Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards Natural Language Story Understanding with Rich Logical Schemas

Generating “commonsense’’ knowledge for intelligent understanding and reasoning is a difficult, long-standing problem, whose scale challenges the capacity of any approach driven primarily by human input. Furthermore, approaches based on mining statistically repetitive patterns fail to produce the rich representations humans acquire, and fall far short of human efficiency in inducing knowledge from text. The idea of our approach to this problem is to provide a learning system with a “head start” consisting of a semantic parser, some basic ontological knowledge, and most importantly, a small set of very general schemas about the kinds of patterns of events (often purposive, causal, or socially conventional) that even a one- or two-year-old could reasonably be presumed to possess. We match these initial schemas to simple children’s stories, obtaining concrete instances, and combining and abstracting these into new candidate schemas. Both the initial and generated schemas are specified using a rich, expressive logical form. While modern approaches to schema reasoning often only use slot-and-filler structures, this logical form allows us to specify complex relations and constraints over the slots. Though formal, the representations are language-like, and as such readily relatable to NL text. The agents, objects, and other roles in the schemas are represented by typed variables, and the event variables can be related through partial temporal ordering and causal relations. To match natural language stories with existing schemas, we first parse the stories into an underspecified variant of the logical form used by the schemas, which is suitable for most concrete stories. We include a walkthrough of matching a children’s story to these schemas and generating inferences from these matches.
The Temporal Dynamics of Emotional Responding: Implications for Well-Being and Health From the MIDUS Neuroscience Project

Findings are reviewed from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Neuroscience Project demonstrating the value in examining the temporal dynamics of responses to brief emotional provocation for understanding linkages among emotional response styles and factors contributing to health and well-being. Findings from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as well as electromyographic recordings (EMG) of the facial muscles to objectively measure emotional responses demonstrate that the temporal dynamics of emotional responses to affective stimuli are associated with aging, personality, psychopathology, stress exposure, biomarkers, and well-being. These findings suggest that variation in health and well-being are differentially predicted by specific temporal parameters of the emotional response. By examining temporal dynamics in response to affective stimuli, a better understanding is gained of the brain–behavior associations underlying emotion and how emotions “get under the skin” to impact well-being and health across the life span.
The Housing Situations of Food Bank Users in Great Britain

Food bank use in Great Britain has risen substantially over the last decade. The considerable socioeconomic disadvantage of the food bank user population has been documented, but little research has examined whether housing problems intersect with insecure food access. Using data from 598 households accessing assistance from twenty-four food banks operating in Great Britain in 2016–2017, we found that nearly 18 per cent of households were homeless, with more having experienced homelessness in the past twelve months. Renters from both the private and social rented sectors were also overrepresented in the sample. Households in both private and social rented housing reported high rates of rent arrears and poor conditions; those in private housing were also more likely to live in homes with damp, to have moved in past year, and to be worried about a forced move in future. Overall, housing problems are widespread among food bank users; policy interventions are needed.
Relationship between Contraceptive Prevalence Rate and Total Fertility Rate : Revisiting the Empirical Model

Studies repeatedly showed a strong negative relationship between the proportion of women who are using contraceptives and their total fertility rates (TFR). The most recognized relationship between TFR and contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) was illustrated by the empirical model developed by Bongaarts and Potter (1983). The model was based on data from 22 developing countries at the initial phase of fertility transition all over the world. To re-examine the empirical relation between fertility and contraception, DHS data of 74 different countries since 1990s were used in this study. Considering four different regions of the world separately and together, the results indicate that there is an association between decline in the expected level of natural fertility and increase in CPR. Besides Central and Sub-Saharan African countries, the country specific data suggest that due to fluctuation of TFR against irregular trend in contraceptive use, the predicting power of the fitted model also supported by corresponding measure of goodness of fit. The analysis shows that to achieve replacement level of fertility further increase in contraceptive use will be required in many of these developing countries.
The Demand for Money Revisited

THE MONEY MARKET IS A CRITICAL COMPONENT of virtually all theories that explain the evolution of aggregate economic activity. More particularly, an accurate understanding and portrayal of this market is essential both to the analysis of past monetary policies and to the formulation of appropriate contemporary policy. This paper focuses on one aspect of the money market, the demand side, and provides an extensive review of the current state of the art concerning the demand for money. The emphasis will be unabashedly empirical, with concentration on the short term, taken here to be quarterly, since this horizon appears to be the most relevant to policy purposes. ' There has been a substantial amount of past research on the demand for money and several survey pieces as well.2 Nevertheless, a number of good reasons argue for embarking on another broad empirical effort. In the first
Insufficient forcing uncertainty underestimates the risk of high climate sensitivity

