Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards a Universal Analyzer of Natural Languages

Developing NLP tools for many languages involves unique challenges not typically encountered in English NLP work (e.g., limited annotations, unscalable architectures, code switching). Although each language is unique, different languages often exhibit similar characteristics (e.g., phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactic) which can be exploited to synergistically train analyzers for multiple languages. In this thesis, we advocate for a novel language-universal approach to multilingual NLP in which one statistical model trained on multilingual, homogenuous annotations is used to process natural language input in multiple languages. To empirically show the merits of the proposed approach, we develop MALOPA , a language-universal dependency parser which outperforms monolingually-trained parsers in several low-resource and high-resource scenarios. MALOPA is a greedy transitionbased parser which uses multilingual word embeddings and other language-universal features as a homogeneous representation of the input across all languages. To address the syntactic differences between languages, MALOPA makes use of token-level language information as well as language-specific representations such as fine-grained part-of-speech tags. MALOPA uses a recurrent neural network architecture and multitask learning to jointly predict POS tags and labeled dependency parses. Focusing on homogeneous input representations, we propose novel methods for estimating multilingual word embeddings and for predicting word alignments. We develop two methods for estimating multilingual word embeddings from bilingual dictionaries and monolingual corpora. The first estimation method, multiCluster, learns embeddings of word clusters which may contain words from different languages, and learns distributional similarities by pooling the contexts of all words in the same cluster in multiple monolingual corpora. The second estimation method, multiCCA, learns a linear projection of monolingually trained embeddings in each language to one vector space, extending the work of Faruqui and Dyer (2014) to more than two languages. To show the scalability of our methods, we train multilingual embeddings in 59 languages. We also develop an extensible, easy-to-use web-based evaluation portal for evaluating arbitrary multilingual word embeddings on several intrinsic and extrinsic tasks. We develop the conditional random field autoencoder (CRF autoencoder) model for unsupervised learning of structured predictors, and use it to predict word alignments in parallel corpora. We use a feature-rich CRF model to predict the latent representation conditional on the observed input, then reconstruct the input conditional on the latent representation using a generative model which factorizes similarly to the CRF model. To reconstruct the observations, we experiment with a categorical distribution over word types (or word clusters), and a multivariate Gaussian distribution that generates pretrained word embeddings.
Emotional Intelligence : a Cross-Cultural Psychometric Analysis

Malgre la litterature importante dans le champ de l’intelligence emotionnelle, la tres grande majorite des etudes sur le developpement et la validation des echelles de mesure de l’intelligence emotionnelle ont ete realisees dans des pays Occidentaux. D’ou, une limitation majeure de cette litterature dans son orientation purement occidentale. L’objectif de cette recherche est d’evaluer les proprietes psychometriques du Test d’Intelligence Emotionnelle de Mayer-Salovey-Caruso (MSCEIT), du Questionnaire des Traits d’Intelligence Emotionnelle (TEIQue), et du Test d’auto-evaluation d’Intelligence Emotionnelle (SREIT) dans un contexte comparatif interculturel comprenant des etudiants collectivistes Pakistanais (culture Orientale) et des etudiants individualistes Francais (culture Occidentale). Les resultats de cette etude ont demontre que les participants de la culture francaise ont eu une meilleure performance par rapport aux participants pakistanais au MSCEIT mais pas au TEIQue et au SREIT. Les analyses d’echantillons multiples ont revele des structures factorielles invariantes du MSCEIT, du TEIQue, et du SREIT a travers les deux cultures. Concernant la validite discriminante, l’auto-evaluation de l’IE, mesuree par le SREIT et le TEIQue, et les mesures de performance de l’IE, evaluees par le MSCEIT, n’ont pas demontre une forte correlation dans les deux cultures. En autre, les resultats au MSCEIT, au TEIQue, et au SREIT n’ont pas demontre le lien avec l’intelligence cognitive dans les deux cultures. Des correlations faibles a moderees ont ete observees entre les mesures de l’IE et les dimensions de personnalite Big Five. Enfin, les mesures de l’IE se sont revelees independantes de styles de communication. Concernant la validite convergente des mesures d’auto-evaluation de l’IE, les resultats au TEIQue ont montre une forte correlation avec le SREIT dans les deux cultures. En ce qui concerne la validite incrementale, apres un controle statistique des dimensions de personnalite Big Five et la capacite cognitive, le MSCEIT et le SREIT n’ont pas demontre le lien avec la satisfaction de vie, l’affect positif, l’affect negatif, et la detresse psychologique dans les deux cultures. En revanche, les facteurs du TEIQue ont explique une part significative de la variance dans les variables dependantes apres avoir controle pour les dimensions de personnalite Big Five et l’intelligence cognitive. Cependant, des analyses plus approfondies ont revele que ces associations ont ete en grande partie attribuees au facteur du bien-etre du TEIQue. Enfin, les femmes ont montre de meilleurs resultats que les hommes au MSCEIT mais pas au TEIQue et au SREIT dans les deux cultures. En resume, les resultats de cette etude fournissent les preuves pour validite factorielle, discriminante, et convergente de ces mesures de l’intelligence emotionnelles dans les deux cultures. Toutefois, les resultats concernant la validite incrementale de ces mesures se sont averes moins prometteurs que prevu.
X-Ray Flaring Activity of Markarian 421

