Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Factored Adaptation for Non-Stationary Reinforcement Learning

Dealing with non-stationarity in environments (e.g., in the transition dynamics) and objectives (e.g., in the reward functions) is a challenging problem that is crucial in real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL). While most current approaches model the changes as a single shared embedding vector, we leverage insights from the recent causality literature to model non-stationarity in terms of individual latent change factors, and causal graphs across different environments. In particular, we propose Factored Adaptation for Non-Stationary RL (FANS-RL), a factored adaption approach that learns jointly both the causal structure in terms of a factored MDP, and a factored representation of the individual time-varying change factors. We prove that under standard assumptions, we can completely recover the causal graph representing the factored transition and reward function, as well as a partial structure between the individual change factors and the state components. Through our general framework, we can consider general non-stationary scenarios with different function types and changing frequency, including changes across episodes and within episodes. Experimental results demonstrate that FANS-RL outperforms existing approaches in terms of return, compactness of the latent state representation, and robustness to varying degrees of non-stationarity.
Human herpesvirus 6 and cytomegalovirus in ileocolonic mucosa in inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract Objectives. Reactivation of a latent cytomegalovirus (CMV) may occur in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Data of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6)—a close relative to CMV—in active IBD are scarce. The aim of this study was to detect HHV-6 and CMV antigens in the mucosa of active and inactive IBD. Material and Methods. 79 IBD patients (47 ulcerative colitis (UC) and 32 Crohn's disease (CD)) were recruited and endoscopic and histological disease activity was scored. Control group consisted of 15 non-IBD patients with normal colonoscopy. Immunohistochemical stainings for HHV-6B and CMV antigens were performed on biopsy specimens from the ileum and colorectum. The intensity of HHV-6B and CMV expression was graded as negative, mild, moderate, or intense. Results. HHV-6B antigen was positive in 35 (44%) and CMV in 64 (81%). Of controls, 6 (40%) were mildly positive for HHV-6 and 6 (40%) for CMV. In IBD, both CMV and HHV-6B intensity correlated with endoscopic disease severity (CMV p = 0.010 and HHV-6 p = 0.048). Simultaneous HHV-6B and CMV antigen expression occurred in 29 (37%) and associated with endoscopic activity (p = 0.006) and to a number of immunosuppressives (p = 0.033). A significant difference in HHV-6B positivity was found between endoscopically active and inactive UC (p = 0.040). Both CMV and HHV-6B intensity correlated with histological severity in the rectal biopsy specimens (for CMV p = 0.040 and for HHV-6B p = 0.027). Conclusions. Both viruses occurred ubiquitously in the IBD mucosa. Coexistence of viruses was common and associated with disease activity and use of immunosuppressives. HHV-6B intensity correlated with endoscopic severity in UC.
Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire to Sinhalese for Implementation among Nursing Students in Sri Lanka

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) is a valuable tool for assessing empathy in nursing students. This study aimed to translate the 16-item TEQ into Sinhalese and cross-culturally adapt it to Sri Lanka. The process of cross-cultural adaptation consisted of five distinct stages: (I) initial translation, (II) synthesis of the translation, (III) back translation, (IV) Expert Committee Delphi review, and (V) testing of the pre-final version after obtaining permission from its developer. The content and consensual validity of the translated version were assessed by a two-round Delphi procedure involving a panel of five experts. Evaluation metrics included Content Validity Index (CVI) parameters such as I-CVI, Universal Agreement (S-CVI/UA), and Average CVI (S-CVI/Ave). Administered to 197 nursing undergraduates at General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University in Sri Lanka, the finalized Sinhalese TEQ demonstrated exceptional content validity (I-CVI = 1.0 for each item) and the highest overall content validity indices (S-CVI/UA = 1.0; S-CVI/Ave = 1.0). The high internal consistency, as indicated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.732, underscores the Sinhalese TEQ's reliability. In conclusion, this cross-culturally adapted assessment tool proves valid and reliable for evaluating empathy levels among nursing students in Sri Lanka.
Capturing analytic thought

