Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Actively learning specific function properties with applications to statistical inference

Active learning techniques have previously been shown to be extremely effective for learning a target function over an entire parameter space based on a limited set of observations. However, in many cases, only a specific property of the target function needs to be learned. For instance, when discovering the boundary of a region—such as the locations in which the wireless network strength is above some operable level,—we are interested in learning only the level-set of the target function. While techniques that learn the entire target function over the parameter space can be used to detection specific properties of the target function (e.g. level-sets), methods that learn only the required properties can be significantly more efficient, especially as the dimensionality of the parameter space increases. These active learning algorithms have a natural application in many statistical inference techniques. For example, given a set of data and a physical model of the data, which is a function of several variables, a scientist is often interested in determining the ranges of the variables which are statistically supported by the data. We show that many frequentist statistical inference techniques can be reduced to a level-set detection problem or similar search of a property of the target function, and hence benefit from active learning algorithms which target specific properties. Using these active learning algorithms significantly decreases the number of experiments required to accurately detect the boundaries of the desired 1—α confidence regions. Moreover, since computing the model of the data given the input parameters may be expensive (either computationally, or monetarily), such algorithms can facilitate analyses that were previously infeasible. We demonstrate the use of several statistical inference techniques combined with active learning algorithms on several cosmological data sets. The data sets vary in the dimensionality of the input parameters from two to eight. We show that naive algorithms, such as random sampling or grid based methods, are computationally infeasible for the higher dimensional data sets. However, our active learning techniques can efficiently detect the desired 1—α confidence regions. Moreover, the use of frequentist inference techniques allows us to easily perform additional inquiries, such as hypothetical restrictions on the parameters and joint analyses of all the cosmological data sets, with only a small number of additional experiments.
A Necessary and Suﬃcient Condition for Invertibility of Adapted Perturbations of Identity on Wiener Space

: Let ( W, H, µ ) be the classical Wiener space, assume that U = I W + u is an adapted perturbation of identity satisfying the Girsanov identity. Then, U is invertible if and only if the kinetic energy of u is equal to the relative entropy of the measure induced with the action of U on the Wiener measure µ , in other words U is invertible if and only if
Modifying effect of MDM4 variants on risk of HPV16‐associated squamous cell carcinoma of oropharynx

The p53 pathway plays a critical role in maintaining genomic stability and preventing tumor formation. Given the roles of both MDM4 and HPV16 E6 oncoproteins in inhibition of p53 activity, we tested the hypothesis that MDM4 polymorphisms are associated with the risk of HPV16‐associated squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN).
Nestin expression in primary and metastatic uveal melanoma – possible biomarker for high‐risk uveal melanoma

Nestin, a member of the intermediate filament protein family, has been described as a putative cancer stem cell marker (CSC) in uveal melanoma and poor prognostic factor in a variety of tumours, including cutaneous melanoma. In this study, we examined the expression of nestin in primary (PUM) and metastatic uveal melanoma (MUM) samples, and correlated the findings with histological, clinical and survival data.
Adult Brain Plasticity Elicited by Anomia Treatment

We describe a study where a specific treatment method for word-finding difficulty (so-called contextual priming technique, which combines massive repetition priming with semantic priming) was applied with three chronic left hemisphere-damaged aphasics. Both before and after treatment, which focused on naming of a series of pictures, naming-related brain activity was measured by magnetoencephalography (MEG). Due to its excellent temporal resolution and good spatial resolution, we were able to track treatment-induced changes in cortical activity. All three subjects showed improved naming of the trained items. In all subjects, a single source area, located in the left inferior parietal lobe, close to the lesioned area, displayed statistically significant training-induced changes. This effect was of long latency as it started 300600 msec after picture presentation. The change in activation was specific to training, as it could not be accounted for by variation of cortical dynamics associated with increased proportion of correct answers. Our interpretation is that the training effect reflects more effective phonological encoding and storage of the trained items through the engagement of a left hemispheric word-learning system. This is in line with recent functional imaging studies, which have linked left inferior parietal lobe activity to the phonological storage component of the verbal working memory, as well as with theoretical arguments stating that the primary role of the phonological loop is to acquire new words. Finally, the MEG results showed no evidence of increased right hemisphere participation following training, supporting the view that restoration of language-related networks in the damaged left hemisphere is crucial for anomia recovery.
On quantum statistical inference

Summary. Interest in problems of statistical inference connected to measurements of quantum systems has recently increased substantially, in step with dramatic new developments in experimental techniques for studying small quantum systems. Furthermore, developments in the theory of quantum measurements have brought the basic mathematical framework for the probability calculations much closer to that of classical probability theory. The present paper reviews this field and proposes and interrelates some new concepts for an extension of classical statistical inference to the quantum context.
Preoperative Local Infiltration with Ropivacaine for Postoperative Pain Relief After Cholecystectomy

