano and A.B. Cruzeiro.
Instructional Policy Into Practice: “The Power of the Bottom Over the Top”

The case studies of policy implementation presented in this issue of EEPΛ are impor­ tant for many reasons. They look carefully and thoughtfully at the manifestations of an important policy change where it matters most—in the classroom—and they strive to do so from the joint vantage points of the policy and the teachers whose teaching it in­ tends to change. The work of these investiga­ tors contributes to and strengthens a newly emerging paradigm for policy analysis—one
The Effect of Playmate Familiarity on the Social Interactions of Young Children.

DOYLE, ANNA-BETH; CONNOLLY, JENNIFER; and RIVEST, LouIS-PAUL. The Effect of Playmate Familiarity on the Social Interactions of Young Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 217-223. The effects of peer familiarity on social interactions were studied by observing pairs of preschool children who were either familiar or unfamiliar with each other. Sociability of play, cognitive level of play, affective tone, and specific social behaviors were assessed during 50-min free-play sessions. All aspects of play except affective tone differed with familiarity of the playmate. With a familiar peer, social play was more frequent, and when children were interacting socially the cognitive level of play was also higher. Positive and successful peerdirected social behaviors were also affected by familiarity. The results indicate that peer familiarity is a highly salient variable and suggest that interaction with familiar or unfamiliar peers may provide differential opportunities for social and cognitive learning.
Method to study relaxation of metastable phases: Macroscopic mean-field dynamics.

We propose two different macroscopic dynamics to describe the decay of metastable phases in many-particle systems with local interactions. These dynamics depend on the macroscopic order parameter {ital m} through the restricted free energy {ital F}({ital m}) and are designed to give the correct equilibrium distribution for {ital m}. The connection between macroscopic dynamics and the underlying microscopic dynamic is considered in the context of a projection-operator formalism. Application to the square-lattice nearest-neighbor Ising ferromagnet gives good agreement with droplet theory and Monte Carlo simulations of the underlying microscopic dynamic. This includes quantitative agreement for the exponential dependence of the lifetime {l_angle}{tau}{r_angle} on the inverse of the applied field {ital H}, and the observation of distinct field regions in which {Lambda}{equivalent_to}{ital d} ln{l_angle}{tau}{r_angle}/{ital d}{vert_bar}{ital H}{vert_bar}{sup 1{minus}{ital d}} depends differently on {vert_bar}{ital H}{vert_bar}. In addition, at very low temperatures we observe oscillatory behavior of {Lambda} with respect to {vert_bar}{ital H}{vert_bar}, which is due to the discreteness of the lattice and in agreement with rigorous results. Similarities and differences between this work and earlier works on finite Ising models in the fixed-magnetization ensemble are discussed.
Neural Correlates of Wakefulness, Sleep, and General Anesthesia: An Experimental Study in Rat

Background:Significant advances have been made in our understanding of subcortical processes related to anesthetic- and sleep-induced unconsciousness, but the associated changes in cortical connectivity and cortical neurochemistry have yet to be fully clarified. Methods:Male Sprague–Dawley rats were instrumented for simultaneous measurement of cortical acetylcholine and electroencephalographic indices of corticocortical connectivity—coherence and symbolic transfer entropy—before, during, and after general anesthesia (propofol, n = 11; sevoflurane, n = 13). In another group of rats (n = 7), these electroencephalographic indices were analyzed during wakefulness, slow wave sleep (SWS), and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Results:Compared to wakefulness, anesthetic-induced unconsciousness was characterized by a significant decrease in cortical acetylcholine that recovered to preanesthesia levels during recovery wakefulness. Corticocortical coherence and frontal–parietal symbolic transfer entropy in high &ggr; band (85 to 155 Hz) were decreased during anesthetic-induced unconsciousness and returned to preanesthesia levels during recovery wakefulness. Sleep-wake states showed a state-dependent change in coherence and transfer entropy in high &ggr; bandwidth, which correlated with behavioral arousal: high during wakefulness, low during SWS, and lowest during REM sleep. By contrast, frontal–parietal &thgr; connectivity during sleep-wake states was not correlated with behavioral arousal but showed an association with well-established changes in cortical acetylcholine: high during wakefulness and REM sleep and low during SWS. Conclusions:Corticocortical coherence and frontal–parietal connectivity in high &ggr; bandwidth correlates with behavioral arousal and is not mediated by cholinergic mechanisms, while &thgr; connectivity correlates with cortical acetylcholine levels.
Teaching Kindness: The Promise of Humane Education