The survival of an enterprise often rests upon its ability to make correct and timely decisions, despite the complexity and uncertainty of the environment. Because of the difficulty of employing and scaling formal methods in this context, decision makers typically resort to informal methods, sacrificing structure and rigor. We are developing a new methodology that retains the ease of use, the familiarity, and (some of) the free-form nature of informal methods, while benefiting from the rigor, structure, and potential for automation characteristic of formal methods. Our approach records analysts' thinking in a corporate knowledge base consisting of structured arguments. The foundation of this knowledge base is an ontology of arguments that includes two main types of formal objects: argument templates and arguments. An argument template records an analytic method as a hierarchically structured set of interrelated questions, and an argument instantiates an argument template by answering the questions posed relative to a specific situation. This methodology emphasizes the use of simple inference structures as the foundation of its argument templates, making it possible for analysts to independently author new templates. When authoring an argument template, the analyst can choose to embed discovery tools, which are recommended methods of acquiring information pertaining to the questions posed. An analyst wanting to record an argument selects an appropriate template, uses the discovery tools to retrieve potentially relevant information, selects that information to retain as evidence and records its relevance, answers the questions, and records the rationale for the answers. The result is a recorded line of reasoning that breaks down the problem, bottoming out at the documents and other forms of information that were used as evidence to support the answers. The resulting collection of arguments and templates constitutes a corporate memory of analytic thought that can be directly exploited by analysts or automated methods.
Objective analysis of the upwelling ecosystem off Baja California

The method of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is applied to nutrient data of hydrostations and surface maps to study the temporal and spatial structures of the major processes in the upwelling ecosystem off Baja California, during the 1972 MESCAL I experiment. It is demonstrated that the EOF analysis leads to a meaningful separation of the uptake process from the dominant conservative processes. In the interior, the upwelling ecosystem was characterized by isentropic flow and the uptake of phosphate and nitrate by the downward migrating dinoflagellates. At the surface, while the general background showed alongshore quasi-steady band structures, there appeared distinct, temporally variable patches of upwelled water. Evidence suggests that the transition from "new" patches of high nutrient but low fluorescence concentrations to "old" patches of low nutrient but high fluorescence concentrations is induced mainly by the local decay of upwelling circulation.
Fast Algorithms for Game-Theoretic Centrality Measures

In this dissertation, we analyze the computational properties of game-theoretic centrality measures. The key idea behind game-theoretic approach to network analysis is to treat nodes as players in a cooperative game, where the value of each coalition of nodes is determined by certain graph properties. Next, the centrality of any individual node is determined by a chosen game-theoretic solution concept (notably, the Shapley value) in the same way as the payoff of a player in a cooperative game. On one hand, the advantage of game-theoretic centrality measures is that nodes are ranked not only according to their individual roles but also according to how they contribute to the role played by all possible subsets of nodes. On the other hand, the disadvantage is that the game-theoretic solution concepts are typically computationally challenging. The main contribution of this dissertation is that we show that a wide variety of game-theoretic solution concepts on networks can be computed in polynomial time. Our focus is on centralities based on the Shapley value and its various extensions, such as the Semivalues and Coalitional Semivalues. Furthermore, we prove #P-hardness of computing the Shapley value in connectivity games and propose an algorithm to compute it. Finally, we analyse computational properties of generalized version of cooperative games in which order of player matters. We propose a new representation for such games, called generalized marginal contribution networks, that allows for polynomial computation in the size of the representation of two dedicated extensions of the Shapley value to this class of games.
Identifying Emotions on the Basis of Neural Activation