In a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial, we evaluated the use of preoperative local anesthesia with regard to postoperative pain. Before surgery in 66 patients scheduled for cholecystectomy, the abdominal wall along the proposed line of incision was infiltrated with 70 mL of 0.25% ropivacaine, 70 mL of 0.125% ropivacaine, or 70 mL of saline. Wound pain at rest, wound pain during mobilization, and pressure exerted to reach maximum pain tolerance were assessed after 6,26, 50, and 74 h and after 7 days. Consumption of analgesics was recorded. At the 6‐h assessment, there was a statistically significant dose‐related decrease in wound pain during mobilization (P = 0.001) and an increase of pressure exerted to reach maximum pain tolerance (P < 0.001). The tests were two‐tailed and performed at a significance level of P < 0.05. There were no significant differences between the groups at later pain control assessments. The median time to first request for postoperative analgesics was significantly shorter (P = 0.014) in the saline group than in the ropivacaine 0.25% group. These effects are suggested to be a residual anesthetic effect of ropivacaine. The study gives no support to the hypothesis that preoperative local anesthetics dampen the inflammatory response and ensuing hyperalgesia.
Efficient Solution Algorithms for Factored MDPs

This paper addresses the problem of planning under uncertainty in large Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Factored MDPs represent a complex state space using state variables and the transition model using a dynamic Bayesian network. This representation often allows an exponential reduction in the representation size of structured MDPs, but the complexity of exact solution algorithms for such MDPs can grow exponentially in the representation size. In this paper, we present two approximate solution algorithms that exploit structure in factored MDPs. Both use an approximate value function represented as a linear combination of basis functions, where each basis function involves only a small subset of the domain variables. A key contribution of this paper is that it shows how the basic operations of both algorithms can be performed efficiently in closed form, by exploiting both additive and context-specific structure in a factored MDP. A central element of our algorithms is a novel linear program decomposition technique, analogous to variable elimination in Bayesian networks, which reduces an exponentially large LP to a provably equivalent, polynomial-sized one. One algorithm uses approximate linear programming, and the second approximate dynamic programming. Our dynamic programming algorithm is novel in that it uses an approximation based on max-norm, a technique that more directly minimizes the terms that appear in error bounds for approximate MDP algorithms. We provide experimental results on problems with over 10^40 states, demonstrating a promising indication of the scalability of our approach, and compare our algorithm to an existing state-of-the-art approach, showing, in some problems, exponential gains in computation time.
Expression of focal adhesion kinase in mouse cumulus‐oocyte complexes, and effect of phosphorylation at Tyr397 on cumulus expansion

We investigated the expression of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) in mouse cumulus–oocyte complexes (COCs), as well as the role of FAK phosphorylation at Tyr397 during oocyte maturation. The effect of inhibiting FAK phosphorylation at Tyr397 during in vitro maturation (IVM) on subsequent fertilization and preimplantation embryo development was also examined. Western blotting analyses revealed that total and Tyr397‐phosphorylated FAK were expressed in vivo in both cumulus cells and oocytes. Immunocytochemical studies localized this kinase throughout the cytoplasm of cumulus cells and oocytes; in particular, Tyr397‐phosphorylated FAK tended to accumulate in regions where cumulus cells contact each other. Interestingly, the in vivo level of Tyr397 phosphorylation in cumulus cells was significantly lower after compared to before cumulus expansion. Addition of FAK inhibitor 14, which specifically blocks phosphorylation at Tyr397, stimulated oocyte meiotic maturation and cumulus expansion during IVM in the absence of follicle‐stimulating hormone (FSH). Reverse‐transcriptase PCR showed that the mRNA expression of hyaluronan synthase 2 (Has2), a marker of cumulus expansion, was significantly induced in cumulus cells. Subsequent in vitro fertilization and culture showed that more oocytes developed to the blastocyst stage when they were treated with FAK inhibitor 14 during IVM, although the blastocyst total cell number was lower than in oocytes stimulated with FSH. These results indicate that FAK is involved in the maturation of COCs; specifically, phosphorylation at Tyr397 may regulate cumulus expansion via the expression of Has2 mRNA in cumulus cells, which could affect the developmental competence of oocytes. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 82: 218–231, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
On Ergodic Sum Capacity of Fading Cognitive Multiple-Access and Broadcast Channels

