Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ordinal Constrained Binary Code Learning for Nearest Neighbor Search

Recent years have witnessed extensive attention in binary code learning, a.k. a. hashing, for nearest neighbor search problems. It has been seen that high-dimensional data points can quantize into binary codes to give an efficient similarity approximation via Hamming distance. Among the existing schemes, ranking-based hashing is recent promising that targets at preserving ordinal relations of ranking in the Hamming space to minimize retrieval loss. However, the size of the ranking tuples that show the ordinal relations, is quadratic or cubic to the size of training samples. It is so very expensive to embed such ranking tuples in binary code learning, especially given a large-scale training data set. Besides, it remains difficult to build ranking tuples efficiently for most ranking-preserving hashing, which are deployed over an ordinal graph-based setting. To handle these problems, we propose a novel ranking-preserving hashing method, dubbed Ordinal Constraint Hashing (OCH), which efficiently learns the optimal hashing functions with a graph-based approximation to embed the ordinal relations. The core idea is to reduce the size of ordinal graph with ordinal constraint projection, which preserves the ordinal relations through a small data set (such as clusters or random samples). In particular, to learn such hash functions effectively, we further relax the discrete constraints and design a specific stochastic gradient decent algorithm for optimization. Experimental results on three large-scale visual search benchmark datasets, i.e. LabelMe, Tiny100K and GIST1M, show that the proposed OCH method can achieve superior performance over the state-of-the-arts approaches.
Threatening Flocks and Mindful Snowflakes: How Group Entitativity Affects Perceptions of Robots

Robots are expected to become present in society in increasing numbers, yet few studies in human-robot interaction (HRI) go beyond one-to-one interaction to examine how characteristics of robot groups will affect HRI. In particular, people may show more negative or aggressive behavior toward entitative (i.e., cohesive) robot groups, like they do toward entitative human groups, compared to diverse groups. Furthermore, because people in collectivist (e.g., Japan) and individualistic (e.g., US) cultures respond to groups and to cues of entitativity differently, entitative robot groups may affect people differently across such cultures. This study examines how robot Entitativity Condition (Single Robots, Diverse Group, Entitative Group) and Country (USA, Japan) affect emotions toward, mind attributions to, and willingness to interact with robots. Results indicate that Entitative robot groups, compared to Single robots, were viewed more negatively. Entitative robots were also more threatening than Diverse robots. Diverse robot groups, compared to Single robots, were viewed as having more mind, and participants were more willing to interact with them. These findings were similar in the USA and Japan. This indicates that robot group entitativity and diversity is critical to keep in mind when designing robots.
Growing Up in a Diverse Society: Adolescents’ Interest in Parental Religious Socialization Messages

ABSTRACT Because Western societies are becoming increasingly religiously diverse, the sociocultural context in which young adolescents currently grow up differs from that of their parents. This raises the question to what extent adolescents are interested in communicating with their parents about religion. In a cross-sectional study of 498 Belgian adolescents ages 12–18-years (mean age = 14.94, SD = 1.34), we examined how adolescent interest in communicating with parents about religion was related to the link between parental religious socialization messages and adolescent religious out-group attitudes. Testing two models, we aimed to understand whether (a) adolescent interest in communicating with parents about religion mediated the link between parental religious socialization and adolescent religious out-group attitudes or (b) parental religious socialization mediated the link between adolescent interest in communicating with parents about religion and adolescent religious out-group attitudes. Results revealed a dynamic interplay between study variables, and highlighted the importance of considering adolescent interest in communicating with parents about religion.
Quantitative comparisons of the state‐of‐the‐art data center architectures

Data centers are experiencing a remarkable growth in the number of interconnected servers. Being one of the foremost data center design concerns, network infrastructure plays a pivotal role in the initial capital investment and ascertaining the performance parameters for the data center. Legacy data center network (DCN) infrastructure lacks the inherent capability to meet the data centers growth trend and aggregate bandwidth demands. Deployment of even the highest‐end enterprise network equipment only delivers around 50% of the aggregate bandwidth at the edge of network. The vital challenges faced by the legacy DCN architecture trigger the need for new DCN architectures, to accommodate the growing demands of the ‘cloud computing’ paradigm. We have implemented and simulated the state of the art DCN models in this paper, namely: (a) legacy DCN architecture, (b) switch‐based, and (c) hybrid models, and compared their effectiveness by monitoring the network: (a) throughput and (b) average packet delay. The presented analysis may be perceived as a background benchmarking study for the further research on the simulation and implementation of the DCN‐customized topologies and customized addressing protocols in the large‐scale data centers. We have performed extensive simulations under various network traffic patterns to ascertain the strengths and inadequacies of the different DCN architectures. Moreover, we provide a firm foundation for further research and enhancement in DCN architectures. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Credit Contagion in Financial Markets: A Network-Based Approach