We attempt to determine the discriminability and organization of neural activation corresponding to the experience of specific emotions. Method actors were asked to self-induce nine emotional states (anger, disgust, envy, fear, happiness, lust, pride, sadness, and shame) while in an fMRI scanner. Using a Gaussian Naïve Bayes pooled variance classifier, we demonstrate the ability to identify specific emotions experienced by an individual at well over chance accuracy on the basis of: 1) neural activation of the same individual in other trials, 2) neural activation of other individuals who experienced similar trials, and 3) neural activation of the same individual to a qualitatively different type of emotion induction. Factor analysis identified valence, arousal, sociality, and lust as dimensions underlying the activation patterns. These results suggest a structure for neural representations of emotion and inform theories of emotional processing.
A model for the self-organization of exit sites in the endoplasmic reticulum

Exit sites (ES) are specialized domains of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) at which cargo proteins of the secretory pathway are packaged into COPII-coated vesicles. Although the essential COPII proteins (Sar1p, Sec23p-Sec24p, Sec13p-Sec31p) have been characterized in detail and their sequential binding kinetics at ER membranes have been quantified, the basic processes that govern the self-assembly and spatial organization of ERES have remained elusive. Here, we have formulated a generic computational model that describes the process of formation of ERES on a mesoscopic scale. The model predicts that ERES are arranged in a quasi-crystalline pattern, while their size strongly depends on the cargo-modulated kinetics of COPII turnover – that is, a lack of cargo leads to smaller and more mobile ERES. These predictions are in favorable agreement with experimental data obtained by fluorescence microscopy. The model further suggests that cooperative binding of COPII components, for example mediated by regulatory proteins, is a key factor for the experimentally observed organism-specific ERES pattern. Moreover, the anterograde secretory flux is predicted to grow when the average size of ERES is increased, whereas an increase in the number of (small) ERES only slightly alters the flux.
Combined ramR Mutation and Presence of a Tn1721-Associated tet(A) Variant in a Clinical Isolate of Salmonella enterica Serovar Hadar Resistant to Tigecycline

ABSTRACT A Salmonella enterica serovar Hadar strain resistant to tigecycline (MIC, 16 μg/ml) was isolated. Molecular characterization revealed the presence of a plasmid-borne tet(A) variant associated with Tn1721 mediating a rise of the MIC for tigecycline when transferred to Escherichia coli. Additionally, a truncating mutation in ramR was detected. Transformation with wild-type ramR but not with the mutated ramR lowered the MIC for tigecycline. Characterization of this Salmonella isolate implicates ramR in resistance to tigecycline.
An Effectiveness Trial of Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation during Pregnancy in Vietnam: Impact on Birthweight and on Stunting in Children at around 2 Years of Age

Background Multiple micronutrient deficiencies during pregnancy in Vietnam may contribute to poor fetal growth and stunting, which are major determinants of the health and development of future generations. Objective We assessed the effects of prenatal multiple micronutrient supplementation on maternal weight gain during pregnancy, infant birthweight, and height of the child at around 2 years of age. Methods We conducted a nonrandomized, nonblinded, side-by-side effectiveness trial in a normal program setting in three districts in the Red River Delta in the north of Vietnam. Women in one district received the standard iron–folic acid supplement during prenatal care; women in the second district received the multiple micronutrient supplement; in the third district, gender training was provided in addition to the multiple micronutrient supplement. Cluster surveys were carried out in the three districts at the end of the trial to verify low birthweight (LBW) and at around 2 years after the trial to measure children's height and weight, as well as to collect demographic data on the mothers. Results Mean birthweight was higher in the districts receiving multiple micronutrient supplements than in the district receiving iron–folic acid tablets. The mean birthweight was 166 g higher in the district receiving multiple micronutrients and 105 g higher in the district receiving multiple micronutrients with gender training than in the district receiving iron–folic acid (p < .05). The prevalence of LBW children (< 2,500 g) was lower in the district receiving multiple micronutrients (4.0%) and the district receiving multiple micronutrients plus gender training (5.8%) than in the district receiving iron–folic acid (10.6%) (p < .05). Children at around 2 years of age were taller in the district receiving multiple micronutrients (82.66 cm) and the district receiving multiple micronutrients plus gender training (83.61 cm) than in the district receiving iron–folic acid (81.64 cm), and the stunting rates were about 10% lower than in the district receiving iron-folic acid. Conclusions Multiple micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy could be an important intervention to help reduce stunting rates in Vietnam.
Aggregation of Information and Beliefs : Asset Pricing Lessons from Prediction Markets