Uncertainty in climate sensitivity is a fundamental problem for projections of the future climate. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is defined as the asymptotic response of global‐mean surface air temperature to a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration from the preindustrial level (≈280 ppm). In spite of various efforts to estimate its value, climate sensitivity is still not well constrained. Here we show that the probability of high climate sensitivity is higher than previously thought because uncertainty in historical radiative forcing has not been sufficiently considered. The greater the uncertainty that is considered for radiative forcing, the more difficult it is to rule out high climate sensitivity, although low climate sensitivity (<2°C) remains unlikely. We call for further research on how best to represent forcing uncertainty.
Technological Capabilities and FDI-related Spillover: Evidence from Manufacturing Industries in Nigeria

Many studies provide evidences of the existence of FDI-related technology spillover effects, suggesting that FDI can act as a vehicle through which technologies and new ideas can be transferred to domestic firms in developing countries. However, some case studies and empirical researches find little evidence of a spillover effect arising from FDI inflow. These mixed empirical evidences imply that research needs to identify conditions under which spillovers actually occur. Accordingly, this study was conducted to explore the role of both subsidiary and indigenous firms’ intensity of investments in technological activities and capabilities on their ability to attract and generate, capture and absorb FDI-related technology spillover. In doing so the Nigeria’s manufacturing sector was targeted from which a sample was drawn. Data were collected through reliable-tested structured questionnaires and were analysed principally by using multiple correlation to establish association and regression to establish causality. By employing combined analytical approach, the research found positive and robust relationships between intensity of investments in technological capabilities vis-a-vis FDI-related technology spillover. The results also show that investments in R&D and acquisition of licensed technologies are the main drivers of spillover with subsidiaries contributing more to the process than indigenous firms.
The Contribution of Urban Agriculture to Household Food Insecurity in Ibadan Metropolis , Oyo State , Nigeria

Received: 16 October, 2016 Accepted: 20 January, 2017 Published: 20 February, 2017 Urban agriculture contributions are paramount to the provision of more affordable and emergency supplies of food in an epileptic national food system. This study analyses the contribution of urban agriculture to household food security in Ibadan Metropolis, Oyo State. Primary data was obtained with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire. Three local government areas (LGAs) were randomly selected from the five LGAs in the study area. The sample included 40 urban farmers from each of the three local government areas. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics, benefit-cost analysis, food security index and Logit model. The study reveals that urban farmers between the ages of 40 and 49 have the highest percentage (36.7%) in terms of participation in urban agriculture with a mean age of 46.9years. Most (78.3%) of the urban farmers were male, 87.5% had formal education and 88.3% were married with an average family size of 6.1members. This indicated that the respondents had a fairly moderate household size which is enough for economic and dependency burden. The benefit cost ratio for the urban agriculture enterprises is 3.2 and 2.6 for the animal and crop enterprises respectively which implies that they are profitable. The study also shows that 37.5% of the urban farmers are food insecure while 62.5% of the urban farmers are food secure. Food insecurity incidence was 0.37, the food insecurity gap/depth was 0.16 and the food insecurity severity was 0.09. Among the significant determinants of food insecurity are sex, household size, farm size and type of enterprise. However, since urban agriculture is profitable, more urban farmers should be encouraged to engage in it with incentives that can facilitate food production. © 2017 PSCI Publisher All rights reserved.
Maximum Weighted Loss Discrepancy

Though machine learning algorithms excel at minimizing the average loss over a population, this might lead to large discrepancies between the losses across groups within the population. To capture this inequality, we introduce and study a notion we call maximum weighted loss discrepancy (MWLD), the maximum (weighted) difference between the loss of a group and the loss of the population. We relate MWLD to group fairness notions and robustness to demographic shifts. We then show MWLD satisfies the following three properties: 1) It is statistically impossible to estimate MWLD when all groups have equal weights. 2) For a particular family of weighting functions, we can estimate MWLD efficiently. 3) MWLD is related to loss variance, a quantity that arises in generalization bounds. We estimate MWLD with different weighting functions on four common datasets from the fairness literature. We finally show that loss variance regularization can halve the loss variance of a classifier and hence reduce MWLD without suffering a significant drop in accuracy.
The Effects of Voluntary, Involuntary, and Forced Exercises on Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor and Motor Function Recovery: A Rat Brain Ischemia Model