We report results from a systematic search for X-ray flares from Mrk 421, using archival data from the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite. The flares are clearly seen over a wide range of timescales. The quasi-continuous coverage of the source with the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) reveals frequent occurrence of major flares that last for months. On a few occasions, the source was intensively monitored with the more sensitive pointing instruments aboard RXTE. The data from these observations show the presence of X-ray flares of much shorter duration, ranging from weeks down to less than an hour. For the first time, we clearly resolved the most rapid flares from Mrk 421. Moreover, Fourier analyses reveal variability on even shorter timescales, up to about 0.01 Hz. The source appears to behave differently in its spectral properties during different flares, large or small, which is intriguing. While significant hysteresis is observed to be associated with spectral evolution in some cases, little is seen in other cases. Sometimes, the shape of the X-ray spectrum hardly varies across a flare. Therefore, the phenomenology is complex. The observed hierarchical structure of the X-ray flares seems to imply the scale-invariant nature of the phenomenon, perhaps similar in this regard to solar flares or the rapid X-ray flares observed from stellar-mass black holes. Combined with other results, the observed flaring timescales seriously constrain the physical properties of X-ray-emitting regions in the jets of Mrk 421.
Look at me, Don’t Look at me: Body Image and Types of Narcissism

The present study examines the three faces of the narcissism construct – covert, overt, and adaptive—and explores how each face relates to the construct of body image. This research expands upon previous work showing differing correlations between overt narcissism, covert narcissism, and body esteem, by assessing adaptive narcissism and using a wider range of body image measures including objectified body consciousness, and sexual body exposure anxiety. Measures of narcissism, psychological health, and body image were completed by 175 female undergraduate students from a liberal arts college. Results support a distinction between adaptive, overt, and covert types of narcissism by their differing correlations with psychological health. The three faces also have different relationships with body esteem, objectified body consciousness, and sexual body exposure anxiety. BODY IMAGE AND TYPES OF NARCISSISM 4 Look at me, Don’t Look at me: Body Image and Types of Narcissism When you look in the mirror what do you see? Yourself, of course. But what does it mean when you see yourself in a mirror? You are gazing at your image of yourself, an outside version of yourself. Some people can become consumed by this image (Figure 1). Figure 1. Bride admiring herself in a mirror. 123RF Stock Photo used with permission. These people often become so concerned about improvement, maintenance, and defense of this image both physically and as a concept in other people’s heads, that their lives BODY IMAGE AND TYPES OF NARCISSISM 5 begin to revolve around cultivating this image. These narcissists often act in their own self-interest and show little consideration for the feelings of others. What they are focused on improving is not their actual self but rather their self-image as others see it and as they see it themselves (Lowen, 1985).
SECONDARY BIFURCATIONS AND HIGH PERIODIC ORBITS IN VOLTAGE CONTROLLED BUCK CONVERTER

Period doubling route to chaos has been shown to occur in the voltage controlled DC/DC buck converter, both experimentally and numerically. A chaotic attractor was found at the end of the sequence, suddenly followed by an increase of its size. In this paper new secondary bifurcations and high periodic phenomena, coexisting with the main sequence are detected and analyzed over the same range of parameters. A(synchronous)-switching and stroboscopic maps, unstable orbits, bifurcation diagrams, invariant manifolds and basins of attraction are outlined. These tools are put together to reveal the dynamical richness of this nonsmooth system.
Music-induced analgesia in chronic pain conditions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Music is increasingly used as an adjuvant for chronic pain management as it is not invasive, inexpensive, and patients usually report positive experiences with it. However, little is known about its clinical efficacy in chronic pain patients. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we investigated randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of adult patients that reported any type of music intervention for chronic pain, chosen by the researcher or patient, lasting for any duration. Searches were performed using PsycINFO, Scopus and PubMed for RTCs published until the end of May 2016. The primary outcome was reduction in self-reported pain using a standardized pain measurement instrument reported post-intervention. The secondary outcomes were: quality of life measures, depression and anxiety measures, among others. The study was pre-registered with PROSPERO (CRD42016039837) and the meta-analysis was done using RevMan. We identified 768 titles and abstracts, and we included 14 RTCs that fulfilled our criteria. The sample size of the studies varied between 25 and 200 participants. We found that music reduced chronic pain, and depression, with higher effect size on pain and depression. We also found music had a higher effect when the participant chose the music in contrast with researcher-chosen music. The sample size of RCTs was small and sometimes with different outcome measures. Our analysis suggests that music may be beneficial as an adjuvant for chronic pain patients, as it reduces self-reported pain and its common co-morbidities. Importantly, the analgesic effect of music appears higher with self-chosen over researcher-chosen music.
Oesophageal cancer among the Turkomans of northeast Iran