We propose a network-based model of credit contagion and examine the e�ects of idiosyncratic and systemic shocks to individual banks and the banking system. The banking system is built as a network in which banks are connected to each other through the interbank market. The microstructure captures the relation between debtors and creditors, and the macroeconomic events capture the sensitivity of the banks' �nancial strenght to macroeconomic events, such as housing. We have demonstrated that while idiosyncratic shocks do not have a potential to substantially disturb the banking system, macroeconomic events of higher magnitudes could be highly harmful, especially if they also spur contagion. In a concerted default of more banks, the stability of a banking system tends to decrease disproportionately. In addition, credit risk analysis is highly sensitive to the network topology and exhibits a nonlinear characteristic. Capital ratio and recovery rates are two additional factors that contribute to the stability of the �nancial system.
Effects of Upregulation of Hsp27 Expression on Oocyte Development and Maturation Derived from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) is a heat shock protein family member which can inhibit apoptosis. Our previous studies reported down-regulated Hsp27 in ovarian tissue derived from women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) however, the exact effect of Hsp27 on oocyte maturation and developmental competence in PCOS is unclear. The effect of Hsp27 over-expression was studied in vitro using oocytes derived from PCOS patients. An artificial GFP-plasmid was injected into human oocyte to increase Hsp27 protein level. Oocyte maturation was evaluated by morphological observation. Mature oocytes were fertilized by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and embryonic developmental competence was evaluated. Critical apoptotic factors and cytokines were measured at both the mRNA and protein level. Our results revealed that Overexpression of HSP27 lowered the maturation rate of oocytes derived from PCOS patients. Meanwhile, fertilization rate and high quality embryo rate were similar between the Hsp27 overexpressing group and controls; however, the blastocyst formation rate in this group was significantly higher than control. Expression analysis revealed that the oocyte-secreted factors, BMP15 and GDF9, and the apoptotic-related regulators, Caspase 3, 8 and 9, were all significantly decreased in Hsp27 overexpressing oocytes. In conclusion, upregulation of Hsp27 inhibits oocyte maturation from PCOS patients, but improves embryonic developmental potential.
Design and architecture of the unified modular snake robot

The design of a hyper-redundant serial-linkage snake robot is the focus of this paper. The snake, which consists of many fully enclosed actuators, incorporates a modular architecture. In our design, which we call the Unified Snake, we consider size, weight, power, and speed tradeoffs. Each module includes a motor and gear train, an SMA wire actuated bistable brake, custom electronics featuring several different sensors, and a custom intermodule connector. In addition to describing the Unified Snake modules, we also discuss the specialized head and tail modules on the robot and the software that coordinates the motion.
Untangling the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance: An empirical analysis of moderator variables

Abstract Researchers have advocated various perspectives on the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance. This inconclusive debate has created an inadequate theoretical foundation in strategic consistency literature. Therefore, the present study uses strategic planning, strategic change, upper echelons theory, and other literature as the theoretical foundation to empirically examine the moderating roles of organizational slack, environmental dynamism, and top management team attributes in the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance. Using 439 electronics companies in the Taiwanese stock market as sample data, the empirical results show that organizational slack, environmental dynamism, top management team tenure, and top management team tenure heterogeneity moderate the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance.
TRANSITIONAL DYNAMICS AND WELFARE EFFECTS OF THE PUBLIC INVESTMENT/OUTPUT RATIO

In endogenous growth settings, long-run growth effects are important for welfare, but they should not be the only consideration for policy evaluation. In this paper, welfare effects along the first periods of the transition fol lowing a fiscal policy reform are found to be of opposite sign to long-run effects. Hence, fully characterizing the transitional dynamics is crucial when characterizing the e ffects of downsizing public investment, an important fiscal policy issue in industriali zed economies. Starting from a standard fiscal position and a benchmark para meter calibration, we show that downsizing public investment improves welfare under either capital or gross income taxes, provided public capital is not very productive. On the other hand, downsizing is found to improve welfare with independence of the tax system considered for high levels of the unproductive public expenditure/output ratio, or for low values of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, the discoun t factor and/or the public capital elasticity in the aggregate technology. Additionally, for high levels of the output elasticity of pr ivate capital, downsizing is shown to be optimal under the less distorting taxes, but not under gross income and capital income taxes.
Non-contiguous finished genome sequence and description of Gorillibacterium massiliense gen. nov, sp. nov., a new member of the family Paenibacillaceae

Strain G5T gen. nov., sp. nov. is the type strain of Gorillibacterium massiliense, a newly proposed genus within the family Paenibacillaceae. This strain, whose genome is described here, was isolated in France from a stool sample of a wild Gorilla gorilla subsp. gorilla from Cameroon. G. massiliense is a facultatively anaerobic, Gram negative rod. Here we describe the features of this bacterium, together with the complete genome sequence and annotation. The 5,546,433 bp long genome (1 chromosome but no plasmid) contains 5,145 protein-coding and 76 RNA genes, including 69 tRNA genes.
Anatomic variations and anomalies of the coronary arteries: 64-slice CT angiographic appearance.