Although the popularity of Humane Education Programs (HEP) as a method of teaching compassion and caring for all living beings is increasing, there is a need for rigorous, methodologically sound research evaluating the efficacy of HEP. Recent calls for the inclusion of HEP within broader humanistic, environmental, and social justice frameworks underline the importance of HEP beyond a simple “treatment of animals” model. Lack of methodological rigor in the majority of published HEP studies (e.g., absence of a control group) and dispersal across disparate fields (with differing indices of efficacy), however, means that there is a potential for the popular use of HEP to outstrip our understanding of the variables that impact efficacy. The current study discusses some of these issues and presents a pilot study of a literature-only HEP intervention. Comparisons with an age-matched control group indicated that the four-week HEP resulted in an increase in measures of empathy and treatment of animals, although only the increase in empathy levels was significant. This paper discusses the implications of the current results and areas in need of future consideration.
Olfactory Function in Patients with Chronic Rhinosinusitis before and after Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

Background The olfactory loss in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis has been measured by different methods. However, the results have been variable and it is not clear whether functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) significantly improves olfactory function. This study was performed to evaluate the influences of FESS on olfactory function in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis using three different types of olfactory tests. Methods Seventy patients with chronic rhinosinusitis were administered the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), a single staircase phenyl ethyl alcohol odor detection threshold test (STT), and a short-term odor memory/discrimination test a day before and 6 months after FESS. A questionnaire inquiring about the patients’ self-perception of olfactory function was administered also. Independent ratings of the severity of chronic rhinosinusitis before FESS were established from CT scans. Results Fifty-two (74.3%) of the patients reported that their olfactory function was impaired before surgery, and 68.6% of the patients reported impaired olfactory function after surgery, a difference that was not significant. No meaningful changes in any of the olfactory test scores were noted 6 or more months after FESS. Preoperatively, small correlations between CT scores and the symptom scores (r = 0.278; p = 0.024), threshold scores (r =-0.27; p = 0.031), and UPSIT scores (r =-0.36; p = 0.003) were observed. Conclusion In patients with severe rhinosinusitis, FESS had little impact on the ability to smell, regardless of the method for assessing smell function. Subtle associations between olfactory function and the severity of chronic rhinosinusitis determined by CT were observed, however, preoperatively. The olfactory test measures were correlated with one another both pre- and postoperatively.
Failure of symptomatic relief after pancreaticojejunal decompression for chronic pancreatitis. Strategies for salvage.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate causes of intractable recurrent pain following pancreaticojejunostomy for chronic pancreatitis and to evaluate treatment strategies aimed at lasting pain relief. DESIGN Case series. SETTING Tertiary care referral center. PATIENTS Fifteen selected patients having severe pain associated with chronic pancreatitis with onset 0 to 60 months (median, 5 months) following pancreaticojejunostomy. Each patient underwent computed tomography and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. Two patients (13%) were found to have pancreatic cancer, two (13%) had inadequate pancreatic duct decompression, two (13%) had biliary stenosis, and 10 (67%) had presumed neuropathy in the pancreatic head. INTERVENTIONS Fourteen (93%) of the 15 patients underwent the following reoperations: distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy (one patient), extension of the pancreaticojejunostomy and choledochojejunostomy (one patient), biliary stenting followed by choledochojejunostomy (one patient), and Whipple-type resection of the pancreatic head (14 patients). Two patients subsequently underwent a completion pancreatectomy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Pain relief, functional capacity, and pancreatic exocrine and endocrine status were determined. The median follow-up after reoperation was 39 months. RESULTS Of the 14 patients who underwent reoperation, 13 were long-term survivors. One died of pancreatic cancer. Ten of the other 13 have had satisfactory-to-excellent relief of pain, with resumption of a normal level of function. Of the 10 previously euglycemic patients who underwent pancreatic head resection, eight remain free of diabetes mellitus to date. CONCLUSIONS The causes of recurrent or persistent pain following pancreaticojejunal decompression for chronic pancreatitis are complex and include neuropathic changes, residual or evolving pancreatic and biliary duct obstruction, and unrecognized pancreatic cancer. Acceptable outcomes can usually be achieved by following a treatment strategy aimed at addressing identified residual disease while maximally preserving pancreatic tissue.
Measurement and analysis of electric potential decay in corona charged low-density polyethylene films

In this paper, corona charged LDPE film was tested using a standard static potential monitor and the pulsed electro-acoustic (PEA) technique to observe the surface potential decay. A wide range of voltages and different corona charging times, different sample thicknesses and multi-layer films were used to demonstrate influential factors for surface potential decay. These provide a direct experimental evidence to support the bulk transport process. An important finding from the PEA results is that bipolar charge injection takes place during corona charging process and in subsequently decay process. The new evidence challenges the existing surface potential decay models which were developed based on a single charge carrier injection.
Excitatory or Inhibitory: A New Semantic Orientation Extracts Contradiction and Causality from the Web