A Caspian Littoral Cancer Registry survey in the early 1970s established northern Iran as one of the highest oesophageal cancer incidence regions of the world. To verify this, an oesophageal cancer survey was carried out between 1995 and 1997 in the Turkoman Plain at the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. Oesophageal balloon cytology screening was carried out on 4192 asymptomatic adults above age 30 years in one town and three adjoining villages with a total population of 20 392 people at risk. Oesophagoscopy was performed on 183 patients with abnormal cytological findings. The discovery of two asymptomatic small squamous cell cancers and one ‘carcinoma- suspect’ implied a prevalence ranging from 47.7 per 100 000 to 71.5 per 100 000. During a 1-year active surveillance, 14 patients were found with clinically advanced oesophageal squamous cell cancer, yielding age-standardized incidence rates of 144.09 per 100 000 for men and 48.82 per 100 000 for women. The very high frequency of oesophageal cancer reported for northern Iran 25 years ago stands confirmed. Differences in incidence rates, then and now, can be attributed to survey methods used and diagnostic criteria applied, but not to socioeconomic factors, which have remained relatively stable. Oesophageal balloon cytology is a practical method of mass screening for oesophageal cancer in Iran. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Role and rationale for the use of milnacipran in the management of fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a complex syndrome characterized by chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain which is often accompanied by multiple other symptoms, including fatigue, sleep disturbances, decreased physical functioning, and dyscognition. Due to these multiple symptoms, as well as high rates of comorbidity with other related disorders, patients with FM often report a reduced quality of life. Although the pathophysiology of FM is not completely understood, patients with FM experience pain differently from the general population, most likely due to dysfunctional pain processing in the central nervous system leading to both hyperalgesia and allodynia. In many patients with FM, this aberrant pain processing, or central sensitization, appears to involve decreased pain inhibition within the spinal tract, which is mediated by descending pathways that utilize serotonin, norepinephrine, and other neurotransmitters. The reduced serotonin and norepinephrine levels observed in patients with FM suggest that medications which increase the levels of these neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), may have clinically beneficial effects in FM and other chronic pain conditions. Milnacipran is an SNRI that has been approved for the management of FM. In clinical trials, treatment with milnacipran for up to 1 year has been found to improve the pain and other symptoms of FM. Because FM is characterized by multiple symptoms that all contribute to the decreased quality of life and ability to function, the milnacipran pivotal trials implemented responder analyses. These utilized a single composite endpoint to identify the proportion of patients who reported simultaneous and clinically significant improvements in pain, global disease status, and physical function. Other domains assessed during the milnacipran trials include fatigue, multidimensional functioning, mood, sleep quality, and patient-reported dyscognition. This review article provides information intended to help clinicians make informed decisions about the use of milnacipran in the clinical management of patients with FM. It draws primarily on results from 2 of the pivotal clinical trials that formed the basis of approval of milnacipran in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration.
The Role of Academic Efficacy Belief, Peer Pressure and Trait Anxiety on Adolescent Aggressiveness

The aim of this research is to investigate whether adolescents’ academic self-efficacy beliefs, peer pressure, and trait anxiety predict their agressiveness or not. For this aim ,the data was collected from 231 adolescents who were students in different high schools in Turkey. In this research, the data was collected with The Scale of Agressiveness, Academic Self-efficacy Scale, The Scale of Peer Pressure and Trait Anxiety Inventory. To analyse the data, correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used. According to the findings, while the most important predictors of the male adolescents’aggresiveness were peer presure and academic self-efficacy belief, the most important predictors of the female adolescents’aggresiveness were academic self-efficacy belief, trait anxiety and peer presure.
Whether Modulating the Activity of the Temporalparietal Junction Alters Distribution Decisions within Different Contexts: Evidence from a tDCS Study

