Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spike and Slab Gaussian Process Latent Variable Models

The Gaussian process latent variable model (GP-LVM) is a popular approach to non-linear probabilistic dimensionality reduction. One design choice for the model is the number of latent variables. We present a spike and slab prior for the GP-LVM and propose an efficient variational inference procedure that gives a lower bound of the log marginal likelihood. The new model provides a more principled approach for selecting latent dimensions than the standard way of thresholding the length-scale parameters. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated through experiments on real and simulated data. Further, we extend multi-view Gaussian processes that rely on sharing latent dimensions (known as manifold relevance determination) with spike and slab priors. This allows a more principled approach for selecting a subset of the latent space for each view of data. The extended model outperforms the previous state-of-the-art when applied to a cross-modal multimedia retrieval task.
Conversational Cooperation: The Leading Role of Intentions

In this paper, we consider the role played by the notion of agent intentions in dialog and, particularly, in conversational cooperation. We present a model, where intentions arise from goals on the basis of two factors: the advantage of achieving a goal, and the cost of the actions to achieve it. In the model, the adoption of the intention of cooperating at the conversational level is motivated by the fact that the refusal to do low-cost actions, is usually interpreted as an ooense to the requester of the action, and that preventing a partner from becoming ooended is one of the goals the speaker considers when taking a decision about what to do. Finally, we show that the decision to cooperate towards the success of the communication accounts for grounding, requests of repair, repairs to misunderstandings, and other related phenomena.
Students’ uncertainty management in the college classroom

ABSTRACT The uncertainty experienced by college students can have serious repercussions for their success and subsequent retention. Drawing parallels between instructional context and organizational context will enrich theory and research about students’ experiences of uncertainty in their college courses. Therefore, this study used Uncertainty Management Theory to explore how students manage their uncertainty about college courses with their classmates. Overall, the results suggest that although students experience uncertainty mostly related to their academic needs, their uncertainty management focuses more on their socioemotional needs. In managing their uncertainty, students rely on direct communication with their peers, which suggests the importance of considering uncertainty management as a relational activity as opposed to an independent activity. Given this, instructors can facilitate classroom climates and activities that allow students to establish relationships with one another and work interdependently to achieve their academic goals.
Assessing (in)sensitivity to causal asymmetry: A matter of degree

Blocking effects and associations Contiguity or the pairing of events has long been recognized by learning theorists as insufficient to explain basic associative processes. In 1968, Leon Kamin described the blocking phenomenon as a demonstration of this insufficiency (Kamin, 1968). Using a two-phase design, as shown in Table 4.1, Kamin conditioned a group of animals to associate a single cue with an outcome (i.e., A Æ O). In Phase 2, a second cue was paired alongside the first (i.e., AB Æ O). A
On Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater: A Reply to Black and Wilensky's Evaluation of Story Grammars

A number of criticisms of a recent paper by Black and Wilensky (1979) are made. (1) In attempting to assess the observational adequacy of story grammars, they state that a context-free grammar cannot handle discontinuous elements; however, they do not show that such elements occur in the domain to which the grammars apply. Further, they do not present adequate evidence for their claim that there are acceptable stories not accounted for by existing grammars and that the grammars will accept nonstories such as procedures. (2) They state that it has been proven that under natural conditions children cannot learn transformational grammars, which is a misrepresentation of the learnability proofs which have been offered. (3) Most important, they take an unduly narrow approach to story understanding by claiming that people only understand story content and do not have knowledge of story structure which is useful in comprehension or memory. Counterevidence from the literature is cited which indicates that such knowledge is both useful and used, and a number of methods for assessing the psychological adequacy of structural models are discussed.
THE SECOND SURVEY OF THE MOLECULAR CLOUDS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD BY NANTEN. II. STAR FORMATION

We studied star formation activities in the molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We have utilized the second catalog of 272 molecular clouds obtained by NANTEN to compare the cloud distribution with signatures of massive star formation including stellar clusters, and optical and radio H ii regions. We find that the molecular clouds are classified into three types according to the activities of massive star formation: Type I shows no signature of massive star formation; Type II is associated with relatively small H ii region(s); and Type III with both H ii region(s) and young stellar cluster(s). The radio continuum sources were used to confirm that Type I giant molecular clouds (GMCs) do not host optically hidden H ii regions. These signatures of massive star formation show a good spatial correlation with the molecular clouds in the sense that they are located within ∼100 pc of the molecular clouds. Among possible ideas to explain the GMC types, we favor that the types indicate an evolutionary sequence; i.e., the youngest phase is Type I, followed by Type II, and the last phase is Type III, where the most active star formation takes place leading to cloud dispersal. The number of the three types of GMCs should be proportional to the timescale of each evolutionary stage if a steady state of massive star and cluster formation is a good approximation. By adopting the timescale of the youngest stellar clusters, 10 Myr, we roughly estimate the timescales of Types I, II, and III to be 6 Myr, 13 Myr, and 7 Myr, respectively, corresponding to a lifetime of 20–30 Myr for the GMCs with a mass above the completeness limit, 5 × 104 M☉.
Triana: a graphical Web service composition and execution toolkit