PURPOSE To retrospectively review the 64-slice computed tomography (CT) appearance of coronary artery anatomic variants and anomalies and determine their incidence in 700 patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS CT data of 700 patients who underwent 64-slice CT angiography (CTA) because of known or suspected coronary artery disease were retrospectively reviewed by two radiologists experienced in cardiovascular radiology. In each study, anatomic variants and anomalies were investigated. RESULTS The coronary artery system was right dominant in 76%, left dominant in 9.1% and co-dominant in 14.8% of the cases. Ramus intermedius was present in 31%. Conus artery with a separate ostium in the right sinus Valsalva was observed in 22%, and in 0.2% two conus arteries originating with separate ostia were visualized. The sinus node artery (SNA) originated from the right coronary artery (RCA) in 79%, from the circumflex artery (Cx) in 20%, and from the left main coronary artery (LMCA) in 0.4%. In 0.4% of the cases SNA originating from the right sinus Valsalva with a separate ostium was seen. LMCA was absent in 0.4%. Cx was absent in 0.1%, and diagonals were absent in 0.1%. High takeoff of LMCA and RCA were observed in 0.7% and 0.1%, respectively. Myocardial bridging was observed in 37%. Anomalous origin of the coronary artery from the opposite sinus was observed in 1% of the cases. CONCLUSION Complex anatomy of the coronary artery system can accurately be depicted by 64-slice CTA. This modality is useful in detecting coronary artery variants and anomalies and is a valid alternative to conventional coronary angiography in their diagnosis.
Experimental evidence of the electrostatic contribution to membrane bending rigidity

We have investigated the thermal fluctuations of giant unilamellar dimyristoylphosphatidlycholine vesicles in the presence of both non-ionic and ionic surfactants (peptides) with identical apolar chains. Using vesicle fluctuation analysis, the effects of ionic and non-ionic surfactants upon membrane bending rigidity in the case of no added salt have been determined and the electrostatic contribution thereby isolated. We interpret these experimental findings in terms of a mean-field free-energy model for the adsorption of charged surfactants to a lipid bilayer and couple these results to describe the electrostatic contribution to membrane bending rigidity. This experimental study demonstrates how electrostatics affect the elastic properties of unilamellar bilayers.
Combined Therapy With Insulin Plus Oral Agents: Is There Any Advantage?

Physicians in many countries use combinations of antihyperglycemic agents to achieve the best glycemic control possible under the conditions faced by individual patients with type 2 diabetes. This widespread use of combined therapies, including oral agents combined with insulin, suggests that the diabetes community accepts the value of this tactic. A routine need for combined therapies was explicitly acknowledged by the investigators in the U.K. Prospective Diabetes Study. Review of the results of 9 years of monotherapy with various agents in the U.K. Prospective Diabetes Study found that fasting plasma glucose (FPG) was kept below 7.8 mmol/l (140 mg/dl) in only 18% of participants using metformin, 24% using a sulfonylurea, and 42% using insulin (1). Corresponding values for keeping A1C below 7% were 13% with metformin, 24% with a sulfonylurea, and 28% with insulin. Regardless of which agent was used as initial therapy, a progressive worsening of glycemic control ensued, largely because of a gradual decline of endogenous insulin production. A substudy embedded in the U.K. Prospective Diabetes Study compared early addition of basal insulin to a sulfonylurea with insulin alone and showed that over 6 years of treatment the combined regimen achieved lower median A1C (6.6 vs. 7.1%) and also less major hypoglycemia (1.6 vs. 3.2% annually) (2). The U.K. Prospective Diabetes Study investigators concluded that “the majority of patients need multiple therapies to attain these glycemic targets in the longer term” (1). However, combined therapy with oral agents and insulin has not been accepted as desirable by all experts. This article describes an argument in favor of combined therapy in a recent debate examining the advantages and limitations of this approach. Because reports of various combined regimens have been summarized previously, consistently showing better glycemic control with combined therapy (3–6), this article will not systematically …
Dreaming about the neighbours