This paper analyzes how asset prices in a binary market react to information when traders have heterogeneous prior beliefs. We show that the competitive equilibrium price underreacts to information when there is a bound to the amount of money traders are allowed to invest. Underreaction is more pronounced when prior beliefs are more heterogeneous. Even in the absence of exogenous bounds on the amount traders can invest, prices underreact to information provided traders become less risk averse as their wealth increases. In a dynamic setting, price changes are positively correlated over time. Thus the initial underreaction is followed by momentum. Keywords: Aggregation of heterogeneous beliefs, Price reaction to information, Wealth e¤ects. JEL Classi cation: D82 (Asymmetric and Private Information), D83 (Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge), D84 (Expectations; Speculations). We thank Peter Bossaerts, Peter Ove Christensen, Tarek Coury, Morten Engberg, Erik Eyster, Christian Gollier, Piero Gottardi, Denis Gromb, Robin Hanson, Emeric Henry, Harrison Hong, Stephen Morris, Claudia Neri, Alessandro Pavan, Andrea Prat, Koleman Strumpf, Joel Watson, Justin Wolfers, Kathy Yuan, Anthony Ziegelmeyer, Eric Zitzewitz, and seminar participants at Aarhus, Bocconi, Brescia, Cambridge, Chicago, Copenhagen, Duke Law School, Erasmus University at Rotterdam, Fuqua School of Business, Gerzensee, Helsinki, Indiana, Institut Henri Poincaré (Paris), Keio (Tokyo), Kyoto, London Business School, London School of Economics, Lund, New York, Northwestern, Nottingham, Nottingham Trent, Oxford, Saïd Business School, Seoul, Toulouse, UCSD, Vienna, Warwick, WZB (Berlin), and Yale for helpful comments. yKellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 602082013. Phone: +18474670684. Fax: +18474671777. E-mail: m-ottaviani@northwestern.edu. Web: http://www.kellogg. northwestern.edu/Faculty/ottaviani/homepage/. zDepartment of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK1353 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Phone: +4535323056. Fax: +4535323000. E-mail: peter.sorensen@ econ.ku.dk. Web: http://www.econ.ku.dk/sorensen.
Observations of wind inﬂuence on exchange ﬂows in a strait of the Chilean Inland Sea

A (cid:1) 100-day time series of velocity proﬁles, sea level and wind velocity at a strait in the Chilean Inland Sea was analyzed to examine the effects of wind forcing on the mean two-layer exchange. Measurements took place in the Meninea Constriction of the Moraleda Channel during a period dominated by northerly winds. The mean ﬂow in the strait, and in general in the Moraleda Channel, showed net surface northward outﬂow and net bottom southward inﬂow that likely resulted from the dynamical balance between pressure gradient and friction. The inﬂuence of tidal mixing on mean exchange ﬂows was further suggested by isopycnals intersecting the bottom. The same momentum balance between pressure gradient and friction, applied with temporally varying sea level slopes, satisfactorily described the subtidal modiﬁcations to the mean exchange ﬂows produced by wind forcing. The use of sea level slopes to explain the subtidal variability of velocity proﬁles at the Meninea Constriction was justiﬁed by the strong correlation between sea level slopes and wind stresses (0.84). In fact, the vertically integrated dynamics was essentially explained by the balance between wind stress and barotropic pressure gradient for northerly winds. Addition of bottom stress improved the dynamical explanation during periods of weak or southerly winds. This dynamical response was conﬁrmed by the ﬁrst two empirical orthogonal functions of the record. Two-layer exchange ﬂows were weakened by northerly winds as depicted by the ﬁrst empirical function mode, which was unidirectional throughout the water column in response to depth-integrated dynamics. The second empirical function mode was related to the depth-dependent response that followed the wind-induced sea level set-up.
Primary and Secondary Yield Losses Caused by Pests and Diseases: Assessment and Modeling in Coffee

