Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convergence Rates for Mixture-of-Experts

In mixtures-of-experts (ME) model, where a number of submodels (experts) are combined, there have been two longstanding problems: (i) how many experts should be chosen, given the size of the training data? (ii) given the total number of parameters, is it better to use a few very complex experts, or is it better to combine many simple experts? In this paper, we try to provide some insights to these problems through a theoretic study on a ME structure where $m$ experts are mixed, with each expert being related to a polynomial regression model of order $k$. We study the convergence rate of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), in terms of how fast the Kullback-Leibler divergence of the estimated density converges to the true density, when the sample size $n$ increases. The convergence rate is found to be dependent on both $m$ and $k$, and certain choices of $m$ and $k$ are found to produce optimal convergence rates. Therefore, these results shed light on the two aforementioned important problems: on how to choose $m$, and on how $m$ and $k$ should be compromised, for achieving good convergence rates.
PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS’ SELF-EFFICACY, THEIR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AND THEIR PREPAREDNESS FOR TEACHING PRACTICUM PROGRAM

Teacher training institutions hold an important role in preparing their students, the prospective or pre-service teachers, to become professional teachers based on their specific fields of study. This study examined the pre-service EFL teachers’ perception of self-efficacy and their English proficiency toward their preparedness for the teaching practicum program. The study used a survey research design using questionnaire as the instrument to get the pre-service EFL teachers’ perception of self-efficacy. The English proficiency data was from the TEP (test of English proficiency) collected from the university’s language center where the pre-service EFL teachers took the test. Findings show that the pre-service EFL teachers have medium to high self-efficacy toward their teaching of EFL. They feel ready in spite of the fact they still have the feeling of anxiety. The courses related with the preparation to become a good and qualified EFL teachers and also for the teaching practicum program helped them to feel more confident.
Distinct Changes in cAMP and Extracellular Signal-Regulated Protein Kinase Signalling in L-DOPA-Induced Dyskinesia

Background In rodents, the development of dyskinesia produced by L-DOPA in the dopamine-depleted striatum occurs in response to increased dopamine D1 receptor-mediated activation of the cAMP - protein kinase A and of the Ras-extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signalling pathways. However, very little is known, in non-human primates, about the regulation of these signalling cascades and their association with the induction, manifestation and/or maintenance of dyskinesia. Methodology/Results We here studied, in the gold-standard non-human primate model of Parkinson's disease, the changes in PKA-dependent phosphorylation of DARPP-32 and GluR1 AMPA receptor, as well as in ERK and ribosomal protein S6 (S6) phosphorylation, associated to acute and chronic administration of L-DOPA. Increased phosphorylation of DARPP-32 and GluR1 was observed in both L-DOPA first-ever exposed and chronically-treated dyskinetic parkinsonian monkeys. In contrast, phosphorylation of ERK and S6 was enhanced preferentially after acute L-DOPA administration and decreased during the course of chronic treatment. Conclusion Dysregulation of cAMP signalling is maintained during the course of chronic L-DOPA administration, while abnormal ERK signalling peaks during the initial phase of L-DOPA treatment and decreases following prolonged exposure. While cAMP signalling enhancement is associated with dyskinesia, abnormal ERK signalling is associated with priming.
Ethical leadership and staff retention: The moderating role of job resources in Uganda’s healthcare sector

Orientation: Retention of quality staff in a highly competitive and dynamic working environment has made retention research necessary. Current focus is on how job resources influence ethical leadership in driving staff retention. Studies investigating the moderation effect of job resources in the ethical leadership–staff retention sequence in Uganda’s healthcare sector are scarce. Thus, the establishment of the moderation effect of job resources in the ethical leadership–staff retention sequence was needed.Research purpose: This study aimed at examining the moderating role of job resources in the association between ethical leadership and staff retention.Motivation for the study: Staff retention in Uganda’s healthcare sector is pervasive even with several government interventions such as salary enhancement. Rising maternal and infant mortality rates, low immunisation coverage, inter alia, are some of the effects. Reversing this scenario calls for leaders to exercise ethical leadership.Research approach/design and method: This study utilised a cross-sectional research design. Analyses were conducted by SPSS v. 21 on a sample of 214 healthcare workers.Main findings: The results show that ethical leadership positively affects staff retention. Also, the moderation role of the composite job resources variable in the ethical leadership–staff retention sequence was significant.Practical/managerial implications: This study demonstrated the important contribution of both ethical leadership and job resources in staff retention management.Contribution/value-add: This moderation model offers an additional complete explanation for the moderating effect of job resources in these conditions. The study also contributes to theory by demonstrating that contrary to the previous investigations where ethical leadership has been studied as an outcome variable, it is a predictor variable of staff retention.
The Impact of Active Queue Management on DASH-Based Content Delivery