We propose a new semantic orientation, Excitation, and its automatic acquisition method. Excitation is a semantic property of predicates that classifies them into excitatory, inhibitory and neutral. We show that Excitation is useful for extracting contradiction pairs (e.g., destroy cancer b develop cancer) and causality pairs (e.g., increase in crime ⇒ heighten anxiety). Our experiments show that with automatically acquired Excitation knowledge we can extract one million contradiction pairs and 500,000 causality pairs with about 70% precision from a 600 million page Web corpus. Furthermore, by combining these extracted causality and contradiction pairs, we can generate one million plausible causality hypotheses that are not written in any single sentence in our corpus with reasonable precision.
Sequential Hardware Prefetching in Shared-Memory Multiprocessors

To offset the effect of read miss penalties on processor utilization in shared-memory multiprocessors, several software- and hardware-based data prefetching schemes have been proposed. A major advantage of hardware techniques is that they need no support from the programmer or compiler. Sequential prefetching is a simple hardware-controlled prefetching technique which relies on the automatic prefetch of consecutive blocks following the block that misses in the cache, thus exploiting spatial locality. In its simplest form, the number of prefetched blocks on each miss is fixed throughout the execution. However, since the prefetching efficiency varies during the execution of a program, we propose to adapt the number of pre-fetched blocks according to a dynamic measure of prefetching effectiveness. Simulations of this adaptive scheme show reductions of the number of read misses, the read penalty, and of the execution time by up to 78%, 58%, and 25% respectively. >
STRING: a database of predicted functional associations between proteins

Functional links between proteins can often be inferred from genomic associations between the genes that encode them: groups of genes that are required for the same function tend to show similar species coverage, are often located in close proximity on the genome (in prokaryotes), and tend to be involved in gene-fusion events. The database STRING is a precomputed global resource for the exploration and analysis of these associations. Since the three types of evidence differ conceptually, and the number of predicted interactions is very large, it is essential to be able to assess and compare the significance of individual predictions. Thus, STRING contains a unique scoring-framework based on benchmarks of the different types of associations against a common reference set, integrated in a single confidence score per prediction. The graphical representation of the network of inferred, weighted protein interactions provides a high-level view of functional linkage, facilitating the analysis of modularity in biological processes. STRING is updated continuously, and currently contains 261 033 orthologs in 89 fully sequenced genomes. The database predicts functional interactions at an expected level of accuracy of at least 80% for more than half of the genes; it is online at http://www.bork. embl-heidelberg.de/STRING/.
Parent-Child Interactions, Parenting Stress, and Developmental Outcomes at 4 Years

This study examined the relationship of father-child and mother-child interactions, perceptions of parenting stress, socioeconomic status, and prematurity to development of 44 healthy preterm and 49 full-term Canadian children at 4 years of age. Preterm or full-term birth, infant sex, and parental age accounted for 30-32% of the variance in cognitive and motor scores, respectively, on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities. Parenting stress, father-child interactions at 12 months, and preterm and full-term birth accounted for 19% of the variance for expressive language on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool (CELF-P). For receptive language on the CELF-P, mother-child interaction at 12 months, mother's spousal relationship, and preterm and full-term birth accounted for 13% of the variance. Addressing early parent-child interaction and perceptions of parenting stress may improve child language development.
Creativity, Synesthesia, and Physiognomic Perception

Evidence suggests that creative individuals have access to primary process modes of thought. Because such thinking is associative, it is believed to enhance the likelihood of a creative insight. Synesthesia and physiognomic perception are aspects of primary process thinking. Synesthesia involves a unity between or among different sensory modalities. Physiognomic perception involves a fusion of affect and perception. We investigated the relation between creativity and synesthetic tendencies and physiognomic perception. The Remote Associates Test (S. A. Mednick & M. P. Mednick, 1967) was used to measure creative potential. Similarity judgments were made between auditory stimuli (pure tones and pure vowel sounds) and colors to measure synesthetic-like phenomena. Colors were rated using adjectives with emotional or evaluative connotations to measure physiognomic perception. More creative participants differed significantly from less creative participants on their ratings, with more creative participants exhib.
Coordinated One-Step Optimal Distributed State Prediction for a Networked Dynamical System