For Marcel Mauss (2001 [1902]), magic involves border-crossing, with powers founded upon the potentiality presented by the exotic and the unknown. In a similar vein, Webb Keane (2003) points to the movement of religious objects that, via their very materiality, acquire new meanings as they move between one “representational economy” and another. Here, I look at the consumption of Thai necromantic objects by Chinese Singaporean Buddhists. These are, in some cases, Thai body parts, ritually processed and sold via the international marketplace via Chinese Singaporean entrepreneurs and used for local business competition. I argue that, through this process, these objects become fused with Chinese religious notions of potency, Orientalist exoticization, and a fetishization of the entrepreneur. In doing so, these dreams about the neighbours complicate our understandings of cosmopolitanism, masculinity, and the vicissitudes of capitalism.
Relating Perceptual and Feature Space Invariances in Music Emotion Recognition

It is natural for people to organize music in terms of its emo- tional associations, but while this task is a natural process for humans, quantifying it empirically proves to be a very dicult task. Consequently, no particular acoustic feature has emerged as the optimal representation for musical emotion recognition. Due to the subjective nature of emotion, determining how informative an acoustic feature domain is requires eval- uation by human subjects. In this work, we seek to perceptually evaluate two of the most commonly used features in music information retrieval: mel-frequency cepstral coecients and the chromagram. Furthermore, to identify emotion-informative feature domains, we seek to identify what musical features are most variant or invariant to changes in musical qual- ities. This information could also potentially be used to inform methods that seek to learn acoustic representations that are specifically optimized for prediction of emotion.
Insect-Flower Interaction Network Structure Is Resilient to a Temporary Pulse of Floral Resources from Invasive Rhododendron ponticum

Invasive alien plants can compete with native plants for resources, and may ultimately decrease native plant diversity and/or abundance in invaded sites. This could have consequences for native mutualistic interactions, such as pollination. Although invasive plants often become highly connected in plant-pollinator interaction networks, in temperate climates they usually only flower for part of the season. Unless sufficient alternative plants flower outside this period, whole-season floral resources may be reduced by invasion. We hypothesized that the cessation of flowering of a dominant invasive plant would lead to dramatic, seasonal compositional changes in plant-pollinator communities, and subsequent changes in network structure. We investigated variation in floral resources, flower-visiting insect communities, and interaction networks during and after the flowering of invasive Rhododendron ponticum in four invaded Irish woodland sites. Floral resources decreased significantly after R. ponticum flowering, but the magnitude of the decrease varied among sites. Neither insect abundance nor richness varied between the two periods (during and after R. ponticum flowering), yet insect community composition was distinct, mostly due to a significant reduction in Bombus abundance after flowering. During flowering R. ponticum was frequently visited by Bombus; after flowering, these highly mobile pollinators presumably left to find alternative floral resources. Despite compositional changes, however, network structural properties remained stable after R. ponticum flowering ceased: generality increased, but quantitative connectance, interaction evenness, vulnerability, H’2 and network size did not change. This is likely because after R. ponticum flowering, two to three alternative plant species became prominent in networks and insects increased their diet breadth, as indicated by the increase in network-level generality. We conclude that network structure is robust to seasonal changes in floral abundance at sites invaded by alien, mass-flowering plant species, as long as alternative floral resources remain throughout the season to support the flower-visiting community.
No-Hair Theorems and Black Holes with Hair

The critical steps leading to the uniqueness theorem for the Kerr-Newman metric are examined in the light of the new black hole solutions with Yang-Mills and scalar hair. Various methods - including scaling techniques, arguments based on energy conditions, conformal transfor- mations and divergence identities - are reviewed, and their range of application to selfgravitating scalar and non-Abelian gauge fields is discussed. In particular, the no-hair theorem is extended to harmonic mappings with arbitrary Riemannian target manifolds. This paper is an extended version of an invited lecture held at the Journees Relativistes 96.
Supporting and inhibiting the well-being of early career secondary school teachers: extending self-determination theory

This article reports an original examination of the well-being of early career secondary school teachers in England, which extends the evidence bases relating to early career teachers’ working lives, teacher well-being, self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), and performativity (Ball, 2003), respectively. Drawing on a secondary analysis of qualitative data generated for four separate empirical studies between 2005 and 2013, in a context in which teachers’ work was subject to unparalleled external regulation, the authors examine the extent to which the well-being of early career teachers can be explained by self-determination theory, which posits that well-being is enhanced when innate psychological needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy are satisfied. The findings suggest that satisfaction of these three basic psychological needs is a necessary but not sufficient condition for optimising the well-being of early career teachers, which is dependent upon the interaction of a wider range of individual, relational and micro-, meso- and macro-environmental factors. Amongst the recommendations for policy and practice, policymakers and school leaders are urged to uphold their duty of care to newly and recently qualified teachers by doing their utmost to create conditions for the optimisation of their well-being. Several specific means of bringing this about are proposed, together with a checklist for those concerned to support early career teachers’ well-being. Keywords: teacher well-being; early career teachers; self-determination theory; performativity