With Netflix and YouTube accounting for more than 50% of North American, fixed network peak download traffic in 2015, video streaming is a significant source of Internet traffic. Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) is a recent standard for live and on-demand video streaming services, where clients adapt their behaviour on-the-fly to match regularly updated estimates of network capacity. Consumer DASH streams are likely to be bottlenecked by last-mile ISP links, and impacted by emerging active queue management (AQM) schemes being deployed to counter bufferbloat. We experimentally characterise and evaluate the impact of bottlenecks utilising PIE, FQ-PIE, CoDel and FQ-CoDel AQM schemes on DASH streams. We show that PIE's higher burst tolerance provides better streaming quality for single DASH stream over moderate to high RTT paths and when coupled with a FlowQueue scheduler's flow isolation capabilities, FQ-PIE protects DASH streams in the presence of cross-traffic.
Encephalitis with thalamic and basal ganglia abnormalities: etiologies, neuroimaging, and potential role of respiratory viruses.

BACKGROUND Encephalitis is a severe neurological syndrome with devastating consequences. Despite extensive testing, the etiology often remains unknown. Involvement of the thalamus or basal ganglia (T/BG) occurs in a subset of patients with encephalitis and may be an important etiological clue. In order to improve diagnosis of T/BG patients, we reviewed this subgroup within the California Encephalitis Project (CEP). METHODS Data from T/BG cases enrolled in CEP were retrospectively reviewed. Cases were stratified by age and grouped by etiological classification: infectious, postinfectious, and noninfectious. Neuroimaging reports were examined and compared between etiologies. RESULTS T/BG neuroimaging abnormalities were reported in 6% of 3236 CEP cases. An etiology was found in 76%: 37% infectious, 16% postinfectious, and 23% noninfectious. The most frequently identified infectious agents were respiratory viruses, accounting for 31%, predominantly in children. Other infections more common in the T/BG group included Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, arbovirus, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Infectious and postinfectious cases had higher median cerebrospinal fluid white blood cell count than noninfectious etiologies. Notably, T/BG neuroimaging characteristics were associated with distinct etiologies. In particular, symmetric hemorrhagic abnormalities involving the thalamus were most frequently found within the respiratory virus group. CONCLUSIONS T/BG involvement in patients with suspected encephalitis was associated with specific etiologies. In addition to agents with established predilection for the T/BG such as M. tuberculosis and arboviruses, a surprisingly high number of cases were associated with respiratory viruses, especially in children. Neuroimaging abnormalities in such patients can aid clinicians in narrowing the etiological scope and in guiding testing.
Choice of language in education: do we know what South Africans want?

Abstract A key factor in providing quality education is the main language of instruction (M-LoI). This creates a challenging situation for education policymakers in post-colonial multilingual countries such as South Africa. Language-in-education policies must valorise indigenous languages and redress their exclusion in past education systems while ensuring access to any economic opportunities afforded by colonial languages. Public attitudes have a bearing on individuals’ interactions with language policy as well as the education system as a whole. This article examines attitudes towards the M-LoI in education. Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) for the period 2003–2016 were used. We hypothesised that preferences for M-LoI would be associated with support for other forms of societal racial transformation in South Africa. However, a majority of the general population favoured English as the M-LoI in education and M-LoI preferences were not related to the degree of support for other forms of racial transformation. The limitations of the SASAS dataset and current method are then described and possibilities for new research presented. The article concludes by discussing how post-colonial education policies and implementation can nurture multilingualism and promote the valorising of indigenous languages.
Stick insect locomotion in a complex environment: climbing over large gaps

SUMMARY In a complex environment, animals are challenged by various types of obstacles. This requires the controller of their walking system to be highly flexible. In this study, stick insects were presented with large gaps to cross in order to observe how locomotion can be adapted to challenging environmental situations. Different approaches were used to investigate the sequence of gap-crossing behaviour. A detailed video analysis revealed that gap-crossing behaviour resembles modified walking behaviour with additional step types. The walking sequence is interrupted by an interval of exploration, in which the insect probes the gap space with its antennae and front legs. When reaching the gap, loss of contact of an antenna with the ground does not elicit any observable reactions. In contrast, an initial front leg step into the gap that often follows antennal `non-contact' evokes slowing down of stance velocity. An ablation experiment showed that the far edge of the gap is detected by tactile antennal stimulation rather than by vision. Initial contact of an antenna or front leg with the far edge of the gap represents a `point of no return', after which gap crossing is always successfully completed. Finally, flow chart diagrams of the gap-crossing sequence were constructed based on an ethogram of single elements of behaviour. Comparing flow charts for two gap sizes revealed differences in the frequency and succession of these elements, especially during the first part of the sequence.
HONG KONG TEACHERS’ ENGLISH ORAL INPUT IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOMS

Oral input has long been recognised as a key factor influencing second language acquisition in early childhood. Children rely heavily on oral input to learn new words and develop phonological awareness of a language. However, in the context of English teaching in Hong Kong kindergartens — which feature diversity in language use in the classroom — little work has been done on the oral input given to children. This study examined the English oral input of teachers in Hong Kong kindergarten classrooms. It investigated the amount and features of teachers’ English oral input, and how the input affected the conditions for English language learning. Classroom observations were conducted monthly for three months with one native speaking (NS) and two non-native speaking (NNS) kindergarten teachers together with a total of 44 Chinese-speaking children. The research used the Oral Input Quality Observation Scheme developed for systematically collecting oral input and output data from the teachers and children respectively. The results show that the learning activities did not seem to be hindered by the different pronunciations of the NS and NNS teachers. However, the NS teacher tended to use a broader variety of vocabulary and a richer amount of English than the NNS teachers. Both the NS and NNS teachers demonstrated limitations in pedagogical skills in teaching the children English pronunciation. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to the context of English teaching in Hong Kong kindergartens.
Unraveling Epistasis With Triple Testcross Progenies of Near-Isogenic Lines

Libraries of near-isogenic lines (NILs) are a powerful plant genetic resource to map quantitative trait loci (QTL). Nevertheless, QTL mapping with NILs is mostly restricted to genetic main effects. Here we propose a two-step procedure to map additive-by-additive digenic epistasis with NILs. In the first step, a generation means analysis of parents, their F1 hybrid, and one-segment NILs and their triple testcross (TTC) progenies is used to identify in a one-dimensional scan loci exhibiting QTL-by-background interactions. In a second step, one-segment NILs with significant additive-by-additive background interactions are used to produce particular two-segment NILs to test for digenic epistatic interactions between these segments. We evaluated our approach by analyzing a random subset of a genomewide Arabidopsis thaliana NIL library for growth-related traits. The results of our experimental study illustrated the potential of the presented two-step procedure to map additive-by-additive digenic epistasis with NILs. Furthermore, our findings suggested that additive main effects as well as additive-by-additive digenic epistasis strongly influence the genetic architecture underlying growth-related traits of A. thaliana.
TSCD: A Novel Secure Localization Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks

Recent advances in wireless networking technologies, along with ubiquitous sensing and computing, have brought significant convenience for location service. The localization issue in wireless sensor networks under the non-adversarial scenario has already been well studied. However, most existing localization schemes cannot provide satisfied location service under the adversarial scenario. In this paper, we propose an attack-resistant localization scheme, called TSCD secure localization, to overcome the distance-consistent spoofing attack in wireless sensor networks. The main idea of the TSCD scheme is to firstly apply the temporal and spatial properties of locators to detect some attacked locators, and then utilize the consistent property of the detected attacked locators to find out other attacked locators. An enhanced TSCD scheme is also presented and analyzed. Simulation results demonstrate that both proposed schemes achieve better performance than existing approaches under the same network parameters.
Comparisons and associations between personality, creative potential and achievement in creative, non-creative and early psychosis participants

ABSTRACT Epidemiological evidence supports common genetic determinants between psychosis spectrum populations and creative individuals. Aspects of personality may contribute to protecting the creative artist from psychosis vulnerability. This study examines the similarities and differences in personality within a sample of early psychosis (EP), creative control (CC) and non-creative control (NCC) participants. Findings indicated that the CC group shared closer personality commonalities with the EP group than with NCC participants, on traits such as Neuroticism, Openness and Impulsive Non-Conformity as well as on variables such as Unusual Experiences, Cognitive Disorganisation and Paranoia/Suspiciousness. However, the CC group may better manage their emotional sensitivity and interpersonal suspiciousness than the EP participants. In separate analyses, CC and EP participants recorded higher creative cognition than NCC participants. Unsurprisingly, the CC group reported significantly higher creative achievement than the EP and NCC samples. Of note, the findings indicate that EP participants recorded significantly higher creative achievement than NCC, suggesting that EP patients demonstrate some capacity for creative cognition and creative achievement. These preliminary findings may encourage further research and promote avenues of treatment for at-risk creative individuals and EP individuals.
Hydrologic effects of the expansion of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) in a tropical catchment

This study investigates basin‐scale hydrologic implications of the replacement of forest‐dominated land cover by rubber plantations in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia. The paper presents a new method for estimating the water demand of rubber and consequently water losses to the atmosphere through rubber evapotranspiration (ET). In this paper we argue that rubber ET is energy‐limited during the wet season, but during the dry season water consumption is mostly governed by environmental variables that directly affect rubber phenology, namely, vapour pressure deficit, temperature and photoperiodicity. The proposed ET model is introduced into a hillslope‐based hydrologic model to predict the basin‐scale hydrologic consequences of rubber replacing native vegetation. Simulations suggest greater annual catchment water losses through ET from rubber dominated landscapes compared to traditional vegetation cover. This additional water use reduces discharge from the basin, or its storage. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A compact dual-band microstrip line fed slot antenna with two symmetrical inverted L-shaped stubs for WLAN application