Service composition refers to the aggregation of services to build complex applications to achieve client requirements. It is an important challenge to make it possible for users to construct complex workflows transparently and thereby insulating them from the complexity of interacting with numerous heterogeneous services. We present an extension to the Triana PSE to facilitate graphical Web service discovery, composition and invocation. Our framework has several novel features which distinguish it from other work in this area. First, users can graphically create complex service compositions. Second, Triana allows the user to share the composite service as a BPELAWS graph or expose it as a service in a one-click manner. Third, Triana allows the user to easily carry out "what-if" analysis by altering existing workflows. Fourth, Triana allows the user to record provenance data for a workflow. Finally, our framework allows the user to execute the composed graph on a Grid or P2P network. Triana is a part of the GridLab and GridOneD projects and is used in the GEO 600 project.
Strain echocardiography is related to fibrosis and ventricular arrhythmias in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Aims Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients are at risk of ventricular arrhythmias (VAs). We aimed to explore whether systolic function by strain echocardiography is related to VAs and to the extent of fibrosis by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR). Methods and results We included 150 HCM patients and 50 healthy individuals. VAs were defined as non-sustained and sustained ventricular tachycardia and aborted cardiac arrest. Left ventricular function was assessed by ejection fraction (EF) and by global longitudinal strain (GLS) assessed by speckle tracking echocardiography. Mechanical dispersion was calculated as standard deviation (SD) of time from Q/R on ECG to peak longitudinal strain in 16 left ventricular segments. Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) was assessed by CMR. HCM patients had similar EF (61 ± 5% vs. 61 ± 8%, P = 0.77), but worse GLS (−15.7 ± 3.6% vs. −21.1 ± 1.9%, P < 0.001) and more pronounced mechanical dispersion (64 ± 22 vs. 36 ± 13 ms, P < 0.001) compared with healthy individuals. VAs were documented in 37 (25%) HCM patients. Patients with VAs had worse GLS (−14.1 ± 3.6% vs. −16.3 ± 3.4%, P < 0.01), more pronounced mechanical dispersion (79 ± 27 vs. 59 ± 16 ms, P < 0.001), and higher %LGE (6.1 ± 7.8% vs. 0.5 ± 1.4%, P < 0.001) than patients without VAs. Mechanical dispersion correlated with %LGE (R = 0.52, P < 0.001) and was independently associated with VAs (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1–2.3, P = 0.02) and improved risk stratification for VAs. Conclusion GLS, mechanical dispersion, and LGE were markers of VAs in HCM patients. Mechanical dispersion was a strong independent predictor of VAs and related to the extent of fibrosis. Strain echocardiography may improve risk stratification of VAs in HCM.
Mid-infrared selection of AGN

Since a large fraction of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is missed in common UV-excess surveys and is even hard to find in radio, near-IR and X-ray surveys, we have used a new AGN selection technique which is expected to be not affected by extinction. Within the scientific verification of the ISOCAM Parallel Survey at 6.7 µm we have discovered objects with exceptional mid-infrared (MIR) emission. They are essentially not detected on IRAS-ADDSCANs and only very few of them show up in the NVSS and FIRST radio surveys. Various colour criteria of the 6.7 µm data with 2MASS and optical wavebands show that the sources reach more extreme IR colours than the sources in the Hubble Deep Field-South and the ELAIS survey. The comparison with known object types suggests that we have found AGN with a pronounced MIR emission, probably due to circum-nuclear dust. First results from optical spectroscopy of ten candidates corroborate this interpretation showing four AGN, two reddened LINER and four extremely reddened emission-line galaxies with MIR/FIR flux ratios higher than for known pure starburst galaxies. The results will make a significant contribution to the debate on the entire AGN population.
Neuropsychological Status and Structural Brain Imaging in Adolescents With Single Ventricle Who Underwent the Fontan Procedure