A new recursive one-step state prediction procedure is derived for a networked dynamic system. Under the coordination of a collaboration unit that provides optimal update gains for each individual subsystem utilizing merely system parameters, this predictor estimates plant's local states based only on local system output measurements. This estimator can be easily realized in a distributed way, and can also be simply scaled to systems with a large amount of subsystems, provided it has enough communication and storage capacities. It is proved that when prediction error variances are adopted in performance comparisons, the optimal gain matrix is usually unique. Recursive and explicit expressions are derived for both this optimal gain matrix and the covariance matrix of the corresponding prediction errors. The optimal gain matrix for every subsystem in this distributed recursive predictor has been shown to be equal to that of the well known Kalman filter utilizing only local system output measurements, which makes it possible to robustify this state predictor using a sensitivity penalization approach. Numerical simulation results illustrate that prediction accuracy of the suggested procedure may sometimes be as good as that of the lumped Kalman filter.
Prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus among staff and pets in a small animal referral hospital in the UK.

OBJECTIVES The occurrence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and the possible relatedness between human and animal isolates were investigated among veterinary staff and hospitalized animals in a referral small animal hospital in the UK. METHODS A total of 300 swab samples were taken from nasal and oral mucosae of 78 veterinary staff, 45 dogs, 12 cats and from 30 environmental surfaces. Staphylococci were isolated by selective enrichment and characterized by biochemical tests and antimicrobial disc susceptibility testing. MRSA isolates were genotypically confirmed by PCR and typed by PFGE. RESULTS MRSA was isolated from 14 staff (17.9%), four dogs (9%), and three environmental sites (10%) yielding a total of 28 MRSA isolates. PFGE analysis revealed that most MRSA isolates were indistinguishable (56%) or closely related (26%) to EMRSA-15, one of the two epidemic MRSA strains dominant in UK hospitals. Like EMRSA-15, the predominant strain isolated from staff, dogs and environmental sites was resistant to fluoroquinolones in addition to all beta-lactams. CONCLUSIONS The study provides evidence of EMRSA-15 mucosal carriage in veterinary staff and hospitalized dogs, with the risk of MRSA carriage in veterinary staff being significantly higher than reported for the UK healthy community. EMRSA-15 was predominant in the hospital environment, including humans, dogs, and inanimate objects, but the mode by which the strain was introduced and spread remains uncertain.
The Effects of Frequency Knowledge On Consumer Decision Making

The proposition is advanced that knowledge about the mere number of positive and negative attributes possessed by a brand is an important component of a consumer's knowledge structure. A series of experiments is presented that illustrates the unique character of frequency knowledge and its potential role in decision making. In general, it is shown that frequency knowledge can influence judgment and choice, particularly when other types of information have been poorly encoded, poorly remembered, or poorly understood.
The Role of Protein Kinase Cη in T Cell Biology

Protein kinase Cη (PKCη) is a member of the novel PKC subfamily, which also includes δ, ε, and θ isoforms. Compared to the other novel PKCs, the function of PKCη in the immune system is largely unknown. Several studies have started to reveal the role of PKCη, particularly in T cells. PKCη is highly expressed in T cells, and is upregulated during thymocyte positive selection. Interestingly, like the θ isoform, PKCη is also recruited to the immunological synapse that is formed between a T cell and an antigen-presenting cell. However, unlike PKCθ, which becomes concentrated to the central region of the synapse, PKCη remains in a diffuse pattern over the whole area of the synapse, suggesting distinctive roles of these two isoforms in signal transduction. Although PKCη is dispensable for thymocyte development, further analysis of PKCη- or PKCθ-deficient and double-knockout mice revealed the redundancy of these two isoforms in thymocyte development. In contrast, PKCη rather than PKCθ, plays an important role for T cell homeostatic proliferation, which requires recognition of self-antigen. Another piece of evidence demonstrating that PKCη and PKCθ have isoform-specific as well as redundant roles come from the analysis of CD4 to CD8 T cell ratios in the periphery of these knockout mice. Deficiency in PKCη or PKCθ had opposing effects as PKCη knockout mice had a higher ratio of CD4 to CD8 T cells compared to that of wild-type mice, whereas PKCθ-deficient mice had a lower ratio. Biochemical studies showed that calcium flux and NFκB translocation is impaired in PKCη-deficient T cells upon TCR crosslinking stimulation, a character shared with PKCθ-deficient T cells. However, unlike the case with PKCθ, the mechanistic study of PKCη is at early stage and the signaling pathways involving PKCη, at least in T cells, are essentially unknown. In this review, we will cover the topics mentioned above as well as provide some perspectives for further investigations regarding PKCη.