The paper presented here, is a compact microstrip line fed slot antenna. This antenna is associated with two symmetrical inverted L-shaped stubs. This antenna is mainly useful for WLAN application. The proposed antenna is having the dimensions 30×30mm2. The impedance bandwidths of proposed antenna are measured at the resonant frequencies of 2.47GHz and 5.46GHz which cover the required bandwidth of WLAN communication application. At the two operating bandwidths the gains of the proposed antenna are measured which are suitable for the operation in WLAN band of frequencies. The working mechanism of the proposed antenna is analyzed and the simulated result for reflection coefficient (s11) is found out. The surfacecurrent distribution is also found out here. The proposed antenna is reasonably compact in nature to find adequate enough for application in contemporary wireless local area networks.
Multi-agent reinforcement learning for traffic signal control

Optimal control of traffic lights at junctions or traffic signal control (TSC) is essential for reducing the average delay experienced by the road users amidst the rapid increase in the usage of vehicles. In this paper, we formulate the TSC problem as a discounted cost Markov decision process (MDP) and apply multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) algorithms to obtain dynamic TSC policies. We model each traffic signal junction as an independent agent. An agent decides the signal duration of its phases in a round-robin (RR) manner using multi-agent Q-learning with either ε-greedy or UCB [3] based exploration strategies. It updates its Q-factors based on the cost feedback signal received from its neighbouring agents. This feedback signal can be easily constructed and is shown to be effective in minimizing the average delay of the vehicles in the network. We show through simulations over VISSIM that our algorithms perform significantly better than both the standard fixed signal timing (FST) algorithm and the saturation balancing (SAT) algorithm [15] over two real road networks.
Opposing Effects of the Angiopoietins on the Thrombin-Induced Permeability of Human Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Cells

Background Angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2) is associated with lung injury in ALI/ARDS. As endothelial activation by thrombin plays a role in the permeability of acute lung injury and Ang-2 may modulate the kinetics of thrombin-induced permeability by impairing the organization of vascular endothelial (VE-)cadherin, and affecting small Rho GTPases in human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (HPMVECs), we hypothesized that Ang-2 acts as a sensitizer of thrombin-induced hyperpermeability of HPMVECs, opposed by Ang-1. Methodology/Principal Findings Permeability was assessed by measuring macromolecule passage and transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER). Angiopoietins did not affect basal permeability. Nevertheless, they had opposing effects on the thrombin-induced permeability, in particular in the initial phase. Ang-2 enhanced the initial permeability increase (passage, P = 0.010; TEER, P = 0.021) in parallel with impairment of VE-cadherin organization without affecting VE-cadherin Tyr685 phosphorylation or increasing RhoA activity. Ang-2 also increased intercellular gap formation. Ang-1 preincubation increased Rac1 activity, enforced the VE-cadherin organization, reduced the initial thrombin-induced permeability (TEER, P = 0.027), while Rac1 activity simultaneously normalized, and reduced RhoA activity at 15 min thrombin exposure (P = 0.039), but not at earlier time points. The simultaneous presence of Ang-2 largely prevented the effect of Ang-1 on TEER and macromolecule passage. Conclusions/Significance Ang-1 attenuated thrombin-induced permeability, which involved initial Rac1 activation-enforced cell-cell junctions, and later RhoA inhibition. In addition to antagonizing Ang-1, Ang-2 had also a direct effect itself. Ang-2 sensitized the initial thrombin-induced permeability accompanied by destabilization of VE-cadherin junctions and increased gap formation, in the absence of increased RhoA activity.
On the Bennett–Hoeffding inequality

The well-known Bennett-Hoeffding bound for sums of independent random variables is refined, by taking into account truncated third moments, and at that also improved by using, instead of the class of all increasing exponential functions, the much larger class of all generalized moment functions f such that f and f" are increasing and convex. It is shown that the resulting bounds have certain optimality properties. Comparisons with related known bounds are given. The results can be extended in a standard manner to (the maximal functions of) (super)martingales.
A New Characterization for Positive Real and *-Norm Controllers

The solvability conditions for positive real and *-norm controller synthesis problems are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities that include the compensator gains implicitly. A variety of issues, including explicit expressions for the solutions, the issue of strictly proper vs proper controllers and relaxing full rank assumptions on the penalty matrices can be discussed. Extension to systems with parametric uncertainties is also discussed.