Background Few studies have described the neuropsychological outcomes and frequency of structural brain or genetic abnormalities in adolescents with single ventricle who underwent the Fontan procedure. Methods and Results In a cross‐sectional, single‐center study, we enrolled 156 subjects with single ventricle, mean age 14.5±2.9 years, who had undergone the Fontan procedure. Scores in the entire cohort on a standard battery of neuropsychological tests were compared with those of normative populations or to those of a group of 111 locally recruited healthy adolescents. They also underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging and were evaluated by a clinical geneticist. Genetic abnormalities were definite in 16 subjects (10%) and possible in 49 subjects (31%). Mean Full‐Scale IQ was 91.6±16.8, mean Reading Composite score was 91.9±17.2, and mean Mathematics Composite score was 92.0±22.9, each significantly lower than the population means of 100±15. Mean scores on other neuropsychological tests were similarly lower than population norms. In multivariable models, risk factors for worse neuropsychological outcomes were longer total support and circulatory arrest duration at first operation, presence of a genetic abnormality, more operations and operative complications, more catheterization complications, and seizure history. The frequency of any abnormality on magnetic resonance imaging was 11 times higher among Fontan adolescents than referents (66% versus 6%); 19 (13%) patients had evidence of a stroke, previously undiagnosed in 7 patients (40%). Conclusions The neuropsychological deficits and high frequencies of structural brain abnormalities in adolescents who underwent the Fontan procedure highlight the need for research on interventions to improve the long‐term outcomes in this high‐risk group.
On Shifted Cardinal Interpolation by Gaussians and Multiquadrics

A radial basis function approximation is a linear combination of translates of a fixed function�:�Rd�R. Such functions possess many useful and interesting properties when the translates are integers and�is radially symmetric. We study the closely related problem for which the fixed function is the shifted Gaussian�=G(���), whereG(x)=exp(���x�22) and��Rd. Specifically, we exploit the theory of elliptic functions to establish the invertibility of the Toeplitz operatorformula]when�has no half-integer components; it is singular otherwise. This implies the existence of ashifted Gaussian cardinal function, that is, a linear combination�of integer translates of the shifted Gaussian satisfying�(j)=�0j. We also study shifted cardinal functions when the parameter�tends to zero. In particular, we discover their uniform convergence to the sinc function when the shift vector�possesses no half-integer components. Our methods are based in part on similar results established by the first author when the basis function is the Hardy multiquadric. Several intriguing links with the theory of shifted B-spline cardinal interpolation are described in the finale.
Study of Protoscolicidal Effects of Hypertonic Glucose on Protoscolices of Hydatid Cyst at Different Concentrations and Exposure Times

Surgical operation is the treatment of choice for hydatid cyst. To date, many protoscolicidal substances have been used for inactivation of hydatid cyst contents but most of these compounds may produce several side effects. The aim of this study was to evaluate the protoscolicidal effects of hypertonic glucose on protoscolices of hydatid cyst at different concentrations and exposure times. Protoscolices were obtained aseptically from the livers of slaughtered sheep at Qazvin abattoir, Iran. Protoscolices were exposed to different concentrations of hypertonic glucose (10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 40%, and 50%) at different times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 min). Viability of protoscolices was evaluated by 0.1% eosin and the movement of protoscolices flame cells. The highest protoscolicidal effect (100%) of hypertonic glucose was obtained at concentrations 40% and 50% following 40 and 20 min exposure times, respectively. Some protoscolicidal agents show a variety of dangerous complications such as biliary tract fibrosis and liver necrosis; however, hypertonic glucose especially at a concentration of 40% may demonstrate less side effects compared with glucose 50%. Further in vivo investigations are suggested.
The Effect of Creative Drama as a Method on Skills: A Meta-Analysis Study.

The aim of the current study was to synthesize the findings of experimental studies addressing the effect of the creative drama method on the skills of students. Research data were derived from ProQuest Citations, Web of Science, Google Academic, National Thesis Center, EBSCO, ERIC, Taylor & Francis Online, and ScienceDirect databases using keywords such as drama, and skill. A total of 63 research studies including twenty articles, thirty-four master’s and nine doctoral theses, which met the inclusion criteria of meta-analysis, formed the data source of the current study. The collected data were analyzed by using the Comprehensive Meta Analysis program. To address the heterogeneity of the studies, the random effects model were employed to calculate the effect size. The results of the research showed that creative drama method positively affected the skills of students. In experimental studies, the differences in the effect created by the creative drama on students' skills were examined in terms of moderator variables. While the effect size of creative drama on students’ skills was found to be significantly varying depending on the moderator variables including the duration of experimental application, the level of schooling and the publication type, it was found that the effect size was not significantly varying depending on the moderator variables of practitioner and types of skills.
Stress and coping of police officers in the South African Police Service