Background Stroke rehabilitation with different exercise paradigms has been investigated, but which one is more effective in facilitating motor recovery and up-regulating brain neurotrophic factor (BDNF) after brain ischemia would be interesting to clinicians and patients. Voluntary exercise, forced exercise, and involuntary muscle movement caused by functional electrical stimulation (FES) have been individually demonstrated effective as stroke rehabilitation intervention. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of these three common interventions on brain BDNF changes and motor recovery levels using a rat ischemic stroke model. Methodology/Principal Findings One hundred and seventeen Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly distributed into four groups: Control (Con), Voluntary exercise of wheel running (V-Ex), Forced exercise of treadmill running (F-Ex), and Involuntary exercise of FES (I-Ex) with implanted electrodes placed in two hind limb muscles on the affected side to mimic gait-like walking pattern during stimulation. Ischemic stroke was induced in all rats with the middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion model and fifty-seven rats had motor deficits after stroke. Twenty-four hours after reperfusion, rats were arranged to their intervention programs. De Ryck's behavioral test was conducted daily during the 7-day intervention as an evaluation tool of motor recovery. Serum corticosterone concentration and BDNF levels in the hippocampus, striatum, and cortex were measured after the rats were sacrificed. V-Ex had significantly better motor recovery in the behavioral test. V-Ex also had significantly higher hippocampal BDNF concentration than F-Ex and Con. F-Ex had significantly higher serum corticosterone level than other groups. Conclusion/Significance Voluntary exercise is the most effective intervention in upregulating the hippocampal BDNF level, and facilitating motor recovery. Rats that exercised voluntarily also showed less corticosterone stress response than other groups. The results also suggested that the forced exercise group was the least preferred intervention with high stress, low brain BDNF levels and less motor recovery.
Chapter 3 Interactions between Bio-Based Compounds and Cyclodextrins

Bio-based compounds, such as “green” surfactants and phytochemicals, are regarded as future sustainable resources for a vast range of applications in a modern society increasingly demanding economical, social, and environmental awareness. Natural compounds from plants (phytochemicals) are very sought by the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries. On the other hand, the growing interest in “green” surfactants (e.g., carbohydrate-based) is due to, inter alia, their preparation from renewable rawmaterials, ready biodegradability, and biocompatibility, among other reasons of fundamental, practical, economical, and environmental orders. Despite the wide range of potential applications of these bio-based compounds, their practical use is still limited due to many reasons such as poor aqueous solubility, volatility, reactivity, etc. Generally, when complexed with cyclodextrins, these biobased compounds enhance considerably their performance and potential applications. Thus, this chapter aims at recalling some general fundamental aspects of phytochemicals and “green” surfactants, such as structure, function, and applications. In addition, their interactions with cyclodextrins are discussed from a physicochemical point of view with special focus on the techniques, mathematic modeling, and thermodynamic parameters (e.g., interactions, stoichiometries, association constants, etc.).
RATE DEPENDENCE IN ENGINEERED CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITES

This paper examines the rate dependence in engineered cementitious composite (ECC), a promising material for seismic, impact-, and blast-applications. Research focus has been placed on uncovering the source of rate dependence in ECC and composite re-engineering. Test results show a strong decrease in tensile strain capacity with increasing strain rate in particular versions of ECC. Single fiber pullout test reveals that change in the interface chemical bond with rate is responsible for the loss of composite tensile ductility. Preliminary results in composite re-engineering confirm that extreme ductility of ECC can be retained under seismic loading rate.
Towards mobile cryptography

Mobile code technology has become a driving force for recent advances in distributed systems. The concept of the mobility of executable code raises major security problems. In this paper, we deal with the protection of mobile code from possibly malicious hosts. We conceptualize the specific cryptographic problems posed by mobile code, and we are able to provide a solution for some of these problems. We present techniques to achieve "non-interactive evaluation with encrypted functions" in certain cases and give a complete solution for this problem in important instances. We further present a way in which an agent might securely perform a cryptographic primitive-digital signing-in an untrusted execution environment. Our results are based on the use of homomorphic encryption schemes and function composition techniques.
SkillVis: a visualization tool for boxing skill assessment

Motion analysis and visualization are crucial in sports science for sports training and performance evaluation. While primitive computational methods have been proposed for simple analysis such as postures and movements, few can evaluate the high-level quality of sports players such as their skill levels and strategies. We propose a visualization tool to help visualizing boxers' motions and assess their skill levels. Our system automatically builds a graph-based representation from motion capture data and reduces the dimension of the graph onto a 3D space so that it can be easily visualized and understood. In particular, our system allows easy understanding of the boxer's boxing behaviours, preferred actions, potential strength and weakness. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on different boxers' motions. Our system not only serves as a tool for visualization, it also provides intuitive motion analysis that can be further used beyond sports science.
Collaboration Strategies in Nontraditional Community-Based Participatory Research Partnerships: Lessons From an Academic–Community Partnership With Autistic Self-Advocates