This paper studies the information-theoretic limits of a secondary or cognitive radio (CR) network under spectrum sharing with an existing primary radio network. In particular, the fading cognitive multiple-access channel (C-MAC) is first studied, where multiple secondary users transmit to the secondary base station (BS) under both individual transmit-power constraints and a set of interference-power constraints each applied at one of the primary receivers. This paper considers the long-term (LT) or the short-term (ST) transmit-power constraint over the fading states at each secondary transmitter, combined with the LT or ST interference-power constraint at each primary receiver. In each case, the optimal power allocation scheme is derived for the secondary users to achieve the ergodic sum capacity of the fading C-MAC, as well as the conditions for the optimality of the dynamic time-division multiple-access (D-TDMA) scheme in the secondary network. The fading cognitive broadcast channel (C-BC) that models the downlink transmission in the secondary network is then studied under the LT/ST transmit-power constraint at the secondary BS jointly with the LT/ST interference-power constraint at each of the primary receivers. It is shown that D-TDMA is indeed optimal for achieving the ergodic sum capacity of the fading C-BC for all combinations of transmit-power and interference-power constraints.
Perceptual benchmarks for automatic language identification

There has been renewed interest in the field of automatic language identification over the past two years. The advent of a public-domain ten-language corpus of telephone speech has made the evaluation of different approaches to automatic language identification feasible. In an effort to provide benchmarks for evaluating machine performance, we conducted perceptual experiments on 1-, 2-, 4- and 6-second excerpts of telephone speech excised from spontaneous speech utterances in this corpus. The subject population consisted of 10 native speakers of English and 2 speakers from each of the remaining 9 languages. Statistical analyses of our results indicate that duration of the excerpt, familiarity with the language, and number of languages known are important factors affecting a subject's performance on the identification task. <<ETX>>
Evolution and genetic differentiation among relatives of Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana is one of the most intensively studied plant species. More recently, information is accumulating about its closest relatives, the former genus Cardaminopsis. A. thaliana diverged from these relatives, actually treated within three major lineages (Arabidopsis lyrata, Arabidopsis halleri, and Arabidopsis arenosa), ≈5 mya. Significant karyotype evolution in A. thaliana with base chromosome number reduction from x=8 to x=5 might indicate and favor effective genetic isolation from these other species, although hybrids are occurring naturally and have been also constituted under controlled conditions. We tested the evolutionary significance to separate the x=5 from the x=8 lineage using DNA sequence data from the plastome and the nuclear ribosomal DNA based on an extensive, representative worldwide sampling of nearly all taxonomic entities. We conclude that (i) A. thaliana is clearly separated phylogenetically from the x=8 lineage, (ii) five major lineages outside A. thaliana can be identified (A. lyrata, A. arenosa, A. halleri, Arabidopsis croatica, and Arabidopsis pedemontana) together with Arabidopsis cebennensis, and (iii) centers of genetic and morphological diversity are mostly in congruence and are located close to the Balkans in Austria and Slovakia outside glaciated and permafrost regions with few notable exceptions.
The Induction of Noble Rot (Botrytis cinerea) Infection during Postharvest Withering Changes the Metabolome of Grapevine Berries (Vitis vinifera L., cv. Garganega)

The natural or induced development of noble rot caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea during the late stages of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) berry ripening is used in some traditional viticulture areas to produce high-quality wines such as Sauternes and Tokaji. In this research, we wanted to verify if by changing the environmental conditions during post-harvest withering we could induce the noble rot development on harvested berries in order to positively change the wine produced from withered Garganega berries. Therefore, we exposed the berries to postharvest withering under normal or artificially humid conditions, the latter to induce noble rot. The presence of noble rot symptoms was associated with the development of B. cinerea in the berries maintained under humid conditions. The composition of infected and non-infected berries was investigated by untargeted metabolomics using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. We also explored the effects of the two withering methods on the abundance of volatile organic compounds in wine by yeast-inoculated micro-fermentation followed by targeted gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. These experiments revealed significant metabolic differences between berries withered under normal and humid conditions, indicating that noble rot affects berry metabolism and composition. As well as well-known botrytization markers, we detected two novel lipids that have not been observed before in berries infected with noble rot. Unraveling the specific metabolic profile of berries infected with noble rot may help to determine the compounds responsible for the organoleptic quality traits of botrytized Garganega wines.
Fertility Decline and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Taiwan

The impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic on human fertility has been subject to significant scholarly debate. The current study characterizes the inter-temporal association between excess deaths during the pandemic and the subsequent birth deficit by identifying the length of time between these two phenomena using cross-correlations of monthly death and birth data from Taiwan from 1906 to 1943. The analysis demonstrates a strong and negative correlation between deaths (d) at time t and births (b) at time t + 9 (rdb(9) = –0.68, p < . 0001). In other words, a significant drop in births was observed nine months after pandemic mortality peaked. The findings suggest that the 1918 influenza pandemic impacted subsequent births primarily through the mechanism of reduced conceptions and embryonic loss during the first month of pregnancy rather than through late-first-trimester embryonic loss.
Three-dimensional modelling of edge-on disk galaxies