Distributive justice concerns how individuals and societies distribute income in a just or equal manner. We aimed to test the roles of social preference in behavioral distributive justice. We thus provide evidence of a causal link between the neural and behavioral results through the application of bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) of our participants. The participants were found to make fairer distributions within the known position after receiving right anodal/left cathodal tDCS and receiving right cathodal/left anodal tDCS over the TPJ than the participants who received the sham stimulation. Simultaneously, we elicited the participants’ advantage inequity aversion and found that the participants who received right anodal/left cathodal tDCS and who received right cathodal/left anodal tDCS over the TPJ were more averse to advantage inequity. Additionally, the participants’ distributive proportions to the lowest income stratum within the known position were strongly related to their social preference of advantage inequity aversion. Therefore, the present study demonstrated that the modulation of the excitability of the TPJ using tDCS altered the distributive decisions of the participants within the known position, and this effect might be attributable to a change in the individuals’ social preferences.
Direct torque control system for a three phase induction motor with fuzzy logic based speed Controller

This paper presents a method for improving the speed profile of a three phase induction motor in direct torque control (DTC) drive system using a proposed fuzzy logic based speed controller. A complete simulation of the conventional DTC and closed-loop for speed control of three phase induction motor was tested using well known Matlab/Simulink software package. The speed control of the induction motor is done by using the conventional proportional integral (PI) controller and the proposed fuzzy logic based controller. The proposed fuzzy logic controller has a nature of (PI) to determine the torque reference for the motor. The dynamic response has been clearly tested for both conventional and the proposed fuzzy logic based speed controllers. The simulation results showed a better dynamic performance of the induction motor when using the proposed fuzzy logic based speed controller compared with the conventional type with a fixed (PI) controller.
Conscientious consumers? Preferences, personality and expenditure in the UK

While the importance of personality for understanding differences in labor market outcomes has come to be increasingly appreciated by economic scholars, little research has so far focused on the question whether these measures also explain some of the individual heterogeneity in demand behavior. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, this study provides evidence for the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and expenditures for food away from home and other leisure activities. Additionally, we assess the relationship between dimensions of personality and individual preferences in predicting expenditure on these categories. Results indicate that aspects of personality predict a non-negligible part of expenditure behavior, and that these effects are independent of the individual’s preference stock. Our results provide empirical support for approaches that include personality as a constraint into economic models of human behavior.
RESEARCH REPORT

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student understanding of the nature of science and their problem-solving strategies. Six hundred and twenty Year 8 students in Taiwan twice completed two conceptual problem-solving tests and a questionnaire on the nature of science. Four of these students were selected for follow-up interviews. The result of stepwise multiple regression indicated that the subscale on the nature of the scientific method consistently appeared as the best predictor for student problem-solving ability, explaining about 22% of the variance. It was also found that problem-solving strategies were more conceptually based for students that were high scorers on the nature of science survey.
Iso-splatting: a point-based alternative to isosurface visualization

We present a new approach to isosurface visualization that we call "iso-splatting. " We use point primitives for representing and rendering isosurfaces. The method consists of two steps. In the first step, point samples are generated throughout the volumetric domain of a scalar function. In the second step, these points are projected onto the isosurface of interest. We render the resulting point set using a surface splatting algorithm. The method can be extended to out-of-core or parallel environments. Our results show that this method can offer much greater time and space efficiency when compared with standard triangle-based methods, thereby supporting higher levels of interactivity. Parts of the algorithm can be accelerated using graphics hardware. One key advantage of this approach is that, since extraction computations are divided into two smaller phases, work can be distributed to exploit all available resources.
Bacillus thuringiensis: mechanism of action, resistance, and new applications: a review

Abstract Since the first report by Ishiwata in 1902 of a Bombyx mori infection, followed by the description by Berliner, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has become the main microorganism used in biological control. The application of Bt to combat invertebrates of human interest gained momentum with the growing demand for food free of chemical pesticides and with the implementation of agriculture methods that were less damaging to the environment. However, the mechanisms of action of these products have not been fully elucidated. There are two proposed models: the first is that Bt causes an osmotic imbalance in response to the formation of pores in a cell membrane, and the second is that it causes an opening of ion channels that activate the process of cell death. There are various ways in which Bt resistance can develop: changes in the receptors that do not recognize the Cry toxin, the synthesis of membrane transporters that eliminate the peptides from the cytosol and the development of regulatory mechanisms that disrupt the production of toxin receptors. Besides the potential for formulation of biopesticides and the use in developing genetically modified cultivars, recent studies with Bt have discussed promising applications in other branches of science. Chitinase, an enzyme that degrades chitin, increases the efficiency of Bt insecticides, and there has been of increasing interest in the industry, given that its substrate is extremely abundant in nature. Another promising field is the potential for Bt proteins to act against cancer cells. Parasporins, toxins of Bt that do not have an entomopathogenic effect, have a cytotoxic effect on the cells changed by some cancers. This demonstrates the potential of the microorganism and new opportunities opening for future applications.