Background: Most community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects involve local communities defined by race, ethnicity, geography, or occupation. Autistic self-advocates, a geographically dispersed community defined by disability, experience issues in research similar to those expressed by more traditional minorities. Objectives: We sought to build an academic–community partnership that uses CBPR to improve the lives of people on the autistic spectrum. Methods: The Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) includes representatives from academic, self-advocate, family, and professional communities. We are currently conducting several studies about the health care experiences and well-being of autistic adults. Lessons Learned: We have learned a number of strategies that integrate technology and process to successfully equalize power and accommodate diverse communication and collaboration needs. Conclusions: CBPR can be conducted successfully with autistic self-advocates. Our strategies may be useful to other CBPR partnerships, especially ones that cannot meet in person or that include people with diverse communication needs.
High Lytic Infection Rates but Low Abundances of Prokaryote Viruses in a Humic Lake (Vassivière, Massif Central, France)

ABSTRACT We explored the abundance and infection rates of viruses on a time series scale in the euphotic zone of the humic mesotrophic Lake Vassivière (Massif Central, France) and compared them to nonhumic lakes of contrasting trophy (i.e., the oligomesotrophic Lake Pavin and the eutrophic Lake Aydat) located in the same geographical region and sampled during the same period. In Lake Vassivière, the abundances of virus-like particles (range, 1.7 × 1010 to 2.6 × 1010 liter−1) were significantly (P < 0.001) lower than in Lakes Pavin and Aydat. The percentage of virus-infected prokaryotic cells (mean, 18.0%) was significantly higher (P < 0.001) in Vassivière than in Pavin (mean, 11.5%) and Aydat (mean, 9.7%). In Vassivière, the abundance of prokaryotes was a good predictor (r = 0.78, P < 0.001) of the number of virus-like particles, while the potential grazing rate from heterotrophic nanoflagellates was positively correlated to the viral infection rate (r = 0.75, P < 0.001; n = 20), indicating the prevalence of cycling interactions among viruses, prokaryotes, and grazers, which is in agreement with past experiments. The absence of correlation between chlorophyll a concentrations (Chl) and viral parameters suggested that the resources for the lytic activity of viruses in Vassivière were mainly under allochthonous control, through host activity. Indeed, compilation of data obtained from several nonhumic lakes in the French Massif Central revealed that Chl was positively correlated to the abundance of virus-like particles at concentrations above 0.5 μg Chl liter−1 and negatively at concentrations below 0.5 μg Chl liter−1, suggesting that phytoplankton-derived resources could force prokaryotic growth to attain a certain threshold level when the host availability is sufficient to boost the proliferation of viruses. Therefore, based on the high level of lytic infection rates in Lake Vassivière, we conclude that viruses are key agents for prokaryotic mortality and could influence the food web dynamics in humic lakes, which may ultimately depend on the internal cycling of resources and, perhaps, mainly on the allochthonous inputs and the associated humic substances.
The Study of Momentum , Mass , and Heat Transfer in a þÿ �

This paper investigates turbulent exchange processes in a droplet-laden air flow over a waved water surface by performing direct numerical simulation (DNS). Turbulent Couette flow is considered in DNS as a model of a constant-flux layer in the marine atmospheric surface layer. Two-dimensional stationary waves at the water surface are prescribed and assumed to be unaffected by the airflow and/or droplets. Evaporating droplets of different sizes are injected into the air in the vicinity of wave crests with initial velocities and temperatures of water, and thus mimicking spume sea-spray droplets. Evolution equations of the airflow velocity, temperature, and humidity are solved in a Eulerian framework simultaneously with the equations of individual droplets coordinates and velocities, temperatures, andmasses tracked in a Lagrangian framework. The momentum (Qm) and sensible (QS) and latent (QL) heat fluxes from the droplets to air are evaluated both as phase-averaged Eulerian fields and as fluxes integrated over time along Lagrangian droplets trajectories. The results show that droplets extract momentum from the surrounding air (Qm < 0), and QL > 0 and increases with droplet diameter, d, whereas QS < 0, reaches maximum for droplets with diameters of the order of 200 μm, and saturates for larger droplets. The resulting enthalpy flux QS + QL > 0 vanishes for droplets with diameters d< 100 μm, and increases with d for larger droplets. DNS results also show that droplets reduce mean air velocity and temperature and increase relative humidity as compared to the droplet-free flow. Plain Language Summary This study is concerned with numerical simulation of momentum, heat, and moisture exchange processes occuring in the marine atmospheric boundary layer. In particular, the influence of sea-spray drops on these processes is investigated. It is shown that drops reduce the mean air velocity and temperature, and increase relative humidity as compared to droplet-free flow.