We present detailed three-dimensional mod- elling of the stellar luminosity distribution for the disks of 31 relatively nearby ( 110 Mpc) edge-on spiral galaxies. In contrast to most of the standard methods available in the literature we take into account the full three-dimensional information of the disk. We minimize the dierence between the observed 2D-image and an image of our 3D-disk model integrated along the line of sight. Thereby we specify the inclination, the tting function for the z-distribution of the disk, and the best values for the structural parameters such as scalelength, scaleheight, central surface brightness, and a disk cut-o radius. From a comparison of two independently devel- oped methods we conclude, that the discrepancies e.g. for the scaleheights and scalelengths are of the order of 10%. These dierences are not due to the individual method itself, but rather to the selected tting region, which masks the bulge component, the dust lane, or present foreground stars. Other serious limitations are small but appreciable intrinsic deviations of real disks compared to the simple input model. In this paper we describe the methods and present con- tour plots as well as radial proles for all galaxies with- out previously published surface photometry. Resulting parameters are given for the complete sample.
Salivary cystatin activity and cystatin C in natural and experimental gingivitis in smokers and non-smokers.

BACKGROUND Recent studies show that subjects with natural gingivitis or periodontitis have elevated levels of salivary cystatins compared to periodontally healthy individuals. Increased glandular output of cystatins in inflammatory conditions suggests an active, most likely protective, rôle for these proteins in inflammatory processes. Furthermore, it has been shown that the development of gingival inflammation is suppressed in smokers during experimental gingivitis. AIMS The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether (i) the levels of salivary cystatins in natural gingivitis are related to smoking status, and (ii) to study whether experimentally induced gingivitis is associated with changes in salivary cystatin levels, in both smokers and non-smokers. MATERIAL AND METHODS Whole saliva samples were taken in relation to natural gingivitis, gingival health and 14-day experimental gingivitis in 25 non-dental students (14 non-smokers and 11 smokers). The salivary flowrate was determined. Samples were analyzed for levels of protein, cystatin and cystatin-C. RESULTS Salivary flow and protein concentrations in cleared human whole saliva samples of non-smokers and smokers were not different from each other at any timepoint during the trial. With regard to cystatins, the results showed that in the state of natural gingivitis cystatin activity is lower in smokers as compared to non-smokers. In smokers, the resolution of natural gingivitis to the state of gingival health did not result in a change of cystatin activity and levels of cystatin C. At the end of the 14-day experimental gingivitis period, smokers showed a decrease in cystatin activity and cystatin C as well as lower outputs of cystatin activity and cystatin C. CONCLUSION Smoking is associated with lower cystatin activity and output of cystatin C during gingival inflammation.
An experimental investigation on viscoelastic behavior in tunable planar RF-MEMS resonators

In this paper, the viscoelastic behavior of a tunable RF-MEMS resonator and its impacts are studied by means of direct RF measurements for the first time. This tunable resonator consists of one λ/2 coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator and two nanocrystalline-Ni RF-MEMS varactors. S-parameters of this tunable resonator have been measured for 80 hours under a bi-state bias condition of 0 and 40 V. It is demonstrated that the resonant frequency is shifted by 90 MHz and the varactor deformed by 0.12 µm over the 80 hour period. The gap of the loaded varactor is extracted from the measured S-parameters using finite-element analysis (FEA) tools. A generalized Voigt-Kelvin model is employed to verify the viscoelastic behavior of the resonator. The creep compliance extracted from the RF measurements is in excellent agreement with results in literature.
Relationship of hypoxia to metastatic ability in rodent tumours

The relationship between tumour oxygenation in vivo and metastatic potential was investigated in 2 rodent tumour models, KHT-C fibrosarcoma and SCC-VII squamous cell carcinoma. The oxygen status in these rodent tumours transplanted intramuscularly in syngeneic mice was measured using the Eppendorf pO2 Histograph. The results indicate a considerable heterogeneity in oxygenation between individual tumours within each tumour cell line. At different tumour sizes, animals were killed and lung lobes were examined for macroscopic and microscopic lung metastases. In the KHT-C tumours, a significant increase in early pulmonary metastasis formation was observed in mice with hypoxic primary tumours. Hypoxic SCC-VII tumours did not give rise to enhanced lung metastasis formation despite oxygenation in a range similar to the KHT-C tumours. However, the overall metastasis incidence in the SCC-VII model was very low. The results obtained in the KHT-C model, which show that hypoxic tumours are more likely to metastasize, are in agreement with recent clinical data suggesting that a hypoxic environment might be implicated in metastatic ability of human tumours. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer. com