Working in the police service can be physically and emotionally demanding. Officers use various coping methods to deal with the stressors. The main aim of this study was to investigate which coping responses are used most by police officers in the South African Police Service and to investigate how the prevalence of these coping responses changes over time. A longitudinal approach was used where data were collected at three different points in time. The final sample (n = 120) was used for this study. The results indicate that police officers predominantly use planful problem-solving, positive reappraisal, and confrontive coping to deal with their daily stress. Planful problem-solving and positive reappraisal are seen as adaptive ways of dealing with stress, while the outcomes of confrontive coping are context dependent. The coping responses of seeking social support, escape avoidance, and accepting responsibility were used less frequently. The results indicate that coping styles change over time as police officers accepted significantly less responsibility, made less use of confrontive coping, and relied more on planful problem-solving, positive reappraisal, and escape avoidance. The findings of this study have important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of stress of active police officers. It is recommended that interventions such as emotional competence training be used to reinforce and refresh positive coping strategies to enhance the emotional well-being of police officers.
The hydrological context determines the beta-diversity of aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria in European Arctic seas but does not favor endemism

Despite an increasing number of studies over the last 15 years, aerobic anoxygenic photoheterotrophic (AAP) bacteria remain a puzzling functional group in terms of physiology, metabolism, and ecology. To contribute to a better knowledge of their environmental distribution, the present study aims at analyzing their diversity and structure at the boundary between the Norwegian, Greenland, and Barents Seas. The polymorphism of a marker gene encoding a sub-unit of the photosynthetic apparatus (pufM gene) was analyzed and attempted to be related to environmental parameters. The Atlantic or Arctic origin of water masses had a strong impact on the AAP bacterial community structure whose populations mostly belonged to the Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria. A majority (>60%) of pufM sequences were affiliated to the Gammaproteobacteria reasserting that this class often represents the major component of the AAP bacterial community in oceanic regions. Two alphaproteobacterial groups dominate locally suggesting that they can constitute key players in this marine system transiently. We found that temperature is a major determinant of alpha diversity of AAP bacteria in this marine biome with specific clades emerging locally according to the partitioning of water masses. Whereas we expected specific AAP bacterial populations in this peculiar and newly explored ecosystem, most pufM sequences were highly related to sequences retrieved elsewhere. This observation highlights that the studied area does not favor AAP bacteria endemism but also opens new questions about the truthfulness of biogeographical patterns and on the extent of AAP bacterial diversity.
Emerging trends in regenerative medicine: a scientometric analysis in CiteSpace

Introduction: Regenerative medicine involves research in a number of fields and disciplines such as stem cell research, tissue engineering and biological therapy in general. As research in these areas advances rapidly, it is critical to keep abreast of emerging trends and critical turns of the development of the collective knowledge. Areas covered: A progressively synthesized network is derived from 35,963 original research and review articles that cite 3875 articles obtained from an initial topic search on regenerative medicine between 2000 and 2011. CiteSpace is used to facilitate the analysis of the intellectual structure and emerging trends. Expert opinion: A major ongoing research trend is concerned with finding alternative reprogramming techniques as well as refining existing ones for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). A more recent emerging trend focuses on the structural and functional equivalence between iPSCs and human embryonic stem cells and potential clinical and therapeutic implications on regenerative medicine in a long run. The two trends overlap in terms of what they cite, but they are distinct and have different implications on future research. Visual analytics of the literature provides a valuable, timely, repeatable and flexible approach in addition to traditional systematic reviews so as to track the development of new emerging trends and identify critical evidence.
Data gathering optimization by dynamic sensing and routing in rechargeable sensor networks

Data gathering in wireless sensor networks typically involves two steps: data sensing and data transmission, which dominate the energy consumption of each sensor. In Rechargeable Sensor Networks (RSNs), in order to optimize data gathering, energy should be carefully allocated to data sensing and data transmission due to time-varying renewable energy arrival and limited battery capacity. Moreover, the dynamic feature of network topology should be taken into account, since it can affect the optimal data transmission. In this paper, we strive to optimize data gathering by jointly considering data sensing and transmission. To this end, we first design a Balanced Energy Allocation Scheme (BEAS) for each sensor to manage its energy use, which is proven to meet four requirements raised by practical scenarios. Then we propose a Distributed Sensing Rate and Routing Control (DS2RC) algorithm to jointly optimize data sensing and transmission, while guaranteeing network fairness. In DS2RC, each sensor can adaptively adjust its transmit energy consumption during network operation according to the amount of available energy, and select the optimal sensing rate and routing, which can efficiently improve data gathering. We theoretically prove the optimality and the convergence of the proposed algorithms. Extensive simulations are performed to demonstrate the efficiency of BEAS and DS2RC by comparing with existing algorithms.