The assessment of crop yield losses is needed for the improvement of production systems that contribute to the incomes of rural families and food security worldwide. However, efforts to quantify yield losses and identify their causes are still limited, especially for perennial crops. Our objectives were to quantify primary yield losses (incurred in the current year of production) and secondary yield losses (resulting from negative impacts of the previous year) of coffee due to pests and diseases, and to identify the most important predictors of coffee yields and yield losses. We established an experimental coffee parcel with full-sun exposure that consisted of six treatments, which were defined as different sequences of pesticide applications. The trial lasted three years (2013–2015) and yield components, dead productive branches, and foliar pests and diseases were assessed as predictors of yield. First, we calculated yield losses by comparing actual yields of specific treatments with the estimated attainable yield obtained in plots which always had chemical protection. Second, we used structural equation modeling to identify the most important predictors. Results showed that pests and diseases led to high primary yield losses (26%) and even higher secondary yield losses (38%). We identified the fruiting nodes and the dead productive branches as the most important and useful predictors of yields and yield losses. These predictors could be added in existing mechanistic models of coffee, or can be used to develop new linear mixed models to estimate yield losses. Estimated yield losses can then be related to production factors to identify corrective actions that farmers can implement to reduce losses. The experimental and modeling approaches of this study could also be applied in other perennial crops to assess yield losses.
Rhythmic constraints on English stress timing

The evidence for isochrony of stress timing is weak for ordinary prose, but this does not mean that the timing of stresses is always unaffected by global constraints. We asked subjects to continually repeat the phrase "Take a pack of cards" and to temporally align the words "take" and "cards" with an auditorily presented stimulus consisting of just the words "take" and "cards" repeated several times. The phase of the "cards" stimulus relative to a reference cycle defined by the "take"-"take" interval was varied over the range 0.3-0.65 in eight equal-sized phase steps. The distribution of produced phases for the vowel onset of the syllable "cards" was trimodal: subjects showed a powerful preference for phases close to 0.5 and somewhat weaker preferences for phases near 0.36 and 0.6. These values are close to those predicted by a harmonic model for stress timing. The distribution had this form whether the subjects were speaking along with the stimulus or trying to maintain the prescribed timing after cessation of the stimulus. The observed phase was influenced by the phase produced on previous trials, suggesting dynamic control with hysteresis between competing stable patterns of timing. These results demonstrate strong rhythmic constraints on the timing of stresses within a phrase. Modeling these constraints should provide insight into the form of a general dynamic control regime for global speech timing, and may allow improved characterization of natural timing patterns in English speech.
Sequential Discrete Hashing for Scalable Cross-Modality Similarity Retrieval

With the dramatic development of the Internet, how to exploit large-scale retrieval techniques for multimodal web data has become one of the most popular but challenging problems in computer vision and multimedia. Recently, hashing methods are used for fast nearest neighbor search in large-scale data spaces, by embedding high-dimensional feature descriptors into a similarity preserving Hamming space with a low dimension. Inspired by this, in this paper, we introduce a novel supervised cross-modality hashing framework, which can generate unified binary codes for instances represented in different modalities. Particularly, in the learning phase, each bit of a code can be sequentially learned with a discrete optimization scheme that jointly minimizes its empirical loss based on a boosting strategy. In a bitwise manner, hash functions are then learned for each modality, mapping the corresponding representations into unified hash codes. We regard this approach as cross-modality sequential discrete hashing (CSDH), which can effectively reduce the quantization errors arisen in the oversimplified rounding-off step and thus lead to high-quality binary codes. In the test phase, a simple fusion scheme is utilized to generate a unified hash code for final retrieval by merging the predicted hashing results of an unseen instance from different modalities. The proposed CSDH has been systematically evaluated on three standard data sets: Wiki, MIRFlickr, and NUS-WIDE, and the results show that our method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art multimodality